Where did Luke originate?

When I wrote the first Luke Ballard novel, "Duty of Evil", I began in the middle of Luke's story. In researching the third novel, which has its origins in the Lincolnshire Uprising of October 1536, I began to explore Luke's background.

More recently, I've felt an overwhelming urge to give readers a chance to know him, too. So I am now working on a number of short stories. The first one will tell how Luke came to the knowledge that he was an elemancer and the effect that knowledge had on his character and disposition. Naturally, it will also be a mystery for him to solve.

Of course, this blogpost title has more than one interpretation. In the books and stories, Luke was born into a family who lived and worked on the Heneage estate at Hainton near Louth in Lincolnshire, England. The Heneage family had high connections at the court of Henry VIII. Thomas Heneage was attacked by the mob as he tried to suppress the abbey at Louth - one of the sparks which fired the Lincolnshire Uprising. He is often confused for Sir Thomas Heneage, who was Vice Chamberlain to Elizabeth I and who was our Thomas's nephew.

As readers of this blog will know, I have close connections to the Heneage estate. My father began his working life there in 1932 and I was born about 100 yards from the estate gates. The connection between the Lincolnshire Uprising, which not only began in the immediate vicinity of the estate, but which involved a member of the family and the link to my own family proved to be too much of a temptation.

Thus my fictional Luke, a child of the estate, came to court with an equally fictional Heneage son. Their friendship of many years was riven by a bitter quarrel over a woman and Luke was cast out to earn his living. He was lucky to find the apothecary in the Outer Green of Hampton Court Palace who took him on as an apprentice. And for the rest, you will have to wait until I've written the stories... Watch this space.