Luce Hutchinson’s mother, Lucy St.John, dreamed of a prophecy that her daughter would be of eminence. She saw a star fall from the skies and land in her hand as she walked in the gardens of the Tower of London. Her daughter was born there, 400 years ago. This theme of destiny is woven through my novel Written in their Stars, and the St.John family motto, Data Fata Secutus, roughly translates as “Following his alloted fate”. On the night of Luce’s 29th birthday, her husband signed the death warrant of Charles I, thus sealing the fate of England’s monarchy — and my family. Lucy Hutchinson’s extraordinary account of her and her husband’s life during England’s Civil War is memorialised in her first-hand account: Memoirs of the Life of Colonel Hutchinson. One of the first examples of women diarists in English literature, Lucy’s memoirs inspired my trilogy, The Lydiard Chronicles.
