Overview

It is nigh on forty years since the Cornish Rebellion of 1497 and the Cornish are again growing restive to shed the Tudor yoke once and for all. What will be needed, though, is a new leader, and who better to fill this role than a Plantagenet Pretender to the throne, Customer Trago. Customer, however, is a committed coward and wants nothing more than to be acknowledged at the Court of Henry VIII as a minor royal. The role of hero is nevertheless thrust upon Customer, but not by accident, when he rides back into Cornwall to the deeply troubled Augustinian Priory in Launceston to see his ailing tutor and mentor, Brother Emanuel. Emanuel, a former Bodmin civil lawyer, has powerful enemies, both at Court and at the Priory where he raised Customer, an alleged foundling, from Customer's early infancy. Customer seeks from Emanuel that one vital question which has haunted him all of his life. Who am I? Customer fails to reach the Priory. Struck down by an assassin and left for dead on priory land, his life is saved by big-hearted Eber Pendragon, innkeeper and blacksmith of Wynehouse Corner who, along with the sinister wine merchant, Nicholas Allsopp, may or may not be covertly planning to fund a fresh rebellion. Although aware that he is suspected by Eber and old Agnes, Eber's servant, of being a spy of the King, Customer reluctantly agrees to take on Eber's defence of the charge of murder of Rebecca Trelawney, a cruelly facially deformed deaf mute. Unfortunately for Customer, the Trelawneys rule the parish with an iron fist and no one will stand with him against them for fear of the reprisals that will surely follow. Customer's troubles multiply in the form of his beautiful, but devious, former lover, the Countess Anna-Lucrezia Ballini, who seeks him out to dispose of her creakingly ancient, but seriously wealthy Italian husband. And who is the stranger named Malachy Pawley who seeks board and lodging at the inn? What does he want from Customer Trago?

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The Old Wainhouse Inn, which dates back to the sixteenth century, stands to this day on the corner of the crossroads which feature in my historical novel, 'Customer Trago'. An earlier 'wynehouse' stood a short distance farther along the Atlantic Highway (now known generally as the A39) and it is this inn I have recreated from my imagination and then transported to the corner of the crossroads. The smithy, which did indeed stand on the opposite side of these crossroads, was only recently converted into living accommodation, while the Holy Well of St James referred to in my novel still remains along the pilgrims' route from Wales through the ancient highways of the rugged Cornwall coast to Compostela in Spain. My maternal great-grandfather was a Cornish seafarer with connections to the Cornish tin mining industry in Cornwall and in South Australia where, in the mid eighteen hundreds, he eventually made his home and raised a large family in a place that today bears his name. My childhood days in Australia were filled with stories of his often nefarious activities and of those of his sons. This fired my imagination and sees me now living, with my husband and two retired racing greyhounds, within comfortable walking distance of The Old Wainhouse Inn. My special field of interest and research is the short period of history covered in my novel and, in particular, the dissolution of the monasteries of that time and the unruly brethren of Cornwall's Launceston Priory where Customer was raised and educated. I hope, in the not too distant future, to continue with Customer Trago's continuing search for an answer to 'Who am I?'.

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