Set in Somerset and London during the turbulent time of the Restoration, Lady of the Butterflies is a dramatic tale of passion, prejudice and death by poison, of riot and rebellion, science and superstition, madness and metamorphosis. It is also about the beauty of butterflies, about hope, transformation and redemption.

Eleanor is the daughter of a strict puritan and Roundhead major and lives in a medieval manor on the bleak wetlands of Somerset. Her longing for colour and brightness leads to an obsession with butterflies as well as to an illicit passion for charismatic but troubled Richard Glanville. Richard, the son of an exiled Cavalier, embodies all that Eleanor had been taught to despise and distrust, but he also holds for her all the allure of the forbidden. Her first husband dies, seemingly poisoned, freeing Eleanor and Richard to marry. But can their love survive suspicion and prejudice, a bloody rebellion which makes them bitter enemies, and a superstitious community that stirs up hatred towards her for her love of butterflies? It seems the only peace she can find is in her long-lasting friendship with renowned naturalist James Petiver, a clever young London apothecary who is credited as the father of British entomology. But when Eleanor and Richard's son becomes apprenticed to James, tragedy strikes, and Eleanor is forced to embark on a dangerous search for her son that is entwined with a personal quest for truth, freedom and love.

Lady of the Butterflies is a sweeping and highly romantic novel written in the tradition of Philippa Gregory.

Glanville Fritillary

The seventeenth is wonderful period to write about - a turbulent, savage, vibrant age that provides the most fascinating backdrop for historical fiction.

Civil War, Riot and Rebellion

The years of Lady Eleanor Glanville's life (1654 - 1709) encompasses a time of great change, instability and conflict in England. When Eleanor was born the country had been torn apart by bloody civil, Cromwell ruled the land as Lord Protector and Christmas was forbidden. Four years later, King Charles II was restored to the throne and presided over a court that puritans despised for its debauchery and decadence. The period until his death and the accession of James II in 1685 was almost as turbulent as the previous decades, marked by hatred and fear of Catholics that resulted in the Popish Plot and the Rye House Plot. There were two Dutch wars, the Great Plague and the Fire of London. Then, in 1688, came more upheaval and what is now termed the Glorious Revolution, which saw King James overthrown and the joint rule of William and Mary.

In Eleanor's home county of Somerset, wars continued late into the century, and brother turned once more against brother in the Monmouth Rebellion, which ended in the slaughter that was the Battle of Sedgemoor. Traditionally regarded as the last hand-to-hand battle to be fought on English soil, it resulted in what became known as the Bloody Assizes, the retribution of Judge Jefferies, which saw hundreds put to death at gallows all across the west country.

The isolated, mist-shrouded, half-drowned villages of Somerset - named Land of the Summer people, on account of the fact that much of it was flooded during the winter months - often seethed with resentments, grudges, suspicion and prejudice. And a woman who dared to forsake domesticity in favour of learning and science and what were considered 'masculine' pursuits', was especially prey to ridicule and superstition.

Madness and the Mysterious Lady Glanville
Lady Eleanor Glanville is now recognized as a distinguished entomologist. Her life and work have been the subject of much research by historians, yet she remains as she is often referred to - the 'mysterious Lady Glanville', who gained happiness from natural history in the midst of great fear and sorrow.'

Her ancestors are part of a distinguished Yorkshire family, descended from Alfred the Great. Eleanor's father was a Roundhead major who received the King's pardon for his part in the Civil War and her mother inherited the medieval manor of Tickenham Court, in Somerset, where Eleanor was born.

When her relations, led by her son, Forest, tried to seize control of her estate it became a cause celebré.

Eleanor Glanville is known to have collected butterflies extensively at a time when it was unusual for anyone, let alone a woman to pursue entomology. She kept accurate records of lepidopterous larvae and food plants and reared a number of species which are still identifiable from her careful descriptions. Startling as it was for any woman to collect butterflies at all, for her to match the experts with rarities and even unknown species was unique.

Her surviving collections and some of her correspondence with leading entomologist James Petiver are preserved in the Natural History Museum.

James Petiver (1663-1718) is known as the 'father of entomology'. He was the first to give butterflies English names, many of which - Brimstones, Admirals, Agues, Tortoiseshells - are still used to this today and it is with his catalogues and preserved specimens that the documented history of butterflies begins.