Brandy Purdy

Brandy Purdy is the first time author of The Confession of Piers Gaveston, the story of Edward II’s notorious favourite.

Brandy has always loved to read, but even before she could read she loved to watch films in historical costume, so it was natural that she should gravitate towards books about history and classic films. When Brandy isn’t reading or writing she’s curled up on the couch watching old movies. Brandy first learned about Anne Boleyn in a book of ghost stories and became fascinated with the Tudor era, especially Henry VIII and his wives.

Brandy lives in Beaumont, Texas where she graduated from high school in 1993. Shortly afterwards her mother became terminally ill and she stayed at home to nurse her, giving her round the clock care. Since her death, she has continued as carer for her elderly father. Brandy lives a quiet life, but it gives her ample time to read and write. She reads mostly historical subjects, novels, mysteries, true crime and biographies, but also anything else that strikes her fancy.

When Brandy came across the story of Piers Gaveston and Edward II she was fascinated by it and the parallels she saw with Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn. As Brandy puts it ‘both are stories of obsession; kings who were willing to risk all to have the object of their desire. Piers Gaveston and Anne Boleyn were both famous for their wit, both inspired great resentment, jealousy, and hatred. They were people who stood out, didn't really fit the mould, and rumours of witchcraft swirled around both; both were said to have bewitched the king. Both kings fought to have the person they desired most; Henry won his battles but Edward lost his, and both objects of these royal obsessions lost their heads in the end.

‘Anyway, I just started reading anything and everything I could find about Piers Gaveston. And I realized that very little is actually known about this man, and what was written was written after he became notorious. There are no portraits or physical descriptions of him. He left behind no diaries or letters recording his personal thoughts. There are only the reports of the medieval chroniclers, gossip, rumours of witchcraft (his mother was said to have been burned as a witch), records of the numerous gifts and endowments Edward made to him, inventories and some household accounts, and a few of the songs written to celebrate his death. We don't even know his birth date, (I believe he first appears in the records when he was probably a teenager serving in the army), so there are a lot of shadowy areas in his life. This man was considered the most hated man in England, but nothing exists to tell what he actually thought and felt.

‘I thought it would be an interesting challenge to try to give him a voice. Gaveston is usually seen as the villain of Edward's story, the evil power behind the throne. He was a man with many flaws who in some ways was his own worst enemy, and I wondered what he would have written if he had a blank book and knew he was running out of time. And the novel just happened.

'I think everyone deserves to be heard, to have a chance to speak in their own defence. As Gaveston says in the first chapter of my novel "There are two sides to every coin; but when the bards and chroniclers, the men who write the histories, tell this story, will anyone remember that?"’

Although at the time Brandy had an agent, as an unknown writer who had written a book about an obscure subject, she spent years unsuccessfully looking for a publisher. In the end, she took the plunge and published her book herself with iUniverse.

Since then, Brandy has published her second novel, Vengeance Is Mine. The novel tells the story of Anne Boleyn and Katherine Howard through the eyes of Lady Jane Rochford who was married to Anne Boleyn's brother George. It was her accusation of incest that sent George to the block with his sister. Years later Lady Jane faced execution herself after helping Katherine Howard meet her young lover.