The Executioner's Daughter

There's a moment in Alan Bennett's play, The History Boys when an exasperated (female) teacher declares:

"History is a commentary on the various and continuing incapabilities of men.  What is history?  History is women following behind...with a bucket."

The Cover 

I can't help but wonder if Jane Hardstaff had this quote in mind when she wrote her excellent children's novel, The Executioner's Daughter. It may be fiction, but our heroine is forced to trudge through the disasters of history and scoop up the mess left behind with her basket.

Meet Moss, an eleven-year-old girl and permanent resident of The Tower of London. On good days, her father is the blacksmith in the tower, creating and repairing any piece of metal needed for Henry VIII's court and government and Moss stays in the forge.  On bad days, execution days, her father wields the ax.  If judicial murder and the blood lust of the crowd aren't bad enough, Moss has be present at each death.  Her job is to stand below the executioner's block and catch the prisoner's head in her basket once her father cuts it off. One execution would be enough to traumatize a child but because of the King's battle with the Catholic Church (aka The English Reformation) Moss has to witness this horror again and again  and each execution makes her want to rebel.

The Author

The Executioner's Daughter works on many levels, not the least of which is how it points out that the Tower of London functioned a separate, often self-sufficient, entity.  Yes, the castle was a prison but it was also a strong-hold, a Royal Residence and the large, full-time staff that maintained it also lived within those walls.  The Tower had few exits and Moss's father limits her freedom to its outer walls, making his daughter, in effect, another prisoner.  Preteen readers can identify with Moss's feelings of resentment and her need to expand her horizons beyond her father's world.  Parents will appreciate her loving father, a man forced to make terrible choices in order to keep his daughter safe. And everyone will like Salter, the Artful Dodger like trickster that shows Moss there are harder destinies than being the executioner's daughter and how to outwit fate.

Fascinating, adventurous and full of historical insight, The Executioner's Daughter is a delight for junior-high readers and up and it can make someone glad they're just a cleaning-woman in the annals of history.