$25.

00

Accidents f Providence
h i gh er i n can ada

“Intelligent, masterful, suspenseful—one of the best books I’ve read in Rachel Lockyer
years. An impressive debut novel from a h ugely talented new writer, is under investigation for murder.
Accidents of Providence was a rare treat.”
—————————
—Margaret George
author of Mar y Queen o f S c otl and and the I sles
It is 1649. King Char les h a s been behead ed
for t reason. A mid ci vil wa r, Cr omwell’s a rmy i s
“With t his m arvelous s tory w ritten in s earing p rose, S tacia B rown
running t he co untry. The L evelers, a sm all
brings us a deeply human, super-smart, uncommonly well-researched
faction o f p olitical a gitators, a re c alling f or
historical novel. Accidents of Providence tackles hypocrisy, both sexual

Accidents
rights f or t he p eople. A nd a n ew l aw t argeting
and political, and invites us into the revolutionary taverns and chaotic
unwed mothers a nd “ lewd wo men” p resumes
courtrooms of ci vil wa r–torn L ondon, introducing u s t o t he faithful
that a nyone w ho co nceals t he de ath o f h er
and adulterous, the idealists and opportunists, of an era not so unlike
illegitimate child is guilty of murder.
our own. Don’t miss it!”

of
Rachel Lockyer, unmarried glove maker, and
—Sheri Holman
William Walwyn, L eveler h ero, a re lo cked in a
author of The D r ess Lo dger
secret affair. But w hile William is imprisoned in
the Tower, a c hild is found buried in t he woods,
“Accidents o f P rovidence r ichly i lluminates a n im portant b ut li ttle-
and Rachel is arrested.
known period of history. Wonderfully detailed and keenly researched,
So comes an investigation, a p ublic trial, and
it i s a m oving p ortrait o f a co urageous w oman c aught b etween a
a c ast o f ext raordinary c haracters m ade u p o f

Providence
Stacia M. Brown b egan w riting Accidents o f disastrous a ffair w ith a c harismatic revolutionary a nd t he draconian
ordinary L ondoners: g outy in vestigator Thomas
Providence f rom research conducted at t he Brit- laws of the land that would put her to death because of it.”
Bartwain, fiery E lizabeth L ilburne a nd h er
—Kathleen Kent

S taci a M. Br ow n
ish L ibrary f or h er di ssertation o n s eventeenth- revolution-chasing h usband, H uguenot g lover
century m artyrs. S he h olds g raduate deg rees in author of The H er etic’s D aughter
Mary D uGard, a l awyer f or t he p rosecution
religion a nd hi storical t heology f rom Emory hell-bent o n m aking a n exa mple o f R achel, a nd
University. This is her first novel. others. Spinning within are Rachel and William,
© Houghton Miff lin Harcourt Publishing Company

their remarkable love story, and the miracles that

A N o v e l
Jacke t d es ign: M ich ael a Sulliv an come to even the commonest lives.
Jacke t p ho t o gr aph © J o hn F o le y / Tr e villio n Images Accidents of Providence is absorbing historical
Autho r p ho t o gr aph © J o hn S c o t t R and all
fiction f or fa ns o f Fingersmith an d ἀ e D ress
Lodger. A nd R achel L ockyer, a w oman w ronged
$25.00 higher in
by her time, is a character neither history, nor we,
Stacia M. Brown
canada
isbn 978-0-547-49080-9
Hou g h ton Mi f f l i n H a rc ou rt will ever again forget.
www .hmhb o o ks.c o m
1441035 0212

Brown.ActsofProv.mech.indd 1 12/12/11 11:57 AM

 Accidents
OF
Providence
Stacia M. Brown

Houghton Miffl in Harcourt

b o s t o n • n e w y or k
2 01 2

Brown_Providence_F.indd iii 11/29/11 1:24 PM

 Copyright © 2012 by Stacia M. Brown

All rights reserved

For information about permission to reproduce selections from this book,

write to Permissions, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company,
215 Park Avenue South, New York, New York 10003.

www.hmhbooks.com

Library of Congress-in-Publication Data

Brown, Stacia M. Accidents of providence / Stacia M. Brown.
p. cm.
isbn 978-0-547-49080-9
1. Unmarried mothers—Fiction. 2. Trials (Murder)—England—Fiction.
3. Levellers—Fiction. 4. Great Britain—History—
Civil War, 1642–1649—Fiction. I. Title.
ps3602.r722885a67 2012
813'.6—dc22
2011015933

Book design by Brian Moore

Printed in the United States of America

doc 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

Brown_Providence_F.indd iv 11/11/11 10:11 AM

 An Act to Prevent
the Destroying and Murdering
of Bastard Children
(1624)

W H E R E AS many Lewd Women that have been

delivered of Bastard Children, to avoid their shame
and to escape punishment, do secretly bury or conceal the
Death of their Children, and after, if the Child be found dead, the said
Women do allege that the said Child was born dead, whereas it falleth
out some times (although hardly it is to be probed,) that the said Child
or Children were Murdered by the said Women their lewd Mothers, or
by their assent or procurement.
For the preventing therefore of this great mischief, Be it Enacted
by the Authority of this present Parliament, that if any Women after
one month next ensuring the end of this next Session of Parliament, be
delivered of any Issue of her body, Male or Female, which being born
alive, should by the Laws of this Realm be a bastard, and that she
endeavor privately either by drowning or secret burying thereof, or any
other way, either by her self or the procuring of others, so to conceal the
death thereof, as that it may not come to light, whether it were born
alive or not, but be concealed, In every such case, the said Mother so
offending shall suffer Death, as in case of murder, except such Mother
can make proof by one Witness at the least, that the Child (whose death
by her so intended to be concealed) was born dead.
— Corporation of London. Anno vicesimo primo Jacobi Regis, &c.
(London: printed by Samuel Roycroft, Printer to this Honourable City, 1680) (21 Jac. I c. 27)

Brown_Providence_F.indd vii 11/11/11 10:11 AM

 Prologue

M a ry nev er me a n t to be that kind of Huguenot.

Since her husband’s death she had worked hard to
make herself invisible. For five years she had labored
in London as a glovemaker, slowly building the smooth façade of a
widow’s anonymity. Over time, most customers had forgotten her
French name, had forgotten she was a stranger. She kept her head
low. She spoke flawless English. But on the night of November 2,
Mary du Gard came out from the shadows.
She did so grudgingly. In the first place, the moon was glaring
and leering at her; she could not sleep. In the second place, her
assistant was up to no good. So Mary pulled on her boots, pinned
up her hair, changed her sleeping robe for a jersey skirt, and be-
came what she’d never wanted to be: someone who got involved.
She followed her assistant out the back door of the glove shop
onto Warwick Lane. She crept behind at a safe remove, watching
as Rachel Lockyer carried a tightly wrapped bundle half a mile
north to the Smithfield market, past the old slaughterhouse, and
to the edge of a thicketed woods beyond. Mary looked on but did
not follow her in. Though a Protestant of the truest sort, she re-
tained the common superstition that those woods were haunted at
night.
The next morning, at first light, Mary asked God what she

ix

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 should do about what she had witnessed. And God said: You are
My servant; you know what to do. Mary bowed her head and wres-
tled with herself. Then she returned to the slaughterhouse. In the
security of the morning sun she entered the woods and scrabbled
up the bundle Rachel had buried. She brushed the dirt out of its
crevices and wrapped her shawl around it, so she would not touch
what was left. For a moment she was tempted to leave things as
they were, to return it to the earth, to let God be the judge. But a
pang of duty stabbed her. She pushed the shawl partly aside. What
she saw was enough. Gently Mary lifted the bundle. She clutched
it to her chest and carried it back to Warwick Lane. What she
held was a talisman. What she held was a rupture. All manner of
lies and deceptions would fall to their knees as she passed. And
though Mary had never been a mother, she understood, better
than most, that the lives of children are more complicated than
the lives of men. So she made her way back to the glove shop with
a heavy heart, and she hunted down her assistant, who was in the
back room snipping satin and old velvet. She shoved the burden
at her all in a rush, because she needed to be rid of it, because she
wished she were someone else; and she said to Rachel Lockyer,
quite clear and cold-like, colder than she felt, “Is this yours? Is this
what you have gone and done?”
That was when it started. It was 1649, the year everything hap-
pened, the year the wheels of providence rattled backward.

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