Who is Ellis Peters

Edith Mary Pargeter, OBE, BEM (28 September 1913 ? 14 October 1995) was a British author of works in many categories, especially history and historical fiction, and was also honoured for her translations of Czech classics; she is probably best known for her murder mysteries, both historical and modern.

Shrewsbury ( or ) is the county town of Shropshire, in the West Midlands region of England. Lying on the River Severn, it is a civil parish and is home to 70,689 inhabitants, and is the primary settlement and headquarters of Shropshire Council. Consequently, it is the second largest town in the ceremonial county of Shropshire, after Telford.

Shrewsbury is a historic market town with the town centre having a largely unaltered medieval street plan. The town features over 660 historic listed buildings, including several examples of timber framing from the 15th century and 16th century. Shrewsbury Castle, a red sandstone castle fortification, and Shrewsbury Abbey, a former Benedictine monastery, were founded in 1074 and 1083 respectively, by the Norman Earl of Shrewsbury, Roger de Montgomery. The town hosts one of the oldest and largest horticultural events in the country, Shrewsbury Flower Show, and is known for its floral displays, having won various awards since the turn of the 21st century, including Britain in Bloom in 2006.

Today, lying east of the Welsh border, Shrewsbury serves as a cultural and commercial centre for the ceremonial county and a large area of mid-Wales, with retail output alone worth over £299 million per year. There are some light industry and distribution centres, such as Battlefield Enterprise Park, located mainly on the outskirts. The A5 and A49 trunk roads cross here, as do five railway lines at Shrewsbury railway station.

The Anarchy or The Nineteen-Year Winter refers to a period of English history during the reign (1135-1154) of the Norman King Stephen of Blois, which was characterised by civil war and unsettled government. The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle describes this as the time during which "Christ and his saints slept".

The period was marked by a succession crisis between the supporters of Stephen, and those of his cousin, the Empress Matilda. Though Stephen was crowned king, the state of war between the two camps prevented effective government in England for nearly all of Stephen's reign. The issue was resolved only shortly before Stephen's death, when he signed the Treaty of Wallingford, which named Matilda's son Henry Curtmantle as his heir. Henry was crowned king upon Stephen's death in 1154, establishing the Plantagenet dynasty as Kings of England.