History Literature / Evensong

* BlackSheep: Crispin, of course.

* NotGoodWithPeople: The Duke has learned to fake it when tactically necessary, and is a kindly sort at bottom, but.... Edmond is abysmal at this.

%% * GrumpyBear: Oh, take a wild and ducal guess.

* BigEater: Brian "The Breener" Maguire. His wife the Hon. Gwen knows how he works it off and never gains an ounce, but of course doesn't tell. [[spoiler: They're having twins, if that gives you hint. GoodPeopleHaveGoodSex.)]] Fr Paddick, who trains rigorously, tries to keep up with his housekeeper's mothering, but.... And Fr Campion, so recently a Keble rugger-bugger, can match The Breener at any table.

* NiceHat: There's a flourish of toppers at [[spoiler: Crispin's]] funeral; more pointedly, the Duke has several nice hats, and the Anglo-Catholic clergy are never without biretta or Canterbury cap.
** Presumably, The Breener has one of the nicest of all: an England cricket cap, as he was after all capped for England in Test cricket.

* LoadsAndLoadsOfCharacters: Runs on this trope – although less so than the ''next'' book. And every last one gets at least ''some'' characterization.

* SpotOfTea: They're British. They swim in it.

* RaisedCatholic: The Breener. And not unobservant. The Hon. Gwen is Anglican. Mgr Folan and the Rector worked together on this marriage, and [[spoiler: the children and their baptism]]. As Mgr Folan notes, the hierarchy might be RC, but they adored The Breener all the more as a notably Catholic cricketer, and they could always be talked 'round by the Duke: "They did love their lords only a trifle less than they loved Our Lord, reflected Mgr Folan...."

** TheWarOnTerror: In which the Duke returned to service and got his ''second'' Mention in Despatches. While he was away, Crispin cocked up the estates.

* BiTheWay: Sher, though it's a moot point nowadays; [[spoiler: Lord Crispin;]] and, to general surprise, set up in this volume and detonated in the next, [[spoiler: Professor Farnaby]].

* BadassGrandpa: The Duke is still a bit young for that. Hugo, Lord Mallerstang and Swarthfell, cousin to Lady Crispin's late father, however, is unquestionably one: survived a bayonet to the balls and Changi Prison and the Burma Railway after the Fall of Singapore; survived seeing both of his sons, born before the War, killed in action (Malaya and Korea); survived decades as a really, very ImpoverishedPatrician.... And still on the ball and badass as ever.

* NoBadassToHisValet / NoHeroToHisValet: Averted: the Duke and Viney respect one another completely.
* NobodyOver50IsGay: Averted and lampshaded, including with two local sheepfarmers (a gay couple) and two local artisanal weavers (a lesbian couple).

** And there's a tendency, equally lampshaded, in Sher's family, of marrying an EnglishRose.

* DrinkOrder: It's [[UsefulNotes/TheWestCountry The West Country]]. Duke or dustman, you'd best be able to hold your cider and your real ale. Otherwise, unto the very tea choices, let alone the wine, brandy, port, and whisky, it's all a matter of class and background.

It was published in two volumes, ''Evensong: Nunc Dimittis'' and ''Evensong: Te Lucis Ante Terminum,'' and one {{Doorstopper}} omnibus volume. "Omnibus" here meaning "the size of a London bus."

[[spoiler: The Rector, Noel Paddick SSC, and Sher Mirza]] are an established, handshakes-at-best but every meal together everyday (with a chaperone) ChastityCouple. The weather is appalling: the setting is the period of the 2015 UK floods, after all. Teddy Gates, "the Hipster Chef" and owner of The Woolford House Hotel, is now a newish and naive County Councillor (Lib Dem, of course). Three other councillors – one from each party – have conned him into agreeing a CommunityThreateningConstruction scheme to run up social housing in his ward: the chocolate-box Woolfonts (Woolfont Magna, Woolfont Parva, Woolfont Crucis, and Woolfont Abbas). That way, the other councillors get credit for their good works … and credit in their own wards for not putting up the social housing in their own backyards.

The crafty Duke of Taunton, the local landed proprietor, a peppery little man descended of a Stuart bastardy, points out that there is no land in the Woolfonts not already scheduled, protected, designated, or otherwise off-limits. But he determines to get Teddy out of his jam all the same. His SavingTheOrphanage solution: get back some old Ministry of Defence land and build new, retro-Georgian houses for … [[spoiler: retired Gurkhas and their families,]] and let's see anyone oppose ''that''.

As the Duke is mustering his forces, his old friend, Sher's uncle the Nawab, enlists his aid in a SuccessionCrisis, even as the Rector is dealing with an intolerable sexton; Edmond Huskisson, the retired Premier Leaguer who is now Teddy's civil partner, is meditating activism; and the Hon. Gwen, owner of the Woolbury Stud, has news for The Breener, her Irish-born husband, Brain Maguire, TMS stalwart and late England wicketkeeper.

And then, unexpectedly, the prodigal returns ([[spoiler: to die]]): the Duke's scapegrace brother, Lord Crispin....

A list of characters is in the works.

For the better amusement of all concerned, the full title of the work is, in a 17th – 18th Century InWhichATropeIsDescribed pastiche, ''Evensong: Tales from Beechbourne, Chickmarsh, & the Woolfonts; the same being Village Tales recording the events of some few months in the District, to which are appended a series of recollections of interesting events having to do with the villages and district, their landmarks, and the persons of principal consequence therein, both present and historical.'' As you might guess, most chapters are succeeded by a chapter of historical (fictional) events in the villages, or short stories of local archaeological digs and the like.

* {{Oxbridge}}: The Dean, who is a Durham man, and Mgr Folan (TCD), simply sigh and watch as old Varsity Matches and Boat Races are re-fought by other means. Most of the University-educated characters were at Oxford or Cambridge; the rest are annoyed by the childish rivalry of even quite old people.
** The Nawab protests the notion that any successor of his should go to Cambridge, on the grounds that it was sending a spare to Cambridge, only to have him unexpectedly succeed to the Nawabate, started the whole family trouble.

* AltumVidetur: Inscriptions on church bells; memorials; monuments; any old FictionalDocument; the names of the villages.... And of course the C of E clergy know Latin (and Greek, and Hebrew), as, obviously, does the RC padre in Beechbourne, Monsignor Folan; and the Duke is a Classicist, being an Eton-and-Oxford man of the old breed.

* GratuitousGreek: Theologians, check; Old Etonians, check....
** And the Duke persuades Sher to compose variations on the music for the Seikilos Epitaph – after translating it sarcastically.

* GrumpyBear: Oh, take a wild and ducal guess.

* CoolTrain: The rolling stock, and particularly the locomotives, of the Woolfonts & Chickmarsh Railway in the Village Tales series are these: traditional-seeming steam … which His Grace the Duke of Taunton got designed by the Swiss at DLM … with contributions from James Dyson, Phil Girdlestone, and [[Series/TopGear James May]].

* DrivesLikeCrazy: The Duke is described as being Stirling Moss in a Bristol – on a C road. It's also asserted that [[Series/TopGear Richard Hammond]] is his spirit animal.

** The Duke, when behind the wheel of his Bristol, is said to have [[Main/TopGear Richard Hammond]] as his spirit animal.

** TheKoreanWar: In which the previous Duke served and got his step to Brigadier. That Snook the sexton served in Korea is the only reason he's been kept on as sexton.

* KnightFever: Every rank in the hereditary peerage appears, alongside life peers (Professor the Baroness Lacy, for one), heirs with courtesy titles – including the Scots title of "Master" – , baronets, knights, dames, Crown Honours, and every imaginable post-nominal.

* CreatorProvincialism: And quite unabashed about it. [[UsefulNotes/TheWestCountry The West Country]] is the ''wide'' focus even in a volume that takes the characters to rural Cheshire, rural Shropshire, and the Clent Hills. The ''tight'' focus is on three villages, a hamlet, and the District around them. And to not a few of the characters, {{Cricket}} is the most important thing in life.

* SaintlyChurch: In the books, the C of E; Dr Jettou's ''masjid'' in Trowbridge; the Roman Catholic Church; the Nonconformists; Judaism; Sikhism; [[spoiler: Nepali Hinduism-with-Buddhist-accretions as followed by Retired Gurkhas]]; and, for that matter, humanism, agnosticism, irreligion, and atheism. So long as the believers therein observe the Spirit and Laws of {{Cricket}}, which may be the real religion for them all.

* HatOfAuthority: Obviously, the local plods have these. And the bishop. But if you see athletic young men in cassocks and birettas or Canterbury caps, you'd best be on your best behavior.

* HatShop: The Duke wears many hats, literally as well as figuratively. (Including a Coke, AKA bowler, on Remembrance Day marches-past.) As the Int Corps uniform mandates a beret he hates, he chose to wear the ''civil''-ish uniform as Deputy Lieutenant of the County.

* {{Flashback}} / HistoricalFiction: Ohhh yeah. Sometimes in flashback chapters, sometimes in current ones as the archaeological team gets to work. Chalk horses, monastic foundations, market charters, Anglo-Saxon renamings of the landscape, Iron Age hillforts, the descent of local families, the names on the WarMemorial, how the bakers in Beechbourne have held on since before Magna Carta. It's a pretty good and subtle course in English history even as it drives the plot.

* HollywoodHeartAttack: Averted [[spoiler: The Duke]] has a very authentic one.

* HollywoodHistory / PoliticallyCorrectHistory: Averted, quite forcibly. There's plenty of history still affecting the architecture, the villages, and the mindsets of the characters, but it's not sanitized. Including ...

* RuggedScar / EveryScarHasAStory: After his [[spoiler: heart attack and bypass]], the Duke is even less inclined to wear open collars.

* SketchySuccessor: Crispin, naturally. Until he [[spoiler: dies]]. And averting this is a trial to the Nawab, until he decides on [[spoiler: Sher's father]].

* WarIsGlorious / WarIsHell: The Duke comes of a military family, and was a Major in the Intelligence Corps. He is moreover an historian. He holds both views.
* WeatherReportNarration: Flooding being a major plot point, yes.

* EnglishRose: Grows in profusion. The duke's niece is growing into one. His nephews tend to date them. And the Hon. Gwen would be one … if not for the fact that she's ''Welsh,'' "you little ''Saes'' wanker."

* HasAType: As several characters incessantly point out, Sher looks, by chance, a good deal like Noel's late wife.
** And there's a tendency, equally lampshaded, in Sher's family, of marrying an EnglishRose or the male equivalent.

* TheHunk: Father Paddick. (Sher is more the male-model sort.) Edmond calls him "Vertonghen in vestments;" even the Duke's brother, writing (ostensibly) from the US, compares him to Tom Brady. And he's so damned ''nice,'' with it … face it, Fr. Paddick is basically a really sexy Captain Carrot In a Clerical Collar.

* SpiritualSuccessor: Updated and with grit added, to AnthonyTrollope, Barbara Pym, and Miss Read. With a touch of PGWodehouse.

** [[UsefulNotes/BritishFootyTeams BritishFootyTeams]]: Edmond's career until he was injured (by homophobes. Specifically, the terraces, while laid out by a flagrant foul) was: Halifax Town; Leeds United; Hull FC; Manchester City. He holds a grudge. Against Man Utd and their supporters.

** FieryRedhead: Lady Crispin, when not icy. Subverted as to Mgr Folan.

Sprawling, Trollopean, quintessentially British novel published in 2015 by [[Creator/GMWWemyss GMW Wemyss]]: the second in the [[Literature/VillageTales Village Tales]] series, following on from 2013's CrossAndPoppy and followed by 2016's TheDayThouGavest.