Hey There My Friend!
If you were a woman in 1618 London and felt a familiar cramp in your belly, you didn’t call an ambulance, and you certainly didn’t Google symptoms. Your husband or the women at your lying‑in would send a boy running for the midwives. Many parishes had at least one, often two women licensed for this work, and inside London’s walls there were over a hundred parishes—several more lining them. A midwife could live next door… or across a maze of slippery lanes.
The senior midwife was the one who came, often bringing the deputy midwife, her second, with her through the mud and stink and fog, any time of day or night. These were the women who ducked under low doorways into one‑ or two‑room homes, who knew how to read a woman’s face and body better than most physicians of their time. They carried stories, secrets, and in many cases, more responsibility than the church authorities who licensed them were willing to admit.
In this post, I’d like to walk you through a little of that world:
– What a midwife actually did in 1618 London
– Why her care was sometimes dangerous to “her”
– How those realities shape the fictional midwife at the heart of my series
– And how you can walk those streets with her in the free prequel, “Black Fog”
This isn’t a lecture. I’m not a historian—simply a reporter of what I’ve found in my research. This is an invitation to stand beside a woman whose world may be four centuries away—but whose courage, questions, and faith are as familiar today as they were then.
A Day in the Life of a 1618 London Midwife
Imagine the bell of St. Paul’s in the distance, muffled by fog. The morning is damp; chimney smoke hangs low over the narrow lanes. You share your home with your family, perhaps an apprentice, and the smell of last night’s pottage.
Someone pounds on your door.
“Come quick. She’s started.”
You are the midwife.
You grab your bag—birthing linens, short gowns, swaddling cloth, thread and needle, cord, oil, and a handful of herbs you trust more than the local barber‑surgeon. You pull on your short reddish‑brown midwife’s mantle over your everyday one and step into the street. The mud clings to your shoes. The air bites your face. As you walk, you pass:
– The butcher, already at work
– A woman sweeping refuse into the gutter
– Men, you know by sight, if not by name, several of whom whisper, “May God be with you. “
By the time you reach the birthing room, you’ve already run through your mental list:
– Had they started the birthing broth—wine, beaten egg, perhaps spices—the way you told them when you met with her?
– How far along is she?
– Is there a physician involved—or worse, have they called one of the fashionable “accoucheurs”, like the Chamberlens, more interested in their reputation than in this one woman?
Inside, it’s close and hot. If the family could afford it, the mother has been in the closed, darkened room for weeks of “lying‑in.” The fire is banked high, windows shuttered to keep out the chill and, older people hope, any wandering spirits. There are no sterile instruments, no pain medications, no monitors. What you have is:
– Your hands
– Your experience of bodies and babies
– Your prayers
– And whatever trust you’ve earned through reputation and the conversations you’ve had, preparing her for this day.
If the birth goes well, you help bring a slick, squalling body—a new little soul—into the world. You clean, you oil, you swaddle, you murmur encouragement. You might be paid in coin, food, a blanket—whatever the family can afford. Then you and the other midwife walk back through the streets, already listening for the next knock.
If it goes badly—if mother and child, or the child alone, is lost—grief can quickly turn to anger. Most people recognize the lengths you’ve gone to: calling in other midwives if necessary, working for hours to reposition the child. As a last resort, if she cannot expel the child and all else has failed, someone may summon a man‑midwife with his secret instruments, hoping to avoid the hooks that so often spell death for mother and baby alike.
That was the life of many midwives in 1618 London: necessary, often beloved, and always perched on the edge between gratitude and blame.
When Caring Becomes Dangerous
We like to imagine that doing the right thing will always protect us. A 17th‑century midwife knew better.
Childbirth was dangerous. Mothers died. Babies died. People were sometimes desperate for someone to blame. And in a world where legal, religious, and medical power sat mostly in the hands of men, a woman who practiced knowledge with her own hands could quickly be treated with suspicion.
A midwife might be:
– Accused of “negligence” if a birth went wrong—whether or not she could have changed the outcome. Some male physicians and surgeons argued loudly that midwives were ignorant or poorly trained, even as those same women had spent years at the bedsides of laboring mothers.
– Drawn into “legal disputes” over paternity, inheritance, or “promises made in the dark.” Midwives were licensed by the church, expected to ask who the father was if the woman was unwed, and urged to baptize a sickly child if death seemed near—practices that reflected older doctrines some still clung to.
– Pressured to keep secrets that weighed on her conscience, under threat of losing work or reputation.
It wasn’t just that she worked around blood and danger. It was that:
– She often knew more about the women in her parish than the men in charge.
– She had seen abuse, neglect, abandoned infants, and sudden death up close.
– She might be called to testify—to say who was present, what she saw, what she heard—and that testimony could pull her into the crosshairs of people with more power and fewer scruples. On her own, her voice might be discounted, but when several midwives agreed on what they had seen, that chorus could carry real weight.
In other words: midwifery was not only holy work. It was risky work.
And in a society that prized order and hierarchy, a capable woman with knowledge and courage could be seen as both necessary and inconvenient. Sound familiar?
Faith, Law, and a Woman’s Quiet Resolve
Many of the women I’ve read about didn’t leave behind long essays on theology. They had:
– A few well‑worn Bible passages
– Psalms and Proverbs learned by repetition
– Bits of sermons remembered
– And a lifetime of hard choices where faith had to take the form of action
When the law said one thing and their conscience said another, they had to decide:
– Do I protect this girl or this child and risk my own standing?
– Do I stay quiet when I see injustice, or speak up and trust God with the consequences?
– Do I believe that the One who sees in secret also sees this?
The midwife stood uniquely placed between the powerful and the powerless—in birthrooms, sickrooms, prisons, and alleys. That’s one reason I chose a midwife as the heart of my On The Wings Of Angels series. She moves in spaces that are:
– Tender and brutal
– Ordinary and extraordinary
– Deeply private and, in the eyes of the law, very public
She doesn’t get to live in theory. She has to decide, again and again, “what love and justice look like today”.
Bringing History to Life: Meet Elizabeth Bowmar
Elizabeth Bowmar isn’t a modern woman dropped into old clothes. I wanted her to be:
– “Authentically of her time”: bound by law, custom, and duty
– Yet “universally relatable”: thoughtful, flawed, persistent, and capable of both great compassion and real fear
She knows:
– The slip of hobnails on wet stones on the way to a birth
– The sound of boots in a narrow alley
– The difference between a woman’s polite answer and her real one
– The weight of promises made at a bedside
She also knows the constraints of her world:
– As a young midwife’s apprentice in my novel “Sinful Oath”, her work is both necessary and questioned.
– Men around her can decide whether she’s “respectable” or “trouble.”
– Her faith is real, but it’s frequently private—whispered near a hearth, not shouted in the square.
When Elizabeth walks into Newgate Prison in “Sinful Oath”, she goes as “the tall midwife with ice‑blue eyes that helps those in need.” She leaves with something far heavier: a vow that will tangle her in crime, politics, and spiritual questions she would rather avoid.
In “Black Fog”, the prequel, she is accused of a murder she didn’t commit. Suspicion clings as thick as the fog. The law is not on her side. Her skills and her moral compass matter—but so do the people she chooses to trust, and whether she leans on her own understanding or on the God, she struggles to follow.
She isn’t perfect. She doubts. She hesitates. She sometimes wishes she could stay in her own lane and let someone else fix the world.
But she keeps showing up. That, to me, is courage.
Why Midwives and Mysteries Belong Together
My ideal reader—perhaps that’s you—isn’t looking for a costume drama. She wants:
– A world she can really step into—feeling her shoes slip on wet stones, the chill in the air, and the coal smoke in her hair.
– A heroine who doesn’t just endure things, but thinks, chooses, and uses her skills and courage to push back when she must.
– A story that treats her like an equal—one that doesn’t talk down to her, and lets her wrestle with faith, doubt, and justice right alongside the characters.
A midwife in 1618 London gives us all of that:
– She moves through every layer of society—from prisons to the rooms of the elite.
– She sees the best and worst of people at their most vulnerable.
– She has enough knowledge to challenge the way things are—and enough humanity to feel the cost.
Add a high‑stakes plot—murder, extortion, a “sinful oath” made in a prison cell—and you have the bones of a Christian historical mystery that isn’t just about “who did it”, but about “what kind of people we become” in the process of finding out.
Walk Beside Elizabeth: Get “Black Fog” Free
If this glimpse into the life of a 1618 midwife stirs something in you—if you find yourself wanting to stand beside Elizabeth as she navigates danger, faith, and the weight of other people’s lives—I’d be honored if you’d walk with me a little farther.
In “Black Fog” the prequel to the On The Wings Of Angels series:
– Elizabeth Bowmar is accused of a murder she didn’t commit.
– She must clear her name in a London thick with crime, suspicion, and secrets.
– Her skills as a midwife—and her quiet faith—are the only things standing between her and the hangman’s rope.
The e‑version of “Black Fog” is available as a “free gift” when you subscribe to my newsletter. You’ll also receive:
– Gentle updates about “Sinful Oath”
– News about “Family” (coming January 2026)
– And notes on the real history that weaves through these stories
If Elizabeth’s journey speaks to you, I’d be honored to have you along as the story continues.