In place of my usual Saturday Snippets in May, I’m writing of the people and places in my coming book, “John Culpepper the Merchant,” which is the second book in the Culpepper Saga.

George Goring was born in 1585 and was a politician and a soldier. He served the House of Commons 1621-28. When trouble started between King Charles and Parliament in 1640, Goring took the king’s side. He stayed abroad, soliciting help from other countries, but when Parliament intercepted a letter to the queen, he was found out and charged with high treason. He stayed out of the country until ’47, but when he returned, it was with gusto. He raised an army of 10,000 men in Kent and fought against the parliamentarian army, losing at Maidstone, and being forced to surrender at Colchester.

He remained in the tower during the king’s trial and beheading on 30 January 1649. He was brought before Parliament in March of that year and found guilty of treason to which he was sentenced to death. His family begged for leniency and the deciding vote cast by the speaker of the house found him Not Guilty.  He fled to Denmark to watch over the exiled prince, and returned to London when the prince was brought into power as King Charles II in 1660.

He died in Brentford, just outside of London, on 6 January 1663.

In my book, Goring is a family friend of Colonel Thomas Culpepper and Sir Alexander Culpepper (John’s brother and uncle), and Goring’s daughter is instrumental in getting word to John in Virginia to come to England to rescue his family.

“John Culpepper the Merchant” will be released May 24, 2015.