The White Witch

Elizabeth Goudge

Set in 17th-century England, when Cavaliers struggle with Puritans to keep the throne safe for King Charles 1st. The wise and gentle Froniga Haslewood, is caught between two worlds. Divided between her Puritan family at the Oxfordshire village's manor house and her relatives in the Gypsy community, she works using her skill in healing to help those in need. Her cousin Robert, a local squire, is gripped by the prospect of war. Following his boyhood hero, he leaves his family and travels away to fight for the Parliamentarian cause. While his wife Margaret and their twin children wait in the manor house for news about him. Left behind with her brother, Robert's daughter Jenny grows up under the shadow of conflict, until she encounters mysterious royalist Francis Leyland. While Froniga's gypsy cousins sometimes camp near her, and have befriended Yomen, who conceals a grand past, but is now a tinker and royalist spy. The women must choose between family loyalty and their own heart. As their lives entwine, the villagers struggle to stay true to their beliefs as war threatens to tear their community apart.