Lady of the English, by Elizabeth Chadwick. Book review

Sphere, 2011. ISBN 978-1-84744-237-6. 521 pages. Edition reviewed: advance review copy supplied by publisher.

Lady of the English is set mainly in England, Normandy and Anjou between 1125 and 1149, spanning the years in which Empress Matilda (daughter of King Henry I of England) was first heir and then contender for the throne of England. All the main characters are historical figures, including Empress Matilda, her father Henry I, her second husband Geoffrey of Anjou, her eldest son Henry FitzEmpress (later King Henry II of England), her stepmother Adeliza of Louvain and her supporter Brian FitzCount.

Empress Matilda is the only surviving legitimate child of Henry I after the death of her brother in a shipwreck. When her husband the Emperor of Germany dies, leaving her a childless widow, Henry I summons Matilda to England and makes his barons swear an oath to her as his heir, as his second marriage to Adeliza of Louvain is childless and looks likely to remain so. But then Henry forces Matilda to marry Geoffrey of Anjou, a boy barely into adolescence, a marriage that is as unpopular with some of Henry’s barons as it is with Matilda herself. When Henry I dies unexpectedly, Matilda’s cousin Stephen and his unscrupulous brother the Bishop of Winchester conspire to seize the throne. Matilda is determined to fight for her rights and those of her young son Henry – but the conflict will exact a terrible price.

As with the other Elizabeth Chadwick novels I’ve read, Lady of the English concentrates on the personal and emotional lives of the historical characters and the relationships and conflicts between them. Not just romantic relationships – indeed, the novel is refreshingly free of invented adulterous love affairs, a big plus point for me – although readers who like a strong romantic storyline will find one in the love story between Adeliza of Louvain and her second husband Will d’Albini. Adeliza is as much a central character in the novel as Matilda, and her longing for a child and then her second marriage and family life with Will d’Albini give the novel a strong domestic focus. Apart from a few vivid vignettes, such as the Battle of Lincoln and Matilda’s dramatic escape from Oxford, most of the action takes place off-stage. So does much of the political manoeuvring; there’s an intriguing hint of foul play around the death of Henry I that I would have liked to know more about, and I would also have liked to see more of Matilda’s dealings with the influential men who joined her cause and left it again. For the most part, war and politics are seen through their effects on the personal lives of the characters and the conflicts they cause.

As well as the conflicts due to the war, and personal conflicts between the characters, there is also an interesting look at conflicts arising from social conventions. Matilda is the most striking example; a ruler is expected to be stern, a woman is supposed to be soft and pliant, a contradiction in terms that causes difficulties for Matilda at every turn. Adeliza’s agonised yearning for a child during her barren marriage to Henry I is in part due to the pressure on a woman to fulfil her social duty of providing her husband with heirs, and part of her joy in the family she raises with her second husband Will d’Albini comes from being able to fulfil the expected role of mother as well as wife. Social expectations can weigh just as heavily on a man, as shown by Brian FitzCount who (as portrayed here) is a warrior by expectation and a scholar by temperament, and pays a heavy emotional price for that conflict (among others).

Brian FitzCount was one of the most memorable characters for me, a honourable man trying to do his best in a marriage and a social role neither of which was of his choosing. Young Geoffrey of Anjou was another memorable character, a childish bully who thinks the way to make himself look big is make someone else look small and whose attitude to his marriage to Matilda is to think that he will “have an Empress at his beck and call”. Henry FitzEmpress was also convincingly drawn, no mean feat as he develops from a baby through a precocious child to the threshold of adulthood during the novel. I also liked Brian FitzCount’s wife Maude of Wallingford, doggedly getting on with the unglamorous but vital business of managing the logistics of a household under siege and reflecting that she feels “like a donkey staggering along under a heavy burden of firewood, while Brian ignored her to look at the fancy glossy horses prancing past with bells tinkling on their harness”.

As well as the main characters, readers of Elizabeth Chadwick’s other novels may enjoy spotting appearances by secondary characters from other novels, such as John FitzGilbert the Marshal (from A Place Beyond Courage) and Hugh Bigod (who appears briefly at the start of The Time of Singing*, review here).

A helpful Author’s Note summarises some of the underlying history and sketches out some of the reasoning behind elements in the narrative, and a family tree at the front of the book may be useful to keep the family relationships straight for readers who are not familiar with the period. The plethora of Matildas in the period is neatly dealt with by using variant forms of the name – Matilda, Maheut, Maude – to differentiate between different individuals. The advance review copy only has placeholders for the maps, which will no doubt be included in the final edition and which should help interested readers follow the action and the characters’ journeys from place to place.

Colourful portrayal of Empress Matilda and Adeliza of Louvain, against the background of the Anarchy in twelfth-century England.

*For The King's Favor in the US

Outlaw, by Angus Donald. Book review

Edition reviewed: Sphere, 2009, ISBN 978-0-7515-4208-0. 365 pages. Review copy kindly supplied by publisher.

Set in Nottinghamshire and Yorkshire in 1188-1189, Outlaw is a retelling of the Robin Hood legends. Queen Eleanor of Aquitaine has a walk-on part, and some characters are based on noblemen named in contemporary records but about whom little is known beyond the name (e.g Sir Ralph Murdac, who was Sheriff of Nottinghamshire, Derbyshire and the Royal Forests at the time). The main characters are figures from the legends (Robin Hood, Marian, Tuck, Little John, Alan Dale) or are fictional.

Thirteen-year-old Alan Dale, only son of a poor widow, scrapes a meagre living as a thief and cutpurse in and around the busy town of Nottingham. When he is caught stealing a pie and narrowly escapes the imprisonment and mutilation ordered by the cruel Sheriff, young Alan joins Robin Hood’s band of outlaws in Sherwood Forest. Growing up fast, he is taught swordsmanship by a hostage Knight Templar and develops his natural musical talent under the tutelage of a French troubadour, until he takes his place as a trusted member of Robin’s band. Robin is effectively the feudal lord of Sherwood, and Alan witnesses at first hand the ruthlessness by which Robin controls his territory. When Robin and the evil Sheriff Ralph Murdac become rivals not only for power but for the hand of the beautiful heiress Marie-Anne, Robin decides to challenge Murdac in a pitched battle – but a traitor in the band could destroy them all.

The tag line on the cover says, “Meet the Godfather of Sherwood Forest”, and a sticker on the front proclaims, “As good as Bernard Cornwell or your money back”. Between them they give a pretty good idea of what to expect. Here we have Robin Hood as a sort of twelfth-century Don Corleone, all-powerful within his territory, maintaining a private army and providing protection to those who pay him and brutal punishment to those who challenge or betray him. (Not so very far removed from normal procedure for a feudal lord, except that Robin is outside the law and answerable to – and protected by – no-one). Narrated in first person by Alan Dale, looking back on his life from old age, the structure is reminiscent of Bernard Cornwell’s Uhtred novels or his King Arthur trilogy. Though Alan appears to be shaping up to be an altogether sunnier character than Uhtred, perhaps more like Bernard Cornwell’s Derfel. It will be interesting to see how his character develops as the series progresses.

As well as Alan Dale, the band’s minstrel, all the familiar figures from the legends make an appearance, often with an inventive take on their stories and their association with Robin. Evil Sheriff Murdac is a villain in the Basil Rathbone mould, a well-groomed and fastidious weasel of a man, and his henchman Guy of Gisbourne is here given an unusual provenance (which I won’t spoil by revealing). Little John and Friar Tuck are instantly recognisable, and the famous quarterstaffs-on-the-bridge incident appears, though not quite in its usual guise. Robin’s beloved Marian (Marie-Anne) is here a great lady, heiress to the (fictional) earldom of Locksley, and Robin himself is a disinherited nobleman possessed of a sharp mind, steely determination and a streak of cruelty. My favourite character was the fictional troubadour (strictly speaking a trouvere, as he tells us, since he comes from the north of France) Bernard de Sezanne. A highly talented musician and composer, Bernard is vain, sentimental, cowardly (“I only like to wield my sword in bed,” as he puts it), and hopelessly devoted to wine, women and song, not necessarily in that order. He is also charming and funny and adds a welcome note of comedy to the proceedings. For example, here he is describing the love of his life to Alan, “How I loved her! I would have died for her – well, not died, but certainly I would have suffered a great deal of pain for her. Well, not a great deal of pain, some pain. Let’s just say a small amount of discomfort…..”

Robin Hood stories, like King Arthur stories, have a tendency to attract larger-than-life elements, which is all part of their appeal. In Outlaw there is a thriving secret pagan religion led by a formidable warrior priestess practising human sacrifice according to Iron Age ritual, Little John wears a horned helmet for the climactic battle scene, knights wear chain mail head to foot when attending a party in the Queen’s audience hall, and Marie-Anne, the superlatively beautiful heiress to an earldom, is unmarried at eighteen and can travel the country to meet Robin in his outlaw hideouts with a small escort of men-at-arms and no female companion, apparently without fear either of abduction or losing her reputation. The author says in his historical note that there is little evidence of widespread paganism in twelfth-century England, but that he liked to imagine that it existed, “perhaps fancifully”, which is fair enough.

The plot is an entertaining and easy to follow series of set-piece action sequences, rather like an action film. Skirmishes, training in sword-fighting by a Knight Templar, a hall-burning, a marauding wolf-pack, torture scenes, mutilation scenes, a bloodthirsty pagan rite, a rescue from an impregnable castle, a bit of mild spying on the Queen’s private correspondence, a pitched battle and a single combat. The mystery part of the plot is fairly slight, and the identity of the culprit is strongly signalled early on, so the eventual revelation may not come as a surprise if you pick up the clue. I thought the ending seemed rather abrupt, but as this is the first of a planned series, perhaps the ‘end’ is intended as more of a pause between this book and the next one.

A straightforward modern prose style makes Outlaw a fast, easy read, ideal if you’re tired after a hard day at work. Modern expletives are refreshingly absent, and Little John in particular has a colourful line in invented curses (e.g. “God’s holy toenails,” “Christ’s crusty drawers”, etc).

A sketch map at the front of the book shows the terrain and dispositions for the climactic (fictional) pitched battle at the manor of Linden Lea. There’s no large map, so readers unfamiliar with English geography might like to have an atlas to hand to locate the more distant places, like Winchester, in relation to the sites of most of the action around Nottingham. A historical note at the end briefly reviews the evidence for a historical Robin Hood, and explains why the author chose to place his version of the legend in the late twelfth century.

Entertaining, easy-reading, all-action adventure based on the Robin Hood legends.

The Time of Singing, by Elizabeth Chadwick. Book review

Sphere, 2008, ISBN 978-1-84744-097-6, 506 pages

Set in 1173–1199, The Time of Singing covers the later years of the reign of Henry II, all of the reign of Richard I (Lionheart) and the beginning of King John’s. It centres on Roger Bigod, heir to the earldom of Norfolk, and his wife Ida de Tosney. William Marshal (hero of the author’s earlier books The Greatest Knight and The Scarlet Lion), is an important secondary character. All the main characters are historical figures.*

Roger Bigod, eldest son of the earl of Norfolk, has been at odds with his boorish father, his stepmother and his two younger half-brothers for years, and when his father rebels against Henry II Roger defies his father and joins the king. Victory in battle sees Roger’s father forfeit the earldom, and although Roger has won Henry’s cautious regard, Henry is afraid of the Bigod earls’ power and uses the inheritance dispute between Roger and his half-brothers as a convenient excuse to withhold the earldom from either. Now Roger has a protracted struggle ahead of him to regain his inheritance. When he encounters Ida de Tosney, Henry’s young ward and reluctant mistress, Roger is immediately attracted to her and is happy to accept her as his wife. But Ida has to pay the price of giving up her young son for Henry to rear at court, and Roger has his own insecurities to deal with. As Roger’s work in the King’s service takes him ever more from Ida’s side, the emotional scars they both bear threaten to destroy their marriage.

As with the other Elizabeth Chadwick novels I’ve read, The Time of Singing is especially strong on human relationships. I felt it had a more domestic focus than the Marshal novels. Roger is embroiled in a protracted legal battle for his forfeited earldom and inheritance, there are some murky political shenanigans to negotiate while Richard I is away on crusade, and there are a couple of short battlefield action scenes, but the heart of the novel is in Roger and Ida’s relationship with each other and the people around them. Their marriage forms the centrepiece, but it is only the central one among the many other relationships that form the warp and weft of their lives. Ida’s relationship with her illegitimate son by Henry, who is taken from her to be raised at court when she marries Roger, is perhaps the most poignant. Roger’s family ties, including the difficult relationships with his thoroughly unpleasant father, his stepmother and his two contrasting half-brothers, and his growing friendship with William Marshal, shape his life choices and influence his relationship with Ida and their children. The novel illustrates how medieval society was held together by a complex web of kinship, lordship and friendship ties.

The main characters are well rounded and believable. Roger makes an attractive contrast to the charming and self-assured William Marshal. He is practical, patient, level-headed and reliable, but painfully shy around women and his self-containment can be all too easily mistaken for emotional coldness. Ida is sweet, caring, almost as innocent at the end of the novel as she is at the beginning, and traumatised by having to leave her eldest child behind at court. Left alone at Framlingham with her other children for increasingly long periods while Roger is engaged on legal and administrative duties, Ida’s loneliness and growing resentment are easy to understand. Roger is jealous of her previous affair with the king, and resentful of her pining for her missing son. The growing distance between them, and their struggles to find a compromise that will sustain their marriage (aided by some informal marriage guidance from William Marshal!) is convincingly drawn.

The novel shows an unglamorous side to Henry II, as something of a dirty old man not above exploiting a young girl placed in his care. The secondary character I found most intriguing was Ida’s illegitimate son by Henry, William (later known as Longespee, “Long Sword”). Brought up in the lap of luxury as the king’s son but insecure about his illegitimate status and anxious about his unknown mother’s identity, William develops an obsession with status and show that makes him behave like an arrogant snob as he reaches adolescence. It would be easy to dismiss him as a jerk, but Roger’s cool compassion is able to recognise the genuine worth underneath and build a wary acceptance between them.

Readers who enjoy the minutiae of life (at least among the aristocracy) in years gone by will love the details of domestic life, including Roger’s (fictional) love of extravagant hats and the detail of food, clothing and life in a great house (complete with aggressive geese in the bailey). As the novel covers over twenty years, the narrative often skips forward several years at one jump, and I had to remember to pay attention to the dates given in the chapter headings. A helpful Author’s Note summarises the history underlying the novel and the gaps filled in by fiction.

Warm-hearted exploration of romantic, family and social relationships in twelfth-century England.


*I should note that I’m familiar with Roger Bigod’s castle at Framlingham and the castle Henry II built at Orford to clip the Bigod earls’ wings, so it was particularly appealing for me to read about the men who built them.