reality check

yes, there really was a Prince Arthur, posthumous son of Geoffrey, Duke of Brittany, and thus grandson of King Henry II of England. He was born on 29 March, 1187, and died in early April, 1203, while a prisoner of King John. The manner of his death is unknown, although there were rumors that John killed him personally in a drunken rage. As there had been fighting between their factions, John may have staged a secret trial and convicted him of treason. Arthur’s sister Eleanor was another victim ofJohn’s savagery—she may have been starved to death in Corfe Castle, in Dorset. These disappearances did not improve the king’s already odoriferous reputation.

The scene where William Marshal and Archbishop Hubert decided Richard’s succession is taken from the historical record, but personally I do not believe it. Richard had had several days to contemplate his coming death, and would have named his own successor.

There is a strong modern belief that Richard was homosexual. This might explain his lack of children, but I prefer my theory of sterility. If his sexual behavior had been unorthodox, then surely Philip would have added that to his catalog of accusations?

John was even nastier than I have represented him, and likely insane by our standards. He repeatedly broke the chivalric standards of the day, which held that commoners didn’t matter but members of the nobility could only be killed in battle. If captured, they must be ransomed or at worst held captive indefinitely. On one occasion John sent twenty-two high-rank prisoners across to England and had them starved to death. Eventually the earls and barons rebelled and forced him to sign the Magna Carta,affirming some “rights” they claimed, or made up. As he always did, John soon broke his word, and then the barons colluded with the king of France, who sent his son over with an army and a very nebulous claim on the English throne. John died before the issue was settled, so the barons then evicted the French and did homage to John’s son, Henry III, who reined for 56 years.

There is a curious parallel here between John Lackland and the last of his Plantagenet line, King Richard III, the one who was recently dug out of a parking lot in Leicester. John was believed to have killed a niece and nephew, and Richard two nephews, “the princes in the Tower.” In both cases, England seems to have reacted with abhorrence and eventually revolution. In both cases, foreign armies invaded. Richard died in battle, and John of eating too many lampreys. I have long wondered who cooked the lampreys, and was tempted to have Durwin do so, until Prince Arthur walked on stage and suggested a better ending. (Richard III lost to Henry VII, the first Tudor king, who named his firstborn Arthur. That Arthur didn’t live long enough to reign either.)

More than half the characters mentioned were real people, although my descriptions of their appearances are mostly fictional. If you take out Durwin and his doings, the storyline sticks very close to history, even in many details. The first inspiration for this book came when I read of William Marshal being sent from France to Winchester to inform Queen Eleanor of her husband’s death. When he arrived (with injured leg) she already knew. That is possible in real world terms, but it reads better as magic. I appropriated to Durwin several other historical details, such as the caravan ambush at Tell al-Khuwialifia. Yes, Richard would have sent spies out, but fiction is tidier than fact. And there were two shipwrecks.

Christians in the Middle Ages were religious to a degree rarely professed today. Relics of saints were more precious than gold. I tried to make Durwin seem devout, but not obsessively so. Thus he felt justified in murdering Lord John because, when he became king, he would lose most of the Angevin lands in France and alienate the barons so much that they would force him to sign a charter limiting the powers of the monarchy. To a patriotic subject like Durwin, these failures would have seemed catastrophic. Ironically, although John was undoubtedly a sadistic tyrant, by our standards the loss of the French domains was an improvement, because it made ruling England a full-time job and forced the nobles to choose between their French and English lands. And the Magna Carta is honored today as the first tentative step toward democracy, parliamentary government, and the notion of human rights.

Life was short in the Middle Ages. Kings came of age at fourteen, youths of sixteen led armies, and girls were allowed to marry at twelve. At forty-eight, Durwin would have been an old man. Saladin died in 1193, Leopold of Austria in 1194 (of gangrene after crushing his foot in a tournament), Emperor Henry VI in 1197 (of fever contracted during his reconquest of Sicily), and Richard I in 1199, as related above. Historically, John then ruled until 1216.

As in the earlier books of this series, all the towns and villages mentioned are genuine and still survive, although much has changed. Only Pipewell has disappeared; it remains a name on a map—pronounced “Pipwell” by the locals.