Sharon Kay Penman

Before we get to your questions—my favorite part of the blogs—I want to give you a brief report of the Historical Novel Society convention.  There was an unexpected eleventh-hour development.   I’d signed up so late that I wasn’t on any panels and so I was looking forward to being a social butterfly, flitting about visiting old friends and meeting new ones.   But then I had a call from Jane Kessler at HNS.  Edward Rutherfurd was to have been one of the two keynote speakers, but a sudden family illness caused him to bow out at the last minute, and they asked me to step in.   So I ended up giving a speech Saturday night, definitely not the high point of the evening, though, as they then held a lively costume contest, followed by a public reading of their sex scenes by some very brave authors.

        Naturally the air travel portion of the trip was awful; I got in so late on Friday that I missed Margaret George’s much-praised keynote speech that evening.   Aside from that, I really enjoyed myself, getting to spend time with three good friends (Priscilla Royal, Barbara Peters of the Poisoned Pen, and Margaret Frazer) and meeting Michelle Moran and Anne Easter Smith.  Barbara, Margaret, and I had an interesting experience on Sunday night.  We had dinner at a restaurant in the mall across the street from the hotel, and afterward we sought to leave via the mall, only to find it locked up tighter than Fort Knox; we eventually escaped through the tornado shelter.  BTW, in this entire huge and rather posh mall, there was not a single bookstore.   I got to meet C. W. Gortner, who has written a novel about one of history’s most intriguing women, Juana La Loca; it is called The Last Queen and I now have a copy atop my pile of Books to Read.   I also met an American who now lives in Cyprus and she very generously offered to do any on-site research I might need for Richard and Berengaria’s stay in Cyprus! 

        Now, some interesting news about the other writers at the conference.  Good news for those of you who enjoy Margaret George’s books, and that would be anyone who appreciates well written and well researched historical novels.  Margaret’s next book will be about Elizabeth Tudor, beginning with the Armada in 1588.   All you Diana Gabaldon fans are going to be very jealous of me, as I got to hear two of Diana’s sex scenes from her new book, An Echo in the Bone, to be published in September of this year; she chose to contrast the male and female approach to sex, with one scene given from Claire’s point of view and one from Jamie’s.   Since Diana’s book tour is going to cover everyplace but the Falkland Islands, you’ve all got a fairly good chance that she might be coming to a book-store near you!  A slight exaggeration, but in addition to her U.S. tour, she’ll be visiting New Zealand and Australia and the United Kingdom and Germany.  

          Cathy, I was lucky enough to snag a copy of the galley proofs for Michelle Moran’s new book, Cleopatra’s Daughter, which, as you noted, comes out in September.  I expect it will be a great success for her; who can resist both Egypt and Ancient Rome?  I am going to interview Michelle on my blog after her new book comes out.  I will also be interviewing two medieval writers (and friends, in the interest of full disclosure), Priscilla Royal and Margaret Frazer when their new mysteries come out later this year.  And Elizabeth Chadwick (another friend) has kindly agreed to do a “guest appearance” for the American launch of her novel about William Marshal, The Greatest Knight, which will be published in September, 2009.    So if you have questions you’d like to submit to any of these authors, e-mail them to me and I’ll see what I can do.   And Cindy is quite correct; Anne Easter Smith is now working on a novel about Cecily Neville.

        I wish they’d made tapes of the panel discussions available for sale, as they’ve done at the Bouchercons.  Two in particular were fascinating.  C. W. Gortner monitored one on Sunday in which the panel discussed the bias in publishing about male authors writing of female protagonists and vice versa.  I was very surprised that this prejudice is still so prevalent and apparently widespread.  I never encountered it myself and, speaking as an avid reader, all I care about is that a book is well written.

       I especially enjoyed the panel discussion about the fine line writers must walk to balance fact and fiction.  You all know my rather passionate views on this subject, and to judge by your blog comments, I am preaching to the choir here.  I’m happy to report that the panelists were in agreement with us.   Laurel Corona offered a wonderful comment that could well serve as the Eleventh Commandment for historical novelists: “Do not defame the dead.”   That says it all, doesn’t it?   I think I’ve mentioned  my own shorthand for “historical novels” that are not rooted in any time or place:  “The Plantagenets in Pasadena.”   Well, I came away from the panel discussion with two more apt phrases: “costume fiction” and from Margaret Frazer, “Mary Jane visits the castle.”

        Okay, on to your questions.  First of all, thank you for all the Robin Hood recommendations: Jerry was very pleased.   I think my 1185 slip speaks for itself.  Ken, what a lovely compliment, comparing me to Eleanor of Aquitaine.   I only wish I had her inner strength and steely will.   Your comment about medieval archers not being able to take dead aim was fascinating; thanks for sharing your expertise with us.   Your anecdote about the infamous William de Braose was slightly off target, though.  It actually happened to one of his knights and Giraldus Cambrensus claimed that after an arrow pinned one leg to the saddle, he was hit by a second arrow in his other leg.  This is so vivid in my mind because Morgan, Ranulf’s son, related the incident to Richard in an early chapter of Lionheart—and this time there were no bizarre suggestions that longbows were easier to master than crossbows!   I was very interested in your reference to Savoy, Ken, and have an interesting anecdote (which you probably know), but I will have to save it for my next blog, as this one is going to be another whopper.

        Michelle and April, I’m going to have to pass on your questions about casting a film for Sunne.  I don’t have a “dream cast” for any of my novels, have honestly never given it much thought.   Although I am convinced that no actors ever born could have surpassed Peter O’Toole and Katharine Hepburn in The Lion in Winter.  But if some of you want to suggest casting for any of my books, please do share them with us.  And Dave, I think I can speak for women everywhere when I say that Johnny Depp is not a prat!   I’d be utterly euphoric if he wanted to play one of the characters in any of my books.  Well, maybe not Henry Tudor, for there is no way Tudor had Johnny’s humor or sex appeal.

     I’m so glad that some of you will be able to attend my readings in Bailey’s Crossing and Anne Arbor.  Jenny, do bring your old copy of Sunne; I’d be happy to sign it.  Occasionally a bookstore owner will limit the number of previous books customers can bring to a book signing and there are even a few writers who balk at signing their earlier books.  But that is relatively rare and I am delighted to sign any of my books; it is a lovely sight to see a well-worn—hence well-read—copy of Sunne or Dragons.

     Brenna, I’m sorry, but I can’t be of any assistance when it comes to Allison Weir’s Princes in the Tower, as I have not read it.  Nor did I read the Bertram Fields book, though several of my friends were quite enthusiastic about it.   As I mentioned in an earlier blog, I did not keep up on Ricardian reading, moving on to Wales and then the Angevins.   So for that reason, I cannot recommend any Ricardian books published since Sunne.   Can any of my readers help Brenna with this?

      I was interested and somewhat surprised by the comments that Elizabeth Chadwick and several of you made about John in Here Be Dragons.   I never thought that “my”  John was that favorably portrayed.  I was not aiming to “rehabilitate” John, as I obviously was with Richard III; I had a more modest goal, merely to show his humanity.   I did find him an intriguing character to write about, for the ones with dark corners in their souls are always more fun than the saintly ones.   And I don’t think you can really whitewash a man who betrayed his dying father, did his best to keep his brother rotting in a German prison, had his own nephew murdered, hanged a number of Welsh hostages, and starved Maude de Braose and her son to death!  I do think John was quite intelligent, but he was also the most damaged of Henry and Eleanor’s sons, and I think his kingship must be judged a failure—not because of Magna Carta or even that he died alone and virtually abandoned by all, mourned by none.  I think John’s greatest failing as a king was his inability to trust others, and once they realized that, they could not trust him, which was an even more fatal flaw than Stephen’s inability to win respect or fear from his nobles.  It is always interesting, though, to see how other people view “my” characters.  I remember being surprised by some comments on the Historical Fiction On-line forum to the effect that my Richard III was too perfect to be true, for I truly never saw him in that way.  Hey, he did send Hastings to his death without a trial, remember!   Surely the most unique response I ever got came from an Australian reader, who wrote that she could not enjoy Dragons because Llewelyn reminded her too much of an old boyfriend.

      Suzanne, you had a very interesting question, asking how writers pick scenes to dramatize and why some get left on the cutting room floor.  Because that deserves more than a few quick sentences, I am going to save my response for my next blog.  And I’m sure we’d like to hear from you writers out there, too, on this subject.

         Now, Cindy, it is your turn.   You mentioned the massacre of the Jews of York in March, 1190, and you and Blair both brought up Richard’s execution of the Muslim garrison at Acre.  These are serious topics and I want to address them fully.  First of all, your source for the York massacre was very much in error.   Briefly, this is what happened.   Richard had forbidden any Jews to attend his coronation feast.  When I read that initially many years ago, I assumed that this was an anti-Semitic act, for we all knew this was the ugly underside of medieval life.  But Richard’s subsequent actions changed my mind about this; now I think it is quite likely that he was trying to keep the King’s Peace, as whenever a crusade had been declared in the past, the Jews were the first to suffer.  During the first and second crusades, bloody pogroms had flared up as would-be crusaders looked for “infidels” closer at hand than the Saracens.   I think Richard may have been trying to avoid such outbursts of violence in England.  But Benedict and Josce of York, prominent moneylenders from that city, possibly not having heard of the prohibition, showed up at Westminster and were attacked by bystanders.  Soon a mob was surging through the city streets, burning and looting and assaulting any Jews they could find.   Richard was infuriated; the Jews were under the king’s protection and were an important source of royal revenue.  He did what he could to punish the rioters and at once sent out writs to the major cities of his realm, warning that the Jews were not to be harmed.  And they were not.  The writs were obeyed—as long as he remained in England.  But he left for Normandy after Christmas, and that “crusading fervor” soon erupted again, like a virulent plague.   Jewries were attacked in Lynn and Norwich and then it spread to Stamford, Bury St Edmunds, and Lincoln.  Drunken mobs pillaged and looted and the Jews fled to the royal castles for refuge.   Then, in March of 1190, the madness reached York.

       Remember the two York moneylenders, Benedict and Josce?   Josce had escaped the London mob, but Benedict was trapped and forced to accept conversion.  When peace had been restored, Richard had him summoned and asked if his conversion had been voluntary.  When Benedict said it was coerced, he was allowed to recant, although the Archbishop of Canterbury angrily told him that he could be the Devil’s man if he refused to be God’s man.   Benedict died soon after of his wounds, but Josce returned safely to York, where a worse fate awaited him.  

         When the York mob attacked Benedict’s house and killed his family, Josce and the other Jews fled to the castle for safety.   But they did not trust the castellan and when he left the castle, they apparently overpowered the garrison and refused to let him back in.  He then turned for help to the sheriff of Yorkshire, who just “happened” to be in the immediate vicinity, and the sheriff made the fateful decision to retake the castle.  The York mob was only too happy to join in, and by the time the sheriff had second thoughts, the mob was in control.   The trapped Jews held out for two days, but they realized they were doomed and made the desperate decision to die by their own hands rather than to be butchered by the mob.  Husbands slit the throats of their wives and children, Josce being the first one to kill his family.   It is estimated that about one hundred and fifty had taken refuge and most of them chose suicide.  

      Those still alive appealed for mercy and agreed to accept baptism and they were promised that they’d be spared.  But this promise was not kept and when they emerged, they were all slaughtered, men, women, and children.   The mob then revealed the real reason for the rioting.  They forced their way into York Minster and compelled the monks to turn over the Jews’ debt bonds, which they burned right there in the nave of the church.

      When Richard, then in Normandy, learned of this, he was outraged.  We have no way of knowing, of course, if he pitied the victims.  We do know that any medieval king would see this as an act of political defiance.   He immediately sent his chancellor, Longchamp, back to England and Longchamp led an army into Yorkshire, where he found how difficult it is to punish mob violence.   The citizens of York swore that it had been perpetrated by strangers and would-be crusaders, who’d fled into Scotland.  Longchamp dismissed the castellan and the sheriff—more on him in a moment—and imposed heavy fines on the citizens.   And this heavy-handed response was sufficient to keep other cities at peace; there were no other violent outbursts against the Jews during the remainder of Richard’s reign.

        I can highly recommend a first-person account by the medieval chronicler William of Newburgh; a translation was published in 1996.  Blair was quite right that some of the chroniclers did approve of the pogroms against the Jews; Richard of Devizes faulted the citizens of Winchester for protecting their Jews.  But William of Newburgh was horrified by what had been done in his God’s Name.   In a telling phrase, he described how Josce slit the throat of “Anna, his most beloved wife.”    He wrote that the rioters’ first crime was to shed “human blood like water,” their second “acting barbarously,” their third “refusing the Grace of Christ to those who sought it,” and the fourth, “deceiving those miserable people by lying to induce them to come forth.”     And he very clearly stated that the motivation for the rioting was to avoid paying the debts owed to the York moneylenders.

     Now, back to the sherff.   As I said, he was sacked by Longchamp.   Sadly, he was later appointed to another shrievalty by John, though there is no evidence that John played any role in the York massacre; he was in Normandy with Richard at the time.  The disgraced sheriff was none other than John Marshal, older brother of the celebrated William Marshal, and he was either guilty of gross incompetence or he was in collusion with the mob.  

      Okay, on to Richard’s crusade.  This is the story of the siege of Acre.  When it surrendered to the crusaders in July, 1191, an agreement was struck with Salah al-din (more commonly known to us as Saladin) to ransom the garrison.   The ransom was not paid—there are various explanations as to why it was not, the most likely being the mutual mistrust on both sides—and the garrison was marched out onto the plains beyond the city and there killed.   This decision had been made by all the crusade leaders, but there is no doubt that Richard wanted this done.   There is a very matter-of-fact letter of his to the Abbot of Clairvaux, in which he describes the execution of “about two thousand, six hundred” of them being “quite properly” put to death.    He saw this as a purely military decision as his army was about to march out of Acre and he was unwilling to set so many enemy soldiers loose on his rear, apparently having decided that he could not spare enough men to guard them.   Cold-blooded?  Yes, it was, and later historians would judge him harshly for it.  At the time, the chroniclers seem to have accepted it as what needed to be done.  

      You notice that I’ve talked only about the “garrison.”   You will find it said in some histories, including one by the respected historian, Sir Stephen Runciman, that the families of these unfortunate men were slain, too.  But I have so far been unable to find any contemporary source for this.  I have read five English chronicles and two Arab chronicles, one written by one of Saladin’s intimates, and none of them mention the families of the garrison being killed, too.   And in all of the histories or biographies that report this as a “fact,” not a single one cites a medieval source for it.  This is why writers drink.   I am going to continue to try to track down the origin of this story, but if I have no luck, I will most likely follow the medieval sources and then discuss the controversy in my Author’s Note—you guys are getting a preview of it here!

          This is a good example of the challenges that novelists face; it matters greatly to me that I get the facts right, especially about an event of such significance.  It is also a good example of the great gap that sometimes existed between medieval and modern sensibilities.   I’ve seen the massacre of the Acre garrison compared to the killing of captured French knights by Henry V at the battle of Agincourt, which was also done for military reasons.   Obviously we don’t see such killings in  the same light, but I think historical novelists ought to try to view them from a medieval perspective if at all possible.   

      Lastly, there is your question, Marilyn.    Marian Meade was wrong; Richard did not make  a “public confession of his homosexuality.”   If only he had!   That would have saved me so much work and research trying to solve the “mystery” of his sexuality.  What he did do was to summon his bishops to him in Messina and confessed to his sins.  The chronicler mentions “the thorns of lustfulness,” but is not more specific than that.  He says that Richard “received the penance imposed by the bishops and from that hour forward became a man who feared God and left what was evil and did what was good.” 

        This public penance alone would not raise questions about Richard’s sexual proclivities.   It is truly amazing what was held to be sinful by the medieval Church.  In addition to fornication, adultery, and sodomy, medievals were told that they sinned if they had sex in any position other than what we today call the “missionary position.”  They sinned if they had sex on Sundays, holy days, during Advent, Lent, and Pentecost.  Open mouthed kissing was a sin, as was making love in daylight.  Any sexual act that was not procreative was a mortal sin.   According to some canonists and penitentials, a husband who desired his wife with “excessive lust” was guilty of adultery!  

       In a future blog, I will discuss the multitude of medieval sins covered by the term sodomy, which included any sexual act thought to be “against nature.”   This is relevant because a chronicler reported that in 1195 a hermit approached Richard and warned him, “Be thou mindful of the destruction of Sodom and abstain from what is unlawful.”    Historians today have been having some very lively arguments about the meaning of this warning and there is no consensus, any more than there is a consensus about Richard’s sexual inclinations.   Until 1948, no one suggested he preferred men to women.  After 1948, it became accepted as gospel.  But within the last twenty years or so, there has been another reassessment of something we can never really know for certain.   Richard’s pre-eminent biographer, the British historian John Gillingham, is convinced Richard was heterosexual and many historians now agree with him.   Others still believe Richard was either homosexual or bisexual.   As I said, I will be addressing this subject in later blogs.  While doing this research, I’ve come across some very comprehensive and perceptive studies about medieval sexuality and the considerable differences between the way they viewed sex and the way we view it today.   Would you like me to include some of these books on my Recommended Research page?

        Well, here’s another blog stretching out into infinity.  But we’re talking about mutual guilt now.   You all really have to stop asking me such intriguing questions!

June 25, 2009

PS  Ken, thanks for posting the entry on Joanna from the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography.  That is a subject I had to save for a future blog, too.

     I am going to begin with a confession—I’d have been horrified if you had picked High Drama over Historical Accuracy.   Ideally, a book should be able to provide both.   But I apply a rather stringent standard, and even a well-written book can be ruined for me if the research is sloppy.  I don’t mean occasional errors, which are inevitable, but fundamental misconceptions about the medieval world, what I think of as “The Plantagenets in Pasadena” syndrome, where highborn young women expect to marry for love and class differences are a minor inconvenience and religion is rarely if ever mentioned. 

      Of course much of what historical novelists do is “fill in the blanks,” for we have no choice.  Medieval chroniclers were notably indifferent to the needs of modern novelists, rarely mentioning such dramatic essentials as birth dates or causes of death.  So we novelists must often improvise, sometimes with unintended consequences.   I received a letter once from a woman who’d felt so passionate about Here Be Dragons that she made a pilgrimage to Chester Cathedral, where Joanna and Llewelyn had wed.   She was dismayed to find no reference whatsoever to this important historical event and she took the cathedral officials to task for their negligence.  I then had to tell her that the negligent parties were the thirteenth century chroniclers who hadn’t bothered to mention where the marriage took place.   I’d chosen Chester as a logical site because of its proximity to Wales; I was able to reassure her, though, that Llewelyn ap Gruffydd and Ellen de Montfort actually were wed in Worcester Cathedral.   

      On a related subject, I feel comfortable involving characters in historical events if their participation seems logical and if they aren’t known to have been elsewhere at the time.   For example, there is no evidence that Henry’s illegitimate son Geoff (later Archbishop of York) took part in the battle at Fornham.  But we know he was very active on Henry’s behalf in the military campaigns against English rebels, and we don’t know where he was in October of 1173, so why not Fornham?  

         I found the discussion about Genealogy Charts vs. Cast of Characters quite interesting.  Depending upon the books, I can see a need for both.  When I read Brian Wainwright’s novel about Constance of York, Within the Fetterlock, I’d have been lost if he hadn’t provided a Cast of Characters, for I was not very familiar with the reign of Henry IV.   The ideal solution would be to provide both for the reader.  But as for bibliographies, Kristen, that is not feasible.   It is rarely if ever done in historical novels and I’d expect most publishers to be resistant to it.  So would I, to be candid.   There is no way I could include all of my research sources; in addition to books, I rely upon academic journal articles to a great extent.   Author websites provide the ideal solution, though.  In my Research Recommendations section, I can highlight books that I think my readers will find interesting, and I have the liberty of adding to the list from time to time.  I ought to mention here that I am not always in total agreement with the authors of the books I recommend.  Occasionally the books are outdated or the writers draw conclusions I do not agree with; Marion Meade’s biography of Eleanor is an example, as is John Julius Norwich’s Kingdom in the Sun.  But if books make my list, that does mean that I think the research is generally reliable and the writing itself is graceful.   

     Beth, I loved your comment about historical research.  You are so right!  Research has its own ebb and flow, and surprises can be washed up on shore once the tide goes out.  I have been writing fiction for more than twenty-five years, so it is inevitable that some of my initial research has been contradicted by subsequent discoveries.  Eleanor’s age is a perfect example.  For many years, 1122 was her accepted birth date, but with the publication of Eleanor of Aquitaine, Lord and Lady, that changed, and there seems to be a consensus in favor of Andrew Lewis’s new date of 1124.   Here Be Dragons was published in 1185, and at that time the belief in Richard’s homosexuality was in the ascendancy.  Twenty-some years later that subject engenders a great deal more controversy, and writers on either side of the argument feel obligated to mention the dispute, which is surely a good thing. 

      Research is particularly fluid in the study of genealogy.  When I wrote Dragons, I was unable to find any references to the birth date of John’s illegitimate brother, William Longsword, and his mother was unknown.  Today it is generally accepted that his mother was Ida de Tosny, daughter of the Lord of Conches, later the wife of Roger Bigod, Earl of Norfolk, and it seems likely that Will was born c. 1177.    Readers interested in finding out more about Ida and Roger Bigod are in luck, as Elizabeth Chadwick has written a novel about them titled The Time of Singing, which has just come out in paperback in the U. K.   Moving on to Joanna, I relied upon Peter Bartram’s massive genealogical work of forty years in determining that only Elen was Joanna’s biological daughter.   In the intervening years, I have seen claims that Gladwys and possibly others were Joanna’s, too.  But to show you how complicated the issue is, I would cite two articles from The Genealogist.  One argues that all the mothers of Llewelyn’s daughters must be shown as “unknown,” including Elen.  A subsequent article in The Genealogist unearthed a letter from Henry III dated June 22, 1237, in which he refers to the newly widowed Elen as his niece, which certainly seems to prove that Elen was Joanna’s biological daughter.  In the first article, I was following his arguments with interest until I came upon his statement that Elen had only two daughters, Joanna and Hawise, by her second marriage to Robert de Quincy.   Now I happen to know from my own admittedly unprofessional research that Elen and Robert also had a daughter named Anne, having found this information in the Calendar of Inquisitions, a fascinating document which  gave me the  ages of the daughters and the year in which Elen died.   So I can only repeat that we all make mistakes and we never know when a new treasure might be revealed by those receding waves.  

       Speaking of mistakes, I made one in my last blog, telling you that Eleanor made four trips across the Alps.  Actually it was three; she and Louis took the overland route through Germany on their way to the Holy Land.  

        Before I respond to your questions, I’d like to ask for your help.  A friend of mine asked if I could recommend any novels about Robin Hood.   I’ve never done any Robin Hood reading, but I told him that I’m sure some of my readers will have books to suggest.   So….any Robin Hood novels out there that Jerry would enjoy?

      Okay, question time.  Monica, I am sorry to say that I don’t have any U.K. trips planned in the immediate future. I was fortunate enough to live in York and Benllech, Gwynedd briefly, and I was accustomed to spending at least a month on your side of the Atlantic every year, dividing my time between England and Wales.   But that changed when my mother died and my dad came to live with me; he had serious health problems and I no longer felt free to spend so much time away from home.   By the time he died, I’d followed the Angevins to France and that had become the focal point of my research; the last time I was in England for a research trip, it was to refresh my memories of Canterbury Cathedral in preparation for Henry’s penance scene.

     Ken, I hope you keep us up to date as Othon’s book progresses.   As an ex-archer, have you read Bernard Cornwell’s Agincourt?  If so, what did you think of it?    I was fascinated by his contention that so much of archery is mental.   I hope you have better luck with all those recycled names than I did; with so many Richards and Edwards and even Elizabeths in Sunne, I became inordinately attached to Francis Lovell simply because he was the only one in the whole blessed book!    You said you were interested in the last years of the Kingdom of Jerusalem.  The Osprey Campaign series has a volume by David Nicolle called Acre 1291, Bloody Sunset of the Crusader States, and Christopher Tyerman’s God’s War, A New History of the Crusades, has a section on the fall of Acre.   You’re going to like my Research Recommendations page once I start to add all my crusader books!

     Kristen, I’m sorry you missed my November visit to the Poisoned Pen, but it is very likely I will be back.  My last visit was for the publication of Devil’s Brood, but I’ve often visited even when I didn’t have a book coming out, usually when Barbara Peters has set up a forum with other writers.   I wish I were coming to the West Coast, too, Mimi.  I used to make fairly regular stops in California, Portland, and Seattle, but publishers are cutting back drastically on book tours, so it is hard to say what the future holds for them.  Jenny, my book tour for late July, early August is up in the Press Room of my website; I’ll be at Borders in Baileys Crossroads on July 29^th at 7:30 PM; I hope you can be there.  I love to meet readers, and our blog interaction has added a certain intimacy, so I feel as if I know the “regulars” already. Kelly, what is your daughter’s name?  I hope she can come, too.

      Helen, I would consider a film deal, but sad to say, Stephen Spielberg is not camping out on my front porch.  Sunne is still optioned and the British production company is diligently seeking funding, no easy task in the current economy; there was a recent query about Dragons, but it is not likely to go very far.   Gabriele, I’d warn you to keep a close eye on Arminius; he sounds quite capable of high-jacking your book right out from under your nose.   And is the Dalriatan chief a real historical figure?   He definitely sounds like a man who needs a book of his own!

      Brenna, your question is a difficult one for me.  I generally try not to be publicly critical of other writers, feeling a certain solidarity—we’re an endangered species, after all.   I have reservations about Alison Weir’s biography of Eleanor, as I suspect many of you have guessed, for hers is not one of the books I’ve recommended.  Regrettably, she does not always cite footnotes for the sources of her conclusions.   Some years ago, she wrote a book, Britain’s Royal Families, The Complete Genealogy, in which she offered a bibliography, but not a single footnote, which made it impossible to judge the accuracy  of her statements; for example, she lists seven illegitimate children for Richard III, three of them unnamed with questions marks, which was not particularly helpful for readers wanting to pursue this further.  And I was troubled by some of the errors I found in her biography of Eleanor. 

     Just to cite a few examples:   She says the King of Sicily, Tancred, was the nephew of William the Good, Joanna’s husband.  He was not; he was William’s cousin.  She says that the French King Philippe was so taken with Joanna that Richard immediately moved her to the mainland, “out of the French king’s reach,” since “he was a married man.”  Well, no, he wasn’t.  His queen had died giving birth to stillborn sons six months previously.  And while Roger de Hoveden did indeed report that Philippe was smitten with Joanna, who was a beautiful, accomplished young woman, Richard moved her to the mainland because he feared for her safety—not from Philippe, but from the unfriendly citizens of Messina.  Four days afterward, rioting broke out in Messina and Richard seized control of the city, “in less time than it took for a priest to chant Matins” according to one of the chroniclers accompanying him.   On p. 271, Ms. Weir says that Richard met Tancred in March, 1191 and the two kings reached a “friendly agreement.”   This is partially true.   They did meet at Catania in March, 1191, at which time Richard gave Tancred a sword that he claimed to be Arthur’s Excalibur!     But their “friendly agreement” had been struck five months earlier, in October of 1190, and this is well documented; we have the actual terms of the agreement and even a November letter from Richard in which he notifies the Pope of their accord. 

      I am not saying you should not read her biography of Eleanor, for she has obviously put a great deal of work into it; just proceed with caution.  In fairness to Ms. Weir, I ought to say that she is not the only biographer who can be casual about footnotes.   A recent biography by Frank McLynn, Richard and  John: Kings at War,  tells us that Eleanor had black hair and black eyes.   Now this is rather startling since the details of her physical appearance have eluded us for more than eight centuries.  But no footnote is cited for this remarkable revelation.   I would have been fine with it had he said that Eleanor probably had dark coloring, but he presented it as cold, hard fact.   And while historical novelists have to conjure up details like that, historians have neither that need nor that liberty.

     Megan, I am in agreement with Elizabeth Chadwick and Ken; yours wins the Funniest Comment contest, hands-down!   Paula, you made an interesting comment about medieval cooking.  Should I add a section in my Research Recommendations about medieval food?   I was thinking of recommending several books about medieval travel, so I guess it would make sense to expand the subject a bit.  Opinions?

        Well, I’ve done it again, written a blog entry that rivals Moby Dick in length.   I always start out with such good intentions, too.  So I’ll conclude now by saying that I fully agree with Elizabeth’s answer to your query, Carrie.  The Plantagenets in particular can strain credibility, for the high drama and improbable turns and twists in their lives could have come straight from a Hollywood scriptwriter’s imagination.   So like Elizabeth, I try to keep my books securely grounded in fact.  And hardly a day goes by when I don’t give thanks for the Author’s Note.   Now I am signing off until after the Historical Novel Society Convention.

June 3, 2009

PS  Well, I’m back again, as I forgot to respond to a few questions.   I asked St Martins Press when The Reckoning would be available in Kindle format, and was told it is in the pipeline, and it will depend upon how fast Amazon moves.   Susan Kay’s Legacy will be issued in paperback format by Sourcebooks in the spring of 2010.  Lastly, I found a remarkable website that I want to share.  It is www.freerice.com, and is based upon a brilliant premise.  When you visit the site, you are able to take a vocabulary quiz; each time you correctly identify a word, a rice donation is made for the world’s poor through the UN World Food Program.    Do check it out, as this is a way to have fun while doing good, and it doesn’t get any better than that.

       This is becoming the Blog Without End.   I also forgot to mention that I am planning to add a section for my British readers.  As soon as my Penguin editor sends me the book jackets, we are going to list all of my books published in the U. K.  with a click-on feature to connect readers to British on-line bookshops.    And I now have the publication date for the Penguin paperback edition of Devil’s Brood—August 6, 2009.

June 4, 2009