63 thoughts on “INTERVIEW WITH DAVID PILLING”

1. Today’s Facebook Note.
   March 23, 1429 was the birthdate of Marguerite d’Anjou, the French-born queen of Henry VI. She was a courageous, stubborn, proud, ruthless woman who’d been dealt a bad hand in her marriage to Henry, whose misfortunate was that he’d been born a king’s son. Here are a few Marguerite scenes from Sunne. The first is on p. 20, at Ludlow, where seven year old Richard has his first glimpse of the Lancastrian queen.
   * * *
   His first impression, quite simply, was one of awe. Marguerite d’Anjou was the most beautiful woman he’d ever seen, as beautiful as the queens of Joan’s bedtime tales. All in gold and black, like the swallowtail butterflies he’d chased all summer in such futile fascination. Her eyes were huge and black, blacker even than the rosaries of Whitby jet so favored by his mother. Her mouth was scarlet, her skin like snow, her dark hair covered by a headdress of golden gauze, her face framed in floating folds of a glittery shimmering material that seemed to be made from sunlight; he’d ever seen anything like it, couldn’t keep his eyes from it. Or from her.
   * * *
   The next scene on P73 takes place at St Mary’s abbey in York, when Marguerite has just gotten the devastating news of the Yorkist victory at Towton.
   * * *
   Weighed down by her sodden skirts, unable to catch her breath, watching as the abbot floundered beside her in the snow, while her servant struggled to maintain his own footing and gingerly extended his hand toward her, Marguerite suddenly began to laugh, jagged bursts of strangled mirth, the sound of which nightmares are made.
   “Madame, you mustn’t give way!” The abbot, less timid than her servant at laying hands upon royalty, grabbed her shoulders, shook her vigorously.
   “But it is so very amusing; surely you see that? I’ve a little boy and a sweet helpless fool asleep in your lodging and no money and I’ve just been told I no longer have an army and look at us, my lord abbot, Sacre Dieu, look at us! If I do not laugh,” she gasped, “I might believe all this was truly happening, and happening to me!”
   “Madame…” The abbot hesitated, and then plunged ahead courageously. “You need not flee, you know. York would not harm a woman, still less a child. Your lives would be safe with him, I do believe that. Stay here, Madame. Entreat York’s mercy, accept him as king. Even if you reach Scotland, what then? Ah, Madame, can you not let it be?”
   The lantern light no longer fell on her face; he could not discern her expression. But he heard her intake of breath, a sibilant hiss of feline intensity. Her hand jerked from his. “Oui, Monseigneur,” she spat. “On my deathbed!”
   * * *
   Lastly, on Pages 344-345, is a scene the night before the battle of Tewkesbury between Marguerite and Edmund Beaufort, the Duke of Somerset. She has just agreed to go with his daring battle plan—on one condition, that her son is to be kept away from the fighting.
   * * *
   “I cannot make you a promise like that,” he said, tiredly and very gently. “You know I cannot. I’d give my life to keep him safe; we all would. But I cannot forbid him, Madame. No one can. He thinks he is of an age to command. His pride demands it. He knows that York was not yet nineteen when he did win at Towton. Worse, he knows that Gloucester is himself just eighteen now. I cannot forbid him, Madame.
   “The true command of the center will rest with Wenlock, not Prince Edward. And I think he will agree to remain mounted during the battle.” For a moment, he had an image of Edward’s white, set face. “In fact, I am sure of it. But further than that, he will not go. And more than that, I cannot do.”
   Marguerite nodded, and he saw that she’d not expected to prevail. “No, I suppose you cannot,” she said tonelessly. She shrugged, wouldn’t meet his eyes. “Well, then, we’d best tell the others what we plan for the morrow, my lord.”
   She let him take her hands in his; they were like ice, bloodless. “You have it all, Somerset,” she whispered. “It is all in your hands…The vanguard, the battle, the fate of Lancaster.” She drew a ragged breath. “The life of my son.”
   * * *

2. Very intersting interview David! It’s great to learn even more about you and your writing. I love your blog and brilliant style. And I would still love to read your William Marshal novel 🙂 Did you mention Henry the Young King in it? I’m sure you did! I’m very curious how you portrayed him.

3. Sharon, thank you for your e-mail (I’d rather say thank you here, on your blog, concerning the problems with delivering my messages to you). Hillarious indeed. And indeed spring is not coming here in Poland. We’ve been snowed in and our children are still enjoying winter sports. Game of Thrones is very popular in Poland, as well as George R.R.Martin’s books. I wish your novels were translated into Polish one day so that my friends could read them and learn more about British history (they are growing tired of my “lectures”, I can see it :-)). Thank you again.

4. The opening lines of the article read as follow:
   “Ned Stark opened the door to disaster by constantly mentioning it…”
   And later on, according to the author, in Poland the Starks’ saying- “Brace yourself, winter is coming”- should not be taken metaphorically, but literally: we should (em)brace the shovels and remove the snow from our driveways, … 🙂 Spring is not coming (Polish: “Wiosna nie nadchodzi”).

5. Thanks for the interview; it has definitely piqued my interest in these books. If anyone has a Kindle, many of David’s are listed for 99 cents. They are all short and might well be excerpts from his longer book, but they’re a great way to give his writing a try..

6. Kasia, that is very funny! We are still locked in winter’s embrace here in the upper Midwest as well. I am hoping to see some snow begin to melt this week, however.

7. Sharon, I have been led too far into book bankruptcy that I must now focus on my TBR mountain. I am about to start my Margaret Frazer pile. The Sister Frevisse books are playing hard to get, but I have found all the Joliffe ones and will start them today. Yay!

8. The Joliffe ones are great fun, Paula, for he has a very appealing sense of humor. He was first introduced as a character in the Sister Frevisse series, but used his considerable charm to convince Gail that he deserved his own series. We have to keep a close eye on some of our characters, for they will steal a book in the blink of an eye if we let down our guard. Llywelyn Fawr swiped Here Be Dragons right out from under John’s nose, and Davydd ap Gruffydd ended up with a greatly expanded role than I’d originally intended. The same is true for Robert of Gloucester’s daughter, Maude. She craftily offered to be the go-between for Ranulf and his illicit love, Annora, in Saints, and when that doomed affair ended, she wormed her way into Eleanor’s affections so she could continue to get “screen time” in the following books.

9. Today’s Facebook page.
   On March 24th in 1603, England’s greatest queen died. Elizabeth was in her seventieth year, and her death does not seem to have been a peaceful one, for she fought it as long as she had strength in her failing body. Hers was a turbulent, often tragic life, but her neurotic brilliance sears through English history like a flaming brand. I often half-jokingly refer to her as the “only good Tudor.” Many books and films have been done about her and she is lucky in that several are of excellent quality. Susan Kay’s Legacy is a tour de force, capturing the elusive essence of Elizabeth as well as any writer could have hoped. And Margaret George’s Elizabeth I is a powerful account of her autumn years. I teased Margaret that she should have called it The Lioness in Winter, but whatever the title, I highly recommend it. I also highly recommend the BBC series about Elizabeth, portrayed by the magnificent Glenda Jackson, available on DVD. Like The Six Wives of Henry VIII, it proves that it is possible to be historically accurate and utterly compelling, all without taking the ludicrous liberties with fact that the Showtime series The Tudors did. I think the best film about Elizabeth is ironically named after her nemesis, Mary, Queen of Scots, with Vanessa Redgrave as Mary, Glenda Jackson again as Elizabeth, and an almost unrecognizable Timothy Dalton as Lord Darnley. Like the BBC series, it is decades old, but has stood the test of time admirably.

10. I absolutely loved that Maud, Sharon. I was so sad when she had to die. I’m glad we didn’t have to be present for it. If I remember correctly we only get word of it via a letter to Eleanor.

11. Yes, she died between Devil’s Brood and Lionheart, Stephanie, the same summer as Henry and his daughter Matilda. I missed writing about Henry but I also missed Maud.
    Today’s Facebook note.
    March 25th in 1306 saw the coronation of Robert the Bruce as King of Scotland.
    March 25th was the birthdate of Blanche of Lancaster; 1345 is traditionally given as the year of her birth, but I’ve also seen it as 1346. She was a great heiress, and in 1359, she wed her third cousin, John of Gaunt. They had seven children, so she was usually pregnant during her nine year marriage, which is believed to have been a happy one. Only three of her children survived, but one would become the first Lancastrian king, Henry IV. She died in 1368, of what may have been the bubonic plague, at only twenty-one or twenty-two, and her husband grieved greatly for her. I tend to envision her as soft-spoken and fair, a lovely ghost who would haunt her husband’s memory with a rustle of silken skirts and a swirl of silvery blonde hair, an ethereal creature of moonlight, ivory, and lace, forever young. She inspired the major character in Geoffrey Chaucer’s Book of the Duchess, and was sympathetically portrayed in Anya Seton’s classic novel, Katherine. Katherine is, of course, Katherine Swynford, one-half of one of the more famous love affairs of the Middle Ages; she was governess to Blanche and John’s children and, after Blanche’s death, his mistress, and eventually his third wife, a marriage that scandalized his world and delighted all of us who are secret romantics at heart. Yet he requested to be buried next to Blanche.

12. And speaking of romantic, Sharon, what an enchanting vision of the ghost! I’d just added Anya Seton’s novel to my list last week. I must get that ereader but how do I give up all those beautiful book covers & other bookish pleasures?!?

13. Joan, that’s the hardest part about the ereader. I am reading Here Be Dragons right now on my Kindle and I can handle it because I’ve read it enough times not to need the tactile feel and the smell of paper. But it sure is nice to have a light little compact ereader in my hand. It doesn’t mean you can’t go out and buy the actual book too, so don’t forget that option. I like to have both a real book AND an e-copy, especially of Sharon’s books. Okay, maybe like 2 or 3 real versions of each book AND an e-copy, but who’s counting.
    And Sharon, I am interested to hear about Ranulf’s last days in Ransom. I find it so hard to believe he’s still alive. I can’t remember if you said you will be able to dramatize any of that, but I’m thinking we’ll only hear of it via letter like we did with Maud.

14. Hee, hee! I arrived in a rather rainy Carcassonne an hour ago. Nah, nah, nah nah, na…..

15. Hmph.

16. HE IS ?????? Still alive?? Oh I love that man, he’s so nice…..& his entire family. I’m getting the feeling I should stock up on lace trimmed handkerchiefs before the book comes out.
    I’ve also been peeking into Here Be Dragons lately, Stephanie, & want to reread it after my present book. One of my nieces (whom I have a great bond with & who lives down in CA) wants to read one of your novels, Sharon, & asked which, so of course I said HBD. So I’ve been looking through it, going….Oh she’ll love this, oh & this, & she’ll absolutely love that, & on & on. She has a course to finish first (& has 2 young kids) but I can hardly wait to discuss it with her once she’s read it. She read our reviews on Lionheart, Stephanie, & wondered if she should begin there, but I want Llewelyn to work his magic on her.
    I guess I could always store my yet-to-be-bought Kindle in one of my more fragrant books at night.
    Carcassonne! What luck! Have fun Ken!

17. I know I shouldn’t say such a nasty thing, but I will always be grateful to Blanche. Her untimely death boosted Geoffrey’s popularity as a poet 🙂
    Ken, lucky you! I’ve always wanted to go to Carcassonne! Do write a few words and share your impressions with us!

18. Kasia, I am so envious of Ken, for other people may leave their hearts in San Francisco; I left mine in Carcassonne. (Mind you, San Francisco is one of the most beautiful cities in the world, but it lacks a castle or medieval walls.)
    Today’s Facebook Note/
    On March 26th, 1199, Richard Coeur de Lion’s fabled luck finally ran out. He rashly ventured out to inspect the siege of Chalus Castle without armor, and was struck by a crossbow bolt. He’d been watching a man up on the battlements who was using a large frying pan as a shield and that amused him greatly; he was laughing and cheering the man on when he was hit. He gave no indication of it (it was dusk at the time) and returned to his own quarters, where he attempted and failed to remove the bolt. A doctor summoned by his mercenary captain Mercadier had no better luck and apparently made the injury much worse in his ineffective attempts to extract it. Richard had enough experience with battle wounds to realize that he was doomed and sent for his mother as his condition worsened; she arrived in time to be with him when he died. By all accounts, it was a very painful death, but he endured it with his usual stoicism. Here is a passage from the chronicle of Ralph de Coggeshall; the translation comes courtesy of my fellow historical novelist and friend, Sharan Newman.
    “Therefore the king was wounded, as usual through his well-known reckless behavior. He gave no heartfelt sigh, no mournful cry, nor did he show any sign of pain by expression or gesture to those present, nor show his sadness or fear so that his enemies might not report how severe the wound was. Afterwards, he endured the pain to the end as if it were a trifle, so that there were many who were ignorant of the calamity that had occurred.”
    Here is a more cheerful document, a letter written by Richard himself to his good friend, the Bishop of Durham, who’d been with him in the Holy Land and during his German captivity. Richard describes how he won a victory over the French king in September of 1198. Richard had captured the castle of Courcelles and Philippe marched from Mantes to relieve it, not knowing that it had already fallen. When Richard’s scouts reported the movement of the French army, he assumed they were massing to attack his own troops. But when he saw that they were heading north toward Courcelles, he determined to attack them even though he only had a small band of knights with him.
    In his letter to the bishop, which was widely circulated, Richard describes how the French fled before his men, a retreat turning into a rout, with so many knights crowding the bridge over the River Epte that “the bridge broke down beneath them, and the King of France, as we have heard say, had to drink of the water, and several knights, about twenty in number, were drowned. Three also, with a single lance, we unhorsed, Matthew de Montmorency, Alan de Rusci, and Fulk de Gilveral, and have them as our prisoners. There were also valiantly captured as many as one hundred knights of his….and Mercadier has taken as many as thirty. Men-at-arms, also, both horse and foot, were taken; also two hundred chargers were captured, of which one hundred forty were covered with iron armor. This have we defeated the King of France at Gisors. But it is not we who have done the same, but rather God, and our right, by our means, and in so doing, we have put our life in peril, and our kingdom, contrary to the advice of all our people. These things we signify unto you, that you may share in our joy as to the same. Witness ourselves at Anjou.”
    The “we” he employs is the royal we, so when he says “we unhorsed” those French lords, he is referring to his own derring-do. Ironically, Matthew de Montmorency was one of the men who’d fought beside Richard in the Holy Land; readers may remember him from Lionheart. Even down through eight centuries, Richard’s glee at the humiliation of the French king, who “drank of the water” of the river, comes through loud and clear. Buried in the last sentence of the letter is the admission that he’d launched this attack against the advice of his men, counting upon surprise and the ferocity of the attack to carry the day; William Marshal colorfully described him that day as a “ravening lion, starved for food.”
    William Marshal also gives us the name of the man who rescued Philippe from drowning, saying “When they pulled the king out of the water—he had been extremely frightened for his life—he declined to stay in Gisors, even though it had a very strong castle, for he feared his enemies so much that he feared he would be besieged inside the town.” The Marshal did not have much respect for Philippe, as you can tell.
    As you’ll read in Ransom, Richard inflicted some very humiliating defeats upon the French king in the years 1194-1199, and the English chroniclers reveled in them. Richard had also drawn a diplomatic noose around Philippe by 1198, having lured away Philippe’s major allies and vassals, so that the French king’s position was looking more and more precarious in the spring of 1199. But as Uthred, Bernard Cornwell’s wonderful, conflicted hero in his magnificent Saxon series, often says, “Fate is inexorable,” and a crossbowman at Chalus would do what the French king could not, bring down a lion.

19. Arrived at the Med. Sunny and twenty degrees C. I know, I know……

20. I hear Minnesota is nice this time of year. Sigh.

21. Ken, I know what you speak of! The weather here is perfect. Apologies for my absence; Passover has taken much out of me, not least time. But it is good to be back. Kasia, what you said about Game of Thrones is quite amusing. Sharon, thanks for keeping up in my stead, and those letters are brilliant.
    Today, Mary ‘the Rich’ of Burgundy, Margaret of York’s step-daughter died after being thrown from her horse. Her son was Philip the Fair, who would marry Juana La Loca, giving the world Charles V. In addition, James VI and I of Scotland and England died today, making Charles I king.

22. Koby, it’s good to have you back! We missed you here.
    Sharon, I love the excerpts you’ve included, especially Richard’s letter. To hear (read) Richard speaking in his own words, that’s really something!
    I find the opening sentence of Coggeshall quotation quite amusing. As if all the chronicles, not to mention members of Richard’s household, resigned to their fate and grew accustomed to their “naughty” king’s ways (Coggshell sounds as if he were speaking of a spoilt boy rather than a forty-two-year-old king) “… as usual through his well-known reckless behaviour” 🙂

23. As for today’s anniversaries, I just want to add that, according to Eyton, on this day in 1168, Patrick, Earl of Salisbury, the uncle of William Marshal was killed in an ambush in Poitou. Together with his then twenty-one-year-old nephew and a small force he was escorting Queen Eleanor from castle to castle when they were surprised by the Lusignan brothers. Shortly before Henry II had quelled the rebellion of which they had been chief instigators and took the Castle of Lusignan. He went to confer with Louis VII leaving his queen and the earl in charge of the province. Geoffrey and Guy, two of the brothers, ambushed the party, and whereas the queen managed to reach the safety of a nearby castle, the unarmed earl Patrick was struck from behind and died on the spot under his nephew’s eyes. Enraged William fought bravely, but after receiving wound into his thigh he was captured and held for ransom. To William, being a landless knight, the situation must have seemed hopeless. Fortunately the Queen, having learned of his predicament, came to his aid. She paid the ransom and ‘to recompense him for his sufferings, gave him money, horses, arms, and rich vestments’. We can safely assume that the origins of William’s close relationship with the House of Plantagenet ( that was to last until his death in 1219) and his rise to power and fame lay in the aforementioned events. Shortly afterward, in 1170 , he was appointed tutor-in-arms of the newly crowned Henry the Young King, the first step in his stunning career.
    The scene of Earl Patrick’s death has been described in detail by both Sharon (Time and Chance) and Elizabeth Chadwick (The Greatest Knight). I highly reccomend them both 🙂

24. Today’s Facebook Note
    March 27th, 1482 was the death date of Mary, the Duchess of Burgundy, only child of Charles the Bold, stepdaughter of Margaret of York. She was a great heiress and in 1477, she wed Maximilian, the Archduke of Austria, having heeded Margaret’s advice to avoid an alliance with the French. She and Maximilian had three children, but she died at only twenty-five in a tragic accident. She and her husband had been out hawking when her horse tripped, threw her, and then fell on top of her, breaking her spine. She died several days later. Her eldest son Philip became Duke of Burgundy and would wed Juana, sister of Katherine of Aragon, known to history as Juana la Loca, Juana the mad. G.W. Gortner has written an excellent novel about Juana, called The Last Queen.

25. I wish I could post it here, but I have the new cover for the hardback edition of Sunne coming out in September now up on my Facebook pages. I’ll have to do a blog soon so I can add the photo. I love it, think it is very dramatic and compelling and starkly elegant.

26. No medieval posts today, so here is a very sweet love story.
    http://www.care2.com/causes/dog-treks-10-miles-in-freezing-cold-to-find-beloved-mate.html

27. I’m so looking forward to seeing the new cover. What a great doggie story!

28. Thanks, Kasia. Actually, it turns out I missed one event yesterday, but that’s fine, as it ties in with today’s event.
    Today, March 29th, was Palm Sunday in 1461. In York, it was still snowing. Despite these facts, two great armies prepared to fight in the bloodiest war on English soil, the Battle of Towton. The day before, there had been a fierce skirmish at Ferrybridge, where the Earl of Warwick had repaired the bridge, but was ambushed by a Lancastrian force under Lord Clifford. The skirmish was won when Lord Fauconberg and the Yorkist cavalry flanked Clifford by crossing upstream, killing his forces to the man, with Clifford himself dying from an arrow to the throat, having inexplicably removed his gorget.
    Towton was even fiercer. Though the Lancastrians had the advantage, having the greater numbers, the wind was against them. They were forced to come down from the slop and charge the Yorkist lines to stop the devastating hail of arrows to which they could not respond. For over three hours the armies fought in a vicious hand to hand battle, with no quarter, and the dead so thick that soldiers had to climb over the corpses of their comrades and enemies. The Yorkists, pressed by the greater numbers, were slowly retreating up the plateau, and were almost at the end of it, when the Duke of Norfolk’s forces finally arrived. He had been sent through the east, to gather more forces, and was sick. But he arrived on the right of the Yorkist army, and though the battle remained in doubt for a while longer, the fresher forces allowed the Yorkists to extend their line and turn the Lancastrian left. Now retreating downhill, by late afternoon the Lancastrians broke. The pursuit saw the most losses to the Lancastrians, with many of them drowning trying to cross the river, until one could cross over ‘bridges’ of corpses. After 10 hours, some 28,000 men were dead, with heavy losses for the Lancastrian nobility – Henry Percy, Earl of Northumberland and Andrew Trollope, who co-commanded the van, and Lords Dacre, Neville, de Maulay.

29. Sharon, I’m too looking forward to the new cover of The Sunne.
    Koby, what a fascinating read! I wish David Pilling could include an excerpt of his Towton from the White Hawk. It’s written from the Lancastrian point of view, so even more interesting to us, the Yorksists, I daresay!
    I’ll contact David and ask if I could post the lnk to one of his texts. I read it some time ago and, as far as I can recall, he included the excerp of the novel in it.

30. Here is my Facebook Note.
    March 29th, 1461 was the date of the largest and bloodiest battle ever fought on English soil. It was a Palm Sunday, and was fought during a Yorkshire snowstorm near Towton. Medieval chroniclers’ estimates of army size were usually in the realm of fantasy; it was not unusual for one to blithely report that 200,000 men marched into battle while they actually numbered in the range of 5,000. But military historians believe that the numbers at Towton were huge, possibly 40,000-50,000 on each side. It is impossible to know the numbers of the dead, though some historians think that over 20,000 men may have died that day, most of them in the rout after the Lancastrian line broke. A mass grave discovered in 1996 gave graphic evidence of the brutality of the combat. The death toll was so high in part because soldiers are always more vulnerable once they are fleeing; moreover, both sides had agreed beforehand that no quarter would be given. Below are two links that are of considerable interest, one about the mass grave found and the other offering a video of the battlefield.
    http://www.economist.com/node/17722650
    http://www.towton.org.uk/the-battle-2/
    Towton was Edward of York’s bloody coronation, and he was still a month from his 19th birthday. I did not dramatize the battle itself, instead had the reader waiting with Marguerite at York to hear the outcome of the battle. But she was given a gruesomely vivid account of the carnage. Sunne, page 71-72.
    * * *
    “All is lost. The victory has gone to York.”
    It was what she’d known he would say. And yet the impact was no less brutal. She gasped, drew icy air into lungs suddenly constricted, unable to function, and cried, “How? We had the greater army…How?” She was as skilled a strategist as any man, knew how to wage war as other women knew how to manage households. She knew battles were not decided by numbers alone. Yet now she found herself repeating numbly, “How could we lose? Ours was the larger force!”
    “That did favor us at first, Madame. In the early stages of the battle, the Yorkists did give ground…But York was all over the field, in the thick of the fighting, and he held them, Madame. All day we fought, hacked at each other like madmen, and the dead…Oh, my God, Madame, the dead! So many bodies there were that we had to climb over our own dead to reach the Yorkists…only to find that they, too, were walled in by the bodies of the dead and dying. Never have I seen—“
    “What of Somerset? Does he still live?”
    He seemed unnerved by her interruption. “Yes,” he said doubtfully. “That is, I do believe so, Madame. We were able to escape the field at the last, when we saw all hope had gone…when the Yorkist reserves did suddenly appear on our right flank. The Duke of Norfolk it was, Madame; I saw his standard. We did fight on, but the battle was lost with his arrival, all did know it. We were pushed back toward the Cocke, into the marsh…and then our line broke, then the slaughter truly began!” He shuddered, not from cold, and then said bleakly, “My lord Somerset did charge me to give you word of our defeat, to warn you away from here. My lord Somerset said…said you must flee into Scotland, Madame. He said you must not let yourself or the king fall into the hands of the Yorkist usurper.”
    “What of the other lords? Northumberland? Trollope? Exeter and Clifford? Surely they cannot all be dead!”
    “We did hear the Earl of Northumberland was struck down in the fighting. Trollope, I do know to be dead. I know nothing of Exeter. It was a slaughter, Madame. Thousands must be dead…We did give the command before the battle that no quarter be shown and York was said to have done the same. For ten hours, Madame, the battle did last…ten hours! With the wind coming from the south and blowing the snow back into our faces till men found their eyes sealed shut with ice and our arrows were falling short and they gathered them up and used them against us…and the river….Oh, Jesus, the river! So many men drowned that a bridge of bodies formed for the living and it ran red for miles, like no water I’ve ever seen….”
    * * *
    There is more to the scene, but I am going to end it here, giving the final word to the fictional soldier who spoke for the thousands of men who fought and died on that bloody Palm Sunday.

31. Here are the links. Thanks to them you are going to learn more about David and the White Hawk 🙂
    http://davidpilling.typepad.com/david_pilling/2013/03/george-rr-martin-the-white-hawk-and-me.html
    And David’s guest post on Historical Novel Review, including the excerpt of the novel, which although does not describe the battle of Towton, still gives us a foretaste of what we may expect 🙂
    http://historicalnovelreview.blogspot.com/2012/12/the-white-hawk-by-david-pilling-guest.html

32. Sharon, fascinating note! I think I will re-read The Sunne in the evening.
    I’ve included the links to David’s posts about Towton and the White Hawk. They’re awaiting moderation. Could you free them? Thank you.

33. Thank you for the links, Sharon. I was glad to see Prof Charles Ross’ name in the 2nd one, author of “The Wars of the Roses: a concise history”, which encouraged me to order it.

34. Here is today’s Facebook Note. I also want to wish a happy Easter to my friends and family who celebrate it.
    March 30th, 1282 was the beginning of the rebellion known poetically as the Sicilian Vespers, but I am going to let my friend Rania post about that today. I will focus instead on a mischievous medieval cat who left tell-tell little paw prints on a monk’s manuscript. Here is a photo of the evidence and an interesting article about cats, mice, and medievals. http://medievalfragments.wordpress.com/2013/02/22/paws-pee-and-mice-cats-among-medieval-manuscripts/

35. Happy Easter everyone. Now why doesn’t a medieval cat leaving its mark in a manuscript surprise me?!?

36. Thanks, Kasia. I’m in a hurry – tonight the Seventh of Passover begins. So, happy Easter to any who celebrate, and today, Bernard of Clairvaux preached his famous sermon at Vézelay, starting the Second Crusade – Louis VII was present, and joined the Crusade, with the disastrous results we know of. Additionally, Queen Isabella of Castille issued the infamous Alhambra decree.

37. Today’s Facebook Note.
    Happy Easter!
    On March 31, 1146, Bernard of Clairvaux preached his famous sermon in favor of the Second Crusade at Vezelay; Louis and Eleanor were among those in attendance and both took the cross.
    On March 31st, 1492, Isabella of Castile and her husband, Fernando of Aragon, issued the Alhambra Decree, banishing all Jews into exile So neither date is one we’d want to commemorate, for both would result in great suffering.
    The good news is that Game of Thrones, Season Three, finally arrives tonight. Here are several interesting stories about it.
    http://theclicker.today.com/_news/2013/03/28/17502945-game-of-thrones-season-three-five-things-we-cant-wait-to-see?lite
    http://theclicker.today.com/_news/2013/03/26/17476599-game-of-thrones-star-margaerys-in-for-a-nasty-shock-in-season-3?lite
    http://insidetv.ew.com/2013/03/29/game-of-thrones-best-season-yet/?hpt=hp_bn18

38. Today’s Facebook Note.
    April 1st, 1204 is the death date of one of the most remarkable women of the Middle Ages, Eleanor of Aquitaine. She was queen of England and France, yet she is known to posterity by neither title, and I think that would have pleased her, for her love of her duchy was the lodestar of her life. She was in her eightieth year, a vast age for her time and a respectable one for ours, having outlived two husbands and enemies beyond counting. But she also outlived eight of her ten children, including her favorite son. She endured much tragedy in her life, but surely one of her worst ordeals must have been to watch helplessly as Richard paid in pain for his earthly sins. She rallied, though, to gain the throne for her youngest son, John. Yet I wonder if she believed their dynasty would survive, for she knew that John, for all of his cleverness and ambition, had some serious character flaws, with one that would prove fatal to a king—his inability to trust others, which made it impossible for them to trust him.
    I did not dramatize her death in Here Be Dragons; John and Joanna learned of it from a distance. Since Dragons, Eleanor has taken a starring role in five more of my historical novels, plus all four of my mysteries. So I felt that I owed her a death scene and I plan to write one for her in A King’s Ransom. It will be an epilogue, so I shall be giving her the last word. I suspect she will enjoy that.

39. Now, I am looking forward to that epilogue! Hi from the south of France where the weather is absolutely not living up to it’s reputation. Is God angry with us..?
    I posted the following on Facebook which might interest you:
    As I’ve mentioned before the story of what became of Richard de Montfort, Simon and Eleanor’s youngest son has always fascinated me. Following the death of Simon at Evesham, the miscellaneous expenditure rolls of his widow, Eleanor de Montfort, Countess of Leicester, confirms the fact mentioned in Henry III’s letter to the King of France, that that the Countess had sent her sons Amauri and Richard to France with a large sum of money, (11,000 marks).
    It is supposed thereafter that Richard was sent to Bigorre where he had kinsfolk through Petronilla, Countess of Bigorre, who had married an earlier Guy de Montfort. This Guy de Montfort had been killed in 1220, at the siege of Castelnaudary. From that point on nothing is known of Richard.
    While hunting through Amazon, I chanced across a novel of his history, written in 1856 by Charlotte M Yonge, entitled ‘The Prince and The Page,’ and downloaded it to my Kindle (it’s free!). It traces another version of the aftermath of Evesham, where the well-known adventure of the Lord Edward’s fight with the outlaw of Alton (think Robin Hood and Little John’s fight) is stretched to include the outlaw having become the protector of one of the proscribed family of Montfort, namely Richard. Richard had, so the story goes, been at Evesham, had seen his brother Henry killed and was then knocked unconscious himself, before being carried of by Adam the outlaw, who then looked after him in Alton Woods.
    When Edward defeats Adam, he come to know that Richard is his cousin and takes him to his court. Owen won’t like this bit, but Edward’s story is that when his father, King Henry had his horse killed under him and was wounded, he carried him from the field only to return to find that Roger de Mortimer’s men had given no quarter and had mutilated the corpses. The story then weaves the old ballad of ‘The Blind Beggar of Bethnal Green,’ who it turns out is Simon’s eldest son Henry, blinded and maimed at Evesham, but not killed; Richard’s crusade in 1271 alongside Edward (and Othon); the killing of Henry of Almain by Guy and Simon and the assassin’s attack on Edward, sponsored by Guy de Montfort.
    I’ll spare you the end for those of you who might like to read the book. It’s written in a quaint mid 19th century style, using an English long gone out of fashion. But, I found it quite charming.

40. I’m so looking forward to Eleanor’s “last word”, Sharon. It seems like we’re in for a phenomenal read with Ransom!!

41. Sharon do you think readers will come away with a different opinion of Richard the Lionheart and John after finishing ‘A Kings Ransom’? Personally I didn’t much care for Richard after reading Here be Dragons and couldn’t see why Eleanor made him her favourite. This opinion is slowly changing though.
    Has anyone watched the first Episodes of Season’s 3 Game of Thrones yet?

42. Theresa, did you read Lionheart? As I explain in the AN, my views of Richard had always been rather negative, but changed once I began to do research for Devil’s Brood and especially Lionheart, for the man who emerged from the crusader and Saracen chroniclers was quite unlike the mythical Richard.
    I watched the episode and I think the new season is off to a good start.
    Today’s Facebook Note.
    In my first mystery, The Queen’s Man, I had a scene in which Justin rescued a young dog who’d been thrown from a bridge into the Fleet River tied to a sack of rocks. I tried to set this scene in the medieval context, so there was not the outrage among the bystanders that you’d likely have found today. As proof of how our views of animals has evolved over the centuries, a real dog faced a similar fate in the Philadelphia area yesterday, deliberately tied to a rock in a creek so it would drown. This dog was rescued by a passerby who waded into the creek to save her, and the story not only made the local news, it is on today’s MSNBC page here.
    http://usnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/04/02/17565300-abused-dog-left-to-die-while-tied-to-rock-in-rising-pa-creek?lite She is an elderly dog who has clearly suffered from abuse and neglect, but I will be surprised if they are not bombarded with requests to adopt her. In The Queen’s Man, Justin found himself “adopted” by the young dog he’d saved, and Shadow would later repay him in full measure.
    I will not be able to spend much time on Facebook as I struggle to meet my looming deadline for Ransom, but I will try to stop by whenever I can give my Angevins the slip. Meanwhile, Charlemagne was born on this date in 742 and Henry III’s brother Richard, the Earl of Cornwell and later Holy Roman Emperor died in 1272.

43. Indeed, Sharon. I am back just in time, as in addition, today Baldwin I of Jerusalem, first King of Jerusalem died, as did Prince Arthur of Wales, the son of Elizabeth of York and Henry VII [VIII] died.
    While you’ve covered Theresa’s question in regards to Richard, what of John? I felt that in Here Be Dragons, you portrayed him quite sympathetically, contrasting him with Richard, which made him even more favorable, due to your criticism of Richard. Do you feel you were less sympathetic to him in these books, and less willing to point out the sad history that caused his mortal flaws?

44. I haven’t read Lionheart as yet – but I will very soon. You do get a different impression of Richard from ‘Devils Brood’. {which I am currently re-reading)
    Imagine how different English History would have been if Prince Arthur had not died young. His younger brother Henry would have been Archbishop of Canterbury- however would Catherine been as unlucky in her attempt to bear a son as she was with Henry VIII?

45. Koby, I think I cut John too much slack in Dragons. 🙂 I wanted to restore his humanity, as I felt he’d been reduced to a one-dimensional villain too often. But some of my readers found him so sympathetic that they have been willing to make excuses for all of his crimes, and that was not my intent!
    Theresa, that is a very intriguing What if. We play this game a lot on my facebook pages.
    Today’s Facebook Note.
    Here is a remarkable story about a courageous, quick thinking man, a devoted dog, and two very lucky little girls.
    http://www.cnn.com/2013/04/02/world/americas/canada-river-rescue/index.html?hpt=hp_t4

46. Interesting comments on John & I’m in that group too sympathetic with his sad early life, however, managed to keep some balance as his villainous acts piled up.

47. He was a bad and very naughty king. But that’s just my intellectual opinion…!

48. Just finished Elizabeth Chadwick’s To Defy a King. She was merciless when it came to John 🙂

49. Well, maybe, Sharon, but it was a very convincing portrayal. I certainly preferred it to the one-dimensional villain he is too often portrayed as. If you can keep him sympathetic and point out his virtues while still retaining his flaws, that will be enough for me.
    Today, Edward the Confessor was crowned King of England.

50. I am still struggling with the Ransom deadline, so my appearances here and on Facebook are limited of necessity.
    Here is today’s Facebook note.
    Nothing much happened on the medieval front on April 4th, so I’m going with quasi-medieval. Here is an amusing article about the first episode of the new season of Game of Thrones. But do not watch it unless you’ve already seen the show or like lots of spoilers. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/michael-hogan/game-of-thrones-premiere-recap-season-3_b_2990087.html?utm_hp_ref=daily-brief?utm_source=DailyBrief&utm_campaign=040113&utm_medium=email&utm_content=BlogEntry&utm_term=Daily%20Brief

51. Theresa, I just want to jump in and add my two cents regarding Richard. Two of Sharon’s books have changed my opinion completely about two different Richards: Sunne regarding Richard 3 and Lionheart regarding Richard 1.
    After finishing all of Sharon’s other books, particularly Devil’s Brood, I did not care for Richard 1 at all. I thought he was arrogant and entirely too selfish. Each chapter made that opinion give way a bit more. Yes, he was still arrogant, but the selfishness gave way and I began to see him as a man who was a brilliant leader who was very concerned about those around him. Who is to say when this change took place though? Maybe he was a self-centered and pompous youth but his selfishness gave way as he matured. But in any case, I hope Lionheart will change your view of this Richard like it did mine.

52. There were times in Devils Brood where I thought this family could benefit with some group therapy. Henry II was an able ruler but his reluctance to ‘delegate’ authority to his sons had unfortunate consequences for his later years. Someone made a comparison concerning Henry’s poor parenting abilities compared with Edward III who had many sons yet they all remained loyal to their father.

53. Sabbath is once more fast approaching, but today, Robert Beaumont, Earl of Leicester died. Readers of When Christ and His Saints Slept might remember him as the twin of Waleran Beaumont, who eventually decided to support Henry II, and served as his Chief Justiciar for 14 years until his death.

54. Was Waleran Beaumont the character in When Christ and His Saints Slept who informed Maude he would rather ‘beg from door to door’ than join her?

55. Yes, that is Waleran, Theresa.
    Today’s Facebook Note.
    I was sorry to hear of the death of the film critic, Roger Ebert. I admired him greatly for his long and courageous battle with a debilitating and disfiguring form of cancer. He was also a longtime advocate for equality for all, fighting for rights for women, minorities, and gays, and we can never afford to lose people like that. Here are some of his best quotes. My own favorite is the “worth more to get out” one. Think how much improved our world would be if we all followed his kindness philosophy.
    “No good film is too long and no bad movie is short enough.”
    “Kindness covers all of my political beliefs. No need to spell them out. I believe that if, at the end, according to our abilities, we have done something to make others a little happier, and something to make ourselves a little happier, that is about the best we can do. To make others less happy is a crime. To make ourselves unhappy is where all crime starts. We must try to contribute joy to the world. That is true no matter what our problems, our health, our circumstances. We must try. I didn’t always know this and am happy I lived long enough to find it out.”
    “Every great film should seem new every time you see it.”
    “No matter what they’re charging to get in, it’s worth more to get out.”
    “To say that George Lucas cannot write a love scene is an understatement; greeting cards have expressed more passion.”
    “If you have to ask what it symbolizes, it didn’t.”
    “If he’s going to persist in making bad movies, he’s going to have to grow accustomed to reading bad reviews.” — referring to Rob Schneider in “Deuce Bigelow: European Gigolo.”
    “”Doing research on the Web is like using a library assembled piecemeal by pack rats and vandalized nightly.”

56. Thanks for this post, Sharon. A very admirable man indeed. I love his kindness philosophy. It isn’t difficult to spread a little kindness in our daily goings-on. People love being smiled at in the streets, a little hello or bit of a chat, opening a door for a mom & her stroller. And this is just the starting point! I love city living…..lots of opportunity every single day.

57. RIP Roger. His comment about George Lucas and love scenes is so true. (can remember wincing in the cinema in 2005 watching ROTS) I always liked reading Ebert’s reviews especially the ones about the ‘great Movies’. In addition to this, Beyond the Valley of the Dolls (which he wrote) is one of my favourite cult films.

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