Sharon Kay Penman's Blog, page 87

"No, not Arya!"

July 11th is the birthdate of two important medieval figures, Robert the Bruce in 1274 and Richard II’s queen, Anne of Bohemia, in 1366. We discussed both of them recently, though, so there is no need to go there again so soon Also on July 11th in 1174, Amalric, the King of Jerusalem died unexpectedly at age 38 after a severe bout with dynasty. His death would have enormous consequences for history, for had he lived, there would have been no battle of Hattin, no fall of Jerusalem, and no Third Crusade. But I will leave it at that since I’ll be dramatizing these events in Outremer, the Land Beyond the Sea
So I’ll close with a scene from a recent John Oliver show; Oliver used to be Jon Stuart’s sidekick on the Daily Show, and did such a great job subbing for Jon last summer that he was rewarded with his own show on HBO. In this skit, Oliver had been talking about Game of Thrones and that segued into a brief scene with George RR Martin, supposedly hard at work on the next book in the Ice and Fire series. When Oliver asked what he was doing, GRRM flashed an evil smile and said, “I just killed three of your favorite characters.” Cut to scream of anguish from Oliver, who is then reduced to begging, “Not Arya! Please don’t let it be Arya!”

Great bargain books on Amazon.UK

This is for my British readers. You can get two great books, the first Brother Cadfael, and the first one in PF Chisholm's mystery series, Famine of Horses, on Amazon.com.UK, for the bargain prices of 59 and 77 pence, respectively. If you've not read either of these series, this is a good time to start; they are Kindles, of course, and the Chisholm book is on the second page of the bestseller list. Cruel as the Grave is also still available for only 1.49, but the other two are the real deals!
http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/bestseller...

History--July 7th--10th

Sorry for the silence, but that pesky deadline dragon has been breathing down my neck and needless to say, he has very hot breath. I missed a few historical events since my last post, but I am sure Rania covered them admirably. For example, Edward I died on July 7th, 1307, and once again I shall display admirable restraint and not comment further. Also on July 7th, this time in 1456, the Church found Joan of Arc innocent of the charges that had caused her death twenty-five years earlier.
On July 9th in 1540, the marriage of Anne of Cleves and Henry VIII was annulled on the grounds that it had not been consummated. I do not doubt that this was a happy day for Anne, who must have felt that she’d slid out from under the executioner’s axe. In case there are a few out there who think that is an exaggeration, just remember the Tudor Bluebeard’s sixth wife, Catherine Parr, who was almost sent to the Tower for the “sin” of daring to disagree with Henry over religious beliefs.
And another Tudor mention which I could not avoid---on July 10, 1553, Lady Jane Grey was proclaimed Queen of England, thus taking her first unwilling step onto the road that would eventually lead to her execution in the Tower Jane’s story is a sad one, so I am going back in time a bit to avoid ending the post with her doomed queenship, and close instead with the reminder that on July 10, 1460, an important battle of the Wars of the Roses was fought at Northampton. I did not dramatize this battle in Sunne, and I rather wish I had, for it had some very dramatic elements. It was fought in a rainstorm and one of the Lancastrian commanders, Lord Grey, threw in with the Yorkists at the eleventh hour. Here is a link to a good summary of the battle, in which Henry VI was captured by the victorious Earl of Warwick and the young Edward was given his first command. Eight months later, Edward would demonstrate that he was one of the best generals of the MA by defeating the Lancastrians during a blizzard at Towton, in what has been called the bloodiest battle ever fought on English soil. http://www.fifteenthcentury.net/the-b... Northampton was also the site of a battle in the Barons’ War, resulting in the capture of Simon de Montfort’s son Bran; that battle I did dramatize in Shadow, and enjoyed writing about it due to Bran’s heroics, Davydd ap Gruffydd’s antics, and the scene after the battle between Bran and his cousin, Edward.

Death of a great king

July 6th, 1189 was the day that Henry II died at Chinon Castle, a wretched end to a remarkable life. As humiliating as he’d found the forced surrender to the French king, Philippe, and his own son, Richard, the true dagger through his heart had been delivered when he was given a list of the men who’d abandoned him to curry favor with Philippe and Richard. The first name on the list had been that of his beloved son, John, for whom he’d sacrificed so much. It was said that he’d turned his face to the wall then and refused to speak again, except for feverish murmurings as his life ebbed away---“Shame upon a conquered king.” Henry deserved better than that.
Five years later to the day, on July 6th, 1194, his son Richard, newly freed from his German captivity, was given his first opportunity to take vengeance upon the French king. The two armies had camped within a few miles of each other and Philippe had defiantly promised battle on the morrow. Instead, he and his men had fled at first light. Richard had been expecting this, though, and set out in pursuit. He’d overtaken the French and seized Philippe’s baggage train, which included all of the royal archives—a loss so devastating to the French king that after the battle of Freteval, archives no longer traveled with the king. But Philippe himself had eluded Richard, for he’d hidden in a church as the Lionheart raced by. I decided not to post Henry’s death scene in Devil’s Brood, for it was too sad. So here is a brief scene from Ransom, page 402-403, after the battle.
* * *
Richard paused often to banter with soldiers, to offer praise that they valued almost as much as the plunder they knew he’d be sharing with them. He paid a visit to the tent that was serving as a makeshift hospital, jesting with the wounded, pleased to see there were not very many; most of the casualties that day were French. After that, he wanted to make sure that Fauvel had been cooled down, rubbed, and fed. Getting a dried apple from a groom, he fed the treat to the dun stallion, assuring Fauvel that he was much faster than Scirocco, joking to Andre that he did not want jealousy to fester amongst his horses.
Andre was surprised by his good mood, for he’d been certain Richard would be furious to learn he’d come so close to capturing the French king. When he said that, Richard shrugged. “It was not a total loss. When that story of Philippe cowering in a church gets around, he’ll be a laughingstock with his own troops. I’ll have other chances to run that fox to earth, for I am going to make it my life’s mission from now on.”
Richard hesitated, giving the other man a sidelong glance. “The truth is that I had something else to do this day, something that mattered almost as much as capturing King Craven-heart. I needed to prove to myself that I am still the same man I was, that my imprisonment left no lasting scars.”
Andre frowned as he thought that over. “But surely you proved that already at the siege of Nottingham and then again at Loches. If you feared death during those assaults, you hid it very well.”
Richard was regretting his impulse, for it was not easy to bare his soul, even to Andre, who was likely to understand if anyone could. “There are worse fates than death,” he said at last, and Andre cursed himself for not having seen it sooner. When Richard had charged into those besieged castles, he’d risked a fatal wound. But by racing into the very midst of the French army, he was risking capture.
“Well,” he said, “you need not fret, Cousin. To judge by what I saw today, it is clear that you are the same crazed lunatic on the battlefield that you always were.”
Richard grinned. “I was hoping you’d say that.” They looked at each other and then began to laugh, sounding so triumphant that soldiers passing by smiled, glad that their king was so pleased with their victory over the French.
* * *
Also on July 6th, this time in 1483, Richard, Duke of Gloucester, became the third Richard to rule England since the Conquest, crowned with his queen, Anne, at Westminster Abbey. And on July 6th, 1553, the sixth Edward to rule drew his last breath at Greenwich Palace. He was only fifteen, and suffered greatly in his last illness, which was likely tuberculosis, telling his tutor that he was glad to die. It is hard to predict what sort of king he would have been, but I think it highly unlikely that he could have held a candle to his sister, Elizabeth.
For me, though, July 6th will always call up thoughts of Chinon Castle and that fascinating, flawed man who was, despite his mistakes, a great king.

The Empty Throne

I hope it was a good July 4th for one and all—not that you celebrate it in the UK, of course! A wet one for many, but the rest of the holiday weekend looks glorious. I may be off the radar screen for a while again as I ran into a researching snag, have to sort out conflicting sources. I will stop by whenever I can dodge the Deadline Dragon. Meanwhile, I have wonderful news for Bernard Cornwell’s legion of fans. He will have a new book out about our favorite rogue, Uhtred, this year! For me, a new BC novel is always as if Christmas came early. The Empty Throne will be published in the UK on October 23rd and in the US on January 6th. http://www.amazon.co.uk/Empty-Throne-... The countdown can now begin.

July 4th in America and Outremer

I want to wish a happy July 4th to my American friends and readers, and hope that those of us in the path of Hurricane Arthur stay safe and dry.
July 4th is, of course, the date upon which the final version of our Declaration of Independence was approved by Congress in 1776, although it was not officially signed until August 2nd—and thanks to Google for making that fact so easy to verify.
July 4th was also the date of a very consequential medieval battle. On July 4, 1187, the army of the Kingdom of Jerusalem was overwhelmingly defeated by the forces of the Sultan of Egypt, Salah al-Din, known to posterity as Saladin, at the Horns of Hattin. This defeat almost destroyed the kingdom and led to the fall of Jerusalem to Saladin in October; that in turn led to the Third Crusade, which eventually led to my novel, Lionheart.  So the battle of Hattin was a very significant one in history. It was also without doubt one the most boneheaded and reckless military decisions ever made and sadly, there is a lot of competition for that dubious honor. Just to name a few—General Custer at the Little Big Horn. The Charge of the Light Brigade during the Crimean War. General Santa Ana’s decision to lay siege to a small fort called the Alamo instead of simply going around it, thus giving the Texans time to rally their forces. Napoleon’s decision to invade Russia, proving that even a military genius can have an off day; fortunately for the world, the Nazi leaders were not ones for learning from history. Pickett’s Charge at Gettysburg. So many to choose from.
But for sheer lunacy and incompetence, it is really hard to top Guy de Lusignan’s decision to engage the Saracen force even though they lacked the one utterly essential element for fighting in desert country—water. What makes it even sadder is that it was not really his decision. He’d finally listened to reason and agreed with the barons of the realm that it would be madness to fight under the circumstances. But then the grand master of the Templars, Gerard de Ridefort, returned to the royal tent and talked Guy into reversing his decision; since Guy tended to be swayed by the man to reach him last, this was probably not all that difficult. In a depressing twist of irony, all of the Templar and Hospitaller knights who survived the battle, over 230 of them, were then executed by Saladin in a rather brutal manner, chopped to pieces by holy men unaccustomed to wielding weapons----with one exception. Guess who was not executed? Yes, Gerard de Ridefort. Nor was his lethal contribution at Hattin the first time he’d goaded men into battle and somehow survived himself. Two months earlier—almost like a practice run for Hattin—he disregarded the protests of his Templar knights and led them to certain defeat against a much larger Saracen force at the battle of Cresson Springs; although wounded, he was one of the few who escaped. But the final responsibility for the defeat of Outremer’s army at Hattin must still rest with Guy, for he was the one wearing the crown.
Lastly, a message for my British readers. Amazon.co.UK is currently offering the Kindle version of Sunne in Splendour for the bargain price of 1.89 pounds sterling.
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Sunne-Splendo...

Unbroken

I was very sorry to hear we’ve lost a genuine hero, Louis Zamperini, the Olympic athlete who survived a horrific ordeal at sea when his plane was shot down during WWII, only to endure even worse treatment when he was “rescued” and thrown into a Japanese POW camp. I highly recommend Unbroken by Laura Hildenbrand, who does justice to his remarkable story. It is sad that he did not live to see the Unbroken film, directed by Angelina Jolie, but he and Angelina did become good friends during its filming and, to judge by an interview I saw them do, he definitely enjoyed that! http://www.cnn.com/2014/07/03/showbiz...

A Soldier and his Dog

No medieval events of personal interest today, but here is a wonderful story about how social media helped a soldier recover his dog, which an ex-girlfriend had sold on Craig’s List while he was deployed in Afghanistan. The family that bought the dog didn’t want to give him back, saying their kids had “bonded” with it after a week—and they were a military family, too! They were eventually shamed into doing the right thing and the soldier was reunited with his beloved dog, Baxter. He has a kinder, more forgiving spirit than I do, for he has not revealed the name of the ex-girlfriend or the family because they did not want to be identified. Maybe I’ve been hanging around with the Angevins too long, for they were not into forgiving as a rule, but I would want to hire a plane to sky-write the names for all of America to see. http://www.care2.com/causes/how-socia...

New blog resurrected

I have now re-posted the missing blog; we finally figured out that the host was at fault. Yes, for once it was not the fault of one of my satanic computers. Anyway, here is the link again for those who'd like to re-post their own book recommendations. http://sharonkaypenman.com/blog/?p=457

Read This at Your Peril

My Facebook friends and readers already know that this blog vanished in a puff of smoke two days after I’d posted it.   But for the benefit of those of you who do not hang out on Facebook and may have wondered if you’d hallucinated reading it, it was indeed up and then gone, thanks to the host, which was in the process of migrating its servers.     I can only hope it never happens again, for although I can re-post it, as I am now doing, all of the original comments were zapped into a black hole of cyberspace.   Anyway, once again  here is the blog, Read This at Your Peril.

I am sorry it has taken me so long to put up a new blog, but no sooner had I finally vanquished that pesky pneumonia dragon than the deadline dragon moved in.   At least this delay gave more of you a chance to enter Pauline Toohey’s drawing for her novel, Pull of the Yew Tree.   Pauline and I are happy to announce that the winner is Barbara, no last name given, who posted the eighth comment.   Barbara, please contact Pauline at paulinemalley@hotmail.com or me at  sharonkpenman@yahoo.com, so arrangements can be made to send your personalized copy of Pauline’s novel.  Thanks to all of you who took part in the drawing.

Now, why the warning?   Because I’ve already enticed so many of you into joining me on the merry road to book bankruptcy, and I am about to do it again.   But I did have a twinge of conscience, so I decided to play fair.   If you continue to read this blog, you will find a number of books that you are going to find very tempting.   Some I have had a chance to read myself, others not yet thanks to the deadline dragon.   Because deadlines have become as tight as nooses nowadays, that means I have had to seriously limit my pleasure reading time, a real sacrifice for anyone who is an avid reader, which I’ve been since the age of five or so.   But they are all on my TBR list, and they are all books that I think are likely to interest my fellow lovers of history.

I’ll begin with the ones that I was actually able to read.   I’ve just finished M.K. Tod’s Lies Told in Silence, a novel set in France during World War I.    This was one of mankind’s most tragic wars, not only because of the staggering death toll, but because it need not have happened.    Most of you are probably familiar with the famous comment by the British Foreign Secretary, Sir Edward Grey, as war loomed.  Looking out the window at a man lighting the gas lamps in St James Park, he said sadly, “The lamps are going out all over Europe.  We shall not see them lit again in our lifetime.”     Considering the bloody history of the 20th century and the continuing global conflagrations in the 21st century, it is hard to argue with him.     M.K. Tod captures this sorrowful sense of loss as men and women were caught up in a tide beyond their control, one that would transform their lives beyond recognition.  She has created characters that readers will care about and has very effectively dramatized how soldiers suffered, physically and psychologically, in the so-called “Great War,” a theme that continues to resonate with us today.   Her novel is now available on Amazon.   http://www.amazon.com/Lies-Told-Silence-M-K-Tod-ebook/dp/B00LEYV2PI/ref=la_B00ELV1H7E_1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1404232864&sr=1-2

I also recommend The Invention of Wings, by Sue Monk Kidd, author of the moving The Secret Life of Bees.    This novel is the story of two truly remarkable sisters, Sarah and Angelina Grimke, who were born into the aristocracy of the Ante-Bellum South, but were those rare individuals who were guided by conscience, not society’s dictates.  For the Grimke sisters, that meant a rejection of slavery, becoming abolitionists, and in time, suffragists.     I wish we had more people like the Grimke sisters, but I am glad we do have Sue Monk Kidd to keep them from being forgotten.

Another book I enjoyed was I am Livia, by Phyllis T. Smith, a novel about the Emperor Augustus’s formidable consort, Livia.   My views of Livia were formed by the classic BBC series, I, Claudius, which means I imagined her to be a woman you’d dare not dine with.   Ms. Smith  treats Livia more kindly than  Robert Graves, but I was willing to give her the benefit of the doubt; after all, I hoped that readers would do that for my revisionist portrayal of Richard III.  And after I finished the novel, I investigated a bit; in other words, I Googled Livia, and discovered that her hands were not quite as blood-stained as I, Claudius would have us believe.

And I was fortunate enough to have the opportunity to read the ARC for An Air of Treason, by P.F. Chisholm, the newest entry in her wonderful series about Robert Carey, the real-life, swashbuckling cousin of Elizabeth Tudor.   These books are so much fun, filled with action and humor and surprise twists and fascinating details of Elizabethan life.     An Air of Treason revolves around one of the most dangerous mysteries of Tudor England—the fate of Amy Robsart, Robert Dudley’s unwanted wife.   For those who have not yet had the pleasure of entering Robert Carey’s world, the first in the series is A Famine of Horses.  I cannot recommend these books highly enough; I think they are that good.

Briefly detouring into the realm of non-fiction, I have to mention Sharan Newman’s Defending the City of God, a biography of Melisende, Queen of Jerusalem in the early years of the turbulent 12th century.   And in the autumn, we can look forward to a new biography of Edward II, by Kathryn Warner, who probably knows more about Edward’s life than he himself did.     The next two books are not historical, at least not in the medieval sense, but I wanted to remind you how much I enjoyed Kirk Douglas’s I am Spartacus, his account of the making of this classic film about the slave who was able to threaten the very foundation of ancient Rome     And another compelling book is The Elephant Whisperer by Anthony Lawrence, written by a man who devoted his life to the preservation of these magnificent animals.

We all have series that we love, so here are a few of mine.  Steven Saylor’s Gordianus books are set in the waning days of the Roman republic.   Bernard Cornwell has created one of my all-time favorite characters in Uhtred, star of his Saxon series.  His latest is The Pagan Lord, and for new readers, the first one is The Last Kingdom. This next series is not at all medieval, but Dana Stabenow’s mysteries set in Alaska and featuring the unforgettable Kate Shugak and her equally memorable wolf-hybrid, Mutt, are so much fun that it might not be completely legal.     I also recommend Sharan Newman’s Catherine Levendeur series set in 12th century France, Priscilla Royal’s mysteries rooted in 13th century England, and C.J. Harris’s mystery novels set in Regency England.    Both Sharan and Priscilla delve into matters not often touched upon in novels of the Middle Ages, each having a character who has an outsider’s perspective, Solomon, a Jew who does not find life easy in a Christian society and Brother Thomas, a young monk who struggles to understand why God has given him forbidden urges that his Church condemns as mortal sin.  Both men are true to their times, reflecting the beliefs and mores of their medieval world, but their vulnerability can be heartbreaking and gives their stories a complexity not always found in novels meant to entertain.     Lastly, for my fellow dog lovers, there are the books of David Rosenfeld and Spencer Quinn, which combine suspense with humor and reflect their own affection for our four-legged friends.   The first in David’s Andy Carpenter series is Open and Shut, his newest Hounded, due out in July.   Spencer’s Chet and Bernie series has a new entry, Paw and Order, which will be published in August, and the start of their career begins with Dog on It.

Now for books that I’ve not been able to read yet, which I hope to read in the future.    Laurel Corona’s The Mapmaker’s Daughter is set in Spain on the eve of the expulsion of the Jews.     Paula Lofting has written a novel set in 11th century England, Sons of the Wolf.    David Blixt’s Master of Verona sounds like a fascinating journey into Renaissance Italy, with no less a guide than the oldest son of the famed poet, Dante.    Margaret Skea ‘s Turn of the Tide explores clan loyalties in 16th century Scotland.   Charlene Newcomb has written a novel that I’d be interested in reading, Men of the Cross, the story of a young knight who follows the Lionheart to the Holy Land on the Third Crusade, where he finds a forbidden love and discovers the high price that battlefield glory exacts from soldiers; readers of A King’s Ransom know that I have great sympathy for the toll that PTSD has taken upon fighting men down through the ages.     And in the autumn, Judith Starkston’s novel about the Trojan War, Hand of Fire, will be published, as will Alix Christie’s Gutenberg’s Apprentice, set in medieval Germany and dealing with an invention of great importance to any book lover.     Finally, we were recently discussing on Facebook whether there were any novels written about Edward III.   Well, guess what I found?   Fields of Glory by Michael Jecks, which focuses upon that very king and the Battle of Crecy.

See why I gave you all fair warning?     This blog is like a banquet for book lovers, with delicacies to tempt every palate.     Please feel free to join the Book Bankruptcy Party and suggest books of your own that you either enjoyed or hope to read.   We can always argue that spending money on books is actually a virtue, right?

Now I shall go back to fending off the deadline dragon.  Once I finally got A King’s Ransom off to my editor, I’d hoped to see the last of him, but he was called back into service for the new book—Outremer, the Land Beyond the Sea–set in the Kingdom of Jerusalem during the latter years of the 12th century.     So far he has confined himself to lurking in the shadows, watching me with glowing red eyes and blowing smoke rings to amuse himself.  As long as he does not start snacking on sheep or spaniels or worse, like Daenerys’s fierce pets in Game of Thrones, I’ll try not to complain.

June 28, 2014, re-posted on July 1, 2014