A King's Ransom

by Sharon Kay Penman

  Issoudun. That was the name of the castle and town that was unfortunate enough to be caught in the line of fire between the English and French kings. It was also the reason why I lost a lot of sleep. The chroniclers reported that Richard raced for Issoudun after learning that the French had seized the town and forced his way into the castle. The problem for me was that I knew the town was enclosed by walls, but I did not know if those walls had been erected by 1196. And this made a great difference in how I would write the scene. So I tried to find the answer to that question, with some invaluable help from my friend John Phillips. That turned out to be as challenging as the search for the Holy Grail. I finally struck gold with a French history of Issoudun; local historians are often the answer to a writer’s prayers. This book not only confirmed that the walls were indeed there in 1196, it also included a map of medieval Issoudun, which was like winning the lottery. Of course this did make life more difficult for Richard and me, since I now had to figure out a way to get him into a walled town. But it is such a gratifying feeling to be able to approach a scene like this with confidence, knowing it will have a sound factual foundation. And as an added bonus, another book I bought in my search for Issoudun’s elusive walls, Le Berry du Xe siècle au milieu du XIIIe siècle, contained the story of André and Denise de Chauvigny’s troubles with the Archbishop of Bourges, which I’d found in no other history of the period; the author, by the way, shared my suspicions that the French king was behind this harassment of Richard’s cousin. The “Issoudun episode” is the perfect example of why I love historical research—and why it takes me so long to write each of my books.

  My readers know by now of my m.o. when it comes to writing historical novels. I rarely use fictional characters, Morgan and his family being the exception to this rule. I am admittedly obsessive-compulsive about historical accuracy, and I think the Eleventh Commandment for historical novelists should be the one articulated so eloquently by my fellow writer Laurel Corona: Do not defame the dead. I do have to fill in the blanks more often than I’d like, for medieval chroniclers could be utterly indifferent to the needs of future novelists. We have to rely upon charters and chronicles to find out where someone was on a particular date. Naturally, kings are easiest to track. But women were well-nigh invisible, even queens.

  We know Eleanor passed most of her time at Fontevrault, that Joanna visited her there, and Berengaria eventually established her own household at Beaufort-en-Vallée. But for much of the years between 1194 and 1199, the three queens were like elegant ghosts, leaving few footprints. So I felt free to let Eleanor attend Joanna in the birthing chamber, for it seemed logical that she’d want to be with her daughter at such a time; she was with her daughter Matilda when she gave birth in 1184. And while no chronicler thought to mention that Berengaria and Raimond visited the ailing Joanna at Fontevrault Abbey, I do not doubt that they did. We may not always know where someone was on any given day, but we do know what they were likely to do. For better or worse, human nature has not changed in the past eight centuries.

  I did a mea culpa in the Lionheart Author’s Note, and I am continuing the practice here, for this is the way to reach the largest possible audience. I have a “Medieval Mishaps” page on my website in which I alert my readers to past mistakes. But a time-traveling grey squirrel is far more forgivable than the bizarre blunder I made in The Reckoning, where I inexplicably had Edward I tell Roger de Mortimer that the crossbow was more difficult to master than the longbow. I can’t explain it, can only publicize it as much as possible to lessen the chance of a new reader taking it as gospel.

  A King’s Ransom is my farewell to the Angevins, although I do hope to let a few of them infiltrate my next novel, The Land Beyond the Sea, set in Champagne and the Holy Land. It is not easy to let them go, not after letting them camp out in my brain for nearly twenty years. I have listed my contact information in the Acknowledgments. Readers can time-travel back to see Richard’s spectacular castle, Château Gaillard, as he would have seen it in this trailer for the Battle Castle documentary: http://tinyurl.com/kpsye57. And this link will allow you to listen to “Ja Nus Hons Pris,” the haunting lament written by Richard during his German captivity, performed by the late Owain Phyfe, a wonderful singer and musician who is greatly missed: http://youtu.be/RVRjmTdM4c8.

  OCTOBER 2013

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  IN SOME WAYS, writing a novel is a very solitary endeavor, for it involves isolation, forcing a writer to keep the real world at bay. But in other ways, it is like a team sport, for there are always people who support us in that endeavor—at least, if we are lucky, there are. I have been particularly blessed with my team, starting with my “coach,” my editor at G. P. Putnam’s, Marian Wood. Other authors are astounded and envious when I confide that Marian has been my editor since the start of my writing career, more than thirty years ago. In my first novel, The Sunne in Splendour, I said that she “shapes and polishes words and ideas with the precision and skill of a master diamond-cutter.” That has not changed in the three decades since Sunne’s publication.

  I cannot imagine how my writing career might have fared if not for my wonderful agents, Molly Friedrich of the Friedrich Agency and Mic Cheetham of the Mic Cheetham Agency. They, too, have been guiding my books into safe harbors for three decades. In the United Kingdom, I am delighted to be back with my original British publisher, Macmillan and Company, and I would like to thank my new British editors, Catherine Richards and Jeremy Trevathan. I want to thank Lucy Carson and Molly Schulman of the Friedrich Agency and Sara Minnich of G. P. Putnam’s for helping to make my life so much easier. And a special “thank you” to Janet Robbins for her superb copyediting.

  Since I write of historical figures who rarely died peacefully in bed, I spend a lot of my time doing medical research, but I have never been fortunate enough to have my own “medical consultant” for past books. For A King’s Ransom, I did—John Phillips, a retired physician and friend whose expertise proved to be a Godsend when I was writing about Richard’s death from gangrene and Joanna’s ill-fated pregnancy. John even contacted Dr. Philippe Charlier, the French forensic sleuth who recently analyzed the remains of Richard I’s heart. Thanks to Dr. Charlier’s study, we now know that Richard died of gangrene, not septicemia, and the myth that he was struck by a poisoned arrow was just that—a myth.

  I am extremely grateful to my friend and fellow writer Sharan Newman, who translated relevant passages of Ralph de Coggeshall’s Latin chronicle Chronicon Anglicanum for me. I am also very grateful to Kathryn Warner for her translation of the German biography by Ulrike Kessler, Richard I, Lowenherz, Konig, Kreuzritter, Abenteurer. And as backup, I was fortunate enough to find Quintus, who provides an excellent online translation service at http://thelatintranslator.com/

  I have often said that no novel could have a better midwife than Valerie Ptak LaMont, and I feel very fortunate, both for her friendship and her feedback. Lowell LaMont continues to fight my computer demons for me. I’d like to thank my fellow writer Elizabeth Chadwick for calling to my attention the marvelous name that medievals sometimes used for the English Channel—the Narrow Sea. Malcolm Craig has once again generously allowed me to draw upon his extensive knowledge of medieval Brittany. I want to thank Stephanie Churchill Ling for her encouragement and friendship, and my fellow writer Priscilla Royal, who knows a lot about fending off Deadline Dragons herself. I want to mention Anna Ferrell, too, for her Latin translation assistance. Thanks are also due to my friend Paula Mildenhall, and to Jo Nelson, Linda Hein, May Liang, Sarah Adams Brown, Stephen Gilligan, Fiona Scott-Doran, Lesley West, and Celia Jelbart, the brave souls who volunteered to administer my Facebook fan club pages. Thanks, too, to Koby Itzhak, Rania Melhem, and Kasia Ogrodnik Fujcik for taking up the slack when I could not do my daily “Today in Medieval History” posts on Facebook. Stephanie and Rania also do double duty as my Facebook administrators. I wish I could acknowledge all of my Facebook, Goodreads, and blog friends, for you never doubt
ed that I was going to prevail over the Deadline Dragon, even when I despaired myself, and your faith did much to keep my dragon sword sharp.

  I included a minibibliography in the Lionheart acknowledgments for the first time, and this was so well received by my readers that I am going to continue the practice. Obviously, I cannot list all of the books that I consulted, but at least I can cite those that I found most helpful in my research for A King’s Ransom. The gold standard for Ricardian biographies remains John Gillingham’s Richard I, published in 1999 by Yale University Press. Dr Gillingham has written several books about Richard, including Richard Coeur de Lion: Kingship, Chivalry and War in the Twelfth Century, which contains interesting articles about Richard and Berengaria, Richard’s death at Châlus, and his military skills. Dr. Gillingham’s academic article “The Kidnapped King: Richard I in Germany, 1192–1194,” published in the German Historical Institute of London Bulletin 30 (2008), was invaluable to me in establishing the chronology and details of Richard’s captivity, as was Hans Eberhard Mayer’s “A Ghost Ship called Frankenef: King Richard I’s Germany Itinerary,” English Historical Review, Vol. 115, No. 460 (2000). The most comprehensive source for the murder of the Bishop of Liege and Heinrich’s alleged involvement in it is “The Election and Assassination of Albert of Louvain, Bishop of Liege, 1191–92,” by Raymond H. Schmandt, Speculum, Vol. 42, No. 4 (1967). The Social Politics of Medieval Diplomacy: Anglo-German Relations (1066–1307) by Joseph P. Huffman, published by the University of Michigan Press, is also recommended. For my readers fortunate enough to read German, there is the biography by Ulrike Kessler, which I mentioned earlier in this note. The best source in English for Duke Leopold’s role in Richard’s abduction is A History of Medieval Austria, by A. W. A. Leeper, published by Oxford University Press (1941).

  I already discussed biographies of Richard I in the Lionheart acknowledgments, but I am going to repeat the titles here for the benefit of new readers. Lionel Landon’s The Itinerary of King Richard I was a blessing for a writer as obsessive-compulsive about historical detail as I am. The Reign of Richard Lionheart: Ruler of the Angevin Empire, 1189–1199, by Ralph Turner and Richard R. Heiser, has a very interesting concluding chapter called “Richard in Retrospect,” which analyzes the way his reputation has fluctuated over the centuries. Kate Norgate’s Richard the Lionheart, published in 1924, has stood the test of time surprisingly well. I also recommend Richard Coeur de Lion in History and Myth, edited by Janet Nelson; The Legends of King Richard Coeur de Lion: A study of Sources and Variations to 1600, by Bradford Broughton; and The Plantagenet Empire, 1154–1224, by Martin Aurell, translated by David Crouch. And to quote a passage from the Lionheart acknowledgments: since so many of my readers have seen the wonderful but historically inaccurate The Lion in Winter, here are two excellent books about medieval sexuality: The Bridling of Desire: Views of Sex in the Later Middle Ages, by Pierre J. Payer, and Sexuality in Medieval Europe: Doing unto Others, by Ruth Mazo Karras. I also recommend Ennobling Love by C. Stephen Jaeger, University of Pennsylvania Press (1999).

  My favorite book about Richard’s mother remains Eleanor of Aquitaine: Lord and Lady, edited by Bonnie Wheeler. We still do not have the “definitive” biography of Eleanor, but she does not lack for biographers, including Ralph Turner, Regine Pernoud, Jean Flori, D. D. R. Owen, Marion Meade, and Amy Kelly, although the last two authors’ conclusions about the Courts of Love have been contradicted by more recent studies. I also recommend The World of Eleanor of Aquitaine: Literature and Society in Southern France Between the Eleventh and Thirteenth Centuries, edited by Marcus Bull and Catherine Leglu, and Eleanor of Aquitaine, Courtly Love, and the Troubadours, by Ffiona Swabey.

  I have always been surprised that there has been no biography written of Richard’s chancellor, William de Longchamp, called by his French name in A King’s Ransom, for he was an important figure during Richard’s reign. So you can imagine my delight when I discovered that he was the subject of a dissertation by David Bruce Balfour: “William Longchamp: Upward Mobility and Character Assassination in Twelfth-Century England.” I highly recommend this work for anyone interested in Longchamp and the ways in which propaganda becomes accepted as fact over the course of time. While acknowledging the chancellor’s flaws and errors of judgment, the author convincingly debunks the scurrilous stories that have tarnished Longchamp’s reputation, including the oft-quoted one in which Eleanor was alleged to have said she’d not trust her grandsons to the chancellor’s care.

  I am not going to include books about the Albigensian Crusade since that occurred after the events of A King’s Ransom, but I will recommend one, Joseph R. Strayer’s The Albigensian Crusades, republished in 1995 by the University of Michigan Press, for this is an excellent account of this sad chapter in medieval history, well researched, well written, and utterly compelling.

  The best resource about the Damsel of Cyprus remains the article published in Byzantion 38 (1968), pages 123–179, by W. H. Rudt de Collenberg, “L’Empereur Issac de Chypre et sa Fille.”

  For those interested in learning more about post-traumatic stress disorder, I would suggest Achilles in Vietnam: Combat Trauma and the Undoing of Character by Jonathan Shay, MD, in which he compares the soldiers of Homer’s Iliad with the Vietnam veterans he counseled for PTSD. In addition to reading medical texts, I read a number of autobiographies, and one of the most riveting is My Private War: Liberated Body, Captive Mind: A World War II POW’s Journey by Norman Bussel. What I found so haunting was that he still had nightmares about his POW experience forty years after regaining his freedom. Combat Trauma: A Personal Look at Long-term Consequences by James D. Johnson entwines the stories of sixteen combat veterans with a discussion of what we now know about PTSD and how it manifests itself in those exposed to traumatic events. Thankfully, there are more resources available today for soldiers returning from tours of duty on distant battlefields, although still not enough, not nearly enough. If we are going to send men and women off to fight for us, we owe them more than parades or applause in airports, which are nice gestures, but no substitute for more comprehensive medical care or better VA services or aid to military families.

  Lastly, for books about medieval warfare, I highly recommend By Sword and Fire: Cruelty and Atrocity in Medieval Warfare by Sean McGlynn; Noble Ideals and Bloody Realities: Warfare in the Middle Ages edited by Niall Christie and May Yazigi; Western Warfare in the Age of the Crusades, 1000–1300 by John France; War and Chivalry: The Conduct and Perception of War in England and Normandy, 1066–1217 by Matthew Strickland; Hostages in the Middle Ages by Adam J. Kosto; and Encounters Between Enemies: Captivity and Ransom in the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem by Yvonne Friedman.

  In the Lionheart acknowledgments, I expressed the hope that I’d soon be able to post a more extensive bibliography on my website. Unfortunately, that still has not happened. While the spirit is willing, time is as elusive as the unicorn. But, ever the optimist, I keep hoping that it will eventually come to pass. In the meantime, readers can feel free to ask me for recommendations or even for explanations as to why I may have omitted a familiar author, a well-known history. I can be reached via my website, www.sharonkaypenman.com, or at sharonkpenman@yahoo.com, or at P.O. Box 1134, Mays Landing, NJ 08330—with the caveat that patience may be required. With the best of intentions, I once offered to provide blog commentary about the Angevins to readers without access to the Internet, and found myself overwhelmed with so many requests that I was unable to respond to them all, much to my dismay. So I have learned to set more realistic goals, always bearing in mind that unlike my medieval kings and queens, I have no scribes on call.

 

 

 
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