Special guest post by Dr Fiona Watson

 

Tell us about your latest book 

Well, it’s a bit different, because this time it’s fiction. I wanted to try to imagine what it would have been like to live through a war I’ve been researching for over thirty years, to get beyond the bare facts. The obvious time and place to set Dark Hunter was 1317-18 in Berwick-upon-Tweed, the last English-held bit of Scotland after the disaster at Bannockburn. The Scots were circling outside the walls, which was bad enough, but then I threw in a murder inside the walls to raise the stakes even further. My ‘detective’ is a young squire who’s well-educated, but entirely out of his depth as a soldier. He’s not only the right guy to find the murderer, but to comment on the tediousness and fear of serving in a place like Berwick.

What is your preferred writing routine? 

Essentially get up, make porridge, take the dog for a walk and cosy up next to our woodburning stove in the kitchen. I’m able to write most of the day, which I know is a real luxury.

What advice do you have for aspiring writers?  First of all, I’d say, ‘Keep writing’. It’s a muscle just like everything else and you get better the more you do it. Secondly, be honest: do you really have something to say, as opposed to having a nice idea for a setting or character? And lastly, keep being honest. Are there things you feel uneasy about? Chances are they’re not working, and you should bite the bullet and fix them.

What have you found to be the best way to raise awareness of your books? 

Mmm, I admit I’m not very good at ‘selling’ myself or my books. I don’t particularly use social media, though technically I could. I’m lucky that I have enough of a profile in Scotland to attract some interest in the papers. But, given that the story concerns an English garrison, I’d like the book to be read well beyond Scotland. So, thank you for putting me on your blog!

Tell us something unexpected you discovered during your research 

Well, first of all, I found out just how much I didn’t know about everyday medieval life! The thing that tickled me most was discovering that so many people in medieval towns had takeaways. Since most people weren’t wealthy enough to have a kitchen, it makes sense that they’d pop out for a pie.

What was the hardest scene you remember writing? 

I think that would be the one where Benedict, my detective-squire, confesses his love to Lucy, sister of the murdered girl. I imagine readers knew he was smitten long before, but he’s a bit slow in that department. Since Lucy is a clever, no-nonsense kind of girl, and Benedict is completely inexperienced when it comes to the opposite sex, I had to make sure it wasn’t twee or schmaltzy.

What are you planning to write next?

Well, I have been working on a sequel to Dark Hunter, though it will be a while till my publisher decides I’ve sold enough to warrant a second one. Meantime, I’ve written a modern thriller that started life in the depths of my own angst when I couldn’t get Dark Hunter published. A would-be writer is over the moon when a chance encounter lands her a book deal, as well as the chance to help the publisher’s charity in the fight against people traffickers in Africa. But she soon realises she’s involved in this dangerous world way over her head. 

God therfor was wroth

In late May 1265 Gilbert de Clare, Earl of Gloucester, abandoned Simon de Montfort and joined Lord Edward, lately escaped from Hereford. Clare's role in the royalist comeback, after the disaster of Lewes, should not be underrated. He was enormously powerful, with lands all over England, Wales and Ireland, almost a king in his own right.

Before joining Edward, he and his ally John Giffard took to the forests near Gloucester, from where they defied the Montfortians. Every night the pugnacious Giffard lit a fire in the woods, to let the enemy know of his location and dare them to attack. As Robert of Gloucester put it:

“The Earl of Gloucester was in the forest beside, And Sir John Giffard also upon a high hill lay; Which is called Erdland, both night and day: A great fire he made there, at nights, of wood and spray, And drew a track thereabout which was wide seen, And into Gloucester also, so that his foes might see, Where they should find him on that hill high.”

Simon's response to the desertion of Clare was to pump out yet more futile propaganda. He forced the hapless Henry III to issue a public denunciation, in which Clare was condemned as “having now fled to assist the rebellion de Warenne, in contempt of his oath to abide by the written agreement, which had lately appeased the discord between him and the Earl of Leicester”.

This referred to the agreement of 12 May, whereby Simon and Clare attempted to resolve their differences. Obviously, it had failed to do the trick. Late in the month, Clare met with Edward at Wigmore castle and extracted an oath from the prince, whereby he promised to expel all the aliens from the kingdom and abide by English laws. Knowing he could not succeed without Clare's support, Edward coughed up everything that was demanded of him.

There is little doubt that Clare was pursuing a private vendetta against Simon. Shortly after his defection, he sent men to drag Stephen de Herewell, Simon's chaplain and private secretary, from sanctuary in a church and behead him. Not everyone was impressed with Clare's policy. Robert Mannyng, a 14th century English chronicler and Gilbertine monk, wrote that the death of Clare's son, another Gilbert, at the battle of Bannockburn was God's vengeance on the father for deserting Simon:

“Schent is ilk Baroun, now Gilbert turnes grim, The Montfort Sir Simoun most affied on him. Alas, Sir Gilbert, thou turned thin oth, At Stryvelyn [Bannockburn] men it herd how God therfor was wroth”.

'Standand stille as stone'

 

On 28 May 1265 Lord Edward escaped from custody at Hereford. After the defection of so many great lords, principally Gilbert de Clare and John Giffard, Edward's escape was a disaster for the crumbling Montfortian regime.

The prince had been treated as a prisoner on parole since March, and was dragged along with his father, Henry III, and the court to Hereford. Companions already known to Edward were appointed to attend him. These were Thomas de Clare, younger brother of Gilbert the Red, Earl of Gloucester, Robert de Ros and Henry de Montfort, one of Earl Simon's sons.

Henry was there to watch Edward closely and follow him about. As Robert of Gloucester put it in the Middle English:

“He bitoke him Sir Henri is sone to be is companion, With him to wende aboute, to syew him up and doun”.

Simon had fixed his headquarters at Hereford to deal with his enemies in Wales and the Marches, and was careful to keep Edward in tight custody. His big mistake was to allow Thomas de Clare access to the prince. Thomas was described by another chronicler as Edward's 'familiar friend and bedfellow':

“Tanquam familiaris at cubicularius Domini Edwardi”.

This meant the two men shared a bed, just like Richard the Lionheart and Philip Augustus. At the time this was an expression of comradeship and royal favour, with no sexual element. The custom has fuelled modern speculation that Richard was homosexual; unless one wishes to apply the same argument to Edward Longshanks, that seems unlikely.

The horse 'of extraordinary speed' was probably delivered to Edward by Thomas, who secretly obtained it from his brother Gilbert. Edward then expressed a wish to try the animal's pace and strength against the best horses of his escort. This, he said, was to judge if it was fit to ride in a tournament.

Edward's guards, maybe not the brightest bulbs in the drawer, agreed. For this purpose the company went to a convenient spot north of the town, called Widmarsh. Here the prince insisted on trying all the other horses first and riding them into the ground. To quote Robert of Gloucester again:

“And stoned tham all wery, standand stille as stone”.

When the other beasts were disabled – 'stille as stone' – a lone horseman on a grey steed appeared on a nearby hill. He waved his bonnet, which was the signal for Edward to leap onto his swift courser. As he galloped away, the prince flung a taunt at de Ros, who had especial charge of him:

“Lordlings, now good day and greet my father and say, I shall soon see him and out of ward, if I may”.

Knowing Edward, the taunt was probably a mite less poetical and a tad more scatological. He was accompanied on his escape by two knights (one of them probably Thomas de Clare) and four squires. A party of friendly horsemen, appointed to lie in wait, fell in with them and escorted Edward to Roger Mortimer's castle at Wigmore, about 24 miles from Hereford.

The escape of the heir to the throne, Simon's prize captive, could not be concealed. Two days later the king was forced to announce it, and summon troops to meet at Worcester in order to crush John de Warenne and William de Valence. These two, recently landed at Pembroke, were marching swiftly across Wales to join Edward and his friends.

Simon and his propagandists worked feverishly to claw back public opinion. They chose an interesting angle. Edward's allies were described as rebels and traitors, but the prince himself was depicted as merely wayward and easily led: he had acted with 'inconsiderate levity' and 'wholly lost the grace of public favour'. Edward's father, the king, was then required to sign a document of excommunication against the prince, “whom the rebels had unhappily found light to believe and easy to circumvent”.

Hmm. Not sure anyone was buying that, Si.

Maredudd's Misfortunes (1)

 

On 30 August 1270 Henry III sent the following letter to Prince Llywelyn of Wales:

'By the form of the peace made between the king and Llywelyn, the king had retained the homage and lordship of Maredudd ap Rhys [Gryg], with all his land, for the king and his heirs, with the proviso that whenever it should please the king to grant the homage of Maredudd to Llywelyn, then Llywelyn should be bound to pay to the king or his heirs five thousand marks for the aforesaid homage'.

Henry referred to the Treaty of Montgomery in 1267, whereby Llywelyn gained the homage of all the other rulers of Wales except Maredudd. However a clause in the treaty enabled him to buy Maredudd's homage, if the king should wish it. The fee was 5000 marks (about £3500).

The next part of the letter reads: 'As Llywelyn has earnestly desired to have the homage of and lordship over Maredudd ap Rhys, the king's son Edward has frequently asked the king, although the king has recently granted the aforesaid homage and lordship to his son Edmund, that nevertheless the king will grant them to Llywelyn with the assent of Edward'.

This shows that Henry had sold Maredudd to his second son, Edmund, but was being pressured by Edward to transfer the Welshman's homage and lordship to Llywelyn. Part of Edward's motive is explained in the final passage:

'The aforesaid Edmund has surrendered the aforesaid homage and lordship into the king's hands, and the king, in deference to the prayers of his son, has granted them to Llywelyn, on the understanding that Llywelyn pay the aforesaid five thousand marks without delay to Edward, to whom the king has granted them as a subsidy for his pilgrimage to the Holy Land...'

Thus, Edward wished to sell the homage of the last Welsh ruler independent of Gwynedd to Prince Llywelyn, in return for money to fund his crusade. The details of this transaction support the statement of Matthew Paris, that Edward had advised his father to give up Wales as unconquerable. After two hundred years of massive expenditure and failed invasions, what was the point of carrying on? The place was a bottomless money-pit. In the context of later events, this is one of history's bitter ironies.

Over my dead body, cariad

 

Brut y Tywysogion on the death of Maredudd ap Rhys Gryg in 1271:

[1271-1271]. A year after that, Maredudd ap Rhys Gryg, a brave, powerful man, died in his own castle at Dryslwyn on the sixth day of August, and his body was taken to Whitland and was honourably buried in the great church on the steps in front of the altar'.

Maredudd was head of the House of Dinefwr, son of Rhys Gryg ('the Hoarse), and a grandson of the Lord Rhys. The Brut gives him a positive eulogy, but a version of the Annales Cambriae described Maredudd as 'the man who had perturbed all Wales by his faithlessness'.

This was because Maredudd had fought against Prince Llywelyn ap Gruffudd, and the AC was written by a pro-Venedotian annalist. It would be wrong to describe Maredudd as a turncoat who betrayed Wales and collaborated with the English: he had inherited an age-old feud with the House of Aberffraw, and his dynasty had its own pretensions to rule Wales. No self-respecting Welsh prince simply bowed the knee to a rival. Please, sir, do take all my lands and castles. Over my cold dead body, cariad.

 After decades of bitter struggle, Maredudd was defeated and ended his days as a feudatory of his enemy, Llywelyn. This was, to a large extent, due to the influence of the future Edward I. Let's have a look at how that came about.

Edward and the outlaw

On 26 May 1266 Lord Edward fought a duel against Sir Adam Gurdon. The fight took place near Alton Pass in the woods of Hampshire, a notorious ambush spot on the king's road between London and Southampton.

Adam Gurdun was one of the more attractive of Simon de Montfort's followers. He had been in rebellion in 1263, when he raised an army of peasants and local knights in Dorset and seized the royal castle of Dunster. From this remote stronghold, on the edge of Exmoor, he waged guerilla war for two years until Earl Simon's defeat and death at the battle of Evesham. Following that disaster, Adam abandoned Dorset and roved about the Midlands at the head of a band of 'free lances'.

The royalists were unable to deal with Adam until the spring of 1266, after they had retaken the Cinque Ports. Once that was done, Edward gathered a small army to hunt down Adam and his outlaw band. The future king was helped by a turncoat, Robert Chadd, who had deserted Adam and offered to lead Edward to the rebel camp in the woods. Guided by Chadd, Edward tracked his prey to Alton Wood. Adam and his followers, about eighty horsemen, had just returned from plundering a grange belonging to Dunstable priory.

The accounts of the duel are a little confused. Several say that Edward ordered his men to stand back so he could fight the outlaw chief in single combat. One, Thomas Wykes, says that Edward got stuck on the wrong side of a ditch and had to fight the outlaws by himself until his men climbed over. This might sound like hero-worship, but Edward was big and strong and vicious, and had all the best training and kit. Adam Gurdun, on the other hand, was at least twice the prince's age, while most of his followers were unarmoured serfs.

Even allowing for exaggeration, medieval aristocrats raised to war were pretty formidable. For instance, Louis VII of France – not renowned as an especially fighty king – is said to have single-handedly butchered a 'rabble' of Turks at Cadmus, slicing off heads and hands with his 'bloody sword'. Richard Marshal, son of the famous Earl William, staged an equally impressive last stand near Kildare in 1234 before he was unhorsed and captured. And so on.

All the accounts agree that Adam was eventually beaten into surrender. He was sent off in chains to Windsor, while his luckless followers were hanged on the trees of the wood. Edward quipped that Robert de Ferrers, already in custody at Windsor, now had a friend to keep him company.

Adam was given over to the queen, Eleanor of Provence, and allowed to buy back his estates at a stiff price. He was one of several former Montfortians who proved remarkably loyal to Edward I, serving frequently in Wales and on commissions of array. In 1297, aged about 85, he took charge of the defence of the Hampshire coast against French invasion. He eventually died in 1305, fabulously old for the time, his rebel career a distant memory.

Jeanne and Edouard

On this day in 1306 John de Warenne, heir to the earldoms of Surrey and Sussex, was married to Edward I's granddaughter Jeanne de Bar. She was the child of the king's eldest daughter Eleanor (died 1298) and Comte Henri du Bar. Or, depending on context, Graf Heinrich von der Bar: the province of Bar lay on the fringes of the Holy Roman Empire, and to an extent the franco-imperial borderlands resembled the Marches of Wales i.e. a hotchpotch of shifting identities.

Oh, what tangled webs. Eleanor had been married off to Henri as part of Edward I's policy of constructing dynastic alliances with the best blood of the empire and the Low Countries. To that end he married off several of his daughters to the counts of Bar and Holland and the Duke of Brabant. These political marriages didn't always go without a hitch. For instance, at the wedding of his daughter Elizabeth in 1297, the king had a blazing row with the bride and threw her coronet into the fire. It was quickly repaired, and a Wardrobe account book also notes hefty compensation Edward paid to a random esquire, whom – for unknown reasons – the old man had seen fit to thrash with a cane. Too much drink had been taken, methinks.

When war broke with France in 1294, these alliances came into play. In June Eleanor's husband, Comte Henri, invaded Champagne in north-east France on behalf of his father-in-law, destroying the abbey of Beaulieu and throwing down several castles. This was supposed to be part of a combined operation with Adolf of Nassau, the German emperor, but he failed to send requested military aid until September.

A much later 16th century French account claimed Henri was taken prisoner by Joan of Navarre, Philip IV's consort, but this was a folk-tale. Unfortunately it was very popular and has influenced histories of medieval France up to the present day. A recent study of Edward I's daughters has presented Jean as a lonely but heroic figure, guarding her husband's lands while he languished in prison. In reality he spent autumn 1297 collecting more troops to fight the French, only for the war to peter out into a truce.

Eleanor died in 1298, aged just 29. Her husband died in Naples in 1301 and the couple left two children, Edouard and Jeanne. Edouard, named after his grandfather, fought in the War of Metz (don't ask) and apparently constructed a 'hydraulic forge' at Moyveure-Grande in north-east France. So now you know.

Note: at the siege of Metz in 1324 it is said (by Wikipedia) that cannons were used for the first time in Western Europe. Boom.