To Defy a King: Elizabeth Chadwick

I've been a bit poorly lately. (If anything called E-coli winks in your direction, then run very fast.) I'm now on the mend although not able to do much more than try to eat and sleep. (I've gone off coffee, though. How cruel is that?)

Anyway, while I was languishing in my hospital bed wired up to various bug-blasting antibiotics, the only thing I could do was read. And even then not at my usual rate, feeling as I did like an old dirty sock, but slowly and measuredly--probably no more than a couple of pages at a time. In such circumstances I need a novel that will sustain me, be pacey enough to want to read on when I can, and yet with enough richness of detail on every page to hold my interest as I slowly read.

How lucky I was to have Elizabeth's Chadwick's To Defy a King to hand. This is the latest in her accounts of the great families of Marshall and Bigod. This one concentrates on Mahelt, William Marshall's beloved older daughter. She is betrothed at an early age to Hugh, the elder son of Roger Bigod who is considerably older than she. After the betrothal, she comes to live with her new family, mainly at Framlingham Castle in Suffolk. Mahelt is homesick at first, misses her wonderful father and find it hard to settle in a  household ruled by an earl of much sterner stuff. Her rebellious ways almost bring disaster down on them all but she is lucky in her husband who, whilst anxious to curb her over-enthusiasms, understands her fears and frustration. Slowly and hesitantly, theirs matures into a good marriage, despite the best efforts of King John and war to destroy it.

I have always admired Elizabeth's novels. Her research is meticulous and her knowledge extensive. She has made early thirteenth-century England her own. She is writer who does everything good historical fiction should do. The politics is all there. (If you've never understood the significance of the Magna Carta you will when you read her novels.) There are battles, cruelty and bloodshed if that is what historical fiction means to you, but to me Elizabeth truly excels in two main areas so very few other writers can achieve.

I've visted numerous castles and read the guide books but have always struggled to understand how it must have felt living in a castle with its farms, its kitchens, its stables. How do you set about making an embroidered wall-hanging? How did the women cope with their wimples and their silks? How did they wash their hair? What did they use? How did they keep clean? How did the children play? What did they eat? It never seemed real and always felt like play-acting. In fact, far too much (poor) historical fiction seems to be modern people prancing about in fancy dress. Not with this author. Oh no. Here, although Mahelt rages against her impotence, she belongs in her thirteenth -century skin. In Elizabeth Chadwick's novels. this world is 'normal', ordinary and functional. It's a world I can believe in. It makes sense.

Secondly, this novel in particular is stuffed full of little touches of humanity that lift these people from the page. When Hugh's half-brother, William Longespee, because he doesn't understand toddlers, and out of fascination, keeps prodding Hugh's second son--just walking--in the stomach so that he repeatedly falls plonk onto his bottom, Hugh is enraged by what he sees as needless cruelty and bars from his home and they remain estranged for many years. There are numerous wonderful little moments like this, not just with the children but in the relationship between old Roger Bigod, who cannot bring himself to visit his wife on her death bed, not because he doesn't love her, but because he loves her too desperately. I cried in several places and cheered when Mahelt gives King John something to remember! This kind of deft human touch is what lifts Elizabeth Chadwick's writing above the rest and it just gets better and better with every new novel.

Finally, I'll be back with the next instalment of my short-story course very soon. Sorry for the delay.