If you read enough historical fiction, and so much of it is about England, you begin to run across the same historical figures over and over. While reading Morgan Llewellyn's Pride of Lions I ran across both Thorfin and Macbeth, who were one and the same person in Dorothy Dunnett's King Hereafter, so I found myself awake at 3:30 this morning following a path from book to book. I decided to list the royal succession through books I have read. Of course, one could do this by reading Jean Plaidy, whose novels stretch from (primordial) soup to (Hanoverian)nuts. But what you see below are just books I have e read. After all, this blog is called "That's All She Read" not "That's All There Is To Read"!
The Last Kingdom (etc.) by Bernard Cornwell has a protagonist who takes credit for all of those triumphs associated with Alfred the Great. I love the series, but can't forgive the author for the hatchet job on my heroine, Aethelflaed. I know the series will stretch to Uhtred's old age so chances are the Edward the Elder and perhaps even Athelstan may be featured.I have to skip a few kings to get to the next book.
Avalon, by Anya Seton is a far ranging novel takes place during the the reigns of Edgar, his son Edward the Martyr and his other son Ethelraed, later to be called the Unready, meaning ill counseled.Breath of Kings, by Gene Farrington covers three dynasties, starting with Ethelraed the Unready, then going on to the short reigh of Edmund Ironsides, Ethelraed's illegitimate son, and the takeover by Danes, starting by some accounts with Sveyn Forkbeard, but definitely covering the great King Canute. Canute's son by a Saxon woman to whom he was handfasted before marrying Emma was Harold Harefoot, who grabbed the throne briefly Canute had set her aside to marry Ethelraed's Norman widow Emma and Harold was succeeded by their son Hardicanute, whose death by choking on food is illlustrated in Breath of Kings. The main character of the novel, Edward the Confessor, came to the throne of his father, Ethelraed the Unready, when Canute ran out of sons.
An interlude here to acknowledge good old Macbeth.
As I mention, in Pride of Lions, the novel of Brian Boru's sons Morgan Llewellyn has a sojourn to the Scotland of Malcolm, the grandfather of the ill fated Duncan of Shakespeare's "Scottish play". There we meet the young rambunctious Duncan and Thorfin, both grandsons of the king. Mention is made of a granddaughter of the man Malcolm assassinated in order to be king, this woman married to a man named Macbeth. Dorothy Dunnett contends Thorfin was just the Norse name of Macbeth, whose name means "son of llife", and her novel, King Hereafter is about this man. I can also mention that Breath of Kings has Emma visiting Scotland and meeting Macbeth.
Pride of Lions brings in Earl Godwin of Wessex, who is prominent in Breath of Kings as well. His son Harold Godwinson shows up in the latter and in Judith Tarr's historical fantasy, Rite of Conquest. But I am getting ahead of myself.The King's Shadow by Elizabeth Alder is an extremely affectionate novel of Harold Godwinson and a mute Welsh boy. The novel of Harold's accession to Edward the Comfessor's throne takes him to his death at the Battle of Hastings and had this Harold-lover distraught for days.
Rite of Conquest by Judith Tarr has William of Normandy the reincarnated King Arthur and Harold Godwinson the slavish defender of Christianity's effort to rob Britain of its holiness. That's all I'm gonna say about that.. except that it's a wonderful novel if you can overlook its theme -- and even I could it's that good.
Robin and the King by Parke Godwin takes over with William the Conqueror, and also gets us started with his successor William Rufus.King of the Wood by Valerie Anand has the same take on William Rufus, that he was homosexual. It also brings in Henry, who would be "the First", the youngest son of William the Conqueror.
With The Lion of Justice this Jean Plaidy thrown in here to cover Henmry I, we go on to a spate of Sharon Kay Penmans.
When Christ and His Saints Slept takes us from the death of Henry I and the war between his nephew, Stephen of Blois, and his daughter, Maud. The first peek at Henry Fitzempress is in this novel.That Henry, better known as Henry II, shows up again in Penman's Time and Chance, largely about Henry's wild marriage to Eleanor of Aquitaine.
The third novel in this series is The Devil's Brood about their fractious and colorful children.
Here we have brought you to Richard the Lionhearted.. and a good place to break. We will return to this daisy chain in a future blog post.
Now don't freak out. I know there are lots more than the ones I have listed so far, and you should feel free to mention them in Comments below. I chose one comprehensive example for each period.
, starring Richard Greene and Alan Wheatley , accomplished my transformation when I was about six or seven years old. I don't recall any interest in the Middle Ages before that, but once I reflected in the series something elemental and part of me, I was irrevocably changed. I quite literally never was the same again. Perhaps the series did not change me but simply pulled something out, something already part of my DNA. I don't know where that would have been born, but that's a topic for anther conversation. Somehow the influence has continued to have an impact, not only in favorite subjects, but my personality, my values. I have gone on with my life with an everpresent WWRHD? way of dealing with the world.
, which tuned me in as did 
, a Disney movie, turned my steps, already on the road, in a particular direction, i.e. Ireland. But so many other books have had more subtle, more, shall we say, visceral effects. The one that comes to mind most forcefully for me is a relatively recently read series, Dorothy Dunnett's Lymond Chronicles. The first volume alone, 
, left me stunned, breathless, blown away by the complexity of the main character, the emotional impact of his journey. How did it change me? It added what I might call a vivid new thread in the weave of my psyche. Just having met Lymond makes me a more richly complex person. Nor is this particular transformation complete. This book, this series will go on sculpting me anew.
, Brandy Purdy's 
, Morgan Llywelyn's 
are just three of the books where the sense of molecular shift was most pronounced. It is like having had these characters in my head and heart made me more than one person. The same goes for Sharon Kay Penman's Welsh novels, 
, 
and 
, where it feels like several souls now crowd together within me. 
by Edith Pargeter, though not my favorite books, had moments in them that froze me for a time.
, Bernard