The King was dead! Long live the King!
The End
Glossary
Ballock dagger or knife- a blade with two swellings next to the blade
Begawan- a metal plate to protect the armpit
Chevauchée- a raid by mounted men
Cuisse- metal greaves
Danczik-Danzig/Gdańsk
Dauentre-Daventry
Galoches- Clogs
Hovel- a simple bivouac used when no tents were available
Medeltone Mowbray -Melton Mowbray
Mêlée- a medieval fight between knights
Poleyn- a metal plate to protect the knee
Pursuivant- the rank below a herald
Rondel dagger- a narrow bladed dagger with a disc at the end of the hilt to protect the hand
Sallet bascinet- medieval helmets of the simplest type: round with a neck protector
Sennight- Seven nights (a week)
The Pale- the land around Dublin. It belonged to the Kings of England.
Historical Notes
This is a work of fiction. Most of the events really happened. The duel, the parliaments, Bolingbroke’s landing at Ravenspur and the King’s strange decision to sail to England without his knights are all facts. I have made up other incidents to suit my story. Roger Mortimer did don Irish garb and ride alone towards the Irish. His death was inexplicable. I have given an explanation. The King did go to Ireland but, as far as I know, no attempt was made upon his life.
I have tried to make sense of King Richard II who was a complicated man. Some modern writers call him bi-polar. Certainly, his wife, Anne of Bohemia, was the greatest influence for good. However, this story is really about the ordinary folk of England. The archers and sergeants. William Strongstaff represents those people and it is his story which I tell. Queen Anne did die of the plague at Sheen Manor. It changed the King. After he returned from Ireland, he began the tyranny which Shakespeare wrote of. I think it stemmed from his wife’s death. I think it induced a kind of madness. Ukmergė was destroyed in the Baltic crusade. Henry Bolingbroke did take women and children to Königsberg (now Kaliningrad, Russia).
When the King banished Henry Bolingbroke he took Henry of Monmouth as his ward. He did knight him and, even though he knew that Henry’s father had landed he did nothing to harm the future Henry V. I have changed some events for the sake of my story but the key facts are historical. There were many stories as to why King Richard abdicated. I have not used those. No one knows and I have created one which sounded plausible to me.
Isabella of Valois returned to her father. She was still a child. King Richard died in Pontefract Castle. I have moved his death to London for the simple reason that Henry IVth was there and rumours abounded, for many years, that the King had killed Richard.
For the English maps, I have used the original Ordnance survey maps. Produced by the army in the 19th century they show England before modern developments and, in most cases, are pre-industrial revolution. Produced by Cassini they are a useful tool for a historian. I also discovered a good website http: orbis.stanford.edu. This allows a reader to plot any two places in the Roman world and if you input the mode of transport you wish to use and the time of year it will calculate how long it would take you to travel the route. I have used it for all of my books up to the eighteenth century as the transportation system was roughly the same. The Romans would have travelled more quickly!
Books used in the research:
The Tower of London -Lapper and Parnell (Osprey)
English Medieval Knight 1300-1400-Gravett
The Castles of Edward 1 in Wales- Gravett
Norman Stone Castles- Gravett
The Armies of Crécy and Poitiers- Rothero
The Armies of Agincourt- Rothero
Henry V and the conquest of France- Knight and Turner
Chronicles in the Age of Chivalry-Ed. Eliz Hallam
English Longbowman 1330-1515- Bartlett
Northumbria at War-Derek Dodds
Henry V -Teresa Cole
The Longbow- Mike Loades
The Scandinavian Baltic Crusades 1100-1500
Crusader Castles of the Teutonic Knights (1)- Turnbull and Dennis
Crusader Castles of the Teutonic Knights (2)- Turnbull and Dennis
Teutonic Knight 1190-1561- Nicolle and Turner
For more information on all of the books then please visit the author’s web site at http://www.griffhosker.com where there is a link to contact him.
Griff Hosker
January 2019
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For more information on all of the books then please visit the author’s web site at www.griffhosker.com where there is a link to contact him.