When Christ and His Saints Slept

by Sharon Kay Penman

  Author’s Note

  I ORIGINALLY began including an author’s note in my books because “my” people led such extraordinary lives, filled with enough drama, tragedy, and eerie coincidence to put a Hollywood scriptwriter to shame, and I felt the need to verify the historical accuracy of the more improbable events. Well, this is my fifth book, but nothing has changed.

  Maude truly did escape from the siege of Oxford Castle by donning a white cloak, climbing down a rope, and walking right through Stephen’s army in the midst of a blizzard. What writer would dare to invent an episode like that?

  The account of John Marshal trapped in the burning bell tower at Wherwell nunnery comes from the epic medieval poem Histoire de Guillaume le Mareschal and is confirmed by other contemporary sources. The only liberty I took was in making Gilbert Fitz John the unnamed knight who took refuge with Marshal in the tower. The near hanging of Marshal’s small son at Newbury also comes from the Histoire, which provides an appealing glimpse of Stephen, playing a game on the floor of his tent with the child he’d spared, using plantain leaves for swords.

  Robert Fitz Roy did manage to march an army halfway across England in the dead of winter, catching Stephen by surprise and forcing the Battle of Lincoln, a feat that still has military historians marveling. His nephew Henry later duplicated this exploit on a lesser scale by racing to the rescue of besieged Pacy, the first time that Henry displayed his remarkable talent for speed beyond the reach of mortal men. Throughout Henry’s eventful reign, he was constantly baffling his foes with his uncanny ability to appear without warning at any trouble spot in his far-flung empire. The French king was once heard to complain that he could almost believe Henry had learned to fly.

  Stephen had indeed planned to sail on the White Ship, but changed his mind at the last moment. Eustace’s bizarre death did occur as I describe, and on the very day that Eleanor bore Henry their first son. All of the odd omens I mention were reported by the chroniclers of the time. Were some of them conveniently remembered “after the fact”? Possibly. But theirs was a superstitious age. Ours is, too, of course. Times and beliefs change; people don’t.

  This was the most challenging and difficult of all my books, in part because the sources were so often muddled or contradictory. Before I venture into that unmapped territory, though, I would like to anticipate some reader queries: Maude’s half-brother Ranulf Fitz Roy is fictional. Since Henry I is known to have sired at least twenty illegitimate children, I decided one more wouldn’t hurt! This was the first time that I’d allowed a fictional character to share center stage with historical figures, and I wasn’t sure I’d feel comfortable with Ranulf. Somewhat to my surprise, I discovered that I enjoyed playing God with him, having the sole say in determining his destiny. I’ve been told by readers that they approach my afterwords with some trepidation, knowing how rare “happy endings” are in real life, especially in the twelfth century. I am pleased to report, therefore, that it is safe to envision Ranulf and Rhiannon living out their days together in the beautiful Conwy Valley, in the protective shadow of Eryri.

  I’ve chosen the medieval names for towns, just as I’ve preferred to use Welsh spellings for Welsh place names. Cantebrigge is known today as Cambridge, Stanford is now Stamford, Blancminster has become Oswestry, and Le Strete soon gave way to Stockbridge. I made a few minor changes with proper names, for clarity’s sake. The Earl of Chester’s Christian name is given as both Ranulf and Randolph; I chose the latter to avoid confusion with Maude’s half-brother. For the same reason, I sought to keep the number of Maudes and Matildas in the book to a minimum. For Henry I’s natural daughter who drowned in the wreck of the White Ship, I used an earlier variation of the name Maude: Mahault. Stephen’s doomed sister was reported by the chroniclers as Maude, but also as Lucia, and so Lucia she became.

  This is probably a good time to explain that Maude and Matilda are essentially the same name. Matilda is the Latinized version, Maude the vernacular. The empress would have signed her charters as Matilda, but she’d have called herself Maude. Faced with two major female characters who bore the same name, I naturally decided to make use of both Matilda and Maude.

  Readers of my earlier novels may have been puzzled to find Owain Gwynedd referred to as a Welsh king. Owain was the last Welsh ruler to use this title.

  And for those familiar with the story that Geoffrey wanted Henry to cede Anjou to his brother once he’d become England’s king, I believe this myth was convincingly rebutted by W. L. Warren in his masterly biography, Henry II.

  I’ve long wanted to refute a popularly held belief that the sidesaddle was introduced into England by Richard II’s queen in the fourteenth century. Although this legend has been disproved by historians, it still crops up occasionally in history books. But when Maude fled Winchester, the hostile Worcester Chronicle took gleeful note of the fact that she was forced to ride astride, like a man.

  What Rhiannon called her “inner vision” was actually a reflection of sound waves off the facial muscles, hence its more common name, “facial vision.” Her total blindness was the result of sympathetic ophthalmia; the loss of sight in one eye put the other eye at risk, too. And Ranulf’s Norwegian dyrehund is known today as the Norwegian elkhound. For plot purposes, I needed an ancient breed, distinctive in appearance, not commonly known in England. The fact that I have a Norwegian elkhound myself may have influenced me, too—just a little!

  If I seem to be slighting Henry and Eleanor in this author’s note, that is because they speak very well for themselves. I enjoyed writing about Eleanor’s twilight years in Dragons, and like many of my readers, I visualize the aged Eleanor as the Lion in Winter’s Katharine Hepburn. It was more challenging to write about the young Eleanor, colliding with Henry in Paris like two runaway comets, changing the history of Christendom with their passion and their ambition. Readers often ask me to “cast” my books for the screen. I’ve always thought that Timothy Dalton was born to play Llewelyn, either the grandsire or the grandson, but after that, I usually draw a blank. I have to admit, though, that I think Kenneth Branagh and Emma Thompson would make a splendid Henry and Eleanor.

  I would like to end this note by focusing one last time upon Maude and Stephen. The legend that Maude and Stephen were lovers and Henry their son has been thoroughly discredited by historians. As the British scholar Marjorie Chibnall points out in her recent biography of Maude, The Empress Matilda, this myth did not surface until the thirteenth century and may be traced to confusion over Stephen’s adoption of Henry as his heir once peace was finally made between them. What of Maude’s relationship with Brien Fitz Count? One of her biographers suggests that they may have been lovers, a suggestion Ms. Chibnall firmly rejects. That they were devoted to each other, none can deny, and it is hard not to conclude that Brien’s devotion was personal rather than political, for he ruined himself on Maude’s behalf, resolutely refused to accept any rewards for his steadfast and dangerous loyalty, and took holy vows upon her departure from England. I doubt, though, that they ever became lovers in the physical sense. K. S. B. Keats-Rohan, in his insightful and well-researched article “The Devolution of the Honour of Wallingford, 1066–1148,” describes Brien as Maude’s “courtly lover,” and I suspect that is as close to the truth as we are likely to get.

  I broke with conventional wisdom in this book, for it has been an accepted belief that Maude had no children before Henry. But in her biography, Ms. Chibnall reports that a German chronicler claimed that Maude bore a child to her first husband, a child who died soon afterward. According to Ms. Chibnall, this chronicler, Hermann of Tournai, was a near contemporary of Maude’s but not always a reliable source. She does not dismiss his story out of hand, though, for the same reason that I tend to believe it. I do not think Maude’s father would have risked naming her as his heir unless he knew she could conceive a child. The emperor had an illegitimate daughter; moreover, the woman was almost always blamed for a childless marriage in the Middle Ages. Why would Hen
ry have staked his dynastic hopes upon a woman who might be barren? To me that is a persuasive argument for the veracity of Hermann of Tournai’s account.

  Stephen is my third weak king. But unlike the pathetic Henry VI or the petty Henry III, Stephen had some very attractive qualities. He was courageous, generous, optimistic, and good-natured. Unfortunately for England, he was also impractical, impulsive, an appallingly bad judge of character, blind to consequences, insecure, and easily influenced. After reading my manuscript, a friend said “Poor Stephen. He lost so much when he gained a crown.” I think she is right. But the English people lost far more.

  It might be said that both Stephen and Maude were victims of their age, for the twelfth century was not friendly terrain for a too-forgiving king or a sovereign queen. History has not been kind to either of them. In Maude’s case, I think the judgment might be overly harsh, for if you study her past, you find three Maudes. There was the young woman who made a successful marriage to a manic depressive and so endeared herself to her German subjects that they were loath to see her return to England. There was the aging matriarch who passed her last years in Normandy, on excellent terms with the Church and her royal son, respected for the sage counsel she gave Henry. In between, there was the harpy, the termagant so reviled by the English chroniclers, whose mistakes were exaggerated and magnified by the hostile male monks writing her history.

  Maude could be infuriating and exasperating, but she had great courage, and she never lost a certain prickly integrity. As for Stephen, I think the truest verdict was one passed by a contemporary chronicler: “He was a mild man, gentle and good, and did no justice.”

  S.K.P.

  July 1994

  Also by Sharon Kay Penman

  The Sunne in Splendour

  Here Be Dragons

  Falls the Shadow

  The Reckoning

  Acknowledgments

  I WAS very fortunate; while researching and writing Saints, I never lacked for support and encouragement. A number of people have been helpful, but I would like to single out the following ones for special thanks. My parents, for always being there for me. Valerie Ptak LaMont, for her writer’s insight and honesty. Scott Ian Barry, for letting me draw upon his expertise as an animal behaviorist in the attack scene with Loth, Ranulf’s Norwegian dyrehund. Jill and John Davies, for a special afternoon in Lincoln, tracking the Fossedyke to find where Robert Fitz Roy was likely to have crossed with his army. The best editors and agents that any writer could hope to have: Marian Wood and John Jusino of Henry Holt and Company, Susan Watt of Michael Joseph Ltd., Molly Friedrich of the Aaron M. Priest Literary Agency, and Mic Cheetham. As well, the staffs of the University of Pennsylvania, the British Library, and the research libraries of Shrewsbury, Oxford, Winchester, and Lincoln.

  Henry Holt and Company, Inc.

  Publishers since 1866

  115 West 18th Street

  New York, New York 10011

  Henry Holt® is a registered

  trademark of Henry Holt and Company, Inc.

  Copyright © 1995 by Sharon Kay Penman

  All rights reserved.

  Published in Canada by Fitzhenry & Whiteside Ltd.,

  195 Allstate Parkway, Markham, Ontario L3R 4T8.

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Penman, Sharon Kay.

  When Christ and his saints slept / by Sharon Kay Penman.

  —1st ed.

  p. cm.

  I. Title.

  PS3566.E474W48 1995 94-22593

  813'.54—dc20 CIP

  ISBN: 978-1-4299-3952-2