Katherine by Anya Seton (1954)

 

Katherine is a fictionalised account of Katherine Swynford (1349-1403) the woman who was John of Gaunt, the Duke of Lancaster’s mistress for twenty years. Gaunt was the fourth son of Edward III and the Tudor dynasty descended from their illegitimate children.

Katherine and her older sister Philipa, daughters of a knight in what is now Belgium, are left orphaned. Philipa is sent to serve the queen at the English court while Katherine is placed in a convent in England and is educated there for a number of years until she, too, is summoned to court.
Katherine unwillingly marries Sir Hugh Swynford, a retainer in the Duke of Lancaster’s service, and bears him two children. When the Duke is away on a campaign, his wife Blanche contracts the plague and Katherine takes care of her and is with her when she dies. John hears of her kindness and courage and engages her as governess to their children. John is devastated by his wife’s death and turns to Katherine for comfort, but she refuses a relationship as his mistress as long as Sir Hugh is alive.
John has to marry again, and of course, he cannot marry a woman who is not of noble birth, so he marries a woman he does not love, Constance, the Princess of Castile, for political expediency. He does love Katherine and takes her as his mistress after the death of her husband. She bears the Duke’s four children, the ‘Beaufort Bastards,’ and after Constance’s death she marries the Duke after many years as his paramour.

There were aspects of this book I loved and then there were other aspects I didn’t. A number of historical figures and events are featured in Seton’s story – Edward III, Richard II, Wat Tyler and the Peasant’s Revolt, the Black Plague, John Wycliff, Julian of Norwich, and Geoffrey Chaucer (who was married to Katherine’s sister, Philippa) to name a few, which gave the book added interest, but as is usual with historical fiction, it’s difficult to sort out how much is actual historical fact and how much is the author’s imagination.

Parts of the story are highly romanticised and I became a bit tired of the love affair between the two main characters and Katherine’s agonising, ‘He loves me, he loves me not…’ while she disregarded the fact that she was monopolising him and his poor Constance was neglected.
Katherine’s first husband, Hugh, loved her in his own way but she found him repelling and he felt this keenly. Their first child, Blanche Mary, was born while he was away on a campaign and she loved the child. I thought that this would soften her attitude to Hugh when he returned, but she remained remote.
Her later relationship with the Duke deeply affected the children from her marriage to Hugh. The Beaufort’s, up until they were legitimised after Katherine and John’s marriage, had very little prospects and uncertain futures. The couple was often thoughtless about those who were adversely affected by their relationship.

Alison Weir has written an historical account of Katherine Swynford (Katherine Swynford: The Story of John of Gaunt and His Scandalous Duchess) and in this article she sheds some light on the real life of this woman who ended up bearing John of Gaunt’s Beaufort children and later married him.

The Middle Ages was a brutal time. Life was cheap, fortunes rose and fell depending on who was in power, life expectancy was short, infant mortality was high. Marriage was often a tool to gain political power and all sorts of unsuitable alliances were made for children of the nobility in order to add to their estates or elevate their status, and many women died in childbirth.
Reading books like this do make me thankful that I’m living now and not back then. To be sure, I would have died at sixteen from appendicitis if an infectious disease hadn’t taken me out before then.

This royal throne of kings, this scepter’d isle,
This earth of majesty, this seat of Mars,
This other Eden, demi-paradise,
This fortress built by Nature for herself
Against infection and the hand of war,
This happy breed of men, this little world,
This precious stone set in the silver sea,
Which serves it in the office of a wall,
Or as a moat defensive to a house,
Against the envy of less happier lands,
This blessed plot, this earth, this realm, this England,
This nurse, this teeming womb of royal kings,
Fear’d by their breed and famous by their birth…

-John of Gaunt ‘s speech (from Shakespeare’s Richard II)

Anya Seton (?1904-1990) was an American best-selling author of Romantic and biographical novels. Her father was the English naturalist and author, Ernest Thompson Seton, and her mother an American travel writer. Writing was obviously in her genes  and apart from my comments above about what I didn’t like about the book, I found it very well-written and engaging.

Death at the Bar by Ngaio Marsh (1940)

 

A dart's night at the Plume of Feathers, an old-fashioned pub at a small village in Devonshire, turns into a crime scene. Lawyer Luke Watchman, his cousin, Sebastian Parish who is a handsome and celebrated actor, and their friend, Norman Cubitt, a distinguished artist, are visiting the village after a year’s absence and are staying at the pub. Since their last visit some of the locals have formed the 'Coombe Left Movement' and think that the class problem and other ills could be solved by a Revolution.
The Secretary and Treasurer of the Movement is a man called Robert Legge. On the night of the dart game a man is murdered by poison and an inquest is held into the death. Cyanide was found on one of the darts and when Legge had thrown it, it had hit a man’s hand and he had died afterwards.
An inquest was held but no one was charged.

The coroner was Mr. Mordant, a sixty-seven-year old who suffered from dyspepsia:

He seemed to regard his fellow men with brooding suspicion, he sighed a great deal, and had a trick of staring despondently at the merest acquaintances. He at one time specialised in bacteriology and it was said of him that he saw human beings as mere playgrounds for brawling micrococci. It was also said that when Mr Mordant presided over an inquest, the absence in court of the corpse was not felt.

One man not happy with the lack of a conviction, presents himself to Scotland Yard and states his opinion on the case. The Yard decides to help with the investigation but the detectives have a chilly reception when they arrive at the Plume of Feathers. The police are part of the established order which the Coombe Left Movement considers to be corrupt to the core. The anti-authoritarian attitudes and hostility among the locals involved in the group hampers the investigation.

As this book was published in 1940, I thought that there would be references to the war but apart from a couple of passing comments about a soldier or two waiting to be called up, that was about as far as it went. This little village seemed completely isolated from the wider world. However, according to my copy of the book, it seems that Marsh finished writing it on May 3rd, 1939, and she was in New Zealand, so that may account for that.

On September 3, 1939 Britain declared war. The British Communist Party at first supported the war, but within a few weeks its line changed. On October 7, a manifesto was issued which referred to an ‘imperialist war’ and called for a government which would begin peace negotiations. Thereafter, the party’s official line remained essentially the same until June 1941, when Hitler invaded the Soviet Union, whereupon the Party entered into support for the war.

Ngaio Marsh (1895-1982) had a wonderful sense of humour that trickles into conversations and comes out in her characters. She captures all the little idiosyncrasies of character found in people who live at close quarters and who hold opposing views.
In one conversation, Mr. Nark, a prosperous farmer, was denouncing capitalism and its lack of a scientific outlook to Mr Oates, the village constable who was hoping to rise in his profession.

‘Do you know, Dick Oates,’ continued Mr. Nark, ‘that you’ve got a rudimentary tail?’

‘And if I have, which I don’t admit – ‘

‘Ask Mr Cubitt, then. He’s an artist and no doubt has studied the skeleton of man in its present stage of evolution. The name escapes me for the moment, but we’ve all got it. Isn’t that correct, sir?’

‘Yes, yes,’ said Mr Cubitt hurriedly. ‘Quite right Mr Nark.’

‘There you are,’ said Mr Nark. ‘Apes, every manjack of us, and our arms have only grown shorter through us knocking off the habit of hanging from trees.’

‘What about our tongues?’ asked Mr Oates.

‘Never mind about them,’ answered Mr Nark warmly, ‘do you know that an unborn child’s got gills like a fish?’

‘That doesn’t make a monkey out of it, however.’

‘It goes to show, though.’

‘What’?’

‘You want to educate yourself. In a proper government the State ‘ud educate the police so’s they’d understand these deep matters for themselves. They know all about that in Russia. Scientific necessity that’s what it is.’

‘I don’t see how knowing I’ve got a bit of a tail and once had a pair of gills is going to get me any nearer to a sergeant’s stripe,’ reasoned Mr. Oates. ‘What I’d like is a case.’

Mr Oates gets his wish.

Roderick Alleyn, at 43 years of age, the youngest chief-inspector at New Scotland Yard and his sidekick, Mr. Fox, a big, burly fellow of about fifty (affectionately called Br’er Fox by Alleyn) have a good working relationship and an obvious liking for each other.
The case is convoluted and just when you think the murderer has been identified, a piece of evidence throws suspicion on someone else. I thought a couple of people could have done the deed and was surprised by the outcome. It was a person I’d suspected at first and then changed my mind.

Ngaio Marsh was a New Zealander and spent most of her life in Christchurch in the South Island, so I was impressed that she could describe the English countryside as well as if she had lived there all her life.
Marsh originally studied art and toured New Zealand with a Shakespearean company. She was credited for single-handedly reviving Shakespeare in New Zealand and encouraging young performers. Considered a ‘Crime Queen’ alongside Agatha Christie, Dorothy Sayers and Margery Allingham, she wrote thirty-two novels featuring her detective, Roderick Alleyn. The theatre and painting feature in her stories and Alleyn is married to an artist. This background in the arts is unique to her work and adds richness to her novels.

Suspicions, Bacon remarked, that are artificially nourished by the tales and whisperings of others, have stings.

A Year of Reading

I'm adding this rather late but here is a list and short description of some of the books I read in 2024 that I published on Substack at the end of last year. 

Classics, speculative fiction, domestic fiction, dystopian, memoirs, re-reads...

A Year of Reading - Carol Hudson’s Substack

The Body in the Library by Agatha Christie (1942)

The first Miss Marple book I read was The Murder at the Vicarage and although I enjoyed the book, I wasn’t enamoured by Marple’s character and just thought she was an old gossip. 

I may have stopped there but Ruthiella @Booked for Life made a comment on my post that Miss Marple was particularly catty in that book and suggested I try another one.
Since then I’ve read eight Miss Marple books and she has grown on me. The Body in the Library was Christie’s third Miss Marple book and my most recent one:

Miss Marples good friends, the Bantry’s, wake up one morning to the news that a young woman’s dead, strangled body has been found in Colonel Bantry’s library. No one knows her identity and how she came to be there.
Mrs Bantry immediately rings Miss Marple:

’You want me to come up?’
“’Yes, I’m sending the car down for you.’
“Miss Marple said doubtfully: ‘Of course, dear, if you think I can be of any comfort to you – ‘
“Oh, I don’t want comfort. But you’re so good at bodies.’’
“Oh no, indeed. My little successes have been mostly theoretical.”
“But you’re very good at murders…
What I feel is that if one has got to have a murder actually happening in one’s house, one might as well enjoy it, if you know what I mean. Thats why I want you to come and help me find out who did it and unravel the mystery and all that. It really ‘is’ rather thrilling, isn’t it?”

There was a double murder mystery in this book and its solution was complicated as one of the bodies was burned beyond recognition. Meanwhile poor Colonel Bantry was getting the cold shoulder from people in St Mary Mead. The girl was found in the Colonel’s library, so the gossips said that the girl was his mistress…his illegitimate daughter…that she had been blackmailing him.

Favourite Characters

The Bantrys – Dolly Bantry was adamant the murder must be solved as she understood the devastating effect the implied guilt had on her husband. She had been away with Jane Marple and on her return home her husband seemed to have shrunk. After hearing of dinners that had been put off and a cancellation of the Colonel’s chairing of a council meeting, she pulled off a glove and threw it in the bin. Then she sat down and cut off the fingers of her second glove.

“What are you doing, Dolly?”
“Feeling destructive,” said Mrs Bantry.
She got up. “Where shall we sit after dinner, Arthur? In the library?”
“Well – er – I don’t think so- eh? Very nice in here – or the drawing room.”
“I think,” said Mrs Bantry, “that we’ll sit in the library!”
Her steady eye met his. Colonel Bantry drew himself up to his full height. A sparkle came into his eye.
He said:
“You’re right, my dear. We’ll sit in the library!”

Basil Blake – one of the prime suspects who seems to live up to his bad reputation but there is more to him than is first thought.

Peter Carmody – a nine year old would be detective who loves detective stories, does a bit of sleuthing and gives Miss Marple some clues.

“I’ve got autographs from Dorothy Sayers and Agatha Christie and Dickson Carr and H.C. Bailey.” 

Not a favourite character but I liked this description of Inspector Slack – a misnamed man if ever there was one:

Activity was always to Inspector Slack’s taste. To rush off in a car, to silence rudely those people who were anxious to tell him things, to cut short conversations on the plea of urgent necessity. All this was the breath of life to Slack.

A chilling aspect to this story was the murder of a random sixteen-year-old girl who was lured to her death in order to cover up the identity of the intended victim. As Miss Marple observed, most people are too trusting for this wicked world.

Five Windows by D.E. Stevenson (1953)

 

Five Windows follows the life of David Kirke beginning with his childhood growing up in a Scottish village. The author looked at David’s life through five different windows which represented the five places where he lived during his life up until he was in his early twenties. Starting off with his early years with his father, a minister in the local church, his mother and old Meg, it is a lovely story of family relationships and David’s journey into adult life. 

The First Window 

David’s early years with his parents were sheltered and lovingly nurtured. He developed a kind and sensitive nature with a deeply imbedded sense of morality that kept him anchored through the many changes and experiences of life. He experienced the loss of Malcolm, a local shepherd and a good friend when he enlisted as a soldier at the outbreak of the Second World War. David poured his grief into writing and discovered that he had a gift. 

The Second Window 

David moved away from his home in the village to Edinburgh to attend school.  He lived with his Uncle Matthew here and met his Aunt Etta, whom his uncle considered to be quite mad. David enjoys visiting her and his kindness to her has an important consequence later on. 

The Third Window 

David decided to go to London instead of staying in Edinburgh working at his uncle’s business. When his initial plan to get accommodation with a friend falls through, he takes lodging in a dingy boarding house in the city. It was here where he discovered the darker side of human nature. David’s upbringing and his trusting nature made him easy to manipulate until he learned how to stand up against those who just wanted to take advantage of his generosity. Not one of residents of the boarding house, including the woman who ran the place, were agreeable people. They were all quite selfish, miserable, stingy and played on David’s lack of experience in dealing with opportunistic people. 

The Fourth Window 

After a couple of eye-opening situations, David realised that he had to get out of the boarding house. One day he inadvertently finds a place to let with a window looking out over a bookshop and his life takes a new direction. 

The Fifth Window 

I really like how D.E. Stevenson brings everything together in the final part of this book. David has matured and wisened up without becoming cynical in the process. Although disappointed by previous relationships he has made some good friends. He now knows what he wants to do with his life and who he wants to spend it with. 

Five Windows was written in the first person as D.E. Stevenson wanted to put herself, ‘into the skin of a little boy and see the world through his eyes.’ She did this admirably. The story is told in simple language. In the Foreword to her book, the author mentioned that people have criticised David and told her he was a sap – too good to be true:

‘But he is not intended to be a “hero.” And surely, even in this sophisticated world, there must still be Davids. Perhaps they feel a little bewildered when they venture forth and meet with dragons. David did not know much about Life, he did not even know much about himself…I think it would be true to say that Five Windows gave me more pleasure to write than any of my other books.’ 

Highly recommended as an encouraging and gentle ''coming of age'' story.

Simon the Coldheart by Georgette Heyer (1925)

 

Georgette Heyer was in her early twenties when Simon the Coldheart was published. She was a severe critic of her own work and this title was one of about five or six that she said she didn’t want to be republished. After Heyer’s death in 1974, her son decided that his mother had judged her work too harshly and the book was reprinted in 1977.

Simon Beauvallet is the fourteen-year-old illegitimate son of Geoffrey of Malvallet. His mother died when he was about ten and his father had never bothered with him.

As the book begins, Simon presents himself at Fulk of Montlice’s castle, his father’s enemy, with the desire to become his page. Alan of Montlice, Fulk’s son, was a little younger than Simon. He happens to meet Simon as he is intercepted by a guard when trying to enter the castle. Taking an instant liking to him, he leads Simon in to meet his father. Fulk is impressed by Simon’s attitude and makes him page to Alan. Fulk later made Simon his own page and swore that there was more of himself in Simon than in his own son.

Simon grew to manhood. He became firm friends with Alan and Simon’s older half-brother, Geoffrey, but there was always an icy reserve in his manner with everyone. His prowess in battle earns him knighthood and lands. He fights under Prince Henry, the future Henry V. By the time of the Battle of Agincourt, Simon has turned thirty and, 

‘He had power and wealth, a splendid body, fit for any hardship or endurance, a not unpleasing countenance, and a quick, cool brain. Yet something he seemed to lack, for with all his assets and attainments, he was as cold as stone, almost as though some humanizing part of him had been left out in his fashioning. There were those who said that a softer side of live and passion was not in him, but Henry the King, wiser than these, would point to some frolicking page in the Beauvallet green and russet when he heard this criticism.

‘What! Do ye think Beauvallet hath no tenderness within him? Fool, what of the children.?’

The critics were silenced then, for Simon’s love of children was well-known.’

Henry and Alan believed that there was something in Simon that would spring to life one day, but Geoffrey’s response was,

‘What manner of woman will it be before whom Simon will fall? How many fair maids hath he passed by? And now he is past thirty. He is not like to love. It is too late.’

Heyer’s last book written before she died was My Lord John which overlaps slightly with this book. Her first love was for the Middle Ages, although she is best known for her Regency romances. Simon the Coldheart reminded me of the type of historical fiction my sons really enjoyed in their early teens and although they didn’t get to read any of Heyer’s novels, I’m sure they would have taken to her writing. She is very good at portraying family life and in this book, male friendship. 

Lots of ye, thou, hast and battle exploits, chivalry and derring-do. 

Although Simon had a cold manner, he was loyal. His relationship with Fulk of Montlice and that man’s acceptance of him became almost that of father and son and Alan and Geoffrey were true and devoted friends. As you’d expect, something in Simon did spring to life in time but I won’t go into that. 

Recommended for those who enjoy the historical time period of the Middle Ages. There are romantic elements but not enough to turn off younger readers who prefer action. It has a slightly G. A. Henty feel about it with the added benefit of humour.

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