Author Interview | Elizabeth Chadwick

I’m delighted to welcome Elizabeth Chadwick to Hist-Fic Chick today to talk about her latest novel, The Scarlet Lion (read my review)! Elizabeth Chadwick (UK) is the author of 17 historical novels, including The Greatest Knight, Lords of the White Castle, Shadows and Strongholds, A Place Beyond Courage, The Winter Mantle, and The Falcons of Montabard, four of which have been shortlisted for the Romantic Novelists’ Awards. She also won a Betty Trask Award for her first novel, The Wild Hunt. You can visit Elizabeth at her website or on her blog.

What is it about the Medieval era that intrigues you the most over other historical time periods?

I was caught young! I became interested in the Medieval period during history lessons as a child when the teacher used to get us to act out little plays in front of the class. Later on in my teens, I fell in love with a historical adventure character in a children’s TV programme called Desert Crusader and started writing a book inspired by him. (I was 15 at the time). Here’s the url to the full story.

Since I wanted to make my story feel as real as possible, I began researching the period in detail. In that first story, the hero returns to the Angevin Empire, so as well as the Holy Land, I had to research up the life and times of Henry II. The more I studied the more fascinated I became, especially as I began to discover that things I’d taken for granted weren’t true. Swords weren’t massive great hacking instruments. Warhorses weren’t huge great chargers. People did wash. It wasn’t all dirt and fleas. The food (for an aristocrat) was actually rather delicious. Basically the more I researched the more interested I became. I also think that passions you develop in your teens often stay with you for the rest of your life. It’s a time of map-making that will lead you towards the rest of your life.

How do you strike a balance between historical accuracy and fictional inventions? How important is it to you to stick to the known history when filling in the fictitious areas of your stories?

Historical accuracy comes first. I would never knowingly fudge a date or someone’s age just because it was easier for myself. I believe that story and accuracy can go hand in hand as a partnership and if you know what you are doing and have the skill, you can adhere strongly to the facts while still telling a good tale. If something really happened, why change it? It’s the writer’s challenge to work round knotty obstacles without distorting history. When there is no historical data to show the way, then it’s up to an author to find a path that treats the characters and the history with integrity and is not outside the realms of possibility of what might have happened.

So far you’ve written three books about the Marshal family legacy, and you are working on a fourth (which follows William Marshal’s daughter Mahelt). Why the Marshals?

They are such a fascinating family and their descendants had such an effect on history all down the line. The Stuart Kings descend from them. So do Anne Boleyn and Elizabeth I. George Washington. Winston Churchill. Judging from the number of e-mails I receive, many Americans claim William as an ancestor. They rose from obscure beginnings – way back before the main records of their family, they were chief stable hands. The office of Marshal became increasingly important and the duties that went with it came to include being in charge of the kennels, the mews and everything to do with getting the court on the road between castles. The Marshals were in charge of the royal concubines and had to keep the ‘working girls’ in order. They were also responsible for seeing to it that the only people who got in to see the king were the ones the king wanted to see. John Marshal (A Place Beyond Courage) and his son William (The Greatest Knight and The Scarlet Lion) were highly intelligent men. Strong warriors, astute politicians and shrewd with money. They, and men like them were the backbone of the Norman and Angevin government and they lived their lives on a grand scale. Mahelt interested me because although William had ten children, she was his only daughter for around the first seven years of her life and she is the only one that his biography calls beloved. The other daughters are spoken of in glowing terms, but Mahelt had that extra something and was quite obviously the apple of his eye. I’d written a novel about Ida de Tosney, who was a mistress of King Henry II. (For the King’s Favor) to be published by Sourcebooks in the autumn. Ida married the Earl of Norfolk and her son Hugh, married Mahelt Marshal, so it seemed a logical thing to do to tell the story of the uniting of two great families.

One of the aspects I enjoyed the most about The Scarlet Lion was the way the characters seemed so vivid with real depth to them. Do you find it difficult to come up with the little idiosyncrasies and personality traits that make your characters pop off of the page and come so brilliantly to life?

Not really. It’s just a case of observing people and finding out what you can about them and applying it to the narrative. For example, a history written about William Marshal tells us that he was known in his youth as ‘Gaste Viande’ which roughly translates to ‘Greedy Guts.’ He liked his food – although perhaps that is fairly typical of all active teenagers and young men. Food, when it is mentioned in the Histoire de Guillaume le Mareschal is also described with a gourmet’s interest. We are told about sparkling wine that is fresh and soft on the palate. Until I read that piece when researching, I had no idea that sparkling wines were a thing of the Middle Ages! Going back to William’s nick-name, it gave me the perfect opportunity to develop this aspect of his character and mention various medieval dishes and eating habits. Most characters will have something specific that belongs to them as a personal trait, and once you find it in a chronicle, then you can develop it. I also use the psychic in the form of the Akashic Records to find out about the characters and I hope write them as they were. More details about that here: http://www.elizabethchadwick.com/akashic_record.html

While a lot has changed since William Marshal’s day, much about human nature remains the same throughout the centuries, something that becomes clearer and clearer to me the more I read about history. What would you say is the most challenging part of portraying people in novels that take place in a time period so very different from, yet in some ways still so very similar to our own?

The most challenging part I think is keeping them true to their life and times whilst keeping modern readers on board. Some readers are shocked for example that the aristocracy in particular, married their daughters off when they were only in their early teens. So for one thing the girl (and often her husband) were not given a choice and for another, she was still a child by our standards. But if you treat it by the standards of their day, it was business as usual and quite within the bounds of propriety. Girls and boys were prepared for the adult world at a much younger age in terms of duties and responsibility. It was
a serious undertaking. A Medieval person would be horrified by the way our own children are exposed to suggestive adult imagery via TV and media from infancy in many cases. Women’s attitudes and attitudes about women have changed and they can seem very alien to our liberated society. Readers often have expectations based on what they’ve seen on TV or read in the media, and such expectations are often very far from the truth. The perceived wisdom that no-one bathed for example. Well certainly they didn’t wash themselves down to their shadow as we tend to do today, but within living memory people only used to take one bath a week and make do with a thorough wash in between. The Medievals may not have bathed that often, but they washed a lot, and that was important to them, as were nice smells, because nice smells were a sign of sanctity. The other end of the stick was when someone chose to mortify themselves to get closer to God (as in Thomas Becket’s case) and eschew washing and any attempt at cleanliness, but the majority of people washed every day and there are recipes still existent for hair dyes, soaps tooth powders and beauty products. It’s getting things like this over to the modern reader who may have different notions that can be a challenge.

You have written quite an impressive roster of historical novels – 17 to date! You have an extensive fan base all around the world, and recently your American fans have been able to enjoy your wonderful books The Greatest Knight and The Scarlet Lion here in the States. Can you tell us if more of your titles are going to be printed here in the US in the near future?

They most certainly are! I am delighted to tell you that Sourcebooks has bought 3 more titles to add to the two already published. For the King’s Favor will be coming out in the autumn. It was titled The Time of Singing in the UK, and I want to shout this loud and clear so that readers don’t get mixed up – I know as a reader myself how annoying that can be. For the King’s Favor is about Ida de Tosney, who was a mistress of Henry II; it’s about the little boy she bore to Henry, and her subsequent marriage to Lord Roger Bigod who was striving to mend his family’s disgrace and win back the earldom his treacherous father had lost. Ida and Roger’s own eldest son, Hugh, married the eldest daughter of William Marshal and that’s where the next novel, To Defy A King comes in. Sourcebooks will be publishing this next spring, and USA readers will actually get their hands on the paperback before the UK paperback comes out – so that’s an exclusive!

What are you currently reading?

I’m afraid it’s a rather gruesome thriller – Looking Good Dead by Peter James. Think British Silence of the Lambs! Before that I read and loved Major Pettigrew’s Last Stand by Helen Simonson – a much gentler book. I do like variety in my reading. I’d get bored reading the same thing all the time, so I mix and match through the genres.

What are some of your personal favorite historical fiction titles?

My goodness, I have hundreds! These are not in any order, just some that come to mind as particularly standing out.

Here Be Dragons – Sharon Kay Penman
Red Adam’s Lady – Grace Ingram
The Adventures of Alianor Audeley – Brian Wainwright
The Roselynde Chronicles, especially Alinore by Roberta Gellis
Hanta Yo by Ruthe Beebee Hill
Gallow’s Thief by Bernard Cornwell
The Game of Kings – Dorothy Dunnnett
Girl With A Pear Earring – Tracy Chevalier
Vainglory – Geraldine Mcaughrean
Legacy – Susan Kay
The Far Pavilions – M.M. Kay
The Crystal Cave – Mary Stewart
The Silver Pigs – Lyndsy Davis
One Corpse Too Many – Ellis Peters
Avalon – Anya Seton

Many thanks to Allie for welcoming me onto her blog. I’ve enjoyed the visit. I’d love to know what other readers’ favorite historical novels are.