Booklog 64/2022: Elizabeth Chadwick: The Conquest

[jacey]

I like Elizabeth Chadwick's writing. She makes history come alive through personal stories. Sometimes her characters are real, and other times invented, but withing a strictly historical time frame. These characters are invented though set in the (very real) time of the Norman Conquest. This is a book of two parts, the first is about Ailith, a Saxon, happily married to Goldwin, a talented blacksmith, and living in London. Pre Hastings, a Norman wine merchant takes the house next to Ailith and Golwin and thus the scene is set for Ailith to be drawn into the Norman world after Hastings and to meet Rolf de  Brize, Norman horse breeder who ends up with English lands after Hastings. The second part concerns Rolf and Ailith's daughter, Julitta, and Benedict who allows himself to be married to Rolf's other daughter, which is unfortunate as it turns out. During the twenty year span of the story the Normans are established in England and throughout this time Rolf is supplying war-horses to the king and his knights. There's some good detail in here and the story is an interesting read, though not my absolute favourite of Ms Chadwick's books (which would be the sequence about William Marshall). Well worth a look if you like your history romantic or your romance historical.