LETTER FROM POITOU
This is a 164,180-word novel by Michael J. Eardley set in the period of English history 1304-1369. Actual events encompassed are Bannockburn, the removal of Edward II from the throne, the origins of the 100 Years War with France, Crecy, the Black Death, and Poitiers. Historical realities are woven with and into the lives of the North Staffordshire Barons of Audley, their enemies, their friends and relations, and their retainers (including the Eardleys!)
The narrative is flashbacks, two lengthy, and one short, through the memories of the main female character, Eve de Clavering.
Twice-widowed by the age of twenty-one, she had no children in wedlock, but five by her lover in a twenty-year relationship without the blessing of law or priest.
After her lover’s death, she married once more, in later middle age. Her eldest son, James Audley, although illegitimate, became a favourite of Edward III and his son, the Black Prince, a founder member of the Garter Knights, and hero of the cavalry charge which routed the French at the battle of Poitiers in 1356.
Eve was remarkable for her times, living to be 76, when the average life-span was 48. She died in September 1369, the same month and year as her celebrated son. He died in France, where he had risen to the title of Seneschal of Poitou. This coincidence provides the climax for the novel, and explains the title, LETTER FROM POITOU.
Receipt of the letter sparks off recollections, which form the text of the novel.
Originally a financial and dynastic pawn of her father’s social and political ambitions, heiress Eve suffered two loveless marriages, the first when she was just eleven!
At the prospect of a third, she used secretly acquired information, asserted her growing confidence, and blackmailed her scheming father into allowing her to pursue her own agenda. She revived a childhood friendship with James Audley senior, her first husband’s cousin. Defying convention (and partly to retain her inherited fortunes!), the pair lived together for two decades, through some of the most turbulent events of the 14th Century.
In the plot, James played a significant, but hidden, role in the assassination of Piers Gaveston, Edward II’s homosexual lover. Guilt plagued James’ conscience, and Eve lost him to a fever contracted on a penitential pilgrimage to Spain.
Financially and socially independent, Eve used all her influence to further her sons’ careers: she was acutely aware of their status as bastards. As a result, both young men flourished in the martial atmosphere of Edward III’s attempts to seize the French throne.
LETTER FROM POITOU follows the sweep of history through the personal observations of the characters and uses the device that Eve has been telling her life’s story to the nuns at the Abbey to which she retreated in old age.
All the characters, except for minor ones, are real. They were born, lived, and died, at the places shown in the novel, or the subsequent historical notes.
Of necessity, the dialogue and some of the motives and actions are fictitious. There are feuds, murders, ancient family curses, intrigues, sex, battles, and spiritual struggles.
Of local interest, much of the action takes place in North Staffordshire: the Audleys’ seat was Heleigh Castle, between Audley and Betley. Local family names (including the Eardleys) and places crop up throughout the story, yet the plot is also well-travelled: Scotland, France, and Spain. Some of the century’s bloodiest battles are visited.
Deliberately, the language style is Modern English – as if it were translated from a foreign tongue. The combined Old English, Norman French, and secular Latin would indeed sound alien if we were able to visit those times, hence the ‘translation’.
