One of the greatest knights in English history is lying on his deathbed. As his loved ones stay near his bedside, William Marshal remembers his time in the Outremer, where he is to perform a final duty to his lord. William and his companions soon realize that the Holy Land is more treacherous than they could ever imagine, and the most dangerous person for William is the concubine Paschia de Riveri. Elizabeth Chadwick concludes her William Marshal series with novel six in the series, “Templar Silks.”
I have enjoyed the previous novels that I have read by Elizabeth Chadwick, and I wanted to read more from her. I saw this book at a used book store, and I wanted to read it, even though I had not read the previous five books in the series.
We begin this final adventure with William Marshal in the year 1219. William is on death’s door and has asked his squire, Jean D’ Earley, to retrieve his burial silks from Wales. These were not just any burial silks, but the ones that he was given by the Templars when he was in Jerusalem. To understand why William went to Jerusalem, Chadwick goes back to 1183, when William was in the service of the Young King Harry, the son of Henry II and Alienor of Aquitaine. Harry decides that they would raid Rocamadour to pay for their endeavours, but this would be one of the last decisions he would ever make. On his deathbed, Harry asked William and his men to take his cloak to Jerusalem so that he could be forgiven for his sins of robbing the church.
William agrees, and so he, his brother Ancel, and a handful of others make their way to Jerusalem. Once they make it into the Outremer, they soon realize that they are in the midst of a fight for the throne. King Baldwin IV of Jerusalem is dying, and there is a fight within his court for the throne, primarily from Baldwin’s sister Sybilla and her husband Guy de Lusignan, William’s mortal enemy. To top it all off, William falls in love with the concubine of Heraclius, Paschia de Riveri. William and his men must survive the politics of the Outremer to return home to his beloved England.
Overall, I thoroughly enjoyed this novel, despite not having read the previous books in the series. Now, I want to read the rest of the series to see William Marhsal’s life through Chadwick’s eyes. If you have read the previous books in the William Marshal series, I would recommend that you read the final book in the series, “Templar Silks” by Elizabeth Chadwick.
The Crusades were conflicts predominantly focused on the stories of knights, kings, popes, Christians, and Muslims. We have some stories of women like Eleanor of Aquitaine who joined their husbands in battle. However, some women’s stories tend to get lost in the sands of the past. Take, for example, Eleanor of Aquitaine’s daughter-in-law, Berengaria of Navarre, the wife of Richard the Lionheart. Amid the Third Crusades, she must join Eleanor of Aquitaine on a treacherous journey to meet her husband while he battles for Jerusalem. Can Richard and Berengaria survive the journey to and from the Holy Land and produce the desired heir for the English throne before their enemies can claim victory? Carol McGrath has chosen to tell the tale of the forgotten queen Berengaria of Navarre in her latest novel, “The Lost Queen.”
Author Bio – Following a first degree in English and History, Carol McGrath completed an MA in Creative Writing from The Seamus Heaney Centre, Queens University Belfast, followed by an MPhil in English from the University of London. The Handfasted Wife, first in a trilogy about the royal women of 1066 was shortlisted for the RoNAS in 2014. The Swan-Daughter and The Betrothed Sister complete this highly acclaimed trilogy. Mistress Cromwell, a best-selling historical novel about Elizabeth Cromwell, wife of Henry VIII’s statesman, Thomas Cromwell, was republished by Headline in 2020. The Silken Rose, the first in a medieval She-Wolf Queens Trilogy, featuring Ailenor of Provence, saw publication in April 2020. This was followed by The Damask Rose. The Stone Rose was published in April 2022. Carol is writing Historical non-fiction as well as fiction. Sex and Sexuality in Tudor England was published in February 2022. The Stolen Crown 2023 and The Lost Queen will be published on 18th July 2024. Carol lives in Oxfordshire, England, and in Greece.
When we think about medieval women, we often think about very pious figures who relied on men, had numerous children, and would often fade into obscurity when they died. While this would be the ultimate fate for many women, it was not so for those close to thrones worldwide. In times of war and political upheaval, the daughters, the wives, and the queens picked up the pieces and patched their respective kingdoms back together. In her latest book, “Women of Power: Formidable Queens of the Medieval World,” Teresa Cole has chosen a select group of women to highlight her point about the strength of women who held power in the Middle Ages.
Adventures of a Tudor Nerd 