The Elder Mr. Loch recently alerted me to The Final Sacrament by James Forrester. Set in Elizabethan England, the premise of the book is that Queen Elizabeth I is not the legitimate Queen of England because of Anne Boleyn’s previous relationship with the Earl of Northumberland. William Harley, who holds the office of Clarenceux King of Arms, has proof of Boleyn’s precontract, which makes him a wanted man.
My first reaction upon hearing of the plot was to roll my eyes. The idea that Anne Boleyn might have been precontracted to the Earl of Northumberland was not exactly a secret. In fact, the Countess of Northumberland even tried to use it as grounds for annulling her marriage to the Earl. But Lord Northumberland swore on two separate occasions that there had been no such precontract. He even stuck to his story when agents of Henry VIII wanted him to say the opposite. If there had been a precontract between Boleyn and Northumberland, it would have arguably given Henry grounds for seeking an annulment of his marriage. As we all know, Henry found another way of getting rid of his queen.
While it’s true that a precontract might have rendered Elizabeth illegitimate, she was declared illegitimate anyway by Act of Parliament after her mother’s execution. A few years later, she was legitimized and returned to the line of succession. Since her legitimacy was ultimately determined by Parliament, I’m not sure the document that forms the book’s MacGuffin would really be as explosive as it might seem as first glance. I’m sorely tempted to pick up the book just to see how he deals with the succession legislation!
Although the historian in me took a dim view of the way Forrester seemed to approach his subject, I had a change of heart when I checked out his website. “James Forrester” is actually the pen name of of Dr. Ian J. F. Mortimer, who is a rather well-known historian. On his James Forrester website, he explains why he felt the need to adopt a separate persona for writing fiction. He’s quite upfront about the fact that he’s willing to change the details if it suits the story:
In Sacred Treason I changed the name of Henry Machyn’s wife from Dorothy to Rebecca because one of the early readers of the manuscript said ‘I couldn’t help thinking of the Yellow Brick Road every time she was mentioned’. I also changed the name of my main protagonist from Harvey to Harley. It’s close enough to show I know who the real Clarenceux King of Arms was in 1563; but I deliberately wanted to be inaccurate so people could be sure he is fictional. This is very different from most historical novelists’ way of working, many of whom have a strict rule about not contradicting the ‘known facts’.
You might think that this would have me frothing at the mouth, but it doesn’t. I’m willing to tell my inner pedant to STFU if it’s clear that the author did their homework and took the trouble to get things right whenever possible. But if you can’t even get the big things right, you’re not going to get any slack at all.
Codex Lochianus 