Ranting about historical novels

[bibliogramma]

This post is inspired by a book I will not be reading, Christine Elaine Black's A Rose for Lancaster, set in the first year of the reign of Henry VII.

The reason I will not be reading this book is because it it is just too historically inaccurate to be endured. Now, readers may ask how I know it is too historically inaccurate to be endured if I haven't even cracked its cover. Easy, I answer. The sample provided on the author's website identifies the male protagonist as Giles Beaufort, heir to the recently deceased Baron of Somerset.

What's wrong with that, readers may ask. Well, the Beaufort family - the children of John of Gaunt and his mistress (later wife) Katherine Swynford and their descendants - played a crucial part in the wars between Lancaster and York, not the least because it was through the Beaufort line that Henry Tudor could trace his descent from the house of Plantagenet along with all the other Lancasters and York in the conflict.

The members of the house of Beaufort are very well known. There was no Giles Beaufort. Maybe the author's referring to another Beaufort family, readers may postulate. A minor house not very important, that wasn't chronicled. Maybe there was such a house. But if that's the author's intent, why make her hero heir to the title of Somerset, when the royal Beaufort line were in fact first Earls, then Dukes of Somerset (but never Barons)?

Not only was there no Giles Beaufort, but at the time of Henry VII's ascent in 1485, he himself was the senior surviving legitimately born male of the House of Beaufort. The third duke of Somerset had died in 1471 leaving an illegitimate son, Charles Somerset, who was later legitimised and made Earl of Worchester. So, no male Beauforts, no earls, dukes or barons of Somerset.

Now, I would like to be clear - I have no objection to historical novels that create new characters and use them to tell stories, as long as those invented characters aren't glaring. Invent a character who could have been, not a character who can be documented as never existing. Heaven knows there's enough holes in the documentation of most historical periods to drive a convoy of trucks through. Use those holes, don't mangle the parts of history that we do actually have plenty of information on.

That's all I ask of writers of historical fiction - that what they're writing could have happened.