Before I began to write A MARRIAGE OF LIONS  I had no idea that this was going to be the title – although it suits the subject matter perfectly.  I also had no idea that Joanna de Munchensey and William de Valence were going to be the subjects of the novel but I am so glad that they made themselves known to me, for they are a couple who have slipped (like so many others) through the gaps in our historical knowledge, but had a pivotal role to play on their stage while they lived.

While deciding on my next project after THE IRISH PRINCESS and THE COMING OF THE WOLF,  I came across a biography by Linda Mitchell about Joan or Joanna de Valence, granddaughter of the great William Marshal. She began her life as Joanna de Munchensey, the daughter of William Marshal’s youngest daughter, also called Joanna.
Anyone who has followed my career, knows the massive effect that William Marshal has had on me and my writing, so naturally, a biography of one of his granddaughters was immediately of interest. As I read the work, I realised that not only was Joanna a neglected star of thirteenth century life and politics, but also a woman who had been done a vast disservice by chroniclers and historians and often without substance beyond misogyny.  The same treatment has frequently been meted out to her husband William de Valence, whose name she took and who is either simplistically ignored, or wrongfully vilified by many historians. He is mentioned as an afterthought, when in fact, like his wife Joanna, he was one of the most important and loyal supporters behind the thrones of Henry III and Edward I.

In her biography, Linda Mitchell says that Joanna de Valence “was one of the most influential and powerful women of the thirteenth century.’ I began doing some digging of my own, reading the sources, gathering information, and I knew that I had found a worthy subject for my next novel.

A MARRIAGE OF LIONS is the story then of how Joanna de Munchensey of Swanscombe, who at birth was destined for little more than local, gentrified influence, rose to become one of the great landholders and heiresses of Medieval England, Wales and Ireland, and sister-in-law to King Henry III.  It’s the story of an ordinary life cast suddenly into the stars.

As an heiress of stellar prospects, Joanna was united in a marriage arranged by Henry III to his youngest half-brother William de Valence, who, in his late teens, was of a similar age to Joanna.  William had crossed the sea from his homeland in the Limousin where he had a few properties to his name in the area of Cognac, but to all intents his inheritance was modest.  However, Henry gave him a wealthy marriage to Joanna, and then lavished him with gifts of land, clothes, jewels, hunting preserves – everything that a courtly young man could ever desire.

Unfortunately, Joanna’s vast territories were a source of dispute among several powerful families, including that headed by the famous Simon de Montfort who was married to the King’s sister Eleanor.   He and his wife might be kin to the Valences, but there was no love lost. The situation escalated, driven by rife political divisions at the royal court.  Joanna and William de Valence, young and inexperienced,  had to find their feet and their maturity amid the shifting sands in an increasingly hostile environment.

A Marriage of Lions is the story of that struggle. William, rash with youth,  was often his own worst enemy and at times it put a strain on his marriage with Joanna.  As the political situation escalated, and worsened around them, the couple, now with small children,  found themselves in a fight to the death, and when William was forced to flee for his life, Joanna had to fend for herself and their offspring, with all her resources cut off.  She  had to find a way through or lose everything.  William too, had some fast lessons to learn if he was to survive.

I came to have a strong rapport with Joanna and William when writing A MARRIAGE OF LIONS.  Like all of us they had their flaws, but that made them all the more immediate and human. They grew from boy and girl, to uncertain adolescents, to fully mature adults in a time of high political upheaval, walking a knife edge between all and nothing.

A MARRIAGE OF LIONS will be published in the UK on September 9th 2021