The first in a series of blogs about the forthcoming novel which can now be pre-ordered from Amazon here: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Irish-Princess-Elizabeth-Chadwick-ebook/dp/B07JN2RW2X/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1540675148&sr=8-2&keywords=the+irish+princess
What the novel is about
The Irish Princess is set in the middle of the 12th century and tells the story of Aoife, pronounced Eefa, daughter of Diarmait MacMurchada, king of Leinster in Southern Ireland and her match with Richard de Clare, Earl of Striguil (now Chepstow) on the Welsh borders.
It’s a novel about dealing with whatever fate throws at you and coming through. It’s about ambition and the price you pay for your desires. It’s about passion – about loving and hating with every scrap of your being. Ultimately it’s about survival and how far you are prepared to push yourself to secure your survival and then how you cope with your choices.
Aoife’s father, Diarmait MacMurchada, lord of Leinster was a fascinating character to explore and write about. A ruthless, brutal warlord. He had raped, pillaged and bludgeoned his way to the top and kept himself there by force of arms, by force of will, by cunning and a fierce eye to the main chance. One of his most notorious deeds was abducting (with her consent) the wife of rival lord Tiernan Ua Ruari, together with all her considerable wealth, thus making a mockery of Tiernan. The latter never forgot or forgave, even after his wife was restored to him because Diarmait had crowned him in the sight of all with a cuckold’s horns and exposed him as a laughing stock – a man who could not keep his wife, who clearly preferred his enemy’s clutches to her husband’s.
But Diarmait’s deceitful and underhand brutality was only one facet of the man and like a complex jewel he had numerous other sides and angles. He was the little boy, watching the Dubliners kick his father into a grave with a dog. He was the trader, finding opportunity across the sea in mainland Britain. He was friend and helper in troubled times to the crownless Henry II during the struggle for England. He kept a Norman-Irish bard and poet in his court and he valued literacy and learning. His brother in law was Archbishop of Dublin and a future saint. Diarmait razed monasteries and convents to the ground and abused the incumbents, including sanctioning the rape of a nun. He blinded and beheaded his foes. But he also built and adorned churches and convents and aspired to the high kingship of Ireland. No common pirate, Diarmait MacMurchada but a man of contrasts, darkly glittering.
Aoife was born to Diarmait’s 3rd wife Môr Ni Tuathail in circa 1152, and is seen by some historians as his only legitimate daughter because the marriage was the only one formally recognised by the church. She had half-brothers and sisters born from earlier unions, and also a full brother Conchobar (pronounced Connor) from her father’s match with Môr.
When her father’s faction was brought down in Ireland in 1166, his enemies struck him with hammer force. Aoife was in her early to mid-teens by now. Burning his palace of Ferns behind him so that his enemies should not walk in his hall, Diarmait fled into exile, taking his family and immediate followers and swearing his revenge on those who had cast him from the country, including Tierna ua Ruari and the new high king of Ireland Ruari ua Conchobar.
Diarmait welcomes the Normans to Irish soil. From the Ross Tapestry – a tale told in thread.
The family took up residence as refugees in Bristol, welcomed by the immensely wealthy and powerful Anglo Norman merchant and noble Robert FitzHarding, with whom Diarmait already had trading contacts. FitzHarding advised Diarmait to seek aid from King Henry II, currently across the Channel on business in his Angevin lands. FitzHarding had his own reasons for handing out such advice – he had his eye firmly fixed on potential new markets privileges and profits in Dublin – if all went to plan.
Diarmait crossed the Channel with his family and appealed to King Henry who granted him permission to recruit mercenaries from his dominions to help him take back his Irish lands. Henry naturally had his own agenda in all this and an eye to Ireland himself even if he was otherwise occupied with continental business at the moment.
On returning to England with his permit, Diarmait set about finding likely men and FitzHarding pointed him straight at Richard de Clare, lord of Striguil (Chepstow). Richard de Clare was in his mid 30’s at the time and a man well placed to be interested in Diarmait’s recruitment drive, and in pastures new. His relationship with Henry II was uneasy, for the de Clare’s had been on the opposing side in the earlier civil war that had torn the country apart. On coming to the throne, Henry had put a tight rein on Richard’s lands and removed the earldom of Pembroke from him,that had been a title granted to his father by King Stephen.
Richard kept within the bounds of loyalty and paid lip-service to Henry, but he leaped at the chance to expand his horizons and acquire family greatness again. We know from one source (albeit biased – Gerald of Wales) that Richard was tall, with auburn hair, grey-eyes and freckles. He was balanced in his nature, never too excitable and always considered his moves, usually after consulting with his men. A thinker, calm in the eye of the storm and his men always knew where to rally to his banner. It was remarked that he had not covered himself in glory during his lifetime thus far, and his ancestral line was more glorious than he was, so he probably felt he had something to prove.
Diarmait and Richard settled down to negotiate the terms by which Richard would help Diarmait regain his Irish lands. Richard was in a position to facilitate resources beyond his own. He had numerous contacts with interested parties throughout the Marches and South Wales – Flemings, English, Welsh and Cambro-Normans and in modern parlance he set about putting together a ‘package’ for Diarmait. Fighting men, ships and equipment. Useful contacts. Part of the deal between Richard and Diarmait was an agreement that the moment Richard set foot in Ireland himself, and ensured the restoration of Diarmait’s lands (with the prospect of more and greater conquests to come) Diarmait would give Aoife to Richard in marriage.
THE IRISH PRINCESS looks at how Aoife and Richard came to that marriage – their emotions, their expectations, their ambitions and how they dealt with each other in violent and volatile times when others, equally ambitious, including the King of England were also keen to grab what they could in what was essentially a corporate takeover of Ireland.