Wales, Llywelyn ap Gruffydd. I had at first discounted him because, as far as the majority of history books and records are concerned, he had only one child, the unfortunate Gwenllian who died without issue. But…
In a collection of traditional Welsh pedigrees in the College of Arms in London, consulted for me by Peter Gwynn-Jones, the Lancaster Herald, there are at least two which contain a record of Llywelyn’s marriage to Eleanor, daughter of Simon de Montfort, and go on to speak of their only child, Catherine Lackland, who married first Philip ap Ifor and second MALCOLM, EARL OF FIFE!
This was a shock. And it couldn’t be right! Llywelyn married Eleanor in 1278, twelve years after Malcolm died! Perhaps Catherine was a bastard daughter of Llywelyn ap Gruffydd, conceived in his youth? (That might explain her name of Lackland.) Works based on pedigrees in the National Library of Wales do not mention her at all, speaking only of Gwenllian.
I was by now feeling very confused. Obviously there had been a marriage between some member of the house of Gwynedd and Malcolm, Earl of Fife. At the Scots end, the lady’s name was believed to have been Ellen/Helen; at the Welsh end, the only actual mention of Malcolm of Fife is linked with a putative daughter of Llywelyn ap Gruffydd, called Catherine.
It seemed to be a good time to return to the Scots records and once again to consult the experts, confronting them with Catherine. There is quite a lot of information in existence about the Mar family at that date. We know Donald was knighted rather late in life (but not why). We know who his children were and whom they married. Obviously their close relationship with the Bruces is well documented. We know Alexander was kept in the Tower (the cost of the Scots nobles and their retinues ‘staying’ in the Tower after the Battle of Dunbar was noted in Edward I’s account book as being ?407 6s. ?d) and we know he is not heard of again. But sadly it proved impossible to learn any more than I already knew about Donald’s wife, namely that she was Malcolm’s widow, that her name was Ellen or Helen and that she was a daughter of a Llywelyn.
It was frustrating, the more so when I learned that many of the charters of the noble families of Scotland had been taken by Oliver Cromwell and had been lost in a storm in the Forth on their way to England. Amongst these, gone forever, were perhaps the very documents which might have mentioned Ellen of Fife, her origins and her marriage to Donald of Mar.
I should have been dismayed, but by this time the strange alchemy had begun by which a fictional character is born. Based on legend or fact, one person or two, Eleyne, my Eleyne (or Ellen or Helen), was beginning to stir. And yes, she was the daughter of Llywelyn ap Iorwerth and Joan. And yes, she had four husbands, in a life which spanned nearly a century, and yes, she had nine children, at least. And, yes, in 1253 her dower lands had been redistributed. But seizing on the fact that nowhere did it actually say that she had died at that point, an alternative reason for this drastic action began to present itself and a novel was born.
I kept reminding myself that I am neither genealogist, nor historian, nor biographer. I am a novelist. My Eleyne, though based loosely on fact, was fiction. Probably I would never know the truth about her, so all I could do was listen to the story which she was beginning to whisper in my ear.
Her love affair with Alexander was her idea – it formed no part of my original synopsis. But time and again I found the facts, where they could be checked, fitted exactly the story she was dictating so insistently in my head. Alexander II did indeed have many lady friends – why not Eleyne? He had several bastard children, why could she too not carry his babies? Her heroic role, her triumphs and her failures, all came from her. And as for ghosts and predictions, Michael the Scot and Thomas of Ercildoune are part of Scots history, as are their predictions of Alexander III’s doom. Even the ghost at his wedding is recorded in the chronicles – a story retold with lip-licking gusto by Hector Boece: But flesche and blude, haiffand nocht ellis than,
Also from Eleyne came the prompt that her marriage to Robert was unhappy – nothing in the records says as much. All we have to go on is the difference in their rank, her father’s disapproval of the marriage and umpteen references to the endless litigation in which they were engaged – they were forever fighting their neighbours over boundaries and rents which conveys an impression that at least one of them was quarrelsome (and by now I was too partisan to believe it could have been Ellen/Helen).
There is always, in handling a historical theme, a conflict between the promptings of fiction and the actualities of fact. Reconciling them without compromising historical accuracy too much is part of the joy and the nightmare of writing a novel like this. I hope I have succeeded in making an enjoyable and credible story, but please, no examination theses based on Eleyne’s life!
As portrayed here I now think Eleyne probably did not exist. She is a composite; a family legend of the type which converts dingy oil paintings into Rembrandts and Victorian paste beads into aquamarines. But, if the two Ellen/Helens were indeed the same person she must have been a woman cast in the mould of Eleanor of Aquitaine – tough, fertile, healthy and long-lived! She would have been a formidable lady. Whoever she was she is an ancestor of whom I’m extremely proud.
The spelling of Elyne is taken from the form of the name adopted by my great-aunt when she copied the pedigrees from her grandfather’s version. It survived in the Erskine family, the descendants of Eleyne’s grand- daughter, as Elyne, which is, I suspect, a Victorian etymological amalgam or mis-spelling and as such admirably suits my enigmatic and evasive heroine.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
So many people helped me with their support and enthusiasm for this book, but I should like to thank especially the genealogists and archivists who contributed to the unravelling of the tale; I am very grateful for their patience and interest.
I should like to thank Janet Hanlon once more for her advice and also Jane, without whose organizational skills, help and humour present-day life would have disintegrated into a medieval miasma!
My heroine spent much of her life in four great residences. Of Fotheringhay virtually nothing remains. The site which once contained a great castle dreams on the banks of the River Nene, lost in memories of Mary, Queen of Scots, who died there and of Richard III who was born there. Of its far earlier occupants, the Earl and Countess of Huntingdon, nothing but faint echoes remain.
Kildrummy Castle too is a ruin, but an evocative and extensive ruin. I have been there several times since I was a child, but my last quick visit was one of the most enjoyable, entertained as we were with a lively account of the siege by young Scott Kelman, and the added information provided by his father, Tom.
At Falkland Palace we were made welcome by Elly Crichton Stuart and I should like to thank her for her
