Margaret de Lacy was still living in 1255. She had three children, Egidia, Katherine, and Gilbert.
Three carucates of land in the Royal Forest of Aconbury were cleared at Margaret de Lacy’s order, and there was founded, sometime before 1218, a rich Augustinian convent and chantry chapel to commemorate, in perpetuity, the souls of Margaret’s parents and her brother Will.
All that remains today of the priory on John’s gift of land is a small, redundant, haunted church, locked and used as a store.
Principal Dates
(Dates in italics are approximate)
1154 Accession of King Henry II
1175 Massacre of Abergavenny
1176 Betrothal of Prince John to Isabella of Gloucester
1182 Fall of Abergavenny
1188 Summons to the Third Crusade
1188 Betrothal of Mattie to Gruffydd ap Rhys
1189 Marriage of Mattie to Gruffydd
1189 Death of Henry II. Accession of Richard I
1189 Wedding of Prince John
1189 Prince John visits the West
1191 William seizes Elfael and builds Castel Mallt (Painscastle)
1192-99 William Sheriff of Herefordshire
1195 Siege of Painscastle
1196 William itinerant justice for Staffordshire; gains co-rights in Barnstaple and Totnes
1197 Year of Pest and Plague. Death of Trehearne Vaughan
1198 Second Siege of Painscastle
1199 Death of Richard I
1199 William one of John’s supporters at his coronation
1200 William succeeds to the Honor of Limerick
1200 John grants William the right to take land from the Welsh
1203 William becomes Lord of Gower
1203 William in attendance on John in Normandy at time of Prince Arthur’s death
1205 William becomes Lord of the Three Castles
1207 First signs of William’s impending fall from grace
1208 23 March. John’s conflict with Rome over appointment of Stephen Langton as Archbishop of Canterbury leads to interdict of Pope Innocent III
1208 The de Braoses flee to Ireland
1209-10 William back in Wales
1210 Spring. King John arrives in Ireland
1210 Matilda flees to Scotland
1211 Death of Matilda and Will
1211 9 August. William dies in Corbeil. Buried in Paris by exiled Archbishop Langton
1215 Magna Carta
1216 10 October. The authorization of a grant of land at Aconbury to Margaret de Lacy is one of the last pieces of business John transacts
1216 18 October. King John dies
Note on Names
The name of de Braose is variously spelled in the chronicles and subsequent history books as de Briouse, de Breos, and de Briouze as well as de Braose.
Matilda was as frequently referred to as Maude or Maud (the names having the same derivation as Matilda), quite apart from her nicknames in local history and folklore as Moll Walbee, Malld Walbri, and Mallt or Mawd.
Margaret, her daughter, is in some records referred to as Marjorie.
Acknowledgments
I should like to thank all the people who have gone to such endless trouble to help me with the research for this book, particularly Professor Ann Matonis for her translations into Middle and Modern Welsh (for any mistakes in the transcriptions of which I must take the blame). I should also like to thank Dr. Brian Taylor, Dr. Michael Siddons, and Dr. Brian Blandford for their advice on matters medical, heraldic, and musical; my father, who has driven so many miles to double check on locations in the Welsh hills; and Carole Blake, for all her help and encouragement. And finally I must make special mention of Jean Walter, without whose meticulous typing this book might never have been finished!
Barbara Erskine
Llanigon and Great Tey, 1985
Reading Group Guide
1. Joanna is at first skeptical of hypnosis as a means of regression and sets out to write an article debunking it. But after her experience regressing into the life of Matilda, Joanna comes to wholeheartedly believe in hypnosis. Do you believe in hypnosis or past lives? Why or why not? How do your beliefs about hypnosis affect how you read a fictional account like the one in this book?
2. On page 293, Bet Gunning says, “I want to know what it feels like for a twentieth-century woman to go through the time barrier.” Discuss how you would react if you were thrust into the twelfth century. Which aspects of
