By Paul Carrier
I picked up The Lily and the Lion several months after I had read the previous novel in Maurice Druon’s The Accursed Kings series. So I was momentarily taken aback when I began this sixth book in the seven-volume set, because it reminded me, yet again, that these novels seem to include virtually everyone who lived in 14th-century France.
That’s a gross exaggeration, of course. For one thing, Druon’s series about France’s often-brutal political machinations in the period leading up to the Hundred Years War focuses almost exclusively on the French (and to a lesser extent English) nobility, with a few popes and Italian bankers thrown in for good measure.
Yet there’s no way around the fact that there are a heck of a lot of venomous (or inept) people plotting and scheming their way through these novels, which feature enough tangled family ties and archaic terms (seneschal, blazon, equerry, etc.) to make a reader’s head spin. Druon lists more than 60 characters who prance, fume, kill and die in the pages of The Lily and the Lion.
The novel is neither tedious nor overwhelming, however. Quite the opposite. It’s satisfyingly full of satanic worship, sorcery, forgery, perjury, greed, jealousy, vengeful antics, feuding, bizarre love potions and, inevitably, corpses. All of which culminates in the start of the Hundred Years War and the appearance of a so-called pretender to the French throne who only learns as an adult that he is, or at least should be, the rightful king.
It’s no wonder George R. R. Martin has described this blood-soaked parade of fools, megalomaniacs and heinous evildoers as “the original Game of Thrones.”
King Charles IV is dead, and at a young age too, like his two brothers who preceded him to the throne, Louis X and Philippe V. Some attribute this turn of events to the curse of the Knights Templars. Years earlier, when the father of the ill-fated trio of kings, Philip IV, disbanded the Templars and burned Grand Master Jacques de Molay at the stake, de Molay’s dying breath carried a curse directed at the king and his descendants.
Charles’ death brings to a close the direct rule of the House of Capet, from father to son through more than three centuries. Philippe of Valois, a cousin of the late king, is chosen to succeed him as Philippe VI, and Count Robert of Artois, who helped arrange Philippe’s coronation, is elated.
Robert, cousin and brother-in-law of the new king, is convinced that Philippe will help him acquire the French county of Artois, which he believes is rightfully his by inheritance. His vicious, murderous aunt, Countess Mahaut of Artois, controls the county and has no intention of relinquishing it to her nephew. The king is sympathetic to Robert's claim, but Philippe demands evidence to substantiate it, evidence that Robert does not have.
Robert — arrogant, well-connected and physically intimidating — is obsessed with acquiring “his” county, and the mutual hatred between him and his aunt, which has played out over the course of previous novels in the series, finally builds to a feverish climax.
Murder and mayhem ensue. When all is said and done, one French nobleman’s seemingly petty land grab sets in motion a chain of events that propel France and England to war. England’s King Edward III, whose mother was the sister of the deceased French king Charles, contends that he should have succeeded to the French throne. It’s a claim rejected by Philippe, ostensibly because of a French law barring succession through the maternal side of the Capet line.
Druon deftly foreshadows the outbreak of the Hundred Years War, suggesting, through sometimes subtle references, that France's ruling class was plagued by arrogance, vanity and a string of mediocre kings who left the greatest nation in early 14th-century Europe ill-prepared for the conflict, despite France's superior size, population, influence and wealth.
Under its young king, scrappy England girds itself for war, developing a powerful military that eventually scored upset victories over larger French forces, rewrote the playbook on battlefield tactics and altered the balance of power in medieval Europe for many years to come.
Under its young king, scrappy England girds itself for war, developing a powerful military that eventually scored upset victories over larger French forces, rewrote the playbook on battlefield tactics and altered the balance of power in medieval Europe for many years to come.
