The daughter of the last king

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The Daughter of the Last King is a historical novel by the Austrian writer Sabrina Qunaj and was published by Goldmann Verlag in June 2014. It deals with the biography of Nesta ferch Rhys (or Nesta Tudor), who was famous for her great beauty and was nicknamed Helena of Wales , and thus the relationship between Welsh and English or Anglo-Norman , in the novel by the Welsh "Freinc" called, in the 12th century.

action

The plot begins in the spring of 1093 with the attack by the Freinc ​​on the home of the eight-year-old princess Nesta Dinefwr , where she and her little brother Hywel are captured by the English, while her brother Gruffydd and her mother can be brought to safety in Ireland is killed. Hywel is placed in a convent, while Nesta leads a life of uncertainty and fear for her siblings at Shrewsbury Castle for five years under the tutelage of Arnulf de Montgomery . In 1098, while visiting King Williams , Nesta met his brother Henry , who offered her to come with him to the court in Westminster . Nesta, who feels strongly drawn to Henry, gratefully accepts and leaves Shrewsbury, even meets her brother Hywel again and begins a new life as a lady-in-waiting under Henry's watchful eye. Your guardianship goes to Henry himself.

In Westminster she made friends, but also met old enemies again, such as Gerald de Windsor , who was involved in the attack on Dinfwr and whom she deeply detested as the murderer and destroyer of her homeland. In addition, the abysses of court life open up to her, she witnesses intrigues on the part of the king that meet her best friend and her husband, is herself involved in a conspiracy and by Ranulf Flambard , the Lord Chancellor and Bishop of Durham , in a conflict of conscience urged and evidently made his co-conspirator. It is Henry who keeps them safe from punishment and cares for them, and over the course of the next two years the two grow closer.

After the puzzling hunting accident and the death of King Williams, Henry first has to assert his claim to the throne against his older brother Robert , the Duke of Normandy, before he can rule unchallenged. On the day of her coronation, Nesta receives a sign of life from her brother Gruffydd from Ireland in the form of a dragon brooch, which is passed on in her family from mother to daughter.

Shortly after Ranulf Flambard's escape from the Tower in 1100, Henry brought Nesta over one night and confessed his love for her. Nesta, no longer immune to the king's charm, gives in to her own feelings, suppresses her remorse about Henry's wife, whom she betrays with her deed, and spends this and the following nights in her king's bed. In the near future, Nesta will stand by Henry's side in the conflict with Wales, in order to explain the Welsh folk soul to him and to help him to find bloodless solutions. To this end, they spend a few months at Cardigan Castle , where Nesta becomes pregnant, but shortly afterwards they clash with Henry over his decisions regarding the distribution of land to Welsh princes. In his absence she finally gives birth to a son, whom she baptizes at the request of his father Henry , but always addresses him as "Harri", the Welsh form of Henry. When the king finally asks her to come back to England, but leave Harri in Cardigan, in the care of a wet nurse and the local constable, Stephen. When Nesta protests against this decision, she is forcibly separated from her son and brought back to Henry, who does not understand Nesta's expectations of him as a father and her wishes as a mother, as Harri is little more to him than just another bastard. Their feelings for one another keep cooling until Henry finally announces that he has decided to marry her off to Gerald de Windsor and send her to Pembroke with him. Nesta complies with resignation.

Only later does she find out that Gerald had already asked for her beforehand and even tried to take Harri into his household so that Nesta could be with her son again. She only learns to love him around the time of the birth of her son William, she supports him, like Henry earlier, in communicating with the Welsh people, gives him two more sons, Maurice and David , is allowed to visit her Harri every now and then and leads a happy married life at Gerald's side, until she and her sons are kidnapped in January 1109 by her cousin Owain ap Cadwgan in his attack on Cenarth Bychan, where she lives with Gerald. At Nesta's urging, Owain lets the children return to their father, but keeps Nesta, who is now pregnant again, with him. It takes Gerald several months to find her again when she leaves the "travel group" to give birth to her dead child.

In the meantime, rumors were circulating about Nesta and Owain, who provided the bards with plenty of material for exciting but untrue stories. Nesta went with Owain voluntarily to escape the "Freinc". Owain fell madly in love with her and her beauty was a curse. Gerald also hears these stories, and although he lets the events of the abduction of his wife and children be repeated over and over again, the relationship between him and Nesta is no longer the same. They love each other, but they can no longer be as open to one another as before, which is not changed by the birth of their daughter Angharad.

But Carew isn't the only castle to fall victim to Owain. For years he plundered and pillaged across Wales, continuing the work he started with the kidnapping of Nesta. Gerald is obsessed with taking revenge on him in order to destroy with him the shame and misfortune that Owain brought on his family. It was not until 1116 that he succeeded in putting his plan into practice. He ambushes Owain and kills him in battle.

Gerald and Nesta can rebuild their old relationship and trust each other again without bias.

Important characters in the novel

  • * stands for historical personality

Welsh

Normans in England

  • William II *, King of England
  • Henry I. *, his brother, also a king
  • Edith of Scotland *, his queen
  • Walter Tyrell *, William's lover, possibly his killer
  • Anskill of Seacourt *, his best friend
  • Ansfride *, Anskill's wife
  • Richard de Clare *, Nesta's friend, Tyrell's squire and heir to his father
  • Ranulf Flambard *, a scheming chancellor

Normans in Wales

  • Gerald de Windsor *, castellan of Pembroke, soldier, Nesta's enemy, later her husband
  • Beatrice FitzGerald, his illegitimate daughter
  • Agnes FitzGerald, his second illegitimate daughter
  • Simon FitzWalter, also his illegitimate half-brother
  • William de Barry *, Gerald's loyal knight
  • Stephen de Mareis *, Constable of Cardigan

Nesta's descendants

  • Harri *, her son with Henry I.
  • William *, her son with Gerald de Windsor as well as:
  • Maurice *
  • David*
  • Angharad *, her daughter
  • ( Robert *, her son with Stephen de Mareis, is not mentioned in the novel)

Transition to the second novel

Nesta's brother Gruffydd only has a secondary role in the novel, which is explained in more detail here and is intended to serve as a transition to Sabrina Qunaj's second novel. It is learned that he has two sons ( Anarawd and Cadell ) and that he runs away with the daughter of the Prince of North Wales, Gwenllian , and marries her. Gruffydd and Gwenllian had four sons, two of whom (Morgan and Maelgwn) were killed along with their mother in 1136. The remaining brothers, Maredudd and Rhys fought together with their older half-brother in the Welsh freedom struggle against the "Freinc". Anarawd was murdered in 1134 at the behest of Cadwaladr ap Gruffudd in order to prevent his marriage to his niece and thus an alliance between North and South Wales. The second novel, The Blood of the Rebel, deals with the Welsh struggle for freedom and the lives of the three remaining Prince Brothers.

After Gerald's death, Nesta's own son William is likely to have married her (perhaps against her will) to Stephen de Mareis, Cardigan's constable. The two had a son, Robert, who has a guest role in the blood of the rebel .

Nesta and Gerald's sons William and Maurice later marry the daughters of Arnulf de Montgomery, Maria and Alice, in whose care Nesta spent five years. Isabel (Ysbail in Welsh), the daughter of William and Maria, is the protagonist of the second novel.

swell

Web links