I wish Katherine Ashe had a little more imagination and a little less integrity. That would allow me to hope that Simon de Montfort would live happily ever after.
In "Montfort: The Revolutionary 1253 to 1260 (Volume 3)" -- as she did in her two earlier volumes -- Ashe exhibits the imagination to fill the gaps in the historical record in a way that makes Montfort a compelling hero.
Then she includes historical notes and a bibliography and you know that when, in Volume IV, she gets to 1265, there will be no reprieve. The integrity of the historian will prevail over the imagination of the novelist.
So we will enjoy Simon while we can. And this volume, which takes him from a possible sinecure in France back into the maelstrom that was England under Henry III, gives us much to enjoy. Ashe's Montfort is a man of virtuous intentions if not always virtuous behavior. He covets the king's wife and hates himself for it. His temper continues to be a problem. He takes perhaps too much responsibility for Edward Longshanks -- heir to the throne. Then again, Longshanks might be Montfort's own son.
Montfort was, at heart, a royalist. His sympathies for the less than lordly may have stemmed not so much from the righteousness of their cause as his own experience of disenfranchisement. But he became the chief defender of the Magna Carta and the Provisions and Ordinances that grew from it and gave England the first experience of democracy.
There was no one there to record Montfort's words or document all his encounters. But Ashe gives every conversation the ring of truth and every action has a sound basis in psychology as well as history. The lords' wrangling at the Parliament of Oxford while always completely in character is as believable as a news clip on CNN.
Her battle scenes echo with the screams of horses and the clash of swords and I felt as if I were reading faster and faster as the mayhem progressed. The smells of the sickroom, the torture chamber; the banquet hall and the solar are palpable.
Among Ashe's gifts as a writer is her ability to create suspense even when you've Googled the facts. It bodes well for Volume 4.
