Flowers Of Chivalry

Bertrand Du Guesclin was one of the great heroes of medieval France. His engaging, adventurous life story embodies all the drama and excitement of the Hundred Years War. The rise of Bertrand du Guesclin ranks as one of the most spectacular adventures in a fourteenth century rich in heroic tales. A poor Breton squire, ungainly and unlettered, he came of age at the onset of the Hundred Years War. Hespent two decades engaged in irregular warfare in his native province before he became a knight, and was recognised by Charles V as the captain France needed. Du Guesclin fought on campaign from Normandy to Andalusia, tasted victory, was taken captive - and was finally victorious again, over such famed adversaries as Sir John Chandos and the Black Prince. He won a dukedom in Spain, but it was as Constable of France that he spearheaded the reconquest of French provinces lost after the defeat at Poitiers. His body was laid to rest among kings in the royal basilica of Saint-Denis, enshrined as the Tenth Worthy, hero of the last Old French epic, but Du Guesclin's spiritlives on in literature and folk memory, as flower of chivalry, soldier's soldier, patriot, and liberator of his country. RICHARD VERNIER is Professor Emeritus, Romance Languages and Literatures, Wayne State University.

Once again Scotland was fighting for her survival as a free and independent nation. Robert the Bruce's legacy, three years after his death in 1329, is in danger. With a five-year-old heir guarded by an ageing and diminishing band of lieutenants, the English King, Edward III, has seen his opportunity. War is renewed, a puppet king set up. In the years of struggle that follow, two men stand out as leaders of their people: Sir William Douglas, the Knight of Liddesdale, known as the Flower of Chivalry; and Sir Alexander Ramsay of Dalwolsey. Friends and comrades-in-arms by their gallantry and daring, they do more than any others to save their country. Yet something is to happen between them that will cause one of the most desperate events in Scotland's violent and dramatic history...

Georges Duby, one of this century's great medieval historians, has brought to life with exceptional brilliance and imagination William Marshal, adviser to the Plantagenets, knight extraordinaire, the flower of chivalry. A marvel of historical reconstruction, William Marshal is based on a biographical poem written in the thirteenth century, and offers an evocation of chivalric life—the contests and tournaments, the rites of war, the daily details of medieval existence—unlike any we have ever seen.