Rafael Sabatini - The Historical Nights' Entertainment. Second Series

The kindly reception accorded to the first volume of the Historical Nights Entertainment, issued in December of 1917, has encouraged me to prepare the second series here assembled.

As in the case of the narratives that made up the first volume, I set out again with the same ambitious aim of adhering scrupulously in every instance to actual, recorded facts; and once again I find it desirable at the outset to reveal how far the achievement may have fallen short of the admitted aim.

On the whole, I have to confess to having allowed myself perhaps a wider latitude, and to having taken greater liberties than was the case with the essays constituting the previous collection. This, however, applies, where applicable, to the parts rather than to the whole.

The only entirely apocryphal narrative here included is the first—"The Absolution." This is one of those stories which, if resting upon no sufficient authority to compel its acceptance, will, nevertheless, resist all attempts at final refutation, having its roots at least in the soil of fact. It is given in the rather discredited Portuguese chronicles of Acenheiro, and finds place, more or less as related here, in Duarte Galvao's "Chronicle of Affonso Henriques," whence it was taken by the Portuguese historical writer, Alexandre Herculano, to be included in his "Lendas e Narrativas." If it is to be relegated to the Limbo of the ben trovato, at least I esteem it to afford us a precious glimpse of the naive spirit of the age in which it is set, and find in that my justification for including it.

The next to require apology is "His Insolence of Buckingham," but only in so far as the incident of the diamond studs is concerned. The remainder of the narrative, the character of Buckingham, the details of his embassy to Paris, and the particulars of his audacious courtship of Anne of Austria, rest upon unassailable evidence. I would have omitted the very apocryphal incident of the studs, but that I considered it of peculiar interest as revealing the source of the main theme of one of the most famous historical romances ever written—"The Three Musketeers." I give the story as related by La Rochefoucauld in his "Memoirs," whence Alexandre Dumas culled it that he might turn it to such excellent romantic account. In La Rochefoucauld's narrative it is the painter Gerbier who, in a far less heroic manner, plays the part assigned by Dumas to d'Artagnan, and it is the Countess of Carlisle who carries out the political theft which Dumas attributes to Milady. For the rest, I do not invite you to attach undue credit to it, which is not, however, to say that I account it wholly false.

In the case of "The Hermosa Fembra " I confess to having blended together into one single narrative two historical episodes closely connected in time and place. Susan's daughter was, in fact, herself the betrayer of her father, and it was in penitence for that unnatural act that she desired her skull to be exhibited as I describe. Into the story of Susan's daughter I have woven that of another New-Christian girl, who, like the Hermosa Fembra, her taken a Castilian lover—in this case a youth of the house of Guzman. This youth was driven into concealment in circumstances more or less as I describe them. He overheard the judaizing of several New-Christians there assembled, and bore word of it at once to Ojeda. The two episodes were separated in fact by an interval of three years, and the first afforded Ojeda a strong argument for the institution of the Holy Office in Seville. Between the two there are many points of contact, and each supplies what the other lacks to make an interesting narrative having for background the introduction of the Inquisition to Castile. The denouement I supply is entirely fictitious, and the introduction of Torquemada is quite arbitrary. Ojeda was the inquisitor who dealt with both cases. But if there I stray into fiction, at least I claim to have sketched a faithful portrait of the Grand Inquisitor as I know him from fairly exhaustive researches into his life and times.

The story of the False Demetrius is here related from the point of view of my adopted solution of what is generally regarded as a historical mystery. The mystery lies, of course, in the man's identity. He has been held by some to have been the unfrocked monk, Grishka Otropiev, by others to have been a son of Stephen Bathory, King of Poland. I am not aware that the theory that he was both at one and the same time has ever been put forward, and whilst admitting that it is speculative, yet I claim that no other would appear so aptly to fit all the known facts of his career or to shed light upon its mysteries.

Undoubtedly I have allowed myself a good deal of licence and speculation in treating certain unwitnessed scenes in "The Barren Wooing." But the theory that I develop in it to account for the miscarriage of the matrimonial plans of Queen Elizabeth and Robert Dudley seems to me to be not only very fully warranted by de Quadra's correspondence, but the only theory that will convincingly explain the events. Elizabeth, as I show, was widely believed to be an accessory to the murder of Amy Robsart. But in carefully following her words and actions at that critical time, as reported by de Quadra, my reading of the transaction is as given here. The most damning fact against Elizabeth was held to be her own statement to de Quadra on the eve of Lady Robert Dudley's murder to the effect that Lady Robert was "already dead, or very nearly so." This foreknowledge of the fate of that unfortunate lady has been accepted as positive evidence that the Queen was a party to the crime at Cumnor, which was to set her lover free to marry again. Far from that, however, I account it positive proof of Elizabeth's innocence of any such part in the deed. Elizabeth was far too crafty and clear-sighted not to realize how her words must incriminate her afterwards if she knew that the murder of Lady Robert was projected. She must have been merely repeating what Dudley himself had told her; and what he must have told her—and she believed—was that his wife was at the point of a natural death. Similarly, Dudley would not have told her this, unless his aim had been to procure his wife's removal by means which would admit of a natural interpretation. Difficulties encountered, much as I relate them—and for which there is abundant evidence—drove his too-zealous agents to rather desperate lengths, and thus brought suspicion, not only upon the guilty Dudley, but also upon the innocent Queen. The manner of Amy's murder is pure conjecture; but it should not be far from what actually took place. The possibility of an accident—extraordinarily and suspiciously opportune for Dudley as it would have been—could not be altogether ruled out but for the further circumstance that Lady Robert had removed everybody from Cumnor on that day. To what can this point—unless we accept an altogether incredible chain of coincidence—but to some such plotting as I here suggest?

In the remaining six essays in this volume the liberties taken with the absolute facts are so slight as to require no apology or comment.