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Historical Within the Fetterlock by Brian Wainwright $19.95 / Trivium Publ. / 2004 Brian Wainwright's second novel Within the Fetterlock is an historical family saga that focuses on Constance of York, Lady le Despenser, the only legitimate daughter of Edmund of Langley, the Duke of York. The story opens in 1396; Thomas Despenser and Constance are happily married and the kingdom has been relatively peaceful for a number of years. To obtain a truce in the war with France, Richard II, King of England for 19 years when the story opens, marries the eight-year-old French princess Isabella, daughter of Charles VI, to secure a truce in the war with, France. (They are in the midst of the Hundred Years' War, which lasted off and on from 1337 to 1453.) Richard is Constance's uncle, and as the noble families split over the controversy-the split that will eventually pit the Houses of York and Lancaster in the Wars of the Roses-she and her husband will be forced to choose sides. Richard's health is not good, and given that his wife is so young, it is doubtful he will sire an heir. Thus, plots and intrigues to succeed him to the throne are underway. Thomas is soon caught up in his brother-in-law Edward's attempts to gain the throne for himself, and Constance is helplessly sucked into the intrigue. The heraldic emblem of the Duke of York was a falcon confined within a fetterlock, a chain or shackle that is secured around the leg or ankle. As such, the emblem symbolized the conflicting loyalties that trap essentially everybody with any political influence during the period in which this novel takes place. Constance's much-loved older brother Edward is held in high esteem by Richard, but at the same time he is continually looking to his own advancement, and he and Thomas are often on the opposite sides of the political fence. Despite the overwhelming cast of characters, including the Lancasters, Yorks, Gloucesters, Mortimers, Despensers, and Hollands, the story never bogs down in genealogical minutiae but is carried along by the intrigue and suspense. Nor does Wainwright spare us detail. "Constance, making her way back from one of the overflowing garderobes, had gathered the spare folds of her sideless surcote in the crook of her arm to save it further punishment," he writes, a deceptively simple picture that conveys the mountain of knowledge of the medieval England that Wainwright brings to the story. History buffs and anybody who likes good historical fiction will love Within the Fetterlock for the intricate political intrigues and rivalries the story involves, which ultimately had enormous historical implications involving the British throne, and from which William Shakespeare derived his timeless histories. —Charles Rammelkamp

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