Hawkwood

Behold! Medieval carnage ...

What does this GIF have to do with Sir John Hawkwood? Nothing. It's just my little attempt at an attention getting device. This is from some show about Templars on the History channel, and is stunningly inaccurate, as the two lead characters aren't wearing helmets. They would have been dead within the first seconds of any pitched battle.

The Templars were wiped out in the early 14th century by the king of France and the pope, who wanted the Templar's substantial wealth and properties (way to go, Phillip IV and Clement V). Blah blah blah. Not at all related to Hawkwood ...

Every great once in awhile (like, really infrequently), a kind soul asks about my writing. And they usually ask, 'Why Hawkwood?' Well, there are a number of reasons but the foremost one is, I just find him a fascinating figure. He left England at a young age and never returned, though he meant to, particularly near the end of his life. He fought in two pivotal battles of the Hundred Years War, Crecy and Poitiers. He revolutionized warfare on the Italian peninsula, as well as the system which hired and payed mercenaries. He survived successive waves of plague, numerous battles, and campaign season after campaign season. He had a reputation for honesty (though he did frequently change employers). He was by turns recognized for his tactical prowess and berated for savagery, depending upon whose employ he was in. And he rubbed elbows with all the major players of the day. Popes were terrified of him. The Visconti family hired him, fired him, and hired him again. He married a daughter of Bernabò Visconti. Then got fired again. Florence made him a citizen of the commune. Queen Joana of Naples gave him a life-long pension. He met Chaucer and Petrarch. Fought alongside the Baron Enguerrand de Coucy, (son-in-law of Edward III and one of France's most renowned knights). He was an agent (for a brief time) of King Richard II. He ran amok in Italy for the better part of thirty years, and the Italians never quite managed to figure him out. He was larger-than-life. By turns violent and gracious. Who needs to create a fictional character when someone like this was running around in the 14th century?!

It was a no-brainer to have Hawkwood's relationship with the Visconti family of Milan serve as a backdrop for my first novel, VENDETTA (that and the fact no one else has done anything like it). The events in VENDETTA ended in June, 1377, right after Hawkwood's marriage to Donnina Visconti. My second novel, END OF DAYS, picks up right where VENDETTA left off and will carry the reader into 1378, in which all sorts of awful things happened and sort of culminated in the terrible Papal schism which took place in August of that year.

What's that? You want a sample from END OF DAYS? Well, if you insist ...

END OF DAYS Ch 1.pdf

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