The ‘Chevalier' series follows the fictional life and adventures of André de Roland through some of the most tumultuous years in French history. As the series ends, Louis XIV has attained his majority, the Age of the Hero is over, and the Age of Absolutism is about to begin.
The series is driven by the central character of André de Roland, a Don Quixote figure whose extraordinary upbringing outside his own class has imbued him with a humanity almost unheard of in his own day, but with a sense of honour never acknowledged in our own. The combination is lethal. André's humanity leads him to ignore social conventions in his concern for the oppressed, while his honour requires him to defend them with the sword.
Honour and the Sword establishes how such a man came to exist in the first place. In 1636 the Spaniards invade Picardy, and when the local Seigneur is killed, his young son André must live disguised among his own peasants in order to survive. But as André learns about life outside his rigid code of chivalry, the villagers in turn learn something about honour, and together they join forces to fight back.
Subsequent books in the series follow his adventures as the innocent abroad in the historical realities of a France torn apart by war, political conspiracy, and violent civil conflict.
In The Name of the King brings him right into the thick of it, as he enters a divided Paris where every gentleman carries a sword on his hip and is required to draw it at a moment’s notice. Here he is drawn into the world of Cardinal Richelieu and the sinister web of intrigue surrounding the uprising of the Comte de Soissons and conspiracy of the Marquis de Cinq-Mars. Here for the first time he must face the brutal realities of an army caught in the Thirty Years War, as his adventures lead him to the great battlefields of La Marfée and Rocroi.
Beyond Rocroi? The War still rages over Europe, and I hope to follow it from the killing fields of Freiburg and 2nd Nordlingen to the borders of France and the Battle of Lens. The Franco-Spanish War continues unabated through it all, and with it comes the horrors of civil war as France is divided by the sieges and high drama of the two Frondes.
There is a long journey still to travel through the upheavals of France’s violent history, and how André will fare in it remains to be seen…
You can find out much more about the Chevalier Series on its own website HERE!