THE BISHOP'S TALE

Author's Note

Both Bishop Beaufort and Thomas Chaucer are historical, and they were indeed cousins, their mothers being sisters. But while Thomas was the son of the author Geoffrey Chaucer by his wife Philippa, Henry Beaufort was one of the illegitimate children of John, royal duke of Lancaster, and his mistress Katherine. That his parents eventually married was, to some, a greater scandal than their affair had been, but their children were legitimized, making possible Henry Beaufort's rise in the Church to be Bishop of Winchester and Cardinal of England. And while Thomas Chaucer followed a relatively quiet life, serving the crown in various minor ways and becoming wealthy while avoiding the worst complications of the politics of the time, Beaufort as half-brother to the usurper King Henry IV -- and then uncle of King Henry V and great-uncle of King Henry VI -- embroiled himself deeply in political conflicts at the highest levels of government, with his attempt to balance both papal ambitions and English politics leading to troubles that eventually curtailed his ambitions. There is a fine biography of him -- Cardinal Beaufort: A Study in Lancastrian Ascendancy and Decline by G. L. Harriss -- and his full-length effigy, resplendent in his cardinal's robes, still lies on his tomb in Winchester Cathedral.

Whereas there is information in plenty about Bishop Beaufort, researching what killed Sir Clement was another matter. The book was plotted and I had begun writing it when I found out that our modern word for what killed him did not exist until the early 1900s. Although I was certain the phenomenon must have existed far earlier, the prospect of trying to detect a crime without knowing what to call the manner of murder was temporarily daunting. The Encyclopedia of Medical History by Roderick E. McGrew saved me, providing both a record of the trouble through the centuries and the period terminology for it.