The Last Knights of Cambria Book 5: Deaths of the Rose

Afterword

Well this has been fun.
I wanted to give a brief note here on where I got my historical information from. All of Gideon's facts are as correct as I could manage. I cross referenced from a variety of sources, englishmonarchs.uk and encyclopedia Britannia have been endlessly helpful, as has Britishbattles.uk, which I recommend checking out. Depending on the monarch we're talking about, some there's very limited, or often very biased information, for people like Richard III or Edward II, almost all of our information is highly biased because it comes from third parties. I highly recommend checking out the Richard III Society for more information on Richard, and the various works of the marvelous Kathryn Warner, whose books and edwardthesecond.blogspot have been immensely beneficial. Unfortunately, there are many places you'll find contradictions in facts. For example, some accounts say Edward III killed his younger brother, others say that the boy died of fever. Fact checking shows not only that Edward III was around when he actually died, but also that the brothers had a fine relationship, ergo we'll chalk the other up to rumor. This happens a lot I find.
As for Henry V himself, you will still read in some reports, that he was known for partying and the like and that's why he fell out with his father. Well we have very competent records to show he was doing a fine job of being prince. And when he was banished from court he went to Oxford, not Cheapside, and yes he stayed with friends that is older knights who did his knighthood training, but he met Courtenay, a priest, around then he was likely studying. Aside from the odd pub visit there's no reason to assume that he was a player or the like, and he was fourteen a bit young to be doing the stuff you see in Shakespeare's plays.
Point being, be careful what you read. Even published authors will throw out 'facts' that have little to no basis. Sadly you have to fact check upon fact check. I have done my due diligence and double check anything before including it in here. All of Gideon's facts are as accurate as I can get.
I did my best to research the period to get movements, household routines, dialogue, and relationships as accurate as possible. Of course this is an alternate realty with magic and dragons so you know, it's intended to be fiction.
In the novels they'll drink water or tea—that's mostly because it's YA and fantasy. They'd in reality be drinking wine, the nobles would, or possibly ale, at every meal, the water was so bad.
Characterizations of actual historical figures, I do my best based off of what we actually know they did, personal letters, and the like. Obviously this is an alternate reality so that's there. But. With some historical figures like Catherine of Valois, we have relatively little information, same with Joan of Arc, so I did my best to bring them to light based off what little we have. With the original characters (the entire Welsh court) they are a bit freer in that I'm basing them on stereotypes of the period, not any one person but a composite of how nobles of this age might be.
People like Courtenay we know sadly little about. Most of his correspondence with Henry is lost to time, and was business as Henry had him doing a variety of errands for him. We know that Henry immediately appointed him to be his treasurer, that they studied together, and often worked together in England, and that Henry had them buried together, Courtenay wearing a ring that Henry is pictured wearing. So I asked the question, what would these highly intelligent people, who wanted to spend their lives together and be buried together, be like?
I took the idea of them dressing similarly from Alexander the Great and Hephestean, who would dress in nearly identical robes. It's an apt enough comparison of a relationship, Henry has a lot of similarities to Alexander he'd approve of the comparison and did in fact study Alexander. So I used that bit of trivia to flesh them out a bit. Again little is known of Courtenay, I haven't even found a picture of him, I found one stained glass but I couldn't date it so I have no idea if it's accurate or not. He was said to be a very beautiful man, which at the time was a euphemism for gay.

I realize the entire LKC series can feel a bit queer baiting, as no relationships wind up being cannon except historical marriages and the like. The reason for that is, when I set out to write the series I wanted to write something where romance was not the main focus. As a kid, I would get frustrated why there 'always' had to be a romantic subplot and dating and flirting taking time away from the fun stuff like swords and dragons.
Similarly, I was sick of YA series with a reluctant protagonist who didn't want to be the chosen one. That's no fun we spend half the time whining about getting to go on a magical adventure? So that was my basis for Gideon and his adventures, no romantic subplot, and a protagonist who wants to be on this adventure as much as we do. Gideon's opening line of narrative from the first book came into my head and I knew I had to tell his story. I made the decision early on not to kill off any main characters, because I wanted it to be purely escapism fun, everyone gets to live at the end.
To that end, I decided to write the full series with no sexual content, including kissing. I got around that a couple of fun ways with the confirmed couples.
So far as characterization of historical figures, again, I tried to go off what I actually could find from letters, and other documents. For example, Richard III did have scoliosis, and he did usually wear black to hide his back being uneven. Certain things like that are true. Owen and Jasper Tudor, I couldn't find a reliable description of them so I elaborated for dramatic purposes, nobody said they were tall so they're average height. Courtenay we have his skeleton we know he was six feet tall, and we have Henry V's skeleton we know he was six three, and we know Henry VI was five ten, and Richard III was five eight. So some of that stuff I was able to absolutely take from reality.