Book of the duchess: genealogical table

We hope that you enjoyed reading the plot summaries of the Book of the Duchess, Lorna’s illustrations of some of the key episodes, and Lorna's reviews of her art work over the past couple of weeks.

The last picture of this series is the family tree of Michael and Jacqueline. The huge amount of detail presented here is indicative of the complexity of the plot of the novel that we condensed for the storyline each day between 7th October and 2nd November 2020.

The sharp-eyed will notice some inconsistencies in the information provided here. For example, we know from the storyline that Michael and Jacqueline’s marriage followed the death of Guillot, yet here it is noted that the birth of Michael and Jacqueline’s son Antony in 1433 predates the killing of Guillot by two years: ‘Killed by Duke Michael his nephew 1435’.

Towards the end of the Book of the duchess, Lorna provides further information about the Duchy of Montvallon and its rulers to the early nineteenth century. First, Michael and Jacqueline’s direct line soon died out because their only son Antony fathered no children. This is probably just as well: Antony sounds like a throwback to his evil grandfather Henri III in Lorna’s description of him as a ‘cruel, wayward, suspicious creature’.

Normally the duchy would then have passed to one of Antony’s brother-in-law cousins (apart from the one he had burnt at the stake, of course), but Lorna notes that ‘weary of the expensive luxury of a large ducal family that could not keep peace amongst its members, [they] allowed themselves to be deprived of their identity and incorporated with their neighbours in a kingdom at the Peace of Augsburg in 1555*’. This kingdom disappeared when it was dissolved along with the Holy Roman Empire in the early nineteenth century**.

Lorna explains at the end of her novel that amongst the later members of the family of Jehan Rollo (Michael’s second cousin once removed, and Guillot’s grandson - see the far bottom right hand side of the family tree) was an actor who settled in England. His descendants may well be alive and among us today.

* See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peace_of_Augsburg
** See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holy_Roman_Empire#French_Revolutionary_Wars_and_final_dissolution