Charles Williams’ Descent Into Hell

Book number 60 of 2024

I’ve read five of Charles Williams’ eight novels, and while they are of uneven quality, they never fail to entertain and inspire interesting thoughts on philosophy and religion. Descent Into Hell, Williams’ sixth novel, was published in 1937. Just like his previous five books, things are really, really weird! It opens with a reading of playwright Peter Stanhope’s new play, A Pastoral. The village of Battle Hill is going to perform it, but everyone is confused about it:

To begin with, it had no title beyond A Pastoral. That was unsatisfactory. Then the plot was incredibly loose. It was of no particular time and no particular place, and to any cultured listener it seemed to have little bits of everything and everybody put in at odd moments.

CHARLES WILLIAMS. Descent into Hell (Kindle Locations 126-128). Delphi Classics. Kindle Edition.

After the reading, Pauline Anstruther is walking back home, and she is terrified of meeting someone or something that has been manifesting itself to her her entire life: a doppelgänger, or “evil twin”. Just as she is about to reach the safety of her house, she sees it up ahead. She manages to get inside, but she is very shaken.

Meanwhile, Lawrence Wentworth is another eminent inhabitant of Battle Hill: a famous historian. He is an older man who fancies himself the sage of a group of younger villagers – Hugh Prescott, Adela Hunt, and Pauline, among others. He is very self-centered, but he has harbored a fancy that he and Adela might end up together one day. His complacency is destroyed when it becomes clear that Hugh also desires Adela, and he quickly supplants Wentworth in Adela’s affections.

But strange things are happening in Battle Hill. Years ago, a hopeless and outcast construction worker hanged himself from an upper floor joist of Wentworth’s home when it was being built. His shade continues to haunt the house, even though Wentworth is completely unaware of him. Pauline’s grandmother, Margaret, has a dream in which she sees two men looking out of a second floor window of Wentworth’s house. She is nearing the end of her life, and she increasingly sees how fragile the boundary is between our world and the world of the dead. Battle Hill itself seems to be a nexus where time and the barrier between this life and the afterlife is breaking down. People from the past exist alongside those living in the present.

An energy reposed in it, strong to affect all its people; an energy of separation and an energy of knowledge. If, as she believed, the spirit of a man at death saw truly what he was and had been, so that whether he desired it or not a lucid power of intelligence manifested all himself to him — then that energy of knowledge was especially urgent upon men and women here, though through all the world it must press upon the world. She felt, as if by a communication of a woe not hers, how the neighbourhood of the dead troubled the living; how the living were narrowed by the return of the dead.

Charles Williams. Descent into Hell (Kindle Locations 949-953). Delphi Classics. Kindle Edition.

One evening, Wentworth is looking out his window, wishing desperately that Adela would come up his drive, when she does. However, when he goes out to meet her, he soon realizes that she’s not the “real” Adela, but rather the Adela he wishes her to be – an Adela who is not involved with Hugh, and who only desires what he wants for himself.

Meanwhile, Peter Stanhope asks Pauline what’s bothering her, and she reluctantly tells him of her dread of meeting herself on the street. There follows a beautiful conversation in which he takes her experience of meeting her doppelgänger seriously and offers to take her fear upon himself:

“Listen — when you go from here, when you’re alone, when you think you’ll be afraid, let me put myself in your place, and be afraid instead of you.” He sat up and leaned towards her. “It’s so easy,” he went on, “easy for both of us. It needs only the act. For what can be simpler than for you to think to yourself that since I am there to be troubled instead of you, therefore you needn’t be troubled? And what can be easier than for me to carry a little while a burden that isn’t mine?”

She said, still perplexed at a strange language: “But how can I cease to be troubled? Will it leave off coming because I pretend it wants you? Is it your resemblance that hurries up the street?”

“It is not,” he said, “and you shall not pretend at all. The thing itself you may one day meet – never mind that now, but you’ll be free from all distress because that you can pass on to me. Haven’t you heard it said that we ought to bear one another’s burdens?” “But that means — —” she began, and stopped.

“I know,” Stanhope said. “It means listening sympathetically, and thinking unselfishly, and being anxious about, and so on. Well, I don’t say a word against all that; no doubt it helps. But I think when Christ or St. Paul, or whoever said bear, or whatever he Aramaically said instead of bear, he meant something much more like carrying a parcel instead of someone else. To bear a burden is precisely to carry it instead of. If you’re still carrying yours, I’m not carrying it for you – however sympathetic I may be. And anyhow there’s no need to introduce Christ, unless you wish. It’s a fact of experience. If you give a weight to me, you can’t be carrying it yourself; all I’m asking you to do is to notice that blazing truth. It doesn’t sound very difficult.”

“And if I could,” she said. “If I could do — whatever it is you mean, would I? Would I push my burden on to anybody else?”

“Not if you insist on making a universe for yourself,” he answered.

Charles Williams. Descent into Hell (Kindle Locations 1372-1388). Delphi Classics. Kindle Edition.

Pauline agrees to try to hand over her burden to Stanhope, and for the first time in years, while walking home, she enjoys the experience – seeing a kitten and petting it, marveling at some flowers, and just noticing the beauty of the sunset.

However, later that evening, an acquaintance of her grandmother, a Mrs. Sammiles, stops by and invites Pauline to walk with her. She promises to relieve Pauline of her anxiety, but in an opposite sense from what Stanhope offered:

“My dear, it’s so simple. If you will come with me, I can fill you, fill your body with any sense you choose. I can make you feel whatever you’d choose to be. I can give you certainty of joy for every moment of life. Secretly, secretly; no other soul — no other living soul.”

… And while her heart beat more quickly and her mind laboured at once to know and not to know its desires, a voice slid into her ear, teasing her, speeding her blood, provoking her purpose. It spoke of sights and sounds, touches and thrills, and of entire oblivion of harm; nothing was to be that she did not will, and everything that she willed, to the utmost fulness of her heart, should be. She would be enough for herself.

Charles Williams. Descent into Hell (Kindle Locations 1543 -1545, 1554 -1557). Delphi Classics. Kindle Edition.

So, it looks like Pauline is to be fought over by two opposing spiritual forces – one that encourages the sharing of burdens, and one that promises all selfish desires can be fulfilled. As the novel progresses, Stanhope’s play gets performed, Wentworth slides further and further into his solipsism, and Pauline finds her true self in sharing others’ burdens.

Williams’ prose in Descent Into Hell is not easy – I found myself rereading passages a few times to make sure I was getting his meaning. His characters’ conversations are spare and allusive – they leave a lot unsaid. Hovering over everything are shades of Shakespeare’s The Tempest, which is quoted directly several times, Dante’s The Divine Comedy and the Jewish myth of Adam and Lilith. Williams assumes his readers have a high level of education!

Here’s an example of how Williams tries to convey very abstract concepts in his prose:

She knew she had always spoken poetry against the silence of this world; now she knew it had to be spoken against — that perhaps, but also something greater, some silence of its own. She recognized the awful space of separating stillness which all mighty art creates about itself, or, uncreating, makes clear to mortal apprehension. Such art, out of “the mind’s abyss”, makes tolerable, at the first word or note or instructed glance, the preluding presence of the abyss. It creates in an instant its own past. Then its significance mingles with other significances; the stillness gives up kindred meanings, each in its own orb, till by the subtlest graduations they press into altogether other significances, and these again into others, and so into one contemporaneous nature, as in that gathering unity of time from which Lilith feverishly fled. But that nature is to us a darkness, a stillness, only felt by the reverberations of the single speech.

Charles Williams. Descent into Hell (Kindle Locations 2544-2550). Delphi Classics. Kindle Edition.

Descent Into Hell  is an interesting study in the dangers of self-absorption and gratification. As Peter Stanhope and Pauline Anstruther demonstrate, we are created to share each other’s burdens, and it is through charity and love that we become fully human. It’s a difficult novel, but a rewarding one.

Simon Fairfax’s 1415 – A Most Satisfying Conclusion

Book number 43 of 2024

Simon Fairfax’s 1415 is the sixth and final book in his A Knight and a Spy series. I have thoroughly enjoyed immersing myself in the medieval world of Sir James de Grispere and his comrades Mark and Cristo. All of the events of the previous five novels come to a head in this thrilling conclusion.

1415 begins where 1414 ended: Jamie is is recovering from the near-fatal poisoning he suffered at the Council of Constance, Germany. As soon as he is able to return to England, he is tasked with infiltrating a possible plot to overthrow King Henry V. Henry would like to wage war in France and reestablish English rule there, but he is threatened with possible rebellion at home. Jamie and Mark travel across the channel to acquire ships for Henry’s planned invasion, and they foil a plot to destroy the fleet.

Returning to London, Jamie, his squire Geoffrey, Cristo, and Mark are sent north to shadow a small force that is escorting Murdoch Stewart, who is going to be exchanged for Henry Percy, being held by the Scots. Stewart’s escort is attacked, and he escapes. Jamie teams up with Sir Ralph Pudsey to recapture Stewart. Jamie then continues north to reunite with his old mentor, Sir Robert de Umfraville. Umfraville’s name has been mentioned by conspirators planning to rebel against Henry and install Sir Edmund Mortimer as king. I have to admit, at this point I’m like Mark who laments, “Tell me all again, for I’m findin’ it right complicated.” (p. 184)

Jamie and his friends join de Umfraville’s and Sir Roger Neville’s forces to fight a Scottish raiding army, and they soundly defeat them at the Battle of Yeavering. Despite the Scots outnumbering the English 10 to 1, the English archers prove to be the deciding factor.

Jamie, Geoffrey, Mark, and Cristo sail back to Porchester, where Henry is preparing his massive forces to invade France. Sir Richard Whittington sends Jamie on an emergency mission to convince Mortimer that his rebellion has fallen apart, and he must come clean to Henry. He does, and the leaders of the rebellion are tried and executed. So ends Part One!

Part Two concerns the English siege of Harfluer. Due to the marshy land around the towns and appalling camp hygiene, the English troops are succumbing to the “bloody flux” (dysentery). The town is slowly being destroyed by the constant bombardment from the English cannons. The indecisive French dauphin won’t send rescue forces, so Harfleur is in dire straits. Cristo is an invaluable resource as he gathers intelligence on the French positions. He even averts a disaster, raising the alarm when the French attack the English camp while they are have a funeral mass for Sir Richard Courtenay, Bishop of Norwich, who succumbed to dysentery. The attack is repelled, but the camp conditions continue to worsen.

After a pitched battle involving Jamie and Mark, Harfleur surrenders to the English, and Henry sends a challenge to the decadent dauphin: face me in one-on-one combat to decide the outcome of this war and end the bloodshed of innocent French and English people.

Part Three is devoted to one of the most famous conflicts in European history: the Battle of Agincourt. After weeks of slogging through rain and playing cat and mouse with the French, the exhausted English army finally faces their opponents at Agincourt. Fairfax does an excellent job of conveying just how overwhelming the odds were in favor of a French victory. They outnumbered the English 10 to 1, and they were so confident of their overwhelming force, that they placed their crossbowmen to their rear. This was a fatal mistake, as this allowed the English archers to advance unharmed into shooting range. Once in position, the archers were able to rain death down upon the French men at arms.

Fairfax also makes a good case that Henry’s victory was due to divine intervention. There were so many times he could have lost everything, yet events always seemed to work in his favor.

Having read all six volumes of the A Knight and A Spy series (2660 pages!), I can say that I really enjoyed getting to know Jamie, Mark, Cristo, and their medieval world. Life was very different then, and Fairfax does a great job describing what it was like, down to the smallest detail. James de Grispere matures from a naïve young squire into a trusted (and deadly) household knight of the king of England. Along the way, he never neglects his friends, and they have some fantastic adventures. It’s hard to believe they are all based on actual historical events. If Amazon or Netflix had any sense, they would produce an A Knight and a Spy miniseries.

I highly recommend the A Knight and A Spy series if you like historical fiction with lots of action. And if you do decide to take the plunge, make sure you begin with the first volume, 1410. 

Simon Fairfax’s 1413 – Sir James Betrayed?

Book number 36 of 2024

In 1413, the fourth in Simon Fairfax’s A Knight and a Spy series, Sir Jamie de Grispere is thrust into some of the most dangerous situations yet. King Henry IV has died, and as his son, Henry V, assumes the throne, there are all kinds of threats to the stability of England.

In Part I, Jamie travels undercover to Scotland to see if a man claiming to be Richard II is truly that monarch. If he is, then Henry V’s claim to the throne is in jeopardy, and Isabella – wife of France’s King Charles – would be a bigamist, making her child illegitimate. Jamie has to get close enough to this supposed Richard II to see who he really is. He and Mark of Cornwall pose as cloth merchants to infiltrate the Scottish court and discover the truth.

Meanwhile, Cristo and his beloved wife, Alessandria, decide that their true home is in England, where they have friends and family. They embark on the dangerous journey from Florence to London. In London itself, Bishop Beaufort, Henry V’s uncle, schemes to oust Henry.

In Part II, Jamie and Cristo travel to Paris at the behest of Sir Richard Whittington. They must warn the Armagnacs and the royal family of the Duke of Burgundy’s plans to start a riot using the working classes of Paris – the Cabochiens. They get there in time, but neither the Armagnacs nor Charles’ family believe the uprising will actually occur. What follows are hellish scenes of violence and depravity as the mob attacks and kills anyone thought to be connected to the Armagnacs. Jamie and Cristo are effectively prisoners in the Armagnac compound, until they manage a daring escape down the Seine.

Part III is the darkest chapter yet in Jamie’s saga. He has married Lady Alice, but their honeymoon is short-lived, as Sir Richard and Henry V decide to sacrifice him and his good name to see how widespread the Lollardy heresy has spread in England. As soon as he and Cristo arrive in London from Paris, Jamie is arrested for treason and taken to the Tower of London. Cristo breaks into Sir Richard’s home and learns that Jamie is to be a pawn in a power struggle. If Jamie can infiltrate Sir John Oldcastle’s forces and provide information on the planned revolt, Henry can crush the Lollardy uprising.

Through Sir Richard’s behind the scenes maneuvering, Jamie is transferred out of the Tower to a low-security castle in the country. From there, he escapes and joins Oldcastle’s crew. They are planning a violent revolution similar to the one that happened in Paris, using guild members and other adherents to the Lollard heresy.

Simon Fairfax has hewed closely to the actual historical events of 1413 in this novel, proving that real life is plenty exciting enough! Even though Jamie, Cristo, and Mark are fictional, they participate in well-documented battles and intrigues. The political maneuvering in the British and French courts is incredibly complicated, but it boils down to two things: Henry’s two uncles are continually fomenting unrest to undermine Henry’s authority, and England wants France divided – and thus weakened – between the Armagnacs and Burgundians. The pursuit of these ends leads to high stakes intrigue, where innocent and loyal subjects like Jamie de Grispere can be sacrificed like pawns in a chess game.

1413 is the fourth of six novels in the series, and I am definitely hooked. Look for a post reviewing 1414 soon!

Simon Fairfax’s 1412 – James Bond for the 15th Century

Book #32 of 2024

A Knight and a Spy: 1412 is Simon Fairfax’s third novel chronicling the adventures of Jamie de Grispere, knight of the household of Prince Henry of England, and spy for the spymaster Richard Whittington. As with the first two books, this one is divided into 4 sections, one for each season of the year.

Part I – Winter: The Courts of England and France sees Jamie off to Paris. Prince Henry’s relationship with his father, King Henry IV, continues to deteriorate. Henry IV is leaning towards allying England with the Armagnac faction of France, while the Prince favors the Burgundians. Whittington persuades Prince Henry to send an embassy to King Charles in Paris, which will be escorted by Jamie. This will allow Jamie to glean useful information about the state of things in the French court. The danger is that he is walking into the lions’ den – the Duke of Burgundy is his sworn enemy, and he will be extremely vulnerable to any assassination attempts. The goal of the embassy is to negotiate an offer from the Burgundians that will entice Henry IV to drop the Armagnac’s offer. Jamie barely gets out of Paris with his life, and he is much wiser when it comes to understanding courtly intrigue.

In Part II – Spring: The Journey South, Jamie enlists his comrades-in-arms Christo and Mark to safely transport a payment of gold coin from England to Pope Urban in Italy. Christo’s fiancée, the Countess Alessandria, and Jamie’s sister, Jeanette, will accompany them. Alessandria wants to get her father’s blessing for her marriage to Christo, and Jeanette is posing as her maid-in-waiting. Alessandria’s family, the Albertis, are successful bankers who are allied with the Medicis, who support Pope Urban. However, a rival family, the Albizzis have poisoned Florentine society to the point that all Albertis have either been killed or banished. If they can prevent the gold from making it to Urban, they will consolidate their power and influence over the Pope.

Jamie, Christo, Mark, Alessandria, and Jeannette make the perilous journey through Fleming, Luxembourg, and France, fighting off an ambush of bandits to finally arrive in northern Italy. There, agents of the Albizzis capture them, but after a thrilling escape and fight, our heroes successfully make it to Bologna and Alessandria’s father.

Part III – Summer: Florence and the Way Home finds our intrepid band navigating the courtly intrigue of Florentine politics. An assassin attacks Jamie as he is about to finally pay the levy to the Pope. Christo and Alessandria present their petition to the Parte Guelfa so they can get married. We meet Christo’s family and Jamie is called away to assist the Armagnacs in France as Burgundy lays siege to them.

There is a lot of good battle action Jamie participates in as Prince Thomas leads his forces across the Channel and engages with Burgundy’s Scottish and Genoese mercenaries. However, behind the scenes, there is always political jockeying going on. Prince Henry is reconciled to his father, but Henry IV promotes Prince Thomas over Hal. Sir Thomas Beaufort is with Prince Thomas as he invades France, but he is subtly working to sabotage him. The Burgundian spy, Jean de Kernezen, is helping Burgundy set a trap for Prince Thomas.

In Part IV – Autumn: France and the Winds of War, Jamie poses as a Scottish knight to gain access to Burgundy’s forces preparing defend the castle at Meung-sur-Loire. There’s a tremendous battle, and the English successfully take the castle, thanks to Jamie’s behind the scenes work.

Meanwhile, in Bologna, Christo and Alessandria are outmaneuvered by the Albrizzi family – all Albertis are effectively banished from Italy. Part IV ends with Jamie safely home, Christo and Alessandria embarking on a voyage to return to London, and the English victorious over the Armagnacs.

In this third installment of Sir James de Grispere’s exploits, he continues to mature. He is no longer the naïve young man who trusts everyone he meets. He is still a most deadly fighter, but he is also a wily undercover agent for England. In other words, he is a lot like James Bond would be, if he lived in the early 1400s. However, the unfortunate resuIt of his successes is that he has made a lot of enemies – in England, France, and now Italy.

1412 is the halfway point in Simon Fairfax’s A Knight and a Spy series, and it just gets better with every book. Looking ahead, King Henry IV doesn’t have much longer to live, and Jamie will find himself in the middle of a vicious power struggle. I’m looking forward to seeing how he navigates the perilous political waters in 1413!