Title: |
The King's Messenger |
 |
Author: |
Susana Kearsley |
|
Category: |
Literature |
|
Rating: |
||
Date Reviewed: |
November 18, 2025 |
Much of the time I spent reading The King's Messenger, I felt that I had missed some key plot points. I gathered that Prince Henry had died, and that Sir David Moray was under
suspicion. Sir Moray had been appointed as the ward of Prince Henry since he was an infant, King Henry had decreed that his children should not be raised by his wife, Queen Anna, because he didn't want his children
to grow up soft (nor did he want Queen Anna's Catholicism to infect his heirs). Sir Moray had been Prince Henry's constant companion until the prince's untimely death at age eighteen. But why should Logan be sent to arrest Sir David Moray?
Kearsley wrote an author's note at the end of the novel explaining much of the relationship between King James and Prince Henry. There was suspicion that the King was jealous of his popular
son, and perhaps court rivals did away with the young man via poison (which apparently gives symptoms similar to a typhoid infection) with or without the King's approval.
Andrew Logan, the King's Messenger, will travel to Scotland to arrest Sir David Moray. Accompanying him will be a scrivener (a man who can read and write) named Laurence Westaway. It is Westaway's
task to write down everything Sir Moray says, perhaps to catch him making incriminating statements. However, Westaway is not in good health, and so his beautiful young daughter Phoebe insists that she be allowed to join the
expedition, even though she despises the big rough lout that is Logan. I kept wondering why the King sent one messenger and an old man to arrest someone as important as Sir Moray, especially when Moray has many war-like relatives
in Scotland who might protest. Why not send a sheriff with a contingent of men-at-arms?
I thought the story would have been more exciting if Logan's small troop had a more dramatic chase across the Scottish moors. There is a little bit of an attempt to outwit Sir Moray's relatives while riding through Scotland,
but it did not result in any scenes of narrow escapes and ambushes and desperate horseback rides.
Logan has the gift of Second Sight. Sometimes he sees and hears a scene from the future. The scene always comes true, he cannot avoid what he knows the future holds. Conveniently, the Second Sight
always reveals to Logan critical information. He never gets a Second Sight of someone innocently sleeping or sitting quietly by the fire. Logan can also see wraiths who walk the Earth - ghosts of dead people who sometimes
tell him information. I am not sure Kearsley needed to add this supernatural element to The King's Messenger. Most of what Logan learns from his Seeing is just foreshadowing by Kearsley, to get the reader anxious about
what lies ahead.
The novel jumps around to different viewpoints. Some chapters are told from Phoebe's point of view, others from Logan's, or Sir David Moray's, or even Queen Anna's viewpoint. Logan's chapters are all
in first person, everyone else is told in third person. I never really connected with any of the characters. It was clear that the most important story arc to Kearsley was the interaction between Phoebe and Logan. It wasn't
until the end of the book that I learned about the intrigue surrounding Prince Henry's death and the machinations of the villains. Is there a subgenre called romistory - for historical novels that are romances? That would be
my characterization for this story.
|
