The Historical Nights' Entertainment: First Series

  THE HISTORICAL NIGHTS' ENTERTAINMENT

  First Series

  By Rafael Sabatini

  PREFACE

  In approaching "The Historical Nights' Entertainment" I set myself thetask of reconstructing, in the fullest possible detail and with all thecolour available from surviving records, a group of more or less famousevents. I would select for my purpose those which were in themselvesbizarre and resulting from the interplay of human passions, and whilstrelating each of these events in the form of a story, I would compelthat story scrupulously to follow the actual, recorded facts withoutowing anything to fiction, and I would draw upon my imagination, if atall, merely as one might employ colour to fill in the outlines whichhistory leaves grey, taking care that my colour should be as true tonature as possible. For dialogue I would depend upon such scrapsof actual speech as were chronicled in each case, amplifying it bytranslating into terms of speech the paraphrases of contemporarychroniclers.

  Such was the task I set myself. I am aware that it has been attemptedonce or twice already, beginning, perhaps, with the "Crimes Celebres"of Alexandre Dumas. I am not aware that the attempt has ever succeeded.This is not to say that I claim success in the essays that follow. Hownearly I may have approached success--judged by the standard I had setmyself--how far I may have fallen short, my readers will discern. Iam conscious, however, of having in the main dutifully resisted thetemptation to take the easier road, to break away from restricting factfor the sake of achieving a more intriguing narrative. In one instance,however, I have quite deliberately failed, and in some others I havepermitted myself certain speculations to resolve mysteries of which noexplanation has been discovered. Of these it is necessary that I shouldmake a full confession.

  My deliberate failure is "The Night of Nuptials." I discovered anallusion to the case of Charles the Bold and Sapphira Danvelt inMacaulay's "History of England"--quoted from an old number of the"Spectator"--whilst I was working upon the case of Lady Alice Lisle.There a similar episode is mentioned as being related of Colonel Kirke,but discredited because known for a story that has a trick of springingup to attach itself to unscrupulous captains. I set out to track it toits source, and having found its first appearance to be in connectionwith Charles the Bold's German captain Rhynsault, I attempted toreconstruct the event as it might have happened, setting it at least insurroundings of solid fact.

  My most flagrant speculation occurs in "The Night of Hate." But indefence of it I can honestly say that it is at least no more flagrantthan the speculations on this subject that have become enshrined inhistory as facts. In other words, I claim for my reconstruction of thecircumstances attending the mysterious death of Giovanni Borgia, Duke ofGandia, that it no more lacks historical authority than do any otherof the explanatory narratives adopted by history to assign the guilt toGandia's brother, Cesare Borgia.

  In the "Cambridge Modern History" our most authoritative writers on thisepoch have definitely pronounced that there is no evidence acceptableto historians to support the view current for four centuries that CesareBorgia was the murderer.

  Elsewhere I have dealt with this at length. Here let it suffice to saythat it was not until nine months after the deed that the name of CesareBorgia was first associated with it; that public opinion had in the meantime assigned the guilt to a half-dozen others in succession; that nomotive for the crime is discoverable in the case of Cesare; that themotives advanced will not bear examination, and that they bear on theface of them the stamp of having been put forward hastily to supportan accusation unscrupulously political in purpose; that the first menaccused by the popular voice were the Cardinal Vice-Chancellor AscanioSforza and his nephew Giovanni Sforza, Tyrant of Pesaro; and, finally,that in Matarazzo's "Chronicles of Perugia" there is a fairly detailedaccount of how the murder was perpetrated by the latter.

  Matarazzo, I confess, is worthy of no more credit than any other of thecontemporary reporters of common gossip. But at least he is worthy of noless. And it is undeniable that in Sforza's case a strong motive for themurder was not lacking.

  My narrative in "The Night of Hate" is admittedly a purely theoreticalaccount of the crime. But it is closely based upon all the known factsof incidence and of character; and if there is nothing in the survivingrecords that will absolutely support it, neither is there anything thatcan absolutely refute it.

  In "The Night of Masquerade" I am guilty of quite arbitrarilydiscovering a reason to explain the mystery of Baron Bjelke's suddenchange from the devoted friend and servant of Gustavus III of Swedeninto his most bitter enemy. That speculation is quite indefensible,although affording a possible explanation of that mystery. In the caseof "The Night of Kirk o' Field," on the other hand, I do not think anyapology is necessary for my reconstruction of the precise manner inwhich Darnley met his death. The event has long been looked upon as oneof the mysteries of history--the mystery lying in the fact that whilstthe house at Kirk o' Field was destroyed by an explosion, Darnley's bodywas found at some distance away, together with that of his page, bearingevery evidence of death by strangulation. The explanation I adopt seemsto me to owe little to speculation.

  In the story of Antonio Perez--"The Night of Betrayal"--I have permittedmyself fewer liberties with actual facts than might appear. I haveclosely followed his own "Relacion," which, whilst admittedly a pieceof special pleading, must remain the most authoritative document of theevents with which it deals. All that I have done has been to reversethe values as Perez presents them, throwing the personal elements intohigher relief than the political ones, and laying particular stress uponthe matter of his relations with the Princess of Eboli. "The Night ofBetrayal" is presented in the form of a story within a story. Of thecontaining story let me say that whilst to some extent it is fictitious,it is by no means entirely so. There is enough to justify most of it inthe "Relaciori" itself.

  The exceptions mentioned being made, I hope it may be found that I haveadhered rigorously to my purpose of owing nothing to invention in myattempt to flesh and clothe these few bones of history.

  I should add, perhaps, that where authorities differ as to motives,where there is a conflict of evidence as to the facts themselves, orwhere the facts admit of more than one interpretation, I have permittedmyself to be selective, and confined myself to a point of view adoptedat the outset.

  R. S.

  LONDON, August, 1917