First Line Fridays 28: Leopards and Lillies by Alfred Duggan

Today I am featuring a book I purchased a few years ago because it related to something I was working on at the time, but did not get around to reading. The author Alfred Duggan was a 'British historian, archeologist and novelist' who died in 1964. He was described as 'one of the best historical novelists' of his century.

Leopards and Lilies is one of his less well known novels, and is out of print except as some older versions, my edition dates from 1975. It small, creased, yellowed, and has a slight hint of that musty book smell.

It bears a mention here that none of this author's books were not explicitly Christian, but they did reflect the religious beliefs and convictions of the periods in which they were set, which in the case of his Medieval novels, would have been Catholic. 

I've also found that novels written before the 1960s tend to me more on the clean side (though not always). 

The first line is rather long, written in the old fashioned style. In fact, I'm going to share the first two lines, because I think the second is interesting too. I hope its not too much to read:

"For more than ten years, since the King returned in defeat from Normandy , England had been restless; order never quite broke down, but in castles and walled towns there had been gatherings of armed men, blustering and exaggerating their strength to overawe their opponents, then dispersing to meet again at some other stronghold of faction. 
Now at last the crisis had come and passed; in may the Exchequer closed and the judges ceased to sit, an official acknowledgement that the country was at war; then in June the King met his enemies in a meadow between Windsor and London, granted all their demands, and to everyone's surprise appeared to be keeping the engagement he had sealed"

Well, that's my rather wordy contribution for the day. 

Now share your own first line or click the button to see what others in the group are reading.