the author made in the autumn of 1802 to Warwick Castle and the ruins of
Kenilworth. The introduction has the usual fiction of an old manuscript
found in an oaken chest dug up from the foundation of a chapel of Black
Canons at Kenilworth: a manuscript richly illuminated with designs at the
head of each chapter--which are all duly described--and containing a
"trew chronique of what passed at Killingworth, in Ardenn, when our
Soveren Lord the Kynge kept ther his Fest of Seynt Michel: with ye
marveylous accident that there befell at the solempnissacion of the
marriage of Gaston de Blondeville. With divers things curious to be
known thereunto purtayning. With an account of the grete Turney there
held in the year MCCLVI. Changed out of the Norman tongue by Grymbald,
Monk of Senct Marie Priori in Killingworth." Chatterton's forgeries had
by this time familiarized the public with imitations of early English.
The finder of this manuscript pretends to publish a modernized version of
it, while endeavoring "to preserve somewhat of the air of the old style."
This he does by a poor reproduction, not of thirteenth-century, but of
sixteenth-century English, consisting chiefly in inversions of phrase and
the occasional use of a _certes_ or _naithless_. Two words in particular
seem to have struck Mrs. Radcliffe as most excellent archaisms: _ychon_
and _his-self_, which she introduces at every turn.

"Gaston de Blondville," then, is a tale of the time of Henry III. The
king himself is a leading figure and so is Prince Edward. Other
historical personages are brought in, such as Simon de Montfort and Marie
de France, but little use is made of them. The book is not indeed, in
any sense, an historical novel like Scott's "Kenilworth," the scene of
which is the same, and which was published in 1821, five years before
Mrs. Radcliffe's. The story is entirely fictitious. What differences it
from her other romances is the conscious attempt to portray feudal
manners. There are elaborate descriptions of costumes, upholstery,