1
The King's Sons, by George Manville Fenn
The Project Gutenberg EBook of The King's Sons, by George Manville Fenn This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
Title: The King's Sons
Author: George Manville Fenn
Illustrator: T.H. Robinson
Release Date: May 4, 2007 [EBook #21315]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ASCII
*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE KING'S SONS ***
Produced by Nick Hodson of London, England
The King's Sons, by George Manville Fenn.
_______________________________________________________________________
This is a very short book, and it does not contain any of the usual nail-biting Fenn-style situations. But it is very good at what it does, which is to tell a story about King Ethelwulf of Wessex and his four sons, each of whom in turn became King.
The story concentrates on the youngest of the sons, Alfred, who became known as Alfred the Great during his reign. The four boys have a tutor, Father Swythe, but only Alfred is interested in what the monk has to teach. At this point we get a very interesting lesson on how the great illustrated manuscripts were made, how the ink and the colours were made, and how the pens and brushes were made.
Father Swythe later became Bishop of Winchester, and was known as Swithun. He was canonised, and somehow there has grown a legend that if it rains on Saint Swithun's day it will rain for forty days after that. H