Dear Bernard, Thank you very much for such wonderful historical fiction. Your plots, descriptions of battle and historical references are such a delight to read. You are truly gifted. Since you are so talented I even hate to mention this but it seems evident across your many books that you appear to have an anti-clerical or anti-Catholic/Christian bias or animus. Often, you portray clergy in your books as paranoid, evil, or deranged. Certainly, there are exceptions to this, but if one took your impressions of Catholicism in early and late Medieval times, one might think it was an evil, madcap society. Of course, since I know you are a student of history, you are aware of the contrary, namely Catholicism in particular, and Christianity in general has been perhaps the greatest civilizing influence of man’s worst impulses that the world has ever seen — think of all the good done each day throughout the world by the institutional church — missions, food pantries, hospital, schools, and yes, it dogmas and spirituality are wonderful to inspire man to great heights in thought and deed. Of course, there are exceptions in history to this when churchmen have conducted themselves like savages — I know these schoolboy arguments would not appeal to such a mind as yours to indict the entire institution. As a world traveller, I would offer to you examples of Asian or Middle Eastern societies not formed by western/Xian values if you have any doubts — think about how they treat the individual, women, slavery, etc., — these are largerly non-western phenomena these days. Certainly, the west is guilty of these and more in her past, but in its cultural aspirations, it has overcome them to a very large extent. One cannot envision a Beethoven Sonata or an Epic poem being produced by these societies for example. More plainly, name one non-Christian, Moslem country or Asian, for that matter, that contributed in any MATERIAL way, to the Tsnuami disaster that affected largely, Muslims. How much did Saudi Arabia give ? How much did China give in comparison to the West ? Okay, defense rests. Please Bernard, put away the poison when it comes to Xianity in future books — not simply because of religious sensibilities, but because it is not good historical scholarship. Take care and please keep producing densely textured, delightful historical novels. Warmly, Charles Craigmile

Mr. Cornwell, I am a great fan of the Sharpe novels, and I did enjoy this book. However, your characterizations of the Catholic Church in that day and time are greatly exaggerated, as I’m sure you know. It’s quite tiresome, really, to see the Church stereotyped again as a bunch of ignorant, silly, sexually-repressed, seasick churchmen. While there certainly were characters that might conform to your characterizations, they were anything but representative of the Church. I think you’re a better writer – and historian – than that. Cordially,