Now that Sir John Hawkwood hath gone with the East Anglian lads and the Nottingham woodmen into the service of the Marquis of
Montferrat to fight against the Lord of Milan, there are but ten score of us left, yet I trust that I may be able to bring some back with me to fill the ranks of the White Company.
The English monarch, Edward I, was nearly dispatched by their blades and Richard the Lionheart's reputation was sullied by his association with the Assassins murder of Conrad of
Montferrat.
The play unfolds an almost domesticated intrigue and counter-intrigue with the sensual Abdella (Fletcher, Massinger, and Field blithely give a female Muslim character a man's name, Abdulla) plotting with the French knight
Montferrat to bring about the downfall of the Spanish protagonist Miranda, a Knight of the Order, and defame the resolutely chaste Oriana.
Female protagonists who put their honor, livelihood, and/or lives on the line by speaking truth to (almost invariably male and sometimes political) power and taking destiny into their own hands include the Marchioness of
Montferrat (1.5), a lady from Gascony (1.9), the daughter of the King of England (2.3), Zinevra (2.9), Bartolomea (2.10), the wife of Messer Francesco Vergellesi (3.5), Ghismonda (4.1), Andreuola (4.6), the wife of Pietro di Vinciolo (5.10), Monna Nonna de' Pulci (6.3), Madonna Filippa (6.7), and the nun Isabetta (9.2).
(47) The death of the Earl of Forest at Geffray's instigation, the latter's forgiveness by Raymondin, and Raymondin's pilgrimage to Rome and decision to enter a hermitage on
Montferrat occupy fragment 5 (R3), (48) while Geffray's own pilgrimage to visit his father and the shocked response of the local monks to his presence make up fragment 6.
Favourite when turned over by stable-companion Sun On The Run in Cork,
Montferrat might make amends in the seven-furlong maiden, tu with the help of a hood.
This time their victim was Conrad of
Montferrat, one of the leaders of that crusade, and a political rival of Richard I ("the Lionhearted"), the Franco-English monarch who had led the crusading army.
They range from Julius Caesar's brutal stabbing in 44BC and the 1192 attack on Conrad of
Montferrat by two members of the Arab sect that gave assassins their name, to Russian dissident Alexander Litvinenko's radioactive poisoning in London in 2006.