The Well in the Desert, An Old Legend of the House of Arundel, by Emily
Sarah Holt.
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The action takes place at the end of the fourteenth century and the
start of the fifteenth. It deals largely with a family connected with
Arundel in Sussex. They seem to have been rather nasty people, highly
motivated by greed and desire for even higher stations in life. They
were fairly well-placed by today's standards, being closely related to
various of the Kings of England of the day. Some of the women in the
story are quite as bad as many of the men.
When these wicked people had done their wicked deeds there were often
unfortunate children, dispossessed or forgotten in some attic of the
castle. One of these is the heroine of this story. She had never been
told who or where her mother was. By a series of coincidences she
comes across the name of a person who may know the answers to these
questions. I will not spoil the story for you by telling you any more.
Throughout the book there is constant reference to Christ as the Well,
the supplier of the vital Water of Life. Christianity was in a terrible
mess at the time, with numerous sects, and with the members of any one
sect feeling free to execute by any means the members of any other sect.
There's plainly a modern parallel here.
On the whole the story is based on fact and on valuable contemporary
records. When Miss Holt wrote the story it seemed likely that Philippa,
the central figure, was accurately represented. Unfortunately, after
the book was complete it was found that she could never have existed,
so the poor authoress had to present her book as it stands, with an
apology at the end.
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THE WELL IN THE DESERT, AN OLD LEGEND OF THE HOUSE OF ARUNDEL, BY EMILY
SARAH HOLT.