Penmarric by Susan Howatch

I've just been re reading Penmarric, which was a big hit back when it was published in the 1970s... it was a best seller which had a solid historical background. I think that Howatch was the first writer to use a historical story as a skeleton for her own story. She has based her novel on the history of the Plantagenet kings, particularly King John.. and set it in 19th and 20th century Cornwall. She used the device of having different characters narrating each part of the story. The novel starts in 1890 - the first narrator is Mark Castallack, a young upper class man who is based on Henry II. He falls in love with a working class widow, Janna Roslyn, (Eleanor of Aquitaine) who is left badly off by her elderly husband, a farmer. Mark is staying in Cornwall, visiting his father, who has inherited a large farm and is looking it over. His father is a quiet country gentleman who likes to dabble in studying history. He is occupied with writing a historical paper, so Mark goes out walking while he is staying with him. Mark meets Janna. She is laying flowers on her late husband's grave. Then he meets her again, when she is being persecuted by her 2 step sons. Janna was a fisherman's daughter, and started out as a servant. She was a very pretty girl, but found that women she worked for were all suspicious of her because her beauty attracted their menfolk. After years of trying to make a living, she met and married the elderly farmer, John Henry Roslyn, but he became jealous of her attracting men. Laurence dies and on his deathbed he tells Mark to look after Janna. So his son realises he had been having an affair with Janna. John Henry had only left her the farmhouse, and not much money, so she had written to Laurence asking for help. He became her lover. Mark is very upset when he hears about the affair, but he does forgive Janna. He asks her to marry him. Janna is 11 years older than her husband. He is at first drawn to her by her beauty and her passionate nature, but he grows bored with her because of their class differences and her lack of education. Mark inherits Penmarric, a large and properous estate, when his cousin Giles Penmar dies. Janna smartens up the house but she's not really happy as the mistress of an estat. After a few years, Mark starts to visit friends at Oxford and gets interested in writing historical works, while Janna produces a large family of children. Mark did not want so many children, and resents the way that Janna tends to use her family to avoid socialising with the upper classes or going to London with him. She realises that her marriage is more or less over, but she takes some comfort in her large family. Janna's favourite child is Philip, her third son, who shares her love of Cornwall. Philip is very interested in the mine on the estate. When he is 10, he and Janna go during half term holiday to Brighton, because Philip wants to move to a school in that area. Mark is not home and Janna thinks he is in Oxford, where he spends much of his time. When they go to dine at their hotel, to her horror, she sees Mark with a younger woman and 2 young boys. She has known for some time that Mark had a mistress, a former governess called Rose Parrish, but this looks like they are living almost as a married couple. A row breaks out. Janna realises that Rose is now living in Oxford, as Mark's housekeeper. He says he now wants to end the marriage. She and Mark leave Philip alone and go to talk.. Mark telling her that the marriage is over and he wants a divorce. Angrily, she refuses, not wanting to let him become free to marry Rose. In his anger, he forces her to have sex with him.