40 Fun Facts About The Forest (Edward Rutherfurd Novel)

Rutherfurd's The Forest tells part of its 1099 chapter from the point of view of which animal?

A deer shares the opening chapter, The Hunt, which follows the animal through an elaborate courtship and then through being hunted.

Rufus, the king whose death opens Rutherfurd's The Forest, was killed by which weapon while hunting?

An arrow hit Rufus during a hunt in the New Forest, and nobody has ever settled whether it was an accident or murder.

Which king, father of the Rufus killed in Rutherfurd's The Forest, made the New Forest a royal forest?

William the Conqueror proclaimed it a royal forest around 1079, and it already appears in his great survey, Domesday Book.

Fanny Albion's trial in Rutherfurd's The Forest echoes a real scandal involving which novelist's aunt?

Jane Austen's family lived just east of the New Forest, which she visited, and her aunt's real courtroom ordeal gave Rutherfurd his plot.

Rutherfurd's summary of The Forest promises witchcraft, the inner life of trees and even which creature?

A dragon closes the author's list of the Forest's hidden side, which also takes in the secret lives of its trees and animals.

In the modern opening of Rutherfurd's The Forest, a descendant of the characters views the woods from what?

A small plane flies her over Sarum and down to the Forest in April 2000, a modern frame that leaves her wondering about its past before the story drops back to 1099.

New Forest commoners, central to Rutherfurd's The Forest, turn out which animals each autumn to eat acorns?

Pigs are loosed for at least 60 days under the ancient right of pannage, clearing acorns that in large amounts can poison ponies and cattle.

In Rutherfurd's The Forest, New Forest oaks are felled to build warships for which admiral's navy?

Lord Nelson's fleet was built partly of Forest oak, timber the novel shows being felled to guard England's shores against Napoleon.

The New Forest, setting of Rutherfurd's The Forest, lies mostly in which English county?

Hampshire holds most of the New Forest, one of the largest tracts of unenclosed pasture, heath and woodland left in southern England.

The New Forest of Rutherfurd's The Forest borders England's south coast opposite which island?

The Isle of Wight lies across the narrow Solent from the Forest's shore, waters the novel's sailors, fishermen and merchants work.

Edward Rutherfurd bills The Forest as the natural companion to which earlier novel, his bestselling debut?

Sarum spans ten thousand years around Stonehenge, and the New Forest lies just south-east of that setting.

Reviewers of Rutherfurd's The Forest compared its centuries-spanning sweep to which American novelist's work?

James Michener set the pattern Rutherfurd follows, tracing invented families through the whole history of one place; Kirkus called Rutherfurd England's answer to him.

Rutherfurd's The Forest has the powerful Clare family frame which Norman lord for the killing of Rufus?

Walter Tyrrell fled at once, which looked like guilt; Rutherfurd also moves the killing well away from the Rufus Stone that marks the traditional spot.

Which Norman heroine of The Forest did the Kansas City Star call bold in the face of injustice?

Adela opens a line of memorable women in the novel: the same review names Alice Albion, who lives through the Civil War, as her descendant.

Which gnarled, Druid-like old man darkly personifies the woodland in Rutherfurd's The Forest?

Puckle first appears in the opening tale of the king's death, and the author lists the Puckles among the old families who stand for the Forest people.

Rufus, the nickname of the king killed in Rutherfurd's The Forest, is Latin for which colour?

Red was probably a nod to his hair, though some say his ruddy face; either way the nickname has outlived his official title, William II.

After Rufus died in the New Forest, as Rutherfurd's novel relates, which brother seized the throne?

Henry hastened to secure the royal treasury and was crowned within days, before either archbishop could arrive.

In Rutherfurd's The Forest, which monk of Beaulieu Abbey has his calm faith upset by meeting Mary Furzey?

Brother Adam is content serving God until a poaching incident brings him into contact with Mary, and in the 1294 chapter he fathers her child.

The monks of Beaulieu Abbey in Rutherfurd's The Forest belong to which sheep-farming religious order?

Cistercians settled Beaulieu with 30 monks sent from Cîteaux in France, the mother house of the order, a founding unique in Britain.

Which notorious judge condemns Alice Lisle in the 1685 trial dramatised in Rutherfurd's The Forest?

George Jeffreys opened his Bloody Assizes with her case and pressed a reluctant jury until it found her guilty.

Which merchant family of the harbour town of Lymington features in Edward Rutherfurd's The Forest?

The Tottons are one of five invented families the author names as standing for the Forest people, and one part of the book is titled after their town.

Lymington, a chapter title in Rutherfurd's The Forest, was long famous for making what?

Salt was made at Lymington from the Middle Ages into the 19th century, with an almost continuous belt of workings along the coast.

In Rutherfurd's The Forest, local fishermen help which sea captain fight off the Armada?

Sir Francis Drake sailed as vice admiral of the 55 English ships that left Plymouth, and the novel sends men from Christchurch and Lymington to join the fight.

Rutherfurd's The Forest wrecks a Spanish galleon full of bullion near which coastal fort?

Hurst Castle guards the western entrance to the Solent from a shingle spit, and the author says the wreck story rests on local evidence.

Alice Lisle, whose fate Rutherfurd's The Forest dramatises, sheltered fugitives from which duke's 1685 rising?

Monmouth's rebel army was crushed at Sedgemoor, and a fortnight later she took in a fugitive minister for a single night.

Alice Lisle, a tragic figure in Rutherfurd's The Forest, was the last woman in England executed in which way?

Beheading was a mercy of sorts: she was first sentenced to burn at the stake, and the king allowed the axe as befitting her rank.

Beaulieu Abbey, scene of a monk's romance in Rutherfurd's The Forest, was founded by which English monarch?

King John founded it in 1203–4 and endowed it richly; the abbey's Latin name means the beautiful place of the king.

Leonard Hoar, named in Rutherfurd's The Forest, was an early president of which American college?

Harvard made Hoar its third president in 1672, the first to be one of its own graduates; he had married a daughter of the Lisle family.

In Rutherfurd's The Forest, a storyteller named Purkiss tells which Stuart-era king a tale about Rufus's death?

Charles II hears the tale centuries after the event, and Kirkus singled out the novel's portrait of this monarch as intriguing.

In which fashionable spa town is Fanny Albion put on trial in Edward Rutherfurd's The Forest?

Bath, a Roman spa revived as a fashionable resort in the eighteenth century, sees its decorous society shattered by the scandal.

In Rutherfurd's The Forest, the heroine Fanny Albion stands trial accused of what crime?

Theft is the charge, modelled on a real case: the author says the circumstances closely follow a scandal in a famous writer's family.

Which illegal trade is detailed in the Albion Park chapter of Rutherfurd's The Forest?

Smuggling of brandy, silk, lace, tobacco and tea drew in every class of society, and the chapter shows how the trade was financed and run.

The Forest describes the building of which warship, commanded at Trafalgar by an ancestor of Edward Rutherfurd?

HMS Swiftsure, a 74-gun ship completed in 1804, fought at Trafalgar under Captain William Rutherfurd, and the novel gives an account of her building.

Which Beaulieu River hamlet in Rutherfurd's The Forest built three warships that fought at Trafalgar?

Buckler's Hard was first planned as a free port for West Indies trade, but its sheltered river and nearby Forest timber made it a naval shipyard instead.

Rutherfurd novels such as The Forest usually open with which aid, its lines matched to the chapters?

A family tree lets readers keep track of the four to six invented families whose descendants he follows down the centuries.

Edward Rutherfurd, author of The Forest, settled near which capital city in the early 1990s?

Dublin later gave him two novels of its own, which follow Ireland from just before Saint Patrick to the twentieth century.

Edward Rutherfurd, author of The Forest, was born in which English cathedral city near the New Forest?

Salisbury is where Rutherfurd returned in 1983, quitting the book trade to write his first novel in his childhood home.

Five years after Rutherfurd's The Forest was published, the New Forest was given which protected status?

National park status arrived on 1 March 2005, handing planning decisions to a new authority; the novel's last chapters dramatise earlier fights to protect the Forest.

Which peer joined Edward Rutherfurd in 2001 to set up a new memorial to Rufus near Beaulieu Abbey?

Lord Montagu, whose family seat is Beaulieu, helped mark the spot because the author believes the famous Rufus Stone stands in the wrong place.

Beaulieu, a key setting of Edward Rutherfurd's The Forest, now houses a famous national collection of what?

Motor cars fill the National Motor Museum in the abbey grounds, helping make the monks' old home one of England's best-known tourist attractions.