Posted on July 21, 2010

(Richard Warren Field is the author of the award-winning novel, The Swords of Faith. Read here why The Swords of Faith will make a great movie.)

Note: This web-page summarizes the novel, but does not capture the drama and intensity of the scenes in this novel. Readers should NOT consider this to be anything but a reminder of the details of the plot, and should not substitute this synopsis for the experience of reading Ken Follette's The Pillars of the Earth.

(For comments about the Starz Network mini-series based on The Pillars of the Earth, please com visit my blog.)

Prologue – 1123

Ellen, fifteen and pregnant watches the father of her child being hanged for allegedly stealing a jeweled goblet. There is an undercurrent of injustice to the event implied as Ellen beheads a rooster, spraying three men with blood—“three strangers: a knight, a monk and a priest.” She curses them “with sickness and sorrow, with hunger and pain; your house shall be consumed with fire, and your children shall die on the gallows; your enemies shall  prosper, and you shall grow old in sadness and regret, and die in foulness and agony...”

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Part One – 1135-1136

Chapter One:
Tom Builder. Tom loses his secure building job when Lady Aliena, daughter of the earl of Shiring, refuses to accept William Hamleigh as her husband. The house Tom Builder is working on is no longer necessary. After a chilling confrontation over getting the arrogant young Lord William to pay him and his men the wages due them, Tom and his family leave and wander the area looking for work for Tom.

They cannot find work before winter. With the family on the verge of starvation, Tom’s wife gives birth to a son in the middle of the cold, winter forest, and in her weakened condition, dies of a hemorrhage. At first, Tom and his family abandon the baby; they will be unable to care for the little boy. But overcome by remorse, Tom returns to find his son has been taken in by the monks at Kingsbridge priory. They have named the boy Jonathan.

Ellen, with her strange, intense young son Jack, are the ones who tell Tom this news. Ellen and Tom’s family have interacted before, with a hint of attraction between Tom and Ellen. They marry within twenty-four hours of the death of Tom’s first wife, a woman he clearly loved, but a woman who could no longer help him with the harsh realities of survival.

Chapter Two:
Prior Phillip. Young Phillip, a pious, competent man who has been in the monastic life since his parents were slaughtered when he was seven, becomes prior of Kingsbridge. During the chapter, his younger brother Francis, who left the monastery to be a priest, tells Phillip of a plot, which Bartholomew of Shiring is a key actor in, to depose Stephen, who has seized the throne after the death of Henry I. Stephen is sympathetic to the church, but his claim to the throne may not be as strong as Maud’s, as she is the only surviving legitimate child of Henry I.

Philip establishes contact with Waleran Bigod, an ambitious, guarded man not much older than Philip. Bigod will use this information by disclosing it to Percy Hamleigh, who is an enemy of Bartholomew because of Bartholomew’s daughter’s refusal to marry his son William (as referred to in Chapter One). Bigod also supports Philip to become the new prior of Kingsbridge after the aging, ineffective prior of Kingsbridge dies. This support of Bigod outmaneuvers an older monk, Remigius, who is bitter after losing what he believed would be his position. In exchange for Bigod’s support , Phillip makes an uneasy commitment to support him for bishop if the current presiding bishop dies. Philip then discovers that Bigod knew of the bishop’s death before making this arrangement, and Phillip realizes he was manipulated into assisting Waleran Bigod’s acquisition of the bishop’s post.

Chapter Three:
William and his father, Percy of Hamleigh, lead a raid against Bartholomew of Shiring after torturing a messenger into confessing the plot against the reigning rival-for-the-throne, Stephen. A meticulous plan catches Bartholomew by surprise and his castle is taken. Tom Builder arrives just before the raid and secures a position with Bartholomew by pointing out repairs Bartholomew needs to strengthen security at castle. William and Percy’s capture of the castle ends Tom’s just-secured position, and after a day or two of full stomachs, Tom’s family is looking for work again.

Tom hears there is a new prior at Kingsbridge and decides to go there; new priors are prone to making improvements to the properties they have taken over. As for Aliena—she is now the daughter of a traitor and is no longer good enough to marry William, according to William’s ugly, blemished mother, Regan.

Chapter Four:
Tom Builder offers his services to prior Philip, but Philip turns him down. Philip needs to conserve finances before spending on upgrading the priory, to get the priory back on track after years of neglect. He tells Tom and his family they can stay for the night and take meals, but he cannot offer Tom employment. Jack figures out this is bad, even life-threatening for the family, so after deliberating and contemplating, he sets the Kingsbridge cathedral on fire, causing significant damage.

Philip hires Tom Builder to do the repairs. The monks think the devil started the fire; the idea that Tom Builder caused the fire is dismissed because of the difficulty with the logistics of accessing and then escaping from the locked building, and Tom’s apparent honest nature. Tom’s presence at the time of the fire is considered by Philip to be a divine blessing.

Ellen’s presence at Kingsbridge unsettles Remigius and he sends a private letter to Waleran Bigod who comes to the priory ostensibly to view the damage to the cathedral, but who also seems uneasy with Ellen. When Remigius finds out Ellen and Tom have not been formally married, he gets Philip to declare a penance for Ellen—to confess her sin, and accept chastity for a year. She refuses and leaves the priory with Jack, leaving Tom and his family. Tom’s son Alfred’s bullying of Jack has also become an issue.

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Part Two – 1136-1137

Chapter Five:
Tom Builder prepares a design for Kingsbridge Cathedral and shows it to Prior Philip. The design, and Tom’s clear vision for the project, excite Prior Philip, and he commits to choosing Tom Builder as the master builder of the cathedral if the finances can be arranged. Waleran Biogod asks Prior Philip to join him in a petition to the king for the church to take over the lands of the disgraced earl of Shiring to finance the cathedral. On the way there, they stop off at the earl of Shiring’s castle where Philip discovers that Aliena, her brother Richard, and the steward of the castle still live there. William Hamleigh spots this, and we learn that he has been stalking Aliena, and also knows she still lives at the castle.

When Waleran Bigod and the king’s brother, also a powerful bishop, arrive to petition the king, they discover the Hamleighs are already there, seeking the earl of Shiring’s lands for themselves. The Hamleighs show Prior Philip that Waleran Bigod is using Philip to get the earl of Shiring’s lands for his own needs—he is building a castle. Philip outmaneuvers Waleran Bigod by striking a deal with the Hamleighs—they get the commercial lands and castle and the priory (not the diocese, so not Waleran Bigod) gets the forest and the right to take timber and stone from the land. Bigod is furious with Philip, and promises him he will never build his church.

William Hamleigh takes possession of the former earl of Shiring’s castle. He finds Aliena there and rapes her, also beating her younger brother Richard and killing the castle steward.

Chapter Six:
Aliena and Richard leave the castle for Winchester, with the seemingly absurd idea of petitioning the king to help them. They are treated brutally and cruelly as they work their way toward the city, learning that the highborn, without wealth and position, can expect little from most people. They see their father in prison, a shell of his former self, clearly deteriorating, probably dying. He makes Richard swear an oath not to rest until he takes back Shiring, and makes Aliena swear to take care of Richard until he does. He directs them to where they can find some hidden funds. He then tells them never to see him again. They say their good-byes.

Aliena and Richard repossess a fifth of the funds and go to an uncle, but the uncle summarily rejects the idea of them staying with him. Aliena observes some specifics of the wool trade, and buys wool to resell it at the market at Winchester. But at the markets, they are offered an unfair price, below their cost, because they are perceived as powerless children. A monk steps in and engineers a fair price for them, then promises to buy their wool in the future. Aliena is grateful to this man who has saved them from losing their investment; the monk is Philip, prior of Kingsbridge.

Chapter Seven:
The Hamleighs try to work the quarry on the Shiring property, depriving Philip and the priory of stones for the cathedral. Philip counters with a shield of monks, surrounding the priory’s quarry workers and praying, outmaneuvering the Hamleighs’ efforts. Waleran Bigod tries to end efforts to build a cathedral at Kingsbridge by going to the bishop Henry, brother of the king, and possible appointee to the the Archbishop of Canterbury position, to convince him Kingsbridge does not have the resources to build the cathedral. The cathedral, Bigod argues, should be built in Shiring. The Hamleighs join the effort. Bishop Henry schedules a visit to assess the situation.

Prior Philip learns of the plan, and at first despairs that the plan will work. But after consulting with some of his closest advisors, he decides to call for volunteers to work on the cathedral, to gain forgiveness of their sins. He hopes to swarm the cathedral site with progress and activity to impress the bishop Henry when he visits.

The plan works perfectly. The bishop is impressed, and goes over plans for the cathedral with Tom Builder, approving and endorsing the effort. The Hamleighs and Waleran Bigod fume as they have been outmaneuvered again by Prior Philip.

Ellen sees the summons for volunteers, and rejoins Tom. They will live in the town and be married. The new Earl Percy of Shiring sees Ellen, and is also unsettled by her, as Waleran Bigod and Remigius have been before. Aliena has prospered with her wool trade, because of Philip, and lives at Kingsbridge. William Hamleigh is still obsessed with her, but is not sure where she lives. Jack at first is unhappy to return to the priory, and to Tom’s family. But when he sees that Aliena lives there now, his spirits soar. He realizes he is in love with her, the beautiful girl he calls “Princess.”

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Part Three – 1140-1143

Chapter Eight:
While William is fighting for King Stephen in the civil war against the “Empress” Maud, he is informed his father has died. The king grants him leave to return to Shiring, and also implies there is a succession issue; Richard, son of the late Bartholomew of Shiring has fought bravely for Stephen, and will apparently have a claim to Shiring as well.

When William returns to Shiring, he finds the earldom’s fortunes in decline. He terrorizes the Shiring townspeople, looking to enforce his own economic advantages and collect back rents. He finds that Kingsbridge is flourishing, with a bustling market and expanded village, partly because of the prosperity of workers employed building the cathedral, which is progressing well. Aliena looks rich, and when he sees her, she glares defiantly at him. He concludes Prior Phillip and the prosperity of Kingsbridge are behind his troubles. He needs to raise an army to bring back to King Stephen; this will strengthen his claim to inherit Shiring.

William discusses the situation with Waleran Bigod, who suggests taking back the quarry. William takes a small group of fighting men to take over the quarry, but meets stiff resistance that leaves one man and a number of horses, including William’s prime warhorse, dead.

Chapter Nine:
Prior Phillip goes to meet King Stephen to try to get a license for his informal and technically illegal market, and to assert his rights to the quarry. He meets the king at Lincoln, and though the king is distracted with what appears to be an upcoming battle, he seems on the verge of granting Philip’s requests. But William Hamleigh arrives just at that moment with a huge contingent of fighting men, and a battle between the forces of Stephen and the forces of Maud occurs. King Stephen will not decide any issue against William with William providing so many fighting men for the battle. Philip now roots for Maud.

Maud’s forces win the battle. William fights up to the end, often considering flight as the battle turns against Stephen. But when he sees Richard of Shiring fighting on bravely, he does not feel he can leave the battlefield while his rival is distinguishing himself. William escapes at the last moment. Richard’s fate is unclear. Prior Philip is taken prisoner as he tries to save Lincoln civilians from the wrath of Maud’s marauding troops. He waits in a cage.

As Philip wonders how long he will be held, and who the priory will send to negotiate the ransom for his release, he is freed by the order of Maud’s secretary, Philip’s brother Francis. But Francis’s influence is limited. And William has switched sides. Maud grants Philip his market, but grants William the quarry. She also levies a fee of one hundred pounds for the market license, a stifling amount for the priory.

Philip returns to Kingsbridge wondering how he will continue to finance the cathedral. He makes an arrangement with Aliena; Philip will sell next year’s wool at a reduced price, and keep this arrangement while the priory’s finances recover. They will also hold a fleece-fair in Kingsbridge, which will take funds away from the fleece-fair at Shiring, a prospect sure to enrage William Hamleigh.

Chapter Ten:
Jack is developing into a brilliant young man, a talented and creative stone-carver, and a knowledgeable builder. He develops a friendship with Aliena, who is attracted to his story-telling ability and his intellect; he is one of the few in the village who can read and write. Jack is attracted to Aliena as a possible wife, but is younger than Aliena, and does not press this issue. Philip sees Jack’s talents as well, and wants him to become a monk with the Kingsbridge priory.

Alfred and Aliena work together on building a new church at Kingsbridge. Alfred is also attracted to Aliena, and asks her to marry him. She rejects him firmly, even rudely when he tries to talk her into it. Jack invents a mill-based device to felt linens, a device that will dramatically help Aliena with her wool business. Jack shows it to her, and some kissing begins between them. Aliena seems receptive at first, but when Alfred bursts into the mill, Aliena roughly pushes Jack away and maintains a coldness to him.

Alfred finds out Jack’s father was executed as a criminal, and taunts him with the information while they are working at the cathedral site. They get into a fight that causes serious damage to the cathedral. Prior Philip insists that Jack and Alfred can no longer work together on the cathedral. Alfred is the higher-ranked builder; Jack will be the one who is banned from the site. Jack considers leaving Kingsbridge, and Ellen goes to Phillip to ask for mercy. Philip suggests that Jack become his assistant for the cathedral project, as a novice within the priory. Jack and Ellen reluctantly agree, noting that Philip seems to know how to get what he wants.

The Kingsbridge Fleece Fair looks like it will be a great success. But William Hamleigh attacks the town, setting it on fire, and his men slaughter the Kingsbridge citizens and fleece fair attendees. Tom Builder is killed in the fracas. Aliena loses her entire wool inventory in the fire; Jack saves her from the fire as she tries to save her wool.

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Part Four – 1142-1145

Chapter Eleven:
Prior Philip’s emphatic declaration that William Hamleigh will go to hell for the attack on Kingsbridge haunts the young, still-unconfirmed earl. He visits Waleran Bigod, who grants him absolution, but only after William promises to change his allegiance back to Stephen, as Bigod and Bishop Henry have.

Kingsbridge struggles to rebuild as they deal with the results of William’s savage attack. Alfred demonstrates competence as a builder, and prospers. He again proposes to Aliena. Aliena initially refuses, but she is now penniless, and her brother Richard needs money to continue fighting for Stephen; this is the only way to have a chance to take back their position at Shiring and keep Aliena’s and Richard’s vows to their father. Aliena reluctantly agrees to marry Alfred.

Jack finds out and tries to leave the priory to talk to her, already confined for speaking to her alone before. He is thrown into a discipline cell where he will be kept until after the wedding. His mother Ellen sneaks into the cell from an underground waterway. This is where Jack’s father was held before his hanging. She discloses that he was French, kidnapped, for reasons he did not know, and framed for the theft of a jeweled goblet. Ellen visited him there, through the waterway, and conceived Jack in that cell.

Jack escapes the cell and visits Aliena. Aliena and Jack make love, a tender passionate love. But she tells him she must marry Alfred to keep her vow to her father. Jack tells her she will be forever unhappy and leaves Kingsbridge, with his mother giving him a mare and Tom’s tools. He speaks vaguely about a pilgrimage to Spain.

Aliena goes through with the wedding. Ellen curses the marriage with another bloody rooster. Alfred and Aliena spend a loveless, passionless wedding night; Alfred is unable to consummate the marriage, and the union appears destined to be as unhappy as Jack’s declaration, and Ellen’s curse, promised it would be.

Chapter Twelve:
Aliena is sick, and lacks emotional and physical energy to handle her new role as Alfred’s wife. She discovers she is pregnant, and since she has never consummated her marriage, Alfred will know of her infidelity. She wears baggy clothes to keep the pregnancy secret.

Philip watches the priory’s finances deteriorate. He and Alfred discuss the cathedral progress, and using bonuses and a design of Alfred’s, push up the timetable to complete the chancel, to open this part of the church by Whitsun. Philip figures this will boost the morale of the town, and invites dignitaries to attend.

Waleran Bigod is annoyed that Philip will celebrate this triumph. He decides he can mar the triumph by getting William confirmed as earl of Shiring. They make the announcement at the Whitsun service, to Philip’s extreme disappointment, watching this evil man, responsible for the murders of so many in Kingsbridge, and the destruction and dispiriting of the town, is elevated to this position right in front of the people he has tormented. This will ruin the incentive for Aliena’s brother Richard to fight on.

But the Whitsun occasion becomes even worse when the church collapses, trapping many, killing and injuring many, in a town that has already gone through so much suffering. At this time, Aliena goes into labor and gives birth to a healthy boy. The child looks so much like Jack that her infidelity is obvious. Aliena never goes back to Alfred. She moves in with Richard.

Ellen convinces Aliena to seek out Jack. Aliena takes her young son, and after journeying through France along the pilgrim routes, to Spain, and back again to France, she finds Jack in Paris.

Aliena and Jack join together now, and Jack raises money with a relic, calling himself the master builder at Kingsbridge, proclaiming that the funds he is collecting will be used to build a magnificent cathedral at Kingsbridge to house the relic. He gathers builders and progresses back toward England. Jack also finds his family. They are in Cherbourg.  They believed Jack’s father was killed in a shipwreck. But it is clear his father survived past that event. What is still unclear is how Jack’s father got to England and ended up in custody in Kingsbridge.

Chapter Thirteen:
Jack arrives at Kingsbridge with builders and money, and after initial skepticism, Philip is convinced to appoint Jack the master builder at Kingsbridge, and that the cathedral will be built to hold the weeping Madonna relic Jack has brought from France. There is a catch—Jack cannot live with Aliena as man and wife until Aliena’s marriage with Alfred is annulled. Alfred lives in Shiring now, building homes for people there, never coming into Kingsbridge, certainly because of the situation with Aliena, but also because Jack has convinced people that the church collapsed due to Alfred’s faulty design. Aliena sends a request for an annulment, and waits.

Ellen now lives in the forest, and cannot return after the curse she made at the church. Jack learns that his father was hanged on the false testimony of three men. Two are dead—the former prior of Kingsbridge (though Remigius knows the truth from his last confession) and Percy Hamleigh (though his wife Regan also knows about the circumstances). The other living perjurer is Waleran Bigod. Jack confronts Waleran Bigod at his castle. Bigod refuses to discuss the charge or to address the hanging of Jack’s father. All Jack knows is that the ship his father had been on went down fast, as if it had been “holed.”

William Hamleigh still hates Kingsbridge for the prosperity of its market, and because Aliena lives there, apparently happy and prosperous, with Jack’s child. He decides to sack the town again. Richard discovers the details. The town decides to fight rather than evacuate and hide; under Jack’s direction they put up “the worst wall in England,” hoping it will be enough of a barrier to resist William’s attack. The wall, and Richard’s defense strategy, allows the town to resist the attack successfully. Jack hits William in the head with a stone from a sling. Jack gets credit for the success of the resistance because of the wall, though Jack feels the whole town deserves the credit.

But William gets a small measure of revenge when he gets Waleran Bigod to block the annulment of Aliena’s marriage to Alfred. Jack tells Aliena they will leave so they can live together. But Aliena will not let Jack abandon his dream of building “the most beautiful cathedral in England,” based on design ideas Jack brought back from his learning experiences in France. They will stay, live apart, and meet secretly once a week.

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Part Five – 1152-1155

Chapter Fourteen:
Jack and his workers make considerable progress on the Kingsbridge Cathedral, and it is becoming an impressive site. Alfred begs Jack for a job, which Jack gives him after Alfred asks him to grant the job in memory of Tom Builder.

Famine grips the area, due to bad weather, and the continuing civil war. William Hamleigh treats his subjects mercilessly, causing homelessness for farmers and tenants, and increasing the numbers of outlaws in the forest. William marries a young teenage girl, Elizabeth, whom he abuses with no mercy or conscience, seemingly needing her misery for his satisfaction.

Philip begins to notice the resemblance between Jonathan, now sixteen, and Tom Builder. Waleran Bigod tells William Hamleigh he wants a church like the Kingsbridge Cathedral in Shiring. Aliena and Jack are still not permitted to live together because Waleran Bigod continues to block the annulment. This creates stress between them, and bitterness from Aliena toward Philip.

A storm flattens homes in the area. The priory’s finances shrink, and Philip bluntly tells Jack he needs to cut back on workers. Jack with equal bluntness tells the men. The men decide to stop work completely. Jack works out a compromise, but at the same time, Waleran Bigod and William Hamleigh start a cathedral in Shrining, in the style Jack has learned in France and brought back to England. Alfred is the master builder for the Shiring church. The workers defect to Alfred. Jack warns them that working with him and Philip is far different from working for Waleran Bigod and William Hamleigh, and they will get what they deserve for their misguided, short-sighted choice.

Chapter Fifteen:
Outlaws attack Kingsbridge, now effectively fortified through Richard’s efforts. The outlaws are driven off, but Aliena realizes these outlaws can be harnessed for another purpose—they could be enlisted by Richard to take back the earldom. Richard organizes effective raids by trained, focused raiding parties with the battle cry “the rightful earl.”

Philip’s brother Francis visits him, informing him of a new participant in the civil war, young Henry of Anjou. Henry is duke of Normandy, and count of Anjou. He is also married to Eleanor of Aquitaine, so with title to an empire containing significant portions of France. He is an energetic young ruler, seemingly capable—Francis is already in his service and Philip hopes Henry will put an end to the civil war.

William gets tangled in one of Richard’s raids and barely escapes a large group of Richard’s men, chanting “the rightful earl.” William goes to Waleran Bigod with the problem, who uses Remigius to find out where Richard’s men are hiding. Waleran Bigod begrudgingly names Remigius Prior of Shiring, to lead what will be the priory of the new headquarters of the diocese at Shiring. But when William arrives at the location, Richard and the raiders are gone. Ellen appears and tells William that Richard has gone to join Henry of Anjou, who has invaded England with a huge army.

Peace negotiations take place, and Francis tells Philip an agreement has been reached. Stephen will rule until his death, after which Henry of Anjou will become King of England. Earls are to be restored to the positions they held before the civil war. This sounds favorable to Richard and Aliena, but there is little chance Stephen will enforce the agreement to remove William Hamleigh as earl of Shiring. So Aliena and Richard execute a meticulous plan, and with the help of William’s abused young wife, they take control of the castle at Shiring.

Chapter Sixteen:
Remigius loses his position at Shiring and is turned out to beg in the streets. Philip accepts him back when he repents his sins and returns to Kingsbridge as a humble monk. William retires back to Hamleigh, unhappy with his reduced position. But Waleran Bigod makes another deal—William would become sheriff of Shiring if he will build the church at Shiring. William buys the position with money borrowed from Jewish moneylenders.

Richard becomes a huge disappointment as earl. He fails to implement policies that could increase the prosperity of Shiring, and he withholds stones from the quarry from the Kingsbridge priory on the basis that the quarry was owned by the earl of Shiring before the civil war. Aliena decides to leave Jack. She says she cannot wait forever for the annulment, and wants a more normal life.

During a festival, Alfred catches Aliena alone in her home and tries to rape her. Richard thwarts the attack and kills Alfred. This seems to solve the problem of Jack and Aliena; Jack can now marry her. But William attempts to arrest Richard for Alfred’s murder. Defense of Aliena will not apply; a man cannot rape his wife. Richard takes sanctuary in the Kingsbridge church to avoid being taken into custody.

Philip then devises his most effective solution-to-a-problem yet: Richard will go on crusade to the Middle East to do penance for the murder. This thwarts William’s attempts to arrest Richard and puts Aliena in charge of the earldom, allowing her to run it prosperously, as she has imagined she could do, and also allowing her to make the stones from the quarry available to Prior Philip’s builders.

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Part Six – 1170-1174

Chapter Seventeen:
The Kingsbridge Cathedral is completed; a frustrated Waleran Bigod begrudgingly presides over the ceremony. As he sits with William Hamleigh and watches the Philip’s triumph, William reminds him of the story of Jonathan, the newly appointed subprior, heir apparent to Philip—the story of the abandoned baby. Waleran Bigod sees a chance to bring down Philip after all. He constructs a plausible accusation that Philip is Jonathan’s father, accusing him of fornication and nepotism. Bigod makes sure an old enemy of Philip’s is appointed judge.

The trial appears to be hopeless. But Jack and Jonathan find Ellen in the forest and put together the story of Jonathan’s birth and abandonment. Ellen reluctantly comes to Kingsbridge to testify on Philip’s behalf. When Waleran Bigod accuses her of lying, Ellen turns the tables by accusing Waleran Bigod of lying about Jack’s father years ago, a lie that sent Jack’s father to the gallows. Bigod tries to resist the charge, but a repentant Remigius speaks up—the previous prior of Kingsbridge had participated in the lie to gain a few villages for the priory, to disguise his bad management. Remigius had taken his confession, and believes the decline of Kingsbridge priory before Philip’s arrival was because of this sin. Percy Hamleigh participated in the lie and gained his position at Hamleigh. Waleran Bigod participated in the lie and became an archdeacon. Waleran Bigod and his handpicked judge hurry from the proceeding, with Jack demanding that Bigod explain why they had lied in order to kill his father.

Chapter Eighteen:
A letter from King Henry arrives at Kingsbridge. Philip’s old enemy Peter is to be appointed as bishop of Kingsbridge, and Waleran Bigod is to be bishop of Lincoln, the third most powerful bishop post in England. Philip decides to plead with Thomas Beckett, Archbishop of Canterbury, at odds with King Henry II, to make more just appointments. Thomas agrees with Philip, and will issue orders against the appointments, but tells Philip that during this conflict with the king, these orders will not be enforceable.

Philip, through contacts with his brother Francis, still an official with Henry II, tries to arrange peace. Efforts appear at first to be successful, but fall apart. Henry raves about the difficulties Thomas Beckett is causing him. William Hamleigh, for his own purposes, and again in collaboration with Waleran Bigod (who has sided with King Henry during the conflict between Henry and the Thomas Beckett), leads a group planning to assassinate Beckett.

Philip is in Canterbury and witnesses the assassination, including Beckett’s courage and dignity facing death at the hands of brutes. Philip takes up a sword used to kill Beckett and starts a march to protest his death and honor his martyrdom. The movement spreads across the Christian world. Thomas Beckett is quickly canonized. Henry II shows contrition for his part in encouraging the act. William is hanged in Shiring for his part in the murder. Waleran Bigod joins Kingsbridge as a broken, repentant monk. Philip is appointed bishop of Kingsbridge.

Jack enjoys the triumph of the magnificent cathedral he has built, and works on a new church at Kingsbridge. Aliena turns over control of the earldom to her son, the new earl of Shiring, inheriting the post when Richard is killed in Syria in an earthquake.

The Pillars of the Earth ends with Henry II humbled at Canterbury, symbolically flogged by a processions of monks, for his part in the death of Thomas Beckett. Philip watches, gratified with the triumph of the good and just over the savage brutes of the world, even during the difficult and violent times he lives in.

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For comments about the Starz Network mini-series based on The Pillars of the Earth, please com visit my blog.

Richard Warren Field is the author of the novel, The Swords of Faith. For more information, go to RichardWarrenField.com.