‘The Betrothed’ is a picture of the troublous times at home, while English knights were away upon the Crusades. The scene is laid upon the borderland of Wales, during the reign of Henry II, and the action clusters around the person of a young Norman heiress beset by Welsh and English alike.
The venerable Archbishop of Canterbury makes it his chief business to preach the Third Crusade; and to this end he exhorts Normans, settled in England and Wales, to lay aside all private feuds with their neighbors. Moved by his teaching, Gwenwyn, a Welsh chieftain, and Sir Raymond Berenger, a Norman knight, exchange friendly courtesies; and Gwenwyn even goes so far as to make plans to divorce his wife in order that he may wed the Norman’s daughter Eveline. When he makes this proposal, however, an answer is returned that the lady is already betrothed to Sir Hugo de Lacy, an accomplished soldier, but a man of mature years. The fiery Welsh consider this in the light of an affront, and make war upon Sir Raymond in his stronghold of Garde Doloureuse …