 It is the background story to Doyle's earlier novel "The White Company" (1891), and describes the early life of that book's hero Nigel Loring, a knight in the service of King Edward III in the first phase of the Hundred Years' War.The character is loosely based on the historical knight Neil Loring.The tale, at its outset, traces the fortunes of the family of Loring of the Manor of Tilford in Surrey, many of whose scions had been prominent in the service of the Norman and Angevin Kings of England, against the backdrop of the Black Death.