Philip D`Aubigny is a Norman knight fighting as a Crusader in the Frankish Kingdom of Outremer (a general name for the Crusader states established after the First Crusade). The Crusaders were woefully short of knights and the Turks had at last found a leader in Saladin. He united them and was ready to embark on a Holy War against Outremer.

Ronald Welch (pseudonym of Ronald Oliver Felton) was born in 1909 in Glamorgan. For much of his life he was a History teacher and Headmaster of Okehampton Grammar School. He fought in The Welch Regiment during World War Two, from which his pseudonym is taken.