The Rose of York: Crown of Destiny
The Rose of York
Book Two: The Making of a King
CROWN
of
DESTINY
SANDRA WORTH
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Copyright © 2008 by Sandra Worth
This Kindle edition © 2012 by Sandra Worth
All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book, or portions thereof, in any form. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events or locales is entirely coincidental..
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Cover image: Richard III, National Portrait Gallery,
London, England. Used by permission.
Contents
Crown of Destiny
is the second book in
The Rose of York
series, winners of numerous awards.
“Worth has done meticulous research… Though conversations and some incidents must of necessity be invented, she makes them seem so real that one agrees this must have been what they said, the way things happened.” —
Myrna Smith, Ricardian Fiction Editor, The Ricardian Register, quarterly publication of the U.S. Richard III Society, Vol. XXIII. No. 2
“This powerful book, impeccably written, with its tender love story and brilliant analysis of Richard III’s legacy, convinced me that Shakespeare completely misjudged this remarkable King who reformed the jury system. Not since
Atlas Shrugged
have I been so deeply moved.”
— The honourable Ramona John, author and judge.
The Rose of York: Crown of Destiny
won the 2003 Royal Palm Literary Award of the Florida Writers Association. As part of
The Rose of York
series, it also won First Place in the Historical/Western Genre of the 2000 Authorlink New Author Awards Competition, judged by top New York agents and editors, and swept all nine categories to win the Authorlink Grand Prize.
~*~
My thanks go to my publisher for the tireless care given to this manuscript, and to fellow Metropolis Ink author and friend Wendy Dunn, who was instrumental in seeing it through to press. I also wish to thank the Yorkshire branch of the Richard III Society who welcomed me so graciously on several occasions and whose guidance made a difference, not only to me personally, but to the research that went into the writing of this book.
~*~
In a tumultuous era marked by peril and intrigue, reversals of fortune and violent death, the passions of a few rule the destiny of England and change the course of history…
Richard
: Distinguished by loyalty to his brother the King, and a tender love for his childhood sweetheart, he has known exile, loss, tragedy, and betrayal. But his loyalty is first challenged by war, then by the ambitions of a scheming Queen. Time and again he must choose between those he loves until—in the end—he is left no choice at all.
Edward
: A golden warrior-king. Reckless, wanton, he can have any woman he wants, but he wants the only one he can’t have. When he marries her secretly and makes her his Queen, he dooms himself and all whom he loves.
Bess
: Edward’s detested and ambitious Queen. Gilt-haired, cunning and vindictive, she has a heart as dark as her face is fair.
George
: Richard’s brother. Handsome, charming, and consumed with hatred and greed, he will do anything it takes to get everything he wants.
Warwick the Kingmaker
: Richard’s famed cousin, maker and destroyer of kings. More powerful and richer than King Edward himself, he attracts the jealousy of the Queen and seals his fate. (Deceased as this story opens.)
Anne
: The Kingmaker’s beautiful daughter. She is Richard’s only love; his light, his life…
John
: The Kingmaker’s brother. Valiant and honourable, he is Richard’s beloved kinsman and Edward’s truest subject, but when the Queen whispers in the King’s ear, he is forced to confront what no man should have to face… (Deceased as this story opens.)
This book is dedicated to my daughter Emily.
“O Fortune
variable as the moon,
always dost thou wax and wane.”
—
Carmina Burana: Songs from the
Manuscript Collection of Benedictbeuren
“Far off a solitary trumpet blew,
Then waiting by the doors, the war-horse neighed.”
—
Idylls of the King, Alfred Lord Tennyson
SANDRA WORTH is the acclaimed author of six novels set during England's Wars of the Roses. She numbers among her fifteen awards BEST HISTORICAL BIOGRAPHY from the Reviewers at the Romantic Times, BEST HISTORICAL NOVEL from the Reviewers at Romance Reviews Today, and the ABPA Glyph Award for Best Fiction-Adult.
“A luminous portrait... an impressive feat.”
~ Publishers Weekly
“Authenticity, rich period detail, and well crafted characters.”
~ St. Paul Pioneer Pres
s
“A rich, magnificent novel.”
~ Michelle Moran, author of
Nefertiti
.
~*~
The Rose of York trilogy, published by End Table Books
The Rose of York: Love & War
The Rose of York: Crown of Destiny
The Rose of York: Fall from Grace
Published by Penguin
Lady of the Roses
The King’s Daughter
Much has been written about Richard III, and many readers are familiar with Shakespeare’s portrayal of him as England’s most reviled and villainous monarch. What is not as widely known is that Richard III gave us a body of laws that forms the foundation of modern Western society. His legacy includes bail, the presumption of innocence, protections in the jury system against bribery and tainted verdicts, and “Blind Justice”—the concept that everyone should be seen as equal in the eyes of the law. He was also the first King to proclaim his laws in English so that poor men could know their rights, and the first to raise a Jew to England’s knighthood.
Such ideas were revolutionary in the fifteenth century. They alienated many in the nobility and the Church, and played no small part in Richard’s ultimate fate.
Two hundred years later, when it was safe to do so, men questioned the traditional view of Richard bequeathed to them by the Tudors and found themselves unable to reconcile the justician with the villain, the man with the myth. In the early twentieth century, such men came together to form the Richard III Society.
Two of Richard’s most well known contemporary critics, Alison Weir and Desmond Seward, subscribe to Shakespeare’s depiction of him as a hunchbacked serial killer. In his book Royal Blood: Richard III and the Mystery of the Princes, Bertram Fields, a prominent U.S. attorney and author, examines the school of thought represented by Weir and exposes the inconsistencies and deficiencies of the traditional view.
Richard III caught my imagination when I saw his portrait at the National Gallery, London. Then I read Josephine Tey’s The Daughter of Time. This compelling mystery inspired me to consume whatever I could find on Richard and to make several research trips to England and Bruges in search of the true Richard. It was in Paul Murray Kendall’s Richard The Third that I finally found him. Kendall, a Shakespearean scholar and professor of English Literature, provides a most convincing and illuminating portrayal of Richard and his times, and it is his interpretation of events that is reflected in this book.
While Shakespeare was a great dramatist, he never claimed to be a historian. In an age of torture and beheadings, he wrote to please the Tudors. The authority Shakespeare drew on was Sir Thomas More’s History of King Richard III, a derisive account, which More never finished, of the last Plantagenet King.
An enduring mystery is why More broke off in mid-sentence and mid-dialogue to hide his manuscript. Fifteen years after his death, it was found by his nephew, translated from the Latin, and published. Had Sir Thomas More discovered the dangerous truth?
The questions remain, and the debate continues.
CROWN OF DESTINY
1476–1483
C
hapter
1
“Strike—strike—the wind will never change again.”
The ship rolled. Wine splashed the table. The small cabin filled with groans as men grabbed their cups.
King Edward IV laughed, saying, “Fear not. Soon there’ll be plenty of free French wine!”
“Aye, Sire,” grinned a knight seated further down the table. “Maybe we can drown the
Spider
in it.” He leaned back and spat to emphasise the derogatory nickname of the French king, Louis XI. The knight peered down the table at a sallow-faced man sitting at the opposite end. “Or just slay him like a fish in a barrel, as we did the Bitch of Anjou’s son at Tewkesbury, eh, Exeter?”
Henry Holland, Duke of Exeter, flushed and averted his eyes.
“Welladay, no need for that,” said King Edward. “We’re all friends here. My fair sister’s husband may have been Lancastrian once, but he’s Yorkist now, like the rest of us. Isn’t that so, Harry?”
Exeter nodded nervously. “Aye, my Lord.”
“And he’ll fight as bravely for us in France as he did for Lancaster at Barnet, eh, Harry?” said the King, a smile on his lips that failed to reach his shrewd eyes.
“Aye, my Lord.”
“See, what did I tell you, St. Leger? We’re all friends here.” King Edward grinned as he downed a gulp of wine and stabbed at a slice of venison with his dagger.
The hum of manly conversation resumed as the royal retinue returned lustily to their eating and drinking. But, though the knight’s leer was gone, his face had hardened dangerously. While drinking his wine, he continued to glare at Exeter, who kept his own eyes fixed on his trencher. No one paid them any notice, except a dark-haired young man with deep grey eyes who sipped his wine thoughtfully.
The King’s brother, Richard, Duke of Gloucester, let his gaze move from the knight, St. Leger, to the duke, Exeter.
Henry Holland, Duke of Exeter, was Richard’s brother-by-marriage, wed to his eldest sister, Nan. Despite the marriage making Exeter a member of the Yorkist royal family, he had espoused the enemy cause during the civil war between the Yorkists and the Lancastrians and fled England when Yorkist Edward won the crown from the Lancastrian King Henry VI. After a decade abroad, he’d returned to fight against York. Captured at the Battle of Barnet, he’d languished in the Tower for five years, and had just been released by Edward’s pardon.
So the rumours are true
, thought Richard, his gaze returning to St. Leger. The knight’s antagonism to Exeter was fuelled by a hatred more lethal than politics. St. Leger was enamoured of Exeter’s wife—Richard’s sister, Nan.
Welladay, it was bound to happen. No marriage could survive such a vast political divide—let alone a ten-year separation—unless there was love. Richard knew about such matters. His wife’s father had been the leader of the rebellion against Edward’s rule, and had fought, and died, for Lancaster. He also knew about jealousy. His wife had been wed to Henry VI’s son, Prince Edouard of Lancaster.