The Rose of York: Crown of Destiny Read online

  The Rose of York

  Book Two: The Making of a King

  CROWN of

  DESTINY

  SANDRA WORTH

  END TABLE BOOKS

  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..

  END TABLE BOOKS

  USA / Australia

  web: www.endtablebooks.com

  email: [email protected]

  Cover image: Richard III, National Portrait Gallery,

  London, England. Used by permission.

  Contents

  Title

  Imprint

  Reviews and awards

  Acknowledgements

  Characters

  Dedication

  Books by Sandra Worth

  Introduction

  Crown of Destiny

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Author’s Note

  Fall from Grace - excerpt

  Reviews and awards

  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.

  ~*~

  Acknowledgements

  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.

  ~*~

  Characters

  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.)

  Dedication

  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

  Books by Sandra Worth

  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 Press

  “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

  Introduction

  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 t
ogether 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

  Chapter 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.

  Emboldened by wine, Thomas St. Leger spoke again on the subject he could not drop. “Sire, with your permission, I propose a toast. Let us drink to slaughtering the French like pigs in a pen, as we did the Lancastrians at Barnet and Tewkesbury! What say you, Exeter?”

  Men snickered and eyes returned to the Duke of Exeter. A silence fell. As everyone watched, Exeter picked up his wine and emptied his cup. One by one the others upended theirs, exchanging winks as they drank.

  Richard averted his gaze. The look in St. Leger’s eyes as he had challenged Exeter was familiar. He’d caught it in his own too many times, for he, too, had once wished a man dead for the same reason. For an instant he wondered whether he would be taunting Prince Edouard of Lancaster if it were Edouard who sat in Exeter’s place.

  Yet strangely enough, it was Exeter who elicited his sympathy. He had never cared much for arrogant, swaggering St. Leger. Though a duke, Exeter had no allies, and no power or influence. He remained an outsider in an alien camp, resented by everyone. Only under such circumstances could a peer of the realm be humiliated with impunity by a mere knight. Richard thought of his Yorkist cousin, John Neville, who had found himself in much the same circumstances, and had died fighting reluctantly for Lancaster at Barnet. Richard wondered if this was how it had been for John towards the end. Sudden anger swept him.

  “St. Leger,” said Richard.

  The laughter died. Men’s eyes turned to Richard.

  “How is it that you, a former Lancastrian yourself—if memory serves me correctly—see fit to challenge a prince of the blood? Have you forgotten your own sympathies, as well as your station in life?”

  St. Leger turned as red as the wine in his goblet.

  “It seems to me that you owe my brother-by-marriage an apology.”

  Richard caught surprise in Exeter’s gaze as he jerked up his head to look at him, and he also noted the bemused expression on Edward’s face as he settled back to watch them. Richard returned his attention to St. Leger.

  Fighting for composure, the knight took a moment before issuing his apology. “My Lord of Exeter. I meant no offence.” St. Leger uttered the words through his teeth, a muscle twitching in his jaw.

  “Louder, St. Leger. From where I sit, I can barely hear you.”

  The knight swallowed visibly, and a vein on his forehead throbbed, but he repeated his apology to Richard’s satisfaction. Richard knew he’d made another enemy. But court was like that, and what was one more foe?

  That night, in the royal cabin he shared with his royal brother and Edward’s bosom companion, Lord William Hastings, Richard had trouble falling asleep. The seas were rougher than usual, and the talk of impending war with France had stirred painful memories. He tossed fitfully, trying to escape the images that rose before him: his cousin John Neville, in the fog of the battle at Barnet, halting in mid-blow to gaze at his Yorkist foe with grief-stricken eyes. John’s brother, Warwick the Kingmaker, a lumbering, awkward figure as he fled the field in his armour, pursued by Yorkist soldiers who threw him into a river. Richard heard water splashing, then realized it wasn’t water, but blood. Warwick turned his head, and Richard caught the look of anguish before his face was split in half by an axe and a tide of blood washed out the ghastly sight.

  Richard groaned, turning away in horror, but the ghosts wouldn’t let him rest. They scuffled in the dark and cried out for his he
lp, their pleas muffled by the fog and the armour, by the din of battle and the screams of the dying. No, he moaned, don’t kill Warwick—don’t kill John—not John, I pray you, not John…! He heard someone laugh, and someone else say, “So may all Lancastrians end!” Then more laughter, and John appeared again, a strange smile on his face as he sank to his knees beneath the pounding of Yorkist swords and pikes.

  Richard bolted upright on his pallet.

  He was met by the sound of snoring from the other two beds where Edward and his boon companion Hastings slept. I’ve been dreaming again. He rubbed his eyes and threw back the covers, now too awake to sleep. Slipping on his boots, he grabbed his mantle. He creaked open the door and made his way along the dim passageway leading up to the forecastle. The lantern that hung near the ladder swung steadily, throwing shadows around him and triggering a childhood memory of a storm at sea, a tossing ship, and the tight grip of Warwick’s hand on his own—a grip that had kept him from falling to certain death in the swirling black torrents below. He forced the memory away and grabbed the first rung of the ladder.

  Drunken laughter drifted down from above. He looked up.

  Flanked by two others, St. Leger was swaggering down, a broad grin on his swarthy face. “Somehow the very air smells cleaner now,” he was saying to his friends. “What a fight he…”

  St. Leger caught sight of Richard and his laughter was checked abruptly. The three men scurried back up the ladder and stepped nervously aside to make way. Richard passed them with a curt nod of acknowledgement, and turned to watch them disappear down the hatch, wondering vaguely what they had been up to.

  The night was chilly for May. A wind had risen and the seas were choppy again. Richard pulled up his collar and grabbed the rope railing to steady himself. The skeleton crew that manned the ship was busy at the stern of the vessel. He moved to a corner of the bow, away from intruding eyes.