Cover

About the Author

Annie Garthwaite grew up in a working-class community in the north-east of England. She studied English at the University of Wales before embarking on a thirty-year international business career. In 2017 she returned to her first love, books, and set out to write the story of a woman she had always felt drawn to: Cecily Neville. This became her debut novel, Cecily.

Dedication

For my mother, who gave me time to read stories. And for Caroline, who gives me time to write them.

Author’s Note

Readers who wish to study in greater detail the family relationships that fuel the dynastic allegiances and political rivalries described in this novel will find genealogies at the back of the book. These include an illustration of Richard Duke of York’s claim to the Crown.

Prologue

1431

Eight years ago, Cecily Neville’s family gave her in marriage to Richard Plantagenet. It was a gamble. But the last of a dozen daughters must take her chances. Or make them.

Now, as Cecily turns sixteen, their life together begins. The son of a long-dead traitor, Richard’s prospects are uncertain, his loyalties suspect. If he can win the young king’s trust, he might regain his family’s titles and make Cecily his Duchess of York. If not, he may be deemed too dangerous to let live.

The threat is inescapable and now they share it, for it is the blood in Richard’s veins that he will pass on to their sons, the old royal blood his father died for. Cecily is undaunted. Together, she believes, they can do anything.

And besides, at some unseen future time, might not such blood as easily make their fortune as mar it?

1

30 May 1431

Rouen, France

It’s no easy thing, to watch a woman burn. A young woman, who has seen only three more summers than yourself and claims the voice of God compels her actions. But there it is; the day’s work. And she must harden herself to it.

So, on a May morning so fine its early sun has already chased Rouen’s street dogs into shadows, Cecily has put on black velvet, sombre and rich. She has bound a rosary at her waist; a reminder to the French that God has answered the prayers of the English and delivered Joan of Arc into their hands. A reminder to her king that her loyalty is to him and to Heaven.