‘Perhaps we are. If they are on ours.’ His hand had travelled lower then and she’d captured it in her own. ‘And we must sow the seed early.’

So Richard had laid out money to put his Irish affinity to work. It became profitable for his deputies, captains and stewards to talk up his native heritage, his good lordship, his even hand.

‘Tell them I am a man they can do business with,’ Richard instructed. ‘Tell them I am one of them.’

‘And more,’ says Cecily. ‘In private, when the doors are closed, let them say you are a man of your own mind. No puppet of the King’s.’

A chosen few received more than general assurances. So in July, when they landed at the port of Howth, the Earls of Ormond and Desmond, foremost among the English lords in Ireland, were watching for them, squinting into the sun and grinning. Assured of preference and a place in Richard’s government, they had surrendered to his authority most publicly. They rode into Dublin together under Richard’s banners; the lions of England and the black dragon of Ulster snapping at each other in the air above their heads. From Dublin, they went shoulder to shoulder, west through the English Pale, to the great Mortimer castle of Trim, then turned north towards Ulster.

‘I am come home,’ Richard told all who came to meet him. ‘And glad to be among you.’

Under the iron eyes of Desmond and Ormond, lords both English and Irish swore fealty, had their voices heard and their concerns noted. Cecily paid court to their ladies, her full belly carried high, and told them how proud she would be to bear a son for Ireland.

But the O’Byrnes, prideful descendants of the ancient kings of Leinster, calling themselves rulers of Wicklow, refused to kneel.

‘Good,’ said Cecily. ‘We needed one.’

So the cavalcade turned again to Dublin and from there Richard led an army that fell upon Wicklow like a hammer. The Chieftain O’Byrne and his sons, brought bloody into Richard’s presence, were granted mercy.

‘But only after he had sworn submission and allegiance?’ Cecily, leaning into Richard’s homecoming tale, wanted to be sure.

He nodded, slow and smiling. ‘Yes, of course. To me. And to the King of England.’

‘Well, yes, of course,’ she said, sly. ‘To him.’

And so, before autumn, and before the door was closed on Cecily’s confinement, the message had been sent. Richard of Ulster is a man you can do business with. Just don’t expect to be given a choice about it.