Warwick took the bulk of our French troops and headed straight for London, while I took a smaller force due north then west with the aim of collecting men from the Beaufort estates in Somerset on the way to recruiting in my own Welsh heartland. Our agents had told us that Warwick’s supporters in Yorkshire had, as planned, staged an uprising threatening enough to send King Edward rushing north to quell it. By the time my burgeoning army had reached the Severn we received news that Warwick had doubled his force by marching through Kent and then trooped into an undefended London, welcomed once more by the merchant burgesses who pragmatically preferred to preserve the peace and protect their businesses rather than fight Edward’s battles for him. Meanwhile Warwick’s brother, Lord Montagu, had also turned coat against Edward and brought the large force he had been commissioned to raise against the northern rebellion around to support it. As Warwick marched north from London, Edward found himself in Nottingham, comprehensively betrayed and caught in a Lancastrian vice.

For my part, within a week I had crossed the Black Mountains and made a rendezvous with Gruffydd’s grandsons at Dinefŵr Castle. My friend and ally, Thomas ap Gruffydd and his youngest son Rhys were still in exile in Burgundy but after William Herbert’s execution Thomas’s four eldest sons, Morgan, Henry, Dafydd and Hopkin had seized Carmarthen and Cardigan Castles from the crown and were still holding them, despite the efforts of young Richard of Gloucester to force them out. I had been in regular correspondence with these four and was gratified to find that they had fulfilled their promise to have a large number of men waiting ready to flock to my standard. In return I guaranteed them all royal pardons for offences against the crown and continued seisin of the two royal castles they already held, to be granted as soon as we had restored King Henry to the throne. Having settled this to everyone’s satisfaction I handed my army over to my second in command and Evan and I set off for a much-anticipated family reunion in Tenby.