Richard began to wish he had taken more wine to drown any such maudlin thoughts, but instead he wondered how a man who cherished his wife and children and worked to improve the common people’s lot as he had could have callously ordered the hideous deaths of brilliant men like Anthony Woodville and William Hastings? How could such good and evil abide in the same man? I thought it was my duty to protect the crown. Woodville had weapons on those wagons at Stony Stratford. He would have used them against me had I let him reach London with young Edward. Hastings! He sighed for he had always thought well of Hastings. The man had betrayed England by keeping so dangerous a secret as the pre-contract. I have no doubt either that he was plotting against me. Certes, there were other rebels who deserved their deaths just as much, he mused, for a traitor must always die horribly. Buckingham, the sad, sorry and untrue creature, should have been quartered as well as beheaded. I was too kind to him for what he did. Dear God, those poor boys. “I hope he rots in hell!” Richard cried aloud. “’Tis where all rats must go.”

“Your grace requires something,” one of the knights outside the king’s tent called back.

“Nay, Sir Robert, I was talking to myself. What time is it?”

“’Tis five hours to lauds, my liege.”

“Instruct the chaplain to come to my tent at prime. We will hold mass here before we arm.”

He knelt at the portable altar, the candles in sconces either side of the crucifix dripping wax onto the grass, and opened his well-worn book of hours to the last page. He whispered the words he had written himself not long after Anne’s death and which had been added to the prayer book: “I ask you, most sweet lord Jesus Christ, to save me from all the perils in which I stand and, by your love, deign always to deliver and help me, and after the journey of this life deign to bring me before you, the living and true God, who lives and reigns through Christ our Lord.”

And then he prayed for a victory for England. “Should I win, I shall know You have absolved me of my sins, which are many and for which I have tried to atone many times. I gave You my promise to rule my kingdom well, and I believe have kept that promise.” The candlelight illuminated the gold and enameled cross, as well as the delicate portrait of the Virgin and of Richard’s favorite St. Anthony on either side. His voice became more urgent. “Now, in the name of the holy Mother, of Saint Anthony and of your Son our Saviour, show me the way to victory.”