As the figure of his mother receded in the distance and he turned to take in the unfamiliar surroundings and the strange, foreign sailors, young Richard unexpectedly found himself consumed with unbidden rage. He stepped back to wonder why instead of sadness and fear, he was feeling so angry. Nothing much in his life had angered him, until now. It took introspection and the two-day voyage to help him understand: He felt betrayed by his mother. He could not quite believe that the person he had counted on to safeguard him throughout his entire life had abandoned him on an unknown ship with strangers for companions, who did not speak English and who would take him to a foreign land where he knew not a soul. Before this act of betrayal, his mother had not given up on him. Ever. Not even through his difficult birth; nor when she had nursed him through several childhood illnesses at which doctors had thrown up their hands; nor when she had marched him through the enemy soldiers at Ludlow; nor as she held him when his nightmares woke him. Hadn’t she restored Traveller to him when Richard had not thought to see the dog again? And even through that terrible day after Wakefield, when they learned of the loss of their father and brother, she had stayed strong for him. So why would his mother abandon him now? It was only after he returned from the short, forced exile to Burgundy that he had fully understood the sacrifice his mother had made.

But for now, his initial anger, like his father’s, was short-lived, and by the time the anchor was hauled in, it had turned to melancholy. At one point, without warning, a greasy seaman pushed past him, leaned over the gunwale and dumped a bowl of chicken bones into the water from the galley. Richard’s sad eyes followed the zig-zag sinking of the bones to the muddy riverbed, dredging up images of their watery grave. He even morbidly wondered where he might be buried one day—and whether anyone would care.

An old man’s fear for such a young child.

A mere three months later, Richard—a child no more—returned to a London readying for a coronation. England had a new king: Edward the Fourth, oldest son of the late duke of York and his duchess—and Richard’s brother. The twenty-year-old Edward had been proclaimed king by Parliament and Londoners alike after routing the army of Henry and Margaret at the battle of Towton.

How proud Father would be, Richard thought as the city came into view. He was unsure how his brother and Henry could both be king of England at the same time, but he would worry about such a puzzle later. For now, his Burgundian adventure ended, he was overjoyed to return to his native land and the welcoming arms of his family.

PART TWO

PART TWO

Duke of Gloucester, Warwick’s Man