For the banquet following the long coronation ceremony in Westminster’s Gothic abbey, the court moved into nearby Westminster Hall. The high, graceful hammer-beam roof was festooned with flags and banners dating back a hundred years. Colorful angels with golden wings were carved into each arched beam-end as if flying above mortals’ heads. Thousands of candles illuminated the rich tapestries, and the scarlets, greens, blues and purples of the gorgeous gowns of the courtiers and their ladies crowding the spacious hall. Prominent everywhere, the white hart, heraldic symbol of the second King Richard, told of that monarch’s hand in the renovations of this magnificent hall at the end of the previous century. A man of exquisite taste, it appeared alas he could not govern his kingdom; he was deposed by his cousin of Bolingbroke and died—they say of starvation—in captivity. Young Richard had been told by his father of this distant cousin’s fate, and how the usurping Lancastrian Bolingbroke, crowned Henry IV, was somewhat to blame for the ensuing clash between York and Lancaster that finally had ended at Towton. Usurper was such an ugly word, Richard had always thought. Praise God, the strife was now over, and his brother wore the crown.

“A groat for your thoughts, Richard,” George said. “Are you as excited as I am? Ned is king! King Edward! That makes me heir to the throne. I can hardly believe it.” Grinning smugly, he added: “And now that I am duke of Clarence, you will have to call me ‘Your Grace.’”

Richard’s fists clenched in the folds of his azure short robe. He wanted to be happy for George, and he would have been had it not been for George’s crowing from the moment he learned that he was now Edward’s heir and had been raised to a dukedom. Richard watched as one by one people came forward to congratulate him, and George basked in the recognition. Indeed, Richard knew he, too, would have enjoyed the accolades had he been accorded a title, but he remained just Richard Plantagenet, and it just did not seem fair.

“I did not get a title either,” Meg consoled him, leaning across George, “and I’m older than George.” That made Richard feel better, until the next time George gloated. Yet Richard dared not ask Edward why he heaped honors on George and all his friends without giving one to him or Meg. Even plain Will Hastings, Edward’s closest advisor, was now a lord. Nay, it did not seem fair at all.