Cicely's Lord Lincoln

by Sandra Heath Wilson

  Taleisin ap Gruffydd is an invented name for an actual historical person, whose real identity will be revealed in the next book in the Cicely series, as will that of the woman who ’introduced Henry Tudor to lovemaking’. This latter aspect of Henry’s character is yet more invention. He may have been a great lover, or he may have been very dull between the sheets. He was certainly complex enough to be just about anything. History does not tell us about this side of him, except to suggest that he was not ’uxorious’ towards his wife. Nevertheless, he fathered a number of children with her, so either he was uxorious after all, or his marriage bed was a case of getting down to business! Wham, bam. So, I have fashioned him as I wish. Such is the power of a writer of fiction.

  The man at the heart of this book is, of course, John (Jack) de la Pole, 1st Earl of Lincoln. He and Cicely could have been passionate lovers, but that they were is another of my flights of romantic fancy. And yet again . . . why not? In spite of his importance as Richard III’s nephew and chosen heir (never formalized and so not known for certain), Jack de la Pole was mysterious in many ways. So little is known about him as a man, only where he was and when he was there. He was shrewd and intelligent, and named as ‘a good lord’. There seems to be no record of what he looked like or his personal views on anything. But he was a proud Yorkist nobleman and had every intention of returning his House to the throne. He supported Lambert Simnel, but his actual intentions remain a mystery. I have chosen to make his aim to be Lord Protector during the boy-king’s minority, but he could very easily have intended to take the throne for himself.

  There is a story of the Duke of Clarence having secretly sent his son to his sister, the Duchess of Burgundy, and substituting another child here in England. It may be true, it may not. If it is true, then it could explain the identity of Lambert Simnel, and thus Jack de la Pole’s willingness to support the ‘pretender’ instead of promoting his own strong claim. Attainders could be reversed, and if Simnel really was the Earl of Warwick (the title Clarence’s son had held before his father’s death), then he was from a senior line to Jack, and more importantly, a male line. He was therefore likely to win support against the might of Henry VII, although whether he would have drawn more than Jack de la Pole is not so certain.

  The real Jack de la Pole died at the Battle of Stoke Field, and legend has it that he was buried near a spring on the battlefield, with a willow stave through his heart. This is just a legend, but Jack has no known resting place. Henry did indeed issue orders that he was to be taken alive, and was furious when he was killed in battle. Paul de Wortham is fiction. If a man of that name did actually exist, it is pure coincidence, because as far as I am concerned, I have invented him. That he might have been misidentified as Jack de la Pole, who then escaped, is therefore my storytelling.

  These books about Cicely Plantagenet are not meant to be taken for fact. They are stories woven around fact, but with the addition of romantic and other imagined events. Please do not forget this. Historical fiction is for entertainment; history itself is for serious study. Never mix the two.

  Sandra Heath Wilson

  Gloucester, 2014

  By the same author

  Cicely’s King Richard

  Cicely’s Second King