A Rose for the Crown: A Novel

xv, 650 pp. "In A ROSE FOR THE CROWN, we meet one of history's alleged villains, Richard III, through the eyes of the woman who might have been the mother of his illegitimate children, a woman who chose to remain anonymous when the court rewards for a king's mistress would have been great, a woman who loved him for who he really was, no matter what the cost to herself. As Kate Haute moves from her peasant roots in Kent to the highest circles of fifteenth century England, from her carefree girlhood to a much more worldly middle age, her path is inextricably intertwined with that of Richard, Duke of Gloucester, later King Richard III. Fictional Kate is woven into the real lives of some of the Wars of the Roses most prominent characters at the court of the charismatic and sensual Yorkist King Edward IV, including John Howard and his wife, Margaret, Queen Elizabeth's kinsman Richard Haute, Henry Stafford, Duke of Buckingham and George, Duke of Clarence."