By Princess Michael of Kent
On the age of 19, Yolande of Aragon is shipped clear of her family members, her neighbors, and every little thing she is familiar with, to marry the younger Duke of Anjou, King Charles VI's first cousin. Their marriage has been prepared to shape an alliance among the formerly warring kingdoms of Aragon and Anjou, and is politically fraught in a time of serious hazard and unrest. but the union among Yolande and Louis turns into not just a superb love tale, but in addition units in movement occasions on the way to switch the process history.
As Louis spends increasingly more time and cash battling in Italy for his declare to the dominion of Naples, Yolande is left on my own with their six youngsters to control their lands. yet via her appeal, fierce intelligence and the shrewdpermanent use of her spies, she turns into the saviour of not only her kingdoms but additionally of France.
Her Royal Highness Princess Michael of Kent unveils this seldom instructed tale, enriched by means of her personal insider's viewpoint of royal life. The Queen of 4 Kingdoms is the epic precise tale of a wealthy and riveting interval of French and English background, all witnessed through the alluring and intricate heroine Yolande.
'It used to be a time of excessive stakes and excessive threat, the place definitely the right selection may perhaps carry a throne in its wake, however the fallacious you can bring about the scaffold, of lives wrapped in gilded velvet, yet soaking wet in ambition and blood. Princess Michael takes the reader to the guts of this glamorous, harmful international, and holds them spellbound. I enjoyed it.'
— Julian Fellowes
'Meticulously researched and powerfully evoked, Princess Michael uncovers the intense lifetime of Yolande of Aragon, the ability at the back of the throne of fifteenth-century France, and the mentor of Joan or Arc.'
—Philippa Gregory
Read or Download The Queen of Four Kingdoms (Anjou Trilogy, Book 1) PDF
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Extra info for The Queen of Four Kingdoms (Anjou Trilogy, Book 1)
Example text
He pushed the door to after him, and eased the great latch soundlessly into place. The peg—Matthew Smith had never realised what manner of illicit tool he was providing—he drew out and pocketed, for the sight of it protruding would have been enough to launch the hounds after him, and how did he know the watchman had not been given orders to keep an eye on his room? It would be his father who first came to visit him in exile in the morning, he was quite sure of that; somewhat uneasy in mind after sleeping on his rage, inclined to regret that he had carried execution to such lengths, and firmly resolved this time to be gentle and patient with the obdurate boy, but he would end up by beating him again, of course.
He was crying now; he wished she would go, and yet he could not bear to let her go. He kissed her warm cheek, and took away his arms almost roughly, dropping into the pillow again with a great sigh. When she stooped over him, peering at him closely, he kept his eyelids half-closed, and breathed long and softly, as though he were already slipping into drowsiness. Satisfied, she kissed his brow, and withdrew with the lamp, closing the door gently after her. As soon as she was gone he opened his eyes again, and they were dry and bright and wide-awake.
All that was over. A hush of curiosity, sympathy and almost pleasurable excitement followed him through the hall. The men-at-arms paused over their dice as he threaded his way through the romping dogs in the rushes, and climbed the stairs to the solar. He looked at no one. Only a little while ago their knowing sympathy would have galled him to the quick, but now it had ceased to be of any importance. "Wipe your face," whispered Ebrard at the door. " He thrust his own kerchief into Harry's hand, and waited for him to scrub the filth of dust and tears from his cheeks.