The Sunne in Splendor: A Novel of Richard III
A glorious novel of the controversial Richard III—a monarch betrayed in life by his allies and betrayed in death by history
In this beautifully rendered modern classic, Sharon Kay Penman redeems Richard III—vilified as the bitter, twisted, scheming hunchback who murdered his nephews, the princes in the Tower—from his maligned place in history with a dazzling combination of research and storytelling.
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Description
He was the last born son of the Duke of York. He would become the last Plantagenet king of England. He is perhaps the most controversial monarch ever to rule that island nation. Certainly the most vilified. He was Richard III.
The Sunne in Splendour reverberates with the sound of truth as it re-creates the life of this most complex and compelling man. Born into an England awash with intrigue and war, Richard was eight when his father was ambushed and slain, eighteen when he first blooded himself in combat. His times were torn by shifting alliances that made treachery and danger a part of life. Yet through it all, Richard remained firm in his abiding devotion to those he loved. It was his strength. And his undoing.
Caught in that vicious power struggle history has called The Wars of the Roses, Richard was raised in the shadow of his resplendent brother Edward. At nineteen and against all odds, Edward defeated the Lancastrian forces and claimed the throne for York. Headstrong, charming, and regally handsome, Edward was as famous for his sensual appetites as for his unfailing preference for the expedient over the correct. Despairing of his brother’s follies, Richard nonetheless served him faithfully: through battle and exile, in war and in peace, despite the scandal of Edward’s Court and the malice of his Queen. And he was rewarded with honors and lands, with titles and royal commissions, with, above all, affection and trust. Only one thing did Edward deny his favorite brother: the right to wed the woman he adored.
Anne Neville had fallen in love with Richard when they were both mere children. And he returned her love with an all-consuming passion that was to last a lifetime, enduring forced separation, a brutal marriage, and murderous loss. She was the daughter of his father’s closest ally who was now his brother’s worst enemy and she became an innocent pawn in a deadly game of power politics. That game was to inflict wounds of the soul that only Richard’s patient tenderness could heal. The Sunne in Splendour is the story of Richard’s fight to win her and to heal her.
Five hundred years after he died on the field of battle, Richard is still a figure of controversy and his story still fascinates and casts a spell. Betrayed in life by his allies, Richard was betrayed in death by history. Leaving no heir, his reputation was like his corps: left to his enemies, mutilated beyond recognition.
Filled with the sights and sounds of battle, the customs and lore of daily life, the rigors and risks of Court politics, the passions and infidelities of the high born, and the touching concerns of very real men and women, The Sunne in Splendour brings to life this gifted man whose greatest sin, perhaps, was that he held principles too firm for the times he lived in and loved too deeply to survive love’s loss.
Editorial Reviews
“A painstakingly drawn picture of royal medieval England from bedchamber to battleground.”
—Los Angeles Times Book Review
“The reader is left with the haunting sensation that perhaps the good a man does can live after him—especially in the hands of a dedicated historian.”
—The San Diego Union
“Those who know Richard III from Shakespeare will find that Sharon Kay Penman presents a contrasting view of the English monarch . . . He’s an altogether nice man, a romantic hero as suitable to our late twentieth-century standards . . . As he was to those of medieval England . . . There is a vengeful quality to her insistence that is appealing; it makes for a good story.”
—The New York Times Book Review
“Ms. Penman’s novel, rich in detail and research, attempts to set the record straight . . . It is an uncommonly fine novel, one that brings a far-off time to brilliant life.”
—Chattanooga Daily Times
Excerpt
CHAPTER 1
Ludlow
September 1459
Richard did not become frightened until darkness began to settle over the woods. In the fading light, the trees began to take on unfamiliar and menacing shapes. There was movement in the shadows. Low-hanging branches barred his path; rain-sodden leaves trailed wetly across his cheek. He could hear sounds behind him and kept quickening his pace, until he tripped over the exposed roots of a massive oak and sprawled headlong into the dark. Unknown horrors reached for him, pinning him to the ground. He felt something burn across his neck; his face was pressed into the dampness of the earth. He lay very still but he heard only the unsteady echoes of his own breathing. Opening his eyes, he saw that he had fallen into a thicket, was held captive by nothing more sinister than brambles and branches broken off by the weight of his body.
He was no longer drowning in fear; the wave was receding. In its wake, he felt shame burn his face and was grateful that none had been there to witness his flight. He thought himself to be too old to yield so easily to panic for, in just eight days’ time, he would be seven years old. He rolled clear of the bushes and sat up. After a moment’s deliberation, he retreated to the shelter of a lightning-scarred beech. Bracing himself against the trunk, he settled down to wait for Ned to find him.
That Ned would come, he did not doubt. He only hoped that Ned would come soon and, while he waited, he tried to keep his mind on daylight thoughts, tried not to think at all about what might be lurking in the dark beyond the beech tree.
He found it hard to understand how so perfect a day would so suddenly sour. The morning had dawned with infinite promise and, when Joan yielded to his coaxing and agreed to take him riding along the wooded trails around Whitcliffe, his spirits had soared skyward. His excitement proved contagious and his pony had responded with unaccustomed élan to his urgings, breaking into a gallop even before they’d passed through the gateway that led from the outer castle bailey.
With Joan trailing him like an indulgent, sedate shadow, he raced the little animal through the village at an exhilarating pace. Circling the market cross twice, he jumped the pony neatly over the ancient dog dozing in the street by Broad Gate and then drew rein just before the small chapel of St Catherine, which stood on Ludford Bridge. As Joan was not yet in sight, he leaned recklessly over the stone arch and tossed a groat down into the currents swirling below. One of the village youths had once assured him that he would gain great good fortune by so doing, and the superstition now became engraved in Richard’s faith as Scripture even before the coin sank from sight.
Riders were coming up the road that led south toward Leominster. The leading stallion was white, marked with a queer dark star; the favourite mount of Richard’s favourite brother. Richard sent his pony towards them at a breakneck run.
Ned wore no armour and the wind was whipping his sun-streaked tawny hair about like straw. He towered above his companions, as always; Richard had seen few men as tall as Ned, who stood three full fingers above six feet. He was Earl of March, Lord of Wigmore and Clare, eldest of the four sons of the Duke of York. At seventeen, Ned was, in Richard’s eyes, a man grown. On this summerlike September morning there was no one he would rather have encountered. Had Ned permitted it, Richard would happily have trailed after him from dawn till dusk.
Richard thought Joan was pleased to see Ned, too. Her face was suddenly the colour of rose petals and she was looking at Ned sideways, filtering laughter through her lashes in the way Richard had seen other girls do with Ned. Richard was glad; he wanted Joan to like his brother. What Joan thought mattered a great deal to him. The nurses he’d had in the past, before he’d come this spring to live at Ludlow Castle, had not been at all like Joan; they’d been dour, thin-lipped, without laps or humour. Joan smelled of sunflowers and had burnished bright hair, as soft and red as fox fur. She laughed at his riddles and had enthralling tales to tell of unicorns and knights and crusades into the Holy Land.
Seeing now how she was smiling at Ned, Richard felt first a warm contentment and then incredulous delight, unable to believe Ned was truly going to come with them. But Ned was dismissing their escort, waving his own companions on, and with the prospect dawning of an entire day in the company of these two people he loved, Richard wondered why he had never thought to throw a coin over the bridge before.
The day seemed likely to surpass all his expectations. Ned was in high spirits; he laughed a great deal and told Richard stories of his own boyhood at Ludlow with their brother Edmund. He offered to show Richard how he had fished for eels in the swift-running waters of the Teme and he promised to take Richard to the faire to be held in Ludlow just four days hence. He coaxed Joan into putting aside the head-dress that covered her hair and, with nimble fingers, he adroitly loosened the upswept braids that gleamed like red-gold rope.
Richard was caught up in wonder, captivated by this sudden cascade of bright hot colour; he knew, of course, that red hair was said to be unlucky but he found it difficult to understand why. Joan had smiled and borrowed Ned’s dagger to cut a lock, wrapping it in her own handkerchief and tucking it inside Richard’s tunic. Ned claimed a lock, too, but Joan seemed strangely reluctant to give it to him. Richard rooted about in Joan’s basket while Ned and Joan debated his demand, a murmured exchange that soon gave way to whispers and laughter. When he turned back to them, Richard saw that Ned had a lock of her hair and Joan was the colour of rose petals again.
When the sun was directly overhead, they unpacked the food in Joan’s basket, using Ned’s dagger to slice the manchet loaf and cut thick pieces of cheese. Ned ate most of the food, and then shared an apple with Joan, passing the fruit back and forth between them and trading bites until only the core remained.
After that, they lay on Joan’s blanket and searched the grass about them for lucky clovers. Richard won and was awarded the last of the sugared comfits as his prize. The sun was warm, the air fragrant with the last flowering of September. Richard rolled over onto his stomach to escape Ned who was bent upon tickling his nose with a strand of Joan’s hair. After a while, he fell asleep. When he awoke, the blanket had been tucked around him and he was alone. Sitting up abruptly, he saw his pony and Joan’s mare still hitched across the clearing. Ned’s white stallion, however, was gone.
Richard was more hurt than alarmed. He didn’t think it was quite fair for them to go off and leave him while he slept, but adults were often less than fair with children and there was little to be done about it. He settled down on the blanket to wait for them to come back for him; it never for a moment occurred to him that they wouldn’t. He rummaged in the basket, finished what was left of the manchet bread and, lying on his back, watched clouds forming over his head.
Soon, however, he grew bored and decided it was permissible to explore the clearing while he awaited their return. Much to his delight, he discovered a shallow stream, a narrow ribbon of water that wound its way through the grass and off into the surrounding trees. Lying flat on his stomach by the bank, he thought he could detect silvery shadows darting about in the icy ripples but, try as he might, he was unable to capture even one of the ghostly little fish.
It was as he was lying there that he saw the fox; on the other side of the stream, watching him with unblinking golden eyes, so still it might have been a carven image of a fox rather than one of flesh and blood. Richard froze, too. Less than a fortnight ago, he’d found a young fox cub abandoned in the meadows around the village. For more than a week, he’d tried to gentle the wild creature with limited success and, when he’d carelessly let his mother see the teeth marks in the palm of his hand, she’d given him the choice of freeing it or drowning it. Now he felt a throb of excitement, an absolute certainty that this was his former pet. With infinite care he sat up, searched for stepping-stones to cross the stream. The fox faded back into the woods but without apparent alarm. Encouraged, Richard followed after it.
An hour later, he was forced to concede that he’d lost both fox and his way. He’d wandered far from the clearing where the horses were hitched. When he shouted for Ned, he heard only the startled rustling of woodland creatures responding to a human voice. As the afternoon ebbed away, the clouds continued to gather; at last all blue was smothered in grey and, soon after, a light warming rain began to fall. Richard had been attempting to chart his path by the sun, knowing that Ludlow lay to the east. Now he was completely at a loss and felt the first stirrings of fear, until, with the coming of dark, he gave way to panic.
He wasn’t sure how long he huddled under the beech. Time seemed to have lost its familiar properties, minutes to have lengthened into unrecognizable proportions. He tried counting backwards from one hundred, but there were queer gaps in his memory, and he found himself fumbling for numbers he should have known without hesitation.
‘Dickon! Shout if you can hear me!’
Relief rose in Richard’s throat with the intensity of pain. ‘Here, Edmund, I’m here!’ he cried and, within moments, he was being lifted up onto his brother’s horse.
With one arm holding Richard securely in the saddle, Edmund skilfully turned his mount, gave the animal its head to find its way through the thick tangle of underbrush. Once they emerged into a splash of moonlight, he subjected Richard to a critical appraisal.
‘Well, you’re bedraggled enough, in truth! But are you hurt, Dickon?’
‘No, just hungry.’ Richard smiled, somewhat shyly. Edmund, who was sixteen, was not as approachable as Ned, was much more apt to react with impatience or, when provoked, with a quick cuff around the ears.
‘You owe me for this, little brother. I assure you I’ve more pleasant ways to pass my nights than prowling the woods for you! The next time you take it into your head to run away, I rather think I’ll wait and let the wolves find you first.’
Richard could not always tell when Edmund was serious. This time, however, he caught a telltale glint, knew Edmund was teasing, and laughed.
‘There are no wolves …’ he began, and then the import of Edmund’s words struck him.
‘I didn’t run away, Edmund. I got lost following my fox. … You remember, the one I tamed. … Whilst I was waiting for Ned to come back …’ His words trailed off; he looked sharply at Edmund, chewing his lip.
‘I should have guessed,’ Edmund said softly, and then, ‘That damned fool. When he knows how our father feels about taking our pleasures with the women of the household!’ He broke off, looked down at Richard with a fleeting smile.
‘You do not have any idea what I’m talking about, do you? Just as well, I daresay.’
He shook his head. Richard heard him repeating, ‘The damned fool,’ under his breath and, after a while, Edmund laughed aloud.
They rode in silence for a time. Richard had understood more than Edmund realized, knew that Ned had somehow done something that would much displease their father.
‘Where is he, Edmund?’ he asked, sounding so forlorn that Edmund ruffled his hair in a careless gesture of consolation.
‘Looking for you, where else? He sent your Joan back to the castle for help when dark came and they still could not find you. We’ve had half the household scouring the woods for you since dusk.’
Silence fell between them again. When Richard was beginning to recognize landmarks, knew they would soon be in sight of Ludford Bridge, he heard Edmund say thoughtfully, ‘No one knows yet what happened this afternoon, Dickon. No one has talked to Ned yet, and the girl was so distraught it was hard to get anything sensible from her. We just assumed you took off on a lark of your own.’ He hesitated and then continued, still in the unfamiliar yet intriguing confidential tones of one adult to another.
‘You know, Dickon, if our lord father were to think that Ned had left you alone in the meadows, he’d be none too happy about it. He’d be most wroth with Ned, of course. But he’d blame your Joan, too, I fear. He might even send her away.’
‘No!’ Richard twisted in the saddle to look up at his brother. ‘Ned did not leave me alone,’ he said breathlessly. ‘He did not, Edmund! I ran after the fox, that’s all!’
‘Well then, if that be true, you need not worry about Ned or Joan. After all, if the fault was yours, none could blame Ned, could they? But you do understand, Dickon, that if the fault was yours, you’ll be the one to be punished?’
Richard nodded. ‘I know,’ he whispered, and turned to gaze into the river currents flowing beneath the bridge, where he’d sacrificed a coin so many eventful hours ago, for luck.
‘You know, Dickon, I’ve been meaning to ask you. … Would you like me to make you a wooden sword like the one George has? I cannot promise you when I’ll get around to it, mind you, but. …’
‘You do not have to do that, Edmund. I’d not tell on Ned!’ Richard interrupted, sounding somewhat offended, and hunched his shoulders forward involuntarily as the walls of the castle materialized from the darkness ahead.
Edmund was distinctly taken aback and then bit back a grin. ‘My mistake, sorry!’ he said, looking at his brother with the bemused expression of an adult suddenly discovering that children could be more than nuisances to be tolerated until they were old enough to behave as rational beings, could even be distinct individuals in their own right.
As they approached the drawbridge that spanned the moat of lethal pointed stakes, torches flared to signal Richard’s safe return, and by the time Edmund passed through the gatehouse that gave entry into the inner bailey, their mother was awaiting them upon the ramp leading up into the great hall. Reining in before her, Edmund swung Richard down and into her upraised arms. As he did, he flashed Richard a grin and Richard was able to derive a flicker of comfort from that, the awareness that he, for once, had won Edmund’s unqualified approval.
* * *
Richard was sitting on a table in the solar, so close to the east-wall fireplace that the heat from its flames gave his face a sunburnt flush. He winced as his mother swabbed with wine-saturated linen at the scratches upon his face and throat, but submitted without complaint to her ministrations. He was rather pleased, in fact, to command her attention so thoroughly; he could remember few occasions when she had treated his bruises with her own hand. Generally this would have been for Joan to do. But Joan was too shaken to be of assistance. Eyes reddened and swollen, she hovered in the background, from time to time reaching out to touch Richard’s hair, as tentatively as if she were daring a liberty that was of a sudden forbidden.
Richard smiled at her with his eyes, quite flattered that she should have been crying so on his behalf, but she seemed little consoled by his sympathy and when he’d explained, rather haltingly, to his mother that he’d become separated from Ned and Joan in pursuit of his fox cub, Joan inexplicably began to cry again.
‘I heard you’re to be locked in the cellar under the great hall as your punishment … in the dark with the rats!’
His brother George had sidled nearer, awaiting the chance to speak as soon as their mother moved away from the table. He was watching Richard now with intent blue-green eyes, and Richard tried to conceal his involuntary shudder. He had no intention of letting George know he had a morbid horror of rats, aware that if he did, he was all too likely to find one in his bed.
Edmund came to his rescue, leaning over George to offer Richard a sip from his own cup of mulled wine.
‘Mind your mouth, George,’ he said softly. ‘Or you might find yourself taking a tour of the cellar some night.’
George glared at Edmund but did not venture a response, for he was not all that certain Edmund wouldn’t, if sufficiently provoked, follow through with his threat. Playing it safe, he held his tongue; although still a month shy of his tenth birthday, George had already developed a sophisticated sense of self-preservation.
Setting Edmund’s cup down so abruptly that wine sloshed over onto the table, Richard slid hastily to the floor. He had at last heard the one voice he’d been waiting for.
Edward was dismounting before the round Norman nave that housed the chapel named for St Mary Magdalene. He saw Richard as the boy bolted through the doorway of the solar and in three strides he covered the ground between them, catching Richard to him in a tight, bone-bruising embrace and then laughing and swinging the youngster up into the air, high over his head.
‘Jesú, but you did give me some bad moments, lad! Are you all right?’
(Continues…)
Table of Contents
Contents
Title Page,
Copyright Notice,
Dedication,
Preface to the 2013 Edition,
Author’s Original Note: 1982,
Acknowledgments,
Dramatis Personae,
Book One: Edward,
Book Two: Anne,
Book Three: Lord of the North,
Book Four: Richard, by the Grace of God,
Notes,
Afterword,
Also by Sharon Penman,
Copyright,
Reading Group Guide
A glorious novel of the controversial Richard III—-a monarch betrayed in life by his allies and betrayed in death by history
In this beautifully rendered modern classic, Sharon Kay Penman redeems Richard III—-vilified as the bitter, twisted, scheming hunchback who murdered his nephews, the princes in the Tower—-from his maligned place in history with a dazzling combination of research and storytelling.
Born into the treacherous courts of fifteenth-century England, in the midst of what history has called The War of the Roses, Richard was raised in the shadow of his charismatic brother, King Edward IV. Loyal to his friends and passionately in love with the one woman who was denied him, Richard emerges as a gifted man far more sinned against than sinning.
This magnificent retelling of his life is filled with all of the sights and sounds of battle, the customs and lore of the fifteenth century, the rigors of court politics, and the passions and prejudices of royalty.
1) Discuss the interplay between Richard, Edward, and Edmund in the opening sequence of the book. How does the author foreshadow what is to come? How do the events of the first chapter set the scene and frame the rest of the story?
2) Why does the author choose the point of view of secondary characters, such as Rob Percy and Francis Lovell, to help tell the story? Keeping in mind the relationship between the observer and those observed, to what extent are they good, trustworthy narrators?
3) Many believed Edward’s marriage to Elizabeth Woodville was the result of witchcraft. Why do you think Edward chose Elizabeth for his queen?
4) Medieval society was rigidly stratified, and upward mobility was an alien concept. Can Americans identify with a world in which a man or woman’s destiny was almost always determined by birth?
5) What sort of confinements did women live within in medieval society? Although the position of women in society has changed dramatically since the Middle Ages, do you feel there are similarities between the way women live in society today and the way they lived then?
6) Look at the exchange between Anne and Isabel on pages 216 and 217. What does each woman reveal about herself?
7) Discuss the differences, and similarities, among Elizabeth Woodville, Cecily Neville, and Marguerite d’Anjou. What are their motivations, and how do they each seek to further their ambitions?
8) After returning from exile in Burgundy, Edward gains entry into York by promising that he wishes only to reclaim that which is rightfully his—the duchy of York. On page 262, Richard explains that this clever tactic was used once before: “Harry of Lancaster’s grandfather did return from exile to claim only his duchy of Lancaster and, of course, deposed a King. My brother thought it only fitting that a gambit used by the first Lancastrian King should now serve York!” Discuss the instances throughout the book in which history is used as a lesson and touchstone, a guiding light for the present.
9) What does the book say about the trustworthiness of history? Should we retain a healthy degree of skepticism about accounts of bygone events?
10) How did the adulation Edward initially inspired in court compare to the subsequent attitudes his courtiers later held toward him? In which ways was he burdened by unrealistic expectations? How did the King manipulate his early reputation to his advantage?
11) Throughout the story, characters struggle to do what is honorable and right in the face of impending danger. As time goes by, the line between what is right and what is wrong often becomes blurred beyond the point of recognition. For example, early in his reign, Edward embraced a standard of mercy, despite his own losses, that was out of step with the warfare of his time. Discuss his later speech to Richard on page 406, in which he defends his decision to execute Harry of Lancaster: “I was unwilling to see coming trouble till it did have me by the throat…No, I was too quick to trust, too slow to suspect. And I came close, Christ, so close to losing all.” Is it ever possible to be both right and dishonorable, both honorable and wrong?
12) What other characters lose their innocence during the course of the book? How do they change? How do their decisions mirror these changes?
13) Richard remains Edward’s closest ally, even after death, yet he fails as much, if not more so, than he succeeds; He loses as much as he wins. But, given the time and place, what were Richard’s alternatives?
14) After spending some time in the fifteenth-century, do you think that human nature has changed much over the centuries? Can you identify with the characters in The Sunne in Splendour? What were the most striking similarities between that society and ours? The greatest differences?
15) How does the book change your impressions of life in the courts of Edward and Richard III?
16) What is the responsibility of the historical novelist? Should the author feel free to make drastic or dramatic changes to known facts? If the author takes a position unsupported by historical evidence or academic interpretation, should he or she then offer an explanation in an Author’s Note?
17) Do you agree with the author that a historical novel requires a solid factual foundation?
Additional information
paperback | Publisher: St. Martin's Griffin |
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hardcover | Published: October 1982 |