Richard Neville, Earl of Warwick’s signet ring

Guest Blog by award-winning author S.M. Harrison

We are privileged to be writers of historical fiction. Not only do we get the opportunity to indulge our passion for historical research, in my case for all things medieval, but especially the period now known as the Wars of the Roses, but we also have the luxury of being able to put the flesh on the bones of people who may only be a footnote in history. We may choose, as I have, to examine a figure who is supposedly well known as a man who shaped history according to his will, and who changed allegiances as often as the wind changes direction.

However, as I have researched the life and times of Richard Neville, 16th Earl of Warwick, who you may know as The Kingmaker, he was in fact a man who followed a personal chivalric code which was well understood by his peers; a man whose mistreatment by one ungrateful king in particular lead to his subsequent king-making and king-breaking. He was both admired and feared and verses were written in praise of him by his allies. To the terrified Burgundians in 1471 he was not far short of the anti-Christ and that is reflected in their writings.

Using contemporary sources he turns from the cardboard cut-out you’re probably familiar with, to a man for whom nothing was impossible; whose energy, courage and vigour saw him fighting against the Scots and the French and turning to piracy in order to look after his men, when it looked as though there was no hope of ever returning home. He was an intelligent man who courted European allies as a diplomat when the fledgling Yorkist government had few friends, and a man for whom his family meant everything. He understood that power brought obligations, something the young Yorkist king Edward IV did not, and facing an existential crisis, Warwick had no alternative but to return to his former king, Henry VI, whom he had served as a servant of the body as a young man. This return is chivalric, like Lancelot returning to Arthur, and to acknowledge his mistake showed his nobility, courage and humility and was understood as such by his contemporaries. In the award-winning The Colour of Treason series, Warwick is the central historical character. Readers have told me that encountering him in this context, made them re-evaluate history they thought they knew well, and made them cheer him on, hoping against hope that things might work out differently for him.

In the end they didn’t, but bringing a misunderstood historical figure to life and allowing readers to experience his hopes, aspirations and fears as he may have experienced them, is something I feel privileged to be able to do. And perhaps, as they read the denouement to his story, some may have whispered his battle-cry: A Warwick! A Warwick!

S M Harrison is an award winning author of historical fiction set during the Wars of the Roses. S M Harrison is a member of the Wars of the Roses Federation and is a long-standing member of Towton Battlefield Society.  S M Harrison studied the Wars of the Roses with Dr Rachel Moss, where Elizabeth Woodville was of particular interest. She is currently working on the final novel in the Colour of Treason series and a prequel featuring the readers’ favourite character, Jack de Laverton.

www.smharrisonwriter.com