Loyalty

I loved this book. I am relatively new to Richard III - having previously viewed him through Shakespearean coloured spectacles. However, the Wars of the Roses have been a large part of my student life recently and so, interest piqued, I have read a number of historical novels from around the period, several of which have covered the life of Richard III. I also live in the Midlands where there has been a great deal of news coverage surrounding his re-internment.Matthew Lewis was also a new author to me but, having finished Loyalty in double-quick time I hastily downloaded its sequel Honour. Mr Lewis writes the story of Richard from a unique point of view - that of Thomas More relating it to the artist Holbein, I liked this tool and felt that the novel was all the better for this approach.The historical detail is fascinating, and Mr. Lewis does a great job of developing his characters in line with the facts available, I particularly enjoyed the way he developed the various current theories about Richard's ascension to the throne and the fate of his nephews in their historical context. I appreciated the notes at the end of the book which gave further insight and reinforcement that here is a historical novel able to teach and inform as well as entertain.The story moves at a decent pace, I have seen other reviewers bemoan the wordy prose, I didn't find this a problem, and anyway, in this surely Mr. Lewis follows in the footsteps of both Hardy and Dickens, both of whom tended to verbosity. I liked the way Richard is shown with all his insecurities, his quick temper etc. but also I was glad to see that he was, inherently, a good king who cared about the common man and endeavoured to improve their lot - often in the face of opposition from those closest to him. It seems a great pity that his reign was so short and that his life was marred by the tragedy of losing his child and wife so early in life.Mr Lewis also does not balk at portraying Richard as a man of faith - something often neglected but which would have had a tremendous influence on his decision making. The battle scenes are outstanding, written from Richard's point of view and with a totally believable narrative running through them.All in all this is a great book, highly recommended, a book that kept me up way past my bedtime! It also left me wanting more - always a sign of a good read in my opinion. On a lightly negative note I have the Kindle version and did notice a number of typographical errors, but this seems to be quite common with ebooks and it certainly didn't detract from my overall enjoyment of the story.

I have to declare an interest here. I’m in the process of writing an alternative history novel – the starting point being that Richard III is victorious at Bosworth – and the story explores what his post-Bosworth reign might have been like. Matthew Lewis’s narrative of Richard's life and death is beautifully done; remarkably well-written, very moving, and, in my opinion captures a highly credible characterisation of the man as deeply honest, pius, insecure, impulsive, and prone to sudden anger that just as quickly burns out, leaving him ashamed and repentant of his loss of control. A man with an appetite for risk-taking; one who never expected to be king and found the role and function frustrating and foreign to his nature. It is also very much in character that to an unusual degree for a late fifteenth-century man he loved, respected, and worked closely with his wife. Importantly, the author also brings out Richard’s lack of political 'nous', which reflect the honesty and piety, but without which no monarch, even a constitutional one today, can hope to be successful and even more so for a medieval king. We see a man deeply loyal and affectionate to a very small group of friends who return his love and loyalty - the archetypal introvert - but who fails to understand the needs of, or to attract and commend himself to the wider circle of those he needs as allies and co-operators. In this novel, as in a second, Honour, the author blends two distinct plots – in Loyalty, how Richard became king and what the consequences were, and the possibility that Thomas More's household held the secret of what became of one, or maybe both, of Edward IV's male children. While this is itself a fascinating double-helix tale and each element is told as well as the other - for me as a reader, the double plot creates problems. I found the idea unbelievable that More would have told this version of Richard's story to Holbein as a fireside narrative and the scenario shifts to More's study felt like interruptions. Both stories need telling but perhaps there are actually two books here, not one. Having made this observation about the structure, I find this second plot completely credible. More was 'apprenticed' to Morton for several years, and that man would have known better than anyone what really happened to the two boys and would have boasted of how he had created the myth of the 'wicked uncle'. It also opens the possibility that Henry VII, though married to their sister, did not know of the continued existence of the two boys in England, nor that Perkin Warbeck was indeed a 'fake'.