A Bloody Field by Shrewsbury: A King, a Prince, and the Knight Who Betrayed Their Dynasty

It is 1399. Henry Bolingbroke, unjustly banished and deprived of his inheritance by Richard II, returns to claim his rights and deposes the king, to become Henry IV of England. He is aided by the powerful lords of Northumberland, especially by his friend, Harry Percy, nicknamed Hotspur. But the triumph of his accession quickly turns sour in the face of ever-growing crises in his new kingdom, and Wales is the most pressing and troublesome of these. For although Henry's son and heir, Prince Hal, is the nominal Prince of Wales, the Welsh have a prince of their own blood in Owen Glendower, and they are swift to rally to his rebellious call to arms. The three Henries all wish to see the House of Lancaster succeed, but their partnership contains the seeds of its own destruction. The spectre of Richard holds sway beyond the grave, and the shadow of regicide, the memory of past crimes and growing doubts and divisions cause a dangerous rift. The king also has powerful enemies who are all too willing to take advantage of this and tension mounts as the three men are drawn inexorably to a bloody collision some two miles from Shrewsbury... As the many admirers of her Welsh historical quartet, The Brothers of Gwynedd, have come to expect, Edith Pargeter weaves a skillful tapestry of feuds, loves and battles into an enthralling narrative, telling personal stories as well as the well-documented historical ones, in a novel which received glowing praise on its first publication..