Read The King's Falcon (Roundheads & Cavaliers Book 3) Online
Authors: Stella Riley
Even though it is seen through the eyes of three fictional characters, I have – as always – made the details of the Worcester campaign as accurate as possible.
The same is true with regard to French theatre of the period.
Petit-Jean Laroque was indeed the manager of the Théâtre du Marais where Corneille’s
Le Cid
was revived in 1652, sixteen years after having originally been premiered there; and Floridor was the actor-manager of the Marais’s rival company at the H
ô
tel de Bourgogne, where Cyrano de Bergerac forcibly removed Montfleury from the stage.
Cyrano – duellist, playwright and amateur scientist – was not quite the lovelorn fellow with the immense nose of Edmond Rostand’s play.
He would have been about the same age as Francis and Ashley, had retired from the military by the time this story is set and was to die in 1655, aged 36.
Though details are sketchy, there are references to a plot formulated by Thurloe in which Charles and the Duke of York were to be lured to the coast of France and assassinated.
At a time when Cromwell was talking to Bulstrode Whitlock about making himself King, such a plot is by no means inconceivable. However, in the absence of concrete information and because Calais was in Spanish hands at the time, I have chosen to set this Honfleur – with which my home town of Sandwich is twinned.
The matter of whether or not Charles the Second married Lucy Walter was to raise its head many times after the Restoration – most notably when it became clear that Charles was never going to have a legitimate son and that his heir would be his Catholic brother, the Duke of York. The Duke of Monmouth, Charles’ son by Lucy, was Protestant and therefore the preferred choice of many.
A good deal of pressure was put upon the King to declare him legitimate … but he never did, always maintaining that his brother was his rightful heir.
Thank you for reading
The King’s Falcon
.
I hope you have enjoyed it
.
If you can spare a few minutes to post a brief review, this would be greatly appreciated by myself and extremely helpful to other readers.
Stella Riley
October 2014