Authors: Livi Michael
Rebellion
Michael
REBELLION
Lancaster and York Family Tree
1. June 1462: Margaret of Anjou Visits the New King of
France
2. Margaret of Anjou Receives a Visitor
11. King Henry Considers the Crown
13. Elizabeth Woodville Plays a Different Game
14. The Duke of Somerset Writes a Letter
15. Elizabeth Woodville Speaks
18. The Earl of Warwick Speaks
24. Margaret Beaufort Receives an Invitation
The Battle of Edgecote Moor: 26 July 1469
29. William Herbert Writes a Letter
31. Margaret Beaufort Makes a Plan
33. Henry Stafford Receives a Summons
34. The Earl of Warwick Suffers a Setback
36. The Duke of Clarence is Not Content
37. Prince Edward is Not Content
38. Queen Elizabeth Hears the News
40. Margaret Beaufort Receives a Letter
42. The Earl of Warwick Refuses to Fight
44. Henry Stafford Makes a Choice
The Battle of Barnet: 14 April 1471
The Battle of Tewkesbury: 4 May 1471
Livi Michael has published five novels for
adults:
Succession
, published in 2014;
Under a Thin Moon
, which won
the Arthur Welton award in 1992;
Their Angel Reach
, which won the Faber prize
in 1995;
All the Dark Air
(1997), which was shortlisted for the Mind Award; and
Inheritance
, which won a Society of Authors award. Livi has two sons and
lives in Greater Manchester. She teaches creative writing at the Manchester Metropolitan
University and has been a senior lecturer in creative writing at Sheffield Hallam
University.
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Rebellion
PRAISE FOR SUCCESSION:
âA gripping story ⦠Juxtaposing illuminating
contemporary accounts of the Wars of the Roses with breathtaking insights into the minds
of the principal players,
Succession
puts the conflict into a compelling
context whilst exploring the human cost of the bloody, bitter birth of the Tudor
dynasty'
Lancashire Evening Post
âLivi Michael is new to historical fiction and it shows,
in a good way. Focused on the earlier years of the Wars of the Roses (about which I knew
nothing â and nor did she, by her own admission, before she started), this novel is
wonderfully stylistically fresh, making inventive use of contemporary chronicles, which
it mimics to blackly comic effect. But it's also a heartfelt account of the eye-opening,
hair-raising early life of Margaret Beaufort, mother of Henry VII' Suzannah Dunn,
Waterstones blog, âAuthors' Books of the Year 2014'
â
Succession
is a powerfully written account of
the 15th-century Wars of the Roses ⦠finely balanced between history and fiction,
and a fascinating, riveting read' Historical Novel Society
âIn
Succession
Livi Michael engages meticulously
with the diverse historical accounts of the Wars of the Roses, but she also invests
intimate and poignant humanity into the personal tragedies of an era wrought with
conflict and terror' Elizabeth Fremantle, author of
Queen's Gambit
Â
To Anna Pollard, for keeping the
faith
NB children are not necessarily in order of birth
d.= died
k.= killed
*appears more than once
Margaret of Anjou
, wife of King
Henry VI
Anne Beauchamp
, Countess of
Warwick, married to the Earl of Warwick
Margaret Beauchamp
, mother of
Margaret Beaufort
Edmund Beaufort
, cousin to
Margaret Beaufort; takes the title Duke of Somerset after his older brother, Henry
Beaufort, is executed
Henry Beaufort
, 3rd Duke of
Somerset, older brother of Edmund Beaufort
Margaret Beaufort
, Countess of
Richmond; great-granddaughter of John of Gaunt; great-great-granddaughter of Edward III;
mother of Henry Tudor
Pierre de Brézé
, Seneschal of
Normandy, supporter of Margaret of Anjou
Anne Devereux
, Lady Herbert,
guardian of Henry Tudor
Walter Devereux
, Lord Ferrers,
Anne Devereux's brother
Edward IV
, King of England (House
of York)
Edward
, Prince of Wales, son of
Henry VI and Queen Margaret (Margaret of Anjou)
George
, Duke of Clarence, brother
of Edward IV
William Hastings
, 1st Baron
Hastings, close friend and Lord Chamberlain to Edward IV
Henry VI
, King of England and
France (House of Lancaster)
William Herbert
, Earl of
Pembroke, guardian of Henry Tudor
Louis XI
, King of France
John Morton
, Archdeacon of
Norwich, Lancastrian supporter
Anne Neville
, younger daughter of
the Earl and Countess of Warwick
Cecily Neville
, dowager Duchess
of York, mother of Edward IV
George Neville
,
Archbishop of York, brother of the Earl of Warwick
Isabel Neville
, older daughter of
the Earl and Countess of Warwick
Richard Neville
, Earl of Warwick,
cousin of Edward IV
Richard
, Duke of Gloucester,
brother of Edward IV
Henry Stafford
, son of the Duke
and Duchess of Buckingham, third husband of Margaret Beaufort
Henry Tudor
, son of Margaret
Beaufort and Edmund Tudor; Earl of Richmond and nephew of Henry VI
Jasper Tudor
, Earl of Pembroke,
half-brother of Henry VI, younger brother of Edmund Tudor, uncle of Henry Tudor
Richard Tunstall
, Lancastrian
general
Anthony Woodville
, 2nd Earl
Rivers, Lord Scales, brother of Elizabeth Woodville
Elizabeth Woodville
, daughter of
Sir Richard Woodville and Jacquetta, Duchess of Bedford; wife of Edward IV
The last time Margaret Beaufort had seen her
son he had not been well, but against the advice of his nurse she'd wrapped him up and
taken him outside.
It was a bare day, with rags of light. They
had walked slowly, investigating the crevices in a stone wall, the surface of a puddle,
the underside of a leaf. She had registered his delight in the small creatures skimming
the pond, the eager movements of ducks. His response to the curling pattern of lichen,
the snail clinging to the underside of a stone and other hidden worlds was not exactly
disturbed, no, but wary. He had spread his tapering fingers inquisitively across the
snail, as though testing it.
They had sat together on the low wall and
he'd fallen asleep, his hand curled round her thumb, his own thumb finding the knuckle
of hers and stroking it even while he slept. She remembered vividly the feel of his
child's hand in hers; how the fingers moved.
She'd prayed earnestly, there on the wall,
that by some miracle she might have him back.
And what had happened?
A new king had sent her son to a different
guardian, in a different castle, where she might not visit. The same man who had killed
her husband now had custody of their son.
She'd continued to pray as though she could
haul him back by the sheer force of her prayer. But none of that was any use now. The
world had changed, England had changed; she had a different husband.
He was a good husband. He had comforted her
when she'd sobbed violently against his plump chest, then rested dry-eyed against it and
tried not to remember all the things she no longer
knew about her son.
How tall was he now? Had the colour of his hair changed? Did he still wake sometimes in
the middle of the night unable to breathe? Did he still like to find beetles in the
cracks in a stone wall, or to look for hidden things beneath a rock?
Did he remember her at all?
He would not remember her in the vivid way
that she remembered him â the smell of milk on his breath, the wrinkles on the underside
of his feet.
She could not forget these things; the best
she could do was to keep busy. And to stay near her husband, who would comfort her. So
she walked urgently across the courtyard because her husband had talked that morning
about the need to reroof the stables. If he wasn't there he would be in the herb garden,
because he was as fond of plants as she was. They had often gone out into the fields and
woods together, looking for new plants to transfer into her garden. She called his name
as she passed the outbuildings to one side of the courtyard.