The Prince of Darkness
The Prince of Darkness
Jean Plaidy, one of the pre-eminent authors of historical fiction for most of the twentieth century, is the pen name of the prolific English author Eleanor Hibbert, also known as Victoria Holt. Jean Plaidy’s novels had sold more than 14 million copies worldwide by the time of her death in 1993.
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Also by Jean Plaidy
The Tudors
Uneasy Lies the Head
Katharine, the Virgin
Widow
The Shadow of the
Pomegranate
The King’s Secret Matter
Murder Most Royal
St Thomas’s Eve
The Sixth Wife
The Thistle and the Rose
Mary Queen of France
Lord Robert
Royal Road to Fotheringay
The Captive Queen of Scots
The Medici Trilogy
Madame Serpent
The Italian Woman
Queen Jezebel
The Plantagenets
The Plantagenet Prelude
The Revolt of the Eaglets
The Heart of the Lion
The Prince of Darkness
The French Revolution
Louis the Well-Beloved
The Road to Compiègne
Flaunting, Extravagant
Queen
J
EAN
P
LAIDY
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Version 1.0
Epub ISBN 9781446411773
Published by Arrow Books in 2007
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Copyright © Jean Plaidy, 1978
Initial lettering copyright © Stephen Raw, 2006
The Estate of Eleanor Hibbert has asserted its right to have Jean Plaidy identified
as the author of this work.
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First published in the United Kingdom in 1978 by Robert Hale Ltd
Published in paperback in 1979 by Pan Books Ltd
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Contents
Chapter IDEATH OF A KINGI
n a quiet room in the Château of Vaudreuil William Marshal, the most respected of all the King’s knights, sat dozing pleasantly after an excellent dinner of roast venison. Half sleeping, half waking he was considering what a happy state of affairs existed now that the King had returned from the Holy Land and was bringing law and order back to his dominions. Already England was at peace and Richard had restored much of that land which Philip Augustus, King of France – stealing an advantage because Richard was far away – had taken from him in Normandy.
William Marshal, known in the days of his youth as the finest knight of the age, renowned for his integrity and as a man who was not afraid to offend the King even though it could mean risking his life – and therefore cherished by wise kings such as Richard and his father before him – was now in his mid-fifties but still strong and with the weight of experience to lean on, appeared to have gained rather than lost from the passing of the years.
He had deplored the King’s absence from the country, for, while he accepted the fact that Richard had made a vow to
bring Jerusalem back to Christendom, he had believed that a king’s first duty was to his own kingdom; he had been against the excessive taxation which had had to be imposed in order to raise money for the crusade, but he had been indefatigable in getting together the funds required for the King’s ransom when it had been discovered that Richard was in his enemy’s hands in the castle of Dürenstein.
Now, his brother John’s attempt to take the crown from him during his absence had been foiled and Richard was restored to his people. As William saw it, the prospects were fair – or as fair as they ever could be, considering the vulnerability of the dukedom of Normandy situated as it was on the very borders of French territory.
His wife Isabella came into the room and looked at him with affection. She was a good wife and he had married her when Richard had come to the throne. She had brought him not only fine sons but riches, for her father had been Richard de Clare, Earl of Pembroke and Striguel and, although the King had not yet confirmed William in the ‘full peace and name of earl’, the earldom was in his possession, and that ceremony would be performed in due course. Before his marriage he had been known as the ‘landless knight’ and had had little to recommend him but his noble birth and unrivalled skills. Henry II had recognised these and put him in charge of his eldest son Prince Henry (after he had been misguided enough to crown him so that the boy had had the title of King while his father still lived – one of the gravest mistakes that usually wise monarch had ever made, for the boy, as was to be expected, became arrogant, immediately flaunting his title and flouting his father, finally making war against him and, with his brothers, bringing him in sorrow to the grave).