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The New King's Brother

(2022)
(Book 27 in the Company of Archers series)
A Novella by

 
 
This is another of Martin Archer's exciting and sometimes witty stories from the medieval days when Britain was just beginning to become the world's greatest military and commercial power. It is the story of what really happened in those early days as Britain began its rise to greatness despite having to cope with climate change because the world was getting colder. It also offers some insights as to why some members of today's royal family periodically have red hair.

It is the summer of 1336. Ten years earlier in 1326 Queen Isabella's supporters defeated King Edward II and his lover Hugh Despenser and put her young son, Edward III, on the throne with the Queen as the boy's regent and her lover, Mortimer, as England's chancellor and de facto king. Mortimer promptly began seizing land for himself and his family from Isabella’s supporters and others. This triggered another round of fighting that resulted in the capture and execution of Mortimer and the now-teenage Edward III becoming king in fact as well as in name.

Today young Edward III is on the throne and already thinking like a king - he wants his younger brother, John, out of the way so the nobles and churchmen who oppose his taxes and wars will have no alternative heir to rally around.

In the early summer of 1336 and totally separately from the question of who should sit on England's throne the Company of Archer's shipping post in London was raided and looted by the protection gang of the Bishop of Lincoln. The young bishop wanted the post's coins to buy an even higher position in Rome. At first the Company of Archers only acted to recover its lost coins and exact a great and bloody revenge for its losses. But then a startling revelation caused the Company to be drawn into the dispute over who should be on England's throne.

This is the exciting and action-packed story about what really happened during the early years of Britain's rise to greatness despite being plagued with global cooling and why some of the men of today's royal family periodically have red hair. It is based on a combination of the author's drinking of too much Newcastle Ale and some mouse-eaten parchment records that were found in a chest buried under the rubble in the basement of the Bodleian Library and translated into modern English with the help of a generous grant from the Ministry of Defense.


Genre: Historical

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