The New Murrey and Blue blog

Coming upon an assessment of Richard Neville, 16^th Earl of Warwick, the “Kingmaker”, is a fairly rare experience. He’s always there, of course, for how can he not be when it comes to the Wars of the Roses? But having an article to himself is not something he enjoys very often. Well, that’s how it seems to me, anyway.

The author of https://www.thecollector.com/richard-neville-the-kingmaker/ (“Elizabeth Morgan, BA History w/ Tudor concentration”) starts with his prominence in the Philippa Gregory’s novels that resulted in The White Queen TV drama series, in which James Frain made a great impression as Warwick, and there is a brief list of other books in which Warwick features.

Alas, my own contribution doesn’t make an appearance. Way back in the early 1970s my writing career started with a trilogy about Edward IV’s daughter Cicely. But after that I wrote Wife to the Kingmaker, which title is self-explanatory. It was reissued a number of times by different publishers, but I think that finding a copy now would require a number of highly trained police sniffer dogs.

As you can see in the photograph below, the cover art of the first version of my book is very typical of 1974, and the colours are….delightfully muddy. I’m sure Anne Beauchamp would have been flattered. 🙄😄

Anyway, to return to the article by Elizabeth Morgan—it isn’t solely about Warwick in fiction, but relates his career and the effect he had upon 15^th-century England. It’s also quite long and gives all the facts. Whether it’s entirely fair to everyone, especially Warwick himself, is a matter of one’s personal viewpoint, but it’s well worth a read.