Susan Higginbotham, Author of Historical Fiction Set in Medieval England

The new edition of Hugh and Bess has just been released by Sourcebooks!

The Traitor's Wife is a novel, but it is based on the life of a real person--Eleanor de Clare, wife of Hugh le Despenser the younger, whom historian Nigel Saul recently named as the worst Briton of the fourteenth century.

Granddaughter to King Edward I and daughter to the Earl of Gloucester, Eleanor was married to Despenser at age thirteen. She was a sister-in-law of Piers Gaveston, Edward II's first ill-fated favorite. Eleanor herself was close to Edward II, her uncle, and was even said by one chronicler to have been his mistress. It was her husband's relationship with the king, however, that would ultimately destroy both men and leave Eleanor a widow. When she remarried, it was to the man who had been one of her husband's captors and who had besieged the castle held by Eleanor's eldest son.

At various times, Eleanor was a lady-in-waiting to Queen Isabella, a prisoner in the Tower of London, an accused thief, a patroness of Tewkesbury Abbey, and the subject of a heated dispute between two men who each claimed to be her husband. Loyal to her husband and to Edward II, she paid the price for that loyalty during the early years of the reign of Edward III, when power lay not with the adolescent king but with Queen Isabella and her lover, Roger Mortimer. The Traitor's Wife, however, is not a story of victimization, but of strength and fortitude--the story of an extraordinary woman living in extraordinary times.

Her father-in-law, meanwhile, had returned to court and was paying his respects to the king. Edward had spent a very pleasant Christmas at Langley with
Gaveston and the queen, and was in good spirits. "And how is your family, Hugh? How is Philip?"

In the case of those he liked, Edward could remember all manner of minutiae. Philip had never been to court; Hugh had probably never mentioned his name
more than once or twice to the king. Yet Edward had never forgotten him. "He is a cause of concern to me, sir, as you may recall. He is not at all strong, and the winters are always bad for him. Would that he had a tenth of Hugh's good health." Hugh stopped awkwardly, for he had not intended to mention his eldest son.

"Aye, Hugh. And how are he and my little niece Eleanor?"

"Quite well."

"They are still at Loughborough?"

Hugh had a policy of never lying to his king. "No, your grace. They are-"

Edward saw his advisor's discomfiture. "Abroad."

"Yes, I am afraid so. Abroad."

Edward shook his head. "Without license and against my orders. Hugh, you know I cannot let this pass unnoticed. If your wild son flouts my authority in this manner, what will the barons who hate me do? I must seize his lands."

"You must do what you must do." Hugh grimaced. "He is my beloved son, but he has always been lacking in a sense of propriety. It is that Warwick streak, I
think."

"What does he do on these jaunts of his?"

Hugh could answer truthfully. "I don't know, your grace. He is a grown man, and minds my own affairs splendidly when I am unable to attend to them
because of my duties here. I ask no questions, and he tells me nothing."

"Piracy."

Hugh and Edward turned to look at Gaveston, who had been bent over a table spread with maps during the whole of their conversation. Hugh was well used to
Gaveston's constant presence, but there were times when he had to acknowledge that it might irritate others. Though in all fairness, he reminded himself, Gaveston had always willingly left the room on the one or two occasions that Hugh had requested privacy. Did he do so for others? Perhaps not. Gaveston looked up and smiled dazzlingly. "He disappears for long stretches; he never seems to be in want of money when he returns, does he? So his wife says to my wife anyway-women do talk. I don't think with luscious little Eleanor there would be a wench he stays with, and such cost money anyway. He'd be coming home poorer if that were the case."

"That is utter nonsense. My son is not a pirate," said Hugh loftily. "And my young daughter-in-law is not luscious." He stopped, aghast at the trap he had
wandered into.

As the eldest daughter of the new Earl of Salisbury, young Bess de Montacute is anticipating a suitable match. When King Edward III and her father choose Hugh le Despenser, the son and grandson of disgraced traitors, as her husband, she is aghast. Meanwhile, Hugh must give up the woman he loves in order to marry the reluctant Bess.

Far apart in age and haunted by the past, Hugh and Bess must somehow make their marriage work. But just as they grow closer together, they are threatened by a merciless enemy that endangers all whom they hold dear.

Set against the chivalry and pageantry of the fourteenth-century court of Edward III, Hugh and Bess is a story of love and loss, of letting go of the past-and of embracing the future.

Despite her best efforts, Bess could not find fault with her suitor's appearance. Hugh's face, though not strikingly handsome, was agreeable to the eye; his clothes were rich but not gaudily so; and his lean body, neither too short nor too tall, was that of a soldier, not that of a lingerer at dinner tables. His smile when Bess entered the room revealed good teeth and lit up his dark eyes. He bowed. "My lady."

"Sir."

"Your parents and I have been discussing the fact that we fear there may be a delay in us getting married. It seems that your first husband's mother was a Clare, and of course my mother was a Clare too, though I don't think the branches ever got on particularly well." He smiled at her again. "But nonetheless, for reasons I've never quite understood, that will require us to get a papal dispensation. You know what that is?"

"I am not a fool, Sir Hugh. Of course I know what one is."

"Yes, of course. I beg your pardon." Hugh had the look of a man getting up after a bad fall from a horse. "I don't think it will pose much of a difficulty, though, as the relationship is not a close one by any means, and for grounds I can tell the Pope that it is necessary to promote harmony between my family and yours. As my family was out of harmony with virtually everyone in England until recently, I'm probably not stretching the truth."

The Earl of Salisbury chuckled, and Hugh, back in the saddle, so to speak, continued, "Your parents have told me that you will be coming to live with me when we are married. I am very pleased to hear it. I must warn you that my furnishings are rather plain, as I have been single for so long, but I am sure that between you and your mother and my aunts and sisters we could get them looking nice very soon."

"I am entirely capable of choosing my own furnishings, Sir Hugh."

"Of course."

The earl shot his prospective son-in-law a look of commiseration.

When six-year-old Kate Woodville's beautiful sister Elizabeth makes a shocking-and secret-marriage to King Edward IV, Kate and her large family are whisked to the king's court. Soon a bedazzled Kate becomes one of the greatest ladies in the land when she marries young Harry Stafford, Duke of Buckingham. But Kate's fairy-tale existence as a duchess is shattered when the ongoing conflict between the houses of Lancaster and York engulfs the Woodville family.

As Edward IV fights to keep his crown, Harry's relatives become hopelessly divided between Lancaster and York. Forced constantly to struggle with his own allegiances, Harry faces his defining moment when his dear friend Richard, Duke of Gloucester, determines to seize the throne for himself as Richard III. With lives in jeopardy and nothing less than a dynasty at stake, Harry's loyalties-and his conscience-will be put to the ultimate test.

As I stood there, at a loss for words and sensing that I had somehow done a Bad Thing, the groom turned and stood, making me gasp. He was tall-well over six feet-and dazzlingly handsome, with hair of a rich brown. Small, sallow, and of middling appearance, I was none of those things, and I averted my eyes as if caught gazing into the sun. "Well, now. Who is this young lady?"

"Katherine, sir," I managed.

"Kate," the groom said as I thrilled from my head to my toes. How did this man know that I loved to be called "Kate," only Mother insisted on the more dignified "Katherine"? He turned to my sister. "I've changed my mind, I'm afraid. This will be my new bride."

"She's a trifle young for you," said my sister a little tensely.

"Oh, maybe a bit," the man conceded. He smiled. "Some other lucky man will have little Kate, then. Lady Kate? Can you keep a great secret?"

"You had better," my mother warned.

"I know Kate will," the man said reassuringly. He looked down-a long way down--straight into my eyes. "Kate, I am getting ready to marry your sister. But it is a great secret. No one can know until I announce it personally."

"Your family would not approve?" I ventured, as he was being so confiding.

"Indeed no."

"That is a pity."

"But they will come to understand in time." He cleared his throat and looked thoughtful for a moment, then appeared to make up his mind. "But there are other reasons why there are difficulties just now. I suppose you have not seen our King Edward yet, Kate?"

"No."

"Have you heard much of him?"

I was delighted by his question, for it gave me the opportunity to demonstrate what a good Yorkist I was, a great necessity in our family, since it was not so terribly long ago that Papa and my brothers Anthony and Richard had fought for the house of Lancaster. Having gone over to what now all agreed heartily to be the right side, Papa had sternly informed us children that we should always speak well of the House of York. As with all of my father's advice, I had heeded it dutifully, but I seldom had the chance to put it into practice, for all of my brothers and sisters, being older and much wiser, were naturally much better Yorkists as well, and never made a mistake I could correct. "No," I admitted. "But I hear he is very brave. And very handsome."

The second man laughed, a sound that made the chapel echo. He was well over a decade older than the groom and less handsome, though his ruddy face was a good-humored one. "Ned, there's a fine courtier for you! Shall I?"

The younger man nodded, and the older man reached in a purse and drew out a fine gold chain, then handed it to me. (Later, I was to learn that he always kept one or two on his person, in case of emergencies.) "There's a reward for your loyalty, Lady Kate."

"Thank you," I said vacantly, staring at the chain. It was lovely, and even to my inexpert eyes looked frightfully expensive. Was my sister marrying a highwayman?

The younger man laughed at my expression. "You see, Kate, I am the king. And I have come here to marry your sister."

There were any number of dignified and proper responses I could have made to this announcement. I, of course, made none of them. My mouth gaped open, most unattractively I fear. "You?" I asked. "Her?"

"Me. Her." The king nodded. "She will make a lovely queen, don't you think?"

"Yes," I admitted feebly. Elizabeth was indeed lovely; indeed, I sometimes thought that she and my brother Anthony had taken so much beauty for themselves that was not enough left for the other ten of us children, especially me.

"But you must keep this a secret, Kate, as I have said. You will promise?"

"On my life!"

"Good girl," the king said. He grinned. "Or I would be obliged to put you in my Tower as a lesson, you know."

My previous promise was empty compared to the one I made now. "I swear and hope to die if I break my promise," I vowed, kneeling and making the sign of the cross for good measure. I might have gone further and prostrated myself had Elizabeth not interrupted.

"Time passes. Ned, I know the child will not tell. Can we please resume the ceremony?"