12 quotes
Rather than clarifying the diplomatic situation, the new treaties simply added to the haze of mutual suspicion between the three rulers.
The Brothers York: A Royal Tragedy (2019)
In the absence of concrete information, stories proliferated.
The Brothers York: A Royal Tragedy (2019)
Not for the first time, Edward’s view of his own irresistible appeal was dented by contact with reality.
The Brothers York: A Royal Tragedy (2019)
Spread by people who knew perfectly well that, once in circulation, such false news was almost impossible to counter, it was immediately effective.
The Brothers York: A Royal Tragedy (2019)
When it came to ridding himself of knotty problems, Richard was making a habit of putting necessity first and law a distant second.
The Brothers York: A Royal Tragedy (2019)
It hardly mattered if the allegations themselves didn’t stand up. As Warwick knew perfectly well, the truth of the matter was irrelevant: it was the story that counted.
The Brothers York: A Royal Tragedy (2019)
Arriving at Reading in mid-September, braced for the days of tactful persuasion that later ahead, they were unprepared for the bombshell Edward now dropped. He was in fact already married.
The Brothers York: A Royal Tragedy (2019)
If such behavior on the part of the Yorkist establishment was shocking, it wasn’t unexpected. It was a twisted manifestation of Edward’s philosophy of ‘family first’, which maintained that power should be concentrated in the hands of the ‘king’s blood’.
The Brothers York: A Royal Tragedy (2019)
Richard’s insistence on the death penalty for his opponents was the kind of move made all too often in the last few decades: seeking legal endorsement for what was essentially a political settling of scores.
The Brothers York: A Royal Tragedy (2019)
Their ways of thinking are traced, too, through the books and political tracts that people read or absorbed second hand as the site paths through these crisis-ridden years, clutching hold of ideas and ideals that, all too often, evaporated on their first contact with reality.
The Brothers York: A Royal Tragedy (2019)
Making for the king’s throne, empty under its cloth of estate, York laid a hand on it ‘like a man taking possession’ and stated flat leave that he had come to challenge his right”: to claim the crown of England. He was met, not with a ringing acclamation, but with a sea of faces frozen with shock.
The Brothers York: A Royal Tragedy (2019)
Adversity seemed to bring out the best in Edward, and his natural instinct for breaking through barriers of social rank to form intense bonds with the men around him. The crisis he faced seemed to absorb those obsessive drives that in quieter, more aimless times found released in his bingeing and womanizing.
The Brothers York: A Royal Tragedy (2019)