OUTLINE
I. Before The Beginning -
The book begins where it will end in Covington County,
Alabama, 21st Century
2. 1066 AD
Several days before the Battle of Hastings. The situation in
England as seen through the eyes of the ancestors of the
Howard family of England and America.
3. AD 1150
Eleanor of Aquitaine may have been the first feminist. Raised
in the sunny south of France, she adored her grandfather William, duke
of Aquitaine. A crusader (literally), William long before Eleanor's birth rocked
medieval European
royal circles when he abducted Eleanor's
grandmother, Dangereuse --the love of his life -- from her castle and brought her to live with
him. Incredibly, the daughter of Dangereuse married the son of William's first
former wife (who had beeen packed off to a nunnery) and Eleanor was the result.
Eleanor first married France's King Louis, but
divorced him when he proved no soldier and married Henry Plantagenet, the brash great-grandson of William The Conqueror.
With such a background, should not Eleanor have been exepected to do
things like lead her own band of "Amazons" to the Holy Land on crusade,
attired in cherry-red boots and white gowns? While there she captured
the heart of the enemy and had to be forcibly taken back to France. In
Aquitaine, she set up an official "court of love" to judge emotional
transgressions of young knights and wrote the world's first "how to" manual for men desiring to please women. When her own marriage
was threatened by the "Fair Rosamund", Eleanor took "steps", the
degree of which historians debate. They all agree she kept her
husband's heart, however. They also agree she was an excellent mother
and grandmother, crossing the Alps in her 80s to transport her Spanish
granddaughter to become the bride of the king of France. As king of
England, Henry left a good record, but it was as parents that Henry
and Eleanor shone. Their children included Richard The Lion-Hearted
and "bad" Prince John. Their descendants include all the thousands of
characters in this book and millions of Americans.
4. 1299 AD -The Woman Loved by John of Gaunt
John of Gaunt, son of Edward III and a descendant of William
The Conqueror, marries appropriate royal brides for his first
two marriages but loves only one woman, Katherine Roet, sister-in-law
of Geoffrey Chaucer. When John and Katherine finally get the chance
to wed, in his middle years, the children of their illicit love are
legitimized and become ancestors of a vast number of notable figures
in English and early American history, including Anne Boleyn, Henry
VIII, George Washington, etc.
5. 1464 AD - A Kingdom For His Love
The love story of Elizabeth Woodville and England's King
Edward IV, a descendant of John of Gaunt and of William the Conqueror and of the families such as the Howards who have
intermarried with the Normans. History is made by their
secret marriage for it is the first time an English king has
married a subject. Their grandson Henry VIII will also make
history with his marriages. Katherine's fair beauty is so
renowned that her granddaughters' stories will each be told,
some in this book and others in later books.
6. 1412 ENGLAND'S SWEETHEART PRINCSS - Never To Marry a King Again
Young, beautiful Mary Tudor is loved by the English as their
"Tudor Rose" because her father Henry VII ended the Wars of the
Roses by merging the houses of York and Lancaster after defeating
Richard III. (She is granddaughter of Katherine Woodville, above). The darling
of the English court, Mary is betrothed at an early age to Charles V,
Holy Roman Emperor. However, she loves fiercely the son of her
father's slain armor bearer, Charles Brandon. Brandon is a womanizing
swashbuckler, several times married and divorced. She could never
marry him. Never, that is, until the engagement with Charles V is
broken off by her brother, Henry VIII. Will she marry Charles or will
she marry as her brother desires the aging Louis XII of France? Her
love and stubbornness is pitted against the master political strategists
of the age. Relatives of Brandon and the princess who figure in the
story include the Grey grandchildren of Elizabeth Woodville's first
marriage and Anne Boleyn, granddaughter of one of the most powerful
of Henry VIII's subjects, Sir Thomas Howard, 2nd duke of Norfolk.
7. 1522 For Love of Harry
The story of Anne Boleyn and her littleknown only love, Hrry Percy, earl of Northumberland. Henry VIII is bored, tiring of a
long line of empty-headed mistresses. He desperately wants a
legitimate male heir to the throne. When Anne Boleyn returns from
eight years as a lady-in-waiting to the French queen, Henry is
enamored of her. Anne has eyes only for one man, however, young
Harry Percy, heir to the earldom of Northumberland, most powerful in
England. Anne's family wants her to marry her cousin James Butler,
an heir to her powerful and wealthy grandfather Sir James Butler, Irish
earl of Ormond. She plays a dangerous game, trading on a king's lust
to get her where she wants to be. The world knows the fate of her
body. What happened to her heart is a little known story. What
happened to the descendants of the dozens of families with whom both
she and her husband and her king were related is a completely
unknown story. Direct descendants of the brothers, sisters and cousins
introduced in this chapter 71 years after the deaths of Anne and Harry
founded a new nation in America:
*Sir George Percy, member of the Virginia Company, founder of
Jamestown, governor of Virginia.
*Sir Samuel Argall, member of the Virginia Company and governor
of Virginia.
*Sir Thomas West, Lord De La Warr, member of the Virginia
Company and governor of Virginia.
*Sir Francis Wyatt, governor of Virginia
*Sir William Berkeley, governor of Virginia
*Sir Thomas Arundel, baron of Wardour, knight of the Holy Roman
Empire, co-sponsor of numerous exploratory voyages, member of the
Virginia Company, father- in-law of Lord Baltimore and the man who
converted his father to Catholicism.
8. 1541
Six years after Henry VIII had Anne Boleyn executed, he is a
shell of his former being, a prisoner of gout, a haunted man. He has a
sickly son by the woman he courted while married to Anne, Jane
Seymour. He has a new wife whom he complains is a "fat cow", Anne
of Cleves. Suddenly, he meets young Catherine Howard, on first glance
the spitting image of the ghost who haunts him, Anne Boleyn.
Catherine, first cousin to the woman he loved yet beheaded, has the
same dark eyes and black hair, the same saucy walk. Chasing a
phantom love, Henry weds Catherine but quickly becomes
disillusioned. Catherine is not the spirited Anne. Perhaps because of her
youth, 16, or her upbringing, she stupidly flaunts the adolation of younger men,
bringing her downfall.
14. George
Percy & Jamestown
20. Elizabeth Few
(more to come)
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