JANUARY 1477

We mourn for her, but George has barely buried her, barely blown out the candles, before he comes strutting back to court, full of plans for a new wife, and this time he is aiming high. Charles of Burgundy, the husband of our Margaret of York, has died in battle and his daughter Mary is a duchess and heiress of one of the wealthiest duchies in Christendom.

Margaret, always a Yorkist, and fatally blind to the faults of her family, suggests that her brother George, so fortunately free, should marry her stepdaughter—thereby consulting the needs of her York brother more than her Burgundy ward; or so I think. George, of course, is at once on fire with ambition. He announces to Edward that he will take either the Duchess of Burgundy or the Princess of Scotland.

“Impossible,” Edward says. “He is faithless enough when he has a duke’s income paid by me. If he were as rich as a prince with an independent fortune, none of us would be safe. Think of the trouble he would cause for us in Scotland! Dear God, think of him bullying our sister Margaret in Burgundy! She’s only just widowed, her stepdaughter newly orphaned. I would as willingly send a wolf to the two of them as George.”