Authors who opt to write prefaces for their books always seem to take great time and care on their manufacture, possibly in a hope to exceed all other prefaces and introductions that have gone before them… not that, ultimately, much note is taken of them anyway. I don’t really have to write a preface, and I’m fairly sure that the author William Hutton was much in error when he said (as quoted in the recent reprint of his The Battle of Bosworth Field book) “that if an author wished his book to succeed, he should never send it into the world without a Preface, for the Preface was often the only thing in a book which was read” - I actually theorise the reverse, and that no one would really miss it if I left the preface of this novel out, but I feel that it is necessary to enlighten the interested reader with a few points concerning my writing of this piece.

I am not a member of “The Richard III Society“, and am, admittedly, a huge fan of Henry VII, Richard’s nemesis - why else would I choose to write a novel about him? - however, I am not a hater of Richard; on the contrary, I find him an interesting and much misunderstood character, though I am certain that he did commit many wrongs, and, whatever his reasons were for committing these crimes, he still must be held accountable for them. I have taken liberties with all of the characters in this story, including his, so I can only guess, as well can you, of exactly how close to that past reality I have come with his personality. Don’t tell me I’ve got him wrong because you weren’t there either. ^_~

Though I have tried my best to follow the events of Henry’s life and of the time in general accurately, I have inserted many a scene for which I have no foundation, and have, I must confess, made all the substance for such episodes up; a novel could not be constructed for this era based on the few existing historical resources relating to the events of the time alone, so I have my reasons for doing this. And one must remember that they are reading a work of fiction based on fact, not a biography or a documentary.

The most extreme liberty I admit that I have taken is to have Henry himself face-off with King Richard III at Bosworth Fields; I am fairly certain that Henry would never have gotten anywhere near Richard in this chaotic battle, for so many soldiers would have simply brought him down and slaughtered him. And Henry was too precious a person to risk losing in combat - even if he had wanted to fight, there would have been little chance that his allies would have advised or even allowed it. If they had lost him, then they would have definitely lost all hope of achieving their ends…

One final note is for you, the reader, not to take this novel seriously. I have written this out of a love and reverence for Henry VII - and on a bit of a whim, to be honest - but not as an accurate biography of his life and times. It illustrates him accurately only up to a very small point, and is to the Tudor King what The Three Musketeers, by Alexandre Dumas, was to seventeenth century France - a rather inaccurate, yet entertaining (I hope), interpretation of the time (I drew illustrations for this story with all of the characters portrayed as anthropomorphic lions, for crying out loud - can you get much more loosely-based? o_0).

So please enjoy. Criticise it, if you find the necessity, and go and do research of your own if you want to seek some sort of truth - but don’t let yourself interpret it as canon history; it was never meant to educate, more to entertain, and to give a fresh perspective on our greatest businessman monarch, a man who wasn’t without humour or affection, and who rose to become king against laughable odds. Seriously. ^_^