The Last Plantagenets

Book excerpt: THE LAST PLANTAGENTS—A GREAT STORYTELLER’S MOST DAZZLING BESTSELLER Here is Thomas B. Costain’s most magnificent performance, rivaling even THE BLACK ROSE for color and drama. Here are history’s most spectacular Kings and Queens—and a brilliant new probing of the greatest mystery of all time, the death of the Princes in the Tower. “EXCITEMENT...ROMANCE...STRANGER THAN FICTION”—Saturday Review “COLORFUL AND LUSTY”—Christian Science Monitor “WILD, EXTRAVAGANT, BRILLIANT, COURAGEOUS, STIRRING”—San Francisco Examiner “Novelist as well as historian, Mr. Costain is especially interested in personalities and motives and character. He deals throughout with world figures who have kingdoms at stake...Here is an actual record of the heroism of the kings and queens of England and France, their villainies, their weaknesses, their loves and hates...”—Book-of-the-Month-Club News “No man alive writes popular history with greater understanding...what he cares about is the color, drama and pageantry...the personalities, triumphs and disasters...”—New York Times “The familiar Costain ‘touch’ with all its powers...is present here in abundance”—New Haven Register “Happily wedded in author Costain are a scholar’s integrity and the ability to endow history with brilliant colors”—San Francisco Examiner