Most readers meet Richard Neville at the end. The Kingmaker's Spy meets him at the beginning, and introduces the woman who was already there.

I recently heard someone describe Richard Neville, Earl of Warwick, as "just a schemer." Nothing else. Just a schemer. He would turn in his grave if he still had one. Henry VIII destroyed that too. Contemporary sources tell a different story. Jean de Wavrin, who actually lived in the same period, wrote of a man who was generous, who was loved by the common people, whose household hospitality was legendary. The chroniclers record that "the Earl of Warwick was very generous to

Richard Neville was a hero in his own time. He was very popular, a strategist, a plotter, a winner, and a loser, but he never gave up. He was Warwick, the Kingmaker. I wanted to write about him briefly as I have based my hero on him. Warwick was born to one of the most powerful families in England at the time, the Nevilles. He "inherited" his title, Earl of Warwick, from his wedding to Anne Beauchamp in 1449. Warwick's marriage made him even more powerful as it allied him wit