The Pretender
In 1483, with the death of King Edward IV, rumors of royal conflict and Richard III killing his nephews make their way to ten-year-old John Collan’s idyllic, common life on his father’s farm. A mysterious man appears at the farm, and John is taken to Oxford to be educated, compliments of a rich nobleman. He is told that he is royalty, the son of the Duke of Clarence, hidden with the Collan family and is now to be prepared for the throne of England. Under the care of different guardians and bearing different names – Lambert, Simnel, Edward VI – John is hidden in various places and educated in Oxford, Flanders, Ireland, and London. Throughout his adventures, the question of his true identity troubles him as others use him as a pawn for their own agenda. While in Ireland with the Earl of Kildare, he falls in love with the Earl’s daughter Joan. Joan is snarky and mocking of him. A strange kind of love develops between them. She becomes his life’s love.
Harkin has fictionalized the unknown life of a pretender, Lambert Simnel, and evolved his identity from John Collan to Edward VI to John Crossey through a period of much intrigue and conspiracies to unseat the reigning Tudor King Henry VII, then down a road of revenge. Engaging turns of phrase and humor, sometimes bawdy, are peppered throughout: the Earl’s daughters seem to him “all mad as weasels in a bucket,” and he feels like “a beetle, wriggling on his back” at his first entrance into a royal palace. Harkin’s language places the reader firmly in 15th-century England with the flavor of archaic English – many words authentic Middle English, and some possibly contrived words that feel faithful to the period, but easily understood by context. This perfectly paced novel is propelled by adventure and escapades and immensely delightful characters.
