The Last of the Barons by Edward Bulwer Lytton Baron Lytton

A spring procession winds through medieval England toward Middleham Castle, where villages, monasteries, shrines, forests, and holiday revelry frame a world of courtly travel, religious custom, and political unease. At its head ride Richard of Gloucester and Archbishop George Nevile, whose light banter conceals a mission to reconcile the powerful Earl of Warwick with Edward IV and steady a fractured realm. On the battlements, Warwick broods over his forced retirement, measuring his pride against the loyalty of his vast household until affection, memory, and duty soften him. Around him, the women of the castle give the story its emotional center. His wife tempers his severity with long-married tenderness, while his daughters Isabel and Anne reveal contrasting temperaments shaped by beauty, vulnerability, and dynastic expectation. Anne's secret love for the exiled Prince Edward of Lancaster, confirmed by a remembered token, binds romance to the rival claims of York and Lancaster. Yet Gloucester's presence complicates everything: Isabel distrusts his cold ambition, Anne defends him, and Warwick begins to consider him as a possible husband for his daughter. The novel blends romance, family feeling, and the hard martial honor of the Wars of the Roses, enriched by a legendary tale of cursed war-horses and a darkly enchanted crusading past. This edition has been fully restored with modern typesetting, custom cover design.