The Game of Kings
Authors: Dorothy Dunnett
A
CCLAIM FOR
D
orothy
D
unnett’s
LYMOND CHRONICLES
“Dorothy Dunnett is one of the greatest talespinners since Dumas … breathlessly exciting.”
—Cleveland Plain Dealer
“Dorothy Dunnett is a storyteller who could teach Scheherazade a thing or two about suspense, pace and invention.”
—The New York Times
“Dunnett evokes the sixteenth century with an amazing richness of allusion and scholarship, while keeping a firm control on an intricately twisting narrative. She has another more unusual quality … an ability to check her imagination with irony, to mix high romance with wit.”
—Sunday Times
(London)
“A very stylish blend of high romance and high camp. Her hero, the enigmatic Lymond, [is] Byron crossed with Lawrence of Arabia.… He moves in an aura of intrigue, hidden menace and sheer physical daring.”
—Times Literary Supplement
(London)
“First-rate … suspenseful.… Her hero, in his rococo fashion, is as polished and perceptive as Lord Peter Wimsey and as resourceful as James Bond.”
—The New York Times Book Review
“A masterpiece of historical fiction, a pyrotechnic blend of passionate scholarship and high-speed storytelling soaked with the scents and colors and sounds and combustible emotions of 16th-century feudal Scotland.”
—Washington Post Book World
“With shrewd psychological insight and a rare gift of narrative and descriptive power, Dorothy Dunnett reveals the color, wit, lushness … and turbulent intensity of one of Europe’s greatest eras.”
—Raleigh News and Observer
“Splendidly colored scenes … always exciting, dangerous, fascinating.”
—Boston Globe
“Detailed research, baroque imagination, staggering dramatic twists, multilingual literary allusion and scenes that can be very funny.”
—The Times
(London)
“Ingenious and exceptional … its effect brilliant, its pace swift and colorful and its multi-linear plot spirited and absorbing.”
—Boston Herald
The Game of Kings
is jointly dedicated as may
seem fitting to an Englishwoman and a Scot
FOR
A
LASTAIR
M
ACTAVISH
D
UNNETT
AND
D
OROTHY
E
VELINE
M
ILLARD
H
ALLIDAY
F
OREWORD BY
D
orothy
D
unnett
When, a generation ago, I sat down before an old Olivetti typewriter, ran through a sheet of paper, and typed a title,
The Game of Kings
, I had no notion of changing the course of my life. I wished to explore, within several books, the nature and experiences of a classical hero: a gifted leader whose star-crossed career, disturbing, hilarious, dangerous, I could follow in finest detail for ten years. And I wished to set him in the age of the Renaissance.
Francis Crawford of Lymond in reality did not exist, and his family, his enemies and his lovers are merely fictitious. The countries in which he practices his arts, and for whom he fights, are, however, real enough. In pursuit of a personal quest, he finds his way—or is driven—across the known world, from the palaces of the Tudor kings and queens of England to the brilliant court of Henry II and Catherine de Medici in France.
His home, however, is Scotland, where Mary Queen of Scots is a vulnerable child in a country ruled by her mother. It becomes apparent in the course of the story that Lymond, the most articulate and charismatic of men, is vulnerable too, not least because of his feeling for Scotland, and for his estranged family.
The Game of Kings
was my first novel. As Lymond developed in wisdom, so did I. We introduced one another to the world of sixteenth-century Europe, and while he cannot change history, the wars and events which embroil him are real. After the last book of the six had been published, it was hard to accept that nothing more about Francis Crawford could be written, without disturbing the shape and theme of his story. But there was, as it happened, something that could be done: a little manicuring to repair the defects of the original edition as it was rushed out on both sides of the Atlantic. And so here is Lymond returned, in a freshened text which presents him as I first envisaged him, to a different world.
These are some of the Scots who play a part in this story:
R
ICHARD
C
RAWFORD
, third Baron Culter of Midculter Castle, Lanarkshire
S
YBILLA
, the Dowager Lady Culter, his mother
M
ARIOTTA
, his wife
F
RANCIS
C
RAWFORD OF
L
YMOND
, Master of Culter, his brother
S
IR
W
ALTER
S
COTT OF
B
UCCLEUCH
, a Border landowner
J
ANET
B
EATON
, his wife
W
ILL
S
COTT OF
K
INCURD
, younger of Buccleuch, his heir
S
IR
A
NDREW
H
UNTER OF
B
ALLAGGAN
C
ATHERINE
, his mother
A
GNES
, Lady Herries, a young heiress
J
OHN
, Master of Maxwell, brother of Robert, sixth Lord Maxwell
T
HOMAS
E
RSKINE
, Commendator of Dryburgh Abbey and Master of Erskine
L
ADY
J
ANET
F
LEMING
, widow, of Boghall Castle, the Queen’s aunt and governess
L
ADY
C
HRISTIAN
S
TEWART
, her godddaughter
M
ARGARET
G
RAHAM
, her widowed daughter
A
RCHIBALD
D
OUGLAS
, sixth Earl of Angus, ex-husband of King James IV’s widow
S
IR
G
EORGE
D
OUGLAS
, his brother
S
IR
J
AMES
D
OUGLAS OF
D
RUMLANRIG
, his brother-in-law and uncle of Maxwell
J
OHNNIE
B
ULLO
, a gypsy
T
URKEY
M
ATTHEW
, a mercenary soldier
Court:
M
ARY OF
G
UISE
, widow of King James V and Dowager Queen of Scotland
M
ARY
Q
UEEN OF
S
COTS
, her daughter, aged four
J
AMES
H
AMILTON
, second Earl of Arran and Governor of Scotland
H
ENRY
L
AUDER OF
S
T
. G
ERMAINS
, Lord Advocate to the Queen
A
RCHIBALD
C
AMPBELL
, fourth Earl of Argyll, Lord Justice-General
And these, by birth or adoption, are the English:
E
DWARD
, Duke of Somerset, Earl of Hertford, Viscount Beauchamp, Lord Seymour; Lord Protector of England and Governor of his nephew, King Edward VI, aged nine
The Lords Warden:
S
IR
W
ILLIAM
G
REY
, thirteenth Baron Grey de Wilton, Lord Lieutenant of the North Parts for England
T
HOMAS
W
HARTON
, first Baron Wharton, captain of Carlisle and Warden of the Western Marches
S
IR
R
OBERT
B
OWES
, Lord Warden of the East and Middle Marches
M
ATTHEW
S
TEWART
, Earl of Lennox and Lord Darnley, Franco-Scot turned English
L
ADY
M
ARGARET
D
OUGLAS
, his wife, and daughter of the Earl of Angus
Former officers of the Royal Household:
J
ONATHAN
C
ROUCH
, prisoner of war
G
IDEON
S
OMERVILLE OF
F
LAW
V
ALLEYS
, Hexham
K
ATE
, his wife
P
HILIPPA
, his daughter
S
AMUEL
H
ARVEY
Minor commanders and officers:
E
DWARD
D
UDLEY
, captain of the King’s castle of Hume in Scotland
A
NDREW
D
UDLEY
, captain of Broughty Fort on the River Tay in Scotland
T
HOMAS
W
YNDHAM
, captain of the English fleet on the River Tay
S
IR
J
OHN
L
UTTRELL
, captain of the King’s fortress of St. Colme’s Inch on the River Forth in Scotland
S
IR
R
ALPH
B
ULLMER
, captain of the King’s castle of Roxburgh in Scotland
S
IR
T
HOMAS
P
ALMER
, soldier and engineer
Opening Gambit: Threat to a Castle
Part One
THE PLAY FOR JONATHAN CROUCH
Part Two
THE PLAY FOR GIDEON SOMERVILLE
Part Three
THE PLAY FOR SAMUEL HARVEY
Part Four
THE END GAME
The Lymond Chronicles by Dorothy Dunnett
