Darnley

George Payne Rainsford James

A stranger rides across the Kentish countryside when his attention is called to a cottage where violence is being done to an elderly couple. The knight, for such he appears to be, rushes to their aid. Soon after, the strange and prophetic Sir Cesar appears on the scene and foretells of danger ahead. We follow this knight as he encounters an evil landowner; the good and faithful Longpole, son of the elderly couple; the beneficent Duke of Buckingham--or is he a traitor?; and the coquettish Lady Katrine. He is reunited with his kindly but naif old tutor and a childhood companion, now grown into the beautiful Lady Constance. How will each help or hinder him in obtaining his goal of an audience with King Henry VIII and gaining back his ancestral home for his disgraced father and himself? A tale spanning the courts of Henry VIII of England and Francis I of France, the climax comes at the famous meeting between the two monarchs on 'the Field of the Cloth of Gold'.( Lynne Thompson) (18 hr 33 min)