The New King's Brother: The medieval saga continues

This is another of Martin Archer's exciting stories from the early days as Britain began to become the world's greatest military and commercial power.

It is the summer of 1336. Ten years earlier in 1326 Queen Isabela's supporters defeated Edward II and his lover Hugh Despenser and put her young son, Edward III, on the throne with the Queen as the boy's regent and her lover, Mortimer, as England's chancellor and de facto king. Mortimer began seizing land for himself and his family and this triggered another round of fighting that resulted in the capture and execution of Mortimer and the now-teenage Edward III becoming king in fact as well as in name. Now young Edward III is on the throne and his younger brother, John, out of the way permanently for the same reason his father had held John in the Tower and put a price on the heads of Edward III and his mother - so the nobles and churchmen who opposed him would have no alternative heir to rally around.

In the early summer of 1336 and totally separately from the question of who should sit on England's throne the Company of Archer's shipping post in London was raided and looted by the protection gang of the Bishop of Lincoln. The young bishop wanted the post's coins to buy an even higher position in Rome. At first the Company of Archers only acted to recover its lost coins and exact a great and bloody revenge for its losses. But then a startling revelation caused the Company to be drawn into the dispute over who should be on England's throne.

This is the exciting and action-packed story about what really happened during the early years of Britain's rise to greatness and why some of the men of today's royal family periodically have red hair. It is based on the Company's parchment records that were found in a chest buried under the rubble in the basement of the Bodleian Library. This is another of Martin Archer's exciting stories from the early days as Britain began to become the world's greatest military and commercial power.