Chapter TwelveSt. Annes in the Fylde, district of Lancashire
“I am about to do what no woman has ever done in the history of England—I am going into battle for the crown that is rightfully mine,” Topaz wrote in her diary that morn.
Refusing to give in to weariness, she returned to the cliff-top as the sun finally set. Her horse stumbled once again on the unsure footing of long-abandoned trails. This glorious clear day finally yielded in a blood-red haze to darkness. Her brow furrowed as she squinted out to sea but it was not the setting sun, in its last dying throes, to the west that troubled her. “Where are they? Why are they not here yet?” she mumbled, stomping her foot in frustration, rooted to this desolate spot for three days now.
When plotting around the table with Thomas More, sa
