The People’s Queen. Vanora Bennett

      

      The People’s Queen

      Vanora Bennett

      

       For my mother

      Table of Contents

       Cover Page

       Title Page

FORTUNE’S WHEEL

PROLOGUE A World Ends

PART ONE Regno I reign

ONE

TWO

THREE

FOUR

FIVE

SIX

SEVEN

       EIGHT

       NINE

       TEN

       ELEVEN

       TWELVE

       THIRTEEN

       FOURTEEN

       FIFTEEN

       SIXTEEN

       SEVENTEEN

       EIGHTEEN

       NINETEEN

       TWENTY

       TWENTY-ONE

       PART TWO Regnavi I used to reign

       TWENTY-TWO

       TWENTY-THREE

       TWENTY-FOUR

       TWENTY-FIVE

       TWENTY-SIX

       TWENTY-SEVEN

       TWENTY-EIGHT

       TWENTY-NINE

       THIRTY

       THIRTY-ONE

       THIRTY-TWO

       THIRTY-THREE

       THIRTY-FOUR

       THIRTY-FIVE

       PART THREE Regnabo? Shall I reign again?

       THIRTY-SIX

       THIRTY-SEVEN

       THIRTY-EIGHT

       THIRTY-NINE

       FORTY

       FORTY-ONE

       EPILOGUE A World Begins

       HISTORICAL NOTE

       Acknowledgements

       About the Author

       Also by Vanora Bennett

       Copyright

       About the Publisher

       FORTUNE’S WHEEL

      The picture on the left shows the capricious goddess Fortune, as she was often displayed in the rose window of medieval English churches, teasing her victims with the hope of lasting wealth and power.

      The greedy, feverish people rising up Fortune’s ever-turning wheel, on the left, are gloating, regnabo, boastful Latin for ‘I shall reign’.

      The person at the top, who has achieved every ambition, crows, regno, or ‘I reign’.

      The terrified people on the right of the wheel, going down, are looking back at their moment of glory, wailing, regnavi, or ‘I used to reign’.

      And the one falling off at the bottom whimpers, sum sine regno; ‘I am without a kingdom’ or ‘I have been left with nothing’.

      The message understood by every congregation – that pride comes before a fall – took on new significance after the Black Death. This devastating outbreak of plague killed off one-third of the