02 The Tempering

✍ Scribed by Richard Woodman

• Tongue: English
• Weight: 154 KB
• Category: Fiction

✦ Synopsis

The year is 1652.

General George Monck has been through an awful lot since he sat as a prisoner in the Tower of London eight years before.

He had led his men admirably through campaigns in Ireland and Scotland, but still storm clouds surround his future.

Six months ago Monck's life had been put in peril as he underwent the agonies of the spotted-fever.

He had been away from his beloved Anne for many months and had come to London to find whether Ratsford - who had abandoned Anne some four years earlier after robbing her of her life's savings - was alive and still proving to be an obstacle to their proposed marriage or dead.

Now rumours were surfacing that the increasing difficulties with the Dutch were most likely to lead to war, thus creating a further obstacle to Monck's matrimonial intentions.

But the soldier in Monck would never stand down from the call of duty.

His life with Anne will have to wait as Parliament and the Army Council require the general's artillery expertise as naval conflict with the Dutch becomes inevitable.

Will the great general find his sea legs and overcome his greatest challenge yet?