The Pretender’s Wife

by Alison Weir

First published 2027

Amazon

2.5(5)

Lady Catherine Gordon arrives at the Scottish court to marry the claimant recognised by James IV as Richard, Duke of York, one of the princes believed lost in the Tower. To Henry VII he is Perkin Warbeck, a pretender whose attempts to invade England threaten the Tudor settlement. Catherine follows her husband’s cause from courtly splendour to defeat, forced to decide what loyalty means when love, identity and political survival rest on a contested name.

Catherine’s marriage places her inside one of the most persistent dynastic challenges to Henry VII. James IV’s recognition gives Warbeck status that England refuses to grant him, while Catherine must decide what loyalty means once the claimant’s political fortunes collapse. Her survival after his defeat shows how royal women could remain valuable even when the cause attached to them had been destroyed.