The Rose Demon

HISTORICAL NOTE

In 1453 the great Byzantine civilisation was extinguished when the Ottoman Turks broke into Constantinople, killing the Emperor and bringing his empire and what land he ruled firmly under the control of the Ottoman Turks. Despite the help of Venice and the military religious orders such as the Knights Hospitallers, as well as the fighting skills of Western mercenaries, Constantinople ceased to be.

In England such a disaster made little impact as the country was divided between the Houses of York and Lancaster. A bitter civil war raged which, in 1471, culminated in the destruction of the Lancastrian cause, the death of their king, Henry VI, the exile of his queen, Margaret of Anjou, and the execution of most of the Lancastrian commanders. York remained in the ascendant until the Battle of Bosworth in 1485 when Henry Tudor defeated the Yorkist king Richard III. Henry VII’s victory, however, was not complete and, for years afterwards, his reign was plagued by a series of powerful Yorkist pretenders.

In Spain, Aragon and Castile were to be united by the marriage of Ferdinand and Isabella. The successful union of these kingdoms led to the implementation of a much-treasured dream: the removal of the Moors, the capture of their great city of Granada, and the emergence of a Catholic Spain.

In Italy, meanwhile, a Genoese explorer and map-maker, Christopher Columbus, dreamt of sailing across the great Western Ocean to find a safer and more direct route to the Indies. .