The Reluctant King

Cesare Greyfell, a brilliant student in the Anselem Monastery reluctantly accedes to the Dredgemarsh throne of his father, King Philip. He has promised his dying father that he will be guided by Chancellor Demetrius Tancredi until he reaches his twenty first birthday. Instead of ruling with the guidance of Tancredi, he simply allows Tancredi to take over. By so doing, he has put his own life in jeopardy, loses his kingdom in a palace coup and the the one person he loves, the beautiful Lucretia Beaufort.
Sick and severely wounded he finds refuge back in the monastery of Anselem where he realises that it was his own indifference and neglect of his sacred duties that caused his downfall, the loss of Dredgemarsh and Lucretia.
Tancredi, one time chancellor to Cesare, is now the brutal dictator who rules Dredgemarsh with the assistance of an occupying army from Brooderelund, a neighbouring hostile country.
With help from the most unlikely quarter Cesare sets out to reclaim his inheritance and maybe even Lucretia, but the odds are against him in this strange tale of Dredgemarsh that has been described by one reader as Gothic Dickens.