October 2nd in history

I feel like such a stranger here these days, but my body continues to thrive at self-sabotage and I have not been well enough to spend much time at the computer. What also continues is the unending flood of traumatic news, with people suffering terribly in Puerto Rico, still coping with post-hurricane misery in Houston and Florida, and now grieving and horror from yet another mass shooting. Like so many of us, I feel that words seem hollow and inadequate when faced with tragedies like this. There seems to be so little we can do to help alleviate the pain.
Here is an earlier post of mine from several years ago; thank heaven for the option of cutting and pasting! On October 2nd, 1187, Jerusalem yielded to Saladin, an event that would trigger the Third Crusade. Balian d’Ibelin was the savior of the city—the only thing that Kingdom of Heaven got right—persuading Saladin to accept its surrender rather than taking it by storm, thus sparing it the bloodbath that occurred when the men of the First Crusade captured it in 1099. Balian is the major character in The Land Beyond the Sea, although many others will have ample time on center stage, as this is an ensemble cast book.
On October 2nd, 1452, the future Richard III was born at Fotheringhay Castle, the youngest son of the Duke of York and Cecily Neville. And also on October 2nd in 1470, Edward IV and Richard were forced to flee England when John Neville switched sides, declaring his loyalty to his brother, the Earl of Warwick. It had to be a great shock for Edward, going from King of England to fugitive in one dizzying turn of Fortune’s Wheel. And for his young brother Richard, it must have added insult to injury that this day of such desperation was his eighteenth birthday. As they sought refuge in Burgundy, few in England expected them to return. But it was always dangerous to underestimate Edward of York, who was at his best in adversity. He would defy all odds by coming back to reclaim his crown, and Richard would be at his side through it all, sharing betrayal, exile, and then the battles that would restore the House of York to power…..thus making it possible five plus centuries later for me to escape the practice of law by writing The Sunne in Splendour!