The real Sunne in Splendour, not my book

I am sorry for the silence, but I am still struggling with deadlines that are not only in competition, they are racing at each other like two runaway trains….and guess who is tied to the train tracks?
Anyway, on February 27, 1461, London opened its gate to the Yorkists, having already refused to give entry to Marguerite d’Anjou and her army. Edward, then still two months from his 19th birthday, won the city that day, as much with his smile as with the sword bloodied at the battle of Mortimer’s Cross. As I had Marguerite later thinking, as she waited for word of the battle at Towton: She knew now that she’d blundered in yielding London so easily to Edward of York. Her face grew warm every time she thought of the tumultuous welcome he’d been given, for all the world as if he’d just liberated Jerusalem from the infidels. Trust Londoners to confuse the entry into London of a nineteen-year-old rakehell with the Second Coming of the Lord Christ.
And for Edward’s entry into the city, here are a few brief passages from Sunne, with omissions due to length, pages 63-64
* * *
The volume of noise was increasing; she’d not have thought it possible. The shouts were audible now, shouts of “York” and “Warwick.” But overriding all, one name, again and again, a hoarse chant that sent shivers of emotion up Cecily’s spine…Edward! Edward! Until the entire city echoed with the sound, with the name of her son.
(omission)
Cecily swiftly bent down, lifted Anne up so that the child could see. As she did, another burst of cheering rocked the churchyard, eclipsing all that had gone before, and she knew even as she straightened up that her son had ridden through the gateway.
He was astride a magnificent pale-white stallion with a silvery tail that trailed almost to the ground, and he seemed to be enveloped in light, with the sun directly over his head, gilding his armor to silver, tawny hair to gold.
“Oh, Ma Mere!” Margaret gasped, in a voice that was strangely uncertain, unexpectedly awed. “He does look like a king!”
“Yes, he does,” Cecily said softly, forgetting that she had to shout to make herself heard. “He does, indeed.”
(omission)
Cecily came forward as he dismounted. She held out her hand and he brought it to his mouth, said “Madame,” with flawless formality. And then he laughed, and she found herself enfolded within a boyish, exuberant embrace, from which she emerged bruised and breathless. He turned then to Margaret, catching her as she flung her arms around his neck and swinging her up off the ground in a swirl of silk. As an exercise in crowd-pleasing, it was masterful; the level of noise reached physically painful proportions.
Cecily clutched at her composure, smiled at her son. “Never have I seen such a welcome, Edward…never in my lifetime!”
“Welcome, Ma Mere?” he echoed and kissed her lightly on both cheeks so that his voice reached her ear alone. “I rather thought it to be a coronation.”
* * *
Because of the drama and controversy that continues to swirl around his youngest brother, Richard, Edward is sometimes overlooked, both by historians and the reading public. But his own story was no less remarkable than Richard’s. When his father and uncle and brother died at Wakefield, the House of York seemed doomed. Yet in just three months, Edward turned fate on its end, proving himself to be a superb politician and an even better soldier. At Mortimer’s Cross, he forestalled a panic when his men saw three suns in the sky before the battle (what we now know was a parhelion), crying out that the triple suns denoted the Holy Trinity and meant victory would go to York. Fast thinking for a teenager. He seduced the Londoners with his charm, and a month later, defeated the Lancastrian army in a raging snowstorm that would be one of the bloodiest battles ever fought on English soil If he lost his crown through lack of care, he would be the first king ever to win it back. And he was also the only English king who’d dared to marry for love (okay, maybe lust). His story had everything any historical novelist could hope for, even a tragic death that would doom his House. I called my novel The Sunne in Splendour, using Edward’s cognizance rather than Richard’s, because I saw Richard as always in his brother’s shadow. Yet ironically, history (and Tudor propaganda) has reversed their roles.
I will probably be on Facebook only randomly for a while as I try to get off the tracks before those trains collide. So I’ll close with a Richard III joke that I heard on Mediev-l, of all places. It now seems likely that Leicester will be Richard’s final resting place, not York. When his newly liberated spirit was asked where he’d have preferred to be buried, he said, “Actually, I was hoping for Stratford-on-Avon so I could get my hands on that dratted Shakespeare.”