A Love Cast in Bronze: The Medieval Love Story Behind My Romantic Fantasy Novel

There’s a tomb in Westminster Abbey where a king and queen lie side by side in bronze. Their effigies are gilded and crowned with the initials A and R. It’s as if they were pressed into the metal like a secret between two people who didn’t care if anyone else understood. Richard II commissioned and designed the tomb while he was still alive. And he specified one detail that was unique to an English royal tomb.

Their hands were clasped together.

At some point in history, their hands were broken off. No one knows exactly why or how, but when I read about their relationship, I wondered why the king’s intimate gesture was the first thing to be damaged. Who might have been threatened by her? By her political influence? A story of intrigue and jealousy in the making—perfect for a writer to build off. And I did.

Richard II and Anne of Bohemia’s relationship became the foundation of my characters Queen Adela and King Wymund in The Lion Throne Queen. Richard was fourteen when they married. Anne was fifteen. Their ages, their responsibilities—the weight of marrying at that age provides a backstory that reveals two people who needed each other as they matured. But in 1382, marriage was purely political and designed to create alliances. I imagine how they felt and apply those emotions to Adela and Wymund.

As I researched Richard and Anne, I found it interesting that he paid her family a large sum of money to guarantee the marriage happened. Yet, they hadn’t dated. I don’t know if they’d even met once. Possibly a fated relationship? Some would say yes, and that’s the perspective I took for Adela and Wymund. After all, who doesn’t appreciate when a queen, who’s forced into marriage, outmaneuvers the politicians. She not only found love, but also became the strongest voice in the room.

And he built a private retreat on an island in the Thames for them, Le Neyt. He also had it destroyed, along with Sheen Palace, when she died.

What fascinates me isn’t just their love story, it’s how she used it to manage Richard’s temper, his impulsiveness. Their relationship allowed her to become the person who could reason with him when no one else could. When he raged against the citizens of London and threatened to destroy the city, she knelt at his feet and pleaded for mercy until he relented. She didn’t just calm him down. She physically placed herself between his anger and its potential consequences. She had strength when women were supposed to be silent and docile. And I adore that about her, even though we really don’t know much about her personally. But that’s the strength I sought for Adela. A woman who understood intimacy, and piety, could help shape political decisions.

The more I read about them, the more I wondered what those private conversations must have unfolded. Did she really plead on her knees or was it calm, beside a roaring fire, talking? Did she kneel out of subordination, or understanding the world built on male power? I imagine Anne as strategic, not submissive. I see her as a woman who knew humility was an effective weapon against rage, unlike Richard’s council who wanted to argue with him.

The records tell us she knelt in pleading desperation. But I envision a woman who humbled herself before the king, spoke logically with him, and then stood up as a confident and discerning woman.

I’m not suggesting that in The Lion Throne Queen, Adela is Anne of Bohemia. Not at all. Adela lives in a fantastical world who befriends the fae and faces different political stakes. But the emotional seed is the same: a woman whose love for her king was real, deep, and transformative. And whose world shattered when she lost him. Like Richard and Anne, their love was never supposed to be anything more than a state alliance, but they became the truest relationship either of them ever had.

Here’s a glimpse from the opening chapter, where King Wymund, who had fought braver than most knights was losing a battle against death:

Wymund coughed, a rumble of thunder.

She started towards him, but stopped, listening to the wheezing sound. Oh, my love, not yet.

The bed, made of oak trees from the Luflic Pass for Wymund’s great grandsire, had been carved from four trees. Fierce lions were etched into the red wood posts that contrasted its floral headboard.

She counted every inhale.

His breath gurgled. Gamséo, the ancient sickness that made each breath his watery grave. His dark beard, stained with blood, quivered. Coal-black hair, drenched in sweat, clung to his face. Adela washed the dried crust from his hands and wiped his forehead. The aromatic paste applied to his chest filled her nose—sharp, medicinal, useless. Given his family’s history, hope equaled delusion.

Wymund reached for her hand. “You shouldn’t be soiling your delicate hands. Where are the servants?” His hoarse, dry voice scraped across the words.

“I dismissed them. Their time is better served elsewhere.” She forced a smile, feigning happiness. “Besides, I’m here to look after you.”

“But you are the Queen. My heir.”

“Yes, but I’m also your wife.”

He coughed and blood splattered across her blue trumpet sleeve.

“Now, no more talking. You need rest.” She brushed her hand across his wet hair. “I’m not going anywhere.”

Wymund’s eyes drifted shut, and seconds later the raspy sounds returned.

I wanted to capture the vulnerability I imagined between Richard and Anne, and show Wymund reaching for something. Not his crown or his sword, but for a hand. The seemingly delicate hand of the woman he loved.

And in both stories, what happened after the hand was released is where the real story begins.

If this is the kind of storytelling you want more of, filled with history, mythology, and the love stories no one else is telling, then subscribe to The Fated Edge. I’m just getting started.