In 1460, during the War of the Roses, the Lancastrians and Yorkists are busy chopping each other into little pieces and, during time out, amusing themselves with a game called "footie", which involves kicking an inflated bladder around a field. Into this unlikely idyll walks a bunch of tourists from the East who have come to search for a missing Kinsman. In no time at all, they are horrified by the weather and confused by a series of appalling European idiosyncrasies (in particular, the fact that the Emperor of the Romans lives in Germany and the Christina High Priest in Rome). Julian Rathbone's follow-up to the bestselling The Last English King is a hugely enjoyanle amble into a most gruesome period of history THE TIMES