The author is precipitated into past-life regression, experiencing the life of Edward Stafford, future duke of Buckingham, in the time of Henry Tudor.
Edward's story starts when he is 5 years old, in the aftermath of the Buckingham Rebellion, and runs for 14 years, to the end of the Cornish Revolt.
The History is accurate, sometimes in amazing detail - enough to give historians food for thought. It explains Richard III and the removal of the Princes in the Tower, as well as Tudor illegitimacy; it explains the actions of figures like Warwick 'the King Maker', George, duke of Clarence and Henry, duke of Buckingham.
Mysticism includes Edward's inheritance of the Holy Grail, with all its Hallows (including the Sword - shown on the front cover of the book) and Druid Glass. For those interested in such 'relics' there is enough to give the beginning of an explanation of their nature. In fact, there is enough to begin to give a new model of the Universe.
Mysticism goes as far back as Joseph of Arimathea and includes 'the Nine Worthies' and 'Le Morte D'Arthur', as the author tries to investigate the remarkable things that come through his channelling.
The centre of the story is a love affair between Edward and the daughter of a gentlewoman in the household of his guardian. His guardian is Margaret Beaufort, the King's mother, who was responsible for removing the Princes from the Tower and bringing down Richard III. The love affair is in defiance of a marriage contract for which Margaret Beaufort was paid £4,000, a huge sum in the 1490s.
For all the History and Mysticism, the key to Edward (and the key to the book) is emotion: not just his love for his mistress and their daughter, but in his response to a Welsh tour, necessitated by Tudor embezzlement from his estates, and his forced involvement in killing Tudor's detractors.
The author is the owner of a Law practice and he struggles to bring his lawyer’s rationalism to Edward's story. His emotions are also part of the book and bring it to a conclusion. We are asked to join with him in deciding; if the History is provably true, does that make the Mysticism true also?
If the Holy Grail, the Sword, and the Druid Glass are real, then Eternity exists and there are higher dimensions as described in this book. It would mean that the past and the future are real too, and there is more than just the constantly moving ‘Now’ in which our perceptions are so locked up.
What about the correspondences the author finds between those characters around Edward and characters in his own life? If the retired cannon of the Church of England he consults, whose words are recorded in “Edward”, is right then reincarnation is a fact and each of us may share higher bonds, or even higher purposes, of which most of us are completely unaware.
