Liz Schevtchuk Armstrong first heard the name “Hotspur” at age 12 in Shakespeare’s Henry IV play and it changed her life forever. Scouring libraries in her Midwestern town for information on Hotspur—Sir Harry Percy, a real person considered England’s finest knight circa 1400—she couldn’t find much. But she never forgot Hotspur or the suspicion that perhaps Shakespeare stretched reality a little—or a lot—in portraying him.

After studying journalism in college, Liz embarked on a long career in news at local to national levels, winning awards for investigative-type reporting on government as well as general coverage and feature-writing, and, in briefer editorial stints with non-profits, for public relations. As a reporter in Washington, D.C., she covered the White House, Congress, and Supreme Court, for U.S. and international daily news operations and worked for a time as a stringer for the Toronto Globe and Mail. During a news business downturn, she entered graduate school (continuing part-time as an overnight news editor) and studied medieval history, returning to her childhood interest in Hotspur’s conflict with Henry and exploring it in her quasi-thesis master’s project. That spawned To Remain Vigilant, Book I of the Epic of Hotspur series, which though cast as fiction tells a largely true story.

She now resides in upstate New York with her husband and 3 macaws.

Hotspur

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To Be Worthy in Honor: Book 2

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To Remain Vigilant : Book 1                                           

 As Sir Harry Percy patrols England’s rugged North, even the Scots, his frequent adversaries, admire his audacity and courage. Claiming his ceaseless vigilance means his spurs never cool, they call him Hotspur. Yet when Harry questions royal corruption, Richard II bestows another name: traitor.

Escaping death, Harry joins Duke Henry Bolingbroke, whose fortune Richard stole and who leads a campaign to improve Richard’s governance. Soon, though, Henry, too, acts despotic, ordering executions without fair trials and plotting to seize power directly. Alarmed, Harry exacts a vow from him to not oust Richard. But Henry violates his oath, inciting a mob to force Parliament to make him King Henry IV. Harry boycotts Henry’s coronation but, realizing he serves the nation regardless of who wears the crown, later returns to duty, with Henry’s backing.

Will their reconciliation last? And can Harry’s newfound love with an ex-abbess protect him not only from threats on the borders but those in dark palace corners? Never has his motto, Esperance—Hope—mattered more!

" Liz Sevchuk Armstrong took the Chaucer Historical Fiction First Place Award for To Remain Vigilant, the initial volume in her Hotspur Trilogy, chronicling two of the last kings of the Plantagenet Dynasty of England and the brave knight, Sir Harry Percy, who questioned their claim to be above the law. "Sound familiar?" says Liz observing how the past has deep relevance to our own day and politics.