Empires and Kingdoms - The English Slave

Captain John Smith, while fighting for the Holy Roman Empire against the Ottoman Turks, is sorely wounded and left for dead on the battlefield in Wallachia in southeastern Europe. Based on personal memoirs, descriptive letters, and contemporary histories, The English Slave tells how-after his battered body was retrieved and revived-the recovering Captain was sold into slavery at Axiopolis, an Ottoman border town on the lower Danube River. The Grand Vizier of the Ottoman Empire, Yemisci Hasan Pasha, purchases the well-dressed officer. He sends Smith in chains to Stamboul to the Grand Vizier’s bride-to-be, a young widow named Aisha. In The English Slave, author and storyteller David Eugene Andrews solves a four hundred year-old mystery-the true identity of that beautiful Turkish noblewoman. Aisha, Sister of the Sultan, received Captain John Smith as a slave in late 1602. Speaking to him in Italian, a language the Smith also knows, she quickly learns Capitano John Smith is no ordinary slave.The English Slave, the first book in the Empire and Kingdoms historical fiction series, transpires during the late renaissance reigns of Queen Elizabeth of England, Henry the Great of France, and King Philip II of Spain. In the summer of 1596, John Smith’s childhood friend, Robert Bertie, joins the massive English and Dutch fleet sailing to southern Spain. Sir Walter Raleigh leads the memorable sea attack on four large Spanish Apostles protecting their West Indies fleet anchored in the Bay of Cadiz in southern Spain.Later, in Paris, John Smith meets David Hume of Godscroft, who gives the young English lad from Louth in Lincolnshire, letters of introduction to the court of King James VI of Scotland, so that John can become a courtier.