A WRITER with roots in Worcester who made her name with her bestselling historical novels and who was a staunch defender of Richard III has died.

Rosemary Hawley Jarman lived in Orchard Way, Callow End, and made her name with the award-winning bestseller "We Speak No Treason" (published in 1971) about the Plantagenet king, killed at the Battle of Bosworth in 1485.

Mrs Jarman, who was born in Worcester and attended St Mary’s Convent and the Alice Ottley School, died aged 79 in Pembrokeshire, Wales, on March 17.

Ironically, considering she confessed to hating history lessons at school, her early books were historical novels.

Other books included The King's Grey Mare which was about Elizabeth Woodville, the wife of Edward IV, and Crown In Candlelight, the story of Katherine of Valois, daughter of the mad king of France and her love for England's Henry V.

She was a member of the Richard III Society and a staunch defender of the king's reputation more than 40 years before his body was found in a Leicester car park.

Her novel showed the human face of a king some say was demonised by Shakespeare as a conniving hunchbacked villain.

Her friend Edna Jones said she lost touch with Mrs Jarman when she moved to Pembrokeshire in Wales in August 1986 with her partner Roy T. Plumb, also a writer whom she married.

Mrs Jones said her closest friend from the 1980s was the successful writer of fantasy novels, Tanith Lee.

Mrs Jones, who met Mrs Jarman when she joined the Worcester Writer's Circle in St John's in the 1960s, said: "Fortunately, she fully recovered from a lung cancer operation and went on to write several successful fantasy novels which I believe did well, especially in the USA.

"Her admiration and affection for this late king had never diminished over the years. Rosemary was totally convinced that Richard III was grossly defamed and her researches proved he was not the monster created by the great Bard.

"His play about Richard III was an excellent and dramatic tale but, factually, she felt it could not be further from the truth. But she also conceded that Shakespeare could never have written a truthful account of Richard without running the risk of the Tudors chopping off his head."

We reported in the Worcester News at the time how her historical novels brought to life a medieval world of 'violence, bawdy humour and death'.

Her first novel, "We Speak No Treason" was hailed as the historical novel of its decade and shot up the bestseller charts.

She wrote the novel purely for herself and her mother with no thought of publication.

It was only by chance, when Rosemary was having it typed up, that it fell into the hands of a publisher who was enthralled by the story and the precise historical facts.

She had written it on a portable typewriter balanced on a chair while she sat on her bed.

It took her over three years of evening work before it was finished as she was working full-time as a typist at the time as part of her job as a clerk at Upton-on-Severn council.

Her success with the novel meant she was able to give up the job.

Rosemary had a belief in reincarnation and inheriting the memories of our ancestors through our blood.

We Speak No Treason was published in the US and translated into Dutch and German.