Her eyes shone in the firelight. “On an academic level, honoured and excited. If the provenance we have for these rings is correct, then we have jewellery that once belonged to Anne of Cleves and Catherine Howard. As an historian who specialises in the symbolism of jewellery, this is overwhelming. The rings were made as a pair and prove the two queens were friends. It’s the discovery of a career, of a lifetime.”
“And on a personal level?”
Perdita sipped her coffee, considering her answer before she spoke. The events of the past few weeks had been extraordinary but then, so had everything since her grandmother had died and they had received their inheritance. What did the two rings mean to her?
“They unnerve me,” she said, at last.
“Why?”
“The fact we have them in our possession proves that they exist, they are discussed in many of the documents we have discovered, so they prove our version of history has some weight. MI1 is still out there watching us, although they seem to be in a protective role at present, which I can’t quite understand, and Randolph Connors wants us dead so his granddaughters can inherit Mary’s — our — estate. The rings are a tangible part of that, so yes, having them in our possession unnerves me.”
“Do you regret finding them?”
“No, but I’m frustrated that we still don’t know how they prove the truth,” she replied. “I’ve been examining them for weeks and apart from the fact they’re fascinating, there doesn’t seem to be any way to link them. There are no secret codes inscribed that only make sense if the rings are somehow slotted together or images that might have led us to another clue. I even climbed up to take a closer look at the frieze where the rings are depicted as joined together to see if I’d missed something but the carving shows them next to each other — they’re not joined.”
“What will you do?” asked Alistair.
“Keep looking,” she replied. “Inspiration might strike when I’m least expecting it.”
“And the Lady Pamela letters?”
“Jenny and Deborah are dividing up the compiling of the other letters between their teams. Izabel and Eveie will be overseeing the translation of the remainder. The final letter is dated 12 December 1662, so there are probably more revelations to come but it’ll take us a bit longer to discover them.”
“What do you intend to do next?” he asked.
“Find the locket,” she replied without hesitation. “We must complete the puzzle, Alistair.”
“How?”
“I don’t know yet,” she admitted. “We’ve been lucky so far because Mary had already facilitated most of the research for us — she’d discovered the Catherine Howard codex and completed the majority of the groundwork. All Kit and I did was fill in the gaps…”
“You did more than that,” spluttered Alistair, but Perdita continued undeterred.
“And she gave us a huge start with the Lady Pamela letters and the first draft of her other unpublished manuscript. I know she’d only translated a few but she’d realised they were important. It was as though she kept pointing us in the right direction. Now that we’ve used all her research and followed all her clues we’re on our own.”
“Your discoveries have been incredible, Perdita, please don’t underestimate what you’ve achieved. You’ve revealed the truth about Catherine Howard and you’ve unravelled the tangled web around Mary, Queen of Scots’s execution. Write them up, my dear, there may come a day when you’re able to publish your findings.”
“When might that be?” she laughed. “You’ve been responsible for saving our lives — wouldn’t publishing our findings would put them at risk again?”
Alistair grinned. “Times change, Perdita,” he said. “Times change.”
“What are you plotting?” asked Kit, sliding into the seat beside Perdita.
“Nothing,” she replied and smiled when he raised his eyebrows in disbelief.
Piper wandered over and threw a log into the roaring flames.
“Have you discovered anything more about how Mum and Granny died?” she asked.
Perdita froze. She had been resisting asking — there was something in her that did not want to believe Haberfield’s story.
“I’m still waiting for official confirmation but, off the record, I spoke to the Home Secretary and he corroborated Haberfield’s version of events,” Alastair said.
Perdita and Piper stared at each other.
“Mum wasn’t murdered, it was an accident, and their intention had never been to kill Granny either?” confirmed Perdita.
“Correct. They also believe that your grandmother was murdered by someone in the pay of Randolph Connors,” he continued.
“Her nephew?” gasped Piper, outraged. “How could he?”
“Connors is an unpleasant man. At present, he has returned to his vast tea plantation in Darjeeling. He is no doubt plotting his next move but until we have new information on his plans, we must try not to let his brooding presence mar our lives. As for MI1, they are once again spying on academics and removing documents they believe to be suspicious from archives around the world — that is, of course, unless Jerusalem gets there first.”
Perdita looked around the room. All eyes were on Alistair and glancing at him, she realised he thrived on the mysteries and adventures as much as she was beginning to. I wonder if Granny was the same? she pondered.
“Why did the Watchers help us, Dad?” asked Kit, breaking into her thoughts. “Wouldn’t it have made their lives easier if Connors had murdered us? It would have saved them the trouble of putting us all on The White List.”
“Since Inigo Westbury has been sacked, MI1 has returned to its former remit: to retain historical ‘truth’ by suppressing documents, by halting publication of material that is thought to be subversive or could invite too many academic questions. It does not search, it watches, it blocks and it sends the occasional threat. Stephen Haberfield is an honest man. If it wasn’t for fact we held different beliefs as far as what we perceive to be is the correct way to deal with the past, we could have been friends,” said Alistair. “However, I trust he will do a good job. He had no wish to see the four of you killed by a despot like Connors, hence the reason we joined forces. He has the power to scramble soldiers from anywhere in the country. He could save you when I couldn’t. When I approached him, he agreed without hesitation.”
“It still doesn’t add up, Dad,” said Kit.
“People often behave in ways we can’t rationalise,” said Alistair, draining his cup and standing. “Be thankful he did, Kit, or the outcome of your adventure could have been very different.” He smiled at his youngest son and Kit nodded acknowledgment of his words. “Good night all,” said Alistair. “I’ll be upstairs if you need me to scramble a SWAT team.”
They laughed, all calling goodnight as he left. The four of them — Perdita, Piper, Kit and Callum — settled around the fire.
“We have the rings,” said Kit, grinning at Perdita.
“We need the locket,” she replied.
“Do we have any leads?” asked Callum.
“Not yet,” said Piper, “but we’ll find them. Until then, I’m going to work on the mermaid cup — you never know, it might reveal a secret of its own.”
“I’ll have my head in a computer for the next few months doing the upgrade,” said Callum. “I doubt I’ll discover any secrets there. Lots of dust, but no secrets.”
“What about you, Kit? What’s your next move?”
“Business as usual for a while, until we decide on a plan to find the locket.”
“And you, Perds?” asked Piper.
“I’m going back to the dig,” she announced, enjoying the surprise on everyone’s faces. “It’s resuming in a few months and it’ll give me a chance to discuss raising the wreck with Olaf.”
“What?” exclaimed Kit.
“You never said,” laughed Piper.
“Olaf emailed a few days ago, asking if I fancied getting involved again, so I sa
id yes. After all, it’s our land they’re digging on,” she said. “It’ll only be for a month or so, but I’ve also suggested they use our resources while they’re here. Until I’ve worked out our next move, it’ll do me good to have something else to occupy my busy mind.”
An hour later, they wandered up to bed. Piper and Callum climbed the ornately carved staircase and went in separate directions as the landing divided.
“Don’t wait for me, Pipes,” called Perdita and blew her sister a kiss. “There’s something I’ve remembered; I want to check it while I think of it…”
“Of course,” said Piper, giving her a knowing look. “Midnight is a good time to check things. See you in the morning,” and with a smirk, she disappeared.
Perdita paused, looking at the intricately carved wooden relief on the wall. It was the mirror-image of the beautiful stained-glass window above the front doors. Across the top were the words of their family motto: Fide sed cui vide.
“Trust but be careful in whom,” translated Perdita as she had on the first day she had entered Marquess House.
“Who knew it would be so prophetic,” said Kit, who was watching her from the doorway of the Lady Isabel room.
“Not me, when I first saw it last summer,” replied Perdita, waiting a few steps up as Kit crossed the vast entrance hall with its vivid carpet.
“A lot has changed since then,” he said, stopping in front of her.
“Yes,” she replied. “I’m no longer engaged to Warren; you’re not going out with Lydia. We’ve uncovered two huge historical secrets and we know there’s more to come. I suppose it was always going to make a difference coming to live in a place like this — a house full of history, packed with never-ending secrets. Especially when Granny had already paved the way.”
Her eyes travelled around the enormous hall with its carvings, elegant stained-glass windows, priceless paintings and artefacts.
“It’s been an unexpected time,” he agreed. She smiled and turned to leave but he caught her arm. “And us? Are we good?” he asked, his voice unsure. “You know, after everything that’s happened in the past few weeks?”
With Kit standing on the stair below her, their faces were level. Looking into his serious blue eyes, Perdita was overwhelmed with a sudden rush of emotion, fuelled by the thought that they might have lost each other.
“Yes, Kit,” she said, running her finger down his cheek, “we’re good.”
And, very gently, she leaned forward and kissed him.
***
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A NOTE TO THE READER
Dear Reader,
Thank you for taking the time to read The Elizabeth Tudor Conspiracy. I hope you enjoyed joining Perdita as she delved even further into the historical mysteries connected with Marquess House.
Although this is the second book in The Marquess House Trilogy, for me, this was the starting point of my story. Both Elizabeth I and Mary, Queen of Scots have fascinated me since I read the Jean Plaidy books The Young Elizabeth and The Young Mary, Queen of Scots, when I was a child. The idea of two women, cousins, both being queens seemed to capture my imagination and never let go.
As I stated in my note in The Catherine Howard Conspiracy, the final piece of my story came to me while I was researching my family tree: the uncovering of secrets, the what-if? but those strands were the last fragments of the puzzle which were all created to frame the first idea: What if Tudor history was even more complex than we had first imagined? Obviously, I could not mention this in The Catherine Howard Conspiracy because I did not want to spoil the surprise.
It was from my theory concerning Elizabeth and Mary that I worked backwards to see if I could make the idea viable historically. The dates led me to Catherine Howard and my research into her made me realise that with a bit of fiddling about with dates combined with the final layer of the family secrets, which would bring it all together, it could work. My heart really did begin to race. As for the secrets yet to be revealed in book three, which all fell rather easily into place historically, too, it was quite eerie!
Once again, this is a work of fiction, and the conspiracy theory I have built around Elizabeth I is entirely my own creation. However, I have researched this period extensively and as far as it has been possible, I have tried to use verifiable historical fact for the rest of the story. The more seemingly far-fetched suggestions are usually factual and the most prominent are listed below with their references for further reading.
As in The Catherine Howard Conspiracy, I have tried to tell this story through the voices of women, which is why my interpretation of certain characters is rather different from the accepted norm.
The suggestion that Mary, Queen of Scots was first a sickly child named Elizabeth, before a few months later, she was being described as a child who was now thriving and named, Mary, was information I discovered at the very beginning of my research in Antonia Fraser’s, Mary Queen of Scots (London, 1969). The original source material for this information is recorded in The Hamilton Papers that are available to view online at The Hamilton Papers: https://archive.org/details/cu31924091786040.
The information concerning the way the evidence about Darnley’s murder is recorded that exonerates Mary of any involvement is listed in John Guy’s, My Heart is my Own, The Life of Mary Queen of Scots (London, 2009).
The other historical reference that surprised me was the disappearance of Mary’s death warrant as listed in John Guy’s biography Elizabeth, The Forgotten Years. The document that Elizabeth supposedly signed and to which the Lord Chancellor, Sir Thomas Bromley added the Great Seal of England, has vanished and all that remains in the official records are hastily made draft copies that have not been signed by Elizabeth and have no official seal attached. It is the seal that would make them legal and binding.
Elizabeth going into official mourning for six months after the death of the duke of Anjou is in: John Guy, Elizabeth, The Forgotten Years. The poem that is accredited to her and purports to be about Anjou is entitled: On Monsieur’s Departure and can be read here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/On_Monsieur%27s_Departure.
The locket ring containing images of Anne Boleyn is pictured in Plate Section One, Tracey Borman’s, Elizabeth’s Women: The Hidden Story of the Virgin Queen (Vintage, 2009).
The anomalies concerning Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester and his wife Lettice Knollys have come from Simon Adams, (Editor), Household Accounts and Disbursement of Books of Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester, 1558-1561, 1584-1586 (London, 1995). Although there is now a biography of Lettice Knollys, it was unavailable while I was researching this novel and all the information I have gleaned about Lettice has come from the household accounts and from other people’s biographies.
Penelope Devereux’s list of codenames can be found in the Cecil Papers, Volume 3, at: www.british-history.ac.uk. There are also more details in Sally Varlow’s, The Lady Penelope (London, 2007) (Listed as ‘Rialta affair’ in the index).
Arbella Stuart did inherit Mary, Queen of Scots’s Book of Hours: Sarah Gristwood, Arbella, England’s Lost Queen (London, 2003), and it is now in a collection in Russia.
The Babington Plot is a complicated, cynical and convoluted piece of entrapment. I have tried to glean details from multiple sources, including all the texts already mentioned and also: Mary S Lovell, Bess of Hardwick, First Lady of Chatsworth (London, 2005); Stephen Alford, The Watchers, A Secret History of the Reign of Elizabeth I (London, 2012); Robert Hutchinson, The Spanish Armada (London, 2013) in order make it as detailed as possible. I have followed the facts in Kit’s explanation to Perdita in order to show the true strangeness of this piece of subterfuge and the manipulative lengths the men around Elizabeth would stoop to in order to achieve their own agendas.
This also includes the inform
ation about the sighting of Spanish ships off the Welsh coast. Although I have fabricated an invasion and Spanish Inquisition involvement, it is factually correct that Sir William Cecil, Lord Burghley did inform Elizabeth there were sightings of ships off the Pembrokeshire coastline, when it was a complete lie. He did it in order to scare the queen into thinking Philip II was about to invade in order to rescue Mary. Coupled with the ‘discovery’ by her privy council members of the second plot by Michael Moody to assassinate her, which had, in fact, been thwarted two years earlier, Elizabeth reluctantly felt she had no choice but to sign the execution warrant to protect herself and her realm from a potential Catholic invasion. More details are in John Guy, Elizabeth, The Forgotten Years.
Katherine Newton née Paston is a real historical figure and her relationship to Catherine Howard is accurate. More details about Katherine can be found at www.tudorwomen.com.
The names of the servants are real and are mostly taken from Household Accounts and Disbursement of Books of Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester, 1558-1561, 1584-1586 (London, 1995).
And, the place where Perdita hides the rings is viable. In the name of research, I tried it with two quite spiky rings and they did not move all day.
Thank you to the staff at the Pembrokeshire Archives for all their help with my research into what was happening in Pembroke Castle during the Tudor period. The results were converted into Kit’s research and the pamphlets he names are real. Any mistakes are mine.
Thanks to James Meek at Dyfed Archaeology, who spent a long time discussing the finds at the dig at Pembroke Castle which Perdita and Kit mention. Any mistakes are mine.
If you have enjoyed the novel and would like to leave a review on Amazon or Goodreads, I would be so grateful as reviews are very important to authors. I love hearing from readers, so if you would like to contact me, you can through Twitter. You can also follow my blog on my website.
And one last thing before I leave: the title. Think about it carefully, it may not refer to the person you first think!
The Elizabeth Tudor Conspiracy Page 36