The Tudor Secret
Page 30
January 1553
Edward VI falls gravely ill; rumors sweep the court that he is dying.
February 1553
Princess Mary visits Edward; their reunion is antagonistic because of Mary’s resolve to remain Catholic.
May 1533
Guilford Dudley, youngest son of Northumberland, marries Jane Grey.
June 1553
Edward alters his succession, coerced by Northumberland.
July 1, 1553
Edward VI makes his final public appearance.
July 6, 1553
Edward dies in Greenwich Palace. Soon after, Northumberland issues an arrest order for Mary, who, informed by an anonymous informant of her brother’s demise, flees north to garner support.
July 10, 1553
Jane Grey is proclaimed queen of England.
July 19, 1553
Mary gathers an army of nearly twenty thousand and marches on London. She is proclaimed queen by popular acclaim; Jane Grey becomes a prisoner.
An Original Essay by the Author
Elizabeth I: An Endless Fascination
Elizabeth Tudor, known as Elizabeth I, has exerted an endless fascination over our imaginations, even in looking at her life before she took the throne in 1558. She was the only surviving child of the glamorous, ill-fated Anne Boleyn, whose passionate liaison with Henry VIII shattered his twenty-four year marriage to Catherine of Aragon and set off a cataclysmic upheaval that changed England forever. Elizabeth’s parents believed that the child Anne carried was the long-awaited prince Henry had been denied; Anne staked her claim, and her unborn child’s legitimacy, on the fact that Henry and Catherine’s marriage had been incestuous due to Catherine’s previous marriage to Henry’s deceased brother, Arthur—a marriage which Catherine steadfastly proclaimed had never been consummated. Yet the child Anne bore was not a boy but a girl—a child of controversy, destroyed hopes, and disappointment, of chaos and uncertainty. Elizabeth came into the world with what seemed to be a curse already writ into her fate. Within three years, Henry would send her mother to the sword and remarry four more times; she would gain a younger brother, Edward, as well as an older sister Mary, with whom she would engage in a near-lethal collision of wills; she would face a daunting fight for her life that would test her mettle to its core; and she would, if the legend is true, fall madly, impossibly in love with the one man she would never fully have.
Elizabeth’s struggle for survival in one of the most treacherous courts in history and the glorious, often turbulent forty-four year reign that ensued upon her accession have become fodder for our entertainment for centuries. In many ways, this brittle red-haired princess with the enigmatic eyes and spidery fingers—so reminiscent of her mother—personifies our loftiest ideals of emancipation: Elizabeth refused to marry and never bore children (despite numerous rumors to the contrary), sacrificing her body and her heart for her country; she was arguably as alluring as Anne Boleyn yet never fell prey to the pitfalls that Anne paid for in blood; she displayed the fickle, silver-tongued wit that catapulted her mother to fame, coupled with the cruel, sometimes tyrannical temperament that transformed her father into a monstrous figure. Yet unlike Anne, whose tragic destiny overshadows her intense joie de vivre, or Henry, whose golden splendor is muted by the horrors of his later years, we tend to forgive Elizabeth’s foibles and her mistakes, indeed even her bloodiest blunders; we forget her carcinogenic eccentricities and look past her capricious excesses, because we recognize in her a nobility of purpose, a single-minded drive to succeed, no matter the odds. We feel that we know her, intimately.
Elizabeth excelled in a time when few women could. Though she owed a debt to those who paved the way before her—such as the formidable Isabella of Castile and the flint-hearted Eleanor of Aquitaine—and she shared her stage with such unforgettable ladies as the embattled Catherine de Medici, queen-mother of France, and her own cousin, the flighty, irresistible Mary Stuart, Queen of Scots, Elizabeth transcended even these legends to become a mythical heroine in her own right, a figure apart from the porous mortality of her contemporaries—autonomous, instantly recognizable, inimitable, and uniquely unforgettable.
Recommended Reading
Stephen Budiansky
Her Majesty’s Spymaster: Elizabeth I, Francis Walsingham, and the Birth of Modern Espionage
Antonia Fraser
The Wives of Henry VIII
Joan Glasheen
The Secret People of the Palaces: The Royal Household from the Plantagenets to Queen Victoria
Alan Haynes
The Elizabethan Secret Services
Eric Ives
Anne Boleyn
Lady Jane Grey: A Tudor Mystery
Mary M. Luke
A Crown for Elizabeth
Liza Picard
Elizabeth’s London: Everyday Life in Elizabethan London
Alison Plowden
The House of Tudor
The Young Elizabeth
Chris Skidmore
Edward VI: The Lost King of England
Derek Wilson
The Uncrowned Kings of England: The Black History of the Dudleys and the Tudor Throne
Tudor England
Sir Francis Walsingham: A Courtier in an Age of Terror
Reading Group Questions
1. The Tudor Secret takes place during the succession crisis of 1553. What did you discover about England at this time? Who were the major players and what were their motivations?
2. Religion plays a crucial role in the story’s conflicts. What were the main issues between Catholics and Protestants? Were their conflicts based on actual religious differences or larger political power struggles? Do you see any parallels to today’s religious divides?
3. Brendan Prescott is a fictional character with a secret. Like many servants of the time, he is entrusted with his master’s private information. What were some of the possible repercussions he could have suffered for his actions? If you had been in his place, what might you have done?
4. The jewel featured in the book is based on an actual jewel shown in a painting of Henry VIII’s younger sister, Mary Tudor, Duchess of Suffolk, and her husband, Charles Brandon, the Duke of Suffolk. Both Mary Tudor and Mistress Alice end up with different pieces of this jewel; why do you think the jewel was broken into pieces? If it was done at Mary’s request, what message do you think she was trying to send?
5. Lady Dudley hides secrets of her own. What are they? Did you understand her reasons for doing what she did? What does her character tell us about the role of noblemen’s wives in the sixteenth century?
6. Brendan carries a clue to his past with him all along. Why doesn’t he understand its significance until the end? What part of his past does he fail to solve?
7. The death of Edward VI remains shrouded in mystery. Do you find the author’s hypothesis plausible? If not, why?
8. Elizabeth Tudor is one of history’s most popular figures. Why do you think she continues to exert such fascination, so many years after her life?
9. Who was your favorite character in the book, and why?
Also by C. W. Gortner
The Last Queen
The Confessions of Catherine de Medici
This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
THE TUDOR SECRET. Copyright © 2011 by C. W. Gortner. All rights reserved. For information, address St. Martin’s Press, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10010.
www.stmartins.com
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Gortner, C. W.
The Tudor secret : the Elizabeth I spymaster chronicles / C. W. Gortner.—1st ed.
p. cm.
ISBN 978-0-312-60390-8 (hardcover)
ISBN 978-0-312-65850-2 (trade paperback)
1. Elizabeth I, Queen of England, 1533–1603—Fiction. 2. Burghley, William Cecil, Baron, 1520
–1598—Fiction. 3. Great Britain—History—Elizabeth, 1558–1603—Fiction. 4. Burghley, William Cecil, Baron, 1520–1598—Fiction. 5. Great Britain—History—Edward VI, 1547–1553—Fiction. I. Title.
PS3607.O78T83 2011
813'.6—dc22
2010038846
First Edition: February 2011
eISBN 978-1-4299-9318-0
First St. Martin’s Griffin eBook Edition: February 2011