By the end of Sister to Sister he’s resolved all that confusion we saw at the start of Wife After Wife, where he couldn’t understand modern women and didn’t get why they weren’t enjoying his ‘compliments’. Now he’s a proper feminist (mostly). He deserves his happy ending. Well done, Harry.
Why did you decide to write Kit as a promiscuous pansexual? And why did he have to die?
Kit was a peripheral figure when I was first plotting Sister to Sister. Christopher Marlowe was just that other guy who was around at the same time as Shakespeare. But when I started researching him properly . . . oh. And once I’d started writing, Kit quickly took centre stage.
Very little is known about Marlowe’s life, but what we do know is intriguing. Words used to describe him include ‘rakehell’, which I love. He was a brilliant playwright and poet, of course, but he loved a good brawl, and was a noted atheist at a time when it really wasn’t a good idea to say so. Best of all, it’s highly likely he was a spy for Elizabeth’s government. When at Cambridge he used to disappear for long periods, and the university hesitated to give him his degree because of his dubious trips to Catholic France. But Elizabeth’s Privy Council intervened, describing his absences as being on: ‘ . . . matters touching the benefit of this country . . . ’. Kit got his degree.
I think he was probably gay (he did say All those who love not Tobacco and Boies were fools); there’s disagreement over this, but I see him as an experimenter – he seems to have lived his life large – so maybe gender wouldn’t have meant a lot to him. Hence my Kit’s sexuality.
Christopher Marlowe died at the age of 29, stabbed to death in mysterious circumstances. All sorts of conspiracy theories exist, including an assassination organised by a jealous wife, or by Sir Walter Raleigh, or William Cecil, even by Queen Elizabeth herself. Then there’s the theory it was a fake death, and he in fact lived on and wrote under the pseudonym William Shakespeare. I decided Kit should die young, it seemed fitting, and because he has the ability to sense the future and knows it’s going to happen, it makes his behaviour and his reluctance to let anybody close easier to explain. It was so hard, killing him off. I may have wept a little when I wrote that part.
What influenced Maria’s story and character arc?
Mary Tudor (Bloody Mary) is known mostly for burning Protestant heretics at the stake. So she isn’t the sort of person you warm to (sorry, terrible pun). But are people shocked by this mainly because she was a woman? A horrible way to die, obviously, but the numbers weren’t excessive by the standards of the time. She was also heavily influenced by her husband, Philip II of Spain – the Spanish Inquisition isn’t remembered for its religious tolerance.
I’ve always felt sorry for the young Mary. She went from beloved apple of Henry’s eye to being declared illegitimate, and was sent away to live apart from her mother, to whom she was very close. Henry wouldn’t even allow her to see Catherine when she was dying. The story of her relationship with Philip of Spain is a sad one – she seems to have genuinely loved him, and had more than one phantom pregnancy.
All in all not a happy life, and as part of Harry’s journey to redemption I thought I’d give her a second chance too. Mary is my antagonist initially (the Bloody Mary character was too juicy not to have fun with), but thanks to Eliza confronting Harry about his treatment of her sister, Maria has . . . maybe not a happy ending, but a contented one, at peace with herself.
Was Mary Queen of Scots really attracted to bad boys?
I recently read a history blog called ‘The Worst Monarchs of All Time’, and Mary Queen of Scots was on the list, described as ‘useless’. A bit harsh, maybe, but she does seem to have had questionable taste in men. Her story is one of those ‘truth is stranger than fiction’ ones.
Mary had three husbands. Her first was Francis II of France, who died at the age of 16. Her second, her half-cousin Lord Darnley, was a shocker. She was won over by his tall, fair good looks; he could sing and dance and was well educated, all the things a girl likes, but once married it soon went horribly wrong. He was a drinker with a violent streak; he wanted to co-rule but Mary refused. This didn’t go down well. Darnley was also part of the team that stabbed to death Mary’s secretary, David Rizzio, with whom she was rumoured to be having an affair. Not long after, Darnley met his own sticky end when the house he was staying in was blown up.
The person thought to be responsible for Darnley’s murder was the Earl of Bothwell, who had designs on marrying Mary himself – although he already had a wife, in Denmark. Actually, make that two wives. The other was in Scotland. There were rumours about Mary and Bothwell, and they did have a close relationship. Bothwell was brought to trial but acquitted. He and Mary left Edinburgh together soon after Darnley’s death, and suspicion was rife that she’d colluded with him over the murder. Wife #2 divorced Bothwell citing adultery with her servant, and Mary and Bothwell married seven days after the divorce was granted. One version of the story has Bothwell kidnapping Mary and raping her so that she’d have to marry him. The other is that she was willingly ‘kidnapped’, and the rape was made up to protect her reputation.
Whatever the truth, their antics were too much for the people of Scotland. There was a showdown between Mary’s supporters and those who opposed her, during which Bothwell fled, and Mary never saw him again. He set sail across the North Sea, his enemies in hot pursuit, but was blown off course and ended up in Norway, then ruled by the King of Denmark. Thanks to his first wife’s intervention, the king wasn’t sympathetic. Bothwell was kept in appalling conditions and spent the last ten years of his life chained to a pillar. Not surprisingly, he went mad.
Why did you depict Philip of Spain, renowned as a proudly Catholic ruler, as a fundamentalist Evangelical Christian?
Philip of Spain was enthusiastic in his persecution of heretics, so I needed a modern-day parallel for that. Catholics are more enlightened these days, but not so much those extreme fundamentalist Christians, the ones who view women as men’s ‘helpmeets’ and still firmly believe a woman’s place is in the home. Let’s say, I’m not especially tolerant of such views. I gave myself the opportunity to share my intolerance, via Eliza, who’s a trailblazer for modern women. I wanted to write a full-on juicy clash between Eliza and a powerful misogynist, and Philip was my man. Also Seymour . . . I so enjoyed Eliza giving those two their comeuppances!
What do you think really happened to Amy Dudley?
There are several theories. Amy Dudley (née Robsart) is thought to have had breast cancer, which may have weakened her to the stage where even a small fall down the stairs would have broken her neck. The fact that Amy sent everyone in her household out to the local fair so she was alone in the house, is odd. If she was in constant pain and knew she was dying, knew her husband was never coming back, maybe she was tired of life and decided to end it.
Or was she murdered, and if so, by whom? Suspicion at the time fell on Robert Dudley, and this ended any chance of him marrying Elizabeth. In her book The Virgin’s Lover, Philippa Gregory is convincing in her idea that Elizabeth realised Robert was becoming too powerful through his relationship with her, and sanctioned Cecil’s move to make it impossible for her to eventually marry him (it was known that Amy was increasingly sick) by organising Amy’s murder and implicating Robert in her death. It’s out there, but it’s plausible. Others have blamed Cecil, but without Elizabeth’s knowledge, again to scupper any chances Dudley had of becoming king consort. Cecil wasn’t a fan of Dudley.
What was the real story with Elizabeth 1 and Thomas Seymour (Seymour Morrissey)?
This is a strange episode in teenage Elizabeth’s life. After Henry VIII’s death, Catherine Parr married Jane Seymour’s brother Thomas. He was a glamorous, charismatic man and it seems Catherine was strongly attracted to him before she caught Henry’s eye. Elizabeth went to live with her step-mother and her new husband, and there are well-documented reports of him coming into her bedroom for a bit of a romp (tickling, even the slapping of bu
ttocks) – she was fourteen. This was abuse! And Catherine even joined in sometimes. What was she thinking? But Elizabeth seems to have been attracted to Thomas, and Catherine discovered the two in an embrace. At which point Catherine came to her senses and sent Elizabeth away. Like I say, Elizabeth was fourteen. Thomas was in his thirties.
Was it very different writing from the point of view of a millennial woman, compared to writing from the perspective of Harry and his wives in Wife After Wife?
Yes, it was. Henry and his wives were my age and era so it was easy remembering the attitudes and events of the times, the pop culture references, the way things were changing especially in relation to equality, sexuality and gender. With Eliza I was getting into the head of someone of my daughter’s generation (18–19 at the time of writing) and it was great to be able to get her feedback as I wrote. For instance, I had Kit as bisexual, but she explained he’d probably be pansexual. It’s been an interesting exercise, and it made me feel pretty positive about how far we’ve come over the past couple of decades. Millennials won’t have a bar of half the stuff I had to put up with!
Who’s your favourite character in this book – or their historical equivalent?
It’s very hard letting go of characters you create. When you reach the end of the book there’s a mourning period. I’m now deep into my next book, but I miss Harry, Eliza, Rob, Will, Kit and Co. as if they were real friends (though . . . I may have borrowed from some real friends when creating these characters. Not telling.). If I had to choose just one I’d go for Kit. I mean, honestly, who can resist a beautiful, messed-up creative genius?
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