by Jeane Westin
A. These are both possibilities that history has not proved or disproved, to my knowledge.We do know that Elizabeth hated Lettice even before Leicester married her, although as a Boleyn cousin she had her as a lady-of-the-bedchamber and, early on, allowed her at court. The queen was often angry at her because Lettice dressed too well and looked too good in the queen’s eyes. As Edith Sitwell noted in The Queens and the Hive, there cannot be two queens in one hive. Elizabeth knew that. Lettice was a slow learner.
Q. You suggest that the young Earl of Essex was Dudley’s son by Lettice. Is there a historical basis for this idea? Do we have any reason to suspect that Elizabeth knew, and that her knowledge influenced her indulgent behavior toward Essex?
A. Unfortunately, as with so many historical might-have-beens, there is no proof, but there was a resemblance noted by some in the court who had known Robert Dudley. I thought the possibility created another explanation for Elizabeth’s need for Essex beyond the somewhat sad motive of a much older woman loving a young man who uses her affection. It would be an intriguing path to explore.
Q. Elizabeth remains a towering historical figure. Has she always been so, or has public opinion about her risen and fallen over the centuries since her death? Aside from the cult of her personality, what lasting legacy did she leave as a monarch?
A. Imagine that one of our presidents was in office for forty-five years.Wouldn’t people tire of him/her? The same thing happened with Elizabeth, helped along by a series of droughts and bad harvests during the last decade of her reign. Although she was still beloved, it was an exhausted, old love and people looked forward to their new king, James I. Fast-forward twenty or thirty years after a quick tiring of the Stuart kings, and Elizabeth’s reign was remembered as a Golden Age. Her lasting legacy was an England emerging into the Renaissance, and her own self . . . Gloriana.
Q. Since the publication of The Virgin’s Daughters, has anything about readers’ responses particularly surprised or delighted you?
A. The hunger of readers to know more and guess more about Elizabeth I has surprised me.We know so much about her reign, thanks to her diligent councilors, but we still don’t know much about her psychology. Our guessing game about why she did what she did and said what she said, at the same time so wise and so puzzling, is fascinating to us. Check out www.elizabethfiles.com if you want to see the range and depth of readers’ interest. Her life has been a subject in almost every artistic medium, and few other historical figures can command as wide an audience. If we were ever fully satisfied, we wouldn’t see her every three or four years in another TV series or movie, with the finest actresses playing her. I have seen most of the screen portrayals, although not the early silents, nor the operas or plays. My favorite for historical accuracy is Elizabeth R, the six-part BBC miniseries of 1971 with Glenda Jackson as the queen. For lavish production values and fabulous cheek-bones, I love both Cate Blanchett movies, Elizabeth, 1998, and Elizabeth:The Golden Age, 2007.
Q.What other books about Elizabeth, Leicester and the Tudor period do you particularly recommend?
A.There are too many to list, but here are a few of my favorites, both novels and nonfiction: I, Elizabeth, by Rosalind Miles; Elizabeth I, by Anne Somerset; Her Majesty’s Spymaster, by Stephen Budiansky; Sweet Robin, by Derek Wilson; Elizabeth and Leycester,by Frederick Chamberlin; Elizabeth and Leicester, by Milton Waldman. The last two books are long out of print but available with a search.
Q.What have you been reading lately? What do you hope to read soon?
A. I’m reading Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel, which won the U.K.’s Man Booker Prize, and The Sun Over Breda by Arturo Pérez-Reverte. I love his charismatic hero, Captain Alatriste. I also listen to books on CD at night, when I want to interrupt my own story. Currently I’m listening to The Last Wife of Henry VIII by Carolly Erickson. I just finished Jeannette Walls’s two memoirs, The Glass Castle and Half Broke Horses, both remarkable books. My to-be-read pile is much too big to list here, but at the top of the stack is The Queen’s Governess by Karen Harper.
QUESTIONS FOR DISCUSSION
1. Elizabeth I has been portrayed countless times in novels, biographies, movies, and plays. Discuss the different versions of her, and which ones you especially like or don’t like. How does Elizabeth in His Last Letter measure up to the others?
2. If a movie were made of His Last Letter, who should play Elizabeth? Who should play Dudley and the other major characters?
3. It’s been suggested that Elizabeth loved Dudley but was so afraid of sex and childbirth that she vowed early in life that she would never marry. Discuss the emotional and political reasons why she might have made that decision. What were the advantages? The disadvantages?
4. Discuss the mental process Eizabeth might have undergone to both consummate her love for Dudley and convince herself that she was a virgin queen.
5. In your mind, should Elizabeth and Dudley’s love be called one of the great love affairs of all time? Must all great loves remain unfulfilled, or is that just an idea fostered by male writers and mythmakers?
6. Discuss the dynamics of the relationship between Elizabeth and Dudley in His Last Letter. Were they obsessed and emotionally unstable, or do you think their love matured over the years?
7. What particularly interests you about the Tudor period? Why do you think it’s so popular now?
8. Discuss the role of Lettice Knollys in the Elizabeth/ Dudley relationship.