by G Lawrence
In The Lady Anne, Anne’s relationship with Tom Wyatt is shown as innocent. It may not have been, but I think it was. I think she did perhaps promise to marry Percy, but unlike some other historical novelists, I do not think they consummated their oaths.
During her time of banishment, after she and Percy were found out, there is little record of what Anne did or where she was. Some postulate she may have gone back to France, but I think it more likely, given the political issues at the time, that she was simply at Hever. Her visit to the house of Edmund Howard, her uncle, is fiction. It may have happened, since it was not unusual that female kin visited others in times of need, such as during births, but really I wanted a way to introduce Catherine Howard, and used this premise to do so.
All of her encounters with Henry are from my imagination. No one knows at what exact point he saw Anne, nor exactly when he decided to move from trying to make her his mistress to offering her the title of Queen.
In Above all Others, Anne is intimately involved in the fall of Wolsey. Some dispute how far she was embroiled in this, preferring to see the hand of the men in her life rather than Anne’s, but I think she became more and more involved as time went on and she realized Wolsey was a true impediment to her marriage.
Her dramatic flight from court at one stage in the book is fiction. She was known to stay at Hever for a lot of the time in this book, and threatened to leave Henry, so I thought including this would emphasise that fact.
The name she grants Wolsey (and the later one she gives Chapuys) came from my imagination. Elizabeth was known for granting pet names to favourites, and I thought Anne granting them to enemies would offer another link between them.
In The Scandal of Christendom, I tried to show that it was not only Anne who was responsible for the suffering of Mary and Katherine, but that she was involved. Anne was certainly responsible for some of their suffering and since the premise of the books was that she was essentially confessing by telling her story before death, I thought it important to note both her good and bad acts.
All conversations are also a product of my imagination. Where possible, I have inserted things people actually said, and were recorded, at others, I allowed myself free rein.
If you have a question, or think I have omitted a change I made in the books here, then please contact me if you wish to discuss it further. There is an email address at the end section, and I try to reply promptly. Besides, I love a good discussion on Tudor history!
Select Bibliography for the Series
Ackroyd, Peter, The Life of Thomas More
Baldwin-Smith, Lacey, Anne Boleyn: Queen of Controversy
Bernard, G.W, Anne Boleyn: Fatal Attractions
Bordo, Susan, The Creation of Anne Boleyn
Borman, Tracy, Thomas Cromwell, Elizabeth’s Women, The Private Lives of the Tudors
Brigden, Susan, Thomas Wyatt: The Heart’s Forest
Brears, Peter, Cooking and Dining in Medieval England, All the King’s Cooks
Breverton, Terry, The Tudor Kitchen
Castiglione, Baldesar, The Book of the Courtier
Chapman, Lissa, Anne Boleyn in London
Childs, Jessie, Terror and Faith in Elizabethan England
Cummings, John, The Hound and the Hawk: The Art of Medieval Hunting
Denny, Joanna, Anne Boleyn: A New Life of England’s Most Tragic Queen
Duffy, Eamon, The Stripping of the Altars
Evans, Jennifer and Read, Sarah, Maladies and Medicines
Fletcher, Catherine, The Divorce of Henry VIII: The Untold Story
Fletcher, Stella, Cardinal Wolsey: a Life in Renaissance Europe
Fox, Julia, Jane Boleyn: The Infamous Lady Rochford, Sister Queens: Katherine of Aragon and Juana, Queen of Castile
Friedmann, P, Anne Boleyn
Fraser, Antonia, The Six Wives of Henry VIII
Gelis, Jacques, History of Childbirth
Goodman, Ruth, How to be a Tudor
Gunn, Steven, Charles Brandon,
Green, Monica (editor and translator), The Trotula: An English Translation of the Medieval Compendium of Women’s Medicine
Grueninger, Natalie, Discovering Tudor London
Gwyn, Peter, The King’s Cardinal: The Rise and Fall of Thomas Wolsey
Hammond, Peter, Food and Feast in Medieval England
Hart, Kelly, The Mistresses of Henry VIII
Haynes, Alan, Sex in Elizabethan England
Hayward, Maria, Rich Apparel: Clothing and the Law in Henry VIII’s England
Hieatt, Constance and Butler, Sharon, (editors), Curye on Inglysch
Hutchinson, Robert, Thomas Cromwell
Ives, Eric, The Life and Death of Anne Boleyn
Jones, Philippa, The Other Tudors
Knecht, R.J, Renaissance Prince and Warrior: The Reign of Francis I
Licence, Amy, Catherine of Aragon, Anne Boleyn: Adultery, Heresy, Desire, The Tudors, The Six Wives and Many Mistresses of Henry VIII: The Women’s Stories
Lipscomb, Suzannah, A Visitor’s Companion to Tudor England
Loades, David, Jane Seymour: Henry VIII’s Favourite Wife, The Seymours of Wolf Hall, The Six Wives of Henry VIII, The Boleyns
Lofts, Norah, Anne Boleyn
Machiavelli, Niccolo, The Prince
Mackay, Lauren, Inside the Tudor Court
MacCulloch, Diarmaid, Reformation: Europe’s House Divided, 1490-1700, Thomas Cranmer
Markham, Gervase, The English Housewife
Matusiak, John, Wolsey: The Life of Henry VIII’s Cardinal
Moorhouse, Geoffrey, Great Harry’s Navy
Morris, Sarah and Grueninger, Natalie, In the Footsteps of Anne Boleyn
Moynahan, Brian, Book of Fire
Murphy, Beverley, Bastard Prince: Henry VIII’s Lost Son
Navarre, Marguerite of, The Heptameron, The Glass of the Sinful Soul
Norton, Elizabeth, Jane Seymour, The Lives of Tudor Women, Anne Boleyn: Henry VIII’s Obsession, Anne Boleyn: In her own words and those of who knew her, The Boleyn Women
Norris, Herbert, Tudor Costume and Fashions
Perry, Maria, Sisters to the King
Plat, Hugh, Delightes for Ladies
Plowden, Alison, The House of Tudor, Tudor Women: Queens and Commoners
Porter, Linda, Mary Tudor
Power, Eileen (translator), The Goodman of Paris
Ridgeway, Claire, George Boleyn, The Anne Boleyn Collection, The Anne Boleyn Papers, The Fall of Anne Boleyn
Ridley, Jasper, The Tudor Age
Roud, Steve, The English Year
Roth, Erik, With a Bended Bow
Sharp, Jane, The Midwives Book
Shulman, Nicola, Graven with Diamonds
Sim, Alison, The Tudor Housewife, Food and Feast in Tudor England, Pleasures and Pastimes in Tudor England,
Siraisi, Nancy, Medieval and Early Renaissance Medicine
Seward, Desmond, Prince of the Renaissance
Skidmore, Chris, Edward VI: The Lost King of England
Starkey, David, Six Wives: The Queens of Henry VIII, The Reign of Henry VIII: Personalities and Politics, Henry: Virtuous Prince
Thomas, Keith, Religion and the Decline of Magic
Tremlett, Giles, Catherine of Aragon: Henry’s Spanish Queen
Tudor, Henry, The Love Letters of Henry VIII, Asserto Septem Sacramentorium
Tyndale, William, The Obedience of a Christian Man, the Tyndale New Testament
Watkins, Sarah-Beth, The Tudor Brandons
Weir, Alison, Henry VIII, King and Court, The Lady in the Tower: The Fall of Anne Boleyn, Mary Boleyn, The Great and Infamous Whore, The Children of Henry VIII,
Wilkinson, Josephine, Anne Boleyn: The Young Queen To Be, The Early Loves of Anne Boleyn,
Williams, Patrick, Katherine of Aragon
Wilson, Derek, Henry VIII: Reformer and Tyrant, Hans Holbein: Portrait of an Unknown Man
Wyngaerde, Anthonis, The Panorama of London circa 1544
About the Author<
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I find people talking about themselves in the third person to be entirely unsettling, so, since this section is written by me, I will use my own voice rather than try to make you believe that another person is writing about me to make me sound terribly important.
I am an independent author, publishing my books by myself, with the help of my lovely proof reader. I write every day, and became a full time author in 2016. I briefly tried entering into the realm of ‘traditional’ publishing but, to be honest, found the process so time consuming and convoluted that I quickly decided to go it alone and self-publish.
My passion for history, in particular perhaps the era of the Tudors, began early in life. As a child I lived in Croydon, near London, and my schools were lucky enough to be close to such glorious places as Hampton Court and the Tower of London to mean that field trips often took us to those castles. I think it is hard not to find the Tudors infectious when you hear their stories, especially when surrounded by the bricks and mortar they built their reigns within. There is heroism and scandal, betrayal and belief, politics and passion and a seemingly never-ending cast list of truly fascinating people. So when I sat down to start writing, I could think of no better place to start than somewhere and sometime I loved and was slightly obsessed with.
Expect many books from me, but do not necessarily expect them all to be of the Tudor era. I write as many of you read, I suspect; in many genres. My own bookshelves are weighted down with historical volumes and biographies, but they also contain dystopias, sci-fi, horror, humour, children’s books, fairy tales, romance and adventure. I can’t promise I’ll manage to write in all the areas I’ve mentioned there, but I’d love to give it a go. If anything I’ve published isn’t your thing, that’s fine, I just hope you like the ones I write which are your thing!
The majority of my books are historical fiction however, so I hope that if you liked this volume you will give the others in this series (and perhaps not in this series), a look. I want to divert you as readers, to please you with my writing and to have you join me on these adventures.
A book is nothing without a reader.
As to the rest of me; I am in my thirties and live in Cornwall with a rescued dog, a rescued cat and my partner (who wasn’t rescued, but may well have rescued me). I studied Literature at University after I fell in love with books as a small child. When I was little I could often be found nestled half-way up the stairs with a pile of books and my head lost in another world between the pages. There is nothing more satisfying to me than finding a new book I adore, to place next to the multitudes I own and love… and nothing more disappointing to me to find a book I am willing to never open again. I do hope that this book was not a disappointment to you; I loved writing it and I hope that showed through the pages.
This is only one in a large selection of titles coming to you on Amazon. I hope you will try the others.
If you would like to contact me, please do so.
On twitter, I am @TudorTweep and am more than happy to follow back and reply to any and all messages. I may avoid you if you decide to say anything worrying or abusive, but I figure that’s acceptable.
Via email, I am [email protected] a dedicated email account for my readers to reach me on. I’ll try and reply within a few days.
I publish some first drafts and short stories on Wattpad where I can be found at www.wattpad.com/user/GemmaLawrence31 . Wattpad was the first place I ever showed my stories, to anyone, and in many ways its readers and their response to my works were the influence which pushed me into self-publishing. If you have never been on the site I recommend you try it out. Its free, its fun and its chock-full of real emerging talent. I love Wattpad because its members and their encouragement gave me the boost I needed as a fearful waif to get some confidence in myself and make a go of a life as a real, published writer.
Thank you for taking a risk with an unknown author and reading my book. I do hope now that you’ve read one you’ll want to read more. If you’d like to leave me a review, that would be very much appreciated also!
Gemma Lawrence
Cornwall
2018
Thank You
…to so many people for helping me make this book possible… to my proof reader, Julia Gibbs, who gave me her time, her wonderful guidance and also her encouragement. To my partner Matthew, who will be the first to admit that history is not his thing, and yet is willing to listen to me extol the virtues and vices of the Tudors and every other time period, repeatedly, to him and pushed me to publish even when I feared to. To my family for their ongoing love and support; this includes not only my own blood in my mother and father, sister and brother, but also their families, their partners and all my nieces who I am sure are set to take the world by storm as they grow. To Matthew’s family, for their support, and for the extended family I have found myself welcomed to within them. To my friend Petra who took a tour of Tudor palaces and places with me back in 2010 which helped me to prepare for this book and others; her enthusiasm for that strange but amazing holiday brought an early ally to the idea I could actually write a book. To all my wonderful readers, who took a chance on an unknown author, and have followed my career and books since. To those who have left reviews or contacted me by email or Twitter, I give great thanks, as you have shown support for my career as an author, and enabled me to continue writing. Thank you for allowing me to live my dream.
And lastly, to the people who wrote all the books I read in order to write this book… all the historical biographers and masters of their craft who brought Anne, and her times, to life in my head.
Thank you to all of you; you’ll never know how much you’ve helped me, but I know what I owe to you.
Gemma
Cornwall
2018