Feud
Page 12
All the Lady Grace Mysteries are invented, but some of the characters in the stories are real people—Queen Elizabeth herself, of course, and Mrs. Champernowne and Mary Shelton as well. There never was a Lady Grace Cavendish (as far as we know!)—but there were plenty of girls like her at Elizabeth's Court. The real Mary Shelton foolishly made fun of the Queen herself on one occasion—and got slapped in the face by Elizabeth for her trouble! But most of the time, the Queen seems to have been protective of and kind to her Maids of Honor. She was very strict about boyfriends, though. There was one simple rule for boyfriends in those days: you couldn't have one. No boyfriends at all. You would get married to a person your parents chose for you and that was that. Of course, the girls often had other ideas!
Later on in her reign, the Queen had a full-scale secret service run by her great spymaster, Sir Francis Walsingham. His men, who hunted down priests and assassins, were called Pursuivants. There are also tantalizing hints that Elizabeth may have had her own personal sources of information—she certainly was very well informed, even when her counselors tried to keep her in the dark. And who knows whom she might have recruited to find things out for her? There may even have been a Lady Grace Cavendish, after all!
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This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the
product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to
actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Cavendish, Grace.
Feud / Patricia Finney is writing as Grace Cavendish.
p. cm. — (The Lady Grace mysteries, from the daybookes of
Lady Grace Cavendish ; book the sixth)
Summary: When one of her fellow Ladies-in-Waiting becomes
mysteriously ill, Lady Grace Cavendish suspects the cause
is poison and sets out to learn who is responsible.
eISBN: 978-0-307-53651-8
[1. Kings, queens, rulers, etc.—Fiction. 2. Great Britain—History—Elizabeth,
1558–1603—Fiction. 3. Poisons—Fiction. 4. Vendetta—Fiction. 5. Diaries—
Fiction. 6. Mystery and detective stories.] I. Title. II. Series.
PZ7.F49825Feu 2006
[Fic]—dc22
2005018696
v3.0