Dagger in the Crown (Tam Eildor mystery no.1)

by Alanna Knight

  After eighteen years in prison, her continued presence an embarrassment to Elizabeth, the Casket Letters were produced, most written to Bothwell by the once lovesick Anna Throndsen, with Mary's own letters cobbled together with many discrepancies, in an elaborate forgery to prove Mary's guilt in Darnley's murder. Sinister plots to overthrow Elizabeth were also 'proven' and Mary was executed in Fotheringhay Castle in 1587.

  After Carberry, Bothwell had fled to the Orkneys, was refused entry and sailed on to Scandinavia in a valiant effort to raise money for an army. Taken hostage on a trumped-up charge of piracy, in desperation he appealed to Anna Throndsen to pay his ransom. She refused. Nine years later, in a Danish prison, chained like an animal to a pillar, Bothwell died. He was insane.

  Anna had said, 'May he rot in hell.' She got her wish.

  Her sister Dorothy's married name was Stewart. To avoid confusion with so many royal Stewarts, I have changed it to Sinclair, one of the few liberties I have taken with those who lived as depicted by history, biased or otherwise.

  Anna vanished from historical records, but William was remembered as a beneficiary in the will of his grandmother Lady Morham.

  Marie Seton never married. She stayed with the Queen as she had promised. Her lover Adam Drummond was my invention, but there are descendants of that same Drummond family, alive and well today, in Megginch Castle, Tayside. The eldest son and heir is named Adam.

  Tam Eildor is fiction. His adventures have just begun.