Conspiracy (18 page)

Every summer Queen Elizabeth I went on progress—a sort of summer vacation for the Court combined with a royal “walkabout.” She would set off in mid-July and the progress would continue until mid-September. During this time, the Privy Counselors would follow the Queen around, meeting her as and when they could.

One reason for the progress was to keep the Queen and most of the Court out of London during the worst months of plague. It was also the only chance most of Elizabeth's subjects had of seeing their Queen at all—no TV, remember, no
People
magazine, and no photographs, either.

The Queen would stay with her noblemen, riding in procession from one big country mansion to another, stopping at the houses of lesser gentlemen to eat on the way. With her would go most of the
Court and their baggage train—consisting of about three hundred carts! It would take almost the whole day for the procession to pass through one place.

Playing host to the Queen was a great honor-some of her courtiers nearly bankrupted themselves in their attempts to build houses big enough to support the Queen's entourage and to provide suitable entertainments. However, others were less eager. There was supposedly one gentleman who, on hearing that the Queen planned to visit him, shut up his house and left the county so she couldn't!

Although the Queen saved money by eating at the expense of her lucky hosts, she spent about £2000 more than she saved, on transport costs—especially if she changed her mind about where she wanted to go on the morning she was due to leave, which she very often did.

In 1485, Queen Elizabeth Ps grandfather, Henry Tudor, won the battle of Bosworth Field against Richard III and took the throne of England. He was known as Henry VII. He had two sons, Arthur and Henry. Arthur died while still a boy, so when Henry VII died in 1509, Elizabeth's father came to the throne and England got an eighth king called Henry—the notorious one who had six wives.

Wife number one—Catherine of Aragon—gave Henry one daughter called Mary (who was brought up as a Catholic) but no living sons. To Henry VIII this was a disaster, because nobody believed a queen could ever govern England. He needed a male heir.

Henry wanted to divorce Catherine so he could marry his pregnant mistress, Anne Boleyn. The Pope, the head of the Catholic Church, wouldn't
allow him to annul his marriage, so Henry broke with the Catholic Church and set up the Protestant Church of England—or the Episcopal Church, as it's known in the United States.

Wife number two—Anne Boleyn—gave Henry another daughter, Elizabeth (who was brought up as a Protestant). When Anne then miscarried a baby boy, Henry decided he'd better get somebody new, so he accused Anne of infidelity and had her executed.

Wife number three—Jane Seymour—gave Henry a son called Edward and died of childbed fever a couple of weeks later.

Wife tiumber four—Anne of Cleves—had no children. It was a diplomatic marriage and Henry didn't fancy her, so she agreed to a divorce (wouldn't you?).

Wife number five—Catherine Howard—had no children, either. Like Anne Boleyn, she was accused of infidelity and executed.

Wife number six—Catherine Parr—also had no children. She did manage to outlive Henry, though, but only by the skin of her teeth. Nice guy, eh?

Henry VIII died in 1547, and in accordance with the rules of primogeniture (whereby the firstborn son inherits from his father), the person who succeeded him was the boy Edward. He became
Edward VI. He was strongly Protestant but died young, in 1553.

Next came Catherine of Aragon's daughter, Mary, who became Mary I, known as Bloody Mary. She was strongly Catholic, married Philip II of Spain in a diplomatic match, but died childless five years later. She also burned a lot of Protestants for the good of their souls.

Finally, in 1558, Elizabeth came to the throne. She reigned until her death in 1603. She played the marriage game—that is, she kept a lot of important and influential men hanging on in hopes of marrying her—for a long time. At one time it looked as if she would marry her favorite, Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester. She didn't, though, and I think she probably never intended to get married—would you, if you'd had a dad like hers? So she never had any children.

She was an extraordinary and brilliant woman, and during her reign, England first started to become important as a world power. Sir Francis Drake sailed round the world—raiding the Spanish colonies of South America for loot as he went. And one of Elizabeth's favorite courtiers, Sir Walter Raleigh, tried to plant the first English colony in North
America—at the site of Roanoke in 1585. It failed, but the idea stuck.

The Spanish King Philip II tried to conquer England in 1588. He sent a huge fleet of 150 ships, known as the Invincible Armada, to do it. It failed miserably—defeated by Drake at the head of the English fleet—and most of the ships were wrecked trying to sail home. There were many other great Elizabethans, too—including William Shakespeare and Christopher Marlowe.

After her death, Elizabeth was succeeded by James VI of Scotland, who became James I of England and Scotland. He was almost the last eligible person available! He was the son of Mary, Queen of Scots, who was Elizabeth's cousin, via Henry VIIPs sister.

James's son was Charles I—the king who was beheaded after losing the English Civil War.

The stories about Lady Grace Cavendish are set in the year 1569, when Elizabeth was almost thirty-six and still playing the marriage game for all she was worth. The Ladies-in-Waiting and Maids of Honor at her Court weren't servants—they were companions and friends, supplied from upper-class families.
Not all of them were officially “ladies”—only those with titled husbands or fathers; in fact, many of them were unmarried younger daughters sent to Court to find themselves a nice rich lord to marry.

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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