Deception (18 page)

Privy Gallery
—a gallery in Whitehall Palace

Privy Garden
—Queen Elizabeth's private garden

pursuivant
—one who pursues someone else

Queen's Guard
—more commonly known as the Gentlemen Pensioners—young noblemen who guarded the Queen from physical attacks

Secretary Cecil
—William Cecil, an administrator for the Queen (later made Lord Burghley)

stanchion
—a supporting post or beam

stomacher
—a heavily embroidered or jeweled piece for the center front of a bodice

sweetmeats
—sweets

thumbscrew
—an instrument of torture for compressing the thumb

Tilting Yard
—the area where knights in armor would joust or tilt (i.e., ride at each other on horseback with lances)

tinder box
—a small box containing some quick-burning tinder, a piece of flint, a piece of steel, and a candle for making fire and thus light

tiring woman
—a woman who helped a lady to dress

toothcloth
—a coarse cloth, often beautifully embroidered, used for rubbing teeth clean

trencher
—a wooden platter

truckle bed
—a small bed on wheels stored under the main bed

trussel
—one of the coin-making dies (see above)—the one bearing the design for the back of the coin

tumbler
—an acrobat

ware bench
—a bench on which items for sale could be displayed

waterman
—a man who rowed a ferryboat on the Thames; he was a kind of Elizabethan cabdriver

White Tower
—the oldest part of the Tower of London

willow-bark infusion
—a drink made of willow bark, which was used as a painkiller. It was later developed into aspirin.

Withdrawing Chamber
—the Queen's private rooms

A NOTE ABOUT THE TOWER OF LONDON

The Tower was officially one of the royal palaces, but Queen Elizabeth I did not like it, which was hardly surprising, since she had been a prisoner there during her sister Mary's reign. Elizabeth's mother, Anne Boleyn, had also been beheaded there.

However, the Tower had many functions, besides being a palace and the Royal Mint. It was also a prison, and the Queen often threw her enemies into the Tower. In fact, it was teeming with subjects who had plotted against her, and the royal torturers were kept very busy. Her Majesty's torturers worked in the dungeons of the White Tower, which was the oldest part of the Tower of London and said to have been built using mortar mixed with blood.

Not all prisoners were tortured. Many languished in one of the towers with very little to do. And a few of them left their mark. Visitors today can see ancient graffiti on the walls of the Beauchamp Tower. It is even said that Elizabeth I herself scratched some words into the stone when she was a prisoner—the Tudor equivalent of “Lizzie was here.”

We might think of the Tower as a place of execution, but most beheadings actually took place outside the ramparts on Tower Hill, for all to watch—usually thousands of unruly Londoners. Only the lucky few got a private execution inside the walls on Tower Green.

But aside from its more grisly functions, the Tower also housed an immense armory, where weapons and armor were crafted. The Crown Jewels were kept in the Jewel House. And there were even two taverns for the thirsty workers. From the thirteenth century onward, animals were kept in a menagerie in the Lion Tower. At one time there was even an elephant—though it didn't live long. Visitors in Queen Elizabeth I's time would have been more likely to see a couple of scrawny lions and a tiger, in tiny cages—sadly, there was no ASPCA in those days. In 1834 the menagerie was moved to Regent's Park and became London Zoo.

THE FACT BEHIND THE FICTION

In 1485, Queen Elizabeth I's 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 number 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 first-born 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 VIII's 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 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!

Be on the lookout
for the next
Lady Grace Mystery, EXILE,
on sale
February 2006.
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THE FIFTEENTH DAY OF JANUARY,
IN THE YEAR OF OUR LORD 1570

I am sitting with the other Maids of Honour, awaiting the Queen. We are huddled as close to the roaring fire as we can get without scorching our skirts. I must be especially careful for Mrs. Champernowne, the Mistress of the Maids, has warned that there is not an endless supply of kirtles for me. (The last one only had a little tear from my recent entanglement with a holly bush and I did not mean to put my foot through the hole!)

We are not usually at the Palace of Placentia at this season. We moved here in a rush, for there was talk of plague near Whitehall last month, where we were to have spent the winter. I think it was just a rumour, for plague generally strikes in summer, but Her Majesty has a horror of it. So there was nothing for it but we must pack everything up and come to Greenwich.