The Queen's Lady (75 page)

There are two exceptions, both temporal in nature. Sir Thomas More resigned the chancellorship in May 1532, but for the dramatic purposes of my story, I have set the scene of his resignation six months later. The second exception regards Cuthbert Tunstall, More’s friend, who was Bishop of London from 1522. In 1530 he was transferred to the see of Durham, and John Stokesley became Bishop of London. However, to reduce confusion for the reader, I have retained Tunstall as Bishop of London throughout 1532.

As for the characters I have invented—Honor Larke and Richard Thornleigh, Ralph Pepperton, Bastwick, Frish, the Sydenhams, the Deurvorsts, and Pieter—they “live” only in that best of all possible worlds, the reader’s imagination.

A note about Sir Thomas More’s family. While I have invented Honor, and, consequently, her position as More’s ward, More did in fact have three wards, two female and one male. He married two of them to his children, Cecily and John. The marriages appear to have been happy ones.

It seems cruel to leave any reader in ignorance of the fate of the passionate and tenacious historical figures who appear in the novel, so I include here some notes about their various destinies after July 1535, when the book closes.

In January 1536, Catherine of Aragon, still avowing her love for Henry, died in her bed from natural causes.

The summer that More was executed, Erasmus went back to Basle. The following year, while still working on his
Ecclesiastes
in old Froben’s printing shop, Erasmus died—a “preacher of that general kindness which the world still so urgently needs.” (Huizinga)

On May 19, 1536, Anne Boleyn was beheaded. She had failed to produce a male heir, and Henry instructed Cromwell to find a way out of the marriage. Cromwell’s commissioners quickly brought charges against Anne of adultery with several courtiers—including her own brother—and, using a gross interpretation of the law, they called the adultery “treason.” For good measure, Henry once again exploited the rules against consanguinity in canon law, for, as J. J. Scarisbrick tells us: “Two days before Anne died, a court presided over by Archbishop Cranmer at Lambeth reached the astounding conclusion that Henry’s earlier adultery with her sister, Mary, had rendered the marriage void from the start.”

The day after Anne’s execution, Henry was betrothed to Jane Seymour, one of Anne’s ladies-in-waiting, and on May 30 he married her. In 1537 Jane gave birth by Cesarean section to the son Henry craved, Prince Edward. Twelve days later, “a victim of that terrifying thing, Tudor medicine,” Jane was dead.

Cromwell urged Henry to take Anne of Cleves for his next wife—a political union, for Henry did not lay eyes on the German lady until just days before the marriage in 1540. When he finally did see her he was physically repulsed by the “Flanders mare,” did not consummate the marriage, and had it declared null. Humiliated and furious after the ordeal, Henry ordered Cromwell arrested. On July 28, 1540, Thomas Cromwell was beheaded. (A century later, his nephew’s great-grandson, the Puritan Oliver Cromwell, ruled England under the Commonwealth.)

Henry immediately took, for his fifth wife, a sensuous nineteen-year-old, Catherine Howard. A year and a half later, maddened by her adulteries, he had her beheaded. His final marriage was to an intelligent, good-natured widow, Catherine Parr. She outlived Henry.

On January 28, 1547, Henry VIII’s corpulent body released its hold on life. His nine-year-old son took the throne as Edward VI, made the country officially Protestant, and six years later died of tuberculosis. At the age of thirty-seven, Henry’s daughter by Catherine of Aragon became Queen Mary I—“Bloody Mary.” She wrenched the country back to Catholicism, burned some three hundred Protestants at the stake, married Philip II of Spain, and died childless after five years on the throne. Henry’s daughter by Anne Boleyn was then crowned Elizabeth I at age twenty-five. She kept a tight leash on both Catholic and Protestant extremists, made the sea lanes safe for pirating English seamen (and claimed a Queen’s share of their plunder), beat the “invincible” Spanish armada, never married, and ruled a prosperous England for forty-five years.

In 1536 William Tyndale, the English exile, was burned at the stake in Antwerp. Though only a name in the novel and not a character who makes an appearance, Tyndale had a profound impact on his world, and ours. The English Church had fought hard to suppress any vernacular Bible and burned all the copies of Tyndale’s translation it could seize. Yet when an English version of Scripture was eventually authorized, the committee turned to this “heretic’s” work as its cornerstone; a large percentage of the King James Version of the Bible is Tyndale’s sublime prose.

The odious Richard Riche, after satisfying Cromwell by delivering the perjured testimony that doomed Sir Thomas More, went on to give evidence against Cromwell five years later. Riche was Lord Chancellor from 1547 to 1551 and was made a baron. He enforced the persecution against Catholics under Edward VI (including turning out the monks of the Church of St. Bartholomew at Smithfield and making it into a house for his own use); then helped burn Protestants in the reign of Mary. He died in 1567, a respected justice of the peace and landowner in Essex.

In 1935, in Rome, Sir Thomas More was declared a saint of the Catholic Church.

Available from March 2013 from Constable & Robinson

Upon the death of her father, Henry VIII, Queen Mary assumes the throne after a long and bitter wait. Her first order of business is to wed the devout Prince Philip of Spain, creating a powerful alliance that will transform Mary’s fanatical dream of ridding England of Protestantism into terrifying reality. And so begins the reign of Bloody Mary …

Even as she plans for her own nuptials, Isabel Thornleigh is helping to lay the groundwork to overthrow Mary and bring Elizabeth to power. But none of the secrets Isabel has discovered compares to the truths hidden in her own family. With her beloved father imprisoned by Queen Mary, only Carlos Valverde – a Spanish soldier of fortune – can help Isabel. Now with England’s future at stake, Isabel risks all to change the course of history...

‘Unfurls a complex and fast-paced plot, mixing history with vibrant characters’
Publishers Weekly

ISBN: 978-1-78033-562-9
£7.99

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www.constablerobinson.com
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Available from March 2014 from Constable & Robinson

Young Queen Elizabeth I’s path to the throne has been a perilous one, and already she faces a dangerous crisis. French troops have landed in Scotland to quell a rebel Protestant army, and Elizabeth fears once they are entrenched on the border, they will invade England.

Isabel Thornleigh has returned to London from the New World with her Spanish husband, Carlos Valverde, and their young son. Ever the queen’s loyal servant, Isabel is recruited to smuggle money to the Scottish rebels. Yet Elizabeth’s trus only goes so far – Isabel’s son will be the queen’s pa,pered hostage until she completes her mission. Matters worsen when Isabel’s husband is engaged as military advisor to the French, putting the couple on opposite sides in a deadly cold war.

ISBN: 978-1-78033-565-0
£7.99

Visit
www.constablerobinson.com
for details