Lady Gallant

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Introduction
Chapter I
Chapter II
Chapter III
Chapter IV
Chapter V
Chapter VI
Chapter VII
Chapter VIII
Chapter IX
Chapter X
Chapter XI
Chapter XII
Chapter XIII
Chapter XIV
Chapter XV
Chapter XVI
Chapter XVII
Chapter XVIII
Chapter XIX
Chapter XX
Chapter XXI
Chapter XXII
Chapter XXIII
Chapter XXIV
Chapter XXV
Chapter XXVI

LADY GALLANT

A Bantam Fanfare Book / January 1992

Grateful acknowledgment is made for permission to reprint the following: Excerpt from THE POEMS OF CATULLUS translated by Peter Whigham (Penguin Classics, 1966), copyright Peter Whigham, 1966. Excerpt from MEDIEVAL LOVERS: A BOOK OF DAYS, Poems selected by Kevin Crossley-Holland. Copyright 1988 by Phoebe Phillips Editions. Used by permission of Grove Press, Inc. Excerpts from THE OXFORD DICTIONARY OF QUOTATIONS (3rd edition 1979). Reprinted by permission of Oxford University Press. Excerpts from CATULLUS translated by Sir William Marris (Oxford 1924). Reprinted by permission of Oxford University Press. Excerpts from SIR THOMAS WYATT: THE COMPLETE POEMS edited by R.A. Rebholz. Reprinted by permission of Penguin Books Ltd. Excerpts from THE MASTER BOOK OF HERBAUSM by Paul Beyerl. Reprinted by permission of Phoenix Publishing. Excerpts from BRITISH LITERATURE FROM BEOWULF TO SHERIDAN by Hazelton Spencer. Reprinted by permission of D.C. Heath & Company. Excerpts from OVID translated by J.H. Mozley. Reprinted by permission of Harvard University Press. Excerpts from EVERYDAY LIFE IN MEDIEVAL TIMES by Marjorie Rowling. Reprinted by permission of the Putnam Grosset Group and B. T. Batsford Ltd. Excerpt from LIFE IN ELIZABETHAN DAYS by William Steams Davis. Reprinted by permission of HarperCollins Publishers.

FANFARE and the portrayal of a boxed "ff" are trademarks of

Bantam Books,

a division of Bantam Doubleday Dell Publishing Group, Inc.

All rights reserved.

Copyright
©
1991 by Lynda S. Robinson
.

Cover art copyright
©
1991 by Ken Otsuka
.

ISBN 0-553-29430-X

Published simultaneously in the United States and Canada

Bantam Books are published by Bantam Books, a division of Bantam Double day Dell Publishing Group, Inc. Its trademark, consisting of the words "Bantam Books
"
and the portrayal of a rooster, is Registered in U. S. Patent and Trademark Office and in other countries. Marca Registrada, Bantam Books, 666 Fifth Avenue, New York, New York 10103
.

PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

DEDICATION

To Lois Ann Womack Heavener.

A woman of courage.

A survivor

And loving mother.

All my books are yours.

The world of
Lady Gallant
is a world of intrigue and danger. This historical romance takes place against the backdrop of a struggle to the death between two women; a struggle for control of the kingdom of England and the hearts of its people; the struggle between Mary and Elizabeth Tudor.

When Mary Tudor ascended the throne of England in 1553, she brought with her a legacy of pain, tragedy, and survival. Her father, the infamous Henry VIII of the six wives, had treated her at various times as his golden child, a nuisance to be ignored, a stubborn and inconvenient heir, and an enemy to be subdued and destroyed.

Henry needed a male heir, for he believed no woman could hold England together against her own powerful nobles and the mighty threats of France and Spain. He asked the Pope for a divorce from Mary's mother, Catherine of Aragon, only to be refused. After years of maneuvering, he lost patience and dragged his kingdom out of the mainstream of Catholicism by establishing himself as the head of the church in England. Suddenly, Englishmen were no longer to follow the Pope, as they had for centuries. Henry gave himself a divorce, cast aside both Catherine and Mary, and married Elizabeth's mother, Ann Boleyn.

Mary turned to her faith to help her survive, as she watched her father drive her mother to her death by neglect, persecution, and heartbreak. She watched him tear down the bulwarks of her childhood—the Catholic Church, its monasteries, nunneries, and abbeys. Thousands of religious people were uprooted and displaced, just as Mary was uprooted and displaced.

Yet Mary survived, and when at last she came to the throne, she considered it a miracle wrought by God so that she could restore England to its proper state of grace within the true faith. She reestablished the Catholic faith, brought back the monks, priests, and nuns, and tried to make her people change. One of the ways she did this was by punishing Protestants if they refused to return to the Catholic faith. Throughout England Mary's bishops searched out heretics. Tragically, most of those who were caught were too uneducated or not powerful enough to protect themselves. Hundreds of Protestants died, and many of those who perished at the stake could not even read. They died because they couldn't repeat the right words in the right sequence, and the more people who died, the more Mary was hated.

Mary did not understand that England had changed forever—intellectually and spiritually. Too many powerful people owned former church lands; too many people looked forward instead of backward. One of those people was Elizabeth, the daughter of the woman who had ruined Mary's life.

Elizabeth was Protestant. She had to be, for according to the Catholics she was a bastard with no claim to the throne. Educated, intelligent, wily, Elizabeth represented everything Mary did not—the new religion, wide-ranging intellectual curiosity, youth, and beauty. Elizabeth was a threat to all that Mary was trying to rebuild.

Unfortunately, Mary was childless. Married to Philip, King of Spain, she suffered from his indifference and from her own inability
to
conceive an heir who would carry on her life's dream to re-create the golden kingdom of her childhood. Aging, desperate, fearful, Mary's mind began to weaken beneath the terrible burden she'd taken upon herself. Faced with the prospect of Elizabeth succeeding her, Mary had to make a decision: to kill her sister, or to surrender her dream by allowing Elizabeth to succeed.

A tragic dilemma wrought in an age of great progress and great suffering, the struggle between Mary and Elizabeth is the stuff of human drama. Come with me now back to a time when faith and life, love and politics intertwined, when—as Christian and Nora discover—to love the wrong person could cost you your life.