The Spymaster's Daughter (52 page)

READERS GUIDE

READERS GUIDE

READERS GUIDE

Q. What intrigued you about Frances Sidney and made you want to write a book about
her?

A. The intrigue lies in what might have been. The personal details of Frances's life are little known. We do know that she was the daughter of Francis Walsingham, the mastermind of the greatest spy network of the Tudor age; that she married the wildly popular poet of love Sir Philip Sidney; and that she was the wife of Elizabeth I's last love, Robert Devereux, the Earl of Essex. But who was she apart from these towering male figures?

Frances has been most often cast by historians as a shadow behind these men and little worthy of note. Since I was a cryptographer at the Pentagon during wartime, I put myself in Frances's slippers: She must have overheard plotting, been aware of important secrets, seen the supreme urgency of her father's work. It is unimaginable to me that she would not have been caught up in that excitement and wanted to be part of the spy business…just to prove she could. This kernel of an idea eventually became
The Spymaster's Daughter
.

Q. In your last three novels, you've combined historical and fictional characters. How do you decide which historical figures to include and which characters you need to make
up?

A. Choosing historical characters is determined by the story I'm writing and the people actually involved. The choice of new characters
depends a great deal on the evolving story's needs. I did not imagine Lady Stanley until I thought that Frances Sidney, who so obviously had Queen Elizabeth's favor and the interest of the handsome young Earl of Essex, would have aroused jealousy among the other court ladies. Aunt Jennet served to illustrate how serious it was to have Catholic sympathies in Elizabeth's England. Meg and Will, Frances's servants, also evolved from the story's need for minor characters that had roles to play in her adventures.

The animals who inspired Quint and Claudius, the Percheron horses who pull the dray to Chartley, are currently living at my daughter's Percheron farm in California.

Q. Can you describe the international espionage network set up by Frances's father, Francis Walsingham? How did it compare to royal spy networks from earlier and later periods?

A. We know that spies and secret writing were used from earliest history. There is evidence that cuneiform tablets from ancient Mesopotamia disguised city names to confuse the enemy. Egyptian hieroglyphs were altered, and a Greek commander coated his message with wax so that it looked like an empty tablet ready for the stylus. Later, the Romans had twenty different kinds of secret writing, as it was known then. Individual legion commanders even had their own codes. There was cryptography of every kind, using colored beads and pebbles, and messages wrapped about cylinders that could only be read by wrapping them around the same size cylinder. Alphabet reversal and disappearing ink have been in use since writing began. In every time, we have needed covert forms of communication for state, military, and even private purposes.

For its time, Walsingham's network was a marvel, so extensive that it reached into Asia, every European court, and even into the Vatican. It set a high bar for subsequent spying operations. The breaking of the German Enigma code by Alan Turing at Bletchley Park, England, during World War II marked the beginning of modern code breaking and led to the complex computer codes of today.

Q. How do the codes that Frances cracks compare to codes used at other times in history?

A. Frances's ciphers were complex for the time, but many systems were still based on earlier substitution systems: one letter standing for another. Double substitution was also in use and agreed-upon nulls—meaningless letters meant to confuse—made messages more difficult to break. Some systems were based on ciphers known to both sender and receiver. There was danger of discovery in having an agreed-upon code in two or more places. Mary, queen of Scots was actually trapped by one and lost her head.

Spies in the field might also use disappearing messages, quite often written in their own urine, which became legible when held close to a candle's flame.

Q. You make it sound as if popular poet Philip Sidney was the equivalent of a modern-day rock star—a celebrity of the Tudor period who incited a frenzy of emotion among readers. Is that a fair comparison?

A. He
was
a rock star! After his death in 1586 from a leg wound suffered at the Battle of Zutphen in Holland, during which he gave up his leg armor to a friend, he was celebrated as the perfect English knight. The popularity of his love sonnets to Stella and his brave death at the age of thirty-one inspired a cult following that lasted until 1700. It then diminished only to roar back during Queen Victoria's reign, at which time he returned to even greater cult status.

For a fascinating flash reenactment of Sidney's funeral procession, go to
http://wiki.umd.edu/psidney/index.php?title=Main_Page
.

Q. The novel suggests that well-born women had almost no say in whom they married. Was that uniformly true or were some parents more lenient with their daughters? How did this compare to marriages made between members of lower classes?

A. Children were legal property. The purpose of marriage for the well-born was to increase the family's property or title. This held true for
sons as well as daughters. The lower classes had less to gain from marriage, but the primacy of a father as head of the family was still the rule. I can easily imagine that a farmer with a pretty daughter wishing to add to his property would have his eye on the son in line to inherit the neighboring farm.

Of course, there were favored daughters and sons for whom the rules were set aside.

Q. You depict Elizabeth I as a notorious skinflint. Did her efforts to keep government spending within what it could afford have any long-lasting impact on the country? When she died, was England a wealthier or poorer country?

A. Elizabeth watched her purse and spent nothing without good reason. What about her extravagant dress and jewels? These were necessary to reinforce her regal position, both at home and abroad. True, when she died in 1603, England was poorer in its treasury. There had been years of too much rain and poor harvests in the 1590s; Spain had sent four armadas against the country; and Irish uprisings were continuous and ruinously expensive. But England had a foothold in the New World and Elizabeth had signed the charter forming the East India Company. The island nation was about to become a world power, while Spain was bankrupt.

Q. You suggest that the Earl of Essex pursues Frances because she rejects his overtures. Do you think he had any genuine affection for her or were his reasons for marrying her as self-serving as one might expect?

A. Essex was very young and, though strong-willed, he was emotionally needy. I believe he had to have constant reinforcement of his self-image. He may have married Frances to defy the queen, who objected to all her handsome young courtiers marrying. When one took another woman, it destroyed the romantic attachment for the queen they all pretended to. It is also rumored that Sidney left his sword and his wife to Essex, passing the torch, as it were, to the next perfect English
knight. Nobody really knows. Essex did reject a last meeting with her and his children before he went to the block, as I have noted in the epilogue.

Q. You portray Mary, queen of Scots as a woman who did, indeed, plot to assassinate her cousin, Queen Elizabeth. Is that how you really see her or did that portrait simply fit the needs of this story?

A. Yes, I think she plotted to escape every minute of the eighteen-plus years she was imprisoned in England by Elizabeth. Mary always considered herself the rightful queen, even quartering her arms with the English coat of arms. By 1586, after so many years of foiled attempts, in ill health and growing old, she must have become desperate to escape, and agreed to Elizabeth's death, thinking to take the throne. This was the one plot that could and did condemn her.

Q. In your novels, Elizabeth I's ladies-in-waiting almost always fall in love with someone they meet at court, yet they feel estranged from most people there, unable to trust the people around them and beset by traps and trickery. Yet the court was supposed to be a place where top-notch entertainments were available to be enjoyed. Did anyone have any fun there?

A. Many families sent their sons and daughters to court to gain an advantageous marriage, hoping that Elizabeth would arrange or at least allow one. The costs of court life were huge, so sacrifices had to be made.

Of course, the court was full of traps and trickery. Follow the money and the power was as true then as now. Think of it as Washington, D.C., only with better clothes.

Q. Do you ever wish you could have lived during the Tudor period?

A. Absolutely, although I would hope to bypass the odors of open sewers and unwashed bodies and clothes. When I'm walking along the Strand in London, I'm not seeing the double-decker buses and modern shops; I'm seeing York House and Leicester House, the Thames
with a winter frost fair and boys on bone skates and Whitehall sprawling on the opposite riverbank. Not a one exists now except in my mind's eye. When I'm in London, I always stay at the Royal Horseguards Hotel, which sits atop the site of Elizabeth's palace.

Q. Are your own interests still firmly fixed in the Tudor period or do you find yourself reading about other eras? If so, what books have recently captivated
you?

A. I read in many historical periods. I've recently finished all of Rosemary Sutcliff's Roman Britain trilogy, starting with
The Eagle of the Ninth
, and am beginning her Saxon period novels. I read many new Tudor period novels and nonfiction books, especially the work of Karen Harper.
The Queen's Governess
and
Mistress Shakespeare
are on my keeper shelf, along with all the nonfiction written by Anne Somerset. I like World War I novels and am reading
The Somme Stations
by Andrew Martin, short-listed for the CWA Dagger Award, while also listening to Margaret George's
Elizabeth
(in my car). George captures that queen's droll wit to perfection. I'm also reading Jeri Westerson's Crispin Guest novels about a disgraced medieval knight turned “tracker.” For a change of period, I recently finished
The Paris Wife
, which is about 1920s Paris and Hemingway's first marriage.

Usually, I have about four novels ongoing, not including three or more nonfiction research books. One novel rests by every TV set. I'm a frequent user of the mute button. Unfortunately, life is too short to write about every historical period I'd like to explore.

Q. Last we heard, you were renovating your Tudor-style home. Have you made any noteworthy changes?

A. I'm always changing or adding details for authenticity. Last year, I adapted an iron courtyard gate based on famous designer Gertrude Jekyll's design. My most recent and most delightful addition is chimney pots on both chimneys, just like the ones you see in old English villages. My husband and I spent three years searching for
them and finally found them in Ohio. A mason with an assistant in a cherry picker drew a sizable neighborhood crowd while installing the 350-pound pots. They are a delight to see from a distance when I return from my daily walk in the park. You can see them at
www.jeanewestin.com/bio
.

Q. What would you love to write about next?

A. I have several ideas, but Stella, Lady Penelope Rich, continues to intrigue me. There's more to tell about that lady…much more.

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