The Tudor Secret (27 page)

June 1553

Edward alters his succession, coerced by Northumberland.

July 1, 1553

Edward VI makes his final public appearance.

July 6, 1553

Edward dies in Greenwich Palace. Soon after, Northumberland issues an arrest order for Mary, who, informed by an anonymous informant of her brother’s demise, flees north to garner support.

July 10, 1553

Jane Grey is proclaimed queen of England.

July 19, 1553

Mary gathers an army of nearly twenty thousand and marches on London. She is proclaimed queen by popular acclaim; Jane Grey becomes a prisoner.

Elizabeth I: An Endless Fascination

Elizabeth Tudor, known as Elizabeth I, has exerted an endless fascination over our imaginations, even in looking at her life before she took the throne in 1558. She was the only surviving child of the glamorous, ill-fated Anne Boleyn, whose passionate liaison with Henry VIII shattered his twenty-four year marriage to Catherine of Aragon and set off a cataclysmic upheaval that changed England forever. Elizabeth’s parents believed that the child Anne carried was the long-awaited prince Henry had been denied; Anne staked her claim, and her unborn child’s legitimacy, on the fact that Henry and Catherine’s marriage had been incestuous due to Catherine’s previous marriage to Henry’s deceased brother, Arthur—a marriage which Catherine steadfastly proclaimed had never been consummated. Yet the child Anne bore was not a boy but a girl—a child of controversy, destroyed hopes, and disappointment, of chaos and uncertainty. Elizabeth came into the world with what seemed to be a curse already writ into her fate. Within three years, Henry would send her mother to the sword and remarry four more times; she would gain a younger brother, Edward, as well as an older sister Mary, with whom she would engage in a near-lethal collision of wills; she would face a daunting fight for her life that would test her mettle to its core; and she would, if the legend is true, fall madly, impossibly in love with the one man she would never fully have.

Elizabeth’s struggle for survival in one of the most treacherous courts in history and the glorious, often turbulent forty-four year reign that ensued upon her accession have become fodder for our entertainment for centuries. In many ways, this brittle red-haired princess with the enigmatic eyes and spidery fingers—so reminiscent of her mother—personifies our loftiest ideals of emancipation: Elizabeth refused to marry and never bore children (despite numerous rumors to the contrary), sacrificing her body and her heart for her country; she was arguably as alluring as Anne Boleyn yet never fell prey to the pitfalls that Anne paid for in blood; she displayed the fickle, silver-tongued wit that catapulted her mother to fame, coupled with the cruel, sometimes tyrannical temperament that transformed her father into a monstrous figure. Yet unlike Anne, whose tragic destiny overshadows her intense joie de vivre, or Henry, whose golden splendor is muted by the horrors of his later years, we tend to forgive Elizabeth’s foibles and her mistakes, indeed even her bloodiest blunders; we forget her carcinogenic eccentricities and look past her capricious excesses, because we recognize in her a nobility of purpose, a single-minded drive to succeed, no matter the odds. We feel that we know her, intimately.

Elizabeth excelled in a time when few women could. Though she owed a debt to those who paved the way before her—such as the formidable Isabella of Castile and the flint-hearted Eleanor of Aquitaine—and she shared her stage with such unforgettable ladies as the embattled Catherine de Medici, queen-mother of France, and her own cousin, the flighty, irresistible Mary Stuart, Queen of Scots, Elizabeth transcended even these legends to become a mythical heroine in her own right, a figure apart from the porous mortality of her contemporaries—autonomous, instantly recognizable, inimitable, and uniquely unforgettable.

Stephen Budiansky

Her Majesty’s Spymaster: Elizabeth I, Francis Walsingham, and the Birth of Modern Espionage

Antonia Fraser

The Wives of Henry VIII

Joan Glasheen

The Secret People of the Palaces: The Royal Household from the Plantagenets to Queen Victoria

Alan Haynes

The Elizabethan Secret Services

Eric Ives

Anne Boleyn

Lady Jane Grey: A Tudor Mystery

Mary M. Luke

A Crown for Elizabeth

Liza Picard

Elizabeth’s London: Everyday Life in Elizabethan London

Alison Plowden

The House of Tudor

The Young Elizabeth

Chris Skidmore

Edward VI: The Lost King of England

Derek Wilson

The Uncrowned Kings of England: The Black History of the Dudleys and the Tudor Throne

Tudor England

Sir Francis Walsingham: A Courtier in an Age of Terror

1. The Tudor Secret takes place during the succession crisis of 1553. What did you discover about England at this time? Who were the major players and what were their motivations?

2. Religion plays a crucial role in the story’s conflicts. What were the main issues between Catholics and Protestants? Were their conflicts based on actual religious differences or larger political power struggles? Do you see any parallels to today’s religious divides?

3. Brendan Prescott is a fictional character with a secret. Like many servants of the time, he is entrusted with his master’s private information. What were some of the possible repercussions he could have suffered for his actions? If you had been in his place, what might you have done?

4. The jewel featured in the book is based on an actual jewel shown in a painting of Henry VIII’s younger sister, Mary Tudor, Duchess of Suffolk, and her husband, Charles Brandon, the Duke of Suffolk. Both Mary Tudor and Mistress Alice end up with different pieces of this jewel; why do you think the jewel was broken into pieces? If it was done at Mary’s request, what message do you think she was trying to send?

5. Lady Dudley hides secrets of her own. What are they? Did you understand her reasons for doing what she did? What does her character tell us about the role of noblemen’s wives in the sixteenth century?

6. Brendan carries a clue to his past with him all along. Why doesn’t he understand its significance until the end? What part of his past does he fail to solve?

7. The death of Edward VI remains shrouded in mystery. Do you find the author’s hypothesis plausible? If not, why?

8. Elizabeth Tudor is one of history’s most popular figures. Why do you think she continues to exert such fascination, so many years after her life?

9. Who was your favorite character in the book, and why?