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Chapters (116)
  1. Cover
  2. The Last Tudor
  3. Family Trees
  4. BOOK I
  5. BRADGATE HOUSE, GROBY, LEICESTERSHIRE,
  6. SUFFOLK PLACE, LONDON,
  7. GREENWICH PALACE,
  8. GREENWICH PALACE,
  9. DURHAM HOUSE, LONDON,
  10. SUFFOLK PLACE, LONDON,
  11. THE OLD MANOR, CHELSEA,
  12. SYON HOUSE, ISLEWORTH,
  13. THE TOWER, LONDON,
  14. THE TOWER, LONDON,
  15. THE TOWER, LONDON,
  16. THE TOWER, LONDON,
  17. THE TOWER, LONDON,
  18. THE TOWER, LONDON,
  19. THE TOWER, LONDON,
  20. THE TOWER, LONDON,
  21. THE TOWER, LONDON,
  22. THE TOWER, LONDON,
  23. BOOK II
  24. BAYNARD’S CASTLE, LONDON,
  25. BEAUMANOR, LEICESTERSHIRE,
  26. BEAUMANOR, LEICESTERSHIRE,
  27. HAMPTON COURT PALACE,
  28. OATLANDS PALACE, SURREY,
  29. WHITEHALL PALACE, LONDON,
  30. HANWORTH PALACE, MIDDLESEX,
  31. GREENWICH PALACE,
  32. NONSUCH PALACE, SURREY,
  33. HAMPTON COURT PALACE,
  34. HAMPTON COURT PALACE,
  35. CHARTERHOUSE, SHEEN,
  36. WINDSOR CASTLE,
  37. WHITEHALL PALACE, LONDON,
  38. CHARTERHOUSE, SHEEN,
  39. WHITEHALL PALACE, LONDON,
  40. GREENWICH PALACE,
  41. WINDSOR CASTLE,
  42. WINDSOR CASTLE,
  43. WHITEHALL PALACE, LONDON,
  44. WHITEHALL PALACE, LONDON,
  45. CANNON ROW, LONDON,
  46. WHITEHALL PALACE, LONDON,
  47. WHITEHALL PALACE, LONDON,
  48. WHITEHALL PALACE, LONDON,
  49. GREENWICH PALACE,
  50. ON PROGRESS: THE ROAD TO WANSTEAD,
  51. PIRGO PALACE, ESSEX,
  52. MR. MORE’S HOUSE, HIGH STREET, IPSWICH,
  53. WHITEHALL PALACE, LONDON,
  54. THE LIEUTENANT’S HOUSE, THE TOWER, LONDON,
  55. THE TOWER, LONDON,
  56. THE TOWER, LONDON,
  57. THE TOWER, LONDON,
  58. LAMBETH PALACE, LONDON,
  59. THE TOWER, LONDON,
  60. THE TOWER, LONDON,
  61. THE TOWER, LONDON,
  62. THE TOWER, LONDON,
  63. THE TOWER, LONDON,
  64. THE TOWER, LONDON,
  65. THE TOWER, LONDON,
  66. THE TOWER, LONDON,
  67. THE TOWER, LONDON,
  68. THE TOWER, LONDON,
  69. THE TOWER, LONDON,
  70. THE TOWER, LONDON,
  71. PIRGO PALACE, ESSEX,
  72. BOOK III
  73. WINDSOR CASTLE,
  74. WINDSOR CASTLE,
  75. WINDSOR CASTLE,
  76. GREENWICH PALACE,
  77. WHITEHALL PALACE, LONDON,
  78. WHITEHALL PALACE, LONDON,
  79. WHITEHALL PALACE, LONDON,
  80. WHITEHALL PALACE, LONDON,
  81. WHITEHALL PALACE, LONDON,
  82. WHITEHALL PALACE, LONDON,
  83. WHITEHALL PALACE, LONDON,
  84. WINDSOR CASTLE,
  85. CHEQUERS, BUCKINGHAMSHIRE,
  86. CHEQUERS, BUCKINGHAMSHIRE,
  87. CHEQUERS, BUCKINGHAMSHIRE,
  88. CHEQUERS, BUCKINGHAMSHIRE,
  89. CHEQUERS, BUCKINGHAMSHIRE,
  90. CHEQUERS, BUCKINGHAMSHIRE,
  91. CHEQUERS, BUCKINGHAMSHIRE,
  92. CHEQUERS, BUCKINGHAMSHIRE,
  93. CHEQUERS, BUCKINGHAMSHIRE,
  94. CHEQUERS, BUCKINGHAMSHIRE,
  95. CHEQUERS, BUCKINGHAMSHIRE,
  96. CHEQUERS TO LONDON,
  97. THE MINORIES, LONDON,
  98. GREENWICH PALACE,
  99. GREENWICH PALACE,
  100. GREENWICH PALACE,
  101. THE MINORIES, LONDON,
  102. GRIMSTHORPE CASTLE, LINCOLNSHIRE,
  103. GRIMSTHORPE CASTLE, LINCOLNSHIRE,
  104. GRIMSTHORPE CASTLE, LINCOLNSHIRE,
  105. GRIMSTHORPE CASTLE, LINCOLNSHIRE,
  106. GRESHAM HOUSE, BISHOPSGATE, LONDON,
  107. GRESHAM HOUSE, BISHOPSGATE, LONDON,
  108. GRESHAM HOUSE, BISHOPSGATE, LONDON,
  109. GRESHAM HOUSE, BISHOPSGATE, LONDON,
  110. GRESHAM HOUSE, BISHOPSGATE, LONDON,
  111. GRESHAM HOUSE, BISHOPSGATE, LONDON,
  112. GRESHAM HOUSE, BISHOPSGATE, LONDON,
  113. OSTERLEY PARK, MIDDLESEX,
  114. ST. BOTOLPH’S-WITHOUT-ALDGATE, LONDON,
  115. AUTHOR’S NOTE
  116. BIBLIOGRAPHY

At dinnertime I send my lady-in-waiting to wait on my husband. I send a basket of peaches by way of a gift, and she takes them to his dinner table. She comes back to me, her lips compressed as if she is holding in a secret.

“My lady, I have a message.”

“What is it?” I hear in my head: I shall wear my sister’s crown, I shall fulfill her dream.

“My lord said to tell you—thank God—that the queen has recovered. She has come out of her swoon and the spots have broken on her skin. He said God be praised she is better.”

“God be praised,” I repeat loudly. “Our prayers have been answered. God bless her.”

I turn and go into the house, leaving Teddy with the maid, though he calls after me and raises his arms to be lifted up. I cannot let anyone see the bitterness in my face. She has recovered, that false kinswoman, that evil queen. She has recovered and I am still here in prison and no one is going to come and set me free. Nobody is coming to crown me today.

THE TOWER, LONDON,

WINTER 1562

Elizabeth recovers as if the devil himself was nursing her with satanic tenderness. Jane’s sister-in-law, who was Mary Dudley, nearly dies taking the pox from Elizabeth, and loses her famous beauty. I have no pity for her. It was she who took Jane by barge to Syon on the night that they made her queen. It was an ill-advised journey: and now Jane is dead and Mary will spend the rest of her life hiding her scarred face from the world, as if Dudley ambition has blasted their daughter’s beauty.

The queen has recovered, but the country is in turmoil. Everyone knows that she was near death and no heir named, and now word is rapidly spreading, from the great houses of London into the streets, that she tried to make a traitor’s son, a traitor’s grandson, into the Protector of the kingdom. Our queen tried to make her lover into a tyrant like Richard III. People are horrified that she would fail in her duty by dying without naming an heir, and then betray her country to a favorite. People speak of other royal favorites and the danger of an unsteady king. Ned gets a stream of messages from his friends and my supporters who are guests at private dinners held in secret by the reformist lords, who swear that an heir must be named to the throne of England, and it must be me.

“William Cecil is determined that you shall be named as heir,” Ned promises me. “He says that no one has a better claim, either by religion or inheritance, that Elizabeth knows this, that everyone knows this. He says that you must be released. Everyone agrees.”

“Then why are we still here?” I ask.