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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

“My dear Lady Gresham,” I say, speaking down to her, though the top of my hood reaches her armpit, “I have spent my life trying to avoid the attention of my cousin the queen, I am not likely to bellow out to her when she is attending a banquet in your house. I only hope that you can do everything as she prefers. You have not been much at court, I think? Being a city wife, as you are? And not noble?”

She gives a muted shriek of fury and rushes from the room, leaving me laughing. Tormenting Lady Gresham is my principal entertainment. And a royal visit will give me much scope.

* * *

In fact it goes off perfectly well. Elizabeth eats her dinner in the Greshams’ banqueting hall and watches a play that praises her majesty and her greatness. Then she walks around Sir Thomas’s great folly of his merchants’ hall. The merchants do not gather here, as they do at the Bourse in Bruges. The goldsmiths and jewelers and sellers of goods have not moved into his little shops, preferring their traditional stalls or the front rooms of their houses on the busy city streets. Sir Thomas has begged all his tenants to bring all their stock for the queen to see, and he gives her gifts at every shop. Elizabeth laps up the presents and the flattery like a fat ginger cat, and calls for a herald to announce that hereafter the hall will be called the Royal Exchange, and Sir Thomas will finally make money here and his grasshopper emblem can hop all over London.

“And you are to be freed,” Lady Gresham says, poking her disagreeable face through the door of my privy chamber at the end of the day. She is flushed with triumph and wine. “Sir Thomas asked the queen and she said that you could leave us.”

“I shall be glad to go,” I say, keeping my voice steady before this unattractive bearer of good news, a most unlikely herald angel. “Am I to join my husband?”

“I don’t know,” she says, unable to taunt me with a refusal. “But you are definitely leaving.”

GRESHAM HOUSE, BISHOPSGATE, LONDON,

AUTUMN 1571

I wait for the order to pack my books and put Mr. Nozzle into his traveling cage, but none comes. Then I learn that William Cecil has been busy with other matters. He has uncovered a great plot to capture Elizabeth the queen. Thomas Howard is accused of working with Spain to raise an army to put Mary on the throne in her place. The court is in an uproar of fear, and nobody is going to release another heir, another Mary, even if it is only me, and everyone knows I have done nothing. Thomas Howard is returned to the Tower, the guards are reinforced at my aunt Bess’s house, and once again Elizabeth has three cousins in captivity.

I write to Thomas: