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A dramatic novel of passion, politics and betrayal from the author of The Other Boleyn Girl. They can fear me, and they can hate me. They can even deny me. But they cannot kill me. 1568. The Virgin Queen Elizabeth I has ruled England for ten years, but refuses to name a successor, despite the rival claims that threaten her kingdom. Bess of Hardwick, the new Countess of Shrewsbury, has secured her future with her fourth marriage to George Talbot. Ambitious and shrewd, Bess anticipates royal favour when she and the Earl are asked to give sanctuary to the fugitive Mary Queen of Scots. But the Scottish queen rails against house arrest in a desolate castle and plots to regain her throne. The castle becomes the epicentre of intrigue against Elizabeth, the Earl blinded by admiration for the other queen. Even Bess’s own loyalty is thrown into question. If Elizabeth’s spymaster William Cecil links the Talbots to the growing conspiracy to free Mary, they will all face the Tower...

Philippa Gregory

The Other Queen

The Plantagenet and Tudor Novels - 15

ePub r1.0

Titivillus 22.11.2018

Original Title: The Other Queen

Philippa Gregory, 2008

ISBN: 9781439126660

Digital editor: Titivillus

ePub base r2.0

For Anthony

CHATSWORTH HOUSE, DERBYSHIRE: BESS

AUTUMN, 1568

Every woman should marry for her own advantage since her husband will represent her, as visible as her front door, for the rest of his life. If she chooses a wastrel she will be avoided by all her neighbors as a poor woman; catch a duke and she will be Your Grace, and everyone will be her friend. She can be pious, she can be learned, she can be witty and wise and beautiful, but if she is married to a fool she will be “that poor Mrs. Fool” until the day he dies.

And I have good reason to respect my own opinion in the matter of husbands having had three of them, and each one, God bless him, served as stepping stone to the next until I got my fourth, my earl, and I am now “my lady Countess of Shrewsbury”: a rise greater than that of any woman I know. I am where I am today by making the most of myself, and getting the best price for what I could bring to market. I am a self-made woman—self-made, self-polished, and self-sold—and proud of it.

Indeed, no woman in England has done better than me. For though we have a queen on the throne, she is only there by the skill of her mother, and the feebleness of her father’s other stock, and not through any great gifts of her own. If you kept a Tudor for a breeder you would eat him for meat in your second winter. They are poor weak beasts, and this Tudor queen must make up her mind to wed, bed, and breed, or the country will be ruined.