The Virgin's Daughter (Tudor Legacy #1)(106)
The last royal who trusted me with his life is dead, Dominic thought bleakly. In the end, it was the memory of Will, as much as Elizabeth’s plea, that decided him.
“I will protect her, Your Majesty. As though she were my own.”
QUESTIONS AND TOPICS FOR DISCUSSION
1. Discuss Elizabeth’s marriage to King Philip. Can you envision any scenario in which their marriage might have survived? Or were their religious differences and political responsibilities insurmountable?
2. What do you think motivated Elizabeth’s revelation about her suspicions regarding Lucette’s true parentage? Was her choice political or personal? How might she have handled the situation differently? Discuss the long-term impact of her decision on Lucette and the Courtenay family.
3. Which character surprised you the most? Why?
4. In what ways are Anne Isabella and Elizabeth similar? In what ways are they different? Compare and contrast the two, both as women and as leaders.
5. Discuss the relationship between Minuette and Elizabeth. In what ways has it evolved, and in what ways has it remained the same?
6. Elizabeth plays many roles—that of wife, friend, mother, and queen most notably. Discuss these different facets of her personality. Do you see a difference in her behavior in each of these contexts, or does the monarch necessarily overshadow the other roles?
7. At one point, Lucette asks, “Should not love between spouses be absolute? How could one ever love a second person as much as the first?” Do you agree with this sentiment? Is it possible to feel romantic love for more than one person in a lifetime?
8. Renaud tells Lucette: “You are so afraid of not being wanted, you will not put it to the test, and thus create the very distance you fear.” Do you agree with his assessment of Lucette? Can you think of anyone else in the book to whom this sentiment applies?
9. Discuss Julien’s motives for becoming an English spy, taking into account the events of 1572. Do you find his reasons compelling?
10. Before leaving England, Philip says to Elizabeth, “I indulged myself in a dream these twenty years because I loved you and because I hoped persuasion would be of greater influence than force.” What do you think his dream was? How could Elizabeth have handled the situation with Spain differently? At this point, do you think there was anything she could have done to dissuade Philip from carrying out his plan?
11. Compare and contrast Nicolas and Julien. In what ways are they similar? In what ways are they different? Did you sympathize with Nicolas at all by the end?
12. If you read The Boleyn King Trilogy, compare and contrast the relationships between Kit, Anabel, Pippa, and Lucette to those between the previous generation: Elizabeth, William, Dominic, and Minuette.
13. What did you think of the revelation at the end of the book? Any predictions for the sequel?
If you were enchanted by The Virgin’s Daughter, you won’t want to miss
THE VIRGIN’S SPY
Laura Andersen’s next dazzling installment of The Tudor Legacy trilogy.
ONE
June 1581
Elizabeth loved weddings. At least those weddings in which she could appear the benign good fairy, generously bestowing her favor upon a couple and, as always, claiming the spotlight for herself. Most families fortunate enough to draw the queen’s attention to such an occasion fell over themselves to get out of her way and let her run things the way she wanted them.
Not the Courtenay family.
At this wedding, Elizabeth was little more than a guest. For one thing, she had wanted the wedding to take place in London. As the bride was the eldest daughter of the Duke of Exeter and Elizabeth’s own goddaughter, the queen had graciously offered any number of royal chapels for the ceremony, from private ones such as Hampton Court to more public parishes like St. Margaret’s at Westminster.
But Lucette Courtenay had her mother’s stubbornness when her own wishes were at stake, and so Elizabeth herself had to travel northwest to participate in the wedding of the English lady and her French Catholic spy.
Elizabeth did not stay at Wynfield Mote with the Courtenay family, but in Warwick Castle ten miles northeast. After the castle’s forfeit to the crown upon the Duke of Northumberland’s death, Elizabeth had bestowed it upon one of the duke’s surviving sons, Ambrose Dudley. In gratitude for the queen’s generosity, Ambrose gave her the run of the castle whenever she wished. There was no such thing for Elizabeth as a release from ruling, so she filled hours with letters and papers and in meeting with the men who rode back and forth between the monarch and Walsingham in London. Though her Lord Secretary (and chief spymaster) had once used both the bride and groom in his intelligence web, Walsingham had not been invited to the wedding.
The ceremony itself went off beautifully. Conducted at Holy Trinity Church in Stratford-upon-Avon—and in the language of the Prayer Book issued by Elizabeth’s government in the first year of her reign—Lucette Courtenay and Julien LeClerc pledged themselves to love and honor, to worship with their bodies and remain loyal to their deaths. Elizabeth herself had not been married to quite those words—indeed, the working out of her marriage more than twenty years ago to Philip of Spain had required nearly a month of exhaustive debates on how precisely to balance their vows as Catholic and Protestant. But as Julien LeClerc had willingly adopted the Protestant faith for his bride, there was no trouble about words.