The Virgin's Spy (Tudor Legacy #2)(104)
As I began pondering this story, I picked up a book called The Twilight Lords: Elizabeth I and the Plunder of Ireland by Richard Berleth. Without that book, this one would be different—and significantly less. James FitzMaurice, Humphrey Gilbert, the Earl of Desmond, the occupation and destruction of Kilmallock, the practice of laying waste to the landscape…all burst from the pages of history with dramatic stories thrumming beneath the matter-of-fact words.
For the purposes of my story, Oliver Dane and Ailis Kavanaugh and her clan are entirely imaginary. But not, I think, terribly far from reality. Carrigafoyle, with defenses designed by an Italian engineer, Captain Julian, and garrisoned mainly by Spanish and Italian soldiers, fell to a three-siege by the English. In the aftermath, a contemporary observer wrote: “There escaped not one, neither man, woman, nor child.”
The Virgin’s Spy is meant as entertainment. But if it stirs curiosity into the nonalternate history of Queen Elizabeth’s reign, I shall be well rewarded.
Now, as always, a very partial list of the many people to whom I am indebted. If I were in the position to require a royal privy council, the following would be my choices.
As Lord Secretary and Chief Councilor: Tamar Rydzinski. Even Lord Burghley cannot compete with my agent’s calm in the face of chaos and her knack for the perfect advice at the perfect time.
As Lord Treasurer and Chief Intelligencer: Kate Miciak and the entire Ballantine team. With all the wisdom I lack (which is an astoundingly large amount), Kate shapes my writing and the team gives life to my imagination. Like Francis Walsingham, they see what I don’t and safely guide me there.
As Chief Lady of the Privy Chamber: Katie Jeppson.
For so many reasons I would have to write an entire book to do them justice. So here are just three: for traveling with me, for eating with me, and for always speaking of my characters as though they were real.
As Ladies-in-Waiting: Debbie Ramsay, Concessa Shearer, Kari Whitesell, and the many kind women in Boston who wait so patiently for the rare moments I emerge from isolation.
There were times when I thought this book would never be written. I’m quite sure I say that with every book—but it feels particularly true for this one. Between lingering illness, family crises, and one hundred and ten inches of snow, my titular spy wasn’t especially interested in moving quickly. But here it is. And here it most certainly would not be without, forever and always, my family.
And so, last of all, those faithful members of my Personal Household: Chris, Matt, Jake, Emma, and Spencer. No royal has ever been loved or served half so well.
BY LAURA ANDERSEN
The Boleyn King
The Boleyn Deceit
The Boleyn Reckoning
The Virgin’s Daughter
The Virgin’s Spy
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
LAURA ANDERSEN is married with four children, and possesses a constant sense of having forgotten something important. She has a B.A. in English (with an emphasis in British History), which she puts to use by reading everything she can lay her hands on.
www.lauraandersenbooks.com
Facebook.com/?lauraandersenbooks
@LauraSAndersen
31 December 1582
Hampton Court Palace
My dear Robert,
How often I have longed for your presence these many years! And yet, I do hesitate to write so much for fear of seeming but a weak and sentimental woman. Almost I can hear your teasing words, warm in my ear: “Since when do you care what others think?”
The answer, of course, is since I became queen. A ruling queen of a divided country cannot afford even the appearance of weakness. Which is why I do not speak of you, not even to those nearest to me. And hardly do I even allow myself to think of you.
Occasionally, though, I cannot control my thoughts. And I find myself wondering how my years of ruling might have been different with you at my side. Perhaps even literally so, for your Amy died less than two years after I came to my throne. Had you lived, my sweet Robin, what temptations might have assailed me then! To have a husband not only of my choosing, but of my heart? I look now at my Anabel, at her instinctive resistance to a marriage of state, and I both understand and wonder what might have been.
It would have been most difficult, for you were hardly a good prospect even for a princess royal, let alone a ruling queen. A fifth son, a father and a brother executed for treason, already married…but I am remarkably stubborn. Almost, I can envision the fight I might have made. For a rarity, I suspect Walsingham and Burghley would have been on the same side in opposing me. Though I do wonder what possible marital choice I might have made that could have pleased Walsingham? Lord Burghley, naturally, supported the Spanish marriage. He was nearly alone in doing so. Not that Walsingham or my other councilors had anyone realistic in mind to replace Philip. An Austrian archduke? A Swedish prince? An Italian count? A Scottish noble? Hardly appropriate, any of them.
It was not so much that Philip was a foreigner that informed their objections—for they could never agree, either, on an English candidate—but that Philip was King of Spain. They feared his power and influence. Not that such considerations had ever been a difficulty where queen consorts were concerned. But a queen regnant? I found it insulting how quickly even those who knew me well assumed I would be putty in a husband’s hands.