The biggest challenge (and my editor will vouch for this) was deciding what to cut. I found so much information on tennis and bowls and masques and tournaments, all of it fascinating to me, that I found it difficult to choose which details to include and which to leave out. My original manuscript contained way too much description of pageant wagons and costumes and the like. I think I would have enjoyed watching most of the spectacles, but the only one I’d have wanted to participate in would have been the dancing.
7. “Courtly love” is common throughout the novel—many affairs occur, and lovers are easily replaced. Do you see any similarities to romance today, or has the battle of the sexes changed dramatically since Henry VIII’s lifetime?
Some things never change. People fall in and out of love, suffer heartbreak, and make life-altering decisions based on physical attraction. The difference in Tudor times was that young people were more likely to give in to family and religious pressure to marry someone chosen for them, opting for economic and social stability over romantic love.
8. Two murder mysteries remain unsolved in the noveclass="underline" King Charles of France and Jane’s mother, Jeanne Popyncourt. Why did you leave these suspicious deaths open-ended?
The rumors I mention surrounding King Charles’s death really were bandied about. He died in a rather bizarre way and no one can be certain what happened. Even so, I suspect his death was an accident, caused by that blow to the head. Jeanne Popyncourt’s death, on the other hand, being fiction, gave me the chance to make sense of several odd historical facts: What happened to Jane’s parents when she came to England? Why is there a Jane Popyncourt listed in the household accounts of Elizabeth of York when Jane was sent to the nursery? Why did Sir Richard Guildford go on a pilgrimage to the Holy Land at a time when such journeys by Englishmen were extremely rare? And finally, why did Margaret Beaufort, King Henry VII’s mother, take a vow of chastity, dress like a nun, and wear a hair shirt during the last part of her life?
9. Your Author’s Note reveals that you invented the uncle-niece relationship between Sir Rowland Velville and Jane Popyncourt, two historical figures. Were there other imaginative connections you considered while planning this book?
I looked at several possibilities, including having Henry VII bring Jane to England because she was his natural daughter. For that to work, however, Jane would have had to be much older. Whoever Jane really was, there must have been some reason why she was selected, and the most likely was that there was a family connection to some prominent figure at court.
10. Have readers seen the last of Jane, or do you think you will revisit this character in another book?
I’ve said pretty much all I wanted to about Jane and left her at a good place in her life. However, since no one knows exactly when she died, it is always possible she might make a cameo appearance in a future novel.
SECRETS OF THE TUDOR COURT
Pocket Books
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This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 2010 by Kathy Lynn Emerson
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First Pocket Books trade paperback edition January 2010
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Manufactured in the United States of America
1 3 5 7 9 10 8 6 4 2
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Emerson, Kate.
Secrets of the Tudor court: between two queens / Kate Emerson.—1st Pocket Books
trade paperback ed.
p. cm.
1. Henry VIII, King of England, 1491–1547—Fiction. 2. Great Britain—Kings and
rulers—Paramours—Fiction. 3. Great Britain—Court and courtiers—Fiction. I. Title.
II. Title: Between two queens.
PS3555.M414S425 2009
813' .54—dc22
2009022622
ISBN 978-1-4165-8327-1
ISBN 978-1-4165-8359-2 (ebook)
To Kathy Sagan
Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Epilogue—1554
A Note From the Author
A Who’s Who of the Tudor Court 1537–1543
Readers Club Guide
Her Grace made grant to have one of your daughters; and the matter is thus concluded that your ladyship shall send them both over, for Her Grace will first see them and know their manners, fashions and conditions, and take which of them shall like Her Grace best; and they must be sent over about six weeks hence, and your ladyship shall not need too much cost on them till time you know which of them Her Grace will have. But two honest changes they must have, the one of satin, the other of damask. And at their coming the one shall be in my Lady of Rutland’s chamber and the other in my Lady Sussex’s chamber; and once known which the Queen will have, the other to be with the Duchess of Suffolk, and then to be apparelled according to their degrees. But madam, the Queen will be at no more cost with her but wages and livery, and so I am commanded to write unto your ladyship.