Elizabeth’s Bedfellows Paperback by Anna Whitelock


An excellent review for the paperback of Anna Whitelock’s ‘Elizabeth’s Bedfellows’ in the Sunday Times Culture.

‘Nobody knew Elizabeth I better than the women who form the subject of Whitelock’s engrossing and admirably researched study: the women who slept in the queen’s bed, ministered to her needs and experienced her fits of rage. Whitelock’s book brings out the loyalty that Elizabeth inspired and the unpredictable ways in which she chose to reward it. Taking us behind the closed doors of Elizabeth’s bedchamber, she builds up a remarkably intimate portrait. With his dazzling portrait, Whitelock takes her place among the foremost, and most enthrallingly readable, historians of the Tudors.’

Miranda Seymour
p.40, The Culture, Sunday Times (11 May 2014)


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My Lady Jane Grey Birthday Cards


For my birthday last week, I received these two wonderful Lady Jane Grey cards.


Lady Jane Birthday Cards

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Books that feature Lady Jane in 2014


2013 was a bumper year for books that featured Lady Jane Grey. There was ‘Tudor: The Family Story’ by Leanda de Lisle, ‘Queen’s Gambit’ by Elizabeth Fremantle, ‘The Children of Henry VIII’ by John Guy and ‘Venus in Winter’ by Gillian Bagwell.

For 2014, I have only come across one new book that will feature Jane. ‘Sisters of Treason’ by Elizabeth Fremantle (the second in her Tudor trilogy) will be published in May.

The paperback version of Elizabeth’s ‘Queen’s Gambit’ has just been published and we also have the paperbacks of De Lisle’s ‘Tudor: The Family Story’ and Guy’s ‘The Children of Henry VIII’ to look forward to.

Have I missed any new books due in 2014 that will feature Jane?

(c) Penguin

(c) Penguin


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Books 2014 – On sale now – Queen’s Gambit (paperback) by Elizabeth Fremantle


13 March – Queen’s Gambit (Paperback) by Elizabeth Fremantle


(c) Penguin

(c) Penguin


‘The court of henry VIII is rife with intrigue, rivalries and romance – and none are better placed to understand this than the women at its heart.

Katherine Parr, Widowed for the second time aged thirty-one, is obliged to return to court, but, suspicious of the aging king and those who surround him, she does so with reluctance. Nevertheless, when she finds herself caught up in a passionate affair with the dashing and seductive Thomas Seymour, she believes she might finally be able to marry for love. But her presence at court has attracted the attentions of another.

Captivated by her honesty and intelligence, Henry Tudor has his own plans for Katherine and no one is in the position to refuse a proposal from the king. So with her charismatic lover dispatched to the continent, Katherine must accept the hand of the ailing egotistical monarch and become Henry’s sixth wife – and yet she has still not quite given up on love.’

From Elizabeth Fremantle

Further details – Amazon.co.uk

Elizabeth Fremantle


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On sale today – God’s Traitors by Jessie Childs


6 March – God’s Traitors: Terror and Faith in Elizabethan England by Jessie Childs


(c) Bodley Head

(c) Bodley Head


‘The Catholics of Elizabethan England did not witness a golden age. Their Mass was banned, their priests were outlawed, their faith was criminalised. In an age of assassination and Armada, those Catholics who clung to their faith were increasingly seen as the enemy within. In this superb history, award-winning author Jessie Childs explores the Catholic predicament in Elizabethan England through the eyes of one remarkable family: the Vauxes of Harrowden Hall.

God’s Traitors is a tale of dawn raids and daring escapes, stately homes and torture chambers, ciphers, secrets and lies. From clandestine chapels and side-street inns to exile communities and the corridors of power, it exposes the tensions and insecurities masked by the cult of Gloriana. Above all, it is a timely story of courage and frailty, repression and reaction and the terrible consequences when religion and politics collide.

From Random House.co.uk


Further details – Random House

Further details – Amazon.co.uk

Jessie Childs


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