Child of the Phoenix

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

So many people helped me with their support and enthusiasm for this book, but I should like to thank especially the genealogists and archivists who contributed to the unravelling of the tale; I am very grateful for their patience and interest.

I should like to thank Janet Hanlon once more for her advice and also Jane, without whose organizational skills, help and humour present-day life would have disintegrated into a medieval miasma!

My heroine spent much of her life in four great residences. Of Fotheringhay virtually nothing remains. The site which once contained a great castle dreams on the banks of the River Nene, lost in memories of Mary, Queen of Scots, who died there and of Richard III who was born there. Of its far earlier occupants, the Earl and Countess of Huntingdon, nothing but faint echoes remain.

Kildrummy Castle too is a ruin, but an evocative and extensive ruin. I have been there several times since I was a child, but my last quick visit was one of the most enjoyable, entertained as we were with a lively account of the siege by young Scott Kelman, and the added information provided by his father, Tom.

At Falkland Palace we were made welcome by Elly Crichton Stuart and I should like to thank her for her hospitality and for showing us around the palace and for the help and advice which she and Thomas Puttfarken gave to me about the old castle.

Thanks also to Kathryn and Brian Gibson who made us so welcome at Pen-y-Bryn, the evocative and fascinating site of the Palace of Aber, of which tantalizing glimpses remain beneath and around their home.

And finally many thanks to Carole Blake and to Rachel Hore for their unfailing support and encouragement.