Secrets of the Tudor Court Boxed Set

AUTHOR’S NOTE

On Christmas Day in 1558, William Parr resumed his seat on the Privy Council. On the thirteenth of January in 1559, he was restored as Marquess of Northampton and his divorce from Anne Bourchier was reinstated. His marriage to Elizabeth Brooke was legal once more.

By Royal Decree is the fictionalized story of Elizabeth Brooke’s life from 1542 to 1558, crucial years in English history. She was at the center of events and often a key player in them. I’ve tried to stay as close to the facts as possible, while at the same time fleshing out the personalities of the people involved and making their actions comprehensible to readers living in a far different world.

Among the things that seem strange today is the rarity of female friendships. Noble households were predominately male and often a nobleman’s wife was the only woman in residence aside from a few servants. Even cooks were usually men. Although I would have liked to give Bess Brooke another woman to confide in throughout the period of the novel, such a thing would have been very unlikely in real life. It is possible that Will Parr was her best friend as well as her husband and her lover. I’d like to think so. But that, too, would have been unusual for the times.

Most of the characters who populate this novel were real people. I found several biographies particularly helpful in researching their lives, among them Leanda de Lisle’s The Sisters Who Would Be Queen (2008), Eric Ives’s Lady Jane Grey: A Tudor Mystery (2009), Susan E. James’s Kateryn Parr: The Making of a Queen (1999), and David Loades’s John Dudley, Duke of Northumberland (1996). The “Who’s Who” section at the end of this note will tell you more about the principal characters who were based on real people. You will find additional information on Tudor women at my website, www.KateEmersonHistoricals.com.

The only characters who are entirely fictional are Matthew Rowlett, Birdie Crane, Griggs, and Alys Guildford, although there was a Guildford among Queen Kathryn’s maids of honor and also in the Duchess of Northumberland’s household in 1555. I have, of course, invented dialogue, guessed at motivations, and extrapolated from the facts when there were gaps in history. I have not attempted to write in accurate sixteenth-century language. It would end up sounding like a third-rate Shakespeare imitation. I hope you will think of Bess’s story, told in her own words, as a translation into modern English and enjoy your trip into the past.