The Queen's Secret (50 page)

Writing this novel has been the achievement of a personal dream. I fell in love with history at school, flirted with it at university while studying Elizabethan and Jacobean playwrights, and have now committed some of that love affair to paper. The past is not always so very different from our own age, after all. Although my Lucy Morgan is a partly imagined character, a woman who existed in official records (though perhaps not as I have depicted her), she represents a type of brave, aspirational and passionate young woman familiar to us today, a character whose talents and shining personality raise her from poverty and obscurity to the Tudor version of celebrity.

Victoria Lamb
Warwickshire, August 2011

¹
British Museum Egerton Manuscript 2806, ff. 148, 152v, 167v.

²
Peter D. Fraser’s essay ‘The Status of Africans in England’, in
From Strangers to Citizens
(Sussex Academic Press, 2001) edited by Charles Littleton and Randolph Vigne, makes an excellent introduction to this fascinating topic.

Select Bibliography

I consulted a wide range of books, papers and pamphlets during the writing of this novel. The titles that follow are those to which I owe the greatest debt, with my personal triumvirate consisting of Robert Hutchinson’s masterly portrait of Walsingham and his secret network of spies,
Elizabeth’s Spy Master
, the marvellously detailed account of Elizabeth I’s visit to Kenilworth,
Robert Laneham’s Letter
, for which Tudor historians must be forever grateful, and
Elizabeth’s Women: The Hidden Story of the Virgin Queen
by the talented and insightful Tracy Borman.

I am also deeply obliged to Peter D. Fraser for his essay ‘The Status of Africans in England’, in
From Strangers to Citizens
, pp. 254–60, and to Kathy Lynn Emerson, for her
Who’s Who in Tudor Women
(
http://www.kateemersonhistoricals.com/TudorWomenIndex.htm
), an online addition to
Wives and Daughters, The Women of Sixteenth-Century England
(Whitston Publishing Company, 1984).

The song ‘Ah, Robin’ is by William Cornysh (d. 1523).

The editions cited below are those consulted, even where earlier or revised editions exist.

Acknowledgements

I dedicate this novel to the memory of my mother, the romantic novelist Charlotte Lamb, whose pen-name I have adopted in tribute to an amazing global career which encompassed both historical and contemporary bestselling fiction over a thirty-year span. I’m sure my mother would have read
The Queen’s Secret
avidly, and then told me precisely what was wrong with it.

My grateful thanks go to my agent, Luigi Bonomi, whose warmth and helpful advice has been such a boon to me, and to Selina Walker, Jess Thomas and all the team at Transworld for their belief in this book.

While researching
The Queen’s Secret
, I drew on a number of sources for the character of Lucy Morgan, including Leslie Hotson’s
Mr W.H
. and Kathy Lynn Emerson’s
Who’s Who in Tudor Women
. For these, and for Kathy Lynn Emerson’s help in tracking down various elusive citations, I am extremely grateful, as I am for Trea Martyn’s helpful responses to my queries concerning the Elizabethan gardens at Kenilworth. I would also like to extend my thanks to staff at both the Bodleian Library, Oxford, and Warwick University Library for their support in accessing relevant texts.

Thanks also to the English Heritage staff at Kenilworth Castle who have made me welcome during countless visits over the past two years, especially Stefanie Van Stokkom for her patience and historical expertise. Any liberties I may have taken with events
and
geography are despite her very useful advice, not because of it.

I also wish to mention Summersault, a jazz café-restaurant in Rugby, where much of this novel was written. Many thanks for not turfing me off my favourite table once my coffee was cold.

And I reserve a special mention for the Romantic Novelists’ Association, whose glittering parties and camaraderie are second to none.

Lastly, I acknowledge the loving support – and occasional acceptance of washing-up duties – of my husband, Steve.
Sine qua non
.

About the Author

While studying Elizabethan and Jacobean playwrights at university,
Victoria Lamb
had a desire to write a series of novels about Shakespeare’s ‘Dark Lady’. Now a busy mother of five, she has finally achieved that ambition after much research. Daughter of the prolific novelist Charlotte Lamb, Victoria lives in Warwickshire – also known as Shakespeare Country – only twenty minutes from Kenilworth Castle where
The Queen’s Secret
is set. She is presently working on her new novel featuring Lucy Morgan.

TRANSWORLD PUBLISHERS
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First published in Great Britain
in 2012 by Bantam Press
an imprint of Transworld Publishers

Copyright © Victoria Lamb 2012

Victoria Lamb has asserted her right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 to be identified as the author of this work.

A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

Version 1.0 Epub ISBN 9781446438985
ISBNs 9780593067994 (hb)
9780593067987 (tpb)

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