Special Guest Post by Elizabeth St.John, Author of The Queen's Tears: A Novel of Choices, Courage, and the Cost of Love

Available from Amazon UK and Amazon US

A stolen crown jewel and an enigmatic portrait force two women to confront the devastating choices they made for love—and summon the courage to live with the truth.

Launching The Queen’s Tears the old-fashioned way

Before anything else, I want to say thank you to book bloggers, because I don’t think people fully realise how important you are. You give up hours of your own time to read our books, which is no small thing when there are so many of them and so few hours to spend, and then you give up more of it to write about them and share them with readers who might never have found them otherwise. You do it for the love of reading, and a launch simply wouldn’t be the same without you, so thank you, from the bottom of my heart, for everything you do and for taking the time to look at this book.

I published my first book ten years ago, in a very different world. It’s really come home to me these last few months as I pulled out my “marketing stuff to do” spreadsheet and worked with my beta readers, cover designer, and editor to get The Queen’s Tears into shape. So far, all familiar territory, albeit still stressful. But then, approaching the marketing, and already realising that the 90% drop in sales I’d experienced in the past three years was never going to recover in an over-saturated marketplace, I decided that more conversations and less conversions would be the theme for this launch. Let’s get back to basics.

Don’t get me wrong. There’s nothing wrong with marketing, advertising, PR, blog tours, promotions, social media, book talks, book tours, book clubs, book…aaargh! But selectively, purposefully, with intent. Yes, I invested in a great cover designer - Dee Dee Book Covers - and my wonderful editor, Jenny Quinlan, is worth her weight in gold. The fabulous bibliophiles at Coffee Pot Book Club are helping spread the word when the book launches. And that’s before I get to the bloggers like you, who give a book like this its very first readers.

The rest is about conversations. A talk at the library surrounded by countless volumes begging to be read. A friend’s book club where we chat long into the evening about amplifying the voices of lost women. An afternoon tea at my local senior centre, where everyone has a story to tell. And connecting with readers and other authors over coffee and online, wherever there is a conversation to be had. Those are the times I’ve always enjoyed.

I can’t tell you how grateful I am to the local libraries, community centres, senior centres and book clubs that have opened their doors to me. They are happy to have me come along and talk about The Queen’s Tears, and just as happy, which matters even more to me, to let me meet their readers and writers and hear what they have to say in return. Those invitations mean far more than any sales dashboard, because they come from people who love stories and are willing to spend an afternoon with a real person talking about them.

My daughter got married a couple of weeks ago, and a beautiful thing about one of the happiest weeks of my life was the “no cell phone” rule on her wedding day. We had a wonderful photographer, Katie, who was everywhere at every moment with us. But everyone else, friends and family, were simply present, meeting for the first time, reminiscing about past get-togethers, talking, laughing, and bringing such a condensed joy to the day that it was palpable. There were no distractions, no posing, no uploading, no sharing, no forwarding nor posting nor AI improving. It was completely and utterly all about the reason we were together. Love.

It made me think about how bewildering the world has become, with a plethora of AI generated content and images filling every screen, and algorithms that have no idea who is writing the words or who is reading them. I find that rather sad, and I’m firmly resolved that this book will be different. I want The Queen’s Tears to be a living piece of art that connects a community, and not simply a product sold by Amazon.

So, for this book launch, you will see the odd social media post. I’ll share some excerpts here. I’ll announce the publication with a promotional flourish, and I’ll certainly share the highs and lows of tackling my first dual-timeline novel and fun research breakthroughs.

But as for the rest, let’s talk about the power of books to inspire, instil joy and take us to other worlds. Let’s make this a salon of people and voices, not an anonymous announcement of “buy my book”. Because honestly, it’s more fun writing and talking about books than being pinned to sales dashboards.

Amazon’s A+ content is a good way to promote the feel of the book. Public domain art always lends a great deal of atmosphere.

So, if you’ve read this far, The Queen’s Tears launched on October 15th. I really enjoyed writing it (except when I didn’t), and I hope that people enjoy reading it, because I would like to write another.

Elizabeth St.John

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About the Author

Elizabeth St.John’s critically acclaimed historical fiction novels tell the stories of her ancestors: extraordinary women whose intriguing kinship with England's kings and queens brings an intimately unique perspective to Medieval, Tudor, and Stuart times. Inspired by family archives and residences from Lydiard Park to the Tower of London, Elizabeth spends much of her time exploring ancestral portraits, diaries, and lost gardens. And encountering the occasional ghost. But that’s another story. Living between California, England, and the past, Elizabeth is the International Ambassador for The Friends of Lydiard Park, an English charity dedicated to conserving and enhancing this beautiful centuries-old country house and park. As a curator for The Lydiard Archives, she is constantly looking for an undiscovered treasure to inspire her next novel. Find out more at Elizabeth's website http://www.elizabethjstjohn.com/ and follow her on Facebook, Twitter @ElizStJohn and Bluesky @elizabethstjohn.bsky.social‬

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Historical Fiction Spotlight: A Knightly Betrayal: 2 (A Sheriff Simon de Hale Mystery) by Jill Bray

Available from Amazon UK and Amazon US

October 1224. Simon de Hale, Sheriff of Yorkshire, is travelling to his manor to celebrate the birth of his first grandchild. Awaiting his arrival is an unexpected guest, Lady Cecily Chalcombe, a beguiling acquaintance from his days at the royal court. Recently widowed in scandalous circumstances, Lady Cecily throws herself upon his mercy and seeks his protection from the people threatening her.

Guests arrive for a celebration feast, including Lady Cecily’s brother Nicholas and the distinguished Earl Warenne. But upon retiring, Simon finds Lady Cecily standing over the dead body of her maid, hands bloodied.

Simon cannot believe she has killed her maid, but if she hasn’t then who was it. Was the death meant as a warning to Lady Cecily?

With the help of his daughter Katherine, Simon starts to investigate the murder and uncovers a web of gambling, deceit and betrayal. But will he be able to find the killer before Lady Cecily becomes the next victim.

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About the author

Jill Bray lives on the beautiful island of Guernsey, Channel Islands. Originally from West Yorkshire, she has had an interest in the medieval history of the county for over 40 years. ' A Brotherly Devotion' is her first novel. You can find Jill on Twitter/X at @JillBray67 and Bluesky @jillbray.bsky.social

Book Review – When the Stones Held by David E. Owen

Available from Amazon UK and Amazon US

Born into poverty in the remote valleys of South Wales, William grows up in a world shaped by hard labour, dangerous rivers, and communities struggling to survive. Education is rare. Opportunity is rarer still. Yet from childhood, William becomes fascinated by stone, by balance, and by the dream of building something that will outlive him.

David E. Owen’s When the Stones Held is a thoughtful novel about endurance and the forces that connect people across time. The stones of the title become more than part of the setting. One of the novel’s most compelling ideas is the metaphor of building bridges. 

David Owen uses it to explore the possibility of connection where there has previously been distance or division. A bridge depends upon foundations, patience and careful construction. The image becomes a natural reflection of the characters’ attempts to understand one another and come to terms with the past.

What makes this effective is avoiding turning reconciliation into a sentimental process. The emotional foundations must to be laid first, and the consequences of earlier choices remain present. The novel recognises is often something painstakingly constructed rather than suddenly discovered.

David Owen’s writing is engaging when these themes emerge through the story, rather than being explained. There is a tangible sense of place, and the landscape becomes bound to memory and identity. The result is a novel that feels grounded while still reaching towards larger questions about loss, belonging and the possibility of renewal.

Tony Riches

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About the Author

David E. Owen spent decades teaching around the world—from the UK to the Caribbean, Africa, and the Middle East.  Now retired, he divides his time between writing, photography, and keeping fit. Find out more at David's website: https://davideowen.uk/ and find him on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter/X and Bluesky: @dai-owen.bsky.social

Secret Numbers and Royal Betrayal: Queen Henrietta Maria’s Coded Letters to King Charles I in 1642

How a queen’s secret correspondence helped sustain the Royalist cause as England descended into civil war.

One of the challenges in writing about the English Civil War is the number of ‘rabbit holes’ to distract me. One example is exploring the wealth of secret correspondence between the king and queen. 

In the summer of 1642, England faced catastrophe. King Charles I and Parliament reached an impasse, armies gathered, and Queen Henrietta Maria was in The Hague, working to raise money and secure the weapons her husband desperately needed. The problem was a letter could be intercepted, its contents exposed, and the information used against the Crown.

Henrietta Maria and Charles relied on secret codes or ‘ciphers’. Their letters were more than messages between husband and wife. They were full of information about money, military supplies, diplomatic negotiations and people whose loyalties might determine the outcome of the coming war.

As part of my research into this I bought a copy of the original letters from Queen Henrietta Maria to Charles I, including correspondence written in ciphers. These letters provide a fascinating glimpse into a secret world, hidden behind an apparently meaningless string of numbers.

A secret language of numbers

One historical account describes the introduction of a new cipher in a letter written shortly before King Charles I raised his royal standard at Nottingham on 22 August 1642. The explanation is remarkably precise:

It consists of figures only. The system was more sophisticated than a simple substitution cipher, in which each letter is replaced by a number. According to the description, numbers up to 77 represented the letters of the alphabet, while higher numbers, extending to 379, stood for the names of people and a selection of frequently used words.

These included terms such as money, peace, treaty and rebels. This was a practical solution to a serious problem. A letter discussing a loan, a proposed treaty or a named political ally could be dangerous even if its individual sentences appeared harmless. 

Queen Henrietta Maria's cipher example 

By assigning frequently used names and politically sensitive words their own numerical codes, the correspondents could make their messages harder to interpret. The cipher also contained a secondary system in which a letter combined with a number represented short, common words such as will, be, of and from. Such devices reduced the need to spell out every word individually and made the code more efficient to use.

To an enemy who intercepted the letter without the key, the page looked like little a jumble of figures. To its intended recipient, it could convey a message about the survival of the monarchy.

Why Henrietta Maria needed secrecy

Henrietta Maria was not a queen who could safely leave political affairs to her husband. In 1642, she was in the Dutch Republic, ostensibly to hand over her ten-year-old daughter Mary to her new ‘husband’, William of Orange. 

Her real plan was buy arms and ammunition for the Royalist cause, using - by trying to sell and obtain loans against several of the Crown jewels, as well as the best of her own jewels, smuggled out of England.

She needed to keep Charles informed of her progress, while receiving news from England and coordinating decisions with him. A letter had to travel through several hands before reaching its destination. Couriers could be questioned, ships delayed or searched, and correspondence seized by political opponents.

The secret cipher offered protection, although no system was entirely secure. The more important the information, the greater the incentive for an adversary to break the code.

Cracking the royal cipher

The remarkable feature of the numerical system is that the key used to decipher the queen's letters helped unlock passages in Charles I's correspondence. The historical account explains that some of the king's letters, previously printed in contemporary pamphlets without their coded passages being understood, could be deciphered using the queen's key.

This is an important clue to how the system worked. The two correspondents needed compatible methods of encoding and decoding their messages. Once a complete key had been recovered, it could reveal more than one letter and sometimes more than one correspondent's contribution to the exchange.

A cipher key was a valuable political document, and King Charles carried his with him in his pocket. In the wrong hands, it could expose the meaning of letters that had been considered secure. 

On 22 August 1642, Charles raised his royal standard at Nottingham, formally committing himself to military resistance against Parliament. The king's decision followed months of escalating confrontation. 

King Charles I Raising His Standard at Nottingham Castle, 1642

(Wikimedia Commons)

The raising of the standard was a public declaration of royal authority. Henrietta Maria's coded letters belonged to the secret struggle behind it: the effort to obtain the money, arms and foreign support needed to sustain the king's cause.

The contrast is striking. While Charles made his intentions visible before the people gathered at Nottingham, his queen was engaged in a clandestine campaign of negotiation and procurement, communicating through letters whose most important passages were hidden in numbers.

The human cost behind the numbers

There is something poignant about a letter reduced to figures. Behind every encoded name or reference to money lay a human relationship and a political calculation. A trusted messenger had to carry the paper. Someone had to copy the numbers accurately. The recipient needed the right key, and both correspondents had to hope that no one else had acquired it.

Henrietta Maria's numerical cipher shows a queen working actively to defend her husband's cause, and a royal couple attempting to maintain their partnership when ordinary communication had become perilous. The figures on the page may look cold and impersonal. Their purpose was anything but. They carried the hopes of a monarchy under siege, at the moment when England's political crisis was becoming a civil war.

Tony Riches

Further reading

The British Library, Egerton MS 2619: original letters from Queen Henrietta Maria to Charles I, 1642–1645, including correspondence partly written in cipher.

Mary Anne Everett Green (ed.), Letters of Queen Henrietta Maria, including her Private Correspondence with Charles the First (1857).

The Folger Shakespeare Library catalogue, The Queens Majesties Message and Letter from the Hague in Holland, a contemporary pamphlet published in October 1642.

My new book, Queen Henriette, the second in my Stuart Queens trilogy, wiill be released in spring next year, subject to not falling down more 'rabbit holes' In the meantime I'm please to see the first book, Queen Anna, about Anna of Denmark, doing well, see: https://mybook.to/QueenAnna

Special Guest Post by Brenda K. Thompson: The Child Who Was Stolen: Writing A Feed Sack Dress for Sadie

Available from Amazon UK and Amazon US

Sadie Lockhart grew up on the Lockhart farm, where silence was expected and usefulness passed for affection. Hidden deep in the hills, she was raised far from the world, and the Lockharts made certain no one knew she existed.

 

Some characters begin with a face. Some with a place. Sadie began with a story my mother carried home from her work with hospice. After my father died, my mother volunteered with hospice. One of the women she cared for had an old black-and-white photograph on her mantel. It showed a barefoot little girl wearing what looked like a feed sack, crudely cut with openings for her head and arms.
The woman told my mother the little girl in the photograph was her.
She said she’d been stolen as a child.

The people who took her dressed her that way, and she grew up never knowing where she’d come from or who her real family was. I never forgot that story. But I kept thinking about the child. What would it mean to remember being taken? What happens to a child when the adults around her give her another name, another family, another version of who she is? And what happens when that child grows up?

Those questions became the beginning of A Feed Sack Dress for Sadie.
Sadie Lockhart is fictional. Her life is not the life of the woman in my mother's care. But once I began writing, Sadie became her own person, with her own childhood, her own choices, and her own way of moving through the world.

In the novel, Sadie is stolen and kept on an isolated farm in rural Appalachia. She grows up in a place where silence and usefulness pass for affection. Her world is small, but Sadie remembers enough to know that once her life was different, better.

Sadie hadn’t forgotten everything. Something inside her remained her own. A memory. A question. The knowledge that before she was Sadie Lockhart, she’d belonged somewhere else. The story is set in the Appalachian world of The Glens, the fictional mountain range where several of my novels take place. 

In Sadie’s world, readers walk the roads with her, enter the houses, sit at the tables, and feel how easily a person could disappear into a place where families lived miles apart and much of life remained private. That world also has to belong to its time.

I researched the world around Sadie closely: the work people did, the clothes they wore, the distance between farms and towns, the way news travelled, and the things a family could buy or had to make for themselves. By the time those details reach the page, they are no longer research. They are simply part of Sadie’s life.

The feed sack dress came from the photograph my mother described, and eventually it gave the novel its title. But the dress was never the story. The child wearing it was. As Sadie grows older, the question becomes larger than what was done to her.

If a child’s family, name, and history are taken from her, what remains that is still her own? Sadie survives much of her childhood by being useful. Later, that same instinct becomes part of the woman she grows into. She sees what needs doing. She helps before someone has to ask. People come to know her through the things she does, without knowing the truth of how her life began.

 
The reader carries that truth. Sadie’s past is always there, even when no one around her can see it. What was done to her shapes her life, but it doesn’t become the whole of who she is.
That’s one of the things I return to often in my writing. People live through circumstances they didn't choose. Families give us names. Communities give us places. Other people may decide what they think we are.

Still, somewhere inside all of that is the person who has to live the life. When I write, I don’t stand outside my characters and watch them. I step inside them. It’s much like an actor taking on a role. While I’m writing, their world becomes the one I live in.

 
I see what they see. I hear what they hear. I can feel the roughness of wood beneath a hand, the bumps in a road, the cold in a room. The story follows me long after I’ve stopped writing for the day. I lie awake thinking about the character, the place, what’s happened and what comes next. I stay there until the world feels real to me. I cry with them. I cry for them.

 
That was especially true with Sadie. The stolen child could never remain simply an idea at the beginning of a story. She had to become a whole person whose life I could enter and live beside. The farther I went with Sadie, the question became less about where she’d come from and more about who she would become. What happened to her began the story. It didn’t have to define the rest of her life.

A Feed Sack Dress for Sadie is part of Stories from The Glens, my growing collection of standalone Appalachian novels. Alice Anyway, Ivaleena, and Child H belong to that same imagined world, although each book tells a separate story.

 
I was grateful when A Feed Sack Dress for Sadie recently received an Honorable Mention in the 34th Annual Writer's Digest Self-Published Book Awards in Mainstream/Literary Fiction.
Awards are wonderful things for an author to receive. But they aren’t where a story begins.

Sadie began with a stolen child and a question I couldn’t put away. What happens to someone when so much of who she was has been taken from her? I followed that question until Sadie became more than the child who was stolen. She became Sadie.

Brenda K. Thompson

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About the Author

Brenda K. Thompson is an award-winning author of historical and literary fiction. Through plain language and the small details of ordinary life, she brings her characters’ worlds close enough for readers to step inside them and remember the people they meet there. Her Appalachian novels are part of Stories from The Glens, a growing collection of standalone books set in an imagined mountain world. Her debut novel, Alice Anyway, received the 2026 Next Generation Indie Book Awards Grand Prize for Fiction and won the First Novel category. Brenda and her husband, Jim, live on the North Carolina coast. Learn more at brendakthompson.com.

Book Launch Spotlight: The Queen's Tears: A Novel of Choices, Courage, and the Cost of Love by Elizabeth St.John

Available from Amazon UK and Amazon US

A stolen crown jewel and an enigmatic portrait force two women to confront the devastating choices they made for love—and summon the courage to live with the truth.

1619: Barbara, Lady Villiers, at the bidding of her brother-in-law, the Duke of Buckingham, has stolen the dying Queen Anna’s jewels—and kept the greatest prize for herself. The Queen’s Tears, a brooch of extraordinary value, torments her: too dangerous to sell, too priceless to discard, and possibly her only means of securing her children’s future. When the family fortunes are shattered, Barbara faces an impossible choice: remain loyal to Buckingham—or betray him by confessing the theft to King Charles.

Present Day: Julia Darke opens her Cotswolds bookshop to start life over peacefully. Instead, a Van Dyck portrait of Barbara’s daughter, with tantalising signs of the missing Queen’s Tears hidden in plain sight, brings her face-to-face with Oliver Villiers, the Oxford art conservator she once loved and walked away from.

Reluctantly drawn together to uncover Barbara’s secret, Julia and Oliver follow the trail of the Queen’s Tears—and the closer Julia comes to Barbara’s truth, the harder it becomes to hide from her own.

Inspired by the true stories of Queen Anna of Denmark’s stolen jewels and a missing Van Dyck painting, The Queen’s Tears weaves history, fiction, and family research across the centuries. Readers of The Lydiard Chronicles will find old favourites—and a new heroine following in their footsteps.

# # #

About the Author

Elizabeth St.John’s critically acclaimed historical fiction novels tell the stories of her ancestors: extraordinary women whose intriguing kinship with England's kings and queens brings an intimately unique perspective to Medieval, Tudor, and Stuart times. Inspired by family archives and residences from Lydiard Park to the Tower of London, Elizabeth spends much of her time exploring ancestral portraits, diaries, and lost gardens. And encountering the occasional ghost. But that’s another story. Living between California, England, and the past, Elizabeth is the International Ambassador for The Friends of Lydiard Park, an English charity dedicated to conserving and enhancing this beautiful centuries-old country house and park. As a curator for The Lydiard Archives, she is constantly looking for an undiscovered treasure to inspire her next novel. Find out more at Elizabeth's website http://www.elizabethjstjohn.com/ and follow her on Facebook, Twitter @ElizStJohn and Bluesky @elizabethstjohn.bsky.social‬

Special Guest Post by Rosemary Griggs, Author of Queen Elizabeth I's Governess: The Real Kat Ashley

Available from Amazon UK and Amazon US

The name ‘Kat Ashley’, Queen Elizabeth’s ‘Governess’, is well-known to fans of Tudor history. Katherine Champernowne, later John Astley’s wife, joined Elizabeth’s household before the future queen turned three. Later she became Elizabeth’s ‘governess’, trusted with the upbringing of the King’s younger daughter. Formidably well-educated for a woman of her time, reports suggest Katherine did an excellent job. When Elizabeth came to the throne, one of her first actions was to name Katherine as Chief Gentlewoman of the Privy Chamber, a highly influential position within the court of a female monarch.

Although they served at the court of Henry VIII, the Champernowne family are not well known to those who study Tudor history. However, anyone interested in the early life of Elizabeth I will have come across Katherine Champernowne, later the wife of John Astley. She is widely known as Elizabeth’s childhood governess, Kat Ashley. I prefer to call her Kate, partly because the evidence that Elizabeth actually used the short form ‘Kat’ is not overwhelming, but also to reinforce that I have found a woman who differs from the Kat of popular culture.

Kate appears briefly in many learned biographies of Henry VIII’s younger daughter. It’s often been supposed she came from a minor gentry family. Writers and filmmakers often portray her in fiction and on screen as a rather foolish, gossipy nanny figure, a minor supporting character in the fascinating drama of Elizabeth’s fraught early years. My research tells a different story.

Far from being from a rural gentry background, Kate was close to people at the heart of the Tudor Court. By the early 16th century, the Champernownes of Devon had expanded their lands well beyond the west country, into Gloucestershire and Oxfordshire. Over many generations, through dynastic marriages, they forged alliances with powerful families, including Poyntz, Carew, and, most notably, Courtenay.

Like many women of her time, the historical record remains stubbornly silent about Kate’s early life. She first comes to notice when appointed to the household of three-year-old Elizabeth in 1536. Exploring her family connections and the people she was close to places that appointment in context.

Kate was the eldest daughter of Sir Philip Champernowne, a close relative of Henry Courtenay, Marquess of Exeter, first cousin and companion of the young Henry VIII. The Marquess’s father was Sir Philip’s first cousin. Sir Philip served as squire of the body to the king for a time, mixing with other well-known courtiers, before he retired to the west country, where he often deputised for the Marquess. Kate may have gained her formidable education among her powerful Courtenay relatives.

Through her maternal grandmother, Kate also had connections to the Poyntz family, who held prominent positions in Catherine of Aragon’s household. Kate’s great aunt married Sir Anthony Poyntz. She is likely the Elizabeth Poyntz who had care of Henry VIII’s short-lived son, Henry Duke  of Cornwall. Also on the maternal side, Kate’s uncle, Sir Gawen Carew married Charles Brandon, Duke of Suffolk’s sister. 

Brandon was a close friend of the king and married Mary Tudor, the king’s sister, after the death of her first husband, the King of France. Sir Gawen became a prominent courtier, soldier and diplomat. Sir George Carew, ill-fated captain of the Mary Rose, and his brother Sir Peter, were Kate’s cousins. 

Kate’s sister, Joan, was one of Catherine Parr’s ladies and shared her interest in the reformed religion. Joan married Sir Anthony Denny, a man so close to King Henry VIII that he was the only one brave enough to tell the dying king that his end was near. Kate’s brother, John, also had a place at court. According to Sir Richard Carew of Anthony, writing in the early years of the  seventeenth century, John was popular with King Henry ‘for his pleasant conceits’.  So Kate moved in circles close to the royal court. She also knew many Cambridge-educated intellectuals.

Not long after Anne Boleyn’s execution, Kate was one of a group of serving gentlewomen appointed to serve Anne’s three-year-old daughter. Their role was to keep company with the little girl, to entertain her, and at all times to model the behaviour and manners expected of a noblewoman in the sixteenth century.  Soon after this appointment, Kate made her first known appearance in the historical record with an extraordinarily bold letter to Thomas Cromwell. That letter, dated 5 October 1536, made me stop and think about the way historians and writers have traditionally portrayed Kate’s character.

To paraphrase the letter — there’s a full transcript in my book — Kate thanks Cromwell for recommending her to the king for her new post. She then asks him if he could speak to the king about payment for her services. Unfortunately, we only have half of this fascinating correspondence. Many of Thomas Cromwell’s papers were destroyed at the time of his downfall, and his response has not survived. In 1536, Cromwell was the most powerful man in the land, after the king. He was not a man who acted without a purpose.

Political considerations influenced his every decision, including Kate’s appointment.  I found it very hard to reconcile the author of that letter to the great man with the foolish character traditionally given to Kate. Would a girl, however well educated, from a minor gentry family, really have dared to write to him in those terms? And would Cromwell have even considered appointing someone so lacking in judgement?

I

n 1536, Lady Margaret Bryan was Elizabeth’s Lady Mistress, having overall oversight of the child’s upbringing and early years education. Lady Troy, working with Lady Bryan, was Elizabeth’s governess, and likely introduced the child to her letters using a hornbook. At that time, no one expected Elizabeth would become queen. Rather, as the king’s daughter, even though declared illegitimate, she was a valuable commodity in the marriage market. In her early years, she must gain all the attributes that would make her attractive as a bride.

Sometime after Lady Bryan took charge of the nursery of Edward VI in 1537, and Lady Troy became Lady Mistress to Elizabeth, Kate was promoted to Elizabeth’s governess. More than ten years later, in a letter to Protector Edward Seymour, dated 31 January 1549, Sir Robert Tyrwhitt, who was questioning Elizabeth about her involvement with Thomas Seymour, confirmed that it was King Henry VIII himself who promoted Kate to be Elizabeth’s Lady Mistress. That means she became Lady Mistress before King Henry died in 1547.  It also tells us that Kate not only had the support and trust of Cromwell but also of Elizabeth’s father.

Many assumptions and myths have grown up about Kate Astley, repeated so often that people consider them facts. She’s been called jolly and kind, with unconventional teaching methods, and given credit for single-handedly introducing the little girl to a long list of subjects. These statements are not confirmed in primary sources. As a royal governess, her remit was much broader than that of a Jane Eyre-style Victorian governess. Kate also had to be a mentor, adviser, and protector. She did not deliver all the academic lessons herself but had oversight of input from a range of tutors, music masters, dance teachers, riding instructors and a chaplain, who covered a wide-ranging curriculum.

From nineteenth-century scholars to more recent historians, the focus has been on the events of 1548-49 when Elizabeth was under the roof of her stepmother, the Dowager Queen, Catherine Parr, and her new husband, Thomas Seymour. Kate’s deposition, taken in the Tower of London in January 1549, gives all the salacious details of Seymour’s behaviour towards the fourteen-year-old girl, which appear to modern eyes beyond inappropriate. As a result, Kate has been declared negligent, a gossip, and even considered to have herself been infatuated with the dashing Admiral. 

These assessments do not seem to fit with the view of Elizabeth’s tutors, William Grindal and Roger Ascham, who both praised Kate for her care of the young princess. In my book, I explore an alternative scenario, placing Kate’s testimony in a different light as part of a strategy designed to protect the young princess. Interpretations of that difficult period have largely defined what people think about Kate Astley, while her later years have often been overlooked. Closer study reveals Kate as a political actor, staunchly loyal to Elizabeth.

In 1554, after the Wyatt rebellion against Queen Mary’s Spanish marriage, Kate suffered a long period of house arrest. She was suspected because her cousin, Sir Peter Carew, was a prime mover in the failed plot. Mary eventually allowed Kate to rejoin her mistress briefly, but clearly considered Kate a dangerous influence on Elizabeth and a threat. Only a few months later she held Kate in the Fleet Prison on suspicion of involvement in another plot and then banished her from Elizabeth’s service.

After Elizabeth came to the throne, she made Kate her Chief Gentlewoman of the Privy Chamber, a pivotal role with unique, intimate access to the queen. Kate was Elizabeth’s eyes and ears, listening out for damaging gossip and keeping Elizabeth in touch with how her policies were being received at court and beyond. Anyone who wanted to approach Elizabeth talked to Kate. She gave advice on what sort of gifts might be welcome at New Year.  An Italian news sheet described her as ‘Patroness of all England’ in 1562.  A year after Kate’s death, Hugh Fitzwilliam wrote to the queen saying, ‘Now that Mrs Ashley is gone he has no friend to make his moan to.’

Kate acted as a highly political female courtier at the court of a female monarch. Her death in 1565 left the queen devastated. The two women shared a close bond of mutual love and respect for nearly 30 years. Kate Astley arguably had more influence on the young Elizabeth I than anyone else. She deserves our further consideration.

I hope that Queen Elizabeth’s Governess: The Real Kat Ashley will encourage further debate about a remarkable woman.

Rosemary Griggs

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About the Author

Author and speaker Rosemary Griggs has been researching Devon's sixteenth-century history for years. She has discovered a cast of fascinating characters and an intriguing network of families whose influence stretched far beyond the West Country. She loves telling the stories of the forgotten women of history — the women beyond the royal court; wives, sisters, daughters and mothers who played their part during those tumultuous Tudor years: the Daughters of Devon. Her novel A Woman of Noble Wit tells the story of Katherine Champernowne, Sir Walter Raleigh’s mother, and features many of the county’s well-loved places. The Dartington Bride, published March 2024, is the extraordinary tale of Lady Gabrielle Roberda Montgomery who travelled from France to Elizabethan England to marry into the prominent and well-connected Champernowne family. Rosemary creates and wears sixteenth-century clothing, a passion which complements her love for bringing the past to life through a unique blend of theatre, history and re-enactment. Her appearances and talks for museums and community groups all over the West Country draw on her extensive research into sixteenth-century Devon, Tudor life and Tudor dress, particularly Elizabethan. Out of costume, Rosemary leads heritage tours of the gardens at Dartington Hall, a fourteenth-century manor house and now a a historic visitor destination, events venue and thriving community of businesses, colleges and more. You can find out more on Rosemary’s website:  https://rosemarygriggs.co.uk/ and follow her on Bluesky and Twitter @RAGriggsauthor