Feud (15 page)
Authors: Lady Grace Cavendish
A feud is what happens when two entire families are embroiled in a private war with each other. The most famous feud is the fictional one between the Montagues and the Capulets in Shakespeare's play
Romeo and Juliet
.
Feuding happens whenever law and order break down and people start taking revenge into their own hands. People did conduct feuds in Elizabethan England, but generally only in places a long way from the main centers of government and civilization— such as Cornwall, Wales, and, most particularly, along the Anglo-Scottish border—because the government would put a firm stop to feuding whenever and wherever it could.
Very often the reasons for a feud were lost in the mists of time (he was rude to my great-great-grandma, they stole our sheep two hundred years
ago, etc.). But the hatred, and sometimes the killing, went on, fueled by the most recent outrage.
During the Wars of the Roses (or the “Troubles of King Henry VI's reign,” as they were known in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries), there were many aristocratic feuds. After Henry VII (Elizabeth's grandfather) took the throne, he spent the next twenty years crushing uppity nobles and sorting out the problems left over. But feuds could carry on, simmering under the surface of the peace, and often did. There were also tremendous rivalries at Court over who gained the King or Queen's favor or was granted a particular office; these could become very complicated and sometimes threatened to erupt into feuds.
Nicholas Hilliard, who features in our story, was a real person. He was born in 1547 and trained as a goldsmith. In 1570, Queen Elizabeth I really did appoint him Court Miniaturist. He was particularly famous for his beautifully detailed, jewel-like miniatures, but he also painted larger portraits. As well as Queen Elizabeth, he painted other famous people of
the time, including Sir Francis Drake and Sir Walter Raleigh. You can see a collection of his miniatures at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London.
Although Hilliard was an extremely successful painter, he had many financial difficulties and was imprisoned, briefly, for debt in 1617 (two years before his death in 1619). So perhaps the real Nicholas Hilliard wasn't so very different from the Nick Hilliard of our tale!
Levina Teerlinc was also a real person. Nobody knows exactly when she was born, but it is thought to have been around 1510, so she was quite old by the time Grace knew her. In 1545, she moved from her home in Bruges, Belgium, to work for Henry VIII. Later she worked for his daughter Elizabeth I. Like Elizabeth, she was remarkable for achieving success in a career that had traditionally been the province only of men. Unfortunately, no paintings have survived that can definitely be attributed to Levina Teerlinc. She died in 1576.
In 1485, Queen Elizabeth I's grandfather, Henry Tudor, won the battle of Bosworth Field against Richard III and took the throne of England. He was known as Henry VII. He had two sons, Arthur and Henry. Arthur died while still a boy, so when Henry VII died in 1509, Elizabeth's father came to the throne and England got an eighth king called Henry—the notorious one who had six wives.
Wife number one—Catherine of Aragon—gave Henry one daughter called Mary (who was brought up as a Catholic) but no living sons. To Henry VIII this was a disaster, because nobody believed a queen could ever govern England. He needed a male heir.
Henry wanted to divorce Catherine so he could marry his pregnant mistress, Anne Boleyn. The Pope, the head of the Catholic Church, wouldn't allow him to annul his marriage, so Henry broke with the Catholic Church and set up the Protestant
Church of England—or the Episcopal Church, as it's known in the United States.
Wife number two—Anne Boleyn—gave Henry another daughter, Elizabeth (who was brought up as a Protestant). When Anne then miscarried a baby boy, Henry decided he'd better get somebody new, so he accused Anne of infidelity and had her executed.
Wife number three—Jane Seymour—gave Henry a son called Edward and died of childbed fever a couple of weeks later.
Wife number four—Anne of Cleves—had no children. It was a diplomatic marriage and Henry didn't fancy her, so she agreed to a divorce (wouldn't you?).
Wife number five—Catherine Howard—had no children, either. Like Anne Boleyn, she was accused of infidelity and executed.
Wife number six—Catherine Parr—also had no children. She did manage to outlive Henry, though, but only by the skin of her teeth. Nice guy, eh?
Henry VIII died in 1547, and in accordance with the rules of primogeniture (whereby the firstborn son inherits from his father), the person who succeeded him was the boy Edward. He became
Edward VI. He was strongly Protestant but died young, in 1553.
Next came Catherine of Aragon's daughter, Mary, who became Mary I, known as Bloody Mary. She was strongly Catholic, married Philip II of Spain in a diplomatic match, but died childless five years later. She also burned a lot of Protestants for the good of their souls.
Finally, in 1558, Elizabeth came to the throne. She reigned until her death in 1603. She played the marriage game—that is, she kept a lot of important and influential men hanging on in hopes of marrying her—for a long time. At one time it looked as if she would marry her favorite, Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester. She didn't, though, and I think she probably never intended to get married—would you, if you'd had a dad like hers? So she never had any children.
She was an extraordinary and brilliant woman, and during her reign, England first started to become important as a world power. Sir Francis Drake sailed round the world—raiding the Spanish colonies of South America for loot as he went. And one of Elizabeth's favorite courtiers, Sir Walter Raleigh, tried to plant the first English colony in North
America—at the site of Roanoke in 1585. It failed, but the idea stuck.
The Spanish King Philip II tried to conquer England in 1588. He sent a huge fleet of 150 ships, known as the Invincible Armada, to do it. It failed miserably—defeated by Drake at the head of the English fleet—and most of the ships were wrecked trying to sail home. There were many other great Elizabethans, too—including William Shakespeare and Christopher Marlowe.
After her death, Elizabeth was succeeded by James VI of Scotland, who became James I of England and Scotland. He was almost the last eligible person available! He was the son of Mary, Queen of Scots, who was Elizabeth's cousin, via Henry VIII's sister.
James's son was Charles I—the king who was beheaded after losing the English Civil War.
The stories about Lady Grace Cavendish are set in the years 1569 and 1570, when Elizabeth was in her mid-thirties and still playing the marriage game for all she was worth. The Ladies-in-Waiting and Maids of Honor at her Court weren't servants—they were companions and friends, supplied from upper-class families. Not all of them were officially “ladies”—only
those with titled husbands or fathers; in fact, many of them were unmarried younger daughters sent to Court to find themselves a nice rich lord to marry.
All the Lady Grace Mysteries are invented, but some of the characters in the stories are real people—Queen Elizabeth herself, of course, and Mrs. Champernowne and Mary Shelton as well. There never was a Lady Grace Cavendish (as far as we know!)—but there were plenty of girls like her at Elizabeth's Court. The real Mary Shelton foolishly made fun of the Queen herself on one occasion—and got slapped in the face by Elizabeth for her trouble! But most of the time, the Queen seems to have been protective of and kind to her Maids of Honor. She was very strict about boyfriends, though. There was one simple rule for boyfriends in those days: you couldn't have one. No boyfriends at all. You would get married to a person your parents chose for you and that was that. Of course, the girls often had other ideas!
Later on in her reign, the Queen had a full-scale secret service run by her great spymaster, Sir Francis Walsingham. His men, who hunted down priests and assassins, were called Pursuivants. There are also tantalizing hints that Elizabeth may have had
her own personal sources of information—she certainly was very well informed, even when her counselors tried to keep her in the dark. And who knows whom she might have recruited to find things out for her? There may even have been a Lady Grace Cavendish, after all!
Published by
Delacorte Press
an imprint of
Random House Children's Books
a division of Random House, Inc.
New York
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the
product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to
actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Series created by Working Partners Ltd.
Copyright © 2006 by Working Partners Ltd.
All rights reserved.
Delacorte Press and colophon are registered trademarks of Random House, Inc.
Educators and librarians, for a variety of teaching tools, visit us at
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Cavendish, Grace.
Feud / Patricia Finney is writing as Grace Cavendish.
p. cm. — (The Lady Grace mysteries, from the daybookes of
Lady Grace Cavendish ; book the sixth)
Summary: When one of her fellow Ladies-in-Waiting becomes
mysteriously ill, Lady Grace Cavendish suspects the cause
is poison and sets out to learn who is responsible.
eISBN: 978-0-307-53651-8
[1. Kings, queens, rulers, etc.—Fiction. 2. Great Britain—History—Elizabeth,
1558–1603—Fiction. 3. Poisons—Fiction. 4. Vendetta—Fiction. 5. Diaries—
Fiction. 6. Mystery and detective stories.] I. Title. II. Series.
PZ7.F49825Feu 2006
[Fic]—dc22
2005018696
v3.0
