We live today as courtiers once did in royal courts: we must appear civil while attempting to crush all those around us. The authors have created a sort of anti-Book of Virtues in this encyclopedic compendium of the ways and means of power.Įveryone wants power and everyone is in a constant duplicitous game to gain more power at the expense of others, according to Greene, a screenwriter and former editor at Esquire (Elffers, a book packager, designed the volume, with its attractive marginalia). Either way, the story of Thomas’ comeuppance and Elizabeth’s reaction makes for a quick, enjoyable read. Juicy royal history that may or may not be true. The author tells of rumors of Elizabeth’s “illness” that summer, hinting at pregnancy. The Virgin Queen was born out of the ashes of his fall.” Regardless, Catherine, six months pregnant, caught the couple in an embrace and sent Elizabeth packing. “When she was a teenager,” writes the author, “there was one man who had caught her fancy enough to tempt her to abandon herself to him. Whether Elizabeth enjoyed it or whether Catherine might even have cooperated in the game are left to the imagination. That left Elizabeth exposed to Thomas’ morning ritual of entering half-dressed and playing a little “slap and tickle” with the future queen. Elizabeth’s closest attendant, Katherine Ashley, inexplicably decided that the teenager no longer needed a protective woman sleeping near her bed. Before Parr, he had sued for the hands of both Elizabeth and Mary Tudor, both in the line of succession. His brother Edward gained increasing amounts of power and made him Lord High Admiral as a concession. Thomas hoped his marriage might give him more authority as he sought the governance of the young king, his wife’s stepson. Thomas, who had wooed Catherine Parr before she married Henry, quickly picked up their romance when she was widowed in fact, they were married just over a month after the king’s death. Machinations were the key to just about everything during the reign of the Tudors spying, plotting, and backstabbing were the norm. As uncle to the king, he felt he should have a much more important place, both in the Parliament and in the young king’s care. Thomas was the brother of Henry’s third wife, Jane. Tudor historian Norton ( The Tudor Miscellany, 2014, etc.) looks at Henry VIII’s daughter and widow, but the real story here is Thomas Seymour.
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