Q & A with Ella March Chase

Readers are insatiable when it comes to Tudor history, what do you think is its lure?

The Tudor age is packed with high drama and characters that seem too heroic and/or villainous to be real—but were.  When you set that amazing cast against a backdrop of royal intrigue, passion and blind ambition in a world bursting with scientific discoveries, leaps forward in the arts, and what must have felt like a ‘battle to the death’ between religions, the scope for fiction and non-fiction is unsurpassed by any other period in history.  The mere fact women like Elizabeth I, Lady Jane Grey, Queen Catherine Parr and my fictional character Nell de Lacey were educated in Latin, Greek, Mathematics and the classics was a giant step– either toward progress or perdition, depending on your point of view.  The church was locked in a scholarly debate over whether or not women had souls.  Women won by a single vote.  Add to the heady mix of Elizabeth, a captive Princess turned Virgin Queen’, Robert Dudley, the love of her life, Anne Boleyn awash in rumors of witchcraft, Sir Francis Drake, the Queen’s own pirate, Shakespeare’s immortal plays first mounting the stage and real live “monsters” like Henry VIII and Philip of Spain and his Armada and the Tudor age reads like fiction.  It boasts many of the most dramatic, astonishing tales of love, courage, discovery, triumph and defeat ever recorded—and they’re real!

Your book ‘The Virgin Queen’s Daughter’ explores the myth about Elizabeth I giving birth to an illegitimate daughter. Could you share with us a little about the details of this claim and why you decided to pursue this?

After the Wyatt rebellion was crushed, Elizabeth and her servants were interrogated in an effort to implicate the princess who Wyatt had hoped to put on the throne. Elizabeth’s beloved governess, Kat Ashley and another servant revealed Thomas Seymour’s attempts to seduce a then-fourteen-year-old Elizabeth who was under the guardianship of her step-mother, Henry VIII’s sixth wife, Catherine Parr.  Seymour had wed the Dowager Queen with scandalous haste after the King’s death, though Seymour first made subtle inquiries into the possibility of wedding Princess Mary or Princess Elizabeth.  Historical records of the Tower interrogations reveal the scandalous instance where Thomas Seymour cut off Elizabeth’s dress with a dagger, and his numerous visits to her bedchamber where he would ‘tickle her’ while he was in his nightshirt and she in her nightgown.   Accounts claim the heavily pregnant Parr caught Seymour and the princess in a compromising position.  We know there was a sudden rift between Catherine Parr and Elizabeth and the princess was exiled to the care of a stepdaughter from Parr’s earlier marriage.  During the period following Elizabeth’s banishment she was ‘ill’ and seen only by those in Catherine Parr’s most trusted circle, or servants who would protect the princess’ reputation with their lives.  A midwife, years later, recounted that she had delivered a babe to ‘a very fair young lady’.  That lady, the midwife insisted, was Elizabeth Tudor.  I was fascinated by this possibility.  Rumors Elizabeth bore children by either Seymour or Robert Dudley stalked the ‘Virgin Queen’ throughout her reign and after.  I can’t resist playing out such historical scenarios in my mind.  IF it happened, how was it possible?  I chose to pursue the Seymour theory because Elizabeth wasn’t living at court at the time and was still far enough from the throne to escape people’s notice when they were focused on the rivalry between the boy-king Edward, the Duke of Northumberland and Catholic Princess Mary Tudor.  Elizabeth had been declared a bastard by her father and was daughter to the most hated of Henry VIII’s queens– a woman executed (though wrongfully) for adultery, incest and witchcraft.  Even Elizabeth’s half-sister Mary Tudor, questioned the girl’s paternity all her life, saying Elizabeth looked like Mark Smeaton, the court musician executed for cuckolding the king.  (We only have to look at Elizabeth’s portrait to know she’s Henry’s daughter.  Anne Boleyn was far too intelligent in court danger to do anything so suicidal as to cuckold the king.)  During the time of Seymour’s attempts at seduction, Elizabeth had a brother who was expected to marry and produce children.  Failing that, elder sister Mary would inherit.  Though Mary was also labeled a bastard by her father, no one questioned her legitimacy except radical Protestants who would suffer if the Catholics regained power in England.  On his deathbed, Elizabeth’s half-brother, King Edward, named Jane Grey as heir over his sisters.  Under these conditions it is possible Elizabeth could have hidden a pregnancy while under the care of a family fiercely loyal to Parr and trying to protect Elizabeth herself and those who served her.  Had word of a pregnancy leaked out, anyone in Elizabeth’s household, Seymour’s household or Catherine Parr’s, including the principal players themselves, would have paid a terrible price.  Once I had settled the ‘how’ in my imagination, I moved on to what was an even more intriguing question:  What would the daughter of arguably the strongest queen to rule England be like?  What would happen if that daughter returned to Elizabeth’s court?  I found myself fascinated by the possibilities.

The terms ‘tyrant’ and ‘monster’ are generally used to describe Henry VIII in the latter half of his reign and there are those that say that Elizabeth was just as ruthless and ‘blood thirsty’ as her father. What is your opinion on the matter?

When judging Elizabeth’s acts as queen it’s important to remember that from the time her mother was beheaded through Elizabeth’s entire reign her life was in peril.  Plots for her overthrow abounded—assassination attempts, invasions planned by foreign powers, usurpers plotting to put someone ‘legitimate’ on the throne.  Elizabeth faced the threat of the Spanish Armada, the intrigues of Mary Stuart, and the pope’s enmity, Rome offering absolution of all sins to whoever assassinated the Heretic Queen.  England, like every other court, was full of ambitious courtiers and foreign powers jostling for position.  Even her beloved Robert Dudley secretly courted papal favor in hopes Catholic Spanish might support his marriage suite to Elizabeth.  The world believed a woman was not fit to rule according to God’s holy order.  Elizabeth was under fire, her court shifting sands.  Haunted by the personal tragedy of her mother’s execution and Elizabeth’s own terrifying imprisonment in the Tower, Elizabeth remembered what it was like to look out and see where Anne Boleyn, Catherine Howard and Lady Jane Grey had been beheaded.  During Elizabeth’s imprisonment, her conflicted half-sister Mary was looking for any excuse to execute Elizabeth.  It’s testimony to Elizabeth’s wily intelligence that she survived to be queen.  That said, Elizabeth did have a ruthless streak, could be vain and petty.  She was complex, brilliant, embattled, flawed, vain and very human.   She could hold a grudge.  Her relationships with her cousins, the Grey sisters, were not her finest hour.  However, regarding Mary Stuart, Elizabeth’s hand was forced.  She did not want to commit regicide, knowing it would open the door to her own execution should one of the coups succeed.  She believed in the divine right of kings, which meant executing an anointed queen was flying in the face of God.  Walsingham basically compelled her to sign the death warrant then acted swiftly before she could change her mind.  The Queen of Scots’ death was necessary since Stuart was the focus for the many plots against Elizabeth’s life.  Also, her ruthlessness in Catholic Ireland was brutal, but Ireland was the back door to England, a foothold where Spain could mount an invasion.  Elizabeth’s goal was to assimilate Ireland (no one yet guessed how determinedly the Irish would cling to their separate identity).  I don’t think Elizabeth was a monster or a tyrant, although she did some terrible things.  I understand that many actions she took under the advisement of great statesmen Walsingham and Cecil who were determined to keep her on the throne.  Elizabeth did not even originally want to crack down on England’s Catholics.  She believed both faiths held Jesus as Lord and the rest was ‘a dispute over trifles’.  Unrelenting plots forced her hand.  Her heroic response to the news of the Spanish Armada approaching the English coast, her determination to do what was best for her people, her reluctance to go to war and her notorious tight hold on the national purse.  She did have a weakness for handsome rogues that began with Thomas Seymour.  Interestingly most of the swains who followed were similar in looks, temperament and unfortunately, lack of common sense.  Elizabeth died in possession of her throne of old age, had defeated the most powerful nation in Europe.  She also beat on Walsingham with her slipper when he displeased her and threw Queenly drama fits where she broke the finger of one of her Maids of Honor who wanted to marry.  She was intentionally cruel to her Grey cousins.  Her brutality to Mary Grey’s beloved was sickening and unnecessary.  But she was not a tyrant.  She ruled with the welfare of her people paramount.  Nor was she a ‘monster’ even when behaving in ways I—as one of Irish descent—deplore.  She was a frightened, motherless child, betrayed by her father.  She came to be loathed by her half-sister, used by courtiers looking to the main chance.  She was considered weak and subordinate as a woman, easy prey for the great power and fair game on the chessboard of Europe.  Considering the psychological and physical trauma she endured, she showed the strength and resilience of the human spirit.  An astonishing accomplishment for the three year old whose mother walked to the headsman’s block.

Your new book, ‘Three Maids for a Crown’ is about the Grey sisters. What makes these women such fascinating subjects?

Ambitious parents, princess of the blood.  All three ended up in the Tower.  With questions about the legitimacy of Mary and Elizabeth, their mother, Frances Grey, was first in line as an officially legitimate Tudor heir to the throne after Edward.  Jane forced take the crown, ruled nine days and was later executed, Mary’s hand forced by Spain who would not send Prince Philip to England while Jane lived.  Jane was beaten until she agreed to marry the son of a man she loathed and feared—the Duke of Northumberland, most hated and powerful man in England.  Katherine wed at the same time to a husband she loved, but after Jane was deposed the marriage was annulled.  Katherine was hated by Elizabeth, and married in secret to Edward Seymour, who also had Royal blood.  Elizabeth discovered the marriage when Katherine came up pregnant and bore a healthy son.  Since the Queen must legally consent to a Princess of the Blood marrying, Elizabeth threw the lovers in the Tower and refused to believe they had wed.  At the time, Elizabeth was being pushed to marry, a throne in the hands of a woman considered unstable, Elizabeth’s legitimacy questionable.  When Katherine Grey and Edward Seymour, two persons of royal blood, married and produced that rarest of commodities—two helthy princes of Tudor blood—Elizabeth was furious and her throne was genuinely threatened.  The youngest Grey sister, Mary, was royal, but was a dwarf with a crooked back, thus an object of ridicule to Elizabeth who had a ‘horror’ of ugliness.  I wondered what it must have been like for her to watch, helpless, as her parents’ machinations condemned Jane to the block, then Katherine’s quest for happiness leading to imprisonment.  Mary’s own courage, in falling in love and daring to marry secretly despite her sisters’ fates, made me wonder what their story looked like through the eyes of three sisters—rivals, confidants who shared childhood memories, loved each other, and were endangered by forces they could not control.

Apart from Elizabeth and the Grey sisters, are you interested in any other Tudor personalities?

I love Dr. John Dee, his sanctum sanctorum filled with ‘dangerous’ books he gathered from the dissolution of the monasteries.  Who can resist a ‘sorcerer’?  Bess of Hardwick also fascinates me—a woman who survived through all the upheavals of the Tudor world, going through multiple husbands, alliances with powerful people who fell, including Mary Stuart.  She preserved her property and got husbands to leave it to her, a woman.  I also find Sir Francis Drake and Sir Walter Raleigh delicious adventurers.

In your research into the Tudor/Elizabethan courts have you come across any customs, rituals or traditions that you’ve found particularly interesting or peculiar?

On St. Stephen’s day, in honor of Christmas, the hunters ‘pardon’ the fox.  I also find it fascinating that the bakers managed to conceal live birds inside pastry crusts, so that when you cut into the pie, they flew out, singing.

Your novels have been described as well researched and detailed.  Tell us a little about the process you follow when researching your novels.

Being known as a thorough researcher is an honor.  I begin my process with biographies of the historical figures who will figure in my novel.  Some of my favorite biographical sources for The Virgin Queen’s Daughter were Alison Weir, Carolly Erickson and David Starkey.  I get an overview of the characters I’ll portray, the historical events that will figure in the novel, tidbits of everyday life—Kathy Emerson’s ‘The Writer’s Guide to Renaissance England’ was invaluable.  During these forays into the world I hope to create, I stumble across ‘flashpoints’ of interest particular to my characters—for example, Dr. John Dee, Elizabeth’s astrologer, an alchemist with a fascination for forbidden books, Copernicus, whose theory that the earth rotated around the sun was deemed heresy and the Kratzer Clock, a mechanical marvel of the time.  I stumbled on Copernicus totally by accident, serendipity or ‘good luck fairies’.  I was walking through the children’s section of the library to stretch my legs during a research session and an obliging librarian had set a biography of the revolutionary scientist out on display.  Copernicus provided a perfect figure for Nell and her father to bond over, fascinating, scientific, dangerous and heretical.  One of the reasons Sir Gabriel becomes interested in Nell is the miniature astrolabe necklace she wears, the two characters sharing a passion for science.  My favorite technique for finding fabulous research books is checking the bibliography of nonfiction authors I respect (or fiction writers) recommend.  I’ve found a veritable treasure trove of resources that way.  My personal challenge is to organize these gems I find so three months later I can access some particular tidbit of information.  The most fun I’ve had researching was a session where some living history people taught me how to fight with a rapier and handle a long bow.  I’ve always been fascinated with historical detail, so researching is like play for me.  When I was researching the Kratzer Clock at Hampton Court I found out that it could predict the tide levels on the Thames.  Incredible.  I also learned that when midwives were blindfolded and taken to the houses of the wealthy and noble for a secret birth, like the one I use in Virgin Queen’s Daughter, they surreptitiously cut a piece of bed-curtain, so they had evidence of where they had been, a precaution to discourage clients families from attempting to silence them—one of those research gems I put to use in my fictional world with Nell.

Have you visited places associated with the characters in your books? If so, do you have a favourite location?

The Tower of London was awe-inspiring, the site of so many pivotal moments in British history.  To stand on the green where Anne Boleyn, Catherine Howard and Jane Grey were executed, to see the steps outside Traitor’s Gate where Princess Elizabeth sat, refusing to enter because she ‘was no traitor’ made their suffering so real to me.  Last year I went to Ireland on a research trip for a future novel.  Some sites you visit are nothing but rubble overgrown by turf.  Grassy outlines of what once was.  It was as if the ground itself still remembered what took place there.  I could almost hear the clash of swords.  I look forward to more such trips in the future.

Do you have a favourite Elizabeth I or Grey sisters’ quote or moment?

When first confronted with the religious divisiveness in her kingdom, Elizabeth said:  “Let each man go to the devil in his own way.  I do not want to make windows into men’s souls”.  She would have been tolerant, I believe, were it not for threats to her life.

Lady Jane Grey carved into the stone of the tower these words: “I look for light after darkness.”

Finish off this sentence. From her mother Elizabeth inherited…

Determination, intelligence, elegance, charisma and an ability to inspire poets.

To learn more about this author please visit her official website here.


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