Summary
Philippa Gregory: The Last Tudor
A novel from the Family Wars series
One royal family:
Two barren queens,
Three heirs to the throne.
All the stakes are in the game.
Jane Gray was Queen of England for nine days. Her father and his allies crowned her in place of the late king's half-sister, Mary Tudor, who quickly gathered an army, seized the throne, and imprisoned Jane in the Tower of London. When Jane refused to betray the Protestant faith, she ensured her own death and channeled her father's greed into her own tragic martyrdom.
She advised her younger sister Catherine to learn how to die. Katarina had completely different plans: to enjoy her beauty and youth, to fall in love. But as heir to the insecure and barren Queen Mary, and then to her half-sister Elizabeth, also barren, she is a danger. Catherine must not be allowed to marry and give birth to a Tudor heir. Her pregnancy would land her in the same prison cells in the Tower, not far from the landfill where Jane ended up.
"Farewell, my sister," Catherine would write to her youngest sister, Mary Gray. Mary is the last keeper of the family secrets, carefully guarding them from Elizabeth's prying eyes. Taught by the fate of her sisters, she is aware of the danger, but also determined to manage her life.
What will happen when the last Tudor confronts the ruthless and vengeful Queen Elizabeth?
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