As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases. This means if you click on a link and make a purchase, I may receive a small commission at no extra cost to you.

Home / Books / Watch the Lady
Watch the Lady cover

Book

Watch the Lady

by Elizabeth Fremantle

Book 3 in the The Tudor Trilogy series.

Buy the book from:

Audio available 4.2

Penelope Devereux enters Elizabeth I’s court as a celebrated beauty and becomes the inspiration for Philip Sidney’s sonnet sequence, yet poetry offers little protection from an arranged and unhappy marriage. Determined to secure affection and influence on her own terms, she forms a lasting relationship outside that marriage and develops the political judgement needed to defend the interests of the Devereux family.

As her brother Robert, Earl of Essex, rises in the queen’s favour and then challenges the authority of Robert Cecil, Penelope is drawn into the struggle over patronage, Ireland and the succession. Her efforts to preserve the family bring her close to treason as Essex’s ambitions end in rebellion and the ageing queen’s death approaches. The novel presents Penelope as an active political operator in the final decades of Elizabeth’s reign rather than merely Sidney’s muse or Essex’s sister.