Frances – Tudor Countess

by Tony Riches Book 5 in the The Elizabethan series.

First published 2024

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4.3(838)

Frances Walsingham is raised inside the household of Elizabeth I’s principal secretary and spymaster, Francis Walsingham, receiving an education unusually serious for a girl of her rank. Her first marriage to the poet and soldier Philip Sidney places her within another powerful Protestant network, and his death from wounds received in the Netherlands leaves her a young widow. She later marries Robert Devereux, Earl of Essex, tying her fortunes to one of the most brilliant and unstable careers of the late Elizabethan court.

Frances experiences political disaster at close range when Essex’s ambitions end in rebellion and execution in 1601. Confiscation, family responsibility and exclusion from court force her to rebuild a life that had repeatedly been organised around prominent men. Her eventual marriage to Richard Burke, Earl of Clanricarde, carries her story into Ireland and the early Stuart period. Riches uses Frances Walsingham’s perspective to connect Elizabethan intelligence, war in the Netherlands, the Essex Rebellion and the survival strategies of an aristocratic widow.

Historical Periods

Essex Rebellion1601 CE Eighty Years’ War1568–1648 CE

Genres

Biographical Fiction Court & Political Fiction Dynastic & Royal Fiction

Historical people

Elizabeth I1533–1603 Robert Devereux, 2nd Earl of Essex1565–1601 Francis Walsingham1532–1590 Philip Sidney1554–1586 Penelope Rich, Lady Rich1563–1607 Frances Walsinghamc. 1567–1633