The Elizabeth Tudor Conspiracy

by Alexandra Walsh

  Perdita and Piper gazed down at the list.

  “These are the codenames of people and, possibly, places,” said Perdita, running her finger down one column, “which means if they’re written in the letters and in the book and we know it passed from Kathy Knollys to her daughter, Lettice, then we must assume at some point both of them were involved in the letter-writing group who referred to themselves as the Ladies of Melusine, whose letters were possibly compiled by Katherine Newton and have passed down the years to Lady Pamela.”

  “But how did Lady Pamela get such an expensive heirloom from a different family? Wasn’t she descended from the Bayntons?” questioned Piper.

  “I don’t know. Someone must have bequeathed it to her at some point, either that or the final compiler of the letters had it. Remember, the last date we have on the Lady Pamela letters is 12 December 1662, so it could have been given to whoever was still compiling them at that point.”

  Kit hurried back in; his face serious. “Did you say there were flower names?” he asked.

  “Yes, and last week I read a set of exchanges between two women calling themselves Lily and Daisy. There were only a few, so I’m not sure how they’re connected to the rest of the letters.”

  “Lily and Daisy? Are you sure?”

  “Positive, why?”

  Kit attached his laptop to the screen and flipped up another page he had scanned from the Book of Hours. It was festooned with wreaths of highly coloured vines, leaves and flowers and worked into the Mediaeval bouquet were the words: honeysuckle, sunflower, rose, iris and hyacinth.

  “Interesting, but no lilies or daisies,” said Piper.

  “Look at this,” said Kit and directed his laser pen to the top right-hand corner of the page garlanded with flower names. The clear shape of two flowers were lit by the laser’s glowing red fire: a lily and a daisy, curled around each other forming a circle. At the bottom of this floral wreath were two interlinked rings, each bearing a heavy red-coloured jewel, while in the centre two tiny golden crowns were linked together by a delicate but melancholy mermaid.

  “Lily and Daisy?” whispered Perdita. “Crowned and accompanied by a mermaid?”

  “And the rings,” added Kit.

  This was a vital piece of evidence but as Perdita stared at it, she did not seem to be able to process the information. Instead panic and distress were rising in her but she could not explain why. Kit grinned at her, exuding excitement, delighted for finding such an important clue. Then, she remembered something and, at last, her excitement began to build, replacing the unexplained panic. Rifling through her computer bag, she extracted her own notes.

  “Look!”

  It was a photocopied page from the back of the Ladies of Melusine manuscript and showed a small blurred photograph of a section of the carved wooden frieze that decorated the older sections of Marquess House. There was the same circle of flowers and, in the centre, two crowns linked by a rudimentary mermaid.

  “I don’t remember ever seeing that,” said Kit. “Is it at Marquess House?”

  “Granny states in her notes that this was once part of the frieze but because it was in a very poor state of repair when our ancestor Lettice Lakeby bought the house, she had it removed,” said Perdita. “Granny found the photograph and some sketches stored with the architect’s plans that were used to renovate Marquess House. Perhaps Lettice or Granny had intended to have it recreated but never got around to it.”

  “And we’re back to mermaids,” said Kit. “How does this help us, though?”

  Perdita stood in front of the screen, staring up at the beautiful illumination.

  “Why have they written the names in the book?” she mused. “To keep a record, perhaps? To pass the information on to the next generation?”

  “Both are possible,” said Kit.

  “But the information would be useless without a key, a cipher to the names?” And then she saw it. “I need a mirror,” she said.

  Hurrying back to the table she scrabbled for her make-up bag. Pulling out a small compact mirror, she sorted through the pages on the table and found the print-out of the page displayed on the screen. “I knew it was something obvious — look. There’s a line down the middle and the image is the same on both sides.” She pointed and both Piper and Kit leaned over, nodding in agreement. “Except, it isn’t,” said Perdita, triumph ringing in her voice. “Look.” She placed the mirror on the line facing away from the side where the letters were woven into the image. The other side also had strange markings but it was not until Perdita held the mirror up to them that they made sense.

  “They were written backwards,” said Kit. “Are they women’s names?”

  “Yes,” breathed Perdita. “Kathy, Mary, Lettice, Elizabeth, Anne, Catherine, Maud…”

  “Who were they?” asked Piper.

  “I think they’re Kathy Knollys and her daughters,” said Perdita.

  “Why is Lettice written in a different colour?”

  Perdita felt a cold shiver run down her spine as an idea floated to the surface of her mind. A thought so staggering, she doubted herself.

  “No,” she whispered. “It can’t be…”

  “What?” asked Kit.

  “Lettice Knollys was born in November 1543,” she said.

  “And?” said Piper.

  “That’s a year after Catherine gave birth to her twins at Marquess House,” said Perdita.

  “Although birth dates back then are always questionable,” added Kit, picking on her train of thought.

  “What if the date has been altered? What if she was born in November 1542?”

  “Because we know Kathy Knollys was there,” said Kit, his face ashen as he realised what Perdita was saying. “We have written proof that she was with Catherine Howard at Marquess House.”

  “And we know she left shortly afterwards because she’s back in the court records in London,” said Perdita. “She could have taken the baby with her.”

  “Are you saying what I think you’re saying?” asked Piper.

  “Yes,” whispered Perdita. “We may have found the first heir. What if Lettice Knollys wasn’t Kathryn Knollys’s child, but was, in fact, Catherine Howard’s missing daughter, the unacknowledged Tudor princess, baby Elizabeth, renamed Laetitia when she was hidden in the household of Kathryn and Francis Knollys. Kathryn was an unacknowledged daughter of King Henry VIII — would it be too much of a leap to suppose she would give a home to her half-sister?”

  “Lettice Knollys,” she continued. “I don’t know — could it be her?”

  Despite her excitement, Perdita was unsure whether to commit to this theory yet. Follow the evidence, she told herself. Let it lead you.

  “For those of us without an advanced knowledge of history,” said Piper, “who was Lettice Knollys?”

  “Lettice Knollys was, as we’ve said, the second daughter of Lady Kathryn Knollys and Sir Francis Knollys. While Edward VI was on the throne, her parents enjoyed good positions at court because they were Protestants but, like many of the noble Protestant families, they fled into exile when Catholic Mary I took the throne. Lettice was thought to have been left in the care of sympathetic friends and family in England, along with her siblings, while Kathryn and Francis fled to Germany. When Elizabeth became queen, Kathryn, who was related to her officially through her Boleyn blood — her mother was Mary Boleyn — was immediately made a Lady of the Bedchamber.”

  “And Lettice?”

  “She was created a Maid of the Privy Chamber. In July, 1560, she married Walter Devereux, Viscount Hereford and they stayed at court for about a year before heading to the seat of Walter’s power in Carmarthen, and from there, they continued to Lamphey Hall in Pembrokeshire.”

  Piper’s eyes were wide with surprise. “Pembrokeshire?” she said. “All roads lead to Marquess House.”

  “Well, certainly neighbours of Marquess House,” said Kit.

  “It’s strange, though, isn’t it?” said Perdita. “Lettice married a
man with Welsh heritage, like the Tudors. They were reputedly very happy and had five children. Lettice was also supposed to be a favourite of Elizabeth. However, things went awry after Walter died on 22 September 1576 from dysentery. Almost two years to the day, which was the period of official mourning, Lettice secretly married Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester, who was Elizabeth’s favourite. It has always been claimed that Elizabeth was furious with them both, but it was her cousin, Lettice, who was banished from court and never forgiven. Eventually, Dudley was given back all his privileges and Elizabeth forgave him. Lettice was branded a she-wolf from then on and never allowed to return to court.”

  Kit spun around and flipped through some images on his laptop before opening it on the enormous screen.

  “Look at the corner section with the animals,” he said. “There’s a she-wolf and around the edge the letters spell out Laetitia Devereux. Lettice’s full name was Laetitia and her married name during her first marriage was Devereux.”

  “Which is odd,” said Piper. “If the name ‘She-wolf’ was supposed to be an insult, why would it appear in the Book of Hours?”

  “You’re forgetting something,” said Perdita. “The brief outline I’ve given you refers to the official view of history. Isn’t it possible the she-wolf name could have been one of affection? It could easily be misconstrued as a negative name or even rebranded as such when history was being muddied in order to put forward the new view.”

  “It’s possible,” Kit agreed. “If we take a step back and look at this from another angle, suddenly the derogatory name given to Lettice Knollys all these years might not have been that at all. It could have been an affectionate nickname, a joke perhaps.”

  “It would seem an odd thing for her to put in her Book of Hours if it was an insult,” said Piper.

  Perdita twirled her hair around her finger as she considered this new information. Lettice Knollys was the correct age, she was famous for her physical similarity to Queen Elizabeth and rather like her, had lived to a great age — an extremely unusual feat in Tudor England. Elizabeth had died in her seventieth year, Lettice had been recorded as being 91 when she passed away at her family home, Drayton Bassett, near Chartley in Staffordshire, on Christmas Day, 1634. Was longevity another Tudor trait shared by the two women?

  Perdita’s thoughts returned to Kathryn Knollys. She was a woman whose true parentage still caused debate. There were those who believed she was the illegitimate daughter of Henry VIII, the issue of his affair with Mary Boleyn, and there were those who rubbished the suggestion. Perdita considered the implications of both scenarios.

  If Kathryn had been an illegitimate Tudor, would it be so strange to conceal another hidden princess with one who had grown up already keeping a similar secret? The difference, though, was that Kathryn had been illegitimate, therefore she had no claim to the Tudor crown. If Lettice was really Catherine Howard’s missing child, she was legitimate and had a very strong right to the throne. On the other hand, if Kathryn Carey had been the daughter of Mary Boleyn and her husband, William Carey, why would she have taken the child? Out of loyalty to her cousin Catherine Howard? If so, this would have put Kathryn and her young family in considerable danger.

  Piper stood up. “I’m going to leave you two to wrestle this one out,” she said. “Since we’ve discovered that our ring and the one mentioned in the Bicton papers could indeed be the missing jewellery, I’m going to head back to the library and see if I can find a link between the Bicton papers and the Ada Winchester diaries.”

  “Cal said he’d be happy to help if you need it,” called Kit as Piper reached the door. “He’s not strong enough to go back to work full-time yet but he’s bored doing nothing.”

  “I’ll give him a shout,” said Piper.

  Perdita sat down and contemplated the pages strewn across the table. Kit rang through to Deborah and asked if she had any reference books on Lettice Knollys.

  “There’s only one biography of Lettice,” he said. “Deborah says she appears in other people’s biographies but the information on her is quite limited. However, she does have a copy of Robert Dudley’s account books, and Lettice might be mentioned in them.”

  “They’re worth a look,” said Perdita. “We need to either find more evidence to prove the theory that Lettice is the missing princess, or, if she isn’t, eliminate her.”

  After an hour in the boardroom, Perdita and Kit had returned to their separate offices to trawl through as much information as possible on Lettice Knollys before comparing notes.

  Due to the lack of direct information about Lettice, Perdita had deduced that the most obvious place to start was with Lettice’s more famous husband: Queen Elizabeth’s favourite, the charismatic, Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester. Perdita had diligently worked her way through the bound copy of the earl of Leicester’s accounts, searching for mentions of Lettice, but the comments about her were few and far between. This was explained away by a footnote stating most of Lettice’s household expenses would have been detailed in a separate set of ledgers, all of which had mysteriously disappeared.

  “Convenient,” muttered Perdita, before returning to the list of page numbers she had collated.

  Opening the book to a section near the back she read another reference to Lettice, then ran her eyes to the bottom of the page where the compiler had pointed out short periods of time when it was difficult to pinpoint Robert Dudley’s movements because many letters had been lost. Then another comment caught her eye and she shivered. The compiler stated, “It might be noted that all his correspondence with his wife has disappeared.”

  All his correspondence? All the letters that Robert had written to Lettice over the ten years of their marriage, not to mention their correspondence before this when they had been friends? It seemed unlikely that this had happened by mistake; for all their letters to have vanished felt as though it had been done deliberately.

  Once more Perdita felt the pangs of frustration. Would she ever make sense of all this information? Glancing at her notes, she pulled a dismissive face. Was Lettice or was she not the missing heir? The argument had been persuasive and in the heat of the first moments of revelation, Perdita had thought it was likely but now she felt less certain. She needed solid evidence and the best place to discover that was in the vast cache of Lady Pamela letters. She also found it difficult to dismiss the two women signing themselves Lily and Daisy. Who were they and why was there a flower motive joined to a mermaid and the two rings in an old image from Marquess House?

  Deciding she had done enough for one day, Perdita began shutting down her computer when her door was flung open and Piper appeared, followed by Callum and Kit.

  Piper was brimming over with excitement and clutching an iPad to her chest as though it were her new-born child.

  “What’s happened?” Perdita asked, on her feet, immediately infected with their enthusiasm. “The ring?”

  “Yes, the ring…” began Piper.

  “Your sister is a genius,” butted in Callum.

  “Something I already knew,” smiled Perdita.

  “I’ve been doing more research on Ada Winchester,” said Piper, “while Cal’s been creating a family tree for Elinor Bicton and filling in the gaps between her and the date we know Ada had the ring.”

  “What is it? What have you found?”

  “A direct living descendant of Ada Winchester,” said Piper, her green eyes sparkling in a way Perdita had not seen for months.

  “And?”

  “Her name is Hannah White and we have a positive picture identification from one of her social media accounts.”

  “What do you mean?” Perdita was gazing at Piper, aware that Kit and Callum were watching her, waiting for her reaction. Piper tapped the screen of her tablet, refreshing the image.

  “Look at the chain around her neck,” said Piper.

  Perdita gazed down at the image of the tall, slim, dark-haired girl in a white dress, laughing as she held up a vast multi-coloured
cocktail to the camera. Around her neck was a long golden chain and hanging from it, like a pendant, glittering in the light of the camera flash was a ruby ring identical to the one they had found in the tunnel under Marquess House.

  “No!” Perdita stared at Piper, all thoughts of her own research into Lettice Knollys pushed aside.

  “Yes!” squealed Piper. “Yes! Yes! Yes! And, if the ring still exists, the locket might still be out there somewhere, too!”

  “Piper, you’re amazing!” stuttered Perdita. “How?”

  Piper flipped the image away and brought up a series of family tree diagrams.

  “Alistair gave us a secure, encrypted IP address to use so we could search present day records,” she explained. “All the genealogy websites take you backwards to the census records but present-day Births, Deaths and Marriages records are only available if you have the right passwords. Ada Winchester née Fraser, our last recorded owner of the ring, was an heiress in her own right. In her diaries she explains that she bought the ring from her friend, Emerald Lester, who was selling some of her jewellery. There were no other mentions of the ring in the diary but we found her will. It listed a bequest to her daughter-in-law, Mildred Winchester née Harrison, of ‘an antique ruby ring with inner cavity’.”

  “No!” gasped Perdita.

  Piper giggled. “Yes!” she responded, then continued, “Mildred had married Edgar, who was the only child and heir of Ada and her husband, John. They had two children: Ralph, born 1919 and Honor, born 1921. Ralph was killed during the Second World War, but Honor married a man called Stanley Westcote and they had one daughter, Lucy, who married a Mark White, and they had a daughter, Hannah, who has obviously inherited the ring.”

  “Unbelievable,” breathed Perdita, enlarging the photograph of Hannah White in order to take a closer look at the ring.

  “Do you think that’s it, Perds?” asked Kit.

  Perdita examined it with her expert’s eye. “It certainly looks the same,” she said. “Do we have an address for Hannah White?”