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Queen Elizabeth I is dying, and the King of England’s oldest and bitterest enemy, Scotland, is poised to take the throne. Lonely, her power fading, Elizabeth fears she is being poisoned. With all her old allies and advisors dead, she turns to the only man she can trust to tell her the truth, Henry Gresham. A reluctant recruit, Gresham finds himself unwillingly dragged into the vicious political manoeuvring that will decide who is England’s next ruler.Involved in the mad-cap race to be the first to tell James VI of Scotland that Elizabeth has chosen him as her successor, Gresham faces savage attacks on his home and those he loves, imprisonment, attempts to destroy not only him but the College he loves in Cambridge. He is even accused of witchcraft and is faced with the loss of all he holds dear and the prospect of a civil war with terrifying consequences.Gresham finds himself one of the few people who knows about plots emanating from England’s oldest European rivals and enemies – plots that could change England into an unrecognizable country. Fighting harder than he has ever had to before, Gresham must struggle to survive and to defeat his enemies at home, and with no army except his wits, fight for the survival of his country as England enters a time that could see it tear itself apart.’This completely new and previously unpublished third book in the Henry Gresham series is another intricate page-turner of a novel. Once again, Martin Stephen has produced a tale of treachery, intrigue and passion which displays a staggeringly intimate knowledge of history.