Lady Grace Mysteries

The Lady Grace Mysteries is a detective fiction series about the escapades of Lady Grace Cavendish, a maid of honour to Queen Elizabeth I. The books are written in the style of a diary. Each book sees her trying to solve a mystery of the royal court. The stories are set in 1569 and 1570, and there are twelve books so far; Assassin; Betrayal; Conspiracy; Deception; Exile; Feud; Gold; Haunted, Intrigue, Jinx, Keys, and Loot. The first book, Assassin, was published in 2004.

Authors

The first four books, Assassin, Betrayal, Conspiracy, Deception and the later Feud, were written by Patricia Finney, and the other books are co-written by Sara Volger and Jan Burchett. All authors write under the pseudonym "Grace Cavendish".

Series

• Assassin by Patricia Finney, Doubleday, 2004, ISBN 978-0-385-60644-8
• Betrayal by Patricia Finney, Doubleday, 2004, ISBN 978-0-385-60645-5
• Conspiracy by Patricia Finney, 2005
• Deception by Sara Volger & Jan Burchett, 2005
• Exile by Sara Vogler & Jan Burchett, 2006
• Feud by Patricia Finney, 2006
• Gold by Sara Vogler & Jan Burchett, 2006
• Haunted by Sara Vogler & Jan Burchett, 2006
• Intrigue by Sara Vogler & Jan Burchett, 2008
• Jinx by Sara Vogler & Jan Burchett, 2008
• Keys by Sara Vogler & Jan Burchett, 2009
• Loot by Sara Vogler & Jan Burchett, 2010

Characters

There are a number of recurring characters who appear in all the books.The main characters are Lady Grace Cavendish and Queen Elizabeth the First. Lady Grace and Queen Elizabeth the first are the 2 people that mainly appear and/or are mentioned in all of the Lady Grace Mysteries books.

Lady Grace Cavendish, Maid of Honour

Lady Grace Cavendish is the youngest Maid of Honour to Queen Elizabeth I. In the first book, 'Assassin' she is thirteen years old; by the eleventh, 'Keys', she is fifteen. She is the Queen's dearest goddaughter and rather a favourite with her at Court.

She is an orphan like Ellie and Masou. Both her parents, especially her mother, play memorial roles in all the books and both died heroic, tragic deaths. Her father died when she was two, fighting a war in France, and her mother unintentionally drank poison intended for the Queen, put there by the Papist Guises.

Her best friends work at Whitehall Palace and follow the Queen on progress. Ellie Bunting, an orphaned laundrymaid, and Masou Al-Ahmed, an African acrobat from Will Somer's acrobatic troupe, are both very close to Grace. However they have to keep their friendship a secret because of the vast difference between their stations in life.

Sharp and clever, Grace always solves a new mystery in a short deadline and is quietly rewarded by the Queen. Grace has to keep her investigations a secret, but she nearly always informs Masou and Ellie, and they are her trusty friends who help her with the investigations when she needs a companion. She is always very discreet about her being the Queen's Lady Pursuivant and her adventures are closely guarded secrets.

Grace never wants to get married as she wants to be like the Queen and stay at the Royal Court as long as she wishes to.

Queen Elizabeth

Elizabeth I (7 September 1533 – 24 March 1603) was Queen of England and Ireland from 17 November 1558 until her death in early 1603. Sometimes called "The Virgin Queen", "Gloriana", or "Good Queen Bess", Elizabeth was the fifth and last monarch of the Tudor dynasty.

Elizabeth was the daughter of King Henry VIII and Queen Anne Boleyn. Elizabeth was born a princess, but her mother, Anne Boleyn, was executed three years after her birth on false accusations of treason, heresy, witchcraft and infidelity, and through her mother's disgrace Elizabeth was declared illegitimate.

In 1558 Elizabeth succeeded her half-sister, the devoutly Catholic Mary I of England, during whose reign she had been imprisoned for nearly a year on suspicion of supporting Protestant rebels. It was a difficult time for Elizabeth. She was known to take a diamond from her jewels and scratch into a Tower window the words,

"Much suspected of me, nothing proved can be, quote Elizabeth, prisoner."

She was a very fond and helping godmother and guardian to Lady Grace, but whether or not that's true in real life nobody knows the truth. She was certainly a devoted and protective woman to her Ladies-in-Waiting and Maids of Honour.

Dr Cavendish

Dr Cavendish is Grace's loving uncle and the head physician at Court. He is a fond uncle of Grace and one of her only relatives. He is very upset by Grace's mother's death and for many years after the tragedy he is known to be lost in his own world.

He is usually in one of two states - drunk or hung over. Despite all this he loves Grace very dearly and Grace is very fond of him and loves him a lot more than she realises. Dr Cavendish is always careful to upgrade Grace's physical state and regularly check her health standards.

Olwen and Fran

Olwen is Lady Sarah's tiring woman. She is kind and cheerful and comforts Lady Sarah when Sarah is upset. In "Betrayal", Olwen is abducted, threatened, tied up, treated despicably, and used as hostage to lure Lady Sarah unwittingly into abduction too.

Cruel Captain Derby, Olwen's captor, threatens to cut off Olwen's hands if Lady Sarah refuses to marry him, and throws her into the brig. Naturally, this is the cause of much distress for both Olwen and Lady Sarah.

Fran is Mary Shelton's tiring woman. She is not mentioned much in the series and she also helps Lady Grace along with Olwen.

Penelope Knollys, Carmina Willoughby and Lucy Throckmorton

Penelope Knollys is one of Grace's fellow Maids of Honour. She follows the Queen on progress and shares a bedroom with Lady Jane Coningsby and Carmina Willoughby. Penelope always cowers away from the antics of Lady Sarah Bartelmy and Lady Jane Coningsby. Penelope is quite small and plain, and always follows Lady Sarah and her advice on clothes. In Book 7, Gold, Penelope gets married, thus leaving the Queen's service.

Carmina is bright and bouncy. In Feud, she suffers from food poisoning and after the crisis of a fire at St Bartholemhew's Fair in Smith Field, Book 10, Jinx, she becomes very superstitious and jumpy, full of dire warnings. She is friends with Lucy Throckmorton and loves having a good chatter over a mystery.

Lucy Throckmorton is a terrible gossip. She appears to replace Penelope afte her marriage and is not in all the books - considerably startles some readers by popping up suddenly in Book 10! Lucy is best friends with Carmina, gossips all the time and likes having long, boring, detailed conversations about sleeves and gowns in the latest styles.

Ellie Bunting

Ellie is a scullery maid at Queen Elizabeth's court, who later in the series becomes Lady Grace's tiring woman by way of reward for an act of bravery in defeating a villain in broad daylight, in front of the rest of the Court.

She is very good friends with Grace and Masou and she often assists them in solving the hardest of mysteries. Ellie is very superstitious - in 'Jinx' and 'Haunted' she insists upon carting a massive bag of amulets around with her, even when sailing down the Thames and walking the dogs through muddy fields! She is very considerate, as looks are concerned she is thin as she is fed small.She has brown hair and a rounded face with lots of scars.

Like her friends Grace and Masou, she is an orphan as her parents died of the sickly plague. In Feud, she talks about how her parents died, pushing back tears as she shows Grace the scars on her neck.

The deputy laundress, Mrs. Fadget, treats Ellie badly, forcing her to work long hours without a break, and tries to suck up to Grace when Grace visits the laundry to make up excuses to drag Ellie out of her work to talk to her. (These excuses often involve numerous unwashed chemises and precious silk handkerchiefs that need scrubbing.)

In Exile, Book 5, Ellie is falsely accused of stealing the Heart of Kings. The Heart of Kings is the most famed and fabled jewel in the world and is the most treasured possession of the Court's noble foreign visitor. Luckily Ellie is proved innocent and Grace is the one to give out the "good tidings".

Once Ellie has been upgraded to tiring woman she takes great care and time with Grace's hair and appearance and often accompanies her on her missions.

Masou al-Ahmed

Masou is a Muslim boy and a skilled tumbler in Queen Elizabeth's court. Like Ellie, he is rewarded later in the series and becomes one of the Queen's very own Fools after performing an act of bravery. He is good friends with Grace and Ellie and helps them solve mysteries. Masou is from Africa and never knew his mother, who died at his birth. His father died of consumption after arriving in England. He is cheeky, fun and boastful about his skills. He is especially good at juggling with fire. He likes to try and scare the girls and in Haunted, Grace says it is the first time she has seen him speechless.

Lady Sarah Bartelmy

Lady Sarah Bartelmy is one of Grace's fellow Maids of Honour and shares a bedchamber with Grace herself. She is two years older than Grace and is a lively and flirtatious girl. She is exceedingly picky over her makeup and hair and drives her chambermates mad with her constant fussing over pearls and hair arrangements. She is the wealthiest of all the Maids of Honour and spends a month wearing every gown before begging for a new one.

Not much is known about Lady Sarah's past, childhood or family except that she is an exceedingly wealthy young heiress and her family owns a large estate called Bartemly House a hundred miles away from the Queen's residence.

Lady Sarah is very pretty, with becoming copper coloured locks and a large bosom. She is the poor Maid of Honour who has to sit for hours on end while the Queen's artist paints her because Queen Elizabeth has no time to spare. She also pretends to be her at a masque where the Queen plays a cunning prank on her courtiers.

Lady Sarah's enemy at Court is her fellow Maid of Honour Lady Jane Coningsby. In 'Deception' Sarah creates a rude rhyme mocking Lady Jane's lack of skating technique, which she sings in front of six young gentlemen, a large congregation and Lady Jane. Grace writes it down in her daybooke. Lady Jane then sings one back about three large spots (interpretative the 'three blind mice'), staring at Lady Sarah whilst singing it.

After the tenth book, Lady Sarah is being wooed by a Gentleman of the Guards named Daniel Cheshire. He writes love poetry for her, which she receives very happily, and by the end of the twelfth book they are hand-fasted to wed. They are extremely happy together.

Lady Jane Coningsby

Lady Jane Coningsby is a new Maid of Honour at Whitehall Palace and she took the place of a banished Maid of Honour, Katharine Broke, who was sent home in disgrace after a scandal with the Duke of Norkfolk's young nephew. Lady Jane is not 100% popular amongst the other Maids of Honour.

Lady Jane's number one enemy at Court is Lady Sarah Bartelmy, her fellow maid of Honour. They both despise each other. Since Lady Jane lately came to Court, she has had countless squabbles with arrogant Lady Sarah. Lady Jane despises Lady Sarah, and fights with her almost constantly. She is always searching for ways to outdo Lady Sarah in gaining the attention of the young gentlemen.

Lady Jane is a very pretty Maid of Honour, as is her rival Sarah Bartelmy. Jane has an exceedingly tall elegant figure and long, carefully styled blonde ringlets 'foaming down her back', as one of the dafter court gentlemen wrote in a poem.

Her father was the ambassador to the French Court at one time so she gives herself fancy airs and graces. Jane often uses her eloquently superior way of public speaking to demean her rival Lady Sarah and update herself as supposedly the most beautiful and attractive of all the Maids at Court.

Jane also thinks she knows more about fashion than anyone else because the French Court was so fashionable at the time her father was ambassador and wears a lot of French-style apparel. She is very jumpy about her clothes and her reputation for her beauty.Every other Maid of Honour is very fed up of Lady Jane and Lady Sarah quarrelling.

Like many other Maids of Honour and Ladies in Waiting at the Court of Queen Elizabeth I, Jane's dreams are to find a wealthy man of money and rank to marry. She is very flirtatious with a love of flirting. She uses her reputation of ultimate beauty to propel and strengthen that love.

In 'Betrayal', Lady Jane is jealous of Lady Sarah because Lady Sarah attracts two piratical but nevertheless gallant, flirtatious, generous, handsome, dashing young sea captains to her beauty and wealth on a visit to Tillbury Docks while Jane herself, who constantly considers herself ultimately beautiful, is positively ignored, even when she deliberately steps into a muddy puddle wearing her best shoes, simply in the hope of attracting a little attention from Captain Drake and Captain Derby.

Jane is very attractive and has a little group of young courtiers following her, wherever she goes. Jane constantly complains that Lady Sarah has all the gentlemen to herself, but despite her steadfast complaints, she does know that men of the Court go positively moony over her for a range of different reasons : her, her flirtatious manner, her beauty, and her wealth, the fact that she is an heiress, that she is exceedingly well-born, and that she has wealthy parents.

Mary Shelton

Mary Shelton is a Maid of Honour at the Court. She has been very kind to Lady Grace since Grace's mother died. When Ellie is sick with a quinsy and Lady Sarah appears to have run off with a piratical sea captain, Mary stays at Whitehall and nurses Ellie. Meanwhile, Grace is away at sea with her hair cut short, pretending to be a boy.

Mary is not entirely clueless about Grace's secret role at Whitehall Palace as Lady Pursuivant, and is Grace's sidekick when necessary.

Mary is quiet, loving, gentle and friendly. She loved to gossip and hates climbing trees and walking the dogs. She doesn't like mice. As Grace quotes in her daybooke,

"She doesn't like mice, rats or lizards, or any small scuttly creature for that matter, but at least she has some sense."

Mary Shelton is not entitled to the qualifications of the title 'Lady', but she was well-born enough to serve the Queen, which in turn gave her a decent position at Court in the Queen's favour, luckily for her.

Mary has many nieces and nephews, as well as lots of friends and relatives. We do not know very much about Mary's possible background, but we think her mother is dead and she is possibly an orphan.

In real life Mary Shelton did exist and after a while became the Lady of the Bedchamber to Queen Elizabeth I, a great honour.

She was well known for being irritating, and was slapped across the cheek by the Queen herself once, a happening proven by historical evidence!

Mr Daniel Cheshire

Mr Daniel Cheshire is Lady Sarah's suitor. He is a member of the Gentlemen's Guard at Court and has rank and wealth. He is tall, slim, young and handsome with reddish-blonde hair.

In Book 10, "Jinx", Lady Sarah is badly burned in a fire, but Daniel Cheshire remains steadfast and ever loyal to her, bringing trinkets, gifts and love poetry. It is this which convinces Grace that Daniel Cheshire is a truly good and worthy suitor.

They are in love by the end of Book 10, and by the end of Book 12 they are formally handfasted to be married.

Will Somers

Will Somers is the Queen's fool and head of the Queen's troupe. He is Masou's boss and Masou often makes excuses to him so that he can discreetly slip out to Grace.

Somers runs the troupe and produces acts for the Queen and her Court, especially at large feasts. He and his troupe entertain the Queen in her Presence Chamber. Will Somers is actually a real life character who was Henry VIII's personal jester as well as Elizabeth 1st. He is not mentioned too much in the books.

Book Synopsis

Assassin-Lady Grace Cavendish, the orphaned Maid of Honour to Queen Elizabeth 1, must choose between three would-be husbands that the Queen has chosen for her. However disaster soon strikes- one of her suitors is found murdered and another is apparently guilty! Lady Grace is unconvinced and seeks to find the true killer with the help of her loyal friends, Ellie the laundrymaid and Masou the acrobat. In the hustle and bustle of the Elizabethan Court our heroine must solve her first mystery, hindered by false trails and the limited privacy that comes with her status. But being the Queen's favorite maid of honour means life isn't always easy and sometimes the most useless things come in as quite useful.

Betrayal- A trip to the docks to visit the handsome sea captain Sir Francis Drake sets the Court in a flutter, and when Grace's fellow Maid of Honour, the vain Sarah Bartelmy mysteriously disappears,Lady Cavendish assumes that she has run away to marry the pirate captain. However a trail of clues leads the Lady Pursuivant to suspect a kidnapping! With the help of her tumbler friend Masou, she stows away on Drake's ship, determined to save her friend's reputation.

Reviews

• http://blogcritics.org/archives/2006/09/27/190315.php
• http://www.kidsreads.com/series/series-lady-grace-titles.asp