Roses Have Thorns: A Novel of Elizabeth I (37 page)

I truly appreciate Danielle Egan-Miller and Joanna MacKenzie,
simply the best and brightest agents in the world, and their wonderful assistant, Shelbey Campbell; my confidence is bolstered knowing that they are in my corner. Thanks, too, to the great team at Howard Books who help bring these books to life and to market. Debbie Austin, as always, deserves high praise for her abilities to keep me, and the many thousands of facts uncovered, organized, and properly presented.

I could never have written this book without my astonishing husband, Michael, who did everything from reassuring and encouraging to hand-translating an entire book from Swedish to English online. Thanks, too, to my kids, Samuel and Elizabeth, who bring joy and meaning to my life. Finally, all honor and glory to God, who makes all things possible.

Reading Group Guide

Roses Have Thorns

A Novel of Elizabeth I

Sandra Byrd

When Elin von Snakenborg visits England with a royal entourage from Sweden and decides to remain, she drastically alters the course of her life. She marries an English nobleman and becomes one of Queen Elizabeth I’s most trusted ladies in waiting, a position that draws her deep into the intrigue, danger, and treachery of the court.

1. If you were Elin, would you have wanted to return to Sweden or remain in England? What factors would have influenced your decision? Would you have changed your name, as she did?

2. Helena admits that she is fond of William but not in love with him, nor is she physically attracted to him. Is this any different from other engaged, highborn women of the time; for example, her friend Anne Russell? How did the system of marrying for dynastic and financial concerns help or hinder women of the time? Is our current system of choosing husbands always better? Why or why not?

3. Right before Princess Cecelia departs for Sweden, she maliciously tells Helena that William is already married. What were William’s reasons for withholding this information from Helena until it was too late for her to change her mind? Did it damage his reputation for high integrity, or did his past marital history honestly lead him to believe this would be a quickly solved problem?

4. When Helena first enters Elizabeth’s employ, the queen is polite yet distant. How does Helena go about creating a place for herself in the royal household? What are several factors that account for the deepening of their friendship? Why does Helena commission the locket ring for Elizabeth? Was it a game-changer for their friendship?

5. Discuss the role that ladies in waiting play in the queen’s life versus servants in the lives of every highborn woman, royal or not. What is your opinion of the way Elizabeth treats the women in her household? That culture certainly believed that the perks that come with the coveted position outweigh the negatives. Would it have, for you, had you lived then?

6. How does Helena use myths and tales, such as the legend of Idun, to convey her thoughts and opinions to Elizabeth? Why does she seek to influence the queen in this manner rather than in a more direct way? How else do the ladies in waiting “persuade effectively by softer manner”?

7. When Helena shares the story of the frozen rose garden with the queen, what is she really advising her about Mary, Queen of Scots? Was Elizabeth justified in ordering her cousin’s execution? Why does Helena believe the monarch waited so long to have the deed carried out despite the evidence against Mary? Why do you believe Queen Elizabeth waited so long? Would you have acted similarly? How or how not?

8. What are the greatest threats facing Elizabeth I and the stability of the English throne? In what ways is religion—specifically religious differences—a significant factor in the unrest during her reign? What parallels can be drawn to religion in our time?

9. What is your opinion of Elizabeth I as a monarch, as seen through Helena’s eyes? What characteristics and qualities do you think made her a successful ruler? How does Sandra Byrd’s portrayal of Elizabeth I differ from those in other historical novels you’ve read or that you’ve seen in films? Are we likely to get a more complete picture of any one person by looking at him or her from different perspectives?

10. In two different instances Helena is suspicious of Eleanor, once when the other woman reveals something she could not possibly have overheard and the other when she catches a glimpse of Eleanor’s Rosary beads. Was it Helena’s history and personality that compelled her to keep quiet, or fear, or circumstance? How is Eleanor’s death a turning point for Helena personally? In what ways does it alter her association with the other ladies in waiting?

11. Why did Elizabeth allow Helena’s marriage to William but likely would have denied permission for her to wed Thomas? Were Helena and Thomas right to marry in secret? What other couples married in secret during the Elizabethan era, and what were the consequences? (Consider Mary Shelton and Bess Throckmorton, both mentioned in
the book.) Helena claims she thought the queen had discreetly sanctioned the union because of a comment made during a chess game. Does she honestly believe this was the case, or is she using the incident as a way to diffuse the queen’s anger?

12. After Helena finds the Rosary ring among Thomas’s possessions, why does she take it to Sir Francis Walsingham rather than confront her husband? What were the benefits and risks to her and her children by taking it to Walsingham? What could have happened to Helena and her children if she had not gone to Walsingham, and he found out she was withholding treasonous information? Considering all that is at stake, what would you have done in her situation?

13. Helena balances serving the queen with marriage, motherhood, and managing her own household. What similarities does she share with present-day women who juggle careers and family? How is her situation different?

14. The first two books in this series were set during the tumult of the Reformation, when the protagonists were perhaps more zealous. How is faith lived out, albeit more quietly, by the protagonists in this book?

15. At one point Helena believes her relationship with Thomas is over. What accounts for the erosion of their marriage during the course of the decade? What was the turning point that allowed them to rebuild their marriage?

16. Why does Helena not act sooner on the misgivings she has about Sofia? How does the earlier betrayal of Karin and Philip factor into how she deals with her cousin and her character arc? Was she too harsh on Sofia or not harsh enough?

17. “Court language was more often unspoken than said,” writes Sandra Byrd. Why is Helena successful in navigating the intricacies of Elizabeth’s court, even more so than many of the queen’s countrymen and women? Is it more to her benefit or her detriment that she is a foreigner? What qualities are necessary to succeed in a royal court?

18. Do you feel that Elizabeth was, indeed, the capstone of the Tudor Era? Why or why not?

Q: Was it difficult to write about someone so well known, and both fiercely loved and scorned, as Queen Elizabeth I?

A: It was certainly intimidating, challenging, and exciting. I have a large print of Queen Elizabeth I in my office and every morning she’d be there, waiting for me. Because she is so well known, people have strongly formed opinions of her and her reign, and I do, too. She lived a long, rich, complicated life, so in the span of this book I was only able to show one perspective, Helena’s point of view as I’d imagined it and drawn it from history. It was a thrill to write, and I hope I have done her justice.

Q: When you came across a mention of Helena von Snakenborg while doing research for
The Secret Keeper
, did you know immediately that she would be the protagonist for a novel? Why do you think the myth that Elizabeth I had no female friends has been so widely perpetuated?

A: I did have an epiphany of sorts when I came across Helena. I’d been hoping all along to tell the story of a real lady in waiting, but one whose story had not been often told. I was grateful to uncover Helena. The fact that she served Elizabeth I for so long, and so closely, made her an excellent point-of-view character. Her May-December marriage to Parr, the mysterious gap in her child-bearing, and the fact that the queen had actually “exiled” her and thrown her second husband into the Tower made for a rich canvas upon which to imagine. Plus, the fact that Thomas Gorges actually led the party to arrest Mary, Queen of Scots, was too juicy to pass up!

Elizabeth was known to keep tight purse strings, so when good sources indicated that she very well may have given Helena the silver from the wrecked galleon, I knew I had a lady that Elizabeth had loved.

Elizabeth was not a woman’s woman—she couldn’t have been, or she’d not have been able to govern her kingdom in a time when women were not expected to be strong and effective rulers and John Knox was publishing his “First Blast of the Trumpet Against the Monstrous Regiment of Women.” There are accounts that on the rare occasion when she did burst into tears her male councilors tended to look uncomfortably at their knuckles until it passed. The myth that she didn’t promote marriages for her maids of honor was effectively put to rest for me by one
of her biographers who concluded that, had that been the case, families would have stopped advocating their daughters for that position shortly into Elizabeth’s long reign. I think she knew she could trust very few people, and so she did.

She was jealous, I suspect, on some level, of those who had husbands and children, but she was also a lifelong flirt, something a married woman could not be. I think she had deeply loved friends, among them Katherine Carey Knollys, Anne Russell Dudley, Catherine Carey Howard, and of course Helena.

Q: “In a very real way, I controlled access to the sovereign,” muses Helena in
Roses Have Thorns
. How unusual was it that a foreign-born woman like Helena would become the highest-ranking of Queen Elizabeth I’s ladies in waiting?

A: In the days of Queen Katherine of Aragon, there were many high-ranking Spanish women who had traveled to England with her, held significant positions, and also married into English nobility. One of note is Maria de Salinas, a lady in waiting to Queen Katherine of Aragon. She eventually married William Willoughby, eleventh Baron Willoughby de Eresby, and they had a child, Katherine, named for the queen. This Katherine grew up to marry Charles Brandon and became a well-known reformer who played a memorable role as the friend of Queen Kateryn Parr, and guardian of Parr’s baby Mary Seymour, in the last Ladies in Waiting book,
The Secret Keeper: A Novel of Kateryn Parr
.

However, most ladies in waiting were drawn from established English families. Rank, of course, comes from birth and marriage, so what catapulted Helena to the top of the heap, as it were, was her marriage to William Parr, Marquess of Northampton. Helena retained his title and rank throughout her life, even after her second marriage.

Sovereigns do raise their favorites to make them more fitting for close friendship. Henry VIII raised Anne Boleyn to Marquess of Pembroke before marrying her to make her of a more suitable rank. Elizabeth I raised Robert Dudley to the peerage as Earl of Leicester, in 1564; some suspected that was so he would be of a more marriageable rank. Helena gained her rank through marriage, of course. But although she was nobly born, her position as Marchioness of Northampton made her even more fitting to be close to the queen.

Q: A vivid scene takes place early in the novel when Helena grabs a bee flying around Princess Cecelia. Why did you decide to include this in the story? What does it reveal about Helena’s character?

A: I wanted to encapsulate Elin’s bravery and her fealty with one action, something that could be reflected upon, later, when her courage and loyalty toward Queen Elizabeth, and even Helena’s own husband, Thomas, would be questioned. Our impulse as humans is to flee danger—including stinging insects—so to show her acting against that instinct in service to another demonstrates exactly what kind of woman she was.

Later, of course, that action is echoed in a much more dangerous situation when Helena removes the potentially poisoned pins from Elizabeth’s gowns, sticking her hand, again, in the process.

Q: The rivalry between Queen Elizabeth and her cousin Lettice Knollys was quite contentious. What happened to Lettice after Robert Dudley’s death? Did Elizabeth ever soften toward the other woman?

A: No, Elizabeth never did soften toward the woman she called “the she-wolf.” Once she married Robert Dudley, Lettice Knollys was banished from court forever. It seems that their lack of affection for each other began long before Lettice became involved with Dudley. In some senses, Dudley and Lettice are sympathetic—each should certainly have been able to marry whom they chose, especially after the queen made it clear she would not be marrying Dudley. However, the more I read about Lettice and her older children, the less likable I found them to be.

I do have compassion toward her for the loss of her and Dudley’s child, affectionately known as The Noble Imp. I’m sure that was difficult all around. One of Lettice’s other sons, the Earl of Essex, became a favorite, and then a treasonous heartbreak, for Queen Elizabeth toward the end of her life. But that is another story!

Q: One of the most intriguing aspects of
Roses Have Thorns
is the view it gives of the inner workings of Elizabeth’s private chambers. How important was the role of the ladies in waiting in protecting the queen and keeping her from harm as well as in safeguarding her reputation?

A: Sleeping arrangements in that era were nothing as private as what we would expect now, and the queen, in particular, always had a maid of
honor or one of her ladies sleeping on a small bed in her room. The maid of honor would be there to serve her if the queen needed something in the night, but also to protect her: physically, if someone tried to breach the bedchamber, and from gossip that might insinuate that the virgin queen was not sleeping alone.