Product Description

Penelope Devereux was the brightest star who ever shone in the court of Queen Elizabeth I in sixteenth-century England. She was the most beautiful woman of her generation and muse to countless poets and musicians, yet her story ended in tragedy: she died in disgrace on 7th July 1607, a widow, outcast from court, and stripped of all her titles.Her life touched on every great event of the age - the execution of Mary Queen of Scots, the defeat of the Spanish Armada, the arrival of King James and the Gunpowder Plot - and she knew many of the celebrated artistic figures of the day including William Shakespeare."The Lady Penelope" is a dramatic, visual, emotional and ultimately tragic story set against the character of Queen Elizabeth I and the staged pageantry of her Court, and will have immediate appeal to lovers of historical biographies.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #43245 in Books
• Published on: 2009-02-02
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 328 pages

Philippa Gregory, June 20, 2007
"Really masterly. This authoritative history tells what
eventually happened to 'The Other Boleyn Girl' - and her great-granddauter,
The Lady Penelope."

The Lady, June 12, 2007
"Excellent".

Western Daily Press, June 2, 2007
"Shines a new light on this unusual woman, and the drama of
her story can hardly fail to grip".

Customer Reviews

A story worth to be told -the glittering world of Tudor high society
Lady Penelope Devereux was a court beauty, said to be the most famous adulteress of her day. Her relationship with Sir Charles Blount, Lord Mountjoy and later Earl of Devonshire, was all but public knowledge by 1595.

The Lady Rich -- as she was mostly known during her lifetime, the Stella of Sir Philip Sidney's "Astrophel and Stella" and properly Shakespeare's "Dark Lady", was the elder daughter of Walter Devereux, 1st Earl of Essex and his wife Lettice Knollys, daughter of Sir Francis Knollys and Catherine Carey and married as her second husband to the Earl of Leicester, the love of the life of Queen Elisabeth. Catherine Knolleys herself was daughter of Lady Mary Boleyn, sister of Queen Anne Boleyn, by either her husband Sir William Carey, Gentleman of the Privy Chamber, or her lover Henry VIII of England. So she was either cousin or half-sister to the Queen. She was the favorite sister of the 2^nd Earl of Essex, the last and ill-fated favorite of Queen Elisabeth.

In 1581 she married Robert Rich, 3rd Baron Rich. Penelope is said to have protested in vain against the alliance with Rich, who is represented as a rough and overbearing husband. Lady Rich was the mother of six children by her husband when she contracted in 1595 a more or less open liaison with Charles Blount, 8th Lord Mountjoy, a brilliant courtier and one of the favorites of Elizabeth, to whom she had long been attached. Lord Rich took no steps against his wife during her brother's lifetime, and she nursed him through an illness in 1600, but they obtained a legal separation in 1601, and Mountjoy acknowledged her five children born after 1595. Mountjoy was created Earl of Devonshire on the accession of James I, and Lady Rich was in high favor at court. In 1605, however, they legitimized their connection by a marriage celebrated by William Laud, the Earl's chaplain and later the ill-fated Archbishop of Canterbury under Charles I. This proceeding, carried out in defiance of canon law, was followed by the disgrace of both parties, who were banished from court. Devonshire died on the 3rd of April 1606, and his wife within a year of that date.

Sally Varlow has re-discovered this magnificent woman, who - typically for Tudor times - was an educated and inspiring woman. The author describes in great detail how this glittering world of Tudor high society worked, how especially woman survived in this world. It is indeed a fascinating inside into the dynastic policies of the great and mighty of the day: The Dudelys, the Devereuxs, the Knolleys and all the other families linked to them. Power, greet, policies and personalities clashes and wonderful described.

But I feel that the author is a bit too one sided and sees all through the eyes of her subject. She hardly ever puts things into perspective. The Cecils are cast in the role of the arch-villain and the downfall of the Devereuxs, especially of Penelope's brother to just largely due to them. Well, the 2nd Earl of Essex was hardly the wonderful statesman the author seems to want us to believe he was. Furthermore, Mrs. Varlow makes too much of the royal connection of the Devereuxs. As old nobility they were linked to the Plantagenet, but so were many other great families. Being court favourites did not bring them into the exclusive orbit of possible successors to the crown. If Essex believed so, he simply overreached. Whether Catherine Carey really was a natural daughter of Henry VIII is not really proven. Henry VII was not shy to recognize his natural children as the duke of Richmond proves. So why not the Careys, especially the later Lord Hunsdon? I wish Sally Varlow had investigated a bit deeper into the role Penelope played in Essex's failed coup. Here she remains just on the surface. Furthermore, it seems that Penelope was always depending on males: her role first defined as the daughter of an Earl, than married off by her guardian, the Earl of Nottingham, than her role as Lord Rich's wife and later the mistress and "wife" of Lord Montjoy. They were the main forces. She defied through her involvement with Montjoy morality of her day, but was protected through her roles as sister, wife and mistress of powerful men, men the Queen could not ignore. When they could not longer protect her, she was fair game.

In spite of these points I regard this as a wonderful book about a remarkable woman. It is a story worth to be told. I enjoyed it and recommended it.

This true, page-turning, tale of love and intrigue at the Court of Elizabeth 1 beats fiction hands down

This book peels away centuries of mis-information and insults, and gives the real story of Penelope Devereux, the most beautiful woman during "The Golden Age" of Queen Elizabeth I.

It must be difficult to piece together a life that ended 400 years ago, but well worth the effort when so many of us love Tudor history, and when we are intrigued by stories of "The Other Boleyn Girl" ~ who turns out to be Penelope's great-grandmother.

As I began reading this account of the woman who became Lady Rich, I felt I was in the hands of a writer who knows the politics, the religious controversies and the romance of 16th-century England in depth ~ and could convey them in a brilliantly readable style. This is an utterly absorbing book. Though packed with details it is never a hard read. It is always written with a touch of wit. "Really?" as the author asks at one point in the story. Yes, really.

From the day she was baptised, in January 1563, with the Queen as her godmother, Penelope was destined to be a Court insider and she lived through countless great events. So the threat of the Spanish Armada, the execution of Mary Queen of Scots, Elizabeth's death, James's arrival from Scotland, even the Gunpowder Plot, come vividly alive in this book ~ along with everyone in Tudor high society.

Sir Philip Sidney was inspired by Penelope to write his celebrated love sonnets, "Astrophil and Stella". Lord Leicester (Queen Elizabeth's greatest love) was Penelope's step-father. Lettice Knollys (the flame-haired beauty Elizabeth loathed) was her mother. Sir Francis Knollys (Elizabeth's trusted councillor) was her grandfather. Walter Ralegh was her friend, for a time, and she fixed his secret marriage to his pregnant mistress. She did the same for her cousin Elizabeth Vernon and the Earl of Southampton (Shakespeare's patron). The Earl of Essex, Queen Elizabeth's last great favourite, was Penelope's adored brother; and his wife was the daughter of Sir Francis "spy-master" Walsingham.

Nowhere does Ms Varlow claim that Essex was a wonderful statesman (as reviewer Klaus Meyer states). From the start the author points out that Essex was "rash and moody" ~ hardly the qualities for a political leader. What Varlow reveals is Penelope's support for him and his political ambitions. She was the only woman listed among the plotters in Essex's abortive rebellion (1601); she remained with him at Essex house till he surrendered, and she was then placed under house arrest. Varlow also uncovers much detail of the treasonable negotiations conducted by Penelope's lover, Lord Mountjoy, on Essex's behalf, and explains why Penelope walked free. If anything is missing from this account it can only be because Secretary of State Robert Cecil seized all their papers and controlled reports of Elizabeth's last days.

Though the details of Penelope's ancestry are important, the story really gets going for me when Penelope comes to Court, aged 18, and her guardians (the Earl and Countess of Huntingdon, not Nottingham, as reviewer Meyer states) married her against her will to the wealthy Lord Rich. History has never had a good word for him, but typically of this book it questions how awful he really was. He was a member of Essex's circle for almost 20 years, and Penelope travelled with him, and regularly visited their four children at his home, long after she began her love affair with Lord Mountjoy, who fathered her last five children (Meyer must be ignoring their first child's baptism, March 1592, when he dates the affair from 1595).

For Tudor research enthusiasts the most intriguing aspect of the book is Varlow's discovery of unpublished evidence that Penelope's grandmother, Lady Katherine Knollys, was born to Mary, "The Other Boleyn Girl", during Mary's affair with King Henry VIII. It puts beyond all reasonable doubt that Penelope's grandma was the King's lovechild, because it is not credible that he was happily sharing Mary with her husband. Contrary to Meyer's view, King Henry WAS shy about acknowledging his illegitimate children. Till the birth of his heir Prince Edward, he needed his eldest illegitimate child as his acknowledged son, but he had nothing to gain by acknowledging any others, especially a girl like Katherine. In fact, his affair with her mother, Mary, was a serious embarrassment when he wanted to marry Anne Boleyn.

One person Penelope probably cannot be linked to is "The Dark Lady" of Shakespeare's sonnets, as reviewer Meyer claims. There is no contemporary evidence for it, and Varlow wisely never strays into discussing Penelope and "The Dark Lady".

There is plenty of real excitement in Penelope's life without inventing things, such as her curious friendship with the Spanish spy, Antonio Perez; and her secret meetings with the most hunted Jesuit priest in England, Fr. John Gerard. One previous writer has crazily suggested that Penelope met him because she was bored, pregnant, and stuck in the country. As Varlow points out, it's absurd to dismiss Penelope's Jesuit contacts so lightly, when people were dying in agony for their Catholic faith.

If Penelope lived a charmed life, it is partly because she was discreet. Her affair with Lord Mountjoy was known at Court, but she didn't flaunt it, as her critics insist. In fact, it was her attempt to regularise their liaison, by divorcing Lord Rich and marrying Mountjoy,that led to her final fall from grace with King James. Thanks to that, and Mountjoy's death in 1606 (he was never banished from Court, only Penelope) she was vilified by her enemies, and all-but-forgotten by history.

Now, she has been wonderfully brought back into the spotlight, and her beauty shines out from this account. If there is one thing wrong with the book, it is the position of the "Who's Who" and family trees of the great dynasties ~ the Tudors, Dudleys, Knollys, Sidneys and Devereux ~ at the BACK. I wish they were at the front and I had found them first.

Love and Drama In Tudor England
The author has managed to bring Lady Penelope to life, no wonder that she was at the centre of so much intrigue and drama at court. I keep being drawn back to the wonderful portrait that the author has found and used for the cover which already show a woman of great beauty but also those eyes suggest someone of tremendous charm, intelligence and charisma. I started the book quite slowly because of the huge cast of characters, many with similar names, but with the help of the family trees at the back and the engaging way in which the book is written, I was soon drawn into the extraordinary story of this woman who apparently participated in many of the events of those turbulent times. It is clear that very careful research has gone into this book but it is never dry and I was completely enthralled as the story unfolded. It is hard to understand how someone so passionate and 'alive' and likeable can have been ruthlessly airbrushed from history. What a great film heroine she would make!