Shadow Line Press
Featuring: Sir Francis Walsingham; Mistress Ursula Blanchard; Queen Elizabeth Tudor
216 pages ISBN: 1780291035 EAN: 9781780291031 Kindle: B07C7GZVYT Hardcover / e-Book Add to Wish List
Mistress Ursula Blanchard fends off yet another suitor
looking for her widow's portion of land, and gets on with
looking after her home and stud farm, surrounded by loyal
servants. The new trotting stallion proves a handful, but
that isn't the only turmoil to strike the home near
Guildford, Surrey. Someone kidnaps Ursula's young son, and
now every stranger is suspect -- the new tutor, the new stud
groom, the strolling players. When the ransom demand
finally arrives it is astounding and compromising. Ursula
is to become THE RELUCTANT ASSASSIN.
In order to save little Harry, the widow is told she must
get close to and murder a notable personage. Queen
Elizabeth Tudor, her half-sister, has used Ursula as a spy
in the past. Ursula has no choice but to tell the Queen and
her spymaster Sir Francis Walsingham everything. They may
help her, hinder her, or forbid the errand entirely. The
politics of the day are complex, involving religious
divides, plots, and power struggles.
While the outline seems fanciful, desperate people took
desperate measures in Tudor times. As the Queen had not
married, her successor was in no way obvious, and many
English folks feared an upstart from the Continent or a
Scottish Jacobin uprising. Every time power changed hands,
nobles lost their lands or their heads. Ordinary folks
were dragged into wars and lost their prosperity. In Ursula
Blanchard we are presented with a daughter of Henry the
Eighth, from the wrong side of the blanket, who is
privately recognised and well regarded, working her own way
to middle class wealth and attendant upon Court at her
Majesty's pleasure. As such she is an excellent tool and an
intelligent chronicler of the times.
The times are indeed far from ideal. Scarlet fever kills
children. Marauders kill faithful dogs. Ladies are expected
to occupy themselves usefully with embroidery. And
mysterious accidents happen to witnesses who might know the
whereabouts of a captive child. I enjoyed the hospitality;
meat and pippin pasties, veal quiche, saffron bread, fresh
cider, elderflower wine. I love how individual horses and
their abilities are part of everyday life and necessary to
adventures. Mistress Blanchard is a totally believable,
rounded character, a mother and staunch friend, a
horsewoman and good steward of her land and people. If you
have not yet read Fiona Buckley's series about Ursula
Blanchard, then you have a treasure trove ahead of
you. THE RELUCTANT ASSASSIN is the sixteenth book, but I
find I can
dip in at any point and pick up the threads so skillfully
sewn.
March, 1581. Queen Elizabeth is once again being urged to consider marriage to the Duke of Alençon, a French Catholic twenty years her junior. The prospect of the match is causing unrest throughout the kingdom. Ursula Blanchard however has more immediate matters to worry about when her 9-year-old son is snatched away while out riding. If she is ever to see him again, Ursula must undertake an impossibly difficult and dangerous mission – and commit an act of high treason. Can she rely on her half-sister, Queen Elizabeth, for help?
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