Historical romance set in Elizabethan England about the daughter of the queen's powerful secretary, Sir Francis Walsingham. Because of her beauty and influence, Frances Walsingham was recognized as a potent political force and was wooed and wed by two of England's most powerful and charismatic men.

Much has been written on Sir Francis Walsingham, otherwise known as Elizabeth I's Secretary of State and Spymaster, but very little detailing the life of his only child, Frances. Although she was closely associated with some of the greatest and most powerful people of that era, her presence and her contribution to the course of history is largely unknown. This books chronicles the life of Frances Walsingham, covering the last half of the reign including the defeat of the Armada and the Dutch, Spanish and Irish campaigns. As a child, she survived the massacre of St. Bartholomew's Eve, in company with Sir Philip Sidney, in her father's embassy in Paris. At the age of 13, she contracted herself to marriage with an employee of Walsingham. When this was forbidden, she was betrothed to Sidney, whom she followed when he campaigned in the Netherlands. Frances was with Sidney when he died at Arnhem after suffering fatal wounds at the battle of Zutphen. The Queen's favourite, the Earl of Essex, became Frances's next suitor and they later married. As with Sidney, this was doomed; the Earl was beheaded 11 years later following a treasonable uprising. On her third marriage, to the Irish Earl of Clanricarde, Frances converted to Catholicism as a symbol of her commitment to her husband and his faith. Together they built and left to posterity two beautiful houses which still stand today. Frances was a survivor, but must have had, besides intelligence, rare charm or beauty in order to have married, in succession, three of the most charismatic Englishmen of the 16th Century. Seven of her twelve children survived. The Brilliant Stage will appeal to those with an interest in the Elizabethan period and fans of historical fiction. Angela McLeod's writing is comparable to the style of Daphne Du Maurier. The works of both Dame Edith Sitwell and Lytton Strachey have inspired her and motivated her to write this compelling account of Frances Walsingham.

A vision of the Virgin Mary foreshadows a string of cold-blooded murders, revealing a dark current of religious fanaticism in an old medieval town in this Ruth Galloway mystery. When Ruth’s friend Cathbad sees a vision of the Virgin Mary—in a white gown and blue cloak—in the graveyard next to the cottage he is house-sitting, he takes it in his stride. Walsingham has strong connections to Mary, and Cathbad is a druid after all; visions come with the job. But when the body of a woman in a blue dressing-gown is found dead the next day in a nearby ditch, it is clear Cathbad’s vision was all too human—and that a horrible crime has been committed. DCI Nelson and his team are called in for the murder investigation and soon establish that the dead woman was a recovering addict being treated at a nearby private hospital. Ruth, a devout atheist, has managed to avoid Walsingham during her seventeen years in Norfolk. But then an old university friend, Hilary Smithson, asks to meet her in the village, and Ruth is amazed to discover that her friend is now a priest. Hilary has been receiving vitriolic anonymous letters targeting women priests— letters containing references to local archaeology and a striking phrase about a woman "clad in blue, weeping for the world." Then another woman is murdered—a priest. As Walsingham prepares for its annual Easter re-enactment of the Crucifixion, the race is on to unmask the killer before they strike again...

Publisher description

Walsingham, Elizabeth's spymaster had established an extensive spy network the world had ever seen, placing secret agents throughout Europe, especially in the Catholic courts of Spain, Italy, and France, to ferret out Catholic plots against Elizabeth. Yet Elizabeth ignored her spymaster. Walsingham, distrusted for being too powerful.

Sir Francis Walsingham’s official title was principal secretary to Queen Elizabeth I, but in fact this pious, tight-lipped Puritan was England’s first spymaster. A ruthless, fiercely loyal civil servant, Walsingham worked brilliantly behind the scenes to foil Elizabeth’s rival Mary Queen of Scots and outwit Catholic Spain and France, which had arrayed their forces behind her. Though he cut an incongruous figure in Elizabeth’s worldly court, Walsingham managed to win the trust of key players like William Cecil and the Earl of Leicester before launching his own secret campaign against the queen’s enemies. Covert operations were Walsingham’s genius; he pioneered techniques for exploiting double agents, spreading disinformation, and deciphering codes with the latest code-breaking science that remain staples of international espionage.

During the brief reign of the Queen Mary, Walsingham was a Protestant exile in Italy. Returning home when Elizabeth assumed the throne, from 1570 he became a diplomat to the arch-pragmatist Queen. He was often troubled by her inconsistent policy decisions and for allowing the exile in England of Mary Queen of Scots. His triumph came in 1587 when Mary was at last beheaded after the cunning defeat of the Babington plot. A powerful, if enigmatic figure, loathed by his adversaries and deeply admired by friends and allies, Walsingham became the master co-ordinator of a feared pan-European spy network. His spies underpinned his organisation of national resistance to the Spanish Armada, but devotion and duty to Elizabeth was costly and Walsingham died two years later in penury. Historian and storyteller Derek Wilson delves deeply into the life of a fascinating and highly influential figure, bringing us tales of deceit, betrayal and loyalty along the way; popular history of the highest calibre. see www.derekwilson.com

An overlooked aspect of the iconography of the Annunciation investigated - Mary's book.

B. W. Flint's Edith the Fair: Visionary of Walsingham is the first attempt to establish the historical identity of the Walsingham visionary, 'Rychold', since 1951. The founding date of the Marian shrine of Walsingham, which is the national shrine of England, has long been disputed by historians- despite the fact that it was one of the most widely frequented shrines of medieval Europe, known and visited by leading scholars such as Erasmus. While the histories of other Marian visionaries are treated with great interest, surprisingly little attempt has been made to understand the message of Walsingham and the story of the woman to whom it was entrusted. Through rigorous re-examination of the primary sources, most notably the Norfolk Rolls and the Pynson Ballad, B. W. Flint ascertains the founding date of the shrine and identifies the name of 'Rychold', Lady of the Manor, through a close examination of the Domesday Book. His exhaustive analysis of the iconography of Our Lady of Walsingham and historical research into the figure of 'Rychold', identified as 'Edith the Fair', reveals why her identity as Walsingham visionary has been confined to obscurity for so long. Flint's insights lead to a fresh examination of the message of Our Lady of Walsingham, which has lasting implications for the understanding of Anglo-Saxon Christianity and the English Catholic Church.