Penelope – Tudor Baroness by Tony Riches

Penelope – Tudor Baroness

The Elizabethan Series Book 4

By Tony Riches

(Historical Fiction)

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A Life of Love and Scandal

Lady Penelope is one of the most beautiful and sought-after women in Elizabethan England. Daughter of the queen’s nemesis, Lady Lettice Knollys, Countess of Essex, she becomes the stepdaughter of Robert Dudley when he marries her mother in secret.

Penelope’s life is full of love and scandal. The inspiration for Sir Philip Sidney’s sonnet Astrophel and Stella, she is inevitably caught up in her brother Robert’s fateful rebellion.

A complex and fascinating woman, her life is a story of love, betrayal, and tragedy. Discover how Penelope charms her way out of serious charges of treason, adultery, and forgery, and becomes one of the last truly great ladies of the Tudor court.

A maid of honour to Queen Elizabeth, Penelope outlives the end of the Tudors with the death of the old queen and the arrival of King James, becoming a favourite lady-in-waiting to the new queen, Anne of Denmark.

“This is the story of a woman who lived life on her own terms, and one that will stay with you long after you finish reading it.”

A Word from the Author

Discover the life of an Elizabethan woman who dares to defy the queen and risks everything for the man she loves. Penelope is beautiful, talented and well educated, but her story is a one of survival against the odds. Her father died of suspected poisoning in Ireland, and her mother was banished from court for secretly marrying the queen’s favourite, Robert Dudley. Her brother, the Earl of Essex, accused her of encouraging his ill-fated rebellion, yet Penelope outlives the end of the Tudors with the death of Queen Elizabeth and becomes a lady-in-waiting to the new queen, Anne of Denmark.

(Tony Riches, 2023)