This is the kick-off to a fantastic event in the Historical Fiction Blogosphere, and there will be a TON of stuff going on so I hope you can keep up!! It's going to be like an awesome treasure hunt of Historical goodies and I am going to try hard to keep up. We have some absolutely AWESOME Blogs participating in this fantastic event, and I want to say thank you to the following Fabulous historical fiction bloggers who are:
Charter members of The Historical Fiction Bloggers Round Table Event:

Marie at The Burton Review
Lucy at Enchanted by Josephine
Arleigh at Historical-Fiction.com
Amy at Passages to the Past
Allie at Hist-Fic Chick
Lizzy at Historically Obsessed
Heather at The Maiden's Court

Be sure to visit all those Blogs this week for specific Historical Fiction Themed Events and Giveaways!

Up first for today, we have a fairly new blogger but a veteran to art of the reading Historical Fiction. Please welcome Allie from Hist-Fic Chick!

Allie answers my questions:
1. From any of your favorite living authors, who would you most want to write a guest post for your blog, and why?

I would LOVE to have a guest post on my blog by Sandra Gulland. Her vast knowledge of 17th and 18th century France is incredibly impressive, not to mention, she is an extraordinarily talented writer who really knows how to get inside the head of her characters. She writes a really great blog called Baroque Explorations where she posts some of her fascinating historical findings.


2. If you had to read 5 books consecutively on one period or era, WITHOUT GETTING TIRED OF THE ERA, what would that period be? What would those books be?

I'd have to go with the Renaissance hands down, as it is such an imperative time in world history. Literally "rebirth," it marked a change in traditional thinking patterns and a return to the study and interpretation of the philosophies of classical antiquity. It was a time when people once again placed a strong emphasis and value on art and architecture, particularly that of the ancient Romans and Greeks. It was the beginning of an era where people would look to science and reason for enlightenment about the universe, realizing that the corrupt Catholic Church in fact did not have all the answers. I think all of that together is SO interesting!! Not to mention the Reformation going on in England, all over Henry VIII's obsession with witty Anne Boleyn...My picks: Signora da Vinci by Robin Maxwell, The Lady in the Tower by Jean Plaidy, Innocent Traitor by Alison Weir, Courtesan by Diane Haeger, and my current read, The Last Queen by CW Gortner.


3. Who is your favorite historical figure, and what is your favorite book (non-fiction or fiction) on that person?

Josephine Bonaparte is my favorite historical figure. I admire her incredible strength as a survivor of tragedy who narrowly escaped the wrath of the guillotine with her life. She was able to overcome incredible hardship during the French Revolution to rise to greatness as Napoleon's famous wife and Empress. Josephine was the epitome of elegance and grace, a leader of her people, and a worldwide style icon. Plus, she was the one person who could calm Napoleon's erratic mood swings, and to top it off she dealt with his wretched family! That is one family I would not like to have for in-laws! She had a really remarkable hold over Napoleon, and his love for her was so intense, as evident in the many surviving letters he sent her while abroad fighting his wars. "The day I lose your heart will be the day Nature loses warmth and life for me." I think that says a lot about her. My favorite book(s) on her (some of my favorite books of all time, actually) are the Josephine B Trilogy by Sandra Gulland (which titles include The Many Lives and Secret Sorrows of Josephine B, Tales of Passion, Tales of Woe, and The Last Great Dance on Earth.


4. What are some of the periods/eras that you have yet to read about but are very interested in?

I have actually never read anything on the Wars of the Roses. Surprising, right? I'm pretty well-versed in 16th-18th century England (I love anything Renaissance!), but as for Medieval British history, I'm fairly clueless. I recently won The White Queen by Philippa Gregory in a giveaway, and it will be me my first taste of the Plantagenets. I've also heard great things about Susan Higginbotham's novels on the subject. Another one I'd like to check out is Robin Maxwell's To the Tower Born, about the "lost princes" in the Tower of London, rumored to have been killed off by their evil uncle Richard III.

I would also love to read more about the Ancient Greeks and Romans. I studied Latin a few years ago and I've always been intrigued by mythology. Growing up, I was a part of a dance company called the Isadora Duncan Youth Ensemble, and we traveled all over the world performing Isadora Duncan's dances, each of which portrays a different story from ancient Greek mythology, so I came to take an interest in mythology at a very young age. I have Cleopatra's Daughter by Michelle Moran (which takes place in Rome after the deaths of Marc Antony and Cleopatra), and Stealing Athena by Karen Essex (which takes place in two time periods: the Napoleonic Wars and Ancient Greece) sitting on my bookshelf, and I plan on reading both of these as some of my next reads.


5. What is one of the misconceptions you may have had about a particular person or era that now has since been corrected in your head?

Four words: "Let them eat cake." I, like nearly every other person who has ever "learned" of the phrase, always assumed Marie Antoinette was its author, and didn't ever think to question this myth so heavily disguised as fact. I saw the movie with Kirsten Dunst when it first came out, and it only furthered in my mind the idea of Marie as a spoiled, ungrateful, and worst of all, indifferent aristocrat who squandered her country's finances on ball gowns and extravagant jewels. I have since read a lot of books and been enlightened as to the more factually based, harmless nature of this most unfortunate Queen. It's sad that history has vilified a woman who was actually much more sinned against than sinning. Unfortunately, it's not the only time history has been unkind to an intelligent, ambitious woman in power (my other favorite tragic Queen, Anne Boleyn comes to mind). I wrote a fun post on Marie Antoinette a little while ago talking about how fashion brought down the monarchy. I think often misconceived women are some of my favorites to read about; I always like to give the underdog a second chance to surprise me!

Here is Allie's Guest Post:

Mary, Queen of Scots: A Queen Without A Country

Mary Stuart was three times a queen, yet she never actually had a throne to call her own. The daughter of James V of Scotland and his French wife Marie de Guise, she had a claim to the French, Scottish, and, according to some, British crowns, but she seemed to always be stuck in a perpetual struggle of so-close-yet-so-far from truly ruling each of her would-be kingdoms.


Mary’s path to queenship began when she was just six days old, when her father the King of Scotland died at The Battle of Soway Moss against his uncle Henry VIII of England’s forces, leaving the infant Mary as his only legitimate heir. Mary was crowned Queen of Scotland, and her mother, now the Dowager Queen, was named as her regent until Mary could come of age. Henry VIII, ever the political schemer that he was, saw Scotland’s vulnerability and seized the opportunity to unite the two kingdoms of England and Scotland under one crown through a marriage between Mary and his son and heir, who later became Edward VI of England. When he requested that Mary be brought to England to be raised there as part of the betrothal agreement, the Scots and French lords became outraged at the notion that Mary be raised as anything other than a staunch Catholic. In what became known as “The Rough Wooing,” Henry VIII literally tried to force the betrothal, ordering a series of attacks on the Scottish border and attempting to have Mary kidnapped and brought to England to marry his son. Luckily for Mary and her mother, the French King Henri II had similar ideas of grandeur as Henry VIII of England did, except that he envisioned a united kingdom of France and Scotland. So, he offered safety in France to the little Queen of Scots, along with a betrothal to his own son and heir, the Dauphin François.

Mary arrived on French soil in 1548 and was raised at the elegant French court, becoming the ward of King Henri II. Her mother’s family members were all prominent fixtures of the royal court of France, and Mary enjoyed a relatively happy childhood there. She married François on April 24th, 1558 at Notre Dame, making her husband the King consort of Scotland. François became the King of France; Mary, Queen consort of France, at the death of Henri II in 1559.

The trouble with England brewed once again when, after the death of the Catholic Mary I of England, Elizabeth I came to power in England, returning the country to a Protestant nation. Mary’s father-in-law Henri II had always instilled in Mary that she would one day be the Queen of France, Scotland, and even England, as the granddaughter of Margaret Tudor, Henry VIII’s sister. Catholics in England who rejected the “bastard” Elizabeth as their Queen claimed that Mary was actually the true and rightful Queen of England. Throughout her life and reign in England, Elizabeth refused to officially name Mary as her heir, although according to the British succession, Mary would justly become the Queen of England at the moment of her cousin’s death should Elizabeth not sire any children (which the “Virgin Queen” did not). However, Henry VIII had specifically stipulated in his will that no Stuart should ever sit upon the throne of England, and so the English succession remained up in the air, along with Mary’s right to that throne. Despite all the controversy, Mary had named herself Queen of England at the same time she was crowned Queen consort of France, directly challenging Elizabeth’s right to rule.

Mary was only Queen of France for about two years because her husband died shortly after the young monarchs had been crowned. Mary went back to Scotland where she made a series of bad political and marital decisions. She had not anticipated the religious factions that had arose in Scotland during her time away in France. Mary chose her Catholic cousin Henry Stuart, Lord Darnley, as her next husband, a choice that particularly angered Elizabeth, as Darnley was yet another Catholic in line for the English throne, giving Mary even further right to wear Elizabeth’s crown. Darnley’s ego grew to be about the size of Edinburgh Castle, and he insisted that he be given more power as King consort. The Scottish nobility did not like the arrogant Lord Darnley, and Darnley made matters worse for himself when in an unfounded jealous rage he murdered Mary’s secretary David Rizzio, right in front of her eyes while she was pregnant with Darnley’s child. This, along with much more political backstabbing and double-talking on Darnley’s part, prompted some of the Scots lords, under the leadership of James Hepburn, Earl of Bothwell, to murder Darnley in his sleep, attempting to quite literally blow him to smithereens in an explosion that was meant to look like an accident. He was found asphyxiated in the garden outside the house where he was staying, suggesting that he escaped the explosion only to be murdered immediately after. The actual circumstances of Darnley’s death are still unknown. Bothwell abducted Mary and took her as his wife, although it is mostly agreed upon by historians that Mary did not wed Bothwell willingly, and that he in fact raped her and forced her to marry him. Many felt that her hasty marriage to Bothwell implicated her hand in Darnley’s murder. The Scottish lords rebelled against Bothwell and their Queen, imprisoning them both, although Mary was able to escape to England, where she thought she would find sanctuary in her cousin Elizabeth’s country.

But, sadly, Mary had another thing coming. Elizabeth imprisoned Mary, using the excuse that an inquiry needed to be made into all the suspicions of Mary’s involvement in her husband Darnley’s muder. What was initially intended as a brief imprisonment to further humble her Catholic cousin eventually led to nearly two decades of imprisonment for Mary. Over the years Elizabeth became increasingly suspicious of Mary and her motives, as her spies discovered one plot after another attempting to assassinate Elizabeth and instill Mary as Queen in her place. Elizabeth was hesitant to convict and order the execution of an anointed Queen, and feared the wrath of other Catholic nations should she find Mary truly guilty and therefore have need to execute her. Elizabeth eventually had Mary beheaded for her alleged involvement in The Babbington Plot.

In an ironic turn of events, Elizabeth later named as her successor Mary’s son James, who united England and Scotland under one kingdom and took the regal names James VI of Scotland, and James I of England and Ireland. Mary’s motto, which was embroidered into her cloth of estate, “En ma fin est ma commencement” (“In my end is my beginning”), eerily came true post-mortem, as many years after Mary was executed, Elizabeth’s death marked the end of the Tudor dynastic rule and the beginning of the Stuart dynasty in England.

Trivia: Many people attribute the nickname “Bloody Mary” to Mary Stuart, when in actuality that vile title belonged to her first cousin once removed, Mary Tudor (Queen Mary I of England, half-sister to Elizabeth I). Mary Tudor was the daughter of Henry VIII and his first wife Katherine of Aragon. She attempted to bring England back to Catholicism and became known as “Bloody Mary” for the sickening number of Protestants and “heretics” she ordered burned at the stake during her reign.-- Allie Greenwald


Thank you so much Allie at Hist-Fic Chick for letting us get to know you more, and for a fabulous guest post on Mary Queen of Scots!

Today you will also be needing to head over to Ms. Lucy's at Enchanted By Josephine, as next up on the Round Table is Heather from The Maiden's Court being Queen for a day over at Ms. Lucy's, where she blogs about the mystery behind Cleopatra's suicide.

In honor of this special day as a Kick-Off of Historical Fiction Bloggers Round Table and Book Blogger Appreciation Week, I have selected the most fantastic author to highlight at this time: Michelle Moran. Michelle not only has written some fantastic Historical Fiction novels, but she truly is the epitome of a book blogger's dream. She is very open and generous to book bloggers and just for that I think that she is an awesome person! I am totally looking forward to her next book on Madame Tussaud amidst the courts of Marie Antoinette!! Stay tuned for tomorrow as she will be the guest author for the day in honor of the Historical Fiction Bloggers Round Table Event, and another giveaway for the new paperback of The Heretic Queen!

(OPEN WORLDWIDE) Up for grabs is one Signed Hardcover of Michelle Moran's Cleopatra's Daughter, (see my review) available for purchase tomorrow, September 15, 2009.

The marriage of Marc Antony and Cleopatra is one of the greatest love stories of all time, a tale of unbridled passion with earth-shaking political consequences. Feared and hunted by the powers in Rome, the lovers choose to die by their own hands as the triumphant armies of Antony’s vengeful rival, Octavian, sweep into Egypt. Their three orphaned children are taken in chains to Rome, but only two—the ten-year-old twins Selene and Alexander—survive the journey. Delivered to the household of Octavian’s sister, the siblings cling to each other and to the hope that they will return one day to their rightful place on the throne of Egypt. As they come of age, they are buffeted by the personal ambitions of Octavian’s family and court, by the ever-present threat of slave rebellion, and by the longings and desires deep within their own hearts.
The fateful tale of Selene and Alexander is brought brilliantly to life in Cleopatra’s Daughter. Recounted in Selene’s youthful and engaging voice, it introduces a compelling cast of historical characters:
Octavia: the emperor Octavian’s kind and compassionate sister, abandoned by Marc Antony for CleopatraLivia: Octavian’s bitter and jealous wife Marcellus: Octavian’s handsome, flirtatious nephew and heir-apparent Tiberius: Livia’s sardonic son and Marcellus’s great rival for powerJuba: Octavian’s ever-watchful aide, whose honored position at court has far-reaching effects on the lives of the young Egyptian royals
Selene’s narrative is animated by the concerns of a young girl in any time and place —the possibility of finding love, the pull of friendship and family, and the pursuit of her unique interests and talents. While coping with the loss of both her family and her ancestral kingdom, Selene must find a path around the dangers of a foreign land. Her accounts of life in Rome are filled with historical details that vividly capture both the glories and horrors of the time. She dines with the empire’s most illustrious poets and politicians, witnesses the creation of the Pantheon, and navigates the colorful, crowded marketplaces of the city where Roman-style justice is meted out with merciless authority.
Based on meticulous research, Cleopatra’s Daughter is a fascinating portrait of Imperial Rome and of the people and events of this glorious and tumultuous period in human history. Emerging from the shadows of history, Selene, a young woman of irresistible charm and preternatural intelligence, will capture your heart.

To Enter this Extra Special Giveaway you must do One and Two: (OPEN WORLDWIDE)

1. Since this is Book Blogger Appreciation Week, you must be a Book Blogger & Reviewer, and comment with your Blog URL AND Email Address and follow this blog, AND:

2. Say something nice to Allie on her blog Hist Fic Chick right now and come back and tell me you did so..or comment here about your take on Mary Queen of Scots.

3. Add Extra Entries For Each (max of 5 total entries): blog post, Sidebar post, tweet @BurtonReview, or Facebook Share spotlighting this post & giveaway. You must share that link within a comment so that I can verify it is done properly.

Entries must be received by midnight September 20th, the winner will be announced and emailed the next day. Thanks for entering, and good luck!

Join in the Friday Fill-In Fun~ They provide the basics and we fill-in the blanks with whatever we want! So that means I get to use famous dead people or fave characters..

And...here we go! Can you guess who this Famous Person is?

1. I remember, I remember once being loved by my fair queen.
2. Dear greed and quest for power I want you to know that you have not bested me, as my son will be king of two lands despite your protests.
3. Is that my queen with a traitorous Lord!!???
4. I'm trying to resist the temptation of murder, due to my insane jealousy of my wife's secretary.
5. I'm saving a murder mystery just for you! (MY OWN!)
6. If I made a birthday list scotch would definitely be on it!!!
7. And as for the weekend, tonight I'm looking forward to being drunk, tomorrow my plans include being belligerent and murderous and Sunday, I want to escape Edinburgh (but I won't)!

Who do you think this is? My other Friday Fill-In's are here

Friday Fill-In's is Hosted by Janet

And...here we go!

1. The last thing I ate was venison and nuts.
2. Skeins of embroidery thread for a new tapestry is something I recently bought.
3. When it rains, it streams through my prison windows at Bolton Castle.
4. Besides my faithful maids, that horrid Lord Scrope was the first person I talked to today.
5. Hugs are few and far between for me, I am a Queen and I should be treated as being closest to God.
6. My little Skye Terrier brings me extra comfort.
7. And as for the weekend, tonight I'm looking forward to attempting to escape, tomorrow my plans include racing for the river on horseback and Sunday, I want to be on a boat heading back to Scotland!


{But her escape was fruitless, and instead she was on her way to her next prisons at Tutbury and Sheffield Castles}

Who am I?

I found this portrait on All Posters.com. It is an interpretation of Mary Queen of Scots, and her son, James VI/I.
This depicts the beauty that has always been described of her. Obviously Mary and James were not together for very long so this scene is just from someones' imagination. Also in my 'Images of Mary' endeavor, I found this collection which was quite interesting at the National Portrait Gallery. I definitely could get lost on that site and have a grand time doing so. I can't put pics here from the NPG unless I pay them. But AllPosters does the custom framing for you and I would love to have a library of my own with wonderful portraits of the people I love to read about! What fun!

"THE OTHER QUEEN" -Another novel on Mary Stuart, Queen of Scots. It opens up with Bess of Hardwick (LOVE HER!) narrating and Mary is just being 'sheltered' in England. The first impression when beginning this book is I do not enjoy the switching back and forth between narrators. The author had done this before and I did an internal sigh when I realized it was happening again. Sometimes it works, sometimes it gets aggravating. It is narrated by Bess, her husband George Talbot, the Earl of Shrewsbury, and Mary. Once you are trying to get absorbed in the story, the chapter is finished and it's time for another narrator to catch up.
I disliked this version of the character of Mary, Queen of Scots right away with her sanctimonious attitude and how near her station is to God that she believes herself to be due to the bloodline of royalty in her veins. Which is how the royalty see themselves and how they are expected to be treated, which is fine. But the way she speaks of it is simply bragging and grates on your nerves. In previous novels Mary is portrayed as being more passionate or sensitive. Here we only get a glimpse of Mary believing she should rule both England and Scotland, and that she is eager to participate in plots of her escape. She disguises herself as a sweet and tender woman but narrates the story as a shrewd woman very willing to promote violence in order for her release.

The novel is opening to where Mary is brought from Bolton Castle to Tutbury in 1568. The positive side of the three narrators is of course you get all three point of views, but it just makes for annoying reading at times. It is rare to contemplate George Talbot's true feelings, most books I have read did not really consider his thoughts on the keeping of Mary, other than I always remember him wanting to be paid more for his expenses. Here we see George becoming enamored with Mary, becoming so much so as to be in love with her. He begins as simply believing that she is a Queen and should be restored to her crown in Scotland. But that is not what the Secretary of State, William Cecil, would like. Mary will always be his thorn since he believes Scotland should be under English command. He will stop at nothing to see her ruined, dead, beheaded, etc.

In this version of George, he has fallen in love with Mary. He does not seem to care for the expenses as much as Bess does. Bess realizes that George is besotted with the Queen, but tells us that her property, her estates, her legacy to her children are more important than any man. She is very upset that George could jeopardize their well-being with their own Queen Elizabeth I due to his quiet admiration of Mary. Let the plotting begin.. one after the other...George and his fellow Protestant lords are eager to marry the Catholic Mary to the Duke of Norfolk, and get sons off of her that can rule both Scotland and England. Poor Elizabeth will not choose a man, will not marry, and this is causing an unsettling feeling with the Englishmen, questioning the succession of the crown. The nobles also despise Elizabeth's adviser, Cecil, being that he is a nobody and not with a heritage of nobility behind him such as George Talbot and his friends.

Bess's narration is perhaps the only thing that seems close to reality in this book. She is a headstrong woman who is adamant to preserve her fortune that she has collected due to her wonderful mathematical ability and the fact the three husbands before her have left her something to add to her estates. She seems to have feelings for George, as they have not been married for long when the story opens up. She soon realizes that perhaps he is not as worthy as he could be once he begins to show his puppy love for Mary. He is to go before Queen Elizabeth to see what part he played in letting treasonous letters and plots be brought to Mary. Bess is outraged that everything that she has worked for her whole life and the prosperity of her future is put at risk all because of George. She falls out of love quickly.

As I read this I have had thoughts that most of the events would not be true. The Earl's love for Mary, Mary meeting Anthony Babington when he is 8 years old, the hatred Mary feels for Bess because Bess is jealous.. The letters to Bothwell while he is in a Denmark prison and pretty much everything else that happens in the last half of the book. This becomes annoying so much so that I have to keep telling me this is fiction, please stop worrying about it. I fight the desire to stop reading it. I do not have much left to read, the chapters always begin with the Season and and Year, and I am still on 1571 which is odd since there are another 16 years left to her captivity. So I looked ahead and the rest of the chapters are 1572 with it finally jumping to 1587 and ending there. Imagine I had to read for the full 16+ years of this yuck?! I don't know how the book will end, we can obviously make an educated guess but I will read it to see how it does end just out of morbid curiosity, since whatever it does end with will be such a farce getting there.

For the average person who just wants a good story, perhaps this is the book for them. If you are interested in Mary Queen of Scots and the events truly surrounding her life, then do not even read the book. It would not be worth the time. I was definitely not as eager to continue the story as I was with the fictional Mary Stuart books by Jean Plaidy. Therefore if you are in the mood for the fictionalized historical account Mary Stuart, I would recommend Jean Plaidy's books from the previous posts, and not Phillippa Gregory. This book just seemed like one character's whine to the next.

I now understand the furor caused by Tudor Historians when Gregory's book "The Other Boleyn Girl" was made into a movie. Many were incensed that this movie would be the cause of such a fascination with British History. I must humbly admit that her book is what drew me to my own interest in this era, but at least I knew better to start reading non-fiction so I could get the facts straight. That was a good book for those wanting an introduction to the Henry VIII period. One must then read a few more books to get a true sense of the era. Phillipa's next book is "The White Queen" and I have dutifully deleted that from my wishlist at Amazon.

Back to this review though: DO NOT READ 'THE OTHER QUEEN'! 0 of 5 stars

(note to self: never never pre-order a book without reading reviews!)

If this is the first time coming to read the Mary Stuart Reviews then I would suggest starting a few posts down with the Fotheringay post and then upwards to the recent Captive Queen Post so that you get the chronological order of my musings. It is pretty tough to keep up with me even that way, but it's worth a shot.

MARY QUEEN OF SCOTS.. Found this photo of 'her' at the Reader's Advisor. One can never tell what is factual but this has got to be the most flattering portrait I have seen of her. The books go on and on about how beautiful she was, and perhaps it was also due to her supposed charismatic nature, so this one does her justice more so than others.

I am about halfway through with Jean Plaidy's "The Captive Queen of Scots".. again, I am enjoying it very much as expected. Jean Plaidy must have been a wonderful woman to know; she has written so many books in the Historical Fiction genre, I wonder if she ever set a book down (or wasn't writing one). Jean Plaidy is a pseudonym for Eleanor Hibbert; her other well-known pseudonym is Victoria Holt which dealt more on the romance side. Born in 1906, Eleanor wrote around 200 novels! I own about 52 of those. My project is to own all of the Historical Series. It will not be easy, as many of these are now only found in the UK and of course these are older titles. As I mentioned in my last post on Fotheringay, that book was slowly disintegrating in my hands. We are fortunate that some are being reprinted in both the UK and USA as the English History Buzz has hit the USA since "The Other Boleyn Girl" movie and "The Tudors" television series.
I have read this author's "My Enemy, The Queen" written under Victoria Holt, and enjoyed it very much as well. It is told in first person by Lettice Knollys, Elizabeth's cousin once-removed. I bring this up because I am now at the part in "The Captive Queen of Scots" where Mary is brought to England's Carlisle and Bolton Castle and is cared for by Sir Francis Knollys (May 1568). Francis is Lettice's father. And Lettice was a wonderful character to read about in "My Enemy the Queen" which dealt with her and Elizabeth's relationship and their mutual love for Robert Dudley, Earl of Leceister. Through Lettice, we enjoy a unique view on Elizabeth I. (Lettice is also in The Virgin's Lover by Phillipa Gregory.) Lettice's fate is entwined with Elizabeth as much as Mary's was.. the Queen of England rules all.
Back to the book "The Captive Queen".. Mary will leave the care of Francis Knollys and go to Tutbury, despite horrible weather. It is at Tutbury that we meet the Earl of Shrewsbury. And guess who he is? He is married to Bess of Hardwick, who I wrote of in earlier posts. Such a fine web I'm weaving and loving every minute of it!!