"The English women prophets and visionaries whose voices are recovered here all lived between the twelfth and the seventeenth centuries and claimed, through the medium of trances and eucharistic piety, to speak for God. [...] Through prophecy they were often able to intervene in the religious and political discourse of their times: the role of God's secretary gave them the opportunity to act and speak autonomously and publicly"--Back cover.
Journey back in time to Tudor England with a tale of romance, intrigue, and the Celtic legends of the selkies. Will Somers has spent his life alone, thinking himself unlovable. Emma is a selkie; a creature of myth and magic, one of the immortal fae-folk of the sea. When Will finds her sleeping on a beach, he recalls the tales his grandmother told him of selkie maidens taken for wives. He seizes this unexpected chance to have a wife and family of his own and steals her pelt, binding her to him. Only when it is willingly returned will she be free. Emma has never experienced life on land and can barely contain her excitement and curiosity. She has to learn to adapt quickly to human customs, for Will is headed to the glittering, dangerous court of Henry VIII to serve as the king's fool. It's a world where careless words can lead to the scaffold and the smallest gesture is loaded with political implications. Anne Boleyn is charmed by Emma's naivete and soothing selkie magic and wants Emma for her own fool. Anne is soon to become a wife herself, and the Queen of England. But wearing the crown does not ensure her own safety, and at Anne's side, Emma becomes entangled in the dark intrigues of the court, trying to stay afloat in the turbulent seas swept by the storms of the mercurial king. Can Will protect the woman he loves from the dangers that lurk in every shadow? Emma uses her selkie magic to soothe the king's temper, and Will uses his humor, but Henry's moods become increasingly erratic. Theirs is a vocation that provides them some protection, but in Henry VIII's court, no one is safe. Circa regna tonat: Around the throne, the thunder rolls.
When Henry VIII passed through Canterbury in 1532, a young woman in her mid-twenties named Elizabeth Barton, widely revered as a visionary and prophetess, burst into his presence and warned him that he was 'so abominable in the sight of God that he was not worthy to tread on hallowed ground'. Two years later, the self-same 'Holy Maid of Kent' would suffer a grisly fate at Tyburn and trigger a wave of bloody repression that consumed not only Sir Thomas More, but two other less widely-known individuals, whose exceptional sacrifices were, arguably, even more compelling. One was a combative cleric as renowned for his integrity as his intellect, prepared to sacrifice both life and country in defence of Queen Catherine of Aragon and the old religion; the other a courtier-turned-ascetic, plucked from the shelter of the cloister by a religious and political revolution, in which he had little stake beyond the dictates of his own conscience. For these three unique individuals of widely contrasting backgrounds, temperaments and motives, drawn together at a critical watershed in English history by a common cause and destiny, the path to Tyburn was a long and painful one, paved with fear, hardships, vilification and intrigue.
Was the Holy Maid of Kent a lunatic, a dupe, an imposter, or a saint? The question has puzzled historians for four centuries. The author answers it in the first full-length study of her life to be written. In reconstructing her life from fragmentary records, he has drawn the first authentic portrait of the gifted and courageous woman who was the first victim of Henry VIII's religious reformation. Later victims, notably her friends Sir Thomas More and Bishop John Fisher, have achieved greater fame, but hers was the fearless example that inspired them. Stripping away the degrading and often nonsensical legends, the author has restored a forgotten martyr to Christendom and a lost heroine to English history.
"One of the Best Books of 2016" - Open Letters Monthly; Finalist, 2016 Novel of the Year - Underground Book Reviews; Semi-Finalist - 2017 M.M. Bennetts Award All Jane Seymour wants is a husband; but when she catches the eye of a volatile king, she is pulled deep into the Tudor court's realm of plot and intrigue.... England. 1535. Jane Seymour is 27 years old and increasingly desperate to marry and secure her place in the world. When the court visits Wolf Hall, the Seymour ancestral manor, Jane has the perfect opportunity to shine: her diligence, efficiency and newfound poise are sure to finally attract a suitor. Meanwhile, King Henry VIII is 45 and increasingly desperate for an heir. He changed his country's religion to leave his first wife, a princess of Spain, for Anne Boleyn -- but she too has failed to provide a son. As Henry begins to fear he is cursed, Jane Seymour's honesty and innocence conjure in him the hope of redemption. Thomas Cromwell, an ambitious clerk whose political prowess keeps the King's changing desires satisfied, sees in Jane Seymour the perfect answer to the unrest threatening England: he engineers the plot that ends with Jane becoming the King's third wife. For Jane, who believes herself virtuous and her actions justified, miscarriages early in her marriage shake her confidence. How can a woman who has committed no wrong bear the guilt of how she unseated her predecessor?
Henry VIII's decision to declare himself supreme head of the church in England, and thereby set himself in opposition to the authority of the papacy, had momentous consequences for the country and his subjects. At a stroke people were forced to reconsider assumptions about their identity and loyalties, in rapidly shifting political and theological circumstances. Whilst many studies have investigated Catholic and Protestant identities during the reigns of Elizabeth and Mary, much less is understood about the processes of religious identity-formation during Henry's reign.
