Copyright © Freda Lightfoot updated August 2011
Biographical Historicals in print
Marguerite de Valois is the most beautiful woman in the French Court. Her own brothers: the mad Charles IX and the bisexual Henri III, will stop at nothing to control her. Margot loves Henri of Guise but is married off to the Huguenot Henry of Navarre. By this means her mother Catherine de Medici hopes to bring peace to the realm.
But within days of the wedding the streets of Paris are awash with blood in the Massacre of Saint Bartholomew. Not only is her new husband’s life in danger, but her own too as her mother and brother hold them hostage in the Louvre. Can they ever hope to escape and keep their heads? In a court rife with murder, political intrigue, debauchery, jealousy and the hunger for power, it will not be an easy task.
But within days of the wedding the streets of Paris are awash with blood in the Massacre of Saint Bartholomew. Not only is her new husband’s life in danger, but her own too as her mother and brother hold them hostage in the Louvre. Can they ever hope to escape and keep their heads? In a court rife with murder, political intrigue, debauchery, jealousy and the hunger for power, it will not be an easy task.
Queen Margot reunites with her husband but is soon forced to flee for her life, willing to grant Henry a divorce only if he agrees not to marry his latest whore.
Gabrielle d’Estrées wants only to marry for love but in the court of sixteenth century France this is almost impossible to achieve. She was sold by her own mother to three different lovers before catching the eye of a king.
Henry has a weakness for beautiful women with fair hair and blue eyes, and once he sees Gabrielle, he knows he must have her. She bears him children and he promises to marry her, despite still being married to the exiled Queen Margot.
Is the love of a king enough to secure Gabrielle the happiness and respectability she craves, and a crown for her son as the next dauphin of France?
Gabrielle d’Estrées wants only to marry for love but in the court of sixteenth century France this is almost impossible to achieve. She was sold by her own mother to three different lovers before catching the eye of a king.
Henry has a weakness for beautiful women with fair hair and blue eyes, and once he sees Gabrielle, he knows he must have her. She bears him children and he promises to marry her, despite still being married to the exiled Queen Margot.
Is the love of a king enough to secure Gabrielle the happiness and respectability she craves, and a crown for her son as the next dauphin of France?
Henriette d’Entragues isn’t satisfied with simply being the mistress of Henry IV of France, she wants a crown too.
Despite his promises to marry her, the King is obliged by political necessity to ally himself with Marie de Medici, an Italian princess who will bring riches to the treasury.
But Henriette isn’t for giving up easily. She has a written promise of marriage which she intends to use to declare the royal marriage illegal. All she has to do to achieve her ambition is to give Henry a son, then whatever it takes through intrigue and conspiracy to set him on the throne.
