Watch the Lady: A Novel

Elizabeth Fremantle

Jun 2015 · Sold by Simon and Schuster

About this ebook

From “a brilliant new player in the court of royal fiction” (People), comes the mesmerizing story of Lady Penelope Devereux—the daring young beauty in the Tudor court, who inspired Sir Philip Sidney’s famous sonnets even while she plotted against Queen Elizabeth.

Penelope Devereux arrives at Queen Elizabeth’s court where she and her brother, the Earl of Essex, are drawn into the aging Queen’s favor. Young and naïve, Penelope, though promised elsewhere, falls in love with Philip Sidney who pours his heartbreak into the now classic sonnet series Astrophil and Stella. But Penelope is soon married off to a man who loathes her. Never fainthearted, she chooses her moment and strikes a deal with her husband: after she gives birth to two sons, she will be free to live as she chooses, with whom she chooses. But she is to discover that the course of true love is never smooth.

Meanwhile Robert Cecil, ever loyal to Elizabeth, has his eye on Penelope and her brother. Although it seems the Earl of Essex can do no wrong in the eyes of the Queen, as his influence grows, so his enemies gather. Penelope must draw on all her political savvy to save her brother from his own ballooning ambition and Cecil’s trap, while daring to plan for an event it is treason even to think about.

Unfolding over the course of two decades and told from the perspectives of Penelope and her greatest enemy, the devious politician Cecil, Watch the Lady chronicles the last gasps of Elizabeth’s reign, and the deadly scramble for power in a dying dynasty.

About the author

Elizabeth Fremantle is the author of four Tudor novels: Queen’s Gambit (soon to be the major motion picture, Firebrand, starring Alicia Vikander and Jude Law), Sisters of Treason, Watch the Lady, and The Girl in the Glass Tower. As EC Fremantle she has written two gripping historical thrillers: The Poison Bed and The Honey and the Sting. Her contemporary short story, ‘That Kind of Girl,’ was shortlisted for the Bridport Prize in 2021. She has worked for Elle and Vogue in Paris and London and contributed to many publications including Vanity Fair, The Sunday Times (London), the Financial Times, and The Wall Street Journal. She lives in London.