The Shadow of the White Rose: Edward Courtenay, Earl of Devon, 1526-1556

James D. Taylor

Jan 2006 · Algora Publishing

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Sometimes referred to as the "White Rose" because he was the last descendant of the Plantagenets, Courtenay spent over half of his life imprisoned in the Tower of London for crimes that his father committed during the reign of King Henry VIII. Mary Tudor released him when she seized the throne from Jane Grey after only a nine-day reign; Courtenay was soon regarded as a worthy husband for Mary, ten years his senior, but he diplomatically declined that arrangement. Indeed, he seems to have steered clear of any front-line role in the Protestant-Catholic conflict that was wracking England in that era, but he could not avoid being caught up in it when suspicions were running so high. After the Wyatt Rebellion, which sought to overthrow Mary, Courtenay was again imprisoned. Released about a year later, he traveled through France, Belgium, and Germany and finally arrived in Italy, where his activities will most likely remain enshrouded in the shadow of the White Rose. The culmination of a five-year research project, this book is based on a review of the surviving correspondence to and from Courtenay and other documentation from the period. There are frustrating gaps in correspondence during the last three months of Courtenay's life where a letter should exist but does not. There are several intriguing instances when Courtenay's name was purposely omitted from the translation or decipherment of correspondence that was most likely related to the affairs of King Henry II of France and his ambassadors in England. James Taylor has pieced together the story of his dramatic life through remnants of correspondence and documents from the era. * James D. Taylor, Jr. is an independent scholar. This, thesecond in his series of books on figures from Elizabethan history, was prepared on the basis of reference materials at the British Library, the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor, the Bodleian Library and Ashmolean Library at Oxford University, the William Andrew Clark Memorial Library at the University of California, the Folger Shakespeare Library, the Special Collections Department at the Alderman Memorial Library at the University of Virginia, and others, and with the assistance of the Courtenay Society, Powderham Castle, Kenton, Exeter, Devon, England. The first volume in the series, Documents of Lady Jane Grey, Nine Days Queen of England, was published by Algora in 2004.