Cyber Sale on Tudor novel THE CHALICE

The publisher has discounted the ebook of THE CHALICE to 99 cents on both Amazon and Barnes & Noble. I'm pretty sure this is the cheapest it's ever been!

The Chalice is the second book in my trilogy set in the reign of Henry VIII. You don't need to have  read the first book, The Crown, to follow what is happening. It can stand alone. My main character, Joanna Stafford, is a Dominican novice whose way of life has been destroyed by Henry VIII's dissolution of the monasteries. In The Chalice, Joanna risks everything to defy the most powerful authorities, fulfill a prophecy, and preserve the future of Christendom.

I'll share two reviews.

Parade magazine: "English history buffs and mystery fans alike will revel in Nancy Bilyeau's richly detailed novel."

The Romantic Times Book Reviews gave The Chalice the prize of Best Historical Mystery of the Year, and I went to New Orleans for the first time in my life to accept the award. It was a blast!

From the RT "Top Pick" review: 

"This novel is riveting, and provides fascinating insight into the lives of displaced nuns and priests during the tumultuous Tudor period. Bilyeau creates fully realized characters, with complex actions and emotions, driving the machinations of these historic personages...."

To read the full review, go here.

And to order from Amazon, go here. Barnes & Noble link is here.

News: A Publisher Bought My 4th Novel, THE BLUE

I have some tremendous news. I’ve written a fourth historical thriller and I have a new publisher for it. With this novel, I’m jumping to another century, one I’ve long been fascinated by … the 18th! With THE BLUE, the question becomes: What would you do for the most beautiful color in the world?

With this novel, the world of Hogarth replaces that of Holbein in my fiction!

The year is 1758, and a headstrong woman artist, 24-year-old Genevieve Planche, is caught up in a high-stakes competition to discover the ultimate color that threatens to become as deadly as it is lucrative. The story sweeps readers from the worlds of the silk-weaving Huguenot refugees of London’s Spitalfields and the luxury-obsessed drawing rooms of Grosvenor Square to the secretive porcelain factory of Derby and, finally, magnificent Sevres Porcelain, in the shadow of Versailles. And running through it all: the captivating history and dangerous allure of the color blue.

The publisher is Endeavour Press, which will be putting out the book in print and digital formats, in the UK and the United States. Endeavour is committed to historical fiction as well as all kinds of literature, and the imprint publishing my novel, Endeavour Ink, is going forward with authors such as Beryl Kingston, Michael Jecks, and Imogen Robertson. You can read a story on the publisher here.

Interview with Alison Weir on "Queens of the Conquest: England's Medieval Queens"

By Nancy Bilyeau

Alison Weir's new book of nonfiction, Queens of the Conquest: England's Medieval Queens, is nothing short of sensational. I've been a steady reader of Alison's since I devoured The Six Wives of Henry VIII, and while she has written essential books on the Tudors, I love it when she writes about people who lived even earlier, from The Princes in the Tower to The Mistress of the Monarchy: The Life of Kathryn Swynford, Duchess of Lancaster.

Alison has traveled even further back in time to write Queens of the Conquest. I knew little about Matilda of Flanders, wife of William the Conqueror; Matilda of Scotland, wife of Henry I; Adeliza of Louvain, the second wife of Henry I; Mathilda of Boulogne, wife of King Stephen; and Empress Maud, England's first female ruler. Now, thanks to this meticulously researched and engrossing book, I feel as if they are flesh-and-blood, very distinct women.

I had to know more about how she pulled this off, and I reached out to Alison with some questions, which she graciously answered for me amid her book tour.


You wrote an excellent biography of Eleanor of Aquitaine, "Queens of the Conquest," which ends with the reign of Eleanor and her husband, Henry II. When you were writing about Eleanor, did you think of taking a closer look at the earlier queens someday or did the idea come much more recently?

Alison Weir: Back in the 1970s, having written the original version of my book The Six Wives of Henry VIII, I researched all the medieval queens of England, with a view--somewhat ambitious, perhaps!--to becoming the new Agnes Strickland! In 1991, when The Six Wives of Henry VIII was finally published, a reader wrote urging me to write about Eleanor of Aquitaine. I got out the research and realised I had enough for a biography, but it took me years to persuade my publishers to commission it. I have long wanted to publish my research on the other medieval queens--some of it has appeared in my biographies of Isabella of France and Elizabeth of York, and in my books on the Wars of the Roses--and I'm delighted to have been commissioned to write four books on the subject. I need that scope to do it properly. It was originally going to be one book, but you can't do justice to the subject in a single volume.


I was thrilled by how much you were able to relay about the queens' lives in order to tell their stories, there was a wealth of rich detail. I was under the impression that there wasn't a great deal of original material on these women, and yet it's possible that that is a false assumption of mine? Is there more in contemporary documents about these queens than is commonly understood?


AW: The sources are patchy. There's very little on Adeliza of Louvain, for example, and a lot on the Empress Matilda. In places, I found I was trying to weave fragments of information into a cohesive text; and in others I was able to write a sweeping narrative. Fortunately, there are excellent chronicles for the period, and a surprising number of letters written by the queens.


The life of Matilda of Flanders, the wife of William the Conqueror, was fascinating. She was quite strong--do you think another common assumption is that these queens were submissive and very much in their husband's shadow?


AW: Yes, I do. I was startled to find that the Norman queens were regarded as 'sharers in the royal dominion', and almost as queens regnant. They exercised real power, compared to later queens. I am fascinated by the development of English queenship, and that is an over-arching theme in the book.


I found the life of Matilda of Scotland very moving. The political situation was such that she had to hide in a convent for protection, but that really haunted her during her whole life--that she was a nun who broke her vows to marry, which was just not true. Were you sympathetic to her?

AW: I admire her as another tough lady of integrity who knew her own mind and had great abilities - more than we are aware of. I think posterity was unfair to her.


Is there any queen of England more complex that Maud?


AW: Anne Boleyn? It's tempting to regard Maud from a modern, feminist perspective and take a more sympathetic view, but she lost the throne because of her appalling lack of political judgement. No one complained that a woman had no right to rule - you will search in vain for evidence that they did - and at one point Maud carried almost the whole kingdom with her. If she had shown herself conciliatory and bountiful, her arrogance would have been forgiven.


Do you think King Henry I was a pleasant husband for either of his wives? Or was he pretty much what most wives would have to deal with in that century?


AW: He was considerate towards them, and did not demur when Matilda of Scotland decided she wanted no more children. Certainly he relied on her to rule as regent while he was abroad, which argues a high degree of respect for her. And he was careful not to blame Adeliza of Louvain for her failure to bear him an heir, and even sensitive to her embarrassment and sense of failure when he had publicly to make alternative plans for the succession. But he was serially unfaithful to both wives, although there is no record of either of them complaining, and they accepted the presence of his bastards at court. They must have been aware that he could be cruel and ruthless, but he never displayed such behaviour towards them.



I wanted to switch to your novel of Anne Boleyn, which was extremely interesting as well. Do you think the key to understanding her is that she never loved Henry VIII or even found him physically attractive?


AW: Thank you! Yes, I think her story makes more sense if you go with George Wyatt's statement that ‘she imagined that there was less freedom in her union with her lord and King than with one more agreeable to her’, which suggests that Henry the man was not particularly agreeable to her. But she was the product of an ambitious family, and it is likely that the prospect of becoming queen outweighed all other considerations.


Can you tell us anything about your perspective on Jane Seymour, the book that is next in that series of the novels of the wives of Henry VIII?


AW: I can only say that the novel is built on exciting new research! Jane is an enigma. Historians endlessly debate whether or not she was the demure and virtuous willing instrument of an ambitious family and an ardent and powerful king; or whether she was as ambitious as her relations and played a pro-active part in bringing down the Queen whom she served. I hope I've offered a credible reading of her. I found some interesting evidence about her obstetric history. But the most startling development was in regard to her death. Traditionally, it has been assumed that Jane died from puerperal fever, yet when I studied the sources for her final illness, and looked at the chronology, an anomaly emerged. I got a team of medical experts on the case, and they all said the same thing. But it's under wraps until the book comes out!

Stafford Castle: The Stronghold of the Family Too Close to the Throne

By Nancy Bilyeau


The protagonist of my trilogy The Crown, The Chalice, and The Tapestry, Joanna Stafford, is fictional but the family was quite real. The Staffords played an important part in the War of the Roses, fighting on the side of Lancaster. But through a royal marriage and aggressive acquiring of land and titles, the Staffords had become too rich and powerful as far as the reigning monarchs were concerned.

First the Yorks and then the Tudor monarchs had trouble with the Staffords. Richard III had Henry Stafford, 2nd duke of Buckingham, executed for treason. A generation later, Henry VIII ordered the death of Edward Stafford, 3rd duke of Buckingham, also for treason.

Edward Stafford, 3rd duke of Buckingham

The family's rise and fall is inextricably linked to Stafford Castle, in Staffordshire, the west midlands. All that is left is remains of this once proud medieval castle, which stands tall against the sky on the edge of a ridge.

In the 1070s a Norman lord raised a wooden building on the hill, worried about the rebellious Saxon population. In 1347, Ralph de Stafford, a supporter of Edward III and founding member of the Order of the Garter, built a stone castle on the same site. Ralph was a tough, ambitious and ruthless soldier, still leading troops when he was 60 years old. After his first wife had died, he abducted a wealthy young heiress and married her, ignoring the outrage of her parents. When the girl's family turned to Edward III for justice, he refused to order Stafford to give up his bride. Instead, he gave the girl's parents more titles.


The great-grandson of this roughly made union was Humphrey Stafford, first duke of Buckingham. Stafford Castle's heyday was during the life of Duke Humphrey, who built a massive rectangular stone keep, a tower in each corner.

The castle's "interior," today

Carole Rawcliffe, in the book The Staffords, wrote:

"The first Duke of Buckingham's household was an itinerant body which accompanied him from one lordship to another as he toured his estates or executed official business....The oldest and in many ways the most impressive was Stafford Castle, where Duke Humphrey kept a large stable with a resident staff of over forty yeomen and grooms. The castle, dominating the town and its environs, provided an ideal recruitment centre and assembly point for his retainers in Cheshire, Staffordshire and the Welsh March."

Duke Humphrey died in the Battle of Northampton, leading the Lancastrian army at the age of 58. Before the battle in support of King Henry VI he had informed the Yorkist side via messenger: "The Earl of Warwick shall not come to the king's presence and if he comes he shall die." The duke was not able to keep that promise; he was slain by Yorkist soldiers outside Henry VI's tent, defending his king to his last breath.

Humphrey Stafford

The second Duke of Buckingham also exhibited the family's taste for bravado. He helped Richard, Duke of Gloucester, take possession of the teenage Edward V, conveying him to the Tower of London. But then he turned against Richard once he became king, led a rebellion and was beheaded for his betrayal.


As for the third duke, a man of "harsh and acquisitive disposition," he was an early victim of Henry VIII's paranoia about relatives who could try to take his throne. There was little proof of treason introduced at Edward Stafford's trial except for testimony that he'd met with a monk who prophesied the future of Henry VIII--how long would he live and whether he'd have a son. To the Tudors, this was more than enough.


The family never recovered from the execution of Buckingham in 1521. Although Stafford Castle was the family seat, the duke had lived most of the time in such grand homes as Thornbury Castle. But all of this property was seized by the crown after Buckingham's death and his widow and children were left with nothing at first. After a couple of years, Henry VIII returned one home--Stafford Castle--to the devastated clan. It was all that remained of their vast holdings across the kingdom.

The oldest son, Henry, Lord Stafford, lived at the castle with his wife, Ursula, and their 14 children for the rest of his life. Fearful of drawing attention, he played no part in politics and rarely attended court. He spent pleasurable hours in his private library, which included at least 300 books, translating works from Latin and dabbling in writing himself. He was in some ways the anti-Stafford.


But he had a problem: he owned almost no land beyond the immediate vicinity of the castle, and his need for money was intense.


That is why on April 27, 1536, Lord Stafford wrote this craven letter to Thomas Cromwell, chief minister of Henry VIII:

"Though I am least able to serve you, yet the comfort you gave me makes me bold to write to you. I beg you will use means with the King that I may have the farm of the abbey of Rantone, if it be dissolved. It is within four miles of my house and reaches my park pale, and I will give as much for it as any man. I heard that the Queen had moved the King to have me in remembrance for it, and he was content, saying it was alms to help me, having so many children on my hands. I heard that Geo. Blunt endeavours to obstruct my suit. By the last act of the Lords Marchers my income will be 20l. a year less. In the matter which I showed you of my lord of Wiltshire's motion, pray make my humble submission to the King."

The queen in question was Anne Boleyn and the "lord of Wiltshire" her father. Apart from the fact that it was unlikely that the Reform-minded queen would support the cause of an old Catholic disenfranchised aristocratic family, there was a sensational scandal at court that put Stafford's request at the bottom of any list. Cromwell was interrogating suspected lovers of the queen at the end of April. Anne Boleyn would be arrested and beheaded in May. Poor Henry Stafford had made his desperate plea for patronage of the wrong faction at the wrong time.

Henry Stafford had better luck when Catholic Mary Tudor succeeded to the throne. He petitioned the queen for financial assistance in 1554 and was made a chamberlain of the exchequer, a position that brought him 50 pounds a year.

Lord Stafford died in his bed at the age of 62. With little income to draw on, the castle continued to crumble, and his grandson referred to it as "my rotten castle of Stafford" in 1603.

Which brings us to Lady Isabel Stafford. When the Civil War broke out, the family still held the castle, though how is hard to imagine. They had the dusty prestige of the name "Stafford," but the dukedom of Buckingham had been given away to favorites of the Stuart monarchy long ago.

Nonetheless, Lady Isabel showed the same fire as the first Staffords. The town near the castle sided with the forces trying to topple Charles I. But Isabel, being a determined Royalist, held the castle as a siege against Parliamentarian forces in May of 1643.

A Colonel Brereton approached the castle with his men and called on her to surrender. Isabel refused. The men set fire to some of the wooden buildings outlying the castle "to work their spirits to any relenting." Far from relenting, it led the Stafford force within to fire shots from the castle. The fires started in earnest then, "to provoke a serious revenge." But they could not damage the main castle, and in frustration retreated.

A Royalist relief force arrived and Lady Isabel left. But later that summer the garrison that was left to defend Stafford Castle fled when a large Parliamentarian army approached. On December 22nd, the Parliamentarian Committee of Stafford ordered "the castle shall be forthwith demolished" so that it could never again serve as a defendable source of opposition. And so it was.

The great Stafford Castle was no more. A traveler riding by wrote "the castle is now ruinated." The glory of the family and the castle that bore its name was finally over.

In 1813, a new family tried to rebuild Stafford Castle in the Gothic Revival Style but ran out of money. The keep, however, was occupied up until the 20th century by caretaker families who offered tours and served tea. In 1961, a member of the Stafford family, worried about public safety, gave the keep to the local authorities.



This castle has an unqualified happy ending, however. Stafford Castle has a thriving visitor centre today, running many education programs and for years has served as an inspiring backdrop for Shakespearean plays. Seeing that a few Staffords have appeared as characters in the plays of the Bard, this seems fitting indeed.

Summer Shakespeare, at Stafford Castle

To learn more about Stafford Castle today, go here.

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Nancy Bilyeau is the author of the award winning trilogy The Crown, The Chalice, and The Tapestry, for sale in North America, the United Kingdom, Spain, Germany, Russia, and the Netherlands. The Crown was an Oprah pick, and The Tapestry a finalist for the Daphne du Maurier Award for Best Historical Suspense.

Touchstone Books has discounted The Chalice to .99 as an ebook in the U.S. Go here.