12-16-2025, 04:34 PM
“We are all deceivers, to a greater or lesser degree… To achieve our aims we favour those that we despise, we promise that which we shall at the last deny, we tease and we prevaricate. He that has not the skill to do this had best live in the country and tend sheep…”
The glittering Paris court of Henri III provides Marc with ample chance to advance his fortunes — by becoming a mignon, one of the king’s pet boys. But when an attempt is made on his life, he is forced to flee his native France to seek refuge in the England of Elizabeth I. Here life proves to be just as threatening, when he falls in with the exciting but dangerous company of a celebrated new playwright by the name of Christopher Marlowe.
Queen Elizabeth I was fond of saying that she had “the heart and stomach of a king”, but to her grave she took the secret that she really was a man. When the young princess died as a child, her frightened attendants substituted for her a cousin, John Neville, with the same red hair and delicate features. Once the trick was played, there was no going back. The astonishing story of the boy from a Cotswold village who became England’s greatest queen has been rumoured down the centuries, and is now recreated in the first person with Chris Hunt’s inimitable style.