Lady Grace Mysteries
The Lady Grace Mysteries is a series of children's detective fiction novels initially written by English author Patricia Finney, with Sara Volger and Jan Burchett later joining as co-authors.
Written as a diary, the story follows Lady Grace Cavendish, a maid of honour to Queen Elizabeth I, attempting to solve various mysteries within the royal court.
Series
- Assassin by Patricia Finney, Doubleday, 2004,
- Betrayal by Patricia Finney, Doubleday, 2004,
- Conspiracy by Patricia Finney, 2005, ISBN 978-0385731539
- Deception by Sara Volger & Jan Burchett, 2005
- Exile by Sara Vogler & Jan Burchett, 2006
- Feud by Patricia Finney, 2006
- Gold by Sara Vogler & Jan Burchett, 2006
- Haunted by Sara Vogler & Jan Burchett, 2006
- Intrigue by Sara Vogler & Jan Burchett, 2008
- Jinx by Sara Vogler & Jan Burchett, 2008
- Keys by Sara Vogler & Jan Burchett, 2009
- Loot by Sara Vogler & Jan Burchett, 2010
Characters
Lady Grace Cavendish, Maid of Honour
Lady Grace Cavendish is the youngest Maid of Honour to Queen Elizabeth I of England. In the first book, Assassin, she is thirteen years old; by the eleventh, Keys, she is fifteen. She is the Queen's dearest goddaughter and rather a favourite with her at Court.She is an orphan like her friends Ellie and Masou. Both her parents, especially her mother, play memorial roles in all the books and both died heroic, tragic deaths. Her father died when she was two, fighting a war in France, and her mother unintentionally drank poison intended for the Queen, put there by the Papist Guises.
Her best friends work at Whitehall Palace and follow the Queen on progress. Ellie Bunting, an orphaned laundry maid, and Masou Al-Ahmed, an African acrobat from Will Somer's acrobatic troupe, are both very close to Grace. However, they have to keep their friendship a secret due to the vast difference between their stations in life. The only time Grace mentions them is in her daybooke.
Sharp and clever, Grace always solves a new mystery in a short deadline and is quietly rewarded by the Queen. Grace has to keep her investigations a secret, but she nearly always informs Masou and Ellie, and they are her trusty friends who help her with the investigations when she needs a companion and they sometimes try to do some of their own investigation in their spare time. She is always very discreet about her being the Queen's Lady Pursuivant and her adventures are closely guarded secrets.
Grace never wants to get married as she wants to be like the Queen and stay at the Royal Court as long as she wishes to. However, in the 1st book she has three suitors, Lord Robert, Sir Gerald and her horse riding instructor Sir Charles. Fortunately, she does not have to marry one of them after a murder case when Sir Gerald is found dead with a knife in his back and Lord Robert is under suspicion.
Ever since the death of her beloved mother, Lady Margaret Cavendish, all of the Maids of Honour, Ladies in Waiting and especially the Queen have been kind to her. The Queen, who was very close to Grace's mother, took Grace on as a Maid of Honour at the age of twelve.
Unlike all the other Maids of Honour, Lady Grace loves to climb trees in orchards when she walks the dogs. In Whitehall, she mainly climbs a cherry tree that reminds her of her mother. When Grace walks the Queen's dogs, she always goes to visit her friends Masou and Ellie in a hideout. Every time the Queen wants to move to another Palace, Masou and Ellie find a little hideaway in the orchard to go in there in their spare time, when they are not helping Lady Grace solve a new mystery.
The thing that Grace hates is when Ellie and Masou have to treat her like a Maid of Honour, and call her "mistress" and "lady". When Masou does, he performs elaborate bows. Grace states she always finds it hard not to laugh when he does.
Queen Elizabeth
was Queen of England and Ireland from 17 November 1558 until her death in early 1603. Sometimes called "The Virgin Queen", "Gloriana", or "Good Queen Bess", Elizabeth was the fifth and last monarch of the Tudor dynasty.Elizabeth was the daughter of King Henry VIII and Queen Anne Boleyn. Elizabeth was born a princess, but her mother, Anne Boleyn, was executed three years after her birth on false accusations of treason, heresy, witchcraft and infidelity, and through her mother's disgrace Elizabeth was declared illegitimate.
In 1558 Elizabeth succeeded her half-sister, the devoutly Catholic Mary I of England, during whose reign she had been imprisoned for nearly a year on suspicion of supporting Protestant rebels. It was a difficult time for Elizabeth. She was known to take a diamond from her jewels and scratch into a Tower window the words,
"Much suspected of me, nothing proved can be, quote Elizabeth, prisoner."
She was a very fond and helping godmother and guardian to Lady Grace, but whether or not that's true in real life nobody knows the truth. She was certainly a devoted and protective woman to her Ladies-in-Waiting and Maids of Honour.
Dr Cavendish
Dr Cavendish is Grace's loving uncle and the head physician at Court. He is a fond uncle of Grace and one of her only relatives. He is very upset by Grace's mother's death and for many years after the tragedy he is known to be lost in his own world.He is usually in one of two states – drunk or hung over. Despite all this he loves Grace very dearly and Grace is very fond of him and loves him a lot more than she realizes. Dr Cavendish is always careful to upgrade Grace's physical state and regularly check her health standards.
Olwen and Fran
Olwen is Lady Sarah's tiring woman. She is kind and cheerful and comforts Lady Sarah when Sarah is upset. In Betrayal, Olwen is abducted, threatened, tied up, treated despicably, and used as hostage to lure Lady Sarah unwittingly into abduction too.Cruel Captain Derby, Olwen's captor, threatens to cut off Olwen's hands if Lady Sarah refuses to marry him, and throws her into the brig. Naturally, this is the cause of much distress for both Olwen and Lady Sarah.
Fran is Mary Shelton's tiring woman. She is not mentioned much in the series and she also helps Lady Grace along with Olwen.
Penelope Knollys, Carmina Willoughby and Lucy Throckmorton
Penelope Knollys is one of Grace's fellow Maids of Honour. She follows the Queen on progress and shares a bedroom with Lady Jane Coningsby and Carmina Willoughby. Penelope always cowers away from the antics of Lady Sarah Bartelmy and Lady Jane Coningsby. Penelope is quite small and plain, and always follows Lady Sarah and her advice on clothes. In Book 7, Gold, Penelope gets married, thus leaving the Queen's service.Carmina is bright and bouncy. In Feud, she suffers from poisoning from Orpiment, given to her by Lady Horsely for revenge on her son's accidental death through jousting. Also, after the crisis of a fire at St Bartholemhew's Fair in Smith Field, Book 10, Jinx, she becomes very superstitious and jumpy, full of dire warnings. She is friends with Lucy Throckmorton and loves having a good chatter over a mystery, she and Lucy both share the love of gossip.
Lucy Throckmorton is a terrible gossip. She appears to replace Penelope after her marriage and is not in all the books - considerably startles some readers by popping up suddenly in Book 10! Lucy is best friends with Carmina, gossips all the time and likes having long, boring, detailed conversations about sleeves and gowns in the latest styles.
Ellie Bunting
Ellie is a laundry maid at Queen Elizabeth's court, who later in the series becomes Lady Grace's tiring woman by way of reward for an act of bravery in defeating a villain in broad daylight, in front of the rest of the Court.She is very good friends with Grace and Masou and she often assists them in solving the hardest of mysteries. Ellie is very superstitious - in Jinx and Haunted she insists upon carting a massive bag of amulets around with her, even when sailing down the Thames and walking the dogs through muddy fields! She is very considerate, as looks are concerned she is thin as she is fed little. She has brown hair and a rounded face with many scars.
Like her friends Grace and Masou, she is an orphan as her parents died of the sickly plague. In Feud, she talks about how her parents died, pushing back tears as she shows Grace the scars on her neck.
The deputy laundress, Mrs. Fadget, treats Ellie badly, forcing her to work long hours without a break, and tries to suck up to Grace when Grace visits the laundry to make up excuses to drag Ellie out of her work to talk to her. In the second book, Betrayal, Mrs. Fadget treats Ellie so badly she gets quinsey. While Grace is on a Captain Drake's ship, Mary Shelton cares for Ellie until Grace comes back with Lady Sarah. By that time Ellie is much better.
In Exile, Book 5, Ellie is falsely accused of stealing the Heart of Kings. The Heart of Kings is the most famed and fabled jewel in the world and is the most treasured possession of the Court's noble foreign visitor. Luckily Ellie is proved innocent and Grace is the one to give out the "good tidings".
Ellie is later upgraded to tiring woman after she catches a criminal and she takes great care and time with Grace's hair and appearance and often accompanies her on her missions.