Speaker 1: Thinking sideways. I don't stories of things we simply don't
Speaker 1: know the answer too. Hey everybody, and welcome to the
Speaker 1: podcast again. Today is a bit of a different show.
Speaker 1: It's a bonus episode. If you listen to our episodes
Speaker 1: that came out on Thursday, you'll know that we had
Speaker 1: done an interview with Seth Margolis about Elizabeth the First
Speaker 1: and it was a great interview and we had a
Speaker 1: lot of content, but we didn't use but a little
Speaker 1: bit in the episode, and we wanted to to share
Speaker 1: that with you. So what we're gonna do here is
Speaker 1: we're gonna go ahead and actually share with you the interview. Uh.
Speaker 1: It was Joe and myself for that interview. Devin wasn't
Speaker 1: unfortunately able to make it. But it's a great interview.
Speaker 1: It's a lot of history and a lot of good information,
Speaker 1: and I think you're gonna like it a lot. So
Speaker 1: let's rule that interview. And you've got a lot more
Speaker 1: research on this really than we have. And so I
Speaker 1: guess i'd like to know, do you really think Elizabeth
Speaker 1: had a child? You know, I don't know. I would
Speaker 1: suspect not. I tend to be a discounter of conspiracy
Speaker 1: theories um. And so you know, it was a really
Speaker 1: intriguing idea for a novel, and there are bits and
Speaker 1: pieces of her life and the circumstances around it that
Speaker 1: might lead you to think she had a child. Um,
Speaker 1: but I tend to think she didn't. But you know,
Speaker 1: I think it's sort of like, you know, if you
Speaker 1: think about the Kennedy assassination. Again, I'm not a conspiracy
Speaker 1: theorist in general, so I think Lee Harvey as Oswald
Speaker 1: acted alone. But a lot of people just feel that
Speaker 1: it's it's just unthinkable that this great and who was
Speaker 1: so beloved at the time and maybe even more so
Speaker 1: in retrospect, could be brought down by one lunatic with
Speaker 1: good aim. You wanted to be a conspiracy because it
Speaker 1: seems unfitting that such a great person could be eliminated
Speaker 1: by such a nobody. With Elizabeth, there's a similar frustration
Speaker 1: that you know, arguably the greatest certainly the greatest monarch
Speaker 1: and in English history and maybe one of the great
Speaker 1: leaders in world history just ended, you know, her her
Speaker 1: line ended with her death, and the tutors were no more,
Speaker 1: her genes were no more. How could that be? It
Speaker 1: just it doesn't seem fitting somehow. Um. So people constantly
Speaker 1: want her to um to have left something behind um
Speaker 1: and and in a way that's the I think that's
Speaker 1: part of the fascination with her in general. And it's
Speaker 1: and it's certainly the reason that a lot of these
Speaker 1: theories continue to flourish. And it's really the reason I
Speaker 1: wrote the book. So after Elizabeth, Elizabeth's death, the Tudor
Speaker 1: line ended, and a lot of people believe that the
Speaker 1: English monarchy went kind of downhill after that. Yeah, well
Speaker 1: it I mean the Stewarts were particularly mediocre and um,
Speaker 1: you know they within less than half a century, you know,
Speaker 1: led to the English Civil War with Oliver Cromwell, the
Speaker 1: the assassination or the execution of Charles the first um
Speaker 1: and but you could also argue that things didn't get
Speaker 1: much better after that. There weren't executions. But I don't
Speaker 1: know that, um, you know that that that there have
Speaker 1: been that the monarchs who came after Elizabeth the first
Speaker 1: ever were particularly distinguished bunch. No no um disrespect intended
Speaker 1: to the current queen who just turnedlinding. Um So. I
Speaker 1: guess that's another source of frustration, is that you know,
Speaker 1: if she had had a child, I guess a son
Speaker 1: in particular, but a daughter too that you know might
Speaker 1: have been you know who inherited her talent for leadership
Speaker 1: as well as her father's. It might have changed the
Speaker 1: course of history, certainly the history that immediately followed um.
Speaker 1: But you know, so I think that's another reason that
Speaker 1: people want to think that, you know, there could have
Speaker 1: been a different path. So in real life, one candidate
Speaker 1: for a child was Elizabeth that's really popular with a
Speaker 1: lot of people as Robert Devereaux. What do you think
Speaker 1: about him as a suspect, and right, he was one
Speaker 1: of several people that she sort of showered her um
Speaker 1: royal pleasures on in ways that that um mystified people
Speaker 1: at the time, you know, why him And so there
Speaker 1: were always rumors and she did. She did have a
Speaker 1: very close relationship with his father, Robert Dudley, also known
Speaker 1: as m Lester. And you know, I think she had
Speaker 1: his bedroom moved next to hers. And you know, there
Speaker 1: are all sorts of so you know, if if there
Speaker 1: was going to be a h An offspring, it would
Speaker 1: have been most like glee with him. And there was
Speaker 1: actually there was someone named Arthur Dudley who surfaced at
Speaker 1: one point who claimed to be the offspring of the
Speaker 1: two of them shut up at Philip of Spain's place. Yeah,
Speaker 1: because the Catholics never never saw her as a legitimate
Speaker 1: well as a legitimate period, but as a legitimate monarch
Speaker 1: of England. So if they could find any sort of
Speaker 1: scandal that would um, you know, add further I legitimacy
Speaker 1: to her, it would work to their ends. And in fact,
Speaker 1: in my book, that's one of the reasons that she
Speaker 1: um disguises the fact that she had a child, was
Speaker 1: that it would just it would imperil her her claim
Speaker 1: to the throne. And of course in the Semprasonic she
Speaker 1: has the child before she becomes queen. Most of the
Speaker 1: rumors about or their theories about her having a child
Speaker 1: have her having the child while she was queen, and
Speaker 1: and there's and as I said, there's so many of them.
Speaker 1: You know. She at one point, Um, she she took
Speaker 1: to her bed. She had some sort of mysterious illness
Speaker 1: which I think they called at the time dropsy, but
Speaker 1: today we would call it a demon which is the
Speaker 1: swelling in the mid section. So of course, if you um,
Speaker 1: and I think that's pretty much historical fact that she
Speaker 1: had that she was taken to her bed with dropsy
Speaker 1: or a dema, and that she had a swollen abdomen.
Speaker 1: So if you're inclined to think that she had a child,
Speaker 1: this might have been a good time for that child
Speaker 1: to have been carried, because she had you know, she
Speaker 1: could have used that as an excuse to disguise her pregnancy.
Speaker 1: So it really would have been kind of hard to
Speaker 1: consual the pregnancy because so she was kind of like
Speaker 1: the Princess Diana every day and there were so many
Speaker 1: eyes upon her. It certainly does and that's I think
Speaker 1: that's why I'm generally not a conspiracy theorists. Like back
Speaker 1: to the Lee Harvey oswald uh idea. You know, after
Speaker 1: all of these years, it seems impossible that no one
Speaker 1: would have come forward to say they knew about this conspiracy.
Speaker 1: Not one person has come forward. And similarly in Elizabeth's time,
Speaker 1: the only difference is there, you know, there were no
Speaker 1: cameras then, there were no recording devices, you know, so
Speaker 1: it would all have just been people, um sort of
Speaker 1: writing letters, and so it would have been harder. It
Speaker 1: would have been, I think, much easier to disguise than
Speaker 1: in Princess Diana's day, our day. Um, than any abnormality
Speaker 1: becomes fodder, you know, for the for the for the media,
Speaker 1: over the internet and so on. So I don't I
Speaker 1: think I think she could have hidden it. Um. But
Speaker 1: and the and the and the Elizabeth think Core was
Speaker 1: a really um to use an old fashioned were libidinous place.
Speaker 1: I mean there were you know, there was lots of
Speaker 1: intrigue going on. Um. I mean her own mother had
Speaker 1: been and Lynn had been executed for adultery. She was
Speaker 1: the wife of the king, and many believe that she
Speaker 1: was in fact adulter iss So you know, why would
Speaker 1: why would the wife of the queen take those kind
Speaker 1: of risks if she didn't think there was actually a
Speaker 1: pretty good chance she could get away with it. Um.
Speaker 1: And some people think she actually had. One of her
Speaker 1: lovers was her own brother, oh Anne Boleyn, Yeah, which
Speaker 1: hastened her her execution. I don't know she was guilty
Speaker 1: of adultery actually, because Henry the eighth did have a
Speaker 1: pensiont for just wanting to move on and getting tired
Speaker 1: of whoever he was with and wanted to find himself
Speaker 1: a new wife. We could do another podcast on that.
Speaker 1: You know, was she actually adulterous. But the point is
Speaker 1: that it wasn't so wildly unbelievable at the time that
Speaker 1: she might have been, because the court was a place
Speaker 1: of trists and intrigue and you know, all of which
Speaker 1: is to say that it's it's conceivable that Elizabeth could
Speaker 1: have um disguised her pregnancy UM and disguised her love
Speaker 1: affair with with Dudley or lester um, or thought she
Speaker 1: could have because there was so much going on at
Speaker 1: the time. It was that kind of court. You have
Speaker 1: found a new potential father for a child that Elizabeth
Speaker 1: might have had, named Miles Stafford. So did Myles really
Speaker 1: exist now? So I'm sorry to say it's okay. It
Speaker 1: was much I found it much more interesting to invent
Speaker 1: him and then dispatch him quickly. You never really hear
Speaker 1: from him other than that he had um this rare
Speaker 1: genetic disorder that passed on the this um tendency to shivering,
Speaker 1: as someone calls it in the book, which was an
Speaker 1: interesting um sort of way to keep his sort of
Speaker 1: lineage alive. Was you know, not in a particularly positive way. UM.
Speaker 1: It also made it, you know, when you're writing a thriller,
Speaker 1: it made it interesting because you know, when the uh
Speaker 1: Lee Nicholson, the twenty first century heroine of the book,
Speaker 1: would come across various locations where the file of family lived, Um,
Speaker 1: she would seat, for instance, two fireplaces in one room
Speaker 1: and realized, you know, that became an indication that these
Speaker 1: people who lived there had a real obsession with staying warm.
Speaker 1: So that's the one thing that that I had. My
Speaker 1: fictional father of the of the Elizabethan offspring um past
Speaker 1: onto his to his descendants um. And of course the
Speaker 1: name filer you know, as you know because you read
Speaker 1: the book, it's full of wordplay and the you know,
Speaker 1: the word filer um is an adaptation of the French
Speaker 1: word feast for son and e er of course for
Speaker 1: Elizabeth Rex and French was the main language spoken at
Speaker 1: the time of her version of it in the Elizabethan court.
Speaker 1: So it was like, you know, it was interesting or
Speaker 1: likely that she would have had, if she had a child,
Speaker 1: might have given him that name just as a sort
Speaker 1: of sly reference to who his his at least his
Speaker 1: mother was. He said, I have a question, So this
Speaker 1: is going to kind of be a break and what
Speaker 1: we've talked about so far, But how did you how
Speaker 1: did you go about doing your research for the book,
Speaker 1: because there's a lot of content here. Uh. Well, I
Speaker 1: this has been my one of my The Elizabethan period,
Speaker 1: or really the whole Tooter period in England is my
Speaker 1: favorite in history. It's one of those really rare times
Speaker 1: in history where there just seems to be a confluence
Speaker 1: of um of really extraordinary people. Um. So, of course
Speaker 1: you have Elizabeth, you have her father Henry the Eighth,
Speaker 1: an amazing person. You have a Balyn, a fascinating character.
Speaker 1: You have Dudley himself, you have Sir Walter Raleigh. Of course,
Speaker 1: you have Shakespeare, Bacon and all the great artists at
Speaker 1: the time, writers, and it's and I think another period
Speaker 1: that I also i'm fascinated with, very different is the
Speaker 1: eighteenth century America, and you've had all the founding fathers.
Speaker 1: You know, this rare confluence of just incredibly um intelligent,
Speaker 1: creative people coming together. Um. And you know, you know
Speaker 1: there's always the debate did the times make the man?
Speaker 1: The man makes the time? I don't know the answer
Speaker 1: to that. It's probably not even worth thinking about too much.
Speaker 1: But Elizabeth in England or Tutor England was one of
Speaker 1: those periods It's always been one of my favorites, so
Speaker 1: I'm fairly knowledgeable about it, uh, you know, even before
Speaker 1: I started writing this book. But you know, of course
Speaker 1: I ended up doing a lot of research. You know,
Speaker 1: you can do a lot of it on the web,
Speaker 1: including the Elizabeth file site that you mentioned. I just
Speaker 1: went there, and by the way, I certainly have been
Speaker 1: to that site many times. Um. There's a wonderful book
Speaker 1: by lies of a Card called Elizabeth's London Um, which
Speaker 1: is about sort of everyday life in Elizabethan England, which
Speaker 1: is something that you don't get a lot of when
Speaker 1: you read biographies of Elizabeth. You get very little of
Speaker 1: it in fact um, and it's a wonderful book. It's
Speaker 1: actually a lot of a lot of fun to read,
Speaker 1: just about sort of what it was like to live
Speaker 1: at that time as an ordinary citizen rather than as
Speaker 1: a member of the court. Um. And that really helped
Speaker 1: with a lot of sort of the small details about
Speaker 1: Elizabeth in medicine, particularly childbirth, so the opening scene is
Speaker 1: actually quite factual other than the fact that involved Elizabeth
Speaker 1: having a baby, in terms of the ability to smell
Speaker 1: garlic as an indicator of pregnancy and things like that
Speaker 1: that's how they knew back in the day. Yeah, they
Speaker 1: put garlic under it and if you couldn't smell it,
Speaker 1: it made you were pregnant. Um. It's probably not that simple,
Speaker 1: but but there's a lot of that, and the idea
Speaker 1: that men were not allowed in the birthday room, for instance,
Speaker 1: only midwives. The doctor was banished. And details like that
Speaker 1: came from this wonderful book called Elizabeth's London. And then
Speaker 1: at some point I started writing it and realized I
Speaker 1: needed to go to England directly. I've been there many
Speaker 1: times before, but for specific scenes in the book. So
Speaker 1: I went to Hatfield, which is the palace about I
Speaker 1: think it's about forty minutes from London, where Elizabeth basically
Speaker 1: held a prisoner by her older sister Mary the look
Speaker 1: known as Bloody Mary, the Catholic tutor. Um. She was
Speaker 1: sort of under house arrest there and that's where the
Speaker 1: opening scene and the birth take place. And I just
Speaker 1: had to be there. There's no way you can write
Speaker 1: about it convincingly without going there. Um and uh. And
Speaker 1: I was able to convince it was it's open part
Speaker 1: of the year of the public. But I was able
Speaker 1: to convince the people in charge there um to let
Speaker 1: me in. And there's actually a new palace built by Cecil,
Speaker 1: Elizabeth's great advisor. But the old palace where she was
Speaker 1: held under house arrest is still there as well. It's
Speaker 1: actually used for weddings and bar Mitzvah's apparently today. But
Speaker 1: I was able to do something I don't think Elizabeth
Speaker 1: would have appreciated, But I was able to um to
Speaker 1: tour it on my own and really get a sense
Speaker 1: of what the place looked like. And um, there's really
Speaker 1: no substitute for that, even was you know, you walk
Speaker 1: up from the gatehouse and then back down through the
Speaker 1: little village around the edges of the um of the estate,
Speaker 1: and you really get a sense of what it was
Speaker 1: like to live at that time. And um, so that
Speaker 1: was really key. And then the other thing I did
Speaker 1: other research while I was there. I UM one of
Speaker 1: the important venues in the book, and a place that
Speaker 1: I spent a lot of time in while I was
Speaker 1: writing this was obviously Westminster Abbey, particularly the Lady chapel.
Speaker 1: Um at the very I think it's the back. I
Speaker 1: don't think it could be the back of the front.
Speaker 1: It's based it's behind the altar and it's where Elizabeth
Speaker 1: is buried, although if you read the book, not to
Speaker 1: give anything away, but that that becomes questionable. But Elizabeth
Speaker 1: is buried there. Ironically, she's buried directly on top of
Speaker 1: her hated sister Mary. And UM, I spent at least
Speaker 1: half a day there, um, sort of taking notes and
Speaker 1: trying to, um, you know, block out the scene. What
Speaker 1: was interesting was, you know, I probably the sort of
Speaker 1: suspicious because I spent so much time there. But the
Speaker 1: guards they were actually called Beatles. It's very Dickenzie and
Speaker 1: maybe even um Elizabeth Ethan but um, I love the name,
Speaker 1: by the way, it's a it's amazing that they're still
Speaker 1: called that. And um. There was a succession of them coming,
Speaker 1: you know, on and off shift while I was there,
Speaker 1: And what I really needed from them was information on
Speaker 1: the security not of you know, the the sixteenth century,
Speaker 1: the cameras and stuff. The cameras. Yeah, so I um
Speaker 1: so I would you know, I would pull them aside
Speaker 1: and say what's that up in the corner there, and
Speaker 1: they look at me like I was insane or possibly
Speaker 1: dangerous and say, well, you know that's an infrared camera.
Speaker 1: So then I and that you know, they gave me
Speaker 1: more details about when they go on when they go off,
Speaker 1: so that I was able to then do some research
Speaker 1: on how you could um um disable them using actually
Speaker 1: the phone from a fire extinguisher. So and I was
Speaker 1: really worried i'd be stopped in the way out, but
Speaker 1: maybe they were just happy to see me go after
Speaker 1: all the hours I'd spent there. That was a kind
Speaker 1: of research you really can't do when the Internet. You
Speaker 1: have to go there and see for yourself. I noticee
Speaker 1: a character Lee Nichols, does the same thing. It's hard enough.
Speaker 1: It's hard to hang out without moving because you look
Speaker 1: more suspicious than if you move around. I think, yeah,
Speaker 1: you know, I'm really sorry. I've never been to West
Speaker 1: Mr Abbey. I've been to London, and I guess I
Speaker 1: have to go back to London now because I really
Speaker 1: want to see it now. Oh, it's it's really amazing.
Speaker 1: I mean it, particularly that part of it. It's it's
Speaker 1: it's it's just beautiful and it's and it's so full
Speaker 1: of history. Um, it's good. Actually, the character of Lee
Speaker 1: says that it was never her favorite place because it's
Speaker 1: a place that commemorates death with inscriptions rather than a
Speaker 1: place that anyone lives. But I don't feel that way.
Speaker 1: I feel overwhelmed by history when I walk in there.
Speaker 1: Why is it set that you believe that there's this
Speaker 1: continuing fascination with Elizabeth. I think it's a couple of things.
Speaker 1: The fascination with her is because she was just out
Speaker 1: and out one of the most fascinating political leaders ever
Speaker 1: to live. And part of the part of that is
Speaker 1: that just that she was an absolute monarch of of
Speaker 1: a great nation and helps oversee England's transition from maybe
Speaker 1: a second rate power to one of, you know, a
Speaker 1: first rate power, particularly through the defeat of the Spanish
Speaker 1: and the Spanish Armada um. And so there's that. I
Speaker 1: think the fact that she never married is doubly fascinating
Speaker 1: because she, you know, she didn't get to power in
Speaker 1: the usual or she didn't hold on to power in
Speaker 1: the usual ways, which is exercising it through a man
Speaker 1: immediate in Her older sister Mary married Philip of Spain
Speaker 1: Um and they were very much co rulers. But Elizabeth
Speaker 1: would have none of that. There's a great line that
Speaker 1: I actually quote in the in the novel Sempers on
Speaker 1: it by the Scottish ambassador. Um, he says, I know
Speaker 1: the truth of that, madam, you need not tell it me.
Speaker 1: Your majesty thinks if you were married, you would be
Speaker 1: but Queen of England, and now you are both King
Speaker 1: and queen. And I think that really sums up why
Speaker 1: a lot of people are fascinated by her. That she
Speaker 1: just she ruled kind of on her own terms. And
Speaker 1: and you know whether or not she had a child,
Speaker 1: and she presumably she didn't she um, she didn't marry,
Speaker 1: and she didn't marry because she just did not want
Speaker 1: to to to share the to share power with anyone.
Speaker 1: And that's such a from from a historical purpose that perspective. Rather,
Speaker 1: that seems such an interesting and unusual attitude today, we
Speaker 1: wouldn't we wouldn't think twice about it. But then just
Speaker 1: the idea that a woman wanted absolute power and wouldn't
Speaker 1: even share it with a man seems quite interesting. As
Speaker 1: for having a child, I think that the fascination with that,
Speaker 1: again is just that people just can't don't want to
Speaker 1: accept the idea um that that it all ended with her,
Speaker 1: that that this that this brilliant, brilliant woman's daughter, brilliant
Speaker 1: though quite vicious father sort of through her refusal to
Speaker 1: marry and had a child, um and did this this
Speaker 1: great sort of genetic line, so that people want, you know,
Speaker 1: are very they cling to any theory or a minor
Speaker 1: fact that might prove otherwise. And I think that's that's
Speaker 1: really what it's all about. Yeah, there's that whole thing
Speaker 1: about keeping the question of marriage open as a way
Speaker 1: to keep threats away, such as say Philip of Spain
Speaker 1: for example, who if he had married Elizabeth, would have
Speaker 1: taken England through marriage instead of through a military campaign. Right,
Speaker 1: And she also held onto an important bargaining ship. So
Speaker 1: I for as long as she wasn't married, she could
Speaker 1: use her marriage as a carrot to you know, attract
Speaker 1: potential foreign suitors. And she did that all the time
Speaker 1: that she was forever negotiating marriage, you know, sending her
Speaker 1: ambassadors out to negotiate marriage contracts that never amounted to anything.
Speaker 1: But as you say, it held off war but also
Speaker 1: enabled her to be in a good bargaining position. You know,
Speaker 1: not to get political on this, but maybe it shows
Speaker 1: why her life still resonates so deeply with people. I
Speaker 1: was the other night, I was watching some news show
Speaker 1: about uh ched Cruz picking Carly Fiorina as his running mate,
Speaker 1: and people said, you know, it's obviously why he did it.
Speaker 1: But some bright pundit said, you know, he's given up
Speaker 1: an important bargaining ship because now when he goes to
Speaker 1: the convention, he's already has the vice vice president, but
Speaker 1: he can't hold that out as a lure to attract
Speaker 1: other supporters. And I think Elizabeth, this is where it
Speaker 1: all ties in. Elizabeth did the same by not marrying.
Speaker 1: She always had something that she could promise. There was
Speaker 1: always the lure of giving away her hand in marriage
Speaker 1: to attract, to gain concessions and so on. So you know,
Speaker 1: it's funny how those lessons from the sixteenth centuries still
Speaker 1: our woled relevance today. And the other thing in my
Speaker 1: book is, you know, um the opening scene I'm not
Speaker 1: giving anything away, is she gives birth, and it's a
Speaker 1: pretty horrendous birth. I think most childbirths at the time were.
Speaker 1: There were certainly no um anesthesia at the time, and
Speaker 1: she was so in my book, she was so horrified
Speaker 1: at having to endure that again that she vows, right then,
Speaker 1: I'm never going through this again. And there were theories
Speaker 1: that one of the reasons that she never married was
Speaker 1: that if she married, she'd be expected to have a child,
Speaker 1: and if she had a child, she like, I don't
Speaker 1: know the exact figure, but but you know, a big
Speaker 1: percentage of women would die in childbirth. Um. And thus
Speaker 1: and thus not only you know, imperiled her own life,
Speaker 1: but imperiled the rain and imperil the tutor dynasty and
Speaker 1: put her country at risk. Um. So in the semper side,
Speaker 1: did I make that quite explicit? She she knew about
Speaker 1: the peril because she had gone through it. Um. But
Speaker 1: a lot of people think that that's one of the
Speaker 1: reasons she never had a child, that she she simply
Speaker 1: was afraid, um, that it would kill her, and that
Speaker 1: that would not only be you know, obviously not good
Speaker 1: for her, but it would be very um would put
Speaker 1: the entire kingdom of the risk. Well, yeah, chastidy was
Speaker 1: not as uncommon in those days because actually, I mean
Speaker 1: death and childbirth was very common, and there was also
Speaker 1: things like maneial disease which were incurable. Exactly there were
Speaker 1: I mean, you know, but you remember that back it
Speaker 1: Lizabeth in England, it wasn't um, it wasn't a certainly
Speaker 1: a court. It wasn't a completely chased situation. And actually, um,
Speaker 1: you know, virginity was sort of mocked. There are instances
Speaker 1: of Shakespeare where it's mocked. It's not necessarily, um, it's
Speaker 1: it's certainly talked about publicly as a virtue, but it
Speaker 1: was it was made fun of a bit behind the scenes.
Speaker 1: But the truth is she actually gloried in it, in
Speaker 1: her virginity, and she talked about it all the time.
Speaker 1: That was sort of a triumph of her will over
Speaker 1: you know, um, corporeal desire. You know, the the colony
Speaker 1: of Virginia was named for her virginity. Um, you know,
Speaker 1: so it was something really I didn't realize that. Yeah,
Speaker 1: And so you know, she she gloried in it, not
Speaker 1: because I think it showed sort of Christian virtue so
Speaker 1: much as it showed her strength, you know, her resistance. Um.
Speaker 1: And to actually have a colony um named for your
Speaker 1: for your virginity is really quite extraordinary when you think
Speaker 1: of it. Yeah, it really is. And if and if
Speaker 1: and in fact, if any of these theories are ever
Speaker 1: proven correct, well they have to rename Virginia. And what
Speaker 1: would they rename it? More importantly, I guess you would
Speaker 1: have called a pregnancia maybe west for us to be
Speaker 1: West Pregnancia. Uh, you know, I haven't want I want
Speaker 1: to say. By the way, I thought it was really
Speaker 1: funny that Will Shakespeare makes an appearance in your book,
Speaker 1: but he didn't actually get any lines. Well it was
Speaker 1: I mean, first of all, I just was, as you know,
Speaker 1: the Semper son it is a sonnet purported to be
Speaker 1: by Shakespeare, which I unfortunately had to write um. And
Speaker 1: then not only right, but in bed with all sorts
Speaker 1: of cryptic clues and things like that. I was going
Speaker 1: to ask you about that. How top was that it
Speaker 1: was impossible? I spent so long, First of all, just
Speaker 1: that just writing a Shakespeare sonnet, which this sonic will
Speaker 1: full nobody that it was that it's by Shakespeare. But
Speaker 1: you know, just writing the sonnet um, you know, the
Speaker 1: fourteen lines, with the with the with the rhyme scheme, um,
Speaker 1: was really really hard. And then almost every line in
Speaker 1: it has an embedded clue. UM. But I am you know,
Speaker 1: I am addicted to English crosser puzzles. I don't know
Speaker 1: if you're familiar with them from the Times, Lendon Times,
Speaker 1: with the Guardian. They do different kinds of puzzles than
Speaker 1: American puzzles, which I'm also addicted to. Um. They do
Speaker 1: cryptic puzzles, UM, which are full of puns and anagrams
Speaker 1: and double on tender and things like that. UM. And
Speaker 1: all of that UM is very much embedded in the Sonnet,
Speaker 1: and actually in other parts of the novel as well.
Speaker 1: So and and that goes back to Shakespeare himself. He
Speaker 1: you knows, you know, his his play days and and
Speaker 1: as sonnets to a lesser extent are full of puns
Speaker 1: and plays on words, you know. And I was in
Speaker 1: Romeo and Juliet when Marcuccio is dying, UM, he's noticed
Speaker 1: sort of a joker or a jester um, and he says,
Speaker 1: I'm I may still be a joker, but asked for
Speaker 1: me tomorrow, and you shall find me a grave man.
Speaker 1: So any cryptic crossword compiler as they're called or set
Speaker 1: or would would or creator would would love that double
Speaker 1: entendre and would use it in in their in their crosswords.
Speaker 1: And so I wanted to embed that in the Sonnet.
Speaker 1: And then that was a way the Sonnet was a
Speaker 1: way of connecting the story in Elizabeth's England with the
Speaker 1: story in the twenty one century, because the Sonnet is
Speaker 1: discovered by Lee Nichols and so, and she gradually uncovers
Speaker 1: the meaning of the Sonnet and what it's said about
Speaker 1: Elizabeth's child, for instance. So why did you choose a
Speaker 1: female lead character? Well, you know, I wanted to. I
Speaker 1: thought it would be interesting to um. I thought it
Speaker 1: would be interesting to make the part aagonist a woman.
Speaker 1: I thought it would be an interesting contrast with um,
Speaker 1: you know, Elizabeth living I guess four or five years
Speaker 1: before and a woman living in the twenty one century,
Speaker 1: and all the differences in their life. So that's that's
Speaker 1: really how I came up with her. Was just thinking,
Speaker 1: you know, I want to write a novel about two women, essentially,
Speaker 1: one the great Elizabeth and one someone named Liz living
Speaker 1: in the current day who early Rather not to give
Speaker 1: anything away, lead living in the current day, who um,
Speaker 1: you know, has many more choices um, and can live
Speaker 1: a much different life um. But and in some ways
Speaker 1: has more sort of personal power than even an absolute
Speaker 1: monarch living in the sixteenth century. UM. And that's that's
Speaker 1: really how I came up with her. I thought it'd
Speaker 1: be interesting to contrast two women living at different times. Uh,
Speaker 1: and I made her a scholar of Elizabethan literature, just
Speaker 1: because I knew that that would be how she would
Speaker 1: plausibly come into contact with this supposedly lost sonnet and
Speaker 1: be able to read it and understand its significance. So
Speaker 1: so Lee Nichols goes on her own in the investigation,
Speaker 1: rather than having a man backing her up or anything
Speaker 1: like that, much kind of like Elizabeth. Yeah, and I
Speaker 1: wanted that to be the case. Also, that she she
Speaker 1: took her pleasure where she wanted and needed it, but
Speaker 1: that she was very much determined to be independent and
Speaker 1: to be alone and and and actually has you know,
Speaker 1: twenty one century terms, we would say maybe intimacy problems.
Speaker 1: I don't know that Elizabeth would have said that about herself,
Speaker 1: but uh, and I and that's exactly right. That's that
Speaker 1: That was the contrast that I thought would be interesting
Speaker 1: to explore in this book. So you handed in an
Speaker 1: email to us that there was a final clue in
Speaker 1: the book that didn't get sold. Um, so what was
Speaker 1: that final clue? Yeah, so I thought it would be fun.
Speaker 1: As I said, I am, I am a avid solver
Speaker 1: of English cryptic puzzles, particularly those in the Guardian, which
Speaker 1: you can get you can download for from the internet.
Speaker 1: And I'm hoping that the book will connect with people
Speaker 1: um here and in England and everywhere who do these puzzles,
Speaker 1: because it's they are a bit of an obsession Um
Speaker 1: and the clues that are within the Sonnet are all
Speaker 1: the kinds of clues that someone who solves English cryptic
Speaker 1: puzzles would immediately see his clues and would work at
Speaker 1: um and probably be able to solve. So when in
Speaker 1: one of the very last scenes, I'm gonna try not
Speaker 1: to give anything away about the novel, but in one
Speaker 1: of the very last scenes of the Semper son itt Uh,
Speaker 1: just before lee Um tosses I don't want to say,
Speaker 1: but before she disposes of a certain important element in
Speaker 1: the book, Let's say she writes, but she writes on
Speaker 1: a piece of paper. I'll just read it. It's only
Speaker 1: four short lines. She writes on a pizza paper. Here
Speaker 1: queen for word, I'd bring from distant time and place
Speaker 1: the auger class, the common man and firm embrace ony
Speaker 1: Swaki mali post you friend of gold are made in France,
Speaker 1: so only swacum ality post is the emblem of I
Speaker 1: think it's the Royal how order of the Garden, but
Speaker 1: it's actually the motto of the of the English royal family. Interestingly,
Speaker 1: it's in France, but it means shame on you who
Speaker 1: think bad of it. Only swaciuman ality post. So I'm
Speaker 1: embedded that. But anyone who does cryptic cross words of
Speaker 1: the type that run in the Garden at the times
Speaker 1: would be able to hear read those four lines and
Speaker 1: instantly know that those are cryptic clues that have a
Speaker 1: very specific solution. So I have it in there. She
Speaker 1: tosses it into the sea. The character lead but um
Speaker 1: and and and doesn't tell the reader what those lines mean.
Speaker 1: But I'm hoping that there are readers of the novel
Speaker 1: who see it as a embedded clue and are able
Speaker 1: to solve it. And I'm hoping to actually connect with them,
Speaker 1: maybe through Twitter or Facebook or somehow, because it intrigues me,
Speaker 1: and I'm curious how many people will will recognize that
Speaker 1: for one of those like that, that would be really
Speaker 1: interesting to see, you know, if people do solve it,
Speaker 1: and you know who shows up to solve it, and
Speaker 1: it'll be cool to see how many people respond. And
Speaker 1: I'd like to ask you, by the way, they're going
Speaker 1: to be a sequel to your book, where the problem
Speaker 1: that's kind of at the heart of the Semper sonnet
Speaker 1: will sort of come back again. Well, so I may
Speaker 1: write a sequel. I've sort of fleshed that on my
Speaker 1: mind a little bit. Um. It won't involve Semper per se.
Speaker 1: It will involve Lee and the secret that we know
Speaker 1: about her uh from the end of the book. Um.
Speaker 1: And it will also involve her sort of a bridge
Speaker 1: between the twenty one century and the character of Blee
Speaker 1: and elizabethan England. So it will have that, it won't
Speaker 1: be Semper again. So I have sort of sketched that
Speaker 1: out a little bit of paper, mostly in my mind
Speaker 1: because I like her as a character and I like
Speaker 1: what we know about her at the end. I think
Speaker 1: it's sort of interesting. Um, So it would be I
Speaker 1: think it would be fun for me to to try
Speaker 1: to keep her alive. So I'll see how, you know,
Speaker 1: if readers connect with her as a actor, um, And
Speaker 1: if I do, then I will definitely um, I will
Speaker 1: solve the clue um for for all those who didn't
Speaker 1: solve them on their own. Well, it's it's been fun
Speaker 1: talking to you but indeed, yeah, but it's it's probably
Speaker 1: you're probably out of time. And so is there anything
Speaker 1: else before we wrap up the interview that you'd like
Speaker 1: to tell us, Um, Well, not really. I mean, the
Speaker 1: one thing that I think is interesting, um and that
Speaker 1: might be relevant to this podcast is that one of
Speaker 1: the theories you've probably come across it in your research
Speaker 1: that that is not explored in the sempers on it,
Speaker 1: but it's something I've been aware of and and sort
Speaker 1: of in some ways ties it all together. That you know,
Speaker 1: one of the other theories about Elizabeth is that she
Speaker 1: actually was you know, had had a child with the
Speaker 1: Earl of Oxford. So of course, you know, there's all
Speaker 1: these theories that Elizabeth had a bastard child. But there's
Speaker 1: also even more theories that Shakespeare didn't write his own plays,
Speaker 1: and there's you know, all sorts of theories advanced for
Speaker 1: who that could be. And one of them is Edward
Speaker 1: de vere the Earl of a Start, who was in
Speaker 1: fact a writer on his own and so you know,
Speaker 1: the thought is that he was the true author of
Speaker 1: the works of Shakespeare. And so there are theories that
Speaker 1: actually Elizabeth had an affair with him and that and
Speaker 1: and and that their child um was someone was the
Speaker 1: Earl of Southampton, who UM figures prominently um in some
Speaker 1: of these In these theories, I think the sonnets are
Speaker 1: are are dedicated to him. So in a weird way,
Speaker 1: the conspiracy theories about Elizabeth, about Elizabeth having a child
Speaker 1: and Shakespeare not writing his own books are conjoined with
Speaker 1: this theory that she might have been actually had an
Speaker 1: affair with the Earl of Oxford, Edward de Vere who
Speaker 1: was the true, the true Shakespeare. There are also theories
Speaker 1: that their son was the true Shakespeare uh, and that
Speaker 1: Francis Bacon was and that she might have had an
Speaker 1: affair with him, or that he in fact was the
Speaker 1: son of hers. So it all gets very very tangled
Speaker 1: um theories. It's also, you know, just as we it
Speaker 1: seems frustrating that a great person like Elizabeth, you know,
Speaker 1: couldn't pass on her greatness to another generation and generations
Speaker 1: after that. There's also a frustration that, you know, the
Speaker 1: greatest writer of the English language, perhaps any language, was
Speaker 1: this obscure actor, playwright who we don't know much about.
Speaker 1: It would be so much more satisfying to think that
Speaker 1: he was one of these larger than life characters like
Speaker 1: the Earl of Oxford or Francis bacon Um. And so
Speaker 1: from that frustration, I think is born all of these
Speaker 1: conspiracy theories.