His Last Letter: Elizabeth I and the Earl of Leicester [Mass Market Paperback]

Jeane Westin (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: August 3, 2010

One of the greatest loves of all time-between Elizabeth I and Robert Dudley-comes to life in this vivid novel.

They were playmates as children, impetuous lovers as adults-and for thirty years were the center of each others' lives. Astute to the dangers of choosing any one man, the Virgin Queen could never give her "Sweet Robin" what he wanted most-marriage- yet she insisted he stay close by her side. Possessive and jealous, their love survived quarrels, his two disastrous marriages to other women, her constant flirtations, and political machinations with foreign princes.

His Last Letter tells the story of this great love... and especially of the last three years Elizabeth and Dudley spent together, the most dangerous of her rule, when their passion was tempered by a bittersweet recognition of all that they shared-and all that would remain unfulfilled.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Jeane Eddy Westin is the author of eight books. She lives in Sacramento, California.

Product Details

• Reading level: Ages 18 and up
  
• Mass Market Paperback: 400 pages
• Publisher: NAL Trade; 1 edition (August 3, 2010)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0451230124
• ISBN-13: 978-0451230126
• Product Dimensions: 8.3 x 5.5 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (11 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #824,354 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

When I was a child, my family seemed to be steeped in the love of historical lore.

I heard stories of my ancestors, the Dutch ship captain who eloped with a young French woman to settle in New York and Maryland. Another, who fought in the Revolutionary war at Valley Forge...but fortunately for him, in the summer.

My one grandfather told me stories of his Virginia grandfather, a Confederate cavalryman and showed me his sword with a once gilt tassel hanging from the hilt. My other grandfather recited a story of his grandfather who joined the Union army and lost a best friend, who fought for the south. For the rest of their lives, they passed in their little town on the opposite sides of the street and never spoke.

It's clear to me now that I was meant to be a reader and writer of historical novels from a very early age. My mother took me to the library when I was six to get my library card and to choose my first book. The one that most caught my attention was The Little Cave Boy and Girl, the first of a series about children through history. From that beginning, I continued to read historical non-fiction and fiction all my life, always fascinated by every aspect of earlier times. (Don't tell anyone, but I took books on my honeymoon and I can remember my husband's puzzlement when he saw me reading The History of Diseases. "It's interesting," I explained...difficult for a bridegroom to believe. He's since seen me read many similar books without surprise.)


I'm not alone. Most writers I know read curiously and voraciously as children, not realizing we're storing facts and ideas for future use. Sooner or later, some of us become enthralled with a particular historical period. Above all, I love British history and most particularly the Tudor period of the 1500s. Many women are drawn to Elizabethan novels. One of the strongest rulers in history, certainly the greatest queen, Elizabeth was also a woman we want to know and understand. We do know, she loved dancing, parties and handsome, well-dressed men and because of her personal charisma, she fascinated some of the greatest men of her era, even into, what was then, the ancient age of near seventy years.

She held Robert Dudley, the Earl of Leicester's love and loyalty until the day he died, carrying her own love for him in her heart until her own death. Of all her admirers, her Sweet Robin was most dear to her. Elizabeth was observed many times reading and re-reading his letters, mining the affection in them. Leicester waited for twenty years hoping to marry her before giving up and marrying Lettice Knollys, Elizabeth's hated cousin. She forgave him but banished Lettice, whom she called "that She-Wolf" from her court forever. Though he married, Robin's and Elizabeth's need for each other never ended and she kept him constantly beside her.

Elizabeth was a master at subterfuge, orchestrating many marriage proposals and contracts with the royalty of Europe as a way to keep England safe from attack. Yet, she never submitted to marriage in spite of the pleas of her Council, Parliament and people for an heir. Marriage to her meant sharing, or losing her power to a husband; marriage meant death either from his dissatisfaction (think of her father Henry VIII beheading two wives), or death in childbirth which killed many women. She would have none of it and used her brains and wiles to escape it. It was said of her that "Only her heart fluttered, not her head."

The public history of her reign is well-chronicled and many letters and state documents survive.

The private history is hidden, her personal letters to Sweet Robin destroyed in the English Civil War. We know little of what Elizabeth thought, what was in her heart and how she really felt about the major events and traumas of her life, or how they affected her.

That is where a novelist can help to fill in the gaps with what we know of a woman's responses to life. We can imagine her emotions through the eyes of others, her ladies-in-waiting, for example, as I do in The Virgin's Daughters: In the Court of Elizabeth I, coming in August 2009.

We can also come to know her through her long love and her heart's reaction to Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester. Look for this story in my next novel of Elizabeth and her Sweet Robin, His Last Letter, Elizabeth I and the Earl of Leicester to be published in August 2010.

Elizabeth appears again in my next book The Spymaster's Daughter set in 1585-1588 the years when Sir Francis Walsingham and his network of Intelligencers slowly intercept incriminating coded messages from Mary, Queen of Scots. One of the queen's ladies is Walsingham's daughter, Lady Frances Sidney...who wants to be a spy despite her father's disapproval. Publication date for this book is August, 2012.

Read more about me at my website: jeanewestin.com

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

22 of 22 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars "This was her life. Eventually everyone she loved left her.", August 3, 2010

By 

Luan Gaines "luansos" (Dana Point, CA USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: His Last Letter: Elizabeth I and the Earl of Leicester (Mass Market Paperback)

Westin taps into the final three years of the dance between Elizabeth I and Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester, at the critical moment of her defeat of the Spanish armada off England's coast, finishing Philip's hopes of invasion. Elizabeth has been long immersed in her role as England's Virgin Queen. In chapters that move between the announcement of the earl's death in 1588 and the early years of the passion between Elizabeth and Dudley, Westin perfectly captures the push and pull of a love Elizabeth could never fully own for the sake of her country and her personal vision. The days of youth and beauty past, Elizabeth is comforted by Dudley's unchanging love, that fact that they still see one another in the bright days of their love a balm to her troubled spirit and the indecisiveness that plagues her reign.

Elizabeth has unerring political instincts, but as a woman she suffers greatly for her chosen role, unable to share her crown with any man, even her beloved Dudley. Tormented by his marriages and infidelities, Elizabeth is not so foolish as to deny she has offered him no alternative, the two living with this grim reality, yet unable to be parted. And like moth to flame, hopes of marriage to a queen finally spurned, Dudley devotes himself entirely to Elizabeth's best interests, as tortured as she by their separations and her decision to rule alone. Westin captures the spirit of the times in Elizabeth's Tudor court, the fawning courtiers, the handsome young men who flatter the queen, the growing threat from Spain and the decision whether to behead Mary, Queen of Scots, who never ceases planning treason against Elizabeth.

But the heart of this novel is in the tension between Elizabeth and Robin, who can never be together as equals, their every move watched and reported, an intimacy made unbearable by reality and the demands of the crown. The young Elizabeth comes to life again, terrified of a father who cut off her mother's head, of men whose promises always prove false, of a Catholic sister who imprisons her in the Tower during her reign. This queen has spawned myths, but perhaps none so telling as the love she bears for Robert Dudley. While the impetuous Earl of Essex awaits her favors, even his handsome beauty is eclipsed by Dudley's loyalty. This portrait of Elizabeth is beautifully rendered, the ambivalence of a queen with a woman's heart. Her loneliness is palpable, as is her will as queen. Luan Gaines/2010.

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A tortured romance remembered by an aging Queen., August 8, 2010

By 

Suzi Hough "The Fashion Piranha!" (San Jose, CA United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: His Last Letter: Elizabeth I and the Earl of Leicester (Mass Market Paperback)

The Virgin Queen of England, Elizabeth I, has depended on the love and support of Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester, for thirty years. They were playmates as children, and locked in the Tower together under the reign of Elizabeth's half-sister, Queen Mary. When Mary died, and Elizabeth became Queen, she and her "sweet Robin" were recklessly infatuated with each other. But year after year went by, and though Elizabeth piled gifts and titles upon Robert, she never gave him that which he wanted most - her hand in marriage. Through countless quarrels, Elizabeth's flirtations with the princes of Europe, Robert's marriages, and endless jealousies the two remain united in their hearts. Now, when Elizabeth should be celebrating her great victory over the Spanish armada, she sits silent and lost in memories, holding Leicester's last letter and mourning the loss of her great love.

For the most part, "His Last Letter"focuses on the last three years of Leicester's life, when he and Elizabeth are mostly resigned to their roles in life. He is her most faithful servant; she is the proud Virgin Queen. But the book jumps all over time, as memories are wont to do, so we also see the two lovers throughout their youth, too.

One of my favorite parts of the book was a brief time when Elizabeth toyed with the idea of marrying Leicester to Mary, Queen of Scots. She is so resistant to sharing power that she would never marry Robert herself, but she considers raising him up to be a king in Scotland because no one would protect her interests more loyally. Although the plan never comes to fruition - and Elizabeth admits to herself that she was never entirely serious about it - it really showed just how dedicated Elizabeth was to protecting her position, no matter what the cost would be to her personal life.

More than any other fictional account of Elizabeth's life I've read, Westin also focuses on how Elizabeth's strained relationship with her father damaged her ability to have a normal relationship. In the case of her own mother, and Henry VIII's subsequent wives, the young Elizabeth saw how quickly a woman's lot could change based on the whims of her husband. Queen Elizabeth hoarded her power so jealously partly due to fear that any man she raised up to be her husband would one day be able to cast her aside as her father had done to so many of his women.

A bittersweet tale of a romance that could never be, "His Last Letter" was a fantastic story that explored the fragile balance between Elizabeth, the woman and Elizabeth, the Queen and her consort in all but name, the Earl of Leicester.

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars powerful historical biographic fiction, August 7, 2010

By 

Harriet Klausner - See all my reviews
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This review is from: His Last Letter: Elizabeth I and the Earl of Leicester (Mass Market Paperback)

Growing up, Princess Elizabeth and Robert Dudley play together as each share a common bond of how fickle life can be in the court of her father King Henry VIII. As young adults, Princess Elizabeth became the Queen and Dudley her beloved "Robin". Everyone expected them to marry, but she was fearful of having a spouse. Ironically that enabled him to have two other wives and many lovers though he would give all up if she married him. Angered by his women though she flirted with men, her jealous Highness at times wished otherwise as she loved her cherished Robin. Yet through all the political and personal chicanery, their love survived even after his death.

The story line is extrapolated from a deathbed love letter Sweet Robin wrote to his beloved middle aged "Virgin Queen" who chooses political sensitivities over personal desires. Although Elizabeth has been the subject of nonfiction and fictional accounts in books and movies, fans who relish historical biographic fiction especially of the British royalty will want to read Jeane Westin's powerful look at the love between the Earl and his queen.

Harriet Klausner