title: Royal Murder: The Deadly Intrigue of Ten Sovereigns
author: Elizabeth MacLeod
description: Mysterious deaths and disappearances provide lively discussion topics. Audiences in grade five and up with love hearing these gory, intriguing tales. As Agatha Christie knew, you can't go wrong talking about bodies in the library. (Kathleen Baxter <i>School Library Journal</i> 2009-02-01)
zlib_text: 
  
  
  A MURDER BY ANY NAME
  
  
  > AN ELIZABETHAN SPY MYSTERY
  
  
  Suzanne M. Wolfe
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  For Magdalen, Helena, Charles, and Benedict
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  > Confusion now hath made his masterpiece!
  
  > Most sacrilegious murder hath broke ope
  
  > The Lord’s anointed temple, and stole thence
  
  > The life o’ the building!
  
  > —Macbeth
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  PROLOGUE
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  The Palace of Whitehall
  
  
  “God’s bollocks, girl! I’m freezing my tits off!”
  
  
  Lady Cecily Carew murmured an apology while she fumbled with the last of the
  bodice hooks. Finally, the bodice came undone, and she stepped back, her head
  lowered so the Queen could not see her expression. She had only been a lady-
  in-waiting a few weeks, but she despaired of ever getting used to the Queen’s
  way of speaking. She swore like Dicken, the irascible and wizened stable hand
  on her father’s manor, who addressed his four-legged charges and sometimes his
  two-legged betters in language liberally laced with the dung he shoveled all
  day. It was unseemly fo