TO SEIZE A QUEEN

The disappearance of a number of innocuous people from Cornwall turns out to be part of a much larger conspiracy against Queen Elizabeth I.

Ursula Stannard, Elizabeth’s illegitimate half-sister, has a relationship with the queen that’s involved her in spying over the course of many years. The thrice-married Ursula, now almost 60, is a mother who owns several lovely properties and still serves the monarch. Arriving to attend Elizabeth at Hampton Court with her longtime servant Brockley and his wife, Dale, Ursula is requested by spymaster Sir Robert Cecil to undertake what may be a dangerous mission. An itinerant minstrel who’s escaped after being kidnapped by corsairs headed for Constantinople reports that others aboard the ship with him—including a farming family, a scholar, and a set of young twins—may not have been so lucky. Apparently, someone in Cornwall is taking orders for certain types of people, abducting them, and shipping them on. Sent to an empty house on the Lizard peninsula belonging to the missing scholar, Ursula poses as widowed Catherine Archer, bringing Dale, Brockley, and Christopher Spelton, another spy she’s worked with before, to poke around. The furious queen had planned to make a royal tour of Cornwall, but now that’s too dangerous an undertaking. Cornwall has a long history of corsairs and shipwreckers involving some of its most powerful families. Ursula and her helpers learn enough to put themselves in serious danger before they can set a trap for the kidnappers.

One of the most exciting adventures of the queen’s spy.