Tudor Christmas Tidings

 (a re-run of a short post on my novella,  His Mistletoe Lady, in the anthology Tudor Christmas Tidings...)

I love the holiday season, and the Tudors certainly knew how to celebrate with their music, dancing, feasting, and wassailing.

I imagine that Christmas 1554 was one of Queen Mary Tudor’s most happy, and last happy, moments.  She’d come through decades of neglect and persecution to fight for her throne, combat the Wyatt Rebellion, led by noblemen centred in Kent who sought to dethrone Mary and replace her with Elizabeth (which our heroine Catherine’s father finds himself embroiled in), and marry her kinsman King Philip of Spain.  (Sources say Queen Mary fell deeply in love; his feelings were more doubtful, or should we say dutiful.)  Now England was reconciled with the Catholic Church, and she was expecting an heir.

Things were not so merry for long.  By the summer of 1555, the pregnancy was known to be a phantom one—there was no baby at all.  King Philip left to wage war in the Low Countries and Mary died in 1558, leaving the throne to her despised half-sister Elizabeth.

But I imagine Catherine and Diego’s story ends on a happier note.  They are loosely based on the true story of Jane Dormer and the Count of Feria, who also appear in our tale.  Jane and her count married soon after Queen Mary’s death, and she spent the rest of her very long life in Spain.  I envision Catherine and Diego, along with her parents, living in Andalusia, raising beautiful children!

Review:

His Mistletoe Lady - Amanda McCabe

Not long after Wyatt’s Rebellion, Catherine and her mother journey to Queen Mary’s court to celebrate the holiday season. There, they hope to find a way to free Catherine’s father who has been branded a traitor, but little do they know just how much of their fate is tied up with the mysterious Diego, a new courtier from the Spanish courts.

I liked this story quite a lot. It had the best and most believable romance arc of the three stories in this book and I felt it had the best characters. I really liked Diego and Catherine and I liked that Catherine very much had agency in her choices. I also liked the historical parallels between characters that were changed enough that unless you are super familiar with the history you wouldn’t notice them. It was nice seeing a story where Mary I isn’t vilified and where you can see her for the often kind woman she was. Because she was kind, kinder in several ways than either of her siblings or her father. Basically, I really felt this was the best story in the bunch.