Elizabethan Week, Day Four: Secondary Characters

One of the most fun parts of writing historical fiction (for me, anyway!) is finding ways to weave real events and real people into the stories.  I am a history geek, and have been ever since I was a kid, so stepping into a library and diving into a pile of research books is a raucously fun day to me!!  They start to really come alive for me when I "see" them in the middle of my own world...

Book two of the Kate Haywood series (Murder at Westminster Abbey, out in April 2014!) centers around Queen Elizabeth's coronation, so it involves lots of historical figures--Robert Dudley, Lady Catherine Grey and her mother Frances, Duchess of Suffolk, the Duke and Duchess of Norfolk, etc.  Book one, Murder at Hatfield House, is set in a quieter place, with everyone keeping their heads down in the dangerous, dark last days of Queen Mary, waiting to see what will happen next.  There aren't many "real" characters (though I would count Queen Mary among them--she never makes an appearance, but she is in the middle of everyone's thoughts!).  Here are a few people I did use:

--Jane Dormer, future Duchess of Feria (1538-1612), a lady-in-waiting to Queen Mary, beautiful, betrothed to a Spanish count, future center of the Catholic English opposition abroad.  She only makes a brief appearance here, but her arrival at Hatfield signals that things are about to change in a major way....

--Her fiance, the Duke of Feria (1520-71), King Philip's ambassador to England until 1559.  He does make an appearance in the story, a dinner at Brocket Hall, the home of Elizabeth's friend--an event that actually occurred!

--At the end we see William Cecil and Kat Ashley, Elizabeth's chief secretary and lady-in-waiting respectively, who had both already served her for many years!  We'll see more of them in book 2....