The dark throne

The Dark Throne is a 2011 historical novel by German author Rebecca Gablé . It is the fourth part of the Waringham saga .

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The plot begins in 1529. The 14-year-old Nicholas of Waringham, nicknamed Nick, attends the school of the humanist Thomas More in Chelsea, but has to return to Waringham, where he and his sister Laura face the open hostility of his stepmother Yolanda Howard and her Daughter is delivered. During this time Nick takes care of his half-brother Raymond, but shortly afterwards his father is arrested and murdered in the Tower . He was the only man who still stood in the way of King Henry VIII's divorce from his wife Catalina of Aragon and his marriage to Anne Boleyn . Meanwhile, Nick is hopelessly overwhelmed with his new role as Earl, as his stepmother undermines all of his authority over the farmers and tries to put a steward , her brother Edmund , in front of him. To make matters worse , Queen Catalina makes him promise to look after her daughter Princess Mary in the event of a divorce . Nick is only moderately enthusiastic. Laura and her husband move to London and Nick starts a relationship with his maid, Polly.

Although he is still officially married to Catalina, King Henry banishes both his daughter Mary and his wife from court and marries his now pregnant lover Anne, which is very upsetting to Mary and has an impact on her health. Nick, having overcome his initial shyness, visits her often to stand by her and makes no secret of his opinion about the royal women’s stories. When, almost a year after the birth of little Princess Elizabeth and his and Polly's daughter Eleanor, he refuses to swear an oath on the Law of Succession , which revokes Mary's right to the throne, he can barely escape Tower and Streckbank, but has to leave for some time withdraw from the life in court and politics and smuggle themselves, Polly and her daughter as a groom and milkmaid into the household of the princess, in which Mary was also accommodated. He becomes her only connection to the outside world, but his masquerade forces him to marry Polly, who is now pregnant again, which he regards as an unbearable shame, although he has a guilty conscience because he is neither her nor his son Francis, the nine Born months later, can love. Meanwhile, the intrigues at court increase, Thomas More is executed, the king seems to lose interest in Anne Boleyn and instead casts an eye on the young Jane Seymour and Mary can no longer be sure of her life either. But their escape to the continent is thwarted, Nick is exposed and shot and locked in the tower, where he witnesses the Boleyn disaster and meets his estranged half-brother again. Anne Boleyn is accused of adultery with at least seven lovers, including her own brother George , and Raymond not only witnesses their execution, but also watches the beheading of five of their alleged beauties. In order to avoid this fate, Nick and Mary finally agree to swear the oath on the law of succession and thus to capitulate.

Henry marries Jane Seymour , who dies shortly after the birth of her son Prince Edward , and Nick moves back to Waringham with Polly and his children, where his stepmother makes his life hell. But Polly in particular has to suffer from her and the anger of the peasants, so that Nick sends her to Edward's court with guilty relief as governess together with Francis and Eleanor, who loves the now also outcast Princess Elizabeth like a sister.

At the instigation of Thomas Cromwell , an iron reformer, all English monasteries are dissolved , sparking both a series of bitter protests and a flood of unemployed monks, nuns and the needy. Nick opens an orphanage in London, where he employs two displaced monks and gives some children a roof over their heads and a minimum level of education. King Henry marries Anna von Kleve , to whom he, however, feels little drawn and is already devising methods of getting rid of her. Mary struggles with some engagements, which are almost always broken up immediately, while Nick increasingly distances himself from his family at the court of little Prince Edward. Instead, he falls in love with the young nun Janis Finley of Fernbrook, whom he hires as a teacher at his school, where Janis soon embraces the charitable Earl in a way that she is uneasy about. Nick's brother Raymond , on the other hand, is madly in love with Katherine Howard , the daughter of his uncle Edmund , who in turn has King Henry directed his covetous gaze. Soon after, he divorced Anna von Kleve and married the seventeen-year-old Katherine, who shortly thereafter cheated on him with three lovers, including her cousin Raymond Howard. In order not to be recognized, Raymond is supposed to flee to the continent with Nick's help, but hangs himself that same night. Nick begins an absolutely illegal affair with Janis, while Katherine Howard and her remaining lovers ( Thomas Culpeper and Francis Dereham ) are executed for treason.

When he was seven years old, Francis was sent to Nick in Waringham and only now did Nick really get to know his son and, more importantly, love. With the help of a few friends he set up a school in Waringham and asked Janis to work as a teacher there. She reluctantly accepts, but then goes completely into her new world, especially when Nick's stepmother sends her grandniece Millicent to Waringham, who shows a keen interest in books and Francis as well. In order to make learning Latin more bearable for his students, Nick writes animal stories in which the funny character of the whole event is the lion, the king of the animals: fat, gnawed, lazy and lazy, he sends brave knights into exile and has a different one in every story Woman. Nick wants to make children laugh with it, but digs his own grave. The contents of his stories are interpreted as high treason against the crown and Nick is condemned to death by beheading. Already on the scaffold, he takes a breath for his last words when the news arrives that King Henry had died in the morning hours of the previous day, that all judgments are to be overturned and the convicts to be pardoned.

By revealing some piquant details that Yolanda Howard had kept from her stepson and Janis Finley from her lover, Nick and Polly's marriage and a marriage to Janis are possible. Nick and Polly are equally grateful for this simple solution. He promises her, however, that Francis will continue to be recognized as his heir.

In 1553, shortly after Francis' marriage to Millicent Howard, the young King Edward died of consumption and the dispute over succession broke out again. Privy Council and Parliament want to bring Jane Gray , who, as the maternal granddaughter of Mary Tudor , the younger sister of Henry VIII, was directly behind the king's legitimate children in the line of succession, to the throne. The English people, however, want Mary. In order to force Nick and Mary to give in, Francis and Millicent are held hostage by the Duke of Northumberland in the tower until Northumberland's troops join Mary and he has to give in. The English get their way and Mary is crowned at Westminster Abbey in October .

people

Waringham:

• Nicholas of Waringham
• Laura of Waringham, his sister
• Jasper of Waringham, her father
• Yolanda "Swamp Witch" Howard, her stepmother
• Louise "Nrechnut" Howard, her stepsister
• Raymond of Waringham, her half-brother
• Philip Durham, Laura's husband
• Father Ranulf, a miserable pastor
• Polly Saddler, the maid
• John Harrison, Nick's cousin from the north
• Madog and Owen Pembroke, Nick's Welsh cousins
• Eleanor and Francis of Waringham, Nick's oldest children

The Royal family:

• Henry Tudor VIII *, King of England
• Mary Tudor *, his sister
• Katherine "Catalina" of Aragón *, Henry's Queen No. 1
• Mary I *, Queen of England, her daughter
• Anne Boleyn *, Henry's Queen No. 2
• Elizabeth I *, Queen of England, her daughter
• Jane Seymour *, Henry's Queen No. 3
• Edward VI *, King of England, her son
• Anna von Kleve *, Henry's Queen No. 4
• Katherine Howard *, Henry's Queen No. 5
• Katherine Parr *, Henry's Queen No. 6
• Jane Gray *, Queen of England, Mary Tudor's granddaughter

Court and nobility:

• Thomas More *, humanist, lawyer, writer, Lord Chancellor and brilliant mind
• Thomas Cromwell *, reformer, vicar general of the Church of England, private secretary to the king and gray eminence
• Charles Brandon *, Duke of Suffolk, Nick's godfather and husband of Mary Tudor
• William Kingston, * the constable of the Tower, who almost always had a full house to look after
• Edmund Howard *, a monster, father of Queen No. 5
• Thomas Howard *, Duke of Norfolk, his brother
• Jerome Dudley *, Nick's friend
• John Dudley *, Earl of Warwick and Duke of Northumberland, his brother
• Robin * and Guildford * Dudley, his sons
• Eustace Chapuys *, envoy and spy of the emperor at the English court
• George Boleyn *, Viscount of Rochford, brother of Queen No. 2
• Jane Parker *, Lady Rochford, his wife
• Lord & Lady Shelton *, Chamberlain and First Governess in Princess Elizabeth's household
• Edward Seymour *, Earl of Hertford and Duke of Somerset, state brother of Queen No. 3
• Thomas Seymour *, the reckless brother of Queen No. 3 and the husband of the (widowed) Queen No. 6
• Francis Dereham * and Thomas Culpeper *, two beau of the Queen No. 5 of dubious reputation
• Richard Rich *, a loathsome man who occasionally bailed King Henry out with perjury

Women falling out of character

• Margaret "Meg" Roper *, Thomas More's daughter and confidante
• Margaret Pole *, Countess of Sailisbury, Princess Mary's godmother
• Janis Finley, a passionate teacher
• Susanna Horenbout *, painter

Churchmen, reformers and martyrs

• Simon Fish *, a reformer with a sense of mission
• Thomas Wolsey *, Cardinal, Lord Chancellor and Archbishop of York
• Richard Mekins *, a very young reformer
• Edmund Bonner *, Bishop of London
• Thomas Cranmer *, Archbishop of Canterbury
• Stephen Gardiner *, Bishop of Winchester
• Anthony Pargeter, Southwark Parish Minister and Angel of Mercy
• Simon Neville, Prior of St. Thomas, priest, teacher and poet

Remarks

The book skips several generations in the Waringhams family tree, the Waringhams family tree can be viewed on the author's website.

In December 2011, the novel won the Lovelybooks reader price than historical Best Novel 2011 .

expenditure

• Hardcover, Cologne 2011, Lübbe-Verlag, 955 pages, ISBN 978-3-431-03840-8
• E-book, Cologne 2011, Lübbe Digital, ISBN 978-3-8387-1027-3
• Paperback, Cologne 2013, Bastei Lübbe Verlag, ISBN 978-3-404-16843-9
• Audio book, 12 CDs (shortened), read by Detlef Bierstedt , Cologne 2011, Lübbe Audio, ISBN 978-3-7857-4567-0
• Audiobook download (unabridged), read by Detlef Bierstedt , Cologne 2011, Lübbe Audio

swell

1. ↑ The Best Books 2011 . aboutbooks GmbH. Retrieved February 18, 2019.

• Rebecca Gablé: The Dark Throne , Lübbe-Verlag

Web links

• Author's website