Von Lehndorff sat up straight in the saddle, trying to catch a glimpse of the enemy. There were lords and there were servants. He was the lord of these lands. He drew his sword in order to defend what had belonged to his family for centuries.

Philip wanted a Catholic England; but, even more than that, he wanted England kept out of the arms of France, with whom his father’s Habsburg Empire was at war. The next Catholic heir to his wife’s throne was the young Mary, Queen of Scots, currently living at the French court as the intended bride of the dauphin. If support for the bastard heretic

the Earl of Essex, who was sulking in a showy display of temper after an argument with the queen. At a meeting with her councillors that June, Elizabeth had refused to agree to Essex’s choice of a new Lord Deputy in rebellion-torn Ireland. In a rage, he had turned his back on her, at which insult Elizabeth had cuffed his ear, only for Essex, in the