eBooks - Historical Fiction - Historical Fiction - Jean Plaidy - The Merry Monarch's Wife
The Merry Monarch's Wife eBooks
by Jean Plaidy
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Windows Vista / XP / 2000, Mac OS X, Sony Reader Features
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Windows PC, Windows Mobile 5.0-6.0, Pocket PC 2003 Features
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Palm, Windows Mobile, Pocket PC, Windows PC, Mac, iPhone/iPod Touch Features
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The Merry Monarch's Wife Summary
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Prelude My life will end where it began, for in the year 1692 I left England where I had gone some thirty years before as a bride to the most romantic prince in Europe. I smile now to consider how ill-equipped I was for such a position, and when I look back I say to myself, “If I had done this . . . ,” “If I had not done that . . . how much happier my life would have been.” But then, although I was not very young—I was twenty-four, which is a mature age for a princess to embark on marriage—I was quite innocent of the world and had hardly ever strayed from the walls of the convent where I had received my education, or the precincts of the royal palace. I had been brought up between the nuns and my mother with the strictest rules on moral rectitude, to be plunged into what was known as one of the most licentious courts in Europe. Naturally there was much which I could not understand and could not accept. I was lost and bewildered and desperately unhappy. But when I came back to Portugal and my brother, Don Pedro, the King, gave me the Quinta de Alcantara, one of his summer palaces, where I lived in comfort, his wife, Queen Maria Sophia, became my good friend, and I was fêted by the people wherever I went. They could not forget that, by my alliance with England, I had helped to free them from the Spanish yoke. Everywhere I went, I was assured of their gratitude and that was heart-warming. When my health worsened, my brother sent me to the palace of Santa Martha and then to Belem where I have stayed. He and his Queen show great concern for me. It was a great joy to visit the Villa Viçosa, called by some the Paradise of Portugal, whe... |
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eBooks - Titles - Authors - Historical Fiction - Historical Fiction - Jean Plaidy - The Merry Monarch's Wife