Barbra Streisand sang about people needing people. Our sixteenth and seventeenth century monarchs needed trusted friends more than most in such uncertain times. Among the people you will meet in this book is John Morton, so accomplished at gathering taxes for Henry VII; some pubs are named after him. Physician William Butts, trusted by Henry VIII, and sent to Hever when Anne Boleyn caught the sweating sickness. Barnaby Fitzpatrick, closest friend of Edward VI. Susan Clarencius, Mistress of the Robes to Mary I and her closest friend. Blanche Parry who rocked Elizabeth I’s cradle and stayed in her service until she died, causing Elizabeth ‘enormous sorrow’. Christopher Hatton, so devoted to Elizabeth, he never married. George Villiers, loved by James I ‘more than any other man’. Jane Whorwood, who did her utmost to help the imprisoned Charles I escape. Henry Jermyn, who became known as ‘the founder of the West End’. John Wilmot, an exceptionally clever man who ended life as a dissolute disgrace. Robert Harley, who built an incomparable collection of Saxon and Medieval texts now in the British Library. And not forgetting an accurate account of the life of Abigail Masham, devoted servant to Queen Anne.
