The Firemaster's Mistress

by Christie Dickason (Author)

• New

  Paperback
  2008

  $19.73

• Used

  Paperback
  2006

  $3.25

  In the troubled year of 1605, Papist plots are rife in the gaudy streets of Shakespeare's London as the fifth of November approaches ...Francis Quoynt, Firemaster, is recently returned from Flanders and dreaming of making fireworks rather than war. Instead, Quoynt is recruited by Robert Cecil, First Minister, to spy on Guido Fawkes and his fellow conspirators. Meanwhile, Sir Francis Bacon is scheming for high position and spying on Quoynt. Kate Peach, a glove maker, was Quoynt's lover before war took him away. Now living in Southwark, she is brought into grave danger. She is a secret Catholic. A fugitive Jesuit is concealed in her rooms. While Francis hopes to prevent the death of King James I and everyone in his parliament, Kate will have to save herself ...

• Used

  Hardcover
  2005

  $3.25

  Remember, Remember the Fifth of November ...On the fourth centenary of Guy Fawkes' attempt to blow up King James I and his parliament, here is the true, astonishing and never-before-told story of the infamous Gunpowder and Treason conspiracy. Through the eyes of the courtesan Kate Peach and the Fire Master Francis Quoynt, the dramatic plot of Guy Fawkes and his fellow Papist hotheads unfolds in the gaudy, conspiracy-ridden streets of Shakespeare's Southwark, the court of King James I at Whitehall, and the lanes of the fishing village of Brighton. The official story of the Gunpowder Plot, put together for his own advantage by the First Minister Robert Cecil, has for centuries concealed with whitewash the scale of the threat posed to the new Stuart dynasty. Cecil is not the villain, though, that title goes to Francis Bacon. There is savage enmity between these two intellectual giants, tempestuous love between Kate Peach and Quoynt, and a terrorist incident in the 17th century on the scale of 9/11 2001 - even though it was foiled, we still remember it. This wonderful, complex story tears a big hole in a cherished piece of history revealing a shared delusion four hundred years old, a very surprising and satisfying love story, and a new conspiracy theory that is chillingly appropriate to the present day.