The French books in the series are Duchessina (2007), about the life of Catherine de' Medici, and The Bad Queen: Rules and Instructions for Marie-Antoinette (2010).
Mary's father develops a strong attachment towards Anne Boleyn, who is slowly rising in the ranks as her mother is lowered.
The events of the past few years have been enough to turn the princess into the bitter, cruel woman known as "Bloody Mary" for her angry persecution of English Protestants.
When she became queen at the age of thirty-seven, she would burn hundreds of people at the stake for their religious belief, execute her sixteen-year-old cousin, Lady Jane Grey and imprison her own half-sister Elizabeth in the Tower of London.
Susan, Mary's friend and a main character in the novel, is portrayed as the daughter of the Thomas Howard, 3rd Duke of Norfolk, making her Anne Boleyn's first cousin.
He in fact had no children by the name of Susan, making the scene where he brutally strikes her for defending her mistress over the claims of her illegitimacy, causing her lip to be split open, entirely fictional.
The book portrays Mary as having been summoned to attend to birth of her younger half-sister Elizabeth, which took place at Greenwich Palace.
She survives three reigns in the interim: Edward VI, the sickly, only-surviving son of King Henry VIII and his third wife; Lady Jane Grey, the political pawn who lasted on the throne for only nine days; and Mary, who grabs the throne by force and later has Lady Jane beheaded.
Mary serves England a little reign of terror, as her personal unhappiness, religious intolerance, and inability to produce an heir leads to the death of hundreds of political opponents.
[6][7] Always under suspicion of treason, Princess Elizabeth is imprisoned by Queen Mary I in the Tower of London and on various estates where she is isolated and forced to pretend a conversion to Catholicism.
[7] Elizabeth's strength of will and growing popular support sustain her through the cruelty of her older half-sister, upon whose death she finally inherits the throne.
Edward VI, however, refuses him permission and he instead settles for Henry VIII's widow Catherine Parr, who is also in love with him.
Later, after Seymour commits treason and Elizabeth learns that the real reason for his interest in her was for her connections to the crown, she no longer feels anything for him.
However, when Elizabeth began living with the newly wed couple as Catherine's ward, Seymour tried to seduce the princess, but his methods were far from the innocent portrayal of the book.
This went on until her governess, Kat Ashley, begged him to stop in order to save Elizabeth's reputation, as people had begun to gossip.
Catherine Parr eventually put a stop to it, sending her ward away in order to preserve the remains of her reputation.