The Green Salamander

The story of Margaret Douglas, Countess of Lennox. The central character in this book is Margaret Douglas, daughter of Henry VIII's sister by marriage into an ambitious clan. A refugee from the wrath of James V of Scotland, she and her father take shelter at the Court of her uncle. It soon proves an unsafe one. Her life is at risk from all sides, not least from Henry as his successive marriages shift his mood unpredictably. Conjured out of the bare historical facts the astonishing contrasts of the period, the religious unrest, the continual bickering between England, Scotland and France; and the rumbustious delight in life when life itself could terminate at any moment on the block.