The Queen's Lender
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$0.99/mo for 3 months + $20 Audible bonus voucher
The Queen's Lender
Buy Now for $19.99
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Narrated by:
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Jean Findlay
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By:
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Jean Findlay
George Heriot, jeweller to King James VI and I, moves with the Court from Edinburgh to London to take over the English throne. It is 1603. Life is a Babel of languages and glittering new wealth. The Scottish court speaks Danish, German, Middle Scots, French and Latin. King James gives Shakespeare his first secure position, and to calm the perfidious religious tensions, he commissions his translation of the Bible.George becomes wealthier than the king as he creates a fashion for hat jewels and mingles with Drummond of Hawthornden, Ben Johnson, Inigo Jones and the mysterious ambassador Luca Von Modrich... However both king and courtier bow before the phenomenal power invested in their wives.
©2026 Scotland Street Press (P)2022 Jean FindlayCritic Reviews
'Passionate, risk-taking, aesthetically conservative: a compendious biography of Proust's great interpreter reveals the paradoxes of his varied career' - The Guardian
(D J Taylor)New York Review of Books link to review here
(Walter Kaiser)'A joy to read. In George Heriot – Edinburgh goldsmith, royal jeweller, and philanthropist – Findlay has found an everyman through whom we all get access to the weird world of royalty. Her novel captures the domestic wit and warmth, alongside the casual brutality of the court of James VI of Scotland and I of England. Beautifully pitched between the homeliness and the haughtiness of the Shakespearean era – and often very funny.' - Sarah Fraser, author of The Prince who would be King
(Sarah Fraser, NYT Beselling author of The Last Highlander)'(I) much enjoyed The Queen's Lender - echoes of Scott's Fortunes of Nigel and Linklater's Ben Jonson and King James but it has its own stylistic distinction, tender but enamelled.' - Alan Riach, Professor of Scottish Literature at The University of Glasgow
(Alan Riach, Professor of Scottish Literature)'A stunning novel about the birth of the United Kingdom that demonstrates the scholarship of the author, as well as her imaginative power.' - Richard Holloway
(Richard Holloway)'With a wonderful insight into life in 17th-century Edinburgh and London, The Queen's Lender is about power, suspicion, religious strife, persecution, and conspiracy. Fast-paced, informative, gripping and beautifully written, seen through the turbulent years of the reign of James VI of Scotland and I of England. Royal court intrigue at its finest.' – Historical Writers Association
(Historical Writers Association)