The Percy sisters were born during the reign of Elizabeth I, daughters of the Earl of Northumberland, one of the most powerful men in the land and a conspirator in the gun powder plot. They came to prominence at the Court of Charles I.

Lucy, the Countess of Carlisle was one of the most admired and courted young women of the time, becoming Buckingham’s mistress and then that of the ill-fated Thomas Wentworth, Earl of Strafford. She used her position at the centre of power to great advantage. Her beauty, immortalised in van Dyke’s portraits, along with her political skill and her charm and talents as a gossip kept her securely in the Queen's inner circle as Mistress of the Bedchamber.

Her elder sister Dorothy was, in contrast, the quintessential country wife. She married Robert Lisle, a descendent of Sir Philip Sidney, at a young age and produced 13 children. She lived most of her life at Penshurst Place and managed the family estates while her husband was either embroiled in his duties as ambassador to France or in scholarship. But in later life and after 37 years of marriage, her husband publicly left her, causing a terrible scandal. The story of the lives of these two dazzling women embrace a pivotal moment in the development of democracy - the beginning of the movement for parliamentary reform - and with the outbreak of Civil War the sisters find themselves on opposing sides, each desperately trying to exert influence over both the King and Parliamentary forces.

Lita Rose Betcherman's profile page

Lita-Rose Betcherman received a doctorate in Tudor and Stuart history from the University of Toronto and was the Women's Bureau Director for the province of Ontario. The author of three books on Canadian history, she lives in Toronto.