It is 1560, and the newly crowned Elizabeth I is about to become romantically involved with Robert Dudley when an old woman appears bearing a diary written in the hand of the young queen's mother, Anne Boleyn. Elizabeth has grown up knowing nothing of her notorious mother but what official history put forth: that she was an adulterer and traitor and deserved to die. Now, reading her mother's diary, she learns the truth.She learns of the unstable King Henry VIII, the pious Queen Catherine, scheming Cardinal Wolsey, high-minded Thomas More - and much, much more . . .