The Queen's Lender (Queens of Europe #1)

George Heriot, jeweller of King James VI, bounces off the page in this thoughtfully crafted fictional narrative of a man who became richer than the king himself, but was nonetheless bound by the hardships and limitations of the times in which he lived in. Findlay produces a very human and detailed fictional account of a very real man with a very real influence, the school in Edinburgh being founded by him as one example of a strand of his influence, but throughout his life nonetheless encountered a prolonged balancing act of power between that of his own wife, the king’s, ambassadors etc. and must consequently adjust to the precarious life at court in London.