By time
Choose a stretch of time, meet the people gathered there, and move outward through the places that held them.
Current period
1580s opens onto 2 lives, 2 place stories, and 1 named historical windows.
Lives in this period
These are the clearest lives to open first when you want a person, not a date label, to lead you into the period.
1587 - Fotheringhay Castle
Captivity, misrepresentation, and royal intelligence under sentence.
Confined at Fotheringhay, a queen who was never allowed to rule writes her account before her cousin's axe falls.
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1588 - Blois
Court crisis, dynastic weakness, and strategy under slander.
At Blois, as the court tightens around her, a queen mother writes the truth about thirty years of keeping France alive.
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Places inside this time
In 1580s, use the same years to move from chronology into cities, courts, islands, and regions that already carry deeper context.
Alive in this timeline around 1587 / story span 1587
Connected to 1 life including Mary Queen of Scots.
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Alive in this timeline around 1588 / story span 1576-1588
Connected to 1 life including Catherine de' Medici.
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Named windows
1 windows to step into
Renaissance
1400 to 1600
Art, learning, and authority concentrated in courts, studios, and city-states.
14 lives visible here
13 place stories active in the same years
Enter this periodTime travel
1580 CE to 1589 CE
Time controls
Change the span without losing your route back into the lives and places already visible in this period.
2 place stories are visible in this time window.
Chronology
Move year by year, compare one life with the next, and open a person directly when the route becomes clear.
1587 - Fotheringhay Castle
Place story available
Captivity, misrepresentation, and royal intelligence under sentence.
Confined at Fotheringhay, a queen who was never allowed to rule writes her account before her cousin's axe falls.
1580s across the atlas
1587 - Fotheringhay Castle
1588 - Blois
Decades
1588 - Blois
Place story available
Court crisis, dynastic weakness, and strategy under slander.
At Blois, as the court tightens around her, a queen mother writes the truth about thirty years of keeping France alive.
1603 - Whitehall
monarchy-and-court
A contrasting life shaped by monarchy and court.
In her final winter, a queen who gave everything to England asks whether the throne was worth what it destroyed.
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