(Framingham Castle, Suffolk, England, July 12, 1553)

Conditions in England by 1553, with the untimely death of King Edward IV, left a power vacuum open to either a Protestant or Catholic monarch to succeed to the throne. Edward, like his late father King Henry VIII, had made great efforts to avoid such a Catholic recapitulation of the church in England. However, after much intrigue and plotting to avoid the kingdom falling into the hands of Edward's half-sister Mary, investigations commenced, executions were carried out, and many court officials were either banished or imprisoned in the Tower of London.

Two days after Lady Jane Grey was declared Queen of England by a radical Protestant faction, following the wishes of a dying King Edward VI, a contingent of Mary's supporters and military forces congregated at Farmington Castle in Suffolk to cheer on the woman whom they, as Catholics, preferred to reign. Only days later, she was accompanied by eight-hundred nobles and various gentlemen of title and merit into London. Also in attendance on this march was Mary's younger half-sister, Elizabeth Tudor, daughter of Henry VIII. The crowd, gaining in size and fury, made their way to the steps of the Royal Palace at Whitehall while Queen Lady Grey, having ruled for only nine days, was officially deposed. She and her main conspirator, Sir Dudley would later be beheaded for sedition.

Proceedings began among those assembled that day to immediately install who many believed to be the rightful heir to the throne of England—Queen Mary I, Catholic daughter of Henry VIII and Catherine of Aragon. The year of 1555 would see the near-death of Queen Joanna "the mad" of Castile still residing in the Convent of Santa Clara at Tordesillas. Her immanent death in Spain, would soon further cause the powerful courts of Europe to be rife with upheaval and uncertainty. These events allowed for Queen Mary I to begin her turbulent reign in a religiously divided England for the next five years—earning her, through her own religious fervor, the title of "Bloody Mary." This moniker was perhaps justified due to the subsequent persecution of 'heretical' Protestants wishing to maintain the religious persuasion of their two former kings. Some three-hundred such religious martyrs, many of renowned public gentry, were burned at the stake for their refusal to change their faith upon demand.

Paradoxical to her growing notoriety as a vicious queen, Queen Mary was considered a prodigy in her youth and pleased her father by her stunning abilities with languages and musical talent. And like her mother, who was tutored by the brightest, libertine intellects of the day in Spain, including Beatriz Galindo, Mary I was educated by the likes of humanist Juan Luis Vives. For it was he, that Mary's mother, Queen Catherine of Aragon, commissioned to write his famous treatise on the education of girls, "De Institutione Feminae Christianae."

During the first year of her frenetic monarchy, Queen Mary I chose to marry Spain's heir apparent, Phillip II—her own compatriot, second cousin, and son of Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor. This political maneuvre would potentially unite both England and Spain under the faith of Catholicism and provide for much needed economic stability. The dying Joanna of Castile, Phillip's grandmother, and aunt to the new Catholic English queen, saw the opportunity to finally carry out a plan she had kept secret for much of her life. It was the final stage of the stewardship of Penthesilea's remains, which she felt she could no longer guarantee within her own turbulent kingdom or beyond her immanent passing.

Putting the responsibility now into the hands of another participant in the 'Consilium Reginae,' and a trusted female within her own family, Queen Mary I of England, the contemptuous monarch secretly agreed on Joanna's deathbed to guarantee the legacy of the Amazon's society would be carried out. The plan to deliver Penthesilea's body to its new and appropriate tomb, safely in the New World, would be executed.

Already having arranged for the construction and delivery of the marble tomb—secretly conceptualized and designed meticulously by Hypatia of Alexandria, and its placement and assembly orchestrated by the Greek pilot Juan de Fuca, Joanna now only had to insure the delivery of the ancient queen's remains there at a place seen in its day as the very edge of the world. It was a plan Joanna had envisioned since hearing the fanciful romance of Montalvo and his Queen Califia ruling her solitary island of all women, "somewhere on the western side of the terrestrial paradise."

Subsequently, the dying Joanna in Spain, from her isolated convent knew that the tenure of Queen Mary I in England would be challenged by the Protestant faith. It was a strong and progressive infrastructure set in motion by Henry VIII and Edward VI, and adapted with tolerance by many in the north of Europe. For the citizenry there had only recently been aroused by a sweeping re-evaluation of faith which emphasized humanism.

In terms of what she had expected of Queen Mary I to fulfil of her commitment to the order, she was confident that the weight of this responsibility would eventually carry the day—regardless of their religious and political differences. It was widely known to those in Spain, even before the Crown of England had enlisted the services of privateers, that it had also been employing its nautical skills and economic sights in the direction of the New World. England's envy of Spain and desire for quick wealth could not be denied. Such bold English mariners who, for a profit, would carry out special missions of piracy, navigation and transport in the service of their queen, could provide the perfect vehicle for a continuation of 'Juana the mad's' noble plan—the transport of Penthesilea's remains safely out of Europe.

Queen Mary I was now in a position to both supply the resources of Spain and England to accomplish such a task. She could certainly be assured of the clandestine delivery of the new sarcophagus which Joanna had crafted and kept in her secret possession at the convent so long. Joanna of Castile, feeble as her last days were, was careful to arrange for this to occur shortly after her death. It would be delivered to London—much as it had been delivered to her own royal court by the Knights of Saint John, so many years before.

And so it was that on a rainy night in 1556, not long after Charles V had officially abdicated the Spanish throne to his son Phillip II, setting the combined monarchies of Spain and England in motion, a secret coach was once again received at a royal residence. This time it rolled into the seat of English power, London. The new Queen of England was given a specific set of instructions to use whatever powers necessary to carry out the grand plan—that of preserving the wishes of the ancient order of 'Adephes Amazones.' For this was a clandestine duty which both the Spanish and English queen, despite their differences, would not refuse. Mary I, like her royal sisters and cousins by default, and since their childhood, had been members of this female society. It was to be by the very nature of their bloodlines, teachings and gender.

Queen Mary I of England, despite her brutal campaigns against the Protestant uprisings, would not live long enough to receive in her private hours the final directions intended for her industry by the former Spanish queen. It was the map of a detailed location in the New World. The very coastal cliff where the marvelous—and as yet unoccupied, tomb of Penthesilea was to be placed in great secrecy. That location would take years to find, and be indicated by Joanna's own special navigator, the Greek pilot, Juan De Fuca. It would, in fact, take an additional ten years for De Fuca's successful placement of the empty shrine on the lonely California headlands. This eventually left the completion of the "mad queen's" final mission—the delivery of Penthesilea body and sarcophagus into the celebrated tomb, for the next Queen of England to accomplish. And this would be brilliantly orchestrated by the new monarch. It was a remarkable and fearless young woman whom her people would come to call the 'Virgin Queen' –Elizabeth I.

The legacy of Queen Mary I throughout the process of bringing Penthesilea's body to rest in the New World would be minor in the end. It would involve not her own efforts as much as those of her younger half-sister, whom she bestowed the final plans of the mission upon just prior to her own death. Elizabeth I would come to the throne most suddenly and improbably. She would reign following Mary's eight year violent tenure and untimely passing. The policies established by this new Protestant monarch to quell the religious divisiveness of her people was remarkable. And so were her efforts to carry out the final wishes of Penthesilea and her ever-burgeoning ancient society. The voyage to accomplish this mission would be performed by the queen's own favorite navigator and privateer—a great explorer in his own right. It was a plan sworn to secrecy between the two, and executed years later with great finesse.

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