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The Recess; or, a Tale of Other Times is an epistolary historical novel by Sophia Lee, an English novelist, dramatist, and educator.

Plot
The Recess; or, a Tale of Other Times is an epistolary work of historic fiction told in long letters written by twin sisters Matilda and Ellinor (with interjections by Mary Sidney, Countess of Pembroke). In the fiction of the novel, Ellinor and Matilda are the secret daughters of historic Mary, Queen of Scots, and the Duke of Norfolk. Raised in "the Recess," the secret cave-like area of a ruined monasteries, the sisters learn of their parentage from their foster mother, Mrs. Marlow, on her deathbed. They leave the Recess when Matilda falls in love with/rapidly marries Lord Leicester. Both sisters end up at the court of Queen Elizabeth I, where Ellinor falls in love with Lord Essex. The two sisters are separated when Matilda - who is pregnant, and needs to conceal it from the Queen, who doesn’t know her favorite Leicester is married - and Leicester escape to France, where they are betrayed by Matilda’s Roman Catholic relatives. Leicester dies, and the stereotypically evil nuns that become a trope in Gothic fiction try to convert Matilda. However, she ends up being abducted by her cousin and ends up in Jamaica, where she is saved by the deus ex machina of a slave revolt. Although Matilda is imprisoned there for eight years, her daughter, Mary, lives a life of relative freedom because she becomes the favorite of the Governor of Jamaica's black mistress. By the time Matilda and Mary return to England, James I is king.

Meanwhile, Ellinor has fallen in love with Essex, and their love is tortured and secretive. When Matilda and Leicester escape, Ellinor gets exposed as Mary’s daughter, imprisoned and forced to a sign a declaration that their parentage is false. At the same time, Queen Elizabeth further punishes Ellinor by forcing her to marry someone who isn’t Essex; she slowly goes mad, with some intervals of hope that go away when Essex dies. By the time Matilida returns from Jamaica, Ellinor has lost all semblance of sanity; she dies shortly after being reunited with Matilda, gazing in agony on a portrait of Essex. Matilda raises Mary in isolation, hoping to avoid the fate she and her sister suffered when they decided to leave the Recess. Mary ends up being poisoned by the jealous wife of TK. The story ends with Mary, living in exile in France and looking forward to what she hopes is her imminent death.