Overview

Born in 1533, Elizabeth I was the product of the doomed marriage of Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn. In 1558, on her Catholic sister Mary's death, she ascended the throne and reigned for 45 years. Loved and respected by her subjects and idolised by future generations, Gloriana's fierce devotion to her country and its people made her England's fairest queen and icon. Royal marriage in the age of Elizabeth was a political business. Unions between great familes could be the key to security at home and to the making of great empires. No one represented a better prize than Elizabeth. She encouraged attention and spent her life surrounded by suitors, but she remained, until the end, married only to her kingdom. This, the third volume of Alison Plowden's Elizabethan quartet, plots the true story of the Virgin Queen's courtships and her career as ""the greatest tease in history"".

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9780750921978

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Reviews

This is the fourth book on the Tudor period that Alison Plowden has published since 1971, and one has the feeling she never needs to look anything up, having all the facts securely in mind. For this period, however, it is more a matter of chewing over the old material - chronicles, ambassadors' letters, private correspondence - and coming up with a new interpretation. Plowden has already written about Elizabeth's girlhood, Elizabeth and the Catholics, and just last year, the House of Tudor. This time she focuses on the matrimonial chess game Elizabeth played with such skill, herself the advanced pawn. Her councillors, remembering the Wars of the Roses, urged her to marry, bear children, and secure the succession to the throne. The Queen enjoyed the company of men, rejoiced in flirtation. But she liked power more, and in the 16th century, queens-regnant who married were likely to be in trouble. The most notorious examples were very close: her own half-sister, poor Bloody Mary, who desperately needed a man, any man, to rely on, and Mary, Queen of Scots, whose passions twice overcame her common sense. In that era, even a privileged woman had to choose; Elizabeth chose power, and in the end her subjects were content. Yea, to satisfie you, I have already joyned myself in Marriage to an Husband, namely, the Kingdom of England. Alison Plowden's latest book is a spin-off, for specialists only - a pity, because she writes with unusual clarity and elegance. (Kirkus Reviews)

Author Information

The late ALISON PLOWDEN worked at the BBC as a script editor in Features and Drama, before leaving to work as a full-time writer. She specialised in the Tudor and Stuart periods and had numerous books published including Henrietta Maria, The House of Tudor, Two Queens in One Isle and Elizabeth I.

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