Queen of This Realm

by Jean Plaidy Book 2 in the A Queens of England Novel series.

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Jean Plaidy presents Elizabeth I’s life as a first-person retrospective, beginning with the insecurity that followed the execution of her mother, Anne Boleyn. The young Elizabeth grows up under Henry VIII’s unpredictable rule, survives the dangerous politics of Edward VI and Mary I, and eventually inherits a kingdom divided by religion and threatened by foreign powers.

As queen, Elizabeth learns to make uncertainty a political weapon. Her attachment to Robert Dudley remains constrained by the demands of monarchy, while the presence of Mary, Queen of Scots creates an increasingly dangerous dynastic alternative. The narrative carries her through religious settlement, courtship diplomacy, overseas expansion and the Spanish Armada. Beneath the public image of the Virgin Queen, Plaidy emphasises the cost of a life in which affection, marriage and even family loyalty are continually subordinated to the survival of the crown.