Elizabeth the Queen

Name: Elizabeth the Queen
Rating: 4.03 (32920 reviews)

by Alison Weir

First published 1998

Amazon

4.0(32,920)

This biography follows Elizabeth I from accession in 1558 to death in 1603, combining the public monarch with the private woman behind the royal image. It examines her relationship with Robert Dudley, marriage negotiations, Mary, Queen of Scots, religious settlement, war with Spain and the fall of Essex. Elizabeth emerges as a guarded and adaptable ruler who converted personal uncertainty, performance and political delay into durable authority.

Elizabeth’s unmarried status is treated as a political instrument as well as a personal circumstance. Negotiations could postpone decisions, encourage alliances and keep competing factions uncertain, but they also left the succession unresolved. The biography connects that calculated ambiguity with her use of image, ceremony and selective access to create authority in a court that constantly sought signs of private preference.

Historical Periods

Elizabethan Religious Settlement1559–1563 CE Northern Rebellion1569–1570 CE Spanish Armada1588 CE Essex Rebellion1601 CE

Genres

Court & Political Fiction

Historical people

Elizabeth I1533–1603 Philip II of Spain1527–1598 Robert Dudley, 1st Earl of Leicester1532–1588 Mary, Queen of Scots1542–1587 Robert Devereux, 2nd Earl of Essex1565–1601 William Cecil, 1st Baron Burghley1520–1598 Francis Walsingham1532–1590

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