Elizabeth

Product Description

An abused child, yet confident of her destiny to reign, a woman in a man¹s world, passionately sexual yet, she said, a virgin, famed as England's most successful ruler yet actually doing very little, Elizabeth I is a bundle of contradictions. Starting with Elizabeth¹s own speeches & writings, Starkey lays novel emphasis on two things: her faith made her see religion as a purely personal relationship between the individual conscience & God, yet her sophisticated education led her to a smoke-&-mirrors view of politics, in which clever image-making & speech-writing could solve or postpone real problems. The result was a surprisingly contemporary approach to some very modern questions, like civil strife in Scotland & Ireland & the risk of England¹s absorption into a European super-state. This new approach to the enigma of the Queen¹s character is presented within a lively & readable retelling of her reign; her love for Robert Dudley, the tragi-comedy of her favourites & suitors, her epic struggles with Mary Queen of Scots & Philip II of Spain, & the final, humiliating debacle of her relationship with Robert Devereux, Earl of Essex.