
England under Elizabeth I: A time of war & plague politics & rebellion personal heroism & religious fanaticism. When if you were born poor you stayed poor & the thumbscrews & the rack could be the grim prelude to the executioners block. But it was also an age that encouraged literary genius global exploration & timeless beauty. It was when the lowly privateer Francis Drake circumnavigated the globe with no reliable navigational instruments & only a drunken mutinous crew for company. When the Queens favourite the wealthy & handsome Robert Dudley was widely suspected of having killed his wife. & when only the machinations of ruthless intriguers like William Cecil & Francis Walsingham prevented Elizabeths kingdom from descending into anarchy & political chaos. The Elizabethans" is a panoramic exhilarating depiction of an intensely colourful period by master-historian A N Wilson. This is what life under Elizabeth I was really like."