Photographs, illustrations, and text provide information about life in England before and during the reign of Queen Elizabeth I, covering the years between 1533 and 1603, discussing the Queen's court, conditions in London, foreign affairs, and other topics.
Peter Ackroyd, one of Britain's most acclaimed writers, brings the age of the Tudors to vivid life in this monumental book in his The History of England series, charting the course of English history from Henry VIII's cataclysmic break with Rome to the epic rule of Elizabeth I. Rich in detail and atmosphere, Peter Ackroyd's Tudors is the story of Henry VIII's relentless pursuit of both the perfect wife and the perfect heir; of how the brief reign of the teenage king, Edward VI, gave way to the violent reimposition of Catholicism and the stench of bonfires under "Bloody Mary." It tells, too, of the long reign of Elizabeth I, which, though marked by civil strife, plots against the queen and even an invasion force, finally brought stability. Above all, however, it is the story of the English Reformation and the making of the Anglican Church. At the beginning of the sixteenth century, England was still largely feudal and looked to Rome for direction; at its end, it was a country where good governance was the duty of the state, not the church, and where men and women began to look to themselves for answers rather than to those who ruled them.
"Focussing on the intense period of raised hopes and dashed expectations between Christmas 1602 and Christmas 1603, Leanda de Lisle tells in detail the story of Elizabeth's death and how the suffocating conservatism of her rule was replaced with that of the energetic, seemingly fair-minded James." "As James journeys south from Scotland, he is confronted with the extraordinary wealth of his new kingdom, but also with English contempt for his Scots entourage and a stubborn rejection of his hopes for the union of Britain. As the welcome turns sour, those who are disappointed in James turn to intrique and hatch plots against him before the crown is even on his head. Lives are lost and fortunes won in the struggle for power and influence."--BOOK JACKET.
'Reading this book is like taking a ride on a marvellously exhilarating time-machine, alive with colour, surprise and sheer merriment' Jan Morris Elizabethan London reveals the practical details of everyday life so often ignored in conventional history books. It begins with the River Thames, the lifeblood of Elizabethan London, before turning to the streets and the traffic in them. Liza Picard surveys building methods and shows us the interior decor of the rich and the not-so-rich, and what they were likely to be growing in their gardens. Then the Londoners of the time take the stage, in all their amazing finery. Plague, smallpox and other diseases afflicted them. But food and drink, sex and marriage and family life provided comfort. Cares could be forgotten in a playhouse or the bull-baiting of bear-baiting rings, or watching a good cockfight. Liza Picard's wonderfully skilful and vivid evocation of the London of Elizabeth I enables us to share the delights, as well as the horrors, of the everyday lives of our sixteenth-century ancestors.
“Helen Castor has an exhilarating narrative gift. . . . Readers will love this book, finding it wholly absorbing and rewarding.” —Hilary Mantel, Booker Prize-winning author of Wolf Hall In the tradition of Antonia Fraser, David Starkey, and Alison Weir, prize-winning historian Helen Castor delivers a compelling, eye-opening examination of women and power in England, witnessed through the lives of six women who exercised power against all odds—and one who never got the chance. With the death of Edward VI in 1553, England, for the first time, would have a reigning queen. The question was: Who? Four women stood upon the crest of history: Katherine of Aragon’s daughter, Mary; Anne Boleyn’s daughter, Elizabeth; Mary, Queen of Scots; and Lady Jane Grey. But over the centuries, other exceptional women had struggled to push the boundaries of their authority and influence—and been vilified as “she-wolves” for their ambitions. Revealed in vivid detail, the stories of Eleanor of Aquitaine, Isabella of France, Margaret of Anjou, and the Empress Matilda expose the paradox that England’s next female leaders would confront as the Tudor throne lay before them—man ruled woman, but these women sought to rule a nation.
Discusses the life of Queen Elizabeth I, from her birth to Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn in 1533, her imprisonment by her half-sister, through her reign as one of England's more respected monarchs, to her death in 1603. The birth of Elizabeth Tudor, the future queen of England, was a bitter disappointment to her parents. Her father, Henry VIII, had all but moved heaven and earth to marry her mother after his first wife failed to produce a male heir. Henry had Elizabeth's mother executed when she failed to bear more children and eventually married four more times. He finally got a son, but Edward was sickly and died soon after becoming king. After surviving the bloody reign of her older half sister, who tried and failed to lead England back into the Catholic fold, Elizabeth became queen at age twenty-five. Elizabeth drew on the survival skills she learned as a child to guide her beloved country during dangerous times. When she came to power in 1558, England was nearly broke, religious conflict divided her people, and powerful Spain threatened invasion. She man- aged to restore the treasury and to keep the country from sinking into religious violence. She held off the Spanish by using wily diplomacy, including the pro- mise of a marriage to King Philip II. In 1588, the English navy sent the supposedly invincible Spanish Armada to a crushing defeat. At home, Elizabeth was often the focus of intrigue from those wanting to seize the throne. She was a brilliant and riveting ruler who imprinted her personality on an age of develop- ment in art and culture and rapid political and economic change. Elizabeth I of England brings this fascinating queen and her exciting reign to life.
This long-awaited and masterfully edited volume contains nearly all of the writings of Queen Elizabeth I: the clumsy letters of childhood, the early speeches of a fledgling queen, and the prayers and poetry of the monarch's later years. The first collection of its kind, Elizabeth I reveals brilliance on two counts: that of the Queen, a dazzling writer and a leading intellect of the English Renaissance, and that of the editors, whose copious annotations make the book not only essential to scholars but accessible to general readers as well. "This collection shines a light onto the character and experience of one of the most interesting of monarchs. . . . We are likely never to get a closer or clearer look at her. An intriguing and intense portrait of a woman who figures so importantly in the birth of our modern world."—Publishers Weekly "An admirable scholarly edition of the queen's literary output. . . . This anthology will excite scholars of Elizabethan history, but there is something here for all of us who revel in the English language."—John Cooper, Washington Times "Substantial, scholarly, but accessible. . . . An invaluable work of reference."—Patrick Collinson, London Review of Books "In a single extraordinary volume . . . Marcus and her coeditors have collected the Virgin Queen's letters, speeches, poems and prayers. . . . An impressive, heavily footnoted volume."—Library Journal "This excellent anthology of [Elizabeth's] speeches, poems, prayers and letters demonstrates her virtuosity and afford the reader a penetrating insight into her 'wiles and understandings.'"—Anne Somerset, New Statesman "Here then is the only trustworthy collection of the various genres of Elizabeth's writings. . . . A fine edition which will be indispensable to all those interested in Elizabeth I and her reign."—Susan Doran, History "In the torrent of words about her, the queen's own words have been hard to find. . . . [This] volume is a major scholarly achievement that makes Elizabeth's mind much more accessible than before. . . . A veritable feast of material in different genres."—David Norbrook, The New Republic
This book is about the politics and political culture of the 'last decade' of the reign of Elizabeth I, in effect the years 1585 to 1603. It argues that this period was so distinctive that it amounted to the second of two 'reigns'. It also invites readers, at times provocatively, to take a critical look at the declining Virgin Queen. Many teachers and their students have failed to consider the 'last decade' in its own right, or have ignored it, having begun their accounts in 1558 and struggled on to the defeat of the Armada in 1588. Only two major political surveys have been attempted since 1926. Both consider mainly the war with Spain and the politics of war, and each allots inadequate space to Crown patronage, puritanism and religion, society and the economy, political thought, and literature and drama. This book, written by some of the leading scholars of their generation, will be indispensable to a fuller understanding of the age.
Queen Elizabeth I (1533-1603) ruled England for 45 turbulent years, and her reign has come to be seen as a golden age. She exercised supreme authority in a man's world, while remaining intensely feminine. She was Gloriana, the Virgin Queen, but is also held up as a role model for company executives in the twenty-first century. She is a near-legendary figure from a remote past who remains fascinatingly modern. This handsome volume has been published to commemorate the 400th anniversary of Elizabeth I's death in 1603. It illustrates in color and, where possible, in actual size, sixty manuscripts--either by Elizabeth or to her. Each one is accompanied by a running commentary, explaining the document and placing it in its historical context, and selected transcriptions or, where necessary, translations from the originals. Elizabeth was a girl of extraordinary precocity and a brilliant linguist. Her early letters, written in a beautiful italic, are to her forbidding father, Henry VIII, and to her brother and sister, Edward VI and "Bloody" Mary. The very first letter dates from when she was a child of eleven. The last, written nearly 60 years later, is a barely-legible scrawl addressed to her successor, the future James I. The letters from her in-tray are no less extraordinary. Tsar Ivan the Terrible rounds on her in a blind fury after she refuses to marry him. The Earl of Essex, young enough to be her son, pours out declarations of love: a few pages further on is to be found her signed warrant for his execution. There are letters from ministers and galley slaves, spies and traitors, coded letters, warrants for torture, speeches to parliament, and the original--only recently identified--of the most famous of all her utterances: "I know I have the body but of a weak and feeble woman, but I have the heart and stomach of a king."
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".