Presents the life of Queen Elizabeth I, from her birth to Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn in 1533 and her imprisonment by her half-sister, to her reign as queen, which brought peace, stability, and prosperity to sixteenth-century England.

A vivid fictional portrait of the tumultuous early life of Queen Elizabeth I describes her perilous path to the throne of England and the scandal, political intrigues, and religious turmoil she confronted along the way, from the deaths of her parents, Anne Boleyn and Henry VIII, to the fanaticism of her sister, Mary I.

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • An intimate, captivating portrait of Queen Elizabeth I that brings the enigmatic ruler to vivid life, from acclaimed biographer Alison Weir
“An extraordinary piece of historical scholarship.”—The Cleveland Plain Dealer
Perhaps the most influential sovereign England has ever known, Queen Elizabeth I remained an extremely private person throughout her reign, keeping...

Katherine Ashley, the daughter of a poor country squire, happily secures an education and a place for herself in the Tudor court of Henry VIII. As a dying favor to the doomed Anne Boleyn, Kat becomes governess and surrogate-mother to the young Elizabeth Tudor ... ultimately emerging as the lifelong confidante to Queen Elizabeth I.

Elizabeth's rival for the love of Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester, and mother to the Earl of Essex, the mercurial nobleman who challenged Elizabeth's throne, Lettice Knollys had been intertwined with Elizabeth since childhood. They are both women of fierce intellect and desire: one trying to protect her country, and throne, the other trying to regain power and position for her family and each vying to convince the reader of her own private vision...

Queen of France at sixteen, widowed at eighteen, Mary Stuart defies pressure to remarry and instead returns to her native Scotland to reclaim her rightful throne. By birth, she also has a rival claim to the throne of Elizabeth I, who rules as the Queen of England. Mary asserts her claim to the English throne, threatening Elizabeth's sovereignty. Betrayal, rebellion, and conspiracies within each court imperil both Queens, driving them apart, as each...

"Bestselling author and acclaimed historian Alison Weir brings her Tudor Queens series to a close with the remarkable story of Henry VIII's sixth and final wife, who manages to survive him and remarry, only to be thrown into a romantic intrigue that threatens the very throne of England. Having sent his much-beloved but deceitful young wife Katheryn Howard to her beheading, King Henry fixes his lonely eyes on a more mature woman, thirty-year-old, twice-widowed...

When several of the queen's maids of honor are found dead, rumors of black magic abound. Elizabeth calls upon her personal astrologer, John Dee, and Giordano Bruno to solve the crimes. While Dee turns to a mysterious medium claiming knowledge of the murders, Bruno fears that something far more sinister is at work.

Queen Elizabeth I was all too happy to play on courtly conventions of gender when it suited her "'weak and feeble' woman's body" to do so for political gain. But in Elizabeth, historian Lisa Hilton offers ample evidence why those famous words should not be taken at face value. With new research out of France, Italy, Russia, and Turkey, Hilton's fresh interpretation is of a queen who saw herself primarily as a Renaissance prince-an expert in Machiavellian...

Dubbed the "pirate queen" by the Vatican and Philip II of Spain, Elizabeth I was feared and admired by her enemies. Extravagant, whimsical, and hot-tempered, she was the epitome of power. Her visionary accomplishments were made possible by her daring merchants, gifted rapscallion adventurers, astronomer philosophers, and her stalwart Privy Council. All these men contributed their genius, power, greed, and expertise to the advancement of England. Historian...