The Young Elizabeth - Softcover

Plowden, Alison

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0752459430 ISBN 13: 9780752459431

Publisher: The History Press, 2011

Synopsis

The first volume of Plowden's acclaimed Elizabethan quartet charts the first 25 years of Elizabeth's life Alison Plowden's captivating portrait of the young Elizabeth Tudor, bringing to life her many identities as ruler, woman, and politician, is a triumph of narrative history. Elizabeth I is perhaps England's most famous monarch. She was born in 1533, the product of the doomed marriage of Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn. Her mother was condemned as a witch and after her death, Elizabeth was disinherited and finally imprisoned by her jealous half-sister, Mary. Her childhood was one of fear and danger, as she was aware from the outset that the eyes of the world were upon her and that to survive she would have to rely on her own judgment and strength of character. Many tried to use her for their own ends, however she rose out of the shadows and on the death of her sister, she became Gloriana—England's most iconic queen.

About this title

About the Author:

Alison Plowden (1931–2007) is the author of Lady Jane Grey, Tudor Women, and Two Queens in One Isle.

From Kirkus Reviews:

A lucid, well-researched, but unpedantic narrative of 16th-century English royal life and death at a brutal time when a successful noble was one who kept his or her head while others were losing theirs during perennial struggles for power and position. Biographer Plowden (The Young Victoria, 1981, etc.) relates the oft-told story of Henry VIII and his search for a male heir. His union with Catherine of Aragon produced only Mary. The frustrated Henry had his first marriage declared ``null and void'' and married Anne Boleyn, who gave birth to Elizabeth. After the troublesome Anne was beheaded, he married Jane Seymour, who did have a short-lived male heir, Edward VI. To continue his matrimonial marathon after Seymour's natural death, Henry married and divorced Anne of Cleves, followed by Catherine Howard, whom he beheaded, and then married Catherine Parr, all without a living male heir. Henry broke with the Roman Church, thereby forging a divided England. After his death, his devout Catholic daughter, Mary, became queen and an enemy of Protestants. Plowden portrays the teenage Elizabeth as a threat to Mary, who kept the former a prisoner in the Tower of London but was unable to find hard evidence of treason before the Privy Council Court. Elizabeth became a heroine of the Protestants and a popular figure. Plowden's assessment of the 25-year- old Elizabeth, who became queen after Marys death: sharp tongued and a hard bargainer with acting ability but also with hysterical tendencies perhaps inherited from her mother. From her father she inherited physical energy, family pride, vanity, personal magnetism, political instincts, and earthy peasant cunning, thanks to her Tudor Welsh ancestors. She was an apt scholar who learned discretion, self-discipline, and self-reliance, and the author suggests she used her femininity to disarm critics. Plowden proves that history can be fascinating, readable, and entertaining. -- Copyright ©1999, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

About this edition

• Publisher: The History Press
• Publication date: 2011
• ISBN 10: 0752459430
• ISBN 13: 9780752459431
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 256