Elizabeth: Renaissance Prince - Hardcover

Hilton, Lisa

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0544577841 ISBN 13: 9780544577848

Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2015

Synopsis

A new portrait that casts the queen as she saw herself: not as an exceptional woman, but as an exceptional ruler

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 and used Machiavellian statecraft to secure that position.  A decade since the last major biography, this Elizabeth breaks new ground and depicts a queen who was much less constrained by her femininity than most treatments claim. For readers of David Starkey and Alison Weir, it will provide a new, complex perspective on Elizabeth’s emotional and sexual life.  It’s a fascinating journey that shows how a marginalized newly crowned queen, whose European contemporaries considered her to be the illegitimate ruler of a pariah nation, ultimately adapted to become England’s first recognizably modern head of state.

About this title

From the Inside Flap:

A “thoughtful, often ingenious account” (Kirkus Reviews) that casts the queen as she saw herself: not as an exceptional woman, but as an exceptional ruler

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 statecraft. 

Elizabeth depicts a queen who was much less constrained by her femininity than most accounts claim, challenging readers to reassess Elizabeth’s reign and the colorful drama and intrigue to which it is always linked. It’s a fascinating journey that shows how a marginalized newly crowned queen, whose European contemporaries considered her to be the illegitimate ruler of a pariah nation, ultimately adapted to become England’s first recognizably modern head of state.

From the Back Cover:

Praise for Elizabeth: Renaissance Prince
 
“Game-changing . . . How history should be written.” —Andrew Roberts, author of Napoleon: A Life
 
“It is refreshing to be confronted by challenging arguments instead of tired anecdotes. This biography is also full of unusual and interesting insights . . . What I am left with above all are haunting images of a scented room and a face dusted with alabaster—the living cameo of a most exceptional prince.” —Leanda de Lisle, author of The Sisters Who Would be Queen, for the Spectator
 
“Hilton provides us with an accomplished evocation of a remarkable ruler. Her book is as elegantly fashioned and ingeniously contrived as those pieces of Renaissance jewelry that Elizabeth loved to wear.” —Anne Somerset, author of Queen Anne, for the Mail on Sunday

About this edition

• Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
• Publication date: 2015
• ISBN 10: 0544577841
• ISBN 13: 9780544577848
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 400