She-Wolves: The Women Who Ruled England Before Elizabeth - Softcover

Helen Castor

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0571237061 ISBN 13: 9780571237067

Publisher: Faber & Faber, 2011

Synopsis

''Highly readable, exciting and thought-provoking'' - Hilary Mantel

''A gem of blood-and-thunder storytelling'' - Dominic Sandbrook

In medieval England, man was the ruler of woman, and the King was the ruler of all. How, then, could royal power lie in female hands?

In She-Wolves, celebrated historian, Helen Castor, tells the dramatic and fascinating stories of four exceptional women who, while never reigning queens, held great power: Matilda, Eleanor of Aquitaine, Isabella of France and Margaret of Anjou. These were women who paved the way for Jane Grey, Mary Tudor and Elizabeth I - the Tudor queens who finally confronted what it meant to be a female monarch.

About this title

From the Back Cover

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.

About the Author

Helen Castor is a historian of medieval England, and a Fellow of Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge. Her first book, Blood & Roses, a biography of the fifteenth-century Paston family, was longlisted for the Samuel Johnson Prize in 2005 and won the English Association's Beatrice White Prize in 2006. Her second book, She-Wolves, was made into a BBC2 tv series.
She lives in London with her husband and son.

Edition details

• Publisher: Faber & Faber
• Publication date: 2011
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0571237061
• ISBN 13: 9780571237067
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 474