Elizabeth I: The Golden Reign of Gloriana - Hardcover

Loades, David

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1852853042 ISBN 13: 9781852853044

Publisher: Bloomsbury Academic, 2003

Synopsis

Elizabeth I, who reigned over Shakespeare's England and defeated the Spanish Armada, is familiar both from her portraits and as Gloriana, the Virgin Queen. Yet the reality of her character and her personal attitudes are harder to detect behind the public mask. Elizabeth I, a major biography by a leading Tudor expert to mark the 400th anniversary of her death in 1603, looks in detail behind the public life at the private woman. It treats at length her early years and examines her actions and policies as queen. David Loades's biography brings out her remarkable talents and unique achievements.

About this title

About the Author:

David Loades is one of the leading historians of the Tudor monarchy. He is the author of the definitive biography of Elizabeth's half-sister, Mary Tudor: A Life (1989), and of The Tudor Court (second edition, 2003). He is Honorary Research Professor at the University of Sheffield and Director of the British Academy John Foxe Project.

From Booklist:

This year is the four-hundredth anniversary of the death of Elizabeth I, and this timely and engrossing biography is a worthy tribute to the "Virgin Queen." Previous biographies devote as much space to the Elizabethan epoch as they do to the personal story of Elizabeth. Loades, emeritus professor of history at the University of Bangor in Wales, has chosen to emphasize the development of Elizabeth's personal traits, loves, hopes, and fears from infancy to death. Of course, the great events of the sixteenth century inevitably intrude upon her personal story, but it is Elizabeth that remains at the center of this riveting saga. As Loades illustrates, she was born and reared within a courtly life that bred insecurity; for all of her later strength and determination as a monarch, it appears that insecurity never left her consciousness. Loades portrays Elizabeth the queen as dynamic, yet sometimes frustratingly inconsistent. She could be vindictive and petulant, but her charisma and her ability to inspire genuine devotion are made crystal clear. Jay Freeman
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

About this edition

• Publisher: Bloomsbury Academic
• Publication date: 2003
• ISBN 10: 1852853042
• ISBN 13: 9781852853044
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 450