Elizabeth : the struggle for the throne
In this spirited United Kingdom bestseller, Starkey presents a brilliant examination of the formative years of the "Virgin Queen, " recreating a host of extravagant characters, mad-cap schemes, and tragic plots, while using original documents to depict the princess's tumultuous life before her accession to the throne in 1588. Two 8-page color photo inserts. An abused child, yet confident of her destiny to reign, a woman in a man's world, passionately sexual -- though, as she maintained, a virgin -- Elizabeth I is famed as England's most successful ruler. David Starkey's brilliant new biography concentrates on Elizabeth's formative years -- from her birth in 1533 to her accession in 1558 -- and shows how the experiences of danger and adventure formed her remarkable character and shaped her opinions and beliefs. From princess and heir-apparent to bastardized and disinherited royal, accused traitor to head of the princely household, Elizabeth experienced every vicissitude of fortune and extreme of condition -- and rose above it all to reign during a watershed moment in history. A uniquely absorbing tale of one young woman's turbulent, courageous, and seemingly impossible journey toward the throne, Elizabeth is the exhilarating story of the making of a queen
Print Book, English, 2001, ©2000
Perennial, New York, 2001, ©2000
Biographies
xii, 363 pages, 16 unnumbered pages of plates : illustrations (some color), portraits ; 21 cm
9780060959517, 0060959517
48541508
Introduction: Struggle for the throne
Birth
Family
Infancy and mother's death
Childhood and education
Rehabilitation
Stepmother; Catherine Parr
Reformed religion
Royal father
Father's death
Brother; King Edward VI
Stepfather; Thomas Seymour
Adulthood
Hatfield; further education
Dudleys
Property
Rival sisters
Exclusion; Edward VI's will and death
Queen Mary
Spanish marriage
Rebellion
Retribution
Tower
Prisoner's progress
Imprisonment; the politics of protest
Imprisonment; personal resistance
New dynasty?
New England?
Royal pregnancy?
Parliamentary revolt
Elizabeth's first adventures
Honourable imprisonment
Marriage with menaces
Two portraits; Mary and Elizabeth
Power ebbs
Power flows
Enemy; Cardinal Pole
Two deaths
Accession; a new government
Between old and new
Coronation
Religion reformed
Limits of religious reform; practice
Limits of religious reform; persons
Promise fulfilled
Originally published: London : Chatto & Windus, 2000