Elizabeth: Renaissance Prince
A new biographical 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 of 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.
"There is no shortage of biographies of Britain's Elizabeth I, but readers should pay attention to this thoughtful, often ingenious account...Hilton delivers an enthralling account of a life and reign during which Elizabeth dealt with murderous rival claimants and fended off superpower Spain, a fiercely hostile papacy, and an increasingly intolerant, stingy Parliament. She was lucky and charismatic, chose competent advisers, never forgot the limitations of her power, and left England far more united and self-confident. Despite this, it took twenty years of experience of her successor, James I, before Britons wistfully realized that Elizabeth had presided over a golden age...Mildly revisionist, well argued, and thoroughly satisfying."-Kirkus Reviews (starred review)
Lisa Hilton (Author), Kelly Birch (Narrator)
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