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Main page » Non-Fiction » Elizabeth I


Elizabeth I

 

Any novelist who deals with Elizabeth I has two problems: a surfeit of detail and a paucity of motive. It’s reasonably easy to find out about the trivia of daily life and to trace the actions of important people; much less easy to figure out why anyone did what they did.

Elizabeth herself left little material that would tell us what lay behind her actions. George made two clever decisions in handling this dilemma: telling the story from two viewpoints — those of Elizabeth and her look-alike younger cousin, Lettice Knollys; and beginning the story not during the perilous years before Elizabeth’s accession but in her late middle age.

Elizabeth at the age of 54 is secure on her throne, wedded to her subjects, solid in the life she’s constructed for herself. But the sands of that life are shifting. Determined to reclaim England for the pope, Spain is mounting a monstrous Armada. And Elizabeth’s trusted advisers, who have been with her from her youth, are dying around her.



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Tags: Elizabeth, actions, trace, important, daily