Elizabeth & Leicester [Paperback]

Elizabeth Jenkins (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 2002

In his own way Leicester was as mysterious a person as the Queen. His influence on her, from the beginning of her reign until his death in 1588, was constant and incalculable - greater than that of anyone else save Burleigh - though he was generally unpopular among his fellow courtiers, detested by the populace as a whole, and lampooned by the writers of the day. Leicester's complex character, his lavish entertaining, his encouragement of the arts, his day-by-day activities - as courtier, Master of the Queen's Horse, Chancellor of Oxford, leader of the English forces in the war of the Netherlands against Spain - are all brought vividly to life. First published in 1961.

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About the Author

Elizabeth Jenkins was educated at St Christopher School, Letchworth, and Newnham College, Cambridge. A distinguished novelist, historian and biographer she was awarded the Femina Vie Heureuse Prize in 1934 for her novel HARRIET, and she received the OBE in 1981.

Product Details

• Paperback: 384 pages
• Publisher: Phoenix Press (October 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1842125605
• ISBN-13: 978-1842125601
• Product Dimensions: 8.4 x 6 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,292,625 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

26 of 27 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Queen Liz and her favorite courtier., August 27, 2002

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"cloudia" (Seattle, WA United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Elizabeth & Leicester (Paperback)

This book, writes Jenkins in the preface, is not a definitive biography of Lord Leicester. That much is certainly true. But is it the definitive biography of the romance of Leicester and Elizabeth? Not either. According to Jenkins, the romantic feelings of the couple were real, but Elizabeth was almost too much of a monarch, and too much the traumatized daughter of Anne Boleyn, to give into them on ANY level. Jenkins satisfyingly explains this with much attention to detail, saying what Dudley and other important courtiers gave to the Queen at New Year's for example, and then commenting on the spirit in which the gifts were given and received. And she maintains enough of a distance from her subjects, Elizabeth, and Leicester's relationship to her, to keep the mystery of their romance vivid. One feels a History book about this couple OUGHT to be this detached and reverent. One learns a great deal about the personal likes and dislikes of the great Queen (a very sensitive nose, a passion for flirting, a thirst for power) and reads the reported, but obviously public, dialogue between the couple. "You are like my dog," Elizabeth tells Robin, "whenever people see you they know I am coming." Snippets like this make it understandable that Dudley would have been a bit frustrated with his Queen and his love. On the other hand when Dudley becomes curious about the Queen's relationship to her much younger suitor, the Duc D'Alençon, he asks her if "she is a maid or a woman." The Queen laughs and replies "a maid." Jenkins concludes, to the disappointment of Historical novelists everywhere, that this 'shows he had never deflowered her'. Uhuh, or that he didn't want the entire court to know that he had. That could explain why she laughed before answering. Nonetheless, the book is a gift for its information and insight, particularly into the political world in which Leicester operated.