Customer Reviews

The Pirate Queen: Queen Elizabeth I, Her Pirate Adventurers, and the Dawn of Empire

5 star:		(7)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Normally I would not want to be so effusive with a book, but I have been waiting for a book on Queen Elizabeth that would not praise her on every page but really see her as a fallible human, for about 10 years. And well Susan Ronald has not fallen short of my expectations. Her didactic quality she lends to the book does not diminish or dilute the flow and pace other histotrians would fall foul of at most turns. She offers a tangible sense of the queen as a woman and a cunning naval commander with an eye on the financial and an ear and knowledge that as we know did set her apart from other queens or even kings.

Imbued with this Ronald ends on a high note (I won't give it away) but what I thought I knew about the 16th century queen I really did not. Her research is second to none and it was well worth the wait for it. It really did not disapoint.

I love history and I love pirates. Thankfully history never goes away and pirates are more popular than ever. I grew up on stories of Sir Francis Drake, the most prominent of her majesty the queen's privateer, who took his letters of marquee and seized a place in legend for himself. But I never really got into the true story about the man until I was more grown up. By then I was majoring in history in college and found the stories even more interesting because I recognized them as men who had to overcome their fears before they became swashbuckling heroes.

I was, however, guilty of not thinking overmuch about the lady that gave men like Drake the chance to become my childhood heroes. Her journey, her decisions, were - upon reflection - even harder and more awe-inspiring than her privateers.

Called the Virgin Queen, and that must have been a hard one to deal with back in her day, Elizabeth I rose to the throne a month after she turned 25. She was the daughter of Anne Boleyn, who was beheaded at the order of her husband Henry VIII. A beheading served as a divorce at the time because the Anglican Church hadn't instituted divorce as acceptable.

For a while, Elizabeth was declared illegitimate and had no shot at the throne. That struggle was only one of many she faced, as well as religious problems within the nation and war with Spain.

Historian Susan Ronald brings all of the adventure and excitement of Elizabeth I's life to the pages of her book. I'm ADHD and even though I love history, I oftentimes find wading through "scholarly" approaches to material I'm interested in very hard reading. My attention span wanders and I lose track in the middle of baroque sentences.

This isn't so with Ronald's book. She effectively nailed me to the pages with her engrossing spinning of Elizabeth I's trials and travails. When I first hefted the book, and it is certainly hefty, I have to admit to being somewhat daunted. But then I began turning the pages. And kept turning the pages.

Eiizabeth I's struggles to right the English economy, deal with controversy over her lineage and the religious changes she made, all became drama played out in my mind's eye. Ronald painted sets with her words, and the people came to life. Reading this book is effortless, and it provides a splendid study of that time and the people involved.

I'd been fascinated by the Spanish Armada and how it was destroyed in 1588, but I hadn't really felt all that was at stake if they'd won against England. The Cold War that played out between Russia and the United States between 1950s-1980s had nothing on the conflict that took place on the Atlantic Ocean during Elizabeth's reign.

Although the book focuses a lot on the Queen's privateers - legalized pirates by any other name - much time is spent with her relationship with Robert Dudley, the Earl of Liecester, Thomas Seymore - who was her guardian for a time, as well as those famous pirates, Sir Francis Drake, and Admiral John Hawkins.

Ronald's book is an armchair historian's dream and a keen, mostly unbiased, look at one of history's most famous and most daring women. If you've ever been interested in pirates or English history during a most dangerous time when history could have flipped in any of several directions, THE PIRATE QUEEN: ELIZABETH I, HER DARING ADVENTURERS, AND THE DAWN OF EMPIRE is definitely a book you should pick up.

Although almost 500 pages long, take heart in the fact that the book is heavily documents and several of those pages are reference. The layout of the book, wide margins and easy-to-read typeface, also make it extremely attractive in this time of microscopic fonts.

Susan Ronald has written a highly informative but above all entertaining history of Elizabeth I and her adventures that had me riveted to my chair! I had no idea that England was in such a fragile state when this young, single queen we all thought we knew so well had taken the throne. Ronald weaves Elizabeth's (and England's)journey to world power with verve and erudition...but has that unique gift of keeping the reader glued to the page. It's a fabulous fabulous read! Every high school and university library shoud have it: it puts a prespective on the British Empire that few of us knew existed, I suspect.

I was at Vroman's Bookstore in Pasadena and heard Susan Ronald speak about her book The Pirate Queen - Queen Elizabeth I, Her Pirate Adventurers and the Dawn of Empire. Frankly, I hadn't intended to buy it until I heard her speak; but she had a way of making Elizabeth, her men and her times come alive like a storyteller of old, so I bought the book. All I can say is that for someone who has done such in-depth research, Ronald has succeeded in creating a book that reads like the most thrilling adventure story. Until I read The Pirate Queen, I thought I knew all there was to know about Elizabeth I, her lovers, and her life. What a treat that Ronald has opened up an entirely fresh perspective for us non-academics who want to understand the "whys" in history! I heartily recommend this to anyone who is not interested in history (as well as those who are)... it has tremendous resonance for the times we live in today! Five stars for Ronald!!

I agree with one of the other reviewers that the writing style is kind of amateurish and that the writer frequently re-crosses the same ground. However, I liked how the author followed Elizabeth's difficult and dangerous task of navigating her weak nation through treacherous times with the help of her pirates. I found her habit of constantly translating the value of everything into modern day values (dollars and pounds sterling)irritating. Also think that readers looking for alot on sea battles or naval nuances will be disappointed. Not a bad book but not a great one either.

Frankly, I'm surprised that there were any reviews with less than 4 stars. This book is very enlightening for readers of fiction and non-fiction, historians and non-historians alike.

Personally, I learned a lot about the mindset that led to colonization of America, present day England, Holland, Ireland and Spain and how trade and religion were important factors that created an interesting dynamic within Elizabeth's court and between countries. The excitement, energy, motivation and strategies of the individuals and the countries were portrayed really well.

I would recommend this book to readers who would like to add a large and important period of history to their knowledge in an interesting and mind-expanding book.

This is as interesting and well written a book on England's 16th Century emergence, from third world nation status to global superpower stature, as you are likely to find. I especially appreciate the consistency with which author Susan Roland puts the economics of Queen Elizabeth's decisions into today's terms. This goes a long way toward making Elizabeth's decisions understandable. Piracy was an amazingly big business. With single voyages generating over $1.0 billion in today's equivalent, utilizing current values enables readers to readily understand how large an economic driver piracy was to England's evolution as a superpower. Plunder became England's primary growth industry, the financial bedrock upon which England's global dominance over the next 400 years was built. Since most of this wealth was taken from Spain, plunder also planted the seeds which would ultimately destroy Spain's preeminent position in world affairs.

After Philip of Spain stifles England's ability to export wool, its primary cash crop, early in Elizabeth's reign, England subsequently suffers from an inability to either fund its defense or protect its interests on the European stage. Beset by powerful enemies both secular and religious, England struggles with Spain and the Catholic Church externally and Scotland internally. Moreover, England's allies were in disarray. France was often religiously bipolar, while Holland, Belgium (then referred to as the Low Countries) and Portugal were economically dependant. Revolution was rife and Elizabeth's monarchy was tenuous to say the least.

With this as the backdrop to relations in the neighborhood, Elizabeth made common cause with what history refers to as her adventurers. Piracy had been practiced along most European and Mediterranean coasts for centuries. But under Elizabeth, English piracy became a global, state sanctioned art form, an economic necessity for survival that harvested the seas for the Queen's Treasury. Elizabeth begins to organize with John Hawkins' voyages to the Caribbean where he razed whole towns and ravaged Spanish shipping. Next was Francis Drake's Caribbean activities and his subsequent circumnavigation of the Earth which plucked the best value from Spain's global empire. By the time of the Spanish Inquisition, the Catholic-Protestant debates were in full tilt and undeclared war existed between England, Spain and the Catholic Church with numerous Spanish and Catholic assassination attempts on Elizabeth's life. England's piracy was no longer small, single voyage ventures but numbered over 200 ships, with individual fleets varying from 15 to 30 vessels and employing between 500 - 1,000 men. Under the guidance of veteran sea dogs Hawkins and Drake, piracy had grown into England's de facto Navy, becoming sufficiently powerful to stave off Spain's Armada when Philip's anger bubbled over and he unleashed that 500 ship weapon in 1588.

This is an amazing story, well told, which builds with a power and a mastery of detail that is quite appealing. I came away from this work understanding that both England, and subsequently her American Colonies, were built on the bedrock of piracy. Moreover, the great explorations and colonization efforts of Martin Frobisher, Walter Raleigh and others, were, generally speaking, voyages where pillage and plunder, especially at Spain's expense, were an encouraged and necessary business practice.

Wonderfully detailed and excellently crafted, Roland's work spares no effort in describing the intrigue and confrontation involved in England's rise and Spain's downfall as Europe's dominant global power. This is as good a description of this fascinating portion of history as I have found and a read that is really second to none in explaining the intricacy of the time period covered.

The Pirate Queen is a remarkably worthwhile book.

Susan Ronald writes like a high school student trying to fill pages to meet some page-length proscription. Her book assumes a lot of knowledge on the part of readers; it repeats itself; it is confusing and unnecessarily cluttered; it fails to paint a textured picture of what life was like at the time (see for comparison "Nelson's Trafalgar" for a description of just how incredibly difficult life on land and at sea was like in the time of the Napoleanic Wars, and Ronald's subject occurs more than 200 hundred years prior). It is a very disappointing read given just how fascinating this subject is. I am trudging through it but very eager to learn of better books on this topic and this era.

Contrary to the title, this book is hardly about Elizabeth. It is about economics and politics in 16th century England and yes, during Elizabeth's reign. And she is mentioned on just about every page. But she remains a figure in the background, supposedly steering men like Hawkins, Drake and the like. "Supposedly", because we never hear about the way she makes her decisions. She's described as a cunning politician, conniving to play off other heads of state against each other. The author constantly makes her appear as a potentate who designs her own plans and puts them into practice. Men like Leicester or Burghley are reduced to simple executives. It's a sort of silly feminism, which seems to blindly assume that a woman is in control because she is head of state and willfully ignores the influence of (male) advisers. Not that all the give and take, the internal disagreements in her government need to be spelled out; that would have been a different book. But the constant vague and offhand way in which Elizabeth's decisions are described make her seem more like an icon than an interesting person.
That being said, it is a reasonably good book about the way war and economics developed and the part piracy played in all this.

The author is no doubt a thorough historian, or at least seems so from the pedantic writing style. Her detail, especially from the original sources is amazing. However, she is not a wonderful story teller and sometimes the detail can be so distracting that the narrative suffers. Take the matter of cost. No one doubts that the Pound Sterling of the 16th Century is far removed from the value of today's currency, but including the original cost, the modern cost in Pounds Sterling and the cost in American dollars can be disconcerting, especially when several costs are given in succession. Also, she seems intent on including such lengthy quotes that one wonders why her editor didn't use his red pencil like a rapier to slash away the deadwood. I'm not suggesting this is not a good book, if by good you mean well researched. However, it is not smoothly written, and consequently not a pleasure read.