Customer Reviews

Virgin Queen: Elizabeth I, Genius of the Golden Age

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4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(4)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

Elizabeth I is one of those historical figures so enveloped in mythology that it is difficult to gain a clear view of the actual person behind the myth. Christopher Hibbert has provided a sober biography of Elizabeth that goes a long way toward providing the reader with just such a view.

The book begins with a poignant prologue that provides a brief history of Henry VIII, his reign, and his six wives, including Ann Boleyn, Elizabeth's mother. The events covered by the prologue are ones that resonate throughout Elizabeth's life. One can scarcely imagine what effect it has on a young girl to learn that before she turned three her mother was executed on orders of her father. Much of the conflict with which she had to contend during her adult life was largely the direct legacy of her father. These conflicts include those with her half-sister Mary, her cousin Mary Queen of Scots, the war with Spain, and the religious conflict between Catholics and Protestants.

The bare facts of Elizabeth's life have the makings of a great melodrama, but Hibbert does not fall into that trap. Nor does he spend much time with conjecture. However, he does paint a vivid enough picture so that it is easy enough to read between the lines. When he writes of Elizabeth and Robert Dudley going off horseback riding together for hours on end, he leaves it at that - most readers will reach the same conclusion. Similarly, Hibbert will relate what a prevailing rumor was, but for the most part resists speculating as to the veracity of those rumors; again, the reader is left free to reach his or her own conclusion.

Good detail is given in describing Elizabeth's personality and physical appearance. The attention to physical appearance is not superficial - Elizabeth put a great deal of thought and effort into appearance, being well aware of the effect it had on nobles and commoners alike. And it is entirely appropriate that Hibbert spends the space he does regarding her makeup, jewels, clothing, etc. Her strengths (intelligence and courage among them) as well as weaknesses (vanity, indecisiveness) are made abundantly clear by Hibbert's writing.

In describing the workings of her court and her administration, a picture is revealed not only of Elizabeth's reign in particular, but of English royalty in general, including the politics and intrigues of the royal court. Of particular interest to me was the chapter titled "The Queen on Progress", which is about the trips the Queen and a veritable army of attendants would make into various locales across England. No other section of the book so clearly revealed the tremendous waste and corruption that is inherent in any monarchy.

Hibbert makes an effort to provide a thorough portrait of those figures who played pivotal roles in Elizabeth's life, including the two Mary`s, Robert Dudley, Sir Walter Raleigh, and Robert Devereaux. (My personal favorite is Sir William Cecil.) Providing us with these portraits makes the narrative of Elizabeth's life all the more compelling.

My complaints about the book are relatively minor. First, the book is organized rather arbitrarily into two sections of 10 chapters apiece. Sometimes the time line is a bit obscure. And I would like to see a little more about the common people of England during her reign, and the effect her policies had on them. But overall, it's a thoroughly interesting and enjoyable biography.

I've been a fan of Hibbert's historical works for many years and this is a solid one-volume introduction to a woman whose fascinating life almost seems made for the movies (as it frequently has been). However, specialists in Elizabeth should be aware this is definitely an introduction and does not go into the depth that authors like Alison Plowden bring to their multiple volumes. And I did find - having read a great many books on Elizabeth - that there was an indefinable quality to Hibbert's work that became slightly irksome. In the early 20th century and before, it was standard convention to write about Elizabeth's prevarication, her changes of mood and occasional bad temper, and the despair of her (all male) counselors, as a typical example of an emotional women who happened to be queen. I've even read volumes which imply that Elizabeth's reputation is largely due to her male council keeping her feminine weaknesses under control. Only in the past decades has that slightly condescending tone been dropped and Elizabeth seen for the statesman she was (albeit, still a difficult woman!) I detected the slightest hint of that condescension in Hibbert's book, particularly in his later chapters dealing with Elizabeth's agonies in deciding how to deal with Mary Queen of Scots. For that reason only, I rate it a "4" and not a "5." With that slight caveat, an excellent introduction overall.

This is a biography of Elizabeth I, The Virgin Queen. And that's exactly what it is. Queen Elizabeth I, daughter of Henry the VIII is a legend, which Mr. Hibbert attempts to address. Often, this is a dry and, at times, tedious read. However, the details of Elizabeth's physical appearance, politics, and idiosyncracies are extremely interesting. The author details life with Elizabeth and her court, including both of the Queen Marys, Robert Dudley, Sirs Walter Raleigh and William Cecil and others.

The time line is obscure - Mr. Hibbert jumps around quite a bit and it can be confusing to the reader that isn't paying exacting attention. I wouldn't recommend it to a casual reader looking for a lot of melodrama and action. But, all in all, this is a good read for those who are interested in Elizabeth I.

This was a hard book to put down! It is filled with interesting facts about the English monarchy. Christopher Hibbert does an excellent job giving the reader a feel for what life was like during the reign of Elizabeth I. After reading this book, I learned much about this very unusual woman and gained a better understanding of how her strength, intelligence, and cunning enabled her to command the respect and love of her people. Christopher Hibbert also reveals a very fascinating human side to a legendary, historical figure. I highly recommend this book to lovers of English history.

Christopher Hibbert is one of my favorite historical writers. At all times, lucidity, clarity, and narrative curiosity drive his writings. I first read this one years ago, and it's still the most accessible biography of Elizabeth I available. My favorite passages, and the ones I've read to history and English students time and again, are those on what Elizabethan women went through to look beautiful in their eyes. Anybody up for lipstick made of mercuric sulphide? The whole book is full on interesting little corners like that. All in all, a lively book.

Mr. Hibbert's work includes many pertinent facts, but set down in a somewhat tedious and less than interesting manner. I felt this work did a fairly poor job of describing Elizabeth in context with her time, her problems, the intensity of the religious conflicts of the time, her youth, her relationship with Admiral Seymour, and many other important items. I feel Ms. Weir's work is more interesting, and better done.

Perhaps I was expecting too much of this book when I began reading it; I had hoped that this work would provide an interesting and intimate portrait of Elizabeth, as well as a clear account of the contributions of her reign. However, the book did not succeed at doing either. The book provides some interesting events of the period, but too often keeps the reader at a distance from the Queen. Through cumbersome and lengthy sentences, and boring verbiage, the author loses the reader in the reader's attempt to maintain an interest in the life of Elizabeth I. Having finished the book, I reflected on what I had learned about Elizabeth and found that I had more questions about events that were discussed in the book, than I did before I read the author's account of those events.

I highly recommend that any reader looking for a detailed and balanced account of Queen Elizabeth I look elsewhere.

The name "Elizabethan" invokes a vision of an era of sumptuous dress, religious strife, European conflict, and the flourishing of the dramatic arts. The Virgin Queen is a study of the ruler for whom the time is named, and her rule, which lasted for an almost-unprecedented 45 years.

Hibbert takes a primarily episodic approach to Elizabeth's life, from her birth as the unwanted daughter of Henry VIII and his second, ill-fated wife, Ann Boleyn. When Henry finally produces a legitimate male heir, Elizabeth is reduced from "princess" to "lady." After her unpopular, Catholic half-sister Mary ascends to the throne and she is vaguely implicated in some plots against the new queen, Elizabeth is imprisoned despite her seeming subservience and her pleas of innocence, devotion, and loyalty.

Raised away from the court by hired nobility and taught by Cambridge scholars, Elizabeth appears to be both demure and autocratic. The important point is "appears," because, while Elizabeth in her correspondence is deferential and in her appearance demure, her peers invariably see her as withdrawn, haughty, and "proud and disdainful"-traits that "much blemished the handsomeness and beauty of her person" (Sir William Sidney). Mary, not unjustifiably paranoid, does not believe in Elizabeth's humility, honesty, or loyalty. Hibbert's portrayal of Elizabeth, who craves the adoration of peers, councilors, and subjects alike, seems to support Mary's assessment.

Elizabeth proves to be arrogant and autocratic, allowing no one to question either her or her rights as ruler. She is keenly aware of the importance of having the support of the populace, which she enjoys in contrast to the despised "Bloody Mary." She ignores the advice of privy council, however, when it suits her, occasionally to the detriment of her popularity.

Hibbert does not explain why or how Elizabeth, kept out of the way during the reigns of her half-brother and half-sister, became so popular. This points to one of the flaws of Hibbert's episodic approach; recounting Elizabeth's life in terms of "Subjects and Suitors" (although not all of them), "Papists and Puritans," "The Queen in her Privy Chamber," "Traitors and Rebels" (again, not all of them), and so forth, veils or distorts much of the historical context of Elizabeth's development and reign. Within one chapter, she may be young at one point and in late middle age at another. With England's changing allegiances and relationships with France and Spain, it is difficult to track what is happening at a given time and why. Elizabeth's most noted accomplishment, England's defeat of the Spanish armada, is covered briefly and superficially, almost as an aside, leaving the reader with the impression that it was happenstance that no one, including Elizabeth or the privy council, had much to do with; it just happened, with little explanation.

The tale of Elizabeth's suitors can be equally confusing. Hibbert describes her negotiations with Henry, Duke of Anjou (later Henry III of France), when he was 20 and, "in fact, twenty years younger than herself." A few pages later, Hibbert discusses her negotiations with his younger brother Francis when Francis is "not yet nineteen" and she is 39, yet it appears that the talks with the older brother occurred first, which would make sense. Even more confusing, the negotiations with younger brother Francis continued until she was 45 (they would be the last hopes of getting her married).

Elizabeth's treatment of religious conflict is glossed over. While Mary is noted for her brutal repression of Protestants, Elizabeth, at least in this biography, is a conservative Protestant who fears and loathes radicals of any kind, Protestant or Catholic. During her reign, repression is focused primarily on the rebellious poor; she is less interested in punishing the wealthy nobility than in grabbing their riches.

As portrayed by Hibbert, Elizabeth is a parsimonious, greedy, emotionally needy woman who wishes to rule absolutely but who cannot make a necessary, definitive decision, such as signing the death warrant for her conniving cousin, Mary Stuart. The privy council, led by Lord Burghley, the Earl of Leicester, and others, devote much of their efforts to manipulating this indecisive autocrat into decisions they want and to making sure that she cannot renege on them-an ironic situation for the woman who says to Burghley's son, "Little man, little man, the word must is not to be used to princes."

There are several weaknesses in addition to the episodic structure. For example, the queen herself is not quoted often enough in key areas, yet Hibbert devotes one-third of a page to Alfred, Lord Tennyson's poem speculating about how she might have felt during her confinement in the Tower of London.

Most notably, however, the book's subtitle is never explained-neither why the era is "golden" nor why the queen was the "genius" of it. While the biography makes it clear that Elizabeth had a strong personality, as did her parents, the nation's successes seem to have been the work of the privy council under the leadership of Lord Burghley and of adventurers like Sir Walter Ralegh. Elizabeth is not shown even to have played a role in, for example, nurturing the famed playwrights of the time, such as Shakespeare, Marlow, and Beaumont. The subtitle implies that Elizabeth's brilliance inspired a benign, cultured age, while the text shows a woman so cold and petty that, when her best friend and seeming lover Leicester dies, she worries only about controlling his estates and monies, and so indecisive that her own privy councilors avoid working with her whenever possible. The age itself is brutal, with the crowd "disgusted by the spectacle" of a drawing and quartering performed, against tradition, while the victims are still alive.

At best, The Virgin Queen is a brief, superficial biography that leaves the reader hungry for more-more about Burghley, Leicester, Mary Stuart, and others, but not about Elizabeth herself, who somehow becomes a supporting player in her own biography.

This book is a good general introduction to Queen Elizabeth. Hibbert always paints a portrait of his subject, rather than discussing every detail of the person's life. Since most biographers write too much, we should all be grateful to Hibbert. He does a great job of describing Queen Elizabeth's decisionmaking process, her interactions with her advisors, and her reluctance to marry. He also explains the religious issues that surrounded the time briefly yet thoughtfully.

The Virgin Queen is a very readable, comprehensive "herstory" of Elizabeth I. Hibbert's biography reads like a compelling novel, making it nearly impossible to put down. Elizabeth's personality comes forth in this book and we are able to see her great strength and her vulnerability. Please remember to stop reading it every now and then and get some sleep.