The queen and the gypsy [Hardcover]

Constance Heaven (Author)

Product Details

• Hardcover: 275 pages
• Publisher: Coward, McCann & Geoghegan (1977)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0698107942
• ISBN-13: 978-0698107946
• Product Dimensions: 8.5 x 5.9 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,757,337 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Total revalation to how you see Queen Elizabeth I, June 21, 2000

By 

Alyssa Dreffs (Pinckney, Michigan) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Queen and the Gypsy (Hardcover)

This book changed my views of the first Queen Elizabeth. I believed she was a fair and just queen who did what was best for her people, but this book shows how her selfishness caused the demise of a young girl. Amy married Robert (later Earl of Liecester) for love, she loved him and he loved her. But she later discover that his love for her didn't last because he was obsessed with having a crown. He gave everything for the young princess, and she would build him up and then tear him right back down. However no matter how angry she got a her "Sweet Robin, Hey Eyes" it was never angry enough to send him home to his wife, who longed to be with him so much, so much it was enough for her to plot her own demise. And excellent page-turner you wont be able to set down.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Historical characterization not so great, and kind of a boring time period in one of the greatest-and weirdest-love stories, September 3, 2006

By 

Lilly Flora "by Lilo Drandoff" (Portland, OR) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Queen and the Gypsy (Hardcover)

The relationship between Queen Elizabeth and Robert Dudley (called the gypsy for his dark looks) has fascinated me since I was about 11 years old. Here is this beautiful, powerful woman, and a handsome man she grew up with, who flirt their entire lives, fight terribly, hate each other, love each other, and yet no one knows the truth of their relationship. Was Robert really just an ambitious upstart from a family of traitors who wanted the crown matrimonial? Was Elizabeth really stringing him along for almost forty years without them having any physical relationship?

Different authors, especially those who write fiction, have different theories. Robin Maxwell writes them into an incredibly sweet relationship with Robert having some ambition, but mostly just being in love (really cute and happy, but historically the evidence is against this.) Philippa Gregory has Robert as so ambitious that he doesn't even want Elizabeth-just the crown. Susan Kay puts Elizabeth and Robert at their worst-ambitious and willing to use each other even as they loved each other fiercely. This author has struck a medium between the two, with robin as ambitious and Elizabeth as loving, but neither to the extremes that they probably were in real life.

This novel covers a very boring time period-the time before Elizabeth was queen when Robert was married to a woman named Amy, who mysteriously died soon after the queen's ascension. Most historians will tell you that Amy's death was also the death of any chance Robert had of getting Elizabeth to marry him. So was Amy murdered by Robert, who wanted Elizabeth so much? Was she murdered by Elizabeth, who wanted Robert near her but out of reach of the state of marriage which terrified her so much? Did she kill herself?

Well, only one person knows and that's Amy. This is her story. It's kind of boring and a little stupid as historical characterization goes, but it is readable.

Three stars.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars a moving and historically accurate tale, February 11, 2006

By 

Tudorphile (USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The queen and the gypsy (Hardcover)

I was enchanted with this book. It's rare to find historical fiction that stands powerfully as a novel in its own right while maintaining a strict degree of historical accuracy.

The three primary characters of this novel-- Amy, Robert, and Elizabeth-- all have their strengths and weaknesses brutally exposed, yet the reader remains sympathetic to them. I came away feeling great sympathy for what had happened to poor Amy, yet I could completely understand the actions of Elizabeth and Robert. Amy married a man who time and circumstances unfortunately changed beyond recognition, and her rival in love was unfortunately a captivating figure destined to change the course of history.

Switching back and forth between the aftermath of Amy's tragic death, to the events leading up to it, this is a captivating read, and I'd recommend it to anyone interested in the life of Elizabeth I or the Earl of Leicester.