Description of Elizabeth: Renaissance Prince by Lisa Hilton
A new portrait that casts the queen as she saw herself: not as an exceptional woman, but as an exceptional ruler
Queen Elizabeth I was all too happy to play on courtly conventions of gender when it suited her “weak and feeble woman’s body” to do so for political gain. But in Elizabeth, historian Lisa Hilton offers ample evidence why those famous words should not be taken at face value. With new research out of France, Italy, Russia, and Turkey, Hilton’s fresh interpretation is of a queen who saw herself primarily as a Renaissance prince and used Machiavellian statecraft to secure that position.
A decade since the last major biography, this Elizabeth breaks new ground and depicts a queen who was much less constrained by her femininity than most treatments claim. For readers of David Starkey and Alison Weir, it will provide a new, complex perspective on Elizabeth’s emotional and sexual life. It’s a fascinating journey that shows how a marginalized newly crowned queen, whose European contemporaries considered her to be the illegitimate ruler of a pariah nation, ultimately adapted to become England’s first recognizably modern head of state.
Advance Praise for ELIZABETH: Renaissance Prince
Readers should pay attention to this thoughtful, often ingenious account…mildly revisionist, well-argued, and thoroughly satisfying.”-Kirkus, starred review
“In this focused, well-researched biography, Hilton transforms an irreverent, centuries-old vision of a “bewigged farthingale with a mysterious sex life” into a resolute, steel-spined survivor who far surpassed Henry VII’s wildest hopes for his new dynasty.”-Publishers Weekly
“Hilton provides us with an accomplished evocation of a remarkable ruler. Her book is as elegantly fashioned and ingeniously contrived as those pieces of Renaissance jewelry that Elizabeth loved to wear.”-Anne Somerset, author of Queen Anne, for The Mail On Sunday
About Lisa Hilton
Lisa Hilton is the acclaimed author of The Real Queen of France: Athénais and Louis XIV, Mistress Peachum’s Pleasure, Queens Consort: England’s Medieval Queens and The Horror of Love. She is the author of two novels, the bestselling Wolves in Winter and The House with Blue Shutters, which was shortlisted in the UK for the Commonwealth Fiction prize. She was educated at Oxford University, and lives in central London.
Giveaway of ELIZABETH: Renaissance Prince
This giveaway is open to the U.S. and Canada and ends on November 26, 2015. Entries are accepted via Rafflecopter only.
