Elizabeth and Mary: Cousins, Rivals, Queens
£3.95
Comprehensive dual biographies of two rulers on the same island - This dual biography by Jane Dunn is an excellent and highly engaging work of history, and tells much of the Elizabethan age regarding not only politics but also society, religion relationships and gender. Elizabeth refused to marry and reigned for 45 years as the solitary monarch of England, at the time a revolutionary decision. A women of great strength, a wise ruler (although as the author points out, unlike Mary, she was blessed with dependable and skilled advisers) and as we see a great orator and poet. Her rallying of the people of England against the Spanish Armada certainly was something of a reflection of Churchill s rallying of Britain against the Nazi menace 400 years later. We need leaders in the West today who can stand up against the threat of Islamo-Fascism and terror. Mary was a passionate and wilful adventurer. married twice for political gain, but took several lovers, and certainly was passionate at different times in her love for Henry Stuart, Lord Darnley(who she came to despise for good reason later) and for the Earl of Bothwell. Mary was a vengeful ruler and the more ruthless of the two queens, she felt nothing plotting the overthrow and death of Elizabeth, while it was with great anguish that Elizabeth was forced to sign Mary s death warrant, after Mary s plotting (The Throckmorton and Babington plots) made her end inevitable. Essentially the book is about a fatal and tragic clash of interests. A fatal complication ensued when Mary turned her sights on the greater crown of England. believing it her rightful inheritance and a claim worth pursuing. Elizabeth s fundamental insecurity in her own legitimacy, where the whole of Catholic Europe was ranged against her , the bastard child of a whore increased the tension and emotional volatility of the issue. The complex rivalry, the feint and parrying of their personal relationship, sprang from the challenge Mary made for Elizabeth s throne, and the unassailable legitimacy of her claim. The powerful passions this relationship engendered in each was a result of their strikingly different natures. The fact that they never met allowed their rivalries to inflate in each Queen s imagination, their qualities elaborated upon by ambassadors and courtiers intent on their own ambition.Elizabeth was a prisoner accused of treason and threatened with execution as a young girl, before gaining the throne, seen by the majority of England s people as a great deliverer from her older sister Bloody Mary I s s tyrannic religious repression of the Protestants.As was written in John Fox s Foxes Book of Martyrs where he records the names and circumstances of ordinary people put to death for their faith under Mary I When these at Maidstone were put to death We wished for our ELIZABETH. Mary of Scots became Queen in a blaze of glory before a series of intrigues and catastrophes led to her being cast off the throne in a civil war, before fleeing to England.She was detained on Elizabeth s orders as she was a very real threat to Elizabeth s life and throne on which she had designs, but lived in great luxury and with a large degree of freedom.Elizabeth did all she could to be merciful but Mary s plotting and attempts to take the throne sealed her own fate.As Elizabeth wrote to Mary You have in various manners attempted to take my life, and bring my kingdom to destruction by bloodshed. I have never proceeded harshly against you but have on the contrary protected and maintained you like myself. These treasons will be proved to you, and all made manifest before asking Mary again to answer for her actions and admit her guilt, and Elizabeth would again be merciful.Mary s actions played into the hands of Elizabeth s council who then forced elizabeth to give the signal for her execution.
Biased towards Elizabeth? - I enjoyed reading this book but am uneasy about it being pitched as historical biography since so much of it, in my opinion, is conjecture on the side of Dunn. The very qualities that make it so readable (and which other reviewers have loved) are also the qualities that make it vulnerable as history : the idea of getting inside the heads of these characters and understanding their thoughts, feeling and emotions is, for me, absolutely fine in a novel but dubious in something purporting to be factual when there is no, or very little, evidence. While I absolutely agree that all history is interpretive, this goes a little too far.I also thought it was heavily biased towards Elizabeth, and the patterning of the two women was too polarised: Elizabeth the cool, intellectual virgin (which Dunn accepts literally) and Mary the fascinating but over-emotional, over-sexed and spoilt femme fatale. Dunn s reading of the politics between the two queens was itself overly emotional, rather naively, in my opinion, accepting Elizabeth s supposed reluctance to have Mary executed and her post-event grief as genuine - when scholars in the field have offered far more Machiavelian readings than that, especially from a woman who Dunn herself portrays as putting rationality over emotion.That aside, this is undoubtedly an enjoyable read, and the novelty of a dual biography of the two women gives it its own niche in an over-crowded tudor/elizabethan book marketplace. I would just add a historical reality check, or at least a caveat about keeping in mind alternative readings and interpretations of the evidence.
P.A.J.Oswin Artefactman - This is perhaps one of the best books ever written on the subject of Elizabeth and Mary, (those reviewers who feel that it overly favours Elizabeth, should consider the possibility that Mary was indeed the lesser of the two - full-stop!). Jane Dunn beautifully balances scholarship with an easy, but distinctive style - it reads like the best of novels. I place this work in the top three of my all-time favourite history books, and I ve read hundreds!
A Satisfying Read - This book is highly historically accurate, and Jane Dunn maintains a steady transition while giving information about the two Queens. This book is certainly not for beginners in English since this book contains a complicated vocabulary which even I do not understand. Elizabeth and Mary is not a novel and is only about various events that occur in chronological order. You can even list the events that are described by Jane Dunn in the book. The only reason I rate this book four stars instead of five stars is because this book has an interesting grip in the beginning but becomes monotonous towards the middle. That is when Jane Dunn increases the intensity level of just naming events that took place. The quotes Ms/Mrs. Dunn uses in the book are from people during the time of Queen Elizabeth and Mary itself and the spelling is in old English which I do not know how to read or make out what word it is, and Jane Dunn does not provide much clarifications either.
Disappointing - I have been reading books on both queens since I was a child, and would consider myself to be well acqainted with their stories. I borrowed this book from the library and have to admit to being very disappointed in it. I found the author to be heavily biased in favour of Elizabeth, the style of writing repetitive and frankly - poor.