Books like Elizabeth's women by Tracy Borman

The drama of Elizabeth I's tumultuous romance with Robert Devereux, Earl of Essex, as depicted in Giles Lytton Strachey’s historical novel, chronicling the court intrigue and love triangle of the Tudor era. An exploration of Elizabeth’s twilight years and the dramatic consequences of her forbidden love for the powerful and handsome Essex, this historical novel captures the essence of Elizabethan court and the complex dynamics of power, love, and politics. The book delves into Elizabeth's personal journey and the political machinations that shaped her final years, offering a fascinating glimpse into the tumultuous period of Elizabethan England.

An intimate portrait of Queen Elizabeth II, detailing her reign as Britain's longest‑serving monarch, and featuring the first ever interview with her grandson, the Prince of Wales.

Alison Weir unveils the extraordinary life of Katherine Swynford, the royal mistress whose marriage to John of Gaunt forged the Beaufort line and laid the foundation for the Houses of York, Tudor, and Stuart.

"Elizabeth Tudor (1533-1603) ruled for forty-five years over one of the most remarkable periods in British history, and her name - synonymous with power and virtue - would certainly be included among those of the world's greatest leaders. But the pious yet ruthless Virgin Queen was also an immensely productive and gifted writer who received one of the finest humanist educations of her day. From the age of eleven, she produced a steady flow of letters, speeches, prayers, and poems in various languages. Elizabeth I: Collected Works is the first volume to bring together her extraordinary literary production.". "This edition includes Elizabeth's clumsy childhood letters to her forbidding father, Henry VIII; her fledgling speeches as monarch, in which she struggled with Parliament over her right to remain a virgin and to refuse to name a successor; her witty and sometimes haunting poems to courtiers; and her earnest prayers for the nation at large. Within this volume the reader can find heartfelt entreaties to God as well as orders to torture suspected traitors. Also included are her long-lost song commemorating England's 1588 victory over the Spanish Armada and the "Golden Speech" she gave at the end of her reign. The most important of Queen Elizabeth's extant writings in other languages are here offered in new and meticulous translations, enabling readers to gain an unprecedentedly deep and intimate picture of the doubts and conflicts behind her public presentations."--BOOK JACKET.

In this spirited United Kingdom bestseller, Starkey presents a brilliant examination of the formative years of the "Virgin Queen, " recreating a host of extravagant characters, mad-cap schemes, and tragic plots, while using original documents to depict the princess's tumultuous life before her accession to the throne in 1588. Two 8-page color photo inserts. An abused child, yet confident of her destiny to reign, a woman in a man's world, passionately sexual -- though, as she maintained, a virgin -- Elizabeth I is famed as England's most successful ruler. David Starkey's brilliant new biography concentrates on Elizabeth's formative years -- from her birth in 1533 to her accession in 1558 -- and shows how the experiences of danger and adventure formed her remarkable character and shaped her opinions and beliefs. From princess and heir-apparent to bastardized and disinherited royal, accused traitor to head of the princely household, Elizabeth experienced every vicissitude of fortune and extreme of condition -- and rose above it all to reign during a watershed moment in history. A uniquely absorbing tale of one young woman's turbulent, courageous, and seemingly impossible journey toward the throne, Elizabeth is the exhilarating story of the making of a queen.

This is the story of Elizabeth I's inner circle and the crucial human relationships which lay at the heart of her personal and political life. Using a wide range of original sources--including private letters, portraits, verse, drama, and state papers--Susan Doran provides a vivid and often dramatic account of political life in Elizabethan England and the queen at its center, offering a deeper insight into Elizabeth's emotional and political conduct--and challenging many of the popular myths that have grown up around her.

To refer to the private life of Charles II is to abuse the adjective. His personal life was anything but private. His amorous liaisons were largely conducted in royal palaces surrounded by friends, courtiers and literally hundreds of servants and soldiers. Gossip radiated throughout the kingdom. Charles spent most of his wealth and his intellect on gaining and keeping the company of women, from the lowest sections of society such as the actress Nell Gwyn to the aristocratic Louise de Kérouaille. Some of Charles' women played their part in the affairs of state, coloring the way the nation was run. The astonishing private life of Charles II reveals much about the man he was and why he lived and ruled as he did. The King's Bed tells the compelling story of a king ruled by his passion.