Capture Elizabeth I By Margaret George Conveyed As Electronic Format

should start by saying that I enjoy Margaret George's work most of the time, and unlike Sharon Kaye Penman whom I also like, she doesn't make historical figures unnaturally cosy "Uncle Richard! Sit down and have a cup of malmsey with Ned and Dickon!" Like that and when George captures the "voice" of her protagonist, things are usually entertaining without straining credulity.


But.

Elizabeth Tudor emerges from this doorstop of a book as so smart, so kind, so wise, so statesmanlike, so.
. . well, you get the idea, George also makes the unfortunate decision to contrast Elizabeth's first person narrative with Lettice Knollys' firstperson narrative, and it isn't a good sign that the Lettice chapters are far more interesting than Elizabeth's.
Although they're equally annoying. Because if George's reconstruction of Elizabeth's last years are boring, her recreation of Lettice is a bit too exciting, It turns out that Lettice has a torrid affair with wait for it Shakespeare, and may well be the Dark Lady of the Sonnets, Maybe. She also has a torrid affair with Southampton, Christopher Blount, Robert Dudley and some others, Elizabeth Does Not. The scene at the end where the two cousins Lettice through Mary Boleyn compare notes about whether it was better to be a slut or a queen was so unrealistic I kept waiting for George to have a talking rabbit late for a tea party dart through the garden in which the two women are sitting.


Meanwhile, George portrays the Earl of Essex as unbearable, which kind of begs the question as to why Elizabeth gave him any favor at all.
Even if he was Dudley's legacy, Essex wasn't Dudley's child, And he proved incompetent at virtually every task he was given, Nor did the queen sleep with him, although George has a truly hilarious scene where Essex and Elizabeth vibrate away like steam engines in adjoining rooms.
Will she or won't she make a noise so Essex will know to come to her in the night SPOILER ALERT: She won't,

However, George does convey the climate of Elizabeth's reign during the last fifteen years, And while the writing on this one as compared to, say, The Autobiography of Henry VIII, is pretty pedestrian, she can still make you turn the page.
I also laughed out loud every time George has Elizabeth sit through a Shakespeare play and make criticisms, It's okay Lettice gets him, Overall, this book was a huge disappointment, It was tedious, boring, and way, way, way too long, It took me overweeks to read, which meant that I really did not want to be reading it, If one ever suffers from insomnia,pages with this book and you will be out like a light probably why it took me so long to read it, I could never stay awake.
I should also add that the four weeks of reading time included anhour plane ride, so if I couldn't even stick with it while confined in an airplane, I really didn't like it very much.


This book told the story of Elizabeth I in the latter part of her life, beginning with the Armada, It was told in the first person, Interspersed throughout was the parallel story of her cousin and enemy Lettice, also told in the first person, What I learned about Elizabeth I was that she was petty and mean spirited, generally not a nice person, Lettice's crime, for which she was banished from court foryears, was marrying E I's boyfriend, Robert Dudley, E I wasn't going to marry him, so I guess that meant that one else could either, "If I can't have you, no one can, . . " What I learned about Lettice is that she seemed like an interesting person, of whom I would like to read more,

What I learned about the author, Margaret George, is that she is in love with her own writing, How else can you explain apage book expanding topages There werepages of quite good writing, andof tedium, As an example, at the end of the book, there were several sentences of Catherine Carey, one of E I's ladies, doing needlework, rubbing her forehead, and discussing a headache with E I.
Since they were both ladies of a certain age, one expected the headache to be significant, i, e. she is stricken with a seizure later that day, But no, she dies four months later of a sweating sickness, There was nothing of value pertaining to the headache or the needlework,

For the last half of the the book, I amused myself it helped me to stay awake, by mentally eliminating sentences as I read.
In most paragraphs, half of the sentences should be cut ergo, we have apage book, which might have been a good read,

The author also did not include a Tudor family tree or list of characters, which was a minor annoyance, I have a fairly strong grasp of the major players, but there were so many minor relatives, that it would have been useful in keeping track.
Lettice, for example, was not a first cousin, but a second or third cousin her grandmother, Mary Boleyn was E I's aunt, which made E I and Lettice's mother/father first cousins, or possibly half sibs, since Henry VIII may have been the father of Mary's children.
I think. I count myself as one of the people lucky enough to receive an advance copy of Margaret Georges new novel Elizabeth I, I can honestly say that having read every one of Ms, Georges novels I had every expectation to thoroughly enjoy it and I was not disappointed, The author researches her subjects for months, even years, and writes a very factual novel but in a fascinating way, She writes in a story format so as to entertain while imparting a wonderful piece of historical data that doesnt leave the reader feeling like they have just read a high school text book.
I have always been a huge fan of Margaret George and continue to be so after reading this book, I hope she goes on to continue writing about the royalty of centuries ago because she is truly gifted,
She manages to show Elizabeth I in two lights, both believable, One being

the conceited queen who struggles to maintain her power over England without the help of a husband by her side, We also see the queen who desperately wants to be loved by both her subjects and by Robert Dudley, a softer side that is rarely written about.
The love she holds for her infamous mother, Anne Boleyn, is evident and she flaunts it in a quiet yet almost “in your face” way.
I ended up admiring this woman who decided that she would rule England on her own in a time when women were thought to need a man for everything.
She may even be one of the worlds first feminists, This is a wonderful novel that I shall gladly add to my evergrowing Royal collection,
Margaret George is one of the best historical novelists, Here we find Elizabeth at the point of the invasion of the Spanish Armada and told, largely from her own POV, about the later years of her reign.
Quite different from the usual focus on her earlier years and largely less dramatic but very absorbing! She is one of my favourite characters in English history this is the equal of sitelinkThe Autobiography of Henry VIII: With Notes by His Fool, Will Somers which is an all time favorite of mine.
I will also do a video review here at my channel: sitelink youtube. com/magicofbooks

"Elizabeth I" by Margaret George is an historical fiction account of the later years of Queen Elizabeth I reign, starting inand ending in.
It's also a story about the rivalry between Elizabeth and her cousin, Lettice Knollys, and the family drama they have to deal with when Lettice's son, the Earl of Essex, begins to undermine the authority of his queen.


There's so much that happens in this book, that the brief synopsis above doesn't really give this book justice, The book is overpages, and even me, someone who enjoys reading about the reign of Queen Elizabeth I, I was surprised to discover many new people and events that I didn't even know about.
Perhaps my historical fiction experience with Elizabeth has always been focused on her early reign, I've read books with Elizabeth as a teenager, prior to becoming queen, I've read books focusing on her tense relationship with her sister Mary and Elizabeth coming to the throne at her death, I've read books focusing on Elizabeth's early relationship with Robert Dudley, And I've read books focusing on the relationship between Elizabeth and Mary, Queen of Scots, All of that I consider to be early to mid Elizabethan, Margaret George does something different and focuses on Elizabeth as an experienced queen, a woman well past her prime, a woman fearful of death, but a woman who has vast intelligence and lets no one challenge her.
I really enjoyed Margaret George's portrayal of Elizabeth, Most historical fiction writers want to show Elizabeth as a young woman, and explore whether or not she was the socalled "Virgin Queen, " And of course, Robert Dudley, everyone loves Robert Dudley, so of course writers love to focus on the sexual tension there, It was refreshing to see Elizabeth as an older, more experienced woman, and she is literally a virgin queen, And with Elizabeth being older, Margaret George has moments focusing on Elizabeth when she's facing "elderly issues," like menopause, lacking eyesight, loss of memory, etc.
I think this all made Elizabeth a more human person, someone with flaws, that she's not this heavenly, divine, seductive figure like some historical fiction likes to portray her as.
And what we see with an older Elizabeth is an Elizabeth who is very reflective of all that has come before her and all that will come after her death.
She has many moments thinking about the reign of her father, Henry VIII, and the execution of her mother, Anne Boleyn, and how they have both shaped who she has become.


So what we see in this book are the wars with Spain and Ireland, The first half of the book focuses on the tense relationship with Spain and Elizabeth having to protect her country from the many Armadas, The second half of the book focuses on the drama between Elizabeth and her cousin, the Earl of Essex, son of Lettice Knollys, and the attempted coup and rebellions that occur.
I think it was the second half of the novel that I enjoyed the most, This book is my first experience with the Earl of Essex and I found him an entirely captivating persona, He's overly ambitious, thinks others are trying to purposely turn him from the queen, and he wants nothing more than to make a name for himself.
I can't believe I've never read a book, or seen a movie, with the Earl of Essex before now, What a personality! There was something oddly charming and likable about him, but you know immediately when he starts doing things he shouldn't be doing, he's doomed.
And to speak of Lettice Knollys herself, Margaret George also had chapters interspersed throughout the novel from her point of view, I also found Lettice a very captivating character as well, And even though she has been banished from court and there is an intensity there between her and Elizabeth, she's also very similar to Elizabeth in some ways.
Both her and Elizabeth have to constantly prove themselves, especially around men, and both are intelligent and resourceful, And I definitely sympathized with Lettice, because all she desired was to make amends with Elizabeth, and I could also sympathize with the fact that she had so little control on her situation.


This novel is also a "who's who of Elizabethan England, " There's the famous explorers of the era like Drake and Raleigh, There's the famous poets and playwrights like Shakespeare and Spenser, Of course there's Elizabeth's councilmen: William and Robert Cecil, Robert Dudley, and Francis Walsingham, John Dee makes numerous appearances, and there's even a cameo by Guy Fawkes, And I didn't even know Shakespeare had a brother named Edmund, who also appears at one point,

Overall, I really enjoyed this novel, The start of the book is a bit rough, not going to lie, I had a hard time getting into the story initially, Margaret George's writing could be a bit dry and dense on occasion, And I think my problem with the first half of the book has to do mostly with my lack of interest with the war with Spain and the Armada, even though that is a huge important moment in Queen's Elizabeth's reign.
I'm just not into that reading that sort of thing, The book definitely picked up for me once the Earl of Essex started causing all sorts of chaos and mischief, Easily my favorite parts of the book between Essex and Elizabeth and then when the chapters would switch to Lettice and Essex, I didn't know Elizabeth faced a sort of coup/rebellion that late in her reign, so I found that whole thing fascinating, I will certainly give all of the applause for Margaret George though, She clearly did her research, you could see her passion on every page, I highly recommend this book for lovers of the Elizabethan era, especially, if like me, you have a lack of knowledge in regards to the latter end of Elizabeth's reign.
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