The Tudors are a fascinating and tumultuous era of British history, but although I’ve read several books about them, I still find the events difficult to understand, perhaps because everyone has the same names (mostly Elizabeth, Thomas, Margaret, Mary, Robert, etc) and are also named after the places they are ‘of’. One of the great things about this book is that Nicola Tallis makes the history easier and focuses on the feelings and reactions of individuals, using carefully chosen quotes from sources. I expect that to history experts it will seem too simplistic.

This book explains the circumstances before Elizabeth’s birth, then follows her life up until she became Queen. There is a particular focus on her personal qualities and how the events in her early life may have affected her. This is the fourth book I’ve read by Nicola Tallis and it was certainly better than Lettice Knollys and more accessible than Margaret Beaufort, but not as good as the one about Lady Jane Gray. The writing style was not particularly elegant and there were certain repeated words that annoyed me, such as ‘youngster’, ‘teenager’ (teenagers didn’t exist back then), ‘costly’ and ‘bargaining chip’. Despite this, I would recommend the book if you’re interested in Tudor history.

Published by Michael O’Mara, 2025.