Ursula's Alcove

Catalog : Books : History

The Men Who Would be King
The Suitors to Elizabeth I
by Josephine Ross

Softcover $ 14.95
ISBN 0753818337

Phoenix (Orion Books)
2005 edition, 5" X 7 3/4"
212 pages.

When Queen Elizabeth I ascended the throne of England, Europe's eyes turned to that tiny island kingdom to see whom its sovereign would choose as her consort. But Europe was baffled for Elizabeth seemed unwilling to marry. From her childhood, shadowed by the marital upheavals of her father Henry VII, and her tragic first encounter with courtship to the fantastical flirtations of her old age, Elizabeth refused to commit herself to any man.

During the marriage negotiations, which spanned half a century, romance blended with diplomacy as one illustrious suitor after another endeavoured to ally himself to her in the most intimate of treaties. Throughout it all, one man, Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester, was the most persistent of the suitors to the Queen, and though he never attained the prize he longed for, he was dearly loved by Elizabeth all her life.