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Loading... Elizabeth and Mary: Cousins, Rivals, Queensby Jane Dunn
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will love Sign up for LibraryThing to find out whether you'll like this book. An enjoyable read. Explores the relationship between Elizabeth and Mary and does a good job of putting it in historical and political context without getting too far from the main purpose: the relationship between the two. (  ) jmcilree | Jun 21, 2009 |  An excellent read but can be a bit challenging to keep all the lineages straight. Well worth the time invested. I have recommended this to both my parents who enjoyed it as well. (  ) kims-embroidery | Apr 27, 2008 | This is a pretty nice dual biography of Queen Elizabeth I and Queen Mary of Scotland. The author tells the two stories of the queens interchangeably and as the reader, you really get a sense of how their two lives influenced each other. I'm a huge fan of Elizabeth I. I have been trying to read everything I can on her and this is a nice addition to the body of literature out there on the Queen. It focuses on Elizabeth and Mary from their births until Mary's final undoing and death. The author doesn't make any surprising conclusions but she gives you a good idea of how their lives affected one another and why one had to die for the other to live. I definitely recommend this to anyone interested in this time period and these two queens. ( )1  Angelic55blonde | Mar 31, 2008 | excellent book  bhowell | Feb 7, 2007 |  no reviews | add a review
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By focusing not on pure biography but instead on relationships, Dunn is able to narrow her book (still mammoth in scope) to the most salient and interesting events in the two queens’ lives. The book begins in 1558, the year in which Mary first wed and Elizabeth assumed the throne of England. Almost immediately the cousins were embroiled in a conflict that would endure for the remainder of Mary’s life. A restless, sexually-active Catholic, and leader of the Scottish people in alliance with France, Mary was ever a conduit for rumors of rebellion. The "Virgin Queen" Elizabeth used Mary as a dark reflection to underline her own celibate constancy as a ruler of law and order.
The pair never met face to face, but as Dunn reveals, their lives were closely intertwined. After holding Mary in Fotheringhay prison for nearly two decades, Elizabeth ordered her cousin executed in 1587. Mary had chosen martyrdom in favor of a confession to complicity in the Babington assassination plot. In court, she declared: "I would never make Shipwreck of my Soul by conspiring the Destruction of my dearest Sister." Though the ostensible victor, Elizabeth (who had struggled to find a way to release her cousin while still upholding her own power as queen) confessed, "I am not free, but a captive." In Elizabeth and Mary, Dunn has built a rich world that underlines the tragic struggle between private emotions and the public faces history puts on them. --Patrick O’Kelley
(retrieved from Amazon Fri, 24 Apr 2009 07:58:05 -0400)
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