Beware, Princess Elizabeth

Elizabeth was the only living child of Anne Boleyn and King Henry VIII, and she was just two years old when her mother was beheaded. Henry never spoke of her again. After that Elizabeth had four more stepmothers in the space of seven years. It's not surprising that she vowed to never marry, having only been shown the example of marriage gone horribly wrong.

Between her father's death in 1547 and Mary's death in 1558 Princess Elizabeth patiently endures cruelty and abuse at the hands of her paranoid sister. This was the time of Mary's persecutions, and many of Elizabeth's friends and advisors were executed, including her cousin, Lady Jane Grey. Elizabeth herself is imprisoned in the Tower of London, banished to a rundown country manor, and forced to live in poverty. Her friends and servants are taken away and tortured, but still she perseveres.

Unlike Mary and her mother Anne, who gave everything they had in order to be queen, Elizabeth will have no part in the many plots to bring down her sister and set her on the throne instead, preferring to be queen only if it be God's will. Elizabeth is a woman who has learned from her family's mistakes, and her perseverance eventually pays off when Mary, on her deathbed, names Elizabeth her heir.

Beware, Princess Elizabeth is refreshing after the tumultuous and ugly years of Anne Boleyn and Mary Tudor. Elizabeth chose to break the vicious cycle of her father and her sister, even if that meant letting the blood-stained house of Tudor die out. Carolyn Meyer's Elizabeth is a woman who kept her ambition in check, who kept faith in God's working things out for good instead of grasping at things she could not have, and therefore became England's greatest queen.

Review by Lauren Shearer Lauren Shearer writes words for fun and profit. She also makes films, but everyone knows you can't make a profit doing that. Her other hobby is consistently volunteering way too much of her time. You can read more of her reviews here.

Review by Lauren Shearer
Lauren Shearer writes words for fun and profit. She also makes films, but everyone knows you can't make a profit doing that. Her other hobby is consistently volunteering way too much of her time. You can read more of her reviews here.