Elizabeth of York lived at the center of the vortex of one of England's most turbulent eras. The momentous events of the times directed her course—where the stronger forces moved, so must she follow.
Elizabeth's story is told here by letting the reader see her life as she might have reviewed it herself as she lay mortally ill after the birth of her eighth child. Without at all distorting historical facts, this gives us a participatory feeling as the pageant of her life unreels before our eyes.
Her beloved and charming father was Edward IV, whose throne was often challenged during Elizabeth's girlhood, and his family spent long periods away from him, sequestered against harm in gloomy sanctuaries. At Edward's death in 1483, Elizabeth's two brothers, the heirs to the throne, were spirited away by her uncle Richard III to the Tower; there the boys died under mysterious circumstances about which historians still argue. Warwick, "the Kingmaker," pursued Elizabeth for a political marriage to his heir; the king of France sought her for his Dauphin; and to her immense distaste the usurper, Richard III, paid her court, although his queen still lived.
But Richard was destined to be killed in the carnage at Bosworth Field that gave the crown to the victor, the Earl of Richmond of the House of Lancaster, who became Henry VII. Then on January 18, 1486, Elizabeth, in her own right heiress to the throne, was married to Henry in a scene of medieval splendor. This union of Lancaster and York marked the end of the Wars of the Roses—and the founding of the Tudor dynasty. Although the union was a fruitful one and Elizabeth was queen for half her life, she did not live to see the coronation of her son as Henry VIII King of England, or those of her daughters—Margaret who became Queen of Scotland, and Mary who became Queen of France. The mother had died on her thirty-eighth birthday in the year 1503.
In addition to being a princess and a queen, Elizabeth, as she emerges from these pages, is a deeply appealing woman—brave, resolute, and warmhearted. In her lifetime she was overshadowed by other royal figures, and until now biographers have for the most part passed her by. At last she has received her due in this honest, thoroughly documented, and immensely readable account.
—from the dust jacket
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