Publicly declared a bastard at the age of three, daughter of a disgraced and executed mother, last in the line of succession to the throne of England, Elizabeth I inherited an England ravaged by bloody religious conflict, at war with Spain and France, and badly in debt. When she died in 1603, after a forty-five year reign, her empire spanned two continents and was united under one church, victories in war, and blessed with an overflowing treasury. What's more, her favorites - William Shakespeare, Sir Francis Drake, and Sir Walter Raleigh - mad made the Elizabethan era a Golden Age still remembered today. But for Elizabeth the woman, tragedy went hand in hand with triumph. Politics and scandal forced the passionate queen to reject her true love, Robert Dudley, and to evacuate his stepson, her much-adored Lord Essex. Now in this spellbinding novel, Rosalind Miles brings to life the woman behind the myth. By turns imperious, brilliant, calculating, vain and witty, this is the Elizabeth the world never knew. Form the days of her brutal father, Henry VIII, to her final dying moments, Elizabeth tells her story in her own words.