“No hive can tolerate two queens. In the fatal clash between the Protestant Queen of England and the Catholic Queen of Scots, men were determined that “The death of Mary is the life of Elizabeth” (Back cover blurb)
I picked up this elderly, unassuming littlebook (pub 1962) at a second-hand bookstore, and what a find! Within minutes of glancing at the first few pages I was effortlessly seduced away from my current novel and swept up in the perilous world of Elizabeth 1 and her court. In luminous, perceptive prose, English poet Dame Edith Sitwell looks into the hearts of Elizabeth and her courtiers and reveals their motivations and machinations, frequently using their own words to do so. This fluidly written biography is so compelling that I initially assumed that it was a novel.
Recommended for anyone interested in understanding the forces that created both Elizabeth the person and Elizabeth the Queen; the story of Anne Boleyn, and how the mother of whom Elizabeth never spoke haunted the shadows of her life and caused her such anguish over her role in the death of her cousin Mary Stuart.
The Darnley Portrait of Elizabeth I, which is the cover image of "The Queens and the Hive"
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The Queens and the Hive by Edith Sitwell
The Queens and the Hive by Edith Sitwell
Last edited by annis on Thu February 26th, 2009, 6:11 pm, edited 9 times in total.
Edith Sitwell apparently also wrote another biography of Elizabeth 1 , called "Fanfare for Elizabeth", pub 1946, which covers Elizabeth's earlier life. I note that a reviewer complains that it focuses too much on her father, Henry VIII, but his shadow was such a large one 
that it would be hard to understand Elizabeth without understanding the influence of her father.
I've often wondered if Henry had some sort of premonition about Elizabeth, What was his motive for insisting that she receive such a rigorous education, even though she had been declared a bastard? Did he perhaps see her as a pawn in some dynastic marriage arrangement? He would personally come and test her progress. I've always been impressed by Elizabeth's ability to perform the exercise of triple translation, i.e. to translate a piece from Latin into English, into French and back again into Latin, done in differing combinations. I suspect these examinations by her father were quite terrifying: Elizabeth once said that she was 'more afraid of making a fault in my Latin than of the Kings of Spain, France, Scotland, the whole House of Guise, and all of their confederates'.
that it would be hard to understand Elizabeth without understanding the influence of her father.I've often wondered if Henry had some sort of premonition about Elizabeth, What was his motive for insisting that she receive such a rigorous education, even though she had been declared a bastard? Did he perhaps see her as a pawn in some dynastic marriage arrangement? He would personally come and test her progress. I've always been impressed by Elizabeth's ability to perform the exercise of triple translation, i.e. to translate a piece from Latin into English, into French and back again into Latin, done in differing combinations. I suspect these examinations by her father were quite terrifying: Elizabeth once said that she was 'more afraid of making a fault in my Latin than of the Kings of Spain, France, Scotland, the whole House of Guise, and all of their confederates'.
Last edited by annis on Thu February 26th, 2009, 6:23 pm, edited 4 times in total.