ELIZABETH AND THE PRINCE OF SPAIN

Third in the biographical novel series which began with Young Bess, went on to Elizabeth, Capture Princess, now this brings Elizabeth through the period when Mary was briefly and tragically queen, to her own coronation, and the inevitable results of throwing off the trammels of twenty odd years of restraint. Backgrounded by a glimpse of Europe in the struggle for power; Spain seeking to ensure the balance against France by an unwanted marriage between young Philip and the middle aged Mary Tudor -- this builds up to an unexpected issue as Philip found the captive Elizabeth more to his taste than his possessive, ageing wife. As a story there is, perhaps, slower pace than in the preceding books, but it is integral to the portrait, as one glimpses Elizabeth, mature beyond her years in her intellectual view of the world of which she is a part -- and yet, at times, still the tomboy, rejoining in occasional escape from controls with young Dudley, playing with fire, emotionally, well aware of the danger lying in the allure she held for the bored and restive Philip... The enhanced interest in Elizabeth due to the play the picture -- and the new Elizabeth II -- may spur interest in this book and its predecessors.