Heretic Queen: Elizabeth I and the Wars of Religion

An interesting, entertaining, and often absorbing analysis of Elizabeth I's religious problems during the Elizabethan period. This book is not really a biography, more a dissection of the various religious (and often heated) opinions that surfaced during her reign, not just in England, but also in the other countries (Scotland, Ireland, France, Spain, the Low Countries, etc). These violently opposed opinions often led to extreme acts of violence, like in the St.Bartholomew Massacre in France in 1572.The book starts with a brief look at Mary I's Catholic policies (burning the "heretics" - 282 of them) and then switching to Elizabeth's mainly Protestant and largely pragmatic pursuit of religious tolerance in her kingdom.While the author does well to keep a tight narrative, there are some minor flaws, hence the 4 stars. The formatting of my Kindle version was truly awful, though the problem was less severe while reading on a laptop. Another reviewer of another of the author's books,  Pirate Queen: Queen Elizabeth I, Her Pirate Adventurers, and the Dawn of Empire , made reference to the fact that some of the sentences are a bit awkward. Did she (or her publisher) use a proof reader?There are similar problems here. I am not sure who to blame, the author, her publisher, or both. It's a shame. I feel if the quality of the book were up to scratch it would appeal to more readers. On the strength of this effort, she could easily be up there with the likes of Alison Weir, Antonia Fraser, and even Helen Castor.The style of the narrative is often more like a novel than a history book, but I don't blame the author for this. Given the short length of book and the amount of time she looks at (50 years) some generalizations have to be accepted. Good historians will look other records and make up their own opinions. No historian will ever get it right. And history is really only entertainment.This search for cost-cutting seems to be plaguing the "publishing" industry. Snip, snip!John Rogers, you are a hero and a true saint (even though the Catholic Church chooses to ignore you); your memory will never die! On Judgement Day you will look for your enemies and realize they were only dust and ashes.

I found this book very interesting and I learnt much about Elizabeth I that I didn't know previously. It was a Very interesting read.

3.5 StarsI did enjoy this look in to my preferred Historical Period and the dissection of how interwoven Religion and Politics were. It could be argues, and in some ways is in this book, that the greatest Political Power during this period was not England, France or Spain but actually The Vatican. Certainly I had not realised just how much the Catholic Countries bent the knee to the whims of The Pope and followed his orders. Whilst I knew that Catholicism has a stranglehold I did not realise just how pervasive it was. Silly me!It does seem to run in a loop at times though and we do go over some events several times from the same perspective in different parts of the book. That made it a little bit of a tough read at times because it felt a little bit like Groundhog Day and I did nearly put it down a couple of times but I persevered with it. Overall I am glad I did as it did give me some insights in to the period that I had not previously thought about and did go some way to explain some of the decisions that Elizabeth made, albeit at the behest and manipulation of her advisors.Not a light read by any means and although the style of writing is accessible I would definitely think you need an interest in the period as a whole and not just in perhaps England's most charismatic Monarch. Whilst it does spend a lot of time centering on Elizabeth there is also a lot of information about Holland and Spain and also the Religious persecutions in this period both domestically and abroad. It certainly casts Elizabeth in a bit of a rosy light that I am not sure is entirely warranted but as there is only so much documentation available to base our "take" on this woman from this is only to be expected.This review has been a long time coming. I actually read this book between the 25th May to 10th June so my memory is a bit foggy about all the plot lines. Fortunately, I have a notebook where I jot some initial thoughts on the book and an overall ranking so between the book blurb and that I did have a reasonable handle on what I thought at the time of reading.

This book has been well researched and I found it difficult to put down. It opens one’s eyes to read about famous people in Elizabethan England who scored a place in history. The most famous protagonist in this drama is Elizabeth herself. William Cecil, Robert Dudley and Francis Walsingham follow closely.