None but Elizabeth

Elizabeth was in her own time an extraordinary phenomenon, a woman who maintained a position of real power in a man's world by abilities exceptional in any page. Patterns learnt in childhood kept her in lonely eminence until death. Born into a brutal world, to a terrifying father and a mother beheaded for alleged sexual misdemeanors, it was her destiny never to escape her inheritance. Yet her strengths and weaknesses determined the history of Europe for forty years.

The beginning of the story is with an eight year old child, who swears that she will never marry. The end, with a woman in her seventieth year whose resolution has brought a lonely triumph. The early vow was made to her childhood friend, Robert Dudley, later Earl of Leicester. Because he was the man who came closest to marrying Elizabeth, and because he was the focus of her emotional life for nearly forty years, *None But Elizabeth* is in large part their linked story. When, in Armada year, on the peak of victory, he dies, the story is at an end. Only at the time when death is at her gate do we rejoin Elizabeth, finally alone, but one of the most remarkable survivors who triumphed over the harsh odds of history.