The Elizabethans

With the panoramic sweep of his bestselling study The Victorians , Wilson relates the story of the Elizabethan Age. It was a time of creativity, wealth creation political expansion. It was also a period of English history more remarkable than any other for the personalities of its leading figures. Apart from the complex character of the Virgin Queen herself, we follow the story of Francis Drake political intriguers like Wm Cecil Francis Walsingham, so important to a monarch who often made a key strategy out of her indecisiveness. Favorites like Leicester Essex skated very close to the edge as far as her affections were concerned, Essex made a big mistake when he rebelled against her. There was a Renaissance during this period in the world of words, which included the all-round hero literary genius, Sir Philip Sidney, playwright-spy Christopher Marlowe 'myriad-minded' Shakespeare. Life could be harsh. Plague swept the land. The poor received little assistance from the State. Thumbscrews the rack could be the prelude to the executioner's block. But crucially, this was the age when modern Britain was born, established independence from mainland Europe. After Raleigh established the Virginia colony, English was destined to become the language of the globe itself the the foundations were laid not only of later British imperial power but also of American domination of the world. With The Elizabethans , Wilson reveals himself again as the master of the definitive, single-volume study.