It’s a big world, and the book does a good job of introducing the outside influences without going off into the weeds. Her parents died when Catherine was young, leaving her to be a wealthy heiress and a powerful pawn in the marriage market.

Is this where the earth-shattering new material and information is unveiled that Paranque and the marketing team so diligently shouted? Elizabeth usually comes up in the context of the Northern Renaissance, and Catherine in the context of the Wars of the Reformation). Excellently told, this thrilling, lyrical story of two extraordinarily powerful women offers the missing piece in our understanding of Tudor England and Renaissance France. Elizabeth, determined not to marry, would turn them all down, all the while protesting her friendship with Catherine.Exciting and compelling, packed full of tantalising details of diplomacy and court life, Paranque succeeds both in bringing history to life, but also in putting flesh on the bones of these two extraordinary women and rival queens. A sadly missed epoch of flight: though related in clear and vivid detail by Leslie Dawson in his account of a pre-war Imperial Airways flight from Southampton to South Africa. Through her gripping narrative, she brings two extraordinary women who experienced love, heartbreak, triumph and disaster masterfully to life.

I cannot stress how much I loved this book and how Paranque was able to weave the stories of the two most powerful women in 16th-century Europe. Your payment method will be charged immediately, and the product is expected to ship on or around December 6, 2022. After the death of her husband, Catherine worked hard to be the regent for her sons until they came of age to rule and continue the Valois dynasty. Paranque among them, are ready to grant themselves the novelist's freedom--though not with facts, thank goodness.Famed across the known world, jealously guarded by private collectors, built up over centuries, destroyed in a single day, ornamented with gold leaf and frescoes or filled with bean bags and children’s drawings – the history of the library is rich, varied and stuffed full of incident. Anyone even remotely interested in the lives of queens, in Renaissance or Reformation politics, or even just in the history of women in politics will find this book fascinating.

Elizabeth and Catherine were working with a completely different tool set and while we can read all about their lives, the world they lived in, we cannot truly know what it was like to be them.Historian Estelle Paranque looks at the relationship between Elizabeth I and Catherine de Medici, two of the most powerful women in Renaissance Europe. For instance, while fervently Catholic, Catherine offered her daughter to the Protestant King of Navarre. After all, Elizabeth is the first woman who’s name was named after an age- The Elizabethan Age, or the Golden Age for that matter. Upon ascending the throne, Elizabeth held a strong exchange of letters with the Queen Mother of France throughout her lifetime, revealing a complicated relationship. Not only is the writing style somewhat lacking a proper scholarly tone and thus discounts the work right from the start; but, this early content is easily ignored by those well-versed on the subject as there is nothing new to absorb.