Customer Reviews
Comprehensive dual biographies of two rulers on the same island - By: Gary Selikow, 11 Sep 2008 
This dual biography by Jane Dunn is an excellent & highly engaging work of history, & tells much of the Elizabethan age regarding not only politics but also society, religion relationships & gender.
Elizabeth refused to marry & reigned for 45 years as the solitary monarch of England, at the time a revolutionary decision.
A women of great strength, a wise ruler (although as the author points out, unlike Mary, she was blessed with dependable & skilled advisers) & as we see a great orator & poet.
Her rallying of the people of England against the Spanish Armada certainly was something of a reflection of Churchill's rallying of Britain against the Nazi menace 400 years later.
We need leadersin the West today who can stand up against the threat of Islamo-Fascism & terror.
Mary was a passionate & wilful adventurer. married twice for political gain, but took several lovers, & certainly was passionate at different timesin her love for Henry Stuart, Lord Darnley(who she came to despise for good reason later) & for the Earl of Bothwell.
Mary was a vengeful ruler & the more ruthless of the two queens, she felt nothing plotting the overthrow & death of Elizabeth, while it was with great anguish that Elizabeth was forced to sign Mary's death warrant, after Mary's plotting (The Throckmorton & Babington plots) made her end inevitable.
Essentially the book is about a fatal & tragic clash of interests.
"A fatal complication ensued when Mary turned her sights on the greater crown of England. believing it her rightful inheritance & a claim worth pursuing. Elizabeth's fundamental insecurityin her own legitimacy, where the whole of Catholic Europe was ranged against her , 'the bastard child of a whore' increased the tension & emotional volatility of the issue. The complex rivalry, the feint & parrying of their personal relationship, sprang from the challenge Mary made for Elizabeth's throne, & the unassailable legitimacy of her claim. The powerful passions this relationship engenderedin each was a result of their strikingly different natures. The fact that they never met allowed their rivalries to inflatein each Queen's imagination, their qualities elaborated upon by ambassadors & courtiers intent on their own ambition".
Elizabeth was a prisoner accused of treason & threatened with execution as a young girl, before gaining the throne, seen by the majority of England's people as a great deliverer from her older sister 'Bloody' Mary I's 's tyrannic religious repression of the Protestants.
As was writtenin John Fox's 'Foxes Book of Martyrs' where he records the names & circumstances of ordinary people put to death for their faith under Mary I "When these at Maidstone were put to death
We wished for our ELIZABETH."
Mary of Scots became Queenin a blaze of glory before a series of intrigues & catastrophes led to her being cast off the thronein a civil war, before fleeing to England.
She was detained on Elizabeth's orders as she was a very real threat to Elizabeth's life & throne on which she had designs, but livedin great luxury & with a large degree of freedom.
Elizabeth did all she could to be merciful but Mary's plotting & attempts to take the throne sealed her own fate.
As Elizabeth wrote to Mary "You havein various manners attempted to take my life, & bring my kingdom to destruction by bloodshed. I have never proceeded harshly against you but have on the contrary protected & maintained you like myself. These treasons will be proved to you, & all made manifest' before asking Mary again to answer for her actions & admit her guilt, & Elizabeth would again be merciful.
Mary's actions played into the hands of Elizabeth's council who then forced elizabeth to give the signal for her execution.
Biased towards Elizabeth? - By: Roman Clodia, 24 Nov 2007 
I enjoyed reading this book but am uneasy about it being pitched as historical biography since so much of it,in my opinion, is conjecture on the side of Dunn. The very qualities that make it so readable (and which other reviewers have loved) are also the qualities that make it vulnerable as 'history': the idea of getting inside the heads of these characters & understanding their thoughts, feeling & emotions is, for me, absolutely finein a novel but dubiousin something purporting to be factual when there is no, or very little, evidence. While I absolutely agree that all history is interpretive, this goes a little too far.
I also thought it was heavily biased towards Elizabeth, & the patterning of the two women was too polarised: Elizabeth the cool, intellectual virgin (which Dunn accepts literally) & Mary the fascinating but over-emotional, over-sexed & spoilt femme fatale. Dunn's reading of the politics between the two queens was itself overly emotional, rather naively,in my opinion, accepting Elizabeth's supposed reluctance to have Mary executed & her post-event grief as genuine - when scholarsin the field have offered far more Machiavelian readings than that, especially from a woman who Dunn herself portrays as putting rationality over emotion.
That aside, this is undoubtedly an enjoyable read, & the novelty of a dual biography of the two women gives it its own nichein an over-crowded tudor/elizabethan book marketplace. I would just add a historical reality check, or at least a caveat about keepingin mind alternative readings & interpretations of the evidence.
P.A.J.Oswin ''Artefactman'' - By: P. A. J. Oswin, 01 Sep 2007 This is perhaps one of the best books ever written on the subject of Elizabeth & Mary; (those reviewers who feel that it overly favours Elizabeth, should consider the possibility that Mary was indeed the lesser of the two - full-stop!). Jane Dunn beautifully balances scholarship with an easy, but distinctive style - it reads like the best of novels. I place this workin the 'top three' of my all-time favourite history books; & I've read hundreds!
A Satisfying Read - By: Anuphab Phraewphanarai, 03 Jul 2007 
This book is highly historically accurate, & Jane Dunn maintains a steady transition while giving information about the two Queens. This book is certainly not for beginnersin English since this book contains a complicated vocabulary which even I do not understand. Elizabeth & Mary is not a novel & is only about various events that occurin chronological order. You can even list the events that are described by Jane Dunnin the book. The only reason I rate this book four stars instead of five stars is because this book has an interesting gripin the beginning but becomes monotonous towards the middle. That is when Jane Dunn increases the intensity level of just naming events that took place. The quotes Ms/Mrs. Dunn usesin the book are from people during the time of Queen Elizabeth & Mary itself & the spelling isin old English which I do not know how to read or make out what word it is, & Jane Dunn does not provide much clarifications either.
Disappointing - By: M B Dean, 07 May 2007 
I have been reading books on both queens since I was a child, & would consider myself to be well acqainted with their stories. I borrowed this book from the library & have to admit to being very disappointedin it. I found the author to be heavily biasedin favour of Elizabeth, the style of writing repetitive & frankly - poor.
