Elizabeth and Mary Royal Cousins, Rival Queens

Queen Elizabeth I and Mary, Queen of Scots: two powerful women whose relationship dominated English and Scottish politics for thirty years from 1558. But their stormy relationship reflected a much broader story. Protestant Elizabeth and Catholic Mary’s struggle for dynastic pre-eminence became inseparable from national religious struggle and England’s turbulent relationship with Scotland, France and Spain. Behind the popular perception of Elizabeth I’s reign as ‘Gloriana’ was a world of religious turmoil, espionage, treason and fear of foreign invasion. Accompanying a landmark British Library exhibition, this book examines, in 12 new essays from leading Tudor historians, the original evidence relating to the queens and their politics, including correspondence between the rival cousins who never actually met. Alongside their astonishing letters are maps, portraits, embroideries and jewellery, as well as documents including a seating plan for Mary’s trial and Elizabeth’s speech to her army at the time of the Spanish Armada.

Susan Doran is Professor of Early Modern British History at the University of Oxford and a Senior Research Fellow at Jesus College and St Benet's Hall, Oxford University. She has written widely on the reign of Elizabeth I, edited several exhibition catalogues, and is now working on a book, Regime Change: 1603–1612, for OUP.