Elizabeth I

At the end of the sixteenth century, writes David N. Durant, an ostentatious but simple-minded German Duke began pestering Queen Elizabeth to grant him the noblest of all English Orders.

An elaborate hierarchy maintained the royal household of Elizabeth I, writes Alan Haynes, but there was much pilfering and graft among the purveyors of domestic goods.

Helena Snakenborg came to London in the train of a visiting Swedish Princess. Appointed a Maid of Honour to Queen Elizabeth, writes Gunnar Sjögren, she married twice and lived in England for seventy years.

Howard Shaw describes how, during the reign of the Virgin Queen, offices, wardships, pensions, leases, monopolies and titles of honour were distributed to the servants of the Crown.

J.B. James relates how, during the last years of Elizabeth I’s reign, Mountjoy played a leading role as courtier, soldier and faithful lover of Essex’s sister, Penelope Rich.

Eunice H. Turner asserts that much has been written of Elizabeth’s male favourites; less is known of the devoted women friends who served her assiduously throughout her long existence

Cecil secured the peaceful accession of the Stuarts and strove with near success, Joel Hurstfield writes, to solve the vexatious problems that confronted the new dynasty in England and upon the European scene.

The first of two articles by Joel Hurstfield on the famous Elizabethan chief Ministers to the Crown, William, Lord Burghley, and his son, Robert, Lord Salisbury.

Penry Williams describes how, in February 1601, Essex and his discontented faction at court attempted a coup which ended in dismal failure.

G.R. Batho introduces Henry Percy, the “Wizard Earl”, a man of great gifts and eccentric character who proved a quarrelsome husband and a difficult and unaccommodating parent.