Elizabeth I: a study in insecurity

In the popular imagination, as in her portraits, Elizabeth I is the image of monarchical power.

The Virgin Queen ruled over a Golden Age: the Spanish Armada was defeated and England's enemies scattered; English explorers reached almost to the ends of the earth; a new Church of England rose from the ashes of past conflict, and the English Renaissance bloomed in the genius of Shakespeare, Spenser and Sidney.

But the image is also armour. In this illuminating account of Elizabeth's reign, Helen Castor shows how England's iconic queen was shaped by profound and enduring insecurity - an insecurity which was both a matter of practical political reality and personal psychology.