Elizabeth and Mary: Cousins, Rivals, Queens

First, I would like to review the book itself, and then address some of its critics. Two of history's most famous queens, one for her unexpected and remarkable greatness, the other for her inexplicably poor judgment and bad luck. But was their famous rivalry inevitable? Was Elizabeth always the popular, talented, dominant one while Mary remained in her shadow? Jane Dunn asks these questions, and I was surprised - and pleased - by some of her answers. The first part of the book is essentially a point-by-point comparison of the two queens, detailing their very different youths and explaining how they would influence the women in later years. Essentially, Mary had a huge sense of entitlement, was overconfident in her own power and security, and was a much more 'traditional' woman - and Queen - of her day. Elizabeth, whose childhood was punctuated by dramatic changes of fortune, had a much more acute sense of how tenuous her position was, and how much she depended on the good will of her people to maintain power. Dunn does beat the Mary-as-charming-but-spoiled and Bess-as-brilliant-control-freak comparison into us a bit, but it is a good way of looking at the very different natures of these two women. Her book isn't a full biography of either queen; rather it's a look at the intersection between them - their relationship with each other, their competition, rivalry, and common causes. As such it's a fascinating look at a unique time in European history, the so-called "Age of Queens". Posterity-wise, Mary got the short end of the stick. History will always remember her as Elizabeth's paler shadow, a major annoyance and minor queen who had no one but herself to blame for her tragic end. Although Dunn does occasionally (perhaps unavoidably) slip into Mary-bashing and Bess-worship, on the whole she does a good job pointing out that that wasn't always the case - and, had a few things gone differently, we would paint a very different portrait of the two cousins. Her Mary and Elizabeth are fully human - flaws, quirks, charms, and all. It's the best way to explain the convoluted relationship between the two, and it provides a lot of useful character insight into all other aspects of these Queens as well. (I do wish Dunn had gone further into the possibility that Mary was bipolar. It's a fascinating hypothesis, and it would explain a lot.) Mary's end - which also serves as the book's - is too rushed; twenty years are covered in a handful of pages and the account of the execution itself offers nothing new. But until that point, I thoroughly enjoyed this provocative and inspiring portrait of two very different women whom circumstances thrust into such fierce competition. Now: Some reviewers seem to feel that Dunn was somehow "unfair" to Mary and that her comparison of the two queens is misogynist. I admit to being completely baffled by this point of view. It appears to stem from the argument that somehow Mary was a better "feminist" queen than Elizabeth,

I picked up this book looking for something different. I didn't know hardly anything about Elizabeth Tudor or Mary Stuart. It is an interesting look at how, though never meeting, their lives were totally intertwined. It is a little bit of a slow read and a bit repetative but you can learn so much about the two women.

I could not put this book down. I would recommend this book to anyone. The author did her homework and the result was a detailed description on the life of these two amazing women. I couldn't get enough and in the end I was sad to end this book.

The Crown of England was the focus of ambition for both Mary Queen of Scots and of Queen Elizabeth I. Both were regnant queens in an overwhelming masculine world, and it was their royal status that marked their destiny, regicide, or one queen killing another, and that sealed their fate.This ambitious and powerful combined biography chronicles the defining relationship between the two women and their lives, the intersection of the great Tudor and Stuart dynasties, and their rival claims to the throne of England.The monarch is the highest archetype of power, and Jane Dunn gives us deep insight into the relationship between women and power, the complexity of their relationships, and between powerful women and their subjects. Without Mary and Elizabeth, Queen Victoria, Queen Elizabeth II, Margaret Thatcher, the axis of power in Britain would still be uniquely male, and it is these women and their reigns and politics that have given men and women an alternative. The book is riveting, complex, literary, and extremely well written. Don't hesitate to start reading it today!

I have read Jane Dunn's books since she began with "Moon in Eclipse," the story of Mary Shelley, the author of the tale of Frankenstein's monster and the lover of Percy Shelley, the English, tragic poet and friend of Lord Byron. She has grown as a biographer over these 30 years, from someone that dared not be public in her great talent to a mature writer who now has not only the courage to build a reputation for herself, but as someone who has taken a unique place in literature similar to Lyton Strachey, and with the potential of Virginia Wolf without the madness. This, her latest, rich volume will take its place in that tapestry that she sews - hopefully for many more adventures to come.I certainly would not have known of this extraordinary relationship between two monarchs without Jane's efforts and ability to paint a picture that comes alive again in her telling.