She-Wolves: The Women Who Ruled England Before Elizabeth

She-Wolves: The Women Who Ruled England Before Elizabeth

by Helen Castor
She-Wolves: The Women Who Ruled England Before Elizabeth

She-Wolves: The Women Who Ruled England Before Elizabeth

by Helen Castor

Paperback

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Overview

“Helen Castor has an exhilarating narrative gift. . . . Readers will love this book, finding it wholly absorbing and rewarding.” —Hilary Mantel, Booker Prize-winning author of Wolf Hall 

In the tradition of Antonia Fraser, David Starkey, and Alison Weir, prize-winning historian Helen Castor delivers a compelling, eye-opening examination of women and power in England, witnessed through the lives of six women who exercised power against all odds—and one who never got the chance.

With the death of Edward VI in 1553, England, for the first time, would have a reigning queen. The question was: Who?

Four women stood upon the crest of history: Katherine of Aragon’s daughter, Mary; Anne Boleyn’s daughter, Elizabeth; Mary, Queen of Scots; and Lady Jane Grey. But over the centuries, other exceptional women had struggled to push the boundaries of their authority and influence—and been vilified as “she-wolves” for their ambitions. Revealed in vivid detail, the stories of Eleanor of Aquitaine, Isabella of France, Margaret of Anjou, and the Empress Matilda expose the paradox that England’s next female leaders would confront as the Tudor throne lay before them—man ruled woman, but these women sought to rule a nation.


Product Details

ISBN-13: 9780061430770
Publisher: HarperCollins
Publication date: 01/31/2012
Pages: 496
Sales rank: 201,538
Product dimensions: 6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 1.50(d)

About the Author

Helen Castor is a historian of medieval England and a Bye-Fellow of Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge. Her first book, Blood and Roses, was long-listed for the Samuel Johnson Prize and won the English Association’s Beatrice White Prize. Her second book, She-Wolves, was selected as one of the books of the year by The Guardian, The Sunday Times, The Independent, Financial Times, and BBC History Magazine. She lives in London.

Table of Contents

List of Illustrations xi

Preface xiii

Part I Beginnings

1 July 6, 1553: The King Is Dead 5

2 Long Live the Queen? 25

Part II Matilda: Lady of England

3 This Land Grew Dark 39

4 Mathilda Imperatrix 51

5 Lady of England 73

6 Greatest in Her Offspring 100

Part III Eleanor: an Incomparable Woman

7 An Incomparable Woman 133

8 The War Without Love 164

9 By the Wrath of God, Queen of England 184

10 Surpassing Almost All the Queens of This World 194

Part IV Isabella: Iron Lady

11 One Man So Loved Another 231

12 Dearest and Most Powerful 256

13 "Someone Has Come Between My Husband and Myself" 283

14 Iron Lady 303

Part V Margaret: A Great and Strong Laboured Woman

15 Our Lady Sovereign 329

16 A Great and Strong Laboured Woman 347

17 Might and Power 362

18 The Queen Sustains Us 388

Part VI New Beginnings

19 July 6, 1553: Long Live the Queen 415

20 Not of Ladies' Capacity 430

21 A Queen and by the Same Title a King Also 451

Note on Sources and Further Reading 461

Index 469

What People are Saying About This

Simon Sebag Montefiore

“A gripping book . . . She-Wolves is a superb history of the powerful women who have surrounded England’s throne, combining blood-drenched drama, politics, sex and swordplay with scholarly analysis, symptahy for the plight of women and elegant writing.”

Miranda Seymour

“[Helen Castor is] an accomplished and elegant historian.”

Jenny Uglow

“Castor skillfully combines this analysis with driving narratives, using vivd details from contemporary chronicles to bring those distant days alive. She-Wolves makes one gasp at the brutality of medieval power struggles—and at the strength and vitality of the women who sought to wield royal power.”

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