The Rebel Earl: Robert Devereux, Earl of Essex

'I was ever sorry that your lordship should fly with waxen wings, doubting Icarus' fortune.' - Francis Bacon

Elizabeth Tudor, the queen of England, is growing old.

Her friends are growing old with her and are dying, leaving her to rule over a court inhabited by the next generation - young men and women who know her only as an irascible old woman, a queen who is in danger of outliving her usefulness.

But Queen Elizabeth is not a spent force quite yet and her magnificence attracts the attentions...