Game Of Queens: The Women Who Made Sixteenth-Century Europe by Sarah Gristwood
From the author of ‘Arbella’ comes this good account of the Queens and female regents who ruled in Europe during the Renaissance and how they interacted and influenced each other.
This is a tale of women who were forceful presences whose reputations remain intimidating, they wanted authority with a desire and tenacity and it is also a tale of those whose lives famously culminated in a salacious ending. The continuing hostility to female rule and macho bluster they faced have echoes in the modern day. This was very good.
Best Lines:
“Margaret’s attendants had to restrain her from flinging herself from the window.”
“Whom the King has recently turned from a stable boy into a nobleman.”
“Fear my letters to be evil kept.”
“Slurs on her sexual morality.”
“An accepted, if not necessarily a welcome fact.”
“Their wreck of a country.”
“Furrings.”
“He lives me not, as he shows me daily.”
“A ruler they had never seen and who did not speak a word of their language.”
“Ruseland.”
“The worst woman in the realm, the dread of all nations.”
“Amy Dudley was a problem that could be resolved.”
“Her future had changed, completely and unexpectedly.”
“Think you that I could love my own winding sheet?”
“I desire that your useless letter may be the last of its kind.”
“There could be, from this, no going back.”
“A notorious symbol of harlotry.”
“Procure our deliverance.”
“Lethal extremity.”
“You are the cause of everything! Everything!”
“Video et taceo.”
“Headed towards ruin.”
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