ELIZABETH'S WOMEN by Tracy Borman, 2009.

An easily digested treatment of Elizabeth I's life through her relationships with the women around her. As Elizabeth's life and reign are often looked at through the prominent male figures in her orbit, this work provides a different focus on Elizabeth's dazzingly successful reign as England's queen. A large number of women influenced, antagonized, opposed or befriended Elizabeth, from the time of her birth through the end of her days. Borman divides her book into chapters with themes of relationships: "Stepmothers," "Governess," "Cousins," etc. Not only does Borman include most of the well-known females, e.g., her mother, Anne Boleyn; her half-sister Mary; her last stepmother Katherine Parr; and her governess, Kat Ashley (here called Astely), but she also gives space to other shining stars of the Elizabethan Court and even lesser known figures--the faithful Elizabeth FitzGerald, Lady Clinton; downtrodden and pathetic Lady Mary Grey; the well organized and protective Lady Blanche Parry; lovely Helena Snakenborg, a Swedish girl who arrived on a visit with Princess Cecilia and decided to stay; Lady Douglas Sheffield, a rival for Robert Dudley; Mary Sidney, who unselfishly nursed Elizabeth through smallpox and then caught it herself. From her earliest childhood, Elizabeth was cared for by Lady Margaret Bryan at Hatfield, who became almost a second mother to the very young Elizabeth. She suffered the loss of this mother figure when her half brother Edward came along, but being the child she was, she regrouped and moved forward. Resilient and determined, the young girl survived disease and the stain of being labelled a bastard. She watched as each of her father Henry VIII's wives played out their various roles; she barely lived through the horror of her cousin Lady Jane Grey's brief reign and execution, and she managed a shaky existence in a somewhat love-hate relationship with her half sister Mary. By the time she became Queen of England, her survival skills were well honed, but her reign was plagued continuously by scandals, intrigues, and plots, many of which involved the ladies in her circle. Somewhat ironically, the most troublesome women seemed to be her own cousins and assorted relatives and especially those with claims to the throne: the famous Mary, Queen of Scots; the grasping and ambitious Lady Margaret Douglas; beautiful rival Lettice Knollys, who became the wife of Elizabeth's true love Robert Dudley and was the mother of Elizabeth's last favorite, Robert Devereux; Lady Catherine Grey and her sister Mary, who enraged Elizabeth with their clandestine romances; Lady Arbella Stuart, put forward by her formidable grandmother Bess of Hardwick, as Elizabeth's heir-in-waiting. As far as her ladies in waiting, Elizabeth had high expectations of them in terms of service--often keeping them from husbands and families--and kept a court governed by a strict moral code. She only wanted attractive women serving her, but then could be jealous and spiteful of them, often verbally and physically abusing them if they displeased her (usually by their secret romances and pregnancies), and she often felt betrayed by the likes of Lady Mary Howard, Mary Fitton, Elizabeth Vernon, Bess Throckmorton. As she neared her declining years, her most faithful women were her Boleyn cousins, Katherine Carey Howard and Philadelphia Carey Scrope, as well as Anne Dudley, Countess of Warwick, but even these ladies had hidden agendas and favorites they begged favors for. Her relationships with all these ladies were complex and complicated, with lots of baggage, issues, lies, subterfuge, favoritism, and intrigue galore. Perhaps saddest is the the last section, "The Sun Now Ready to Set," as Elizabeth outlived so many of her closest ladies, and the younger ones showed her very little respect toward the end of her life.Well researched and very readable, Borman makes use of an excellent number of sources, both primary and secondary, and includes some good illustrations. If you're a big Tudor fan, there's not much new here, but this would be a good diversion for those with just a basic knowledge of Elizabeth's life. It's a good distillation of material from various sources presented in a pleasant narrative.

MARY BOLEYN: THE MISTRESS OF KINGS by Alison Weir, 2011.

Historian Weir has deftly sifted through available material to create this very readable biographical treatment of the "other Boleyn girl":  Anne Boleyn's sister Mary. Not much is truly known about Mary--not even a documented portrait or a good description of what she looked like--there's even disagreement over her birth year and whether she was the elder or younger sister of the more famous Anne. Called "a great and infamous whore" by some writers (but not until years later), because of her brief relationships with Francis I and Henry VIII, Weir disputes that reputation, and does a credible job of putting together bits and pieces to give a better picture of the course of Mary's life. Unfortunately, because there is so little written documentation, Weir's narrative is full of speculation and what ifs and maybes. Sources disagree as to events and personalities and dates, and Weir is forced to make decisions based on actual proof and logic, drawing her own conclusions, disregarding sources that are considered unreliable or prejudiced. One longs for a contemporary's diary or journal to turn up and shed some light here! Advertised as the first full biography of Mary, it is a worthy achievement: the author has done much research on the Tudors and her times and is able to place Mary firmly within that context; she adds new information concerning both of Mary's husbands, William Carey and William Stafford; she clears up several misconceptions about Mary's life at the courts of the Netherlands and France; she gives plausible theories as to Mary's life during undocumented times after she left the English court; and she provides an interesting theory concerning the parentage of Mary's two surviving children, Henry and Katherine. Her appendixes concerning Mary's descendants and the portrait identification issues are fascinating and thought-provoking. It is somehow gratifying to know that the oft-maligned and misunderstood Mary's notable descendants include Charles Darwin, Sir Winston Churchill, Princess Diana, Queen Elizabeth II, Camilla Parker Bowles, and Prince William of Wales. I have enjoyed other works by this author, and overall, this was a good read, and the family charts, illustrations and notes that were included in this volume were much appreciated, even by this Tudor fan. Weir gets high marks for her effort here, but in the end, Mary Boleyn as a historical figure is still very much in shadow.