Heretic queen

This history follows Elizabeth I through the religious conflicts that gripped Europe in her time. The author argues that the queen's choices in these wars laid the groundwork for England to become a major global power.

The book examines how Elizabeth often kept her positions deliberately unclear, using ambiguity as a tool of statecraft. It also looks at her approach to religious difference, which was more accommodating than many of her contemporaries', and at the difficulties the Reformation created for a monarch trying to hold a divided realm together.