Elizabeth I; by David Starkey.

One wonders if there were other reasons for Starkey to go equivocal about the persona that saved England and set the strong base for what it rose to become later, out of the chaos she had received. Was it the apologetic stance of the various branches of church currently that would rather be seen as not divided at all but essentially together with the Roman orthodox one thay all fought to break away from, or is it merely the guiding hands behind the now monarchy that seeks to disassociate the approved set of things from the past rule, especially what was the quintessentially English rule?

The thought above would be valid from merely reading the book, even if one missed all the not so subtle televised efforts to make people think that the love and grief for Diana was either merely an aberration on part of those that were emotional (translate as lacking in self control and so unreliable when it comes to discourse of mind or power), or not quite in good taste, and forgotten at any rate; one does wonder if those who try so assiduously to throw the black veil on the quite alive memory of Diana and her legend that after all she is eventually the future queen mother, and it won't do to throw mud on her name or memory especially whe she was so very loved?

As for the church, I have heard some protestants apologetic about Luther - though why should they only their preachers can tell, and it probably has to do with policy decisions - while some others still have disdain for any who worship any woman, including the mother of their own god. And they express it quite vocally too.

Why all this while reviewing the book on a namesake of the current monarch, one might wonder. Well, actually, none of this is unrelated when it comes to Elizabeth I.

You might not think it from this book and that is probably the intention, but she was the very loved Queen Bess, of England's own. Loved not only for her red hair, and other beauty which she inherited from her mother, but for the calm and secure stability, and sense and selfhood she brought the nation, while beginning a new era of prosperity and adventure, all out of the chaos begun with her father disassociating the nation from Roman authority in all matters, and worse, the complete chaos then wrought by his first daughter, who has been always called by England with the apt name Bloody Mary they gave her for the years she ruled.

Elizabeth brought sense to the chaos, peace to the people tired and fed up with the years of various sides murdering people wholesale in name of faith (and actually for question of what authority they would follow), and ruled long in spite of all attempts on her life, more than a few authorised by Rome, with vituperation.

For the sake of her nation, she had to give up any sense of a personal life, since a monarch could only marry another royal and she stood to compromise England if she married. No children, either. Her England is what she became identified with, an emblem, a personified Britannica and more.

Starkey seeks to equivocate by sifting around and while not quite badmouthing Elizabeth I who was after all monarch (he is a royal subject and so even apart from questions of people throwing eggs at him if he were too obvious at this, it might be treason and an ordinary citizen might be aware of that too, much less the laywers and so forth) - what he does do is to equivocate by painting Mary (Bloody Mary, not the other one) as somehow right and good and not so bad and therefore managing to make Elizabeth look like she was in fact at fault for not obeying her sister.

One suspects therefore that it is a point of view from elsewhere, since it is so very much at odds with the English point of view when it comes to matters of those times.