Queen Elizabeth, of Blessed Memory, ruled over her people for forty-five years, about half as long again as most of them had any cause to expect to live. When she herself died, nearly seventy years old, there were very few alive who could even recall that another sovereign had ever sat on the throne of England. And though towards the end she had been not only old but also somewhat out of touch with the attitudes and ambitions of a new generation, she retained to the last the love and worship of a nation accustomed to a monarchy clothed in the splendour of divine right but also embodied in palpably real people. Whatever else the Tudors may have been, they were aggressively alive, sculpted in the round, formidable personalities of the kind that create living legends in their own lifetime and do not lose their vitality even in death. The Queen's long reign accomplished the promise of her father's rule; the age of Elizabeth is rightly regarded, not only by historians but also in the popular memory, as a time of greatness breeding greater things still than it actually witnessed.

It is thus a little surprising that good biographies of Elizabeth should be so few in number. Here is a figure of history about whom it is easy to discover plenty of personal facts, known in detail from early childhood, heavily documented through sixty-nine years. Character is revealed in action, sayings, and writings.