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Arbella: England's Lost Queen
 
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Arbella: England's Lost Queen (Hardcover)

by Sarah Gristwood (Author)
3.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (10 customer reviews)

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Hardcover (First American edition) 8 used & new from £4.51
Paperback (New edition) £9.99 £6.14 61 used & new from £0.01

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Product details

  • Hardcover: 368 pages
  • Publisher: Bantam Press (3 Feb 2003)
  • Language English
  • ISBN-10: 0593048881
  • ISBN-13: 978-0593048887
  • Product Dimensions: 23.2 x 16 x 3.8 cm
  • Average Customer Review: 3.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (10 customer reviews)
  • Amazon.co.uk Sales Rank: 660,177 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Product Description

Review

" Utterly compelling... an exquisite jewel of a book." -- Alison Weir


Independent

‘Fresh, vivid and beautifully detailed...conveyed with exactly the right mixture of suspense and sympathy’ --This text refers to the Paperback edition.
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Customer Reviews

10 Reviews
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 (1)
2 star:
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Average Customer Review
3.5 out of 5 stars (10 customer reviews)
 
 
 
 
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

 
92 of 96 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars The Curse of Being Royal, 18 Mar 2003
By Klaus van Amelrode "kmcva" - See all my reviews
(TOP 50 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)      
For a long time it was not at all possible to find biographies on Arabella Stuart. Now in a short time two biographies have been published. Sarah Gristwood' s one is by far the better,interesting and informative one and fills the gap in Tudor/Stuart biographies. Eventhough I feel the book's title is a bit provocative as it seems that Arabella Stuart has had never a real chance of becoming the successor of Queen Elizabeth I. Nevertheless, because she could have seen as one of the contenders for the throne her whole life was spend under the shadow of the crown:the Blood Royal become her curse. Immensely proud of being royal she could never live up to it. She was more of a chess piece than a chess player. Sarah Gristwood unveils this to the general public largely unknown life in an immensely readable and interesting way. It is striking to learn and see how women in Tudor times could make such an impact and became such well known historical figures while in Stuart times they were mere side figures. Arabella Stuart' s life reflects this deplorable development: born into the great Tudor tradition of highly educated, strong willed and political women, she could not match that and her live ends at the court of the first Stuart monarch as a fairly uninteresting court figure. Merely her unauthorized marriage shows some spirit on her part. One can not help to feel pity for this royal lady. Maybe she was the best queen we never had! Anyway, I can only recommand this excellent biography by Sarah Gristwood.
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12 of 12 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars Much ado, 1 Jan 2007
By R. J. Bowen "fishcheese" (Glasgow, Scotland) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   
This review is from: Arbella: England's Lost Queen (Paperback)
A very attractive book at first glance, and one well presented, too.

It's a great story, but in the end there simply isn't enough meat on the bones to justify so many pages of print (and it isn't that big a read).

The author is skilled; the research is comprehensive; but alas, by half-way through, I was thinking, 'OK, I'm done here, thanks.' And this is the fault in the work - 50% of it is about nothing in particular, or about the author trying very hard to make something out of nothing in particular, and it doesn't really work.

Arbella's story is a fascinating one, but of itself it is, unfortunately, fairly lightweight. Would that the author had combined some other threads and this would have been a truly great piece of work.
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14 of 16 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars Arbella - Non Regina, 6 Jan 2005
By Mrs. D. J. Smith "eowyngreenleaf" (Luton, England) - See all my reviews
(TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)      
This review is from: Arbella: England's Lost Queen (Paperback)
Arbella Stuart has a tendency to be very much forgotten, or at least marginalised in today's history. The inevitability of hindsight may lead a modern reader to dismiss her as a likely candidate for the throne on the death of Elizabeth, but Gristwood argues that this was a stronger possibility than we might credit, and certainly her incarceration shows that James I considered her to be a threat.

Gristwood here presents a highly readable account of Arbella, which is much more than just a biography. Her position was politically very difficult, being too close to the throne for comfort. Her eventual clandestine marriage, to a Seymour and descendant of Mary Tudor, Henry VIII's sister, was too much for James I, who could see a potential rival dynasty emerging. The extracts from Arbella's letters are touchingly human. We are also given an analysis of potential likenesses of Arbella, and a consideration of the likelihood that she suffered from Porphyria.

An interesting and hightly readable book - recommended.

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Most Recent Customer Reviews

1.0 out of 5 stars not a historical novel!!
i recently bought Arbella thinking it was going to be an historical novel on the lines of "Phillipa Gregory"/"C. Read more
Published 2 months ago by T. Williams

4.0 out of 5 stars Determined Despair
I came to this book after reading a couple of biographies of Bess of Hardwick. Bess died in 1608, when her granddaughter Arbella still had seven years of life to live. Read more
Published 9 months ago by Nicholas Casley

4.0 out of 5 stars Arbella - echoes of her aunt?
This book was an introduction to Arbella Stuart and was given to me as a gift by someone who knew of my interest in Tudor and Stuart history, spanning as it does both the end of... Read more
Published 14 months ago by Hannah Werran

2.0 out of 5 stars nebulous to the point of becoming a non-story
This starts out well with the vivid story of an escape, but the rest of the book deteriorates rapidly. Read more
Published 20 months ago by Roman Clodia

4.0 out of 5 stars The Queen that never was
Arbella Stuart is the Queen that never was. After the death of Elizabeth I, her claim to the throne was arguably greater than James VI of Scotland. Read more
Published on 11 Sep 2004 by laineyf

2.0 out of 5 stars Lost opportunities
A thought provoking biography,but tends to lose the main thread of a chapter through the introduction of events or asides to detail the Tudor/Stewart period and lifestyle. Read more
Published on 24 Feb 2004

5.0 out of 5 stars An entertaining and thought provoking read
A lively and insightful look into the workings of the machiavellian minds of the Tudor court and the ensuing court of James the First cmbining fact with contemporary reflections... Read more
Published on 24 Feb 2003

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