I read The Other Boleyn Girl by Phillipa Gregory and loved it, so I chose this as a follow up and was very disappointed. It lacked any interest or excitement.

This book is amazing. It gives a wonderful description of an area of Elizabeth's life that few have ever explored. You really get a good sense of the times as well as the characters. A MUST READ!!

Robin Maxwell has it almost exactly right, but not quite. The detail of her book is astounding and fills in the period with the appropriate characters in her usual high level of style and wit.

However, truth in this case is stranger than fiction: Elizabeth was sent to Cheshunt in May 1548, after her well recorded encounter with her step-father, Thomas Seymour. Conventional historians portray this as Katherine Parr taken precautions and separating the two.

A closer look at the situation reveals a deeper motive, Princess Elizabeth was already pregnant. She gave birth on July 21, 1548 to a son, who was taken and placed in the home of John de Vere, 16th Earl of Oxford. John de Vere was forced into a marriage with Margery Golding by Edward Seymour (Lord Protector) and his secretary William Cecil. The bond between William Cecil and the young Princess was to last the remainder of Cecil's life, because he was the one who solved her pregnancy problem. Thomas Seymour never knew he was the father. The young boy was raised as Edward de Vere, 17th Earl of Oxford. He was a known poet, author, theatrical producer in the court of Elizabeth. He is best known by his works under the pen name William Shakespeare.

Elizabeth eventually had five more children. Four by Robert Dudley. The last was Henry Wriothesley, Earl of Southampton, the young man to whom Shakespeare dedicates Venus and Adonis and Lucrece.

This work fills in the imaginative details of the period. But leaves out the critical one, Elizabeth had a child in 1548. Truth is stranger than fiction. The book is almost right on.

Paul Streitz
Author
Oxford: Son of Queen Elizabeth I

Much has been made about the man who defied the Church, took its rich lands, and changed a nation's faith. But what do we know about the woman who made it all happen? Robin Maxwell give the reader a rare glimpse of not only the lady of the court who kept a king's lust at bay for six years to get the crown, but her daughter Queen Elizabeth as well.

What worked so well with this novel, were not necessarily Anne's diary entries, but her daughter's reaction to them. Elizabeth is a headstrong woman of considerable wit and charm, growing up not knowing her mother, and coming of age as an unmarried queen in a patriarchal society. Through her mother's diary she learns not only her past, but learns how to shape her future, and ultimately her country's future as well.

The Secret Diary of Anne Boleyn does an excellent job of personalizing the much maligned second wife of King Henry VIII. Her domineering father, gold bricking sister, and loyal brother all shape the Anne that wins the heart of a monarch. Her diary chronicles her history that shapes the woman that would be queen, and as her unfortunate inability to birth a prince, her tragic demise culminates on the scaffold. Robin Maxwell portrays the proud Queens of England, both Anne and Elizabeth, with grace and honesty.

I've always been fascinated by Anne Boleyn and Henry the VIII. This novel, which portrays itself as the long hidden journal of Anne Boleyn, tracing her from her early years at court, through her tumultuous years as Henry's virgin mistress, to her tragic years as his queen until days before her death. Quite a lot of the story seems to be based on historic facts (though I don't claim to have studied the period, and could have been deceived by this well-written, acurate sounding fiction).

Not only is Anne's story compelling, as told through her diary entries, but we are reading along with her daughter Queen Elizabeth during the early years of her reign. We witness Elizabeth's shifting attitude toward her mother as she gains insight into her life through the journal. The novel does as much to illuminate Elizabeth's character as it does to illustrate Anne's.

I really enjoyed reading this book, and recommend it highly.

As an avid reader of Tudor biographies with a particular fascination for Queen Anne Boleyn, I approached this historical fiction novel with some skepticism. I was pleasantly surprised and impressed! Not only was it factually accurate, but the best read on Anne Boleyn I've had. This novel is premised on the idea that Anne Boleyn kept a diary from the inception of her romance with King Henry VIII up until the day before her execution. This diary was discreetly given to Anne's daughter Queen Elizabeth I shortly after her coronation. Most of the book is comprised of the chronological diary excerpts, which I ravenously devoured. Robin Maxwell captured the language pattern of these Medieval times so magnificently. As I read Anne Boleyn's heartfelt thoughts it was a most intimate and poignant experience. I fought back tears reading Anne's tender words for the daughter she would never live to see grow up. This fictional but authentically presented diary gives the reader a personal and unique forum to experience this royal trajedy.

Tudor England is fascinating, and Elizabeth a worthy heroine. Whether Elizabeth was indeed the Virgin Queen is open for debate, but almost 500 years of speculation about her supposed affair with her horseman, Robin Dudley, lends a plausible air to this novel. Maxwell has done a deft job rendering Elizabeth as both majestic and at times ridiculous. Reading her interactions with her court, her relatives, and her supposed lover are an exercise in devouring truly brilliant prose. Maxwell has done well capturing Elizabeth's reign, including bits of Philip II's hatred and lust for the Virgin Queen, the troubles in the Netherlands, and the damnable Mary Queen of Scots.

The only false note here comes from the passages of Elizabeth's supposed son by Dudley, Arthur. There has been exploration and speculation regarding any illegitimate children the Queen may have had, so the idea of Arthur as her son allows a suspension of disbelief. However, the passages with Arthur as narrator are extremely dull and quite pointless. After the first few, I skipped over them entirely, and found that they were recapped almost in their entirety in the following chapters.

While "The Queen's Bastard" is a great read, and the subject has a distinct air of possibility, it is too long by almost 100 pages. Those pages from Arthur's journal are just unnecessary. Nevertheless, I did enjoy reading this novel, and am currently reading the concluding book in Maxwell's trilogy "Virgin." I heartily recommend this novel, but do take it with a grain of salt.

If there was ever a book that was destined for a big Hollywood Production this is it. Perhaps this book should be retitled, Elizabeth Part II.

The movie Elizabeth has done a great service for historians, novelists and screenwriters by liberating them from the strict interpretation of Elizabeth as the "Virgin Queen." Elizabeth from all accounts was sexually active throughout her adult life and the persona of the "Virgin Queen" was never more than political and religious façade. The "Virgin Queen" myth has kept centuries of British historians from even considering the possibility that Elizabeth had children. This self-imposed censoring existed despite the fact that there are written suggestions that Elizabeth had more than one child, and several people of Elizabeth's era were whipped or imprisoned for even mentioning the thought.

In The Queen's Bastard, the author begins with the historical facts that there was a person named Arthur Dudley who claimed to be the son of Leicester and Queen Elizabeth and was imprisoned by Spain's King Philip. She then creates a dramatic fiction that chronicles the birth and upbringing of the young man and his adventures in Europe and in Spain. It is a fast moving, totally plausible story. It chronicles the period and creates plausible characters, whose motives are based on their Elizabethan sense of the world. The plot has enough duels, intrigue and amorous adventures to keep fourteen Three Musketeers and twelve Don Juan's happy. A great read, that will make a great movie.

p. s. If you didn't read Robin Maxwell's other book The Secret Diary of Anne Boleyn, I would go back and read this also. It is one of the most fascinating psychological dramas as the young flirtatious Anne turns into the dominant Queen and then to the betrayed wife headed for beheading. No biographer has caught the personality of Anne Boleyn better than this book.

This book is probably, no, definitely, Historically inaccurate, but so what? It's the sequel to Maxwell's Secret Diary of Anne Boleyn, in which the newly crowned Queen reads her mother's diary and learns of the threachery of men, in particular her royal father, Henry VIII. Having decided to rule without ever marrying, but telling no one of her decision, the headstrong and lusty young queen continues her affair with her equally lusty and power hungry favorite, Robin Dudley. The two have a passionate relationship, and other courtiers are either trying to drive a wedge between them or simply don't trust Dudley. Meanwhile, Elizabeth and Robin manage some degree of real domestic intimacy as they progress through England with Dudley's sister, Mary, her husband Henry Sidney and their son, Sir Phillip, the future poet, and visit their old teacher, the scholar/wizard John Dee. In between debating the relative virtues of Mathematics and Astrology, translating Greek texts, and discussing the future of the Americas, Dee divines that a life grows in Elizabeth's belly. Elizabeth is shocked and angry. She does "not bleed like other women." It can not be possible. But it is. The determined Queen decides to give birth secretly and keep the child hidden until it is safe to make him heir to her throne. But her devoted gentlewoman, Kat Ashley, and advisor, William Cecil, have other ideas. It will never be safe for the Queen's bastard to come to light, they reason. So little Arthur, Robin and Elizabeth's son, is switched with a stillborn baby, and is raised by Robert Southern, an old beau of Kat's, who, unfortunately for Arthur, has a nasty and crazy wife who additionally can't stand what she thinks is her husband's illegitimate son. Thus, the tale really begins. The lives of Robin and Elizabeth at court are intertwined with Arthur's upbringing and striking out on his own to fight in the Netherlands, as recorded in his diary. There is, of course, a poignant misunderstood meeting, as well as a fabulous crescendo in the battle against the Armada which contains some pagan rites between Robin and Elizabeth (!), while Arthur is busy spying for his country in Spain and on the Armada fleet itself. It all fits remarkably well together. Maxwell is brilliant in that she only takes advantage of the room for speculation and never alters the facts themselves which she presents with seemless accuracy. This makes for a convincingly crafted work of fiction. Leicester's love of Mathematics and Horses is very well drawn making him the most interesting character of the book, but Elizabeth and Arthur are also well-rendered as are other characters like the devoted Kat Ashley, the loyal Lord Sussex, the flirtatious Scottish ambassador, James Melville, Dudley's silly mistress Lady Douglas Sheffield, and the noble Dutch leader, William of Orange. If one or two of the author's devices are decidedly picaresque, so much the better for the entertainment value and essential romance of the narrative atmosphere. A very engaging story that enthusiastically suggests the possibility that Elizabeth and Dudley just might have had more of a marriage than Henry VIII ever did.