Elizabeth of York
Alison Weir
‘Weir perfectly combines the dramatic colour and timing of an historical novelist with the truth to fact of a scrupulous historian’ The Times
Britain’s foremost female historian reveals the true story of this key figure in the Wars of the Roses and the Tudor dynasty who began life a princess, spent her youth as a bastard fugitive, but who finally married the first Tudor king and was the mother of Henry VIII.
Elizabeth of York would have ruled England, but for the fact that she was a woman. Heiress to the royal House of York, she schemed to marry Richard III, the man who had deposed and probably killed her brothers, and it is possible that she then conspired to put Henry Tudor on the throne.
Yet after marriage to Henry VII, which united the royal houses of Lancaster and York, a picture emerges of a model consort - mild, pious, generous and fruitful. It has been said that Elizabeth was distrusted by Henry VII and her formidable mother-in-law, Margaret Beaufort, but contemporary evidence shows that Elizabeth was, in fact, influential.
Alison Weir builds an intriguing portrait of this beloved queen, placing her in the context of the magnificent, ceremonious, often brutal, world she inhabited, and revealing the woman behind the myth.
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About Alison Weir
Reviews for Elizabeth of York
Iain Finlayson
The Times
A meticulous scholar... Weir sincerely admires her subject, doing honor to an almost forgotten queen
New York Times
The great asset of this book is the combination of the political and the personal… Weir is a fine writer with a wonderful gift for description.
Linda Porter
Literary Review
Weir has a shrewd sense of what will seize the imagination of the keen historical amateur.
The Independent
Weir adheres to the conventional story without giving much weight to new theories, preferring instead to stick with the facts about daily life for a Plantagenet princess-turned-Tudor queen.
Lesley McDowell
Herald
[Weir] has a good eye for period detail – and her re-creation of the late 15th century domestic and ceremonial world is terrific.
Dan Jones
Sunday Times
A new perspective…underpinned by the same careful delineation between facts and speculation observed in her biographies.
Independent (Web)
Weir builds an intriguing picture of this queen, placing her in the magnificent but often brutal world she inhabited.
Lancashire Evening Post
Alison Weir’s comprehensive, compelling and very readable portrait of Elizabeth reveals not just her life and times but the woman behind the myth.
Morecambe Bay Visitor
Once again, [Weir] perfectly combines the dramatic colour and timing of an historical novelist with the truth to fact of a scrupulous historian.
Iain Finlayson
The Times