A rather gossip style biography from the 70s. It was not kind ot either Essex or Elizabeth but, as it starts with the execution of Essex, it is hard not to see all his terrible decisions and mistakes in the worst possible light. I'm somewhat interested in finding a more current bio, perhaps thoughts on him have changed over the years.

To say that I enjoyed this book would be stretching the truth. To say that I learned quite a bit about medieval politics would be closer. I thought that the author treated the subject matter quite competently, but his writing style left something to be desired. I am interested in finding a more contemporary biography about this most interesting figure of the Elizabethan court. ( )

This isn't a bad biography of Essex, the man who, according to legend, won the heart of Elizabeth I and lost his life; but who in reality was a man incapable of playing the games of Tudor politics correctly, who ruined himself and many others, and who ultimately ended up with his head on the block.

The scholarship is mostly competent, if slightly dated now (the book was written in 1971). However, the writing leaves an awful lot to be desired. There is a marked tendency on the writer's behalf to make judgements on people and personalities which seem less the result of an attempt at detached historical analysis, and much more like a subjective like or dislike of a person - dismissing Elizabeth as "nasty and self-centred", for example. The prose also tends to the overly-excitable language of tabloids at times, full of hyperbole and trite cliches. If I'm keeping a running tally in my head of the number of times Ireland is described as "the land of mists and bogs", you know you're overusing that particular phrase. (Though, to be honest, if you describe here as the "land of mists and bogs" even once, you're overusing it)

The analysis of the political situation of the time and the motivations behind Essex's ill-fated rebellion of 1601 is handled well, though, as is the dissection of Essex's personality. There were one or two points where he used small anecdotes and vignettes from Essex's life to very good effect in trying to figure out what made the man tick.

Not a bad biography of the period at all; but there are better. ( )