In studying the marriage negotiations of Queen Elizabeth I, Dr. Doran has chosen an important subject of great fascination and daunting complexity . . . This book is European in scope and offers a masterly contribution to the understanding of western Europe diplomacy over roughly two decades.
–Professor N. M. Sutherland, formerly Royal Holloway and Bedford, London
Monarchy and Matrimony is an authoritative and accessible study of Elizabeth I's marriage negotiations. It provides the definitive answer to the question of why Elizabeth remainded single, and in so doing throws new light on many aspects of Elizabethan foreign policy and domestic politics.
–Christopher Durston, St. Mary's College
This is an important study, overturning the easy generalization that Elizabeth's marriage negotiations were of no significance since she had always intended to remain a Virgin Queen. Susan Doran's detailed examination of each individual courtship shows convincingly just how serious these discussions were and explains why all failed in the end. Her engaging book is enjoyable reading.
–Professor Stanford Lehmberg, Department of History, University of Minnesota
Elizabeth I lived and died a virgin Queen and Susan Doran has asked Why?. Grounded in exhaustive research in British and foreign records, her answers are surprising and compelling. Placing Elizabeth's courtships in context she shows Elizabeth would have married if she could have but religion, foreign relations, her ministers, her sense of political possibility, and her love of Dudley created a muddle that prevented her. Superseding all other studies of Elizabeth's courtships, this is an important book. Every historian of Tudor politics and everyone interested in Elizabeth Tudor's life will want to read this clear and definitive account.
–Norman Jones, Utah State University
Until the arrival of this book, English historiography concurred that Elizabeth I made a conscious decision and a solemn oath not to marry after her ascension to the thone.
–Heather Lee Miller, Journal of Women's History
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