cover image Elizabeth I

Elizabeth I

Wallace T. MacCaffrey. Edward Arnold, $35 (480pp) ISBN 978-0-340-56167-6

Queen Elizabeth (1533-1609) ruled England for more than 40 years, marking an age and establishing her country as a significant power. MacCaffrey, a professor emeritus of history at Harvard, concentrates on the queen as a politician and analyzes her successes and failures in this scholarly study of her statecraft. He highlights such historical events as the Spanish Armada (1585) and the establishment of the Church of England (1599). The queen's decision to send an army to fight Spanish rule in the Netherlands plunged her country into war; she was, however, able to supplant Catholicism and establish Protestantism as the state religion without causing a civil revolt at home. As potrayed by MacCaffrey, the strength of Elizabeth's reign rested on her great popularity; but she was frequently plagued by indecision, one of her few weaknesses. Illustrations not seen by PW. (Nov.)