num_pages: 324
description: England late 1547. King Henry VIII Is dead. His fourteen-year-old daughter Elizabeth is living with the kings widow Catherine Parr and her new husband Thomas Seymour. Seymour is the brother of Henry VIIIs third wife the late Jane Seymour who was the mother to the now-ailing boy King.Ambitious and dangerous Seymour begins and overt flirtation with Elizabeth that ends with Catherine sending her away. When Catherine dies a year later and Seymour is arrested for treason soon after a scandal explodes. Alone and in dreadful danger Elizabeth is threatened by supporters of her half-sister Mary who wishes to see England return to Catholicism. She is also closely questioned by the kings regency council due to her place in the line of succession. Was she still a virgin? Was there a child? Had she promised to marry Seymour?Under pressure Elizabeth shows the shrewdness and spirit she would later be famous for. She survives the scandal but Thomas Seymour is not so lucky. The Seymour Scandal led Elizabeth and her advisers to create of the persona of the Virgin Queen.On hearing of Seymours beheading Elizabeth observed This day died a man of much wit and very little judgment. His fate remained with her. She would never allow her heart to rule her head again.
language: English
title: The Temptation of Elizabeth Tudor: Elizabeth I, Thomas Seymour, and the Making of a Virgin Queen
publisher: Pegasus Books