Completing his major analysis of Elizabethan high politics with this eagerly awaited third volume, Wallace MacCaffrey investigates how Elizabeth I, the unwarlike war leader", and her ministers made the great decisions that shaped English political history in the years between the Armada of 1588 and her death in 1603. As in the previous volumes, the author examines the ramifications of selected themes, such as the Queen's reluctant entry into war with Spain, the integration of Ireland into the English imperial system, and the threat of renewed political faction with the appearance of a new favorite at court, the Earl of Essex. Throughout, MacCaffrey reveals the intentions, motivations, and assumptions that guided Elizabeth's strategy in a struggle fought on many fronts: on the high seas, in the West Indies, on the European continent, and in Ireland. In light of the Queen's desire to uphold her popularity through the maintenance of peace and prosperity, the author explains why she pursued war with Spain by only half-measures and how the brutal conquest of Ulster and the destruction of Tyrone came to be seen as prerequisites for the incorporation of Northern Ireland. A lively narrative outlines international circumstances as perceived by the policy makers, exposing the preconceptions and limited knowledge behind decisions that ultimately worked to England's advantage.

This is the story of the glamorous French Empress who escaped from a vengeful mob in 1870 and spent the next fifty years in exile in England. With a broad brush approach to the political events it shows her life and times from a different angle, exploring subjects often relegated to mere footnotes. Aided by the increased digitalisation of sources which produced many new and interesting discoveries, the book features 53 images of the important people and places Eugenie was born in a makeshift tent during an earthquake in Southern Spain but this impetuous and beautiful young woman's life changed dramatically when she married Napoleon III in 1853. She was to become a worldwide fashion icon but was much more than a trophy wife even though she suffered from a philandering husband. An early feminist with a social conscience, her achievements were negated by many because she wasn't French, becoming the inevitable scapegoat for the ills of the Empire. Yet in November 1869 when Eugenie opened the Suez Canal she was the most famous woman in the world. Less than a year later she made a dramatic escape from those who blamed her for a disastrous war that caused the collapse of the Second Empire. Helped by her American dentist, Eugenie was smuggled out of Paris enroute to England and exile. The early death of her husband was followed a few years later by that of her son whilst with the British army in South Africa. A close friend of Queen Victoria, Eugenie lived in Farnborough, a small Hampshire town for 4 decades, building an Imperial Mausoleum for her husband and son and dressing in black for the rest of her days. Condemned in her own mind to live for a hundred years she then recovered her zest for life. Always keen to move with the times she embraced new technology, travelled extensively and maintained her links with the European royal circle whilst becoming a familiar and much respected figure in her neighbourhood. Eugenie remained remarkably loyal to France and never relinquished her sense of duty, giving up part of her home to be an army hospital during World War 1. She died in 1920, aged 94 and is buried alongside her husband and son in St Michael's Abbey in Farnborough.