Description

Immediate dispatch from Somerset. Nice older book in good condition. Pages in good condition. Ex library book. Cover has wear. Images bright and vivid. No notes or highlighting. See images. Fantastic book.

About the book >.>.> To examine the portraits of Elizabeth 1 is as Roy Strong shows to witness the creation of the legend of the Virgin Queen of Gloriana and her burgeoning empire. The history of the portraiture is that of the deliberate manufacture of an image power- ful enough to hold together a people di- vided by not only a rigid social hierarchy but also religious belief. When Elizabeth came to the throne in 1558 her subjects had a vivid memory of defeat in war and of religious turmoil – the bloody reign of her half-sister Mary had only just ended. The policy of restoring the stability of the kingdom necessarily in- volved the image of the Queen: over the years she was to be transmuted from an ele- gant aristocratic lady into a cosmic vision depicted standing on her realm of England or even more boldly clasping the whole world in her hand. In view of the uncertain- ty over the succession her mortality had to be denied: she was therefore presented in a political act of rejuvenation as a young woman even when in her sixties. The suc- cessful proliferation of the image may be measured by the love and devotion inspired by a monarch who in the later years of her reign (SP)