Now revised and updated, Alison Plowden's beautifully written account of the women behind the scenes and at the forefront of sixteenth-century English history will be welcomed by anyone interested in exploring this popular period of history from the point of view of the women who made it.

The Tudor era belongs to its women. No other period of English history has produced so many notable and interesting women, and in no other period have women so powerfully influenced the course of political events. Mary Tudor, Elizabeth I and, at moments of high drama, Mary Queen of Scots dominated the political scene for more than half a century, while in the previous 50 years Henry VIII's marital escapades brought six more women to the center of attention. In this study, the women of the royal family are the central characters; the royal women set the style and between them they provide a dazzling variety of personalities, as well as illustrating almost every aspect of life as it affected women in Tudor England.