Little Elizabeth, daughter of Henry VIII, the most powerful of English monarchs, is a princess destined to a life of power and glory, and people worship her as the king's heir. But all of that suddenly changes when her mother Anna Boleyn – Henry's great love – is executed for alleged infidelity. The king disinherits the girl, has her declared illegitimate, and from now on she is forced to rely only on her own wits in order to survive in the dark maelstrom of the time full of intrigues and religious strife between Catholicism and newly born Protestantism. Especially after his father's death, as an orphan he must deftly navigate the predatory currents of ruthless power struggles at the Tudor court. He witnesses the Protestant regency of his brother, the young Edward VI, as well as the ruthless Catholic restoration of his older sister Mary the Bloody, under whose reign, as an icon of the Protestant party, he even finds himself imprisoned in the Tower for a short time, and although he consistently distances himself from all conspiracies, there is a threat eats death. There are times when she fights for her bare life, and to outwit those who seek her destruction or want to use her for their own goals, only extraordinary intelligence and extraordinary education will help her. From a brooding, precocious girl, whose fate is full of tragic twists, she eventually becomes the most famous and popular Queen of England. But that's another story. A readable novel by a popular historian tells the story of Elizabeth I before she became queen... Elizabeth is depicted as an intelligent, wise, precocious and likable character who successfully survives all the plots and twists of life. The story consistently adheres to historical facts and convincingly captures the intimate details of her life.