In this compelling, eye-opening story of six women who exercised power against the odds—and one, Jane Grey, who never got the chance—acclaimed historian Helen Castor explores the provocative subject of women and power in England.

“The boy in the bed was just fifteen years old. He had been handsome, perhaps even recently; but now his face was swollen and disfigured by disease, and by the treatments his doctors had prescribed in the attempt to ward off its ravages. Their failure could no longer be mistaken.”

When Edward VI-Henry VIII’s longed-for son died in 1553, the extraordinary fact was that there was no one left to claim the title of king of England. For the first time, all the contenders for the crown were female.

In 1553, England was about to experience the “monstrous regiment”—the unnatural rule—of a woman. But female rule in England also had a past. Four hundred years before Edward’s death, Matilda, daughter of Henry I and a granddaughter of the Conqueror, came tantalizingly close to securing her hold on the power of the crown. And between the twelfth and the fifteenth centuries three more exceptional women—Eleanor of Aquitaine, Isabella of France, and Margaret of Anjou—discovered, as queens, consort and dowager, how much was possible if presumptions of male rule were not confronted so explicitly.

In the stories of these women—told here in all their vivid humanity—was laid out the paradox which the female heirs to the Tudor throne had no choice but to negotiate. Man was the head of woman; and the king was the head of all. How, then, could royal power lie in female hands?

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