Chapter 27 Summary

In 1593, Queen Elizabeth is sixty years of age and has reigned for thirty-five years. Her personality has become more stable. Her health has improved. Her minor ailments are less frequent, and she no longer has hysterical collapses, although her nervous irritability is a standing condition shown by her high, shrill voice. Her intellect is intact. She loves clothes and jewels manifesting her sovereignty and wears beautiful wigs to conceal her thinning hair. Her people love her. Elizabeth never had much appetite and now eats less. She still maintains a strenuous schedule and is at work before daylight with her secretaries to carefully read and discuss all orders in council.

Still frugal, she has an undying passion for visual splendor. This is an era when both men and women's clothing achieves an air of visionary strangeness by combining exaggeration with delicate tints. Bodices are...