Beware Queen Elizabeth Sparknotes

The name of the book is Beware, Princess Elizabeth. The author of the book is Carolyn Meyer. In the book there are many settings, but where most of it takes place is in England (or Great Britain). The book begins in the time period of the sixteenth century, 1558 to be exact.

The main character of the book is Elizabeth, Princess Elizabeth. The book is told in first person by her. Elizabeth is a clear minded, sympathetic, and tolerant teenager. In the book she has plans for improving England, not like her sister. Elizabeth wants to become the queen but since she is second in line to the throne she does not want to resort to the assassination of Mary, or to thinking about overthrowing Queen Mary. Elizabeth simply waits for her much elder half-sister to die.

Edward VI is Elizabeth’s young and unhealthy half-brother. Edward actually is first crowned as king after their father dies. Since he was still somewhat young, he would’ve been able to be manipulated and influenced by others with royal ambitions. But everything changes when he passes away from illnesses while he was still quite young.

Mary becomes queen after the death of her younger brother, Edward. Mary could be categorized as mean spirited and vengeful. She also proves herself mentally unstable by making herself think she is pregnant twice and making sure the country goes along with it. Some of the actions that prove her hostile behavior are by having common people burned at the stake and others executed. Queen Mary is apprehensive of being overthrown, so she threatens any person that tries to harm her. She even imprisons her sister in the Tower of London because of her paranoia of being overthrown.

She is thirteen years of age who, at the start of the book, finds out that ...

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...ecoming queen of England.

This book is actually really relevant to England in the sixteenth century. They used the same names. King Henry VIII, Edward VI, Mary, Elizabeth, Mary Jane Grey (etc.). The story is for the most part accurate with added information to make it more interesting. King Henry dies leaves the throne to Edward. Edward Seymour gets executed for treason. Lady Jane Grey becomes queen; then she gets executed by Mary for trying to overthrow her spot on the throne. Mary becomes Queen; she burns the Protestants. Elizabeth is put in The tower of London in fear of betrayal. When Mary dies Elizabeth becomes queen for a total of 44 years.

Overall the book is pretty factual to what really happened, with the exceptions of all the love stories that Meyer added. It was pretty interesting and knowing that it is for the most part true makes it an even better book.