Alan Gordon Smith

William Cecil: The Power Behind Elizabeth Alan Gordon Smith

An essential study of Cecil and the Elizabethan court, especially with regard to the establishment of English international power and the defeat of the Armada. From the preface: "It was an ironical fate to achieve while living a flame of the very first magnitude, only to have it consistently debased by posterity: to be acknowledged by contemporaries as the virtual 'Ruler of England' throughout the period that was most decisive in the nation's development, then to be reduced in history to little more than a faithful flunkey; painstaking, astute, patriotic (if you will); but essentially a figure in the background; a minor character in the drama; a necessary but obscure adjunct."