Rating: 
Summary: A good read if you are not looking for historical fact.
Review: I'm constantly looking for books related to English history. This is one that fits that catagory, sort of. It's an excellent read. I throughly enjoyed the story even though it is pure fiction. There has always been doubt about Elizabeths' claim as "The Virgin" queen and this book explores in depth that claim. She was an extremely complex individual as this book shows in detail, but also portrays a softer side that she could never have let her contempories see. I would like to see Ms Maxwell expand on the story of Arthur Dudley. All in all it is a good book to pass a summer day with.
Rating: 
Summary: A book destined for a big Hollywood Production.
Review: If there was ever a book that was destined for a big Hollywood Production this is it. Perhaps this book should be retitled, Elizabeth Part II. The movie Elizabeth has done a great service for historians, novelists and screenwriters by liberating them from the strict interpretation of Elizabeth as the "Virgin Queen." Elizabeth from all accounts was sexually active throughout her adult life and the persona of the "Virgin Queen" was never more than political and religious façade. The "Virgin Queen" myth has kept centuries of British historians from even considering the possibility that Elizabeth had children. This self-imposed censoring existed despite the fact that there are written suggestions that Elizabeth had more than one child, and several people of Elizabeth's era were whipped or imprisoned for even mentioning the thought. In The Queen's Bastard, the author begins with the historical facts that there was a person named Arthur Dudley who claimed to be the son of Leicester and Queen Elizabeth and was imprisoned by Spain's King Philip. She then creates a dramatic fiction that chronicles the birth and upbringing of the young man and his adventures in Europe and in Spain. It is a fast moving, totally plausible story. It chronicles the period and creates plausible characters, whose motives are based on their Elizabethan sense of the world. The plot has enough duels, intrigue and amorous adventures to keep fourteen Three Musketeers and twelve Don Juan's happy. A great read, that will make a great movie. p. s. If you didn't read Robin Maxwell's other book The Secret Diary of Anne Boleyn, I would go back and read this also. It is one of the most fascinating psychological dramas as the young flirtatious Anne turns into the dominant Queen and then to the betrayed wife headed for beheading. No biographer has caught the personality of Anne Boleyn better than this book.
Rating:
Summary: Excellent reading
Review: It was an excellent book. It combined fiction with very accurate historical references. I definitely recommend it to anyone who is fascinated in England's "Virgin Queen".
Rating:
Summary: I couldn't put it down!
Review: It was so interesting. The romance and drama were well written. It filled my heart with sadness, hope, joy, and it made me think about the love that Elizabeth and Robin shared and the possible mark that it left on the world. It is a wonderful book for anyone who is touched by such things and feels very deeply about such love.
Rating:
Summary: A Very good historical novel that uses 'holes in history'
Review: Many "serious" biographies would make you believe that only they tell the truth and that there are no holes in history. Well there are holes, and this novel uses them. It tells the story of Arthur Dudley, bastard of Elizabeth 1st and Leicester. The author has done an excellent job of this in this novel to make a very interesting alternative history story. She also provides what 'facts' she was able to dig up on the real Arthur Dudley....because this man really existed, even if some of the details of the story are a fabrication.
Rating:
Summary: Yummy History
Review: October 8, 2000 What yummy history! I've just experienced the wildest, yet most tender & telling romp trough Tudor England. How delicious a page-turner and compelling a story! What if Elizabeth, the Virgin Queen DID have an illegitimate son? Robin Maxwell originates a most superb tale about such a speculation with enough history woven through to see it's inclusion in college history courses.
Rating: 
Summary: Disapointing!
Review: The Queens Bastard is a difficult read. Maxwell's use of the diary entries worked for her first novel but Aurther's entries are boring. The characters come across as pathetic and unlikable making it difficult to even finish the book. The crude sexual references are unnecessary, the only impact being a roll of the eyes and a turn of the page. The depiction of Tudor England in this novel was a huge disapointment. My advice is to read Philippa Gregory, Maxwell pales in comparison.
Rating:
Summary: Excellent read!!!!
Review: The sequel to "The Secret Diary of Anne Boleyn" is wonderful!!! I couldn't put it down! I love the way Maxwell took a tiny, barely mentioned historical "fact" and created a story with it that takes you on adventures, across the seas, and into battles during the reign of Queen Elizabeth. While the basic history is accurate, keep in mind that this is a work of historical fiction and will not be as accurate as a textbook. But the story is so enjoyable, you won't be likely to care!!!
Rating:
Summary: Wild, rollicking fun literary Historical ride!!!
Review: This book is probably, no, definitely, Historically inaccurate, but so what? It's the sequel to Maxwell's Secret Diary of Anne Boleyn, in which the newly crowned Queen reads her mother's diary and learns of the threachery of men, in particular her royal father, Henry VIII. Having decided to rule without ever marrying, but telling no one of her decision, the headstrong and lusty young queen continues her affair with her equally lusty and power hungry favorite, Robin Dudley. The two have a passionate relationship, and other courtiers are either trying to drive a wedge between them or simply don't trust Dudley. Meanwhile, Elizabeth and Robin manage some degree of real domestic intimacy as they progress through England with Dudley's sister, Mary, her husband Henry Sidney and their son, Sir Phillip, the future poet, and visit their old teacher, the scholar/wizard John Dee. In between debating the relative virtues of Mathematics and Astrology, translating Greek texts, and discussing the future of the Americas, Dee divines that a life grows in Elizabeth's belly. Elizabeth is shocked and angry. She does "not bleed like other women." It can not be possible. But it is. The determined Queen decides to give birth secretly and keep the child hidden until it is safe to make him heir to her throne. But her devoted gentlewoman, Kat Ashley, and advisor, William Cecil, have other ideas. It will never be safe for the Queen's bastard to come to light, they reason. So little Arthur, Robin and Elizabeth's son, is switched with a stillborn baby, and is raised by Robert Southern, an old beau of Kat's, who, unfortunately for Arthur, has a nasty and crazy wife who additionally can't stand what she thinks is her husband's illegitimate son. Thus, the tale really begins. The lives of Robin and Elizabeth at court are intertwined with Arthur's upbringing and striking out on his own to fight in the Netherlands, as recorded in his diary. There is, of course, a poignant misunderstood meeting, as well as a fabulous crescendo in the battle against the Armada which contains some pagan rites between Robin and Elizabeth (!), while Arthur is busy spying for his country in Spain and on the Armada fleet itself. It all fits remarkably well together. Maxwell is brilliant in that she only takes advantage of the room for speculation and never alters the facts themselves which she presents with seemless accuracy. This makes for a convincingly crafted work of fiction. Leicester's love of Mathematics and Horses is very well drawn making him the most interesting character of the book, but Elizabeth and Arthur are also well-rendered as are other characters like the devoted Kat Ashley, the loyal Lord Sussex, the flirtatious Scottish ambassador, James Melville, Dudley's silly mistress Lady Douglas Sheffield, and the noble Dutch leader, William of Orange. If one or two of the author's devices are decidedly picaresque, so much the better for the entertainment value and essential romance of the narrative atmosphere. A very engaging story that enthusiastically suggests the possibility that Elizabeth and Dudley just might have had more of a marriage than Henry VIII ever did.
Rating:
Summary: Wild, rollicking fun literary Historical ride!!!
Review: This book is probably, no, definitely, Historically inaccurate, but so what? It's the sequel to Maxwell's Secret Diary of Anne Boleyn, in which the newly crowned Queen reads her mother's diary and learns of the threachery of men, in particular her royal father, Henry VIII. Having decided to rule without ever marrying, but telling no one of her decision, the headstrong and lusty young queen continues her affair with her equally lusty and power hungry favorite, Robin Dudley. The two have a passionate relationship, and other courtiers are either trying to drive a wedge between them or simply don't trust Dudley. Meanwhile, Elizabeth and Robin manage some degree of real domestic intimacy as they progress through England with Dudley's sister, Mary, her husband Henry Sidney and their son, Sir Phillip, the future poet, and visit their old teacher, the scholar/wizard John Dee. In between debating the relative virtues of Mathematics and Astrology, translating Greek texts, and discussing the future of the Americas, Dee divines that a life grows in Elizabeth's belly. Elizabeth is shocked and angry. She does "not bleed like other women." It can not be possible. But it is. The determined Queen decides to give birth secretly and keep the child hidden until it is safe to make him heir to her throne. But her devoted gentlewoman, Kat Ashley, and advisor, William Cecil, have other ideas. It will never be safe for the Queen's bastard to come to light, they reason. So little Arthur, Robin and Elizabeth's son, is switched with a stillborn baby, and is raised by Robert Southern, an old beau of Kat's, who, unfortunately for Arthur, has a nasty and crazy wife who additionally can't stand what she thinks is her husband's illegitimate son. Thus, the tale really begins. The lives of Robin and Elizabeth at court are intertwined with Arthur's upbringing and striking out on his own to fight in the Netherlands, as recorded in his diary. There is, of course, a poignant misunderstood meeting, as well as a fabulous crescendo in the battle against the Armada which contains some pagan rites between Robin and Elizabeth (!), while Arthur is busy spying for his country in Spain and on the Armada fleet itself. It all fits remarkably well together. Maxwell is brilliant in that she only takes advantage of the room for speculation and never alters the facts themselves which she presents with seemless accuracy. This makes for a convincingly crafted work of fiction. Leicester's love of Mathematics and Horses is very well drawn making him the most interesting character of the book, but Elizabeth and Arthur are also well-rendered as are other characters like the devoted Kat Ashley, the loyal Lord Sussex, the flirtatious Scottish ambassador, James Melville, Dudley's silly mistress Lady Douglas Sheffield, and the noble Dutch leader, William of Orange. If one or two of the author's devices are decidedly picaresque, so much the better for the entertainment value and essential romance of the narrative atmosphere. A very engaging story that enthusiastically suggests the possibility that Elizabeth and Dudley just might have had more of a marriage than Henry VIII ever did.
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