"Elizabeth Tudor (1533-1603) ruled for forty-five years over one of the most remarkable periods in British history, and her name - synonymous with power and virtue - would certainly be included among those of the world's greatest leaders. But the pious yet ruthless Virgin Queen was also an immensely productive and gifted writer who received one of the finest humanist educations of her day. From the age of eleven, she produced a steady flow of letters, speeches, prayers, and poems in various languages. Elizabeth I: Collected Works is the first volume to bring together her extraordinary literary production." "This edition includes Elizabeth's clumsy childhood letters to her forbidding father, Henry VIII; her fledgling speeches as monarch, in which she struggled with Parliament over her right to remain a virgin and to refuse to name a successor; her witty and sometimes haunting poems to courtiers; and her earnest prayers for the nation at large. Within this volume the reader can find heartfelt entreaties to God as well as orders to torture suspected traitors. Also included are her long-lost song commemorating England's 1588 victory over the Spanish Armada and the "Golden Speech" she gave at the end of her reign. The most important of Queen Elizabeth's extant writings in other languages are here offered in new and meticulous translations, enabling readers to gain an unprecedentedly deep and intimate picture of the doubts and conflicts behind her public presentations."--Jacket.