Excerpt from The Courtships of Queen Elizabeth: A History of the Various Negotiations for Her MarriageThat a strong modern England was rendered possible mainly by the boldness, astuteness, and activity of Elizabeth at the critical turning-point of European history is generally admitted, but how masterly her policy was, and how entirely personal to herself, is even yet perhaps not fully understood. I have therefore endeavoured in this book to follow closely from end to end one strand only of the com plicated texture, in the hope that I may succeed by this means in exhibiting the general process by which England, under the guidance of the great Tudor Queen, was able to emerge regenerated and triumphant from the struggle which was to settle the fate of the world for centuries to come.About the PublisherForgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.comThis book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully, any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.