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Philip Sidney
Philip Sidney
Apr 20, 2025 12:47 PM

Author:Alan Stewart

Philip Sidney

Courtier, poet, soldier, diplomat - Philip Sidney was one of the most promising young men of his age. Son of Elizabeth I's deputy in Ireland, nephew and heir to her favourite, Leicester, he was tipped for high office - and even to inherit the throne. But Sidney soon found himself caught up in the intricate politics of Elizabeth's court and forced to become as Machiavellian as everyone around him if he was to achieve his ambitions. Against a backdrop of Elizabethan intrigue and the battle between Protestant and Catholic for predominance in Europe, Alan Stewart tells the riveting story of Philip Sidney's struggle to suceed. Seeing that his continental allies had a greater sense of his importance that his English contamporaries, Philip turned his attention to Europe. He was made a French baron at seventeen, corresponded with leading foreign scholars, considered marriage proposals from two princesses and, at the time of his tragically early death, was being openly spoken of as the next ruler of the Netherlands.

Reviews

A work of great scholarship.

—— The Times

An exciting story well told... A most lively and rewarding book.

—— Jeremy Black , Literary Review

One of our most readable historians

—— Daily Express

McLynn is an astonishingly prolific historian. His books are always elegantly written, highly opinionated and enormously enjoyable

—— Sunday Times

Has anybody done more – done as much – as Frank McLynn in writing intelligent, combative, thoroughly researched and thoroughly readable history?

—— Independent

The writer who got closest to the human truth about our long-serving senior royals

—— The Times

The fascination of the British public with Tony Blair is almost on the scale of his fascination with his own relationship to them

—— Dominic Lawson , The Sunday Times

Really rather splendid

—— Jan Moir , The Daily Mail

Prime Ministerial memoirs are traditionally stuffy, formal and guarded, as though written under police caution. Tony Blair's are nothing of the sort . . . his memoirs are chummy, colloquial, impulsive and rash . . . it is this candour that makes the book so readable

—— Craig Brown , The Mail on Sunday

As this book immodestly reveals, Tony Blair was, and remains, a remarkable influence on politics, both domestically and internationally

—— Menzies Campbell , Scotland on Sunday

What makes his memoir so absorbing as it swings from clever phrase-making and thoughtful contemporary history to wince-inducing self-analysis, is that he is the first of a generation of politicians to conduct their craft as if observing themselves from an amused an admiring distance - and then to write about it. No recent politician has examines his own motives and psychology quite so candidly

—— John Rentoul , The Independent

It is the small revelations about the character of Blair that make this book worthwhile

—— Ross Clark , The Express

It's a gripping insight into the ex-PM's ten years of power . . . It will take a lot for many people to read his own take on the rise and fall of New Labour, but those that do might be reminded of the charm and vision that swept him to power

—— News of the World

I have read many a prime ministerial memoir and none of the other authors has been as self-deprecating, as willing to admit mistakes and to tell jokes against themselves

—— Mary Ann Sieghart , The Independent

Paints a candid picture of his friend and rival, Gordon Brown, and of their relationship

—— Patrick Hennessy , The Sunday Telegraph
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