Elizabeth Leicester Author:Milton Waldman For thirty years Leicester, the favorite, and Elizabeth, the Queen, so well-matched a man and woman, kept each other in play. The Court, all England and Europe stood by exasperated, perplexed. What a pair they were! — On one occasion Mr. Waldman refers to the conduct of Elizabeth and the Earl as that of "cruel and brilliant children," a... more »nd there was something of that in all their years of friendship, love and subtle antagonism. To the modern reader there was much cruelty and brilliance in the period, with its garish display of wealth and the easy settlement of political problems by a call for the executioner and his axe. The queen and the favorite both breathed and drew life from the same adventurous, noble, barbarous, intoxicating air. No other age could have produced them. Perhaps no one until our own age could have so magnificently weighed and understood them.« less