This work recreates the dramatic events and personalities of Mary and Elizabeth's reigns through the worlds of their contemporaries. Extracts from chronicles, diaries, dispatches and letters describe these two very different female monarchs and provide insights into late 16th-century society as a whole. All the key events of each reign are here: princess Elizabeth's imprisonment in the Tower of London, religious persecution, Mary's "pregnancy", Elizabeth and Dudley, the fate of Mary Stuart, Drake's circumnavigation, and the Spanish Armada; also covered are social, cultural and economic aspects of the period such as the theatre, the musical renaissance and Elizabethan science.