Drawing on the first-hand accounts of those who knew Elizabeth I most intimately – the ladies-in-waiting who shared her heavily curtained bedchamber, and sometimes even her bed – this engrossing book reconstructs the queen's apartments and navigates a web of gossip, intrigue, conspiracy and scandal to reveal the private face of Gloriana. Slightly off-mint.

Dealing with the period between 1500 and 1700, this study documents the unprecedented growth in road travel by all sections of society, from paupers to princes; the increasing volume of wheeled vehicles on the highways; and the radical changes in the means of conveying correspondence, both within England and beyond its borders.