A terrible dread took hold in my belly. The only bed left to me was my deathbed and I was not ready for that - not yet. No, not yet. Although she lies unmoving on a pile of cushions, Elizabeth is a survivor. The unwanted daughter of an executed queen, she endured the perils of her childhood to take the throne as Queen of England. Just a girl at coronation, Elizabeth has now ruled for over four decades, withstanding political upheavals, war and plots against her life. But as she contemplates the successes and failures of that life, she weighs up all that she has relinquished - love, marriage, children, family of any kind - for power. She was not just a queen, but a flesh-and-blood woman - will her final moments be ones of regret? In this bittersweet book readers will be filled with admiration and compassion for a woman who grasped her destiny with both hands and, by doing so, made herself one of the greats of history.