Courtships of Queen Elizabeth (Barnes & Noble Digital Library)

This 1896 volume on the diplomatic negotiations for the hand of the Virgin Queen is a popular history of the subject. Hume mentions her inappropriate treatment by Thomas Seymour of Sudeley, and her suitors Lord Robert Dudley, Philip II of Spain, Archduke Charles of Austria, and the Duke of Anjou. Full of both serious and comic incidents, it paints a portrait of Elizabeth as a flesh-and-blood woman rather than an idealized statue.