In the tradition of the acclaimed works of Antonia Fraser, David Starkey, and historian Alison Weir, a compelling, eye-opening exploration of women and power in England, witnessed through the lives of six female rulers who exercised power against the odds—and one who never got the chance

“An epic story . . . Castor has made the whole century live again in complex, sometimes comic, often touching style.” —New York Times Book Review

With the death of Edward VI in 1553, a new era was at hand for England. Edward died leaving no male heir to claim his throne and, for the first time, England would be reigned over by a queen—but a nation desperate for leadership faced the question of which woman would assume the crown. Four women stood upon the crest of history: Katherine of Aragon's daughter, Mary; Anne Boleyn's daughter, Elizabeth; and their cousins, Mary, Queen of Scots and the Lady Jane Grey.

The controversery that surrounded a Tudor queen's succession belied an older truth: female rule in England had its roots in a supressed past. Four hundred years earlier, Matilda, daughter of Henry I and granddaughter of William the Conqueror, came tantalizingly close to securing the crown for herself. In the centuries that followed, three other exceptional women—Eleanor of Aquitaine, Isabella of France, and Margaret of Anjou—tested the limits of what was possible for women of the ruling class, and bore witness to their vilification as "she-wolves" for their ambitions.

Recounted with vivid detail and the magisterial sweep of an epic story left too long untold, She-Wolves exposes the paradoxes that the English queens had no choice but to negotiate—paradoxes that remain to confront women aspiring to roles of authority and leadership even today.