This is the Tudor's Dynasty podcast.

And now, Ask the Expert with Steph.

Welcome back, everyone.

I'm Steph Stor, and this is Ask the Expert.

Today's episode is a fun one because we're going to focus on a

very well-known tutor figure to say the least, but with a twist. That figure is, of course,

the one and only Elizabeth I. Now, we've talked about her and her drama, her leadership,

her love life, all of that, countless times. And although there's always

more to learn and discover, today we have Professor Sue Doran here to focus on Elizabeth's

inner circle for the show today. We're going to discuss her friends, their hobbies, and

everything in between. So Sue, I'm honored to have you here today. Thank you for

joining us. Thank you for inviting me. Now, if I read correctly, you've written how many books,

16? Probably. I haven't counted, but there's a mixture of different types of books, but probably

16 will do. Oh my goodness. that's such an accomplishment. What got you

interested in Elizabeth I first to start with? Well, I'm not sure that I was particularly

interested in the queen. I was very interested in the period. I was interested in the aristocracy.

I wanted to write my PhD on an aristocrat. I was very influenced by an American

historian called Lawrence Stone, who brought together different aspects of the culture and the

political life and the economic life of aristocrats in his book, The Crisis of the Aristocracy.

And so I did my doctorate on one of the aristocrats, who was not a favorite of Elizabeth, Thomas Radcliffe, third Earl of Sussex.

And that brought me into writing about Elizabeth's matrimonial negotiations because Sussex wanted her to marry and was involved in negotiating

her marriages or the courtships with the Archduke Charles of Austria and later on with the

...