ELIZABETH IN THE GARDEN

Trea Martyn (Faber, £18.99)

Two amazingly exotic English gardens during the reign of the first Queen Elizabeth are the theme of this well-researched book, writes Anthony Looch.

Subtitled Story Of Love, Rivalry And Spectacular Garden Design, it focuses on the wonderlands on the respective estates of two of the queen’s court favourites, who were bitter political rivals. They were Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester — who was probably, at one stage, the queen’s lover — and Sir William Cecil, her chief political adviser.

Dudley’s garden at Kenilworth Castle in Warwickshire, and Cecil’s at Theobald’s Palace in Hertfordshire, became an escalating exercise in one-upmanship.

The queen was a horticultural enthusiast and Dudley and Cecil went to staggering expense and trouble to impress her, via their gardens, when she periodically came to stay.

Martyn transports us back to a strange world where mind-blowing wealth and ostentation existed unashamedly alongside mass poverty. It was also a time when everyone lived much closer to nature than today.

Trea Martyn will talk at Blenheim Palace at 12.30pm on October 12, relating her research on Elizabethan gardens to Blenheim gardens and grounds. The event is part of the Woodstock Celebrates Books festival.

Anthony Looch