An essential study of Cecil and the Elizabethan court, especially with regard to the establishment of English international power and the defeat of the Armada. From the preface: "It was an ironical fate to achieve while living a flame of the very first magnitude, only to have it consistently debased by posterity: to be acknowledged by contemporaries as the virtual 'Ruler of England' throughout the period that was most decisive in the nation's development, then to be reduced in history to little more than a faithful flunkey; painstaking, astute, patriotic (if you will); but essentially a figure in the background; a minor character in the drama; a necessary but obscure adjunct."