One of the purposes of this review is to revisit the long-contested terrain that separates journalists—such as the author Benton Rain Patterson—from historians in their efforts to construct stimulating and edifying historical narratives. The subject of Patterson's With the Heart of a King is the long-simmering rivalry between Elizabeth I of England and Philip II of Spain, which culminated in the launching of the Spanish Armada in 1588 and the subsequent war that outlived them both. The author makes the reasonable claim that his work is the “first in-depth examination” of the personal relationship that symbolized the religious polarization of Europe in the second half of the sixteenth century. As a former newspaper and magazine writer, Patterson is obviously fascinated by the great battles and military heroes of Western history, and he has written books ranging topically and chronologically from William the Conqueror to Andrew Jackson. Indeed, Patterson, with the precision of a seasoned journalist, does a masterful job of describing military engagements in this book. Nevertheless, judged as a writer of history, which this work most certainly purports to be, Patterson is a textbook example of, to use a quaint term, an “armchair historian,” one whose keen interest in history is backed up by considerable experience as a nonfiction writer.

This is not to say that popular histories of the type that Patterson writes are lacking in historical value. Trade and academic presses continue to do brisk business with histories of Elizabeth I, and Patterson deserves credit for exhuming Philip as a potentially exciting lead antagonist for the Virgin Queen in the popular biography sweepstakes, in place of the usual, rather shopworn villains—her half sister Mary I of England; her cousin Mary, Queen of Scots (both of whom are merely featured villains in this work); or the Earl of Essex. Works of this type, written for a potentially wide-ranging readership, often constitute an enticing introduction to historical materials for undergraduate students, who are frequently intimidated by more scholarly works written for a more specialized audience.

As a journalist wearing the hat of a historian, however, Patterson feels no need to research like one. The sources cited in his endnotes (with the exception of John Foxe's Book of Martyrs and an edited volume of Elizabeth's literary remains) are all secondary and (with a few exceptions, such as the works of Christopher Haigh, John Guy, and David Starkey) are either popular histories or works embarrassingly out-of-date. Why Patterson, in discussing the reign of Mary I, chose to read Carolly Erickson's Bloody Mary (Garden City, NY, 1978) over the works of David Loades, or Alison Weir and Anne Somerset over Susan Doran and Carole Levin, is mystifying. Patterson himself reveals his ignorance of the basic rudiments of historical interpretation when he discusses two “contradictory sources” (as he does on 64), which are in fact Foxe's sixteenth-century primary source and David Starkey's 2001 secondary work on Elizabeth. To include endnotes (which he does at an average of seven or eight a chapter) to cite contemporary quotations derived from secondary sources is the terrain of the undergraduate research paper; Patterson should have declined to include notes entirely and allowed his work to stand on the relative strength of the literary narrative he has crafted.

In this endeavor, Patterson only partly succeeds. While he does a good job of touching upon all the essential bases of a comprehensive historical account of the world of Philip and Elizabeth, such as the Protestant Reformation and the European age of discovery and conquest, it would be a daunting task for any author to make the dour, serious, and constipated Philip II into a compelling historical figure. Invariably, Philip is transformed into the primary villain of the piece (as Philip's second wife, Elizabeth's half sister Mary I of England, is merely a hapless supporting villain, in a time-honored fashion). In fact, whether Patterson realized this or not, he perpetuates the antiquated “Whig theory” of sixteenth-century history as he vividly recounts the savagery of Philip's dogmatic pursuit of the Counter-Reformation as the pragmatic Elizabeth and the Protestant English, God's chosen people, girded themselves for the inevitable conflict.

Nevertheless, the portrait of Elizabeth that emerges from this account is remote, suspicious, and one-dimensional; Patterson's inability to dazzle the reader with Elizabeth's charismatic complexity is simple unfathomable. Readers searching for more readable popular accounts of Elizabeth's life and career should stick to the works of Carolly Erickson, Alison Weir, or Anne Somerset. Patterson's inability to breathe life into his literary portrait of Elizabeth is perhaps due to his relative lack of interest in administrative and domestic matters; his narrative springs to life in his descriptions of military operations, such as those of the perennial Hapsburg/Valois war, the 1571 Spanish victory over the Turks at Lepanto, and the Armada itself. Patterson also offers clear and concise explanations for the careers of Martin Luther and Mary, Queen of Scots, in the big picture of sixteenth-century European history. In fact, in the last hundred pages of the book, beginning with the account of the Dutch revolt of the mid-1560s, Patterson pulls it all together to create a truly compelling narrative, bristling with urgency, as he describes Philip's and Elizabeth's complicated and remorseless brinksmanship as the climax of the “Enterprise of England” unfolds.