This dual study of the households of Tudor princesses Mary and Elizabeth offers a compelling and timely examination of an often neglected period in their lives, the preaccession years before their successive reigns as Mary I and Elizabeth I of England. J. L. McIntosh's examination of Mary contributes to the recent renewed interest in her life and rule, and although a large number of historical studies concerning Elizabeth I have been published in the last ten years, most of them have been preoccupied with the period after her accession, rather than her formative years. This work, the author's award-winning dissertation originally published as part of the online Gutenberg-e history series, provides a useful window into the lives of the first two ruling queens of England before they came to the throne.

McIntosh uses a number of sources, including property transactions, patent letters, wills, and household accounts, while following the model established by Barbara Harris in English Aristocratic Women, 1450–1550: Marriage and Family, Property and Careers (Oxford, 2002), in order to argue that Mary and Elizabeth “enjoyed the same social, economic, and political status as that of other elite male householders and elite female household managers before their accessions,” allowing them to exercise political authority and function as “authority figures many years before they became sovereigns” (10). In the introduction, four chapters, and conclusion, the author traces the ways in which both princesses were able to use what McIntosh defines as the resources of their households—display, corporate identity, and property—not only to establish their authority but, ultimately, their successful successions, arguing that “it was the household, traditionally depicted as the place of women's containment and marginalization from political power, which played a determinative role in the elevation of two women in succession to the throne in a patriarchal society” (11).

The first chapter, “The Material Household and the Politics of Ostentation,” examines the ways in which the rise and fall of Mary and Elizabeth's fortunes and political status during the reign of their father, Henry VIII, can be traced through their households. In her earliest years of life, Mary, being female and not considered a viable potential heir to the throne by her father, had no separate household. This situation changed as time went on, culminating in the establishment of a separate household in the Welsh Marches between 1525 and 1528, when Mary's political fortunes as princess were at their apex. After Henry's divorce from Catherine of Aragon, his marriage to Anne Boleyn, the birth of Elizabeth, and the establishment of Mary's illegitimacy, Mary was stripped of her independent household and placed in a joint household with her infant half sister. McIntosh argues that Henry and Anne attempted “to ‘legitimize’ Elizabeth through the household ‘politics of ostentation’” (43) but that after Anne's downfall and execution, Elizabeth's household and material comforts deteriorated in conjunction with the decline of her status. The chapter also explores how Mary and Elizabeth, after Henry VIII's death, once in control of their own independent households, sought to bolster their political status and image through the use of material display.

The examination of the relationship between the princesses and their resident and nonresident household servants, as well as the development of divergent cultures within those households, forms the basis of the second chapter. McIntosh argues that a “culture of reverence” (70) characterized Mary's household court, with Mary acting as political patron and religious authority figure. Elizabeth's household, in contrast, was characterized more by a familial culture in which, because of her youth, her servants provided for her upbringing and education and ultimately forged “such a strong corporate identity that … its corporate persona existed independently of its titular figurehead,” Elizabeth (88). McIntosh persuasively develops the role each household played in a number of political crises experienced by Mary and Elizabeth during these years, including the religious confrontation between Mary and Edward VI's government and Elizabeth's Seymour crisis in 1549 as well as her arrest and imprisonment, first in the Tower and then under house arrest, during Mary I's reign.

Chapter 3 provides details about the landed estates controlled by Mary and Elizabeth after 1547 that allowed them to establish their independent households, “bestow patronage and build up regional affinities” (132). McIntosh continues this theme in the final chapter by pursuing the military dimension of landownership for both princesses and arguing that in 1553 Mary's position as landholder, regional magnate and patron, and mistress of her independent household was an important factor in claiming the throne after the death of Edward VI. On the basis of her analysis of the property exchanges made between Edward's government and both princesses in May 1553, McIntosh makes the contention that Mary and Elizabeth had prior knowledge of the plan to divert the succession to Lady Jane Grey and initially acquiesced to it in exchange for substantial land grants; Northumberland was, therefore, unprepared for Mary's later “double-cross” and successful bid to become queen. The chapter concludes with an examination of the role Elizabeth's household would play to “prevent her complete political eclipse during Queen Mary's reign” (189).

McIntosh's innovative arguments are clearly developed, and the book contains a number of useful appendixes, although it would have been helpful if the maps available on the Gutenberg-e Web site had been included in the print version; additionally, a further proofreading might have eliminated some editorial infelicities that distract from the author's innovative contribution. In examining the transition that Mary and Elizabeth made from heads of household to heads of state, McIntosh convincingly concludes that “by itself the elite household was not enough to propel Mary and Elizabeth to sovereign power but without it neither princess could have acceded to the English throne as established authority figures” (199). The portrayal of Mary, in particular, as more politically astute than she is traditionally depicted makes this a strong contribution to the growing list of recent revisionist studies of Mary I and her reign by historians such as Judith Richards, among others, and one that is well worth reading for anyone interested in the formative years of the first two regnant queens of England.