| To understand theGuise is to understand the profound transformations that shook sixteenth-century Europe. So it is mystifying that outside France they are all but forgotten. For in their day theGuisewere held in awe throughout Europe. Admiring or appalled, none could ignore them. Enemies at one time or another of the great dynasties of Tudor, Habsburg, Valois, and Bourbon, the Guise were one of the most powerful princely houses of sixteenth-century Europe. With dreams of empire and aspirations to rule several kingdoms, they were the greatest non-royal house of their age. There may have been richer German princes and more cultured Italian dukes, but none had the astonishing range of dynastic interests which they possessed, ranging from Scotland to Sicily and from Ireland to Jerusalem. Their story requires retelling and it is fitting that the first comprehensive biography of the family for a century and half should fall to an Englishman, and not just because Elizabeth I considered for most of her reign that it was the Guise, and not Philip II, who was her foremost enemy. |
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