Skip to main content

Reading Group Guide

Discussion Questions

His Last Letter: Elizabeth I and the Earl of Leicester

1. Elizabeth I has been portrayed countless times in novels, biographies, movies, and plays. Discuss the different versions of her, and which ones you especially like or don’t like. How does Elizabeth in His Last Letter measure up to the others?

2. If a movie were made of His Last Letter, who should play Elizabeth? Who should play Dudley and the other major characters?

3. It’s been suggested that Elizabeth loved Dudley but was so afraid of sex and childbirth that she vowed early in life that she would never marry. Discuss the emotional and political reasons why she might have made that decision. What were the advantages? The disadvantages?

4. Discuss the mental process Eizabeth might have undergone to both consummate her love for Dudley and convince herself that she was a virgin queen.

5. In your mind, should Elizabeth and Dudley’s love be called one of the great love affairs of all time? Must all great loves remain unfulfilled, or is that just an idea fostered by male writers and mythmakers?

6. Discuss the dynamics of the relationship between Elizabeth and Dudley in His Last Letter. Were they obsessed and emotionally unstable, or do you think their love matured over the years?

7. What particularly interests you about the Tudor period? Why do you think it’s so popular now?

8. Discuss the role of Lettice Knollys in the Elizabeth/Dudley relationship.

His Last Letter: Elizabeth I and the Earl of Leicester
by Jeane Westin

  • Publication Date: August 3, 2010
  • Paperback: 400 pages
  • Publisher: NAL Trade
  • ISBN-10: 0451230124
  • ISBN-13: 9780451230126