The previously untold remarkable life of Bess Ralegh, the woman behind Sir Walter Ralegh and ahead of her time. From the start of her liaison with Sir Walter Ralegh, Beth Throckmorton, maid of honour to Queen Elizabeth I, was thrown into the dangerous and violent political world of Elizabethan England. Overlooked by the court and high society, dismissed with no rights as a woman in a fiercely male establishment, she was forced to play for high stakes. Her acute intelligence and commercial acumen ensured her survival. Indeed, so great was her success that two monarchs, Elizabeth I and James I, felt threatened by and indeed sought to destroy her. However Bess' success in her pursuit of power and wealth and her struggle for justice did not come without a price: her own imprisonment and interrogation, banishment and destitution, and the loss of her husband and two of her three children. Her ultimate triumph over adversity is an extraordinarily dramatic and compelling story, and until now, untold. Twice from scratch, Bess rebuilt her fortune, taking on her enemies with a courage and resilience that makes her a woman as remarkable today as she was in her own time. She is here brought to life by Anna Beer in a perceptive and enjoyable biography.