The love of an uncrowned queen

A historical biography reconstructs the secret liaison between a royal consort and a noble lover through their surviving correspondence, archival documents, and contemporary dispatches. It interweaves translated letters, analysis of authenticity, and the political maneuvers that led to the lover's disappearance and the consort's long imprisonment and forced divorce. The author describes extensive archival research across European repositories, explains how seized letters were used against her, and discusses gaps in the record while presenting selected correspondence and commentary on its provenance and historical consequences.