"A most agreeable book. The authoress, already favourably known to the
learned world by her excellent collection of 'Letters of Royal and
Illustrious Ladies,' has executed her task with great skill and
fidelity. Every page displays careful research and accuracy. There is a
graceful combination of sound, historical erudition, with an air of
romance and adventure that is highly pleasing, and renders the work at
once an agreeable companion of the boudoir, and a valuable addition to
the historical library. Mrs. Green has entered upon an untrodden path,
and gives to her biographies an air of freshness and novelty very
alluring. The first two volumes (including the Lives of twenty-five
Princesses) carry us from the daughters of the Conqueror to the family
of Edward I.--a highly interesting period, replete with curious
illustrations of the genius and manners of the Middle Ages. Such works,
from the truthfulness of their spirit, furnish a more lively picture of
the times than even the graphic, though delusive, pencil of Scott and
James."--_Britannia._
"The vast utility of the task undertaken by the gifted author of this
interesting book can only be equalled by the skill, ingenuity, and
research displayed in its accomplishment. The field Mrs. Green has
selected is an untrodden one. Mrs. Green, on giving to the world a work
which will enable us to arrive at a correct idea of the private
histories and personal characters of the royal ladies of England, has
done sufficient to entitle her to the respect and gratitude of the
country. The labour of her task was exceedingly great, involving
researches, not only into English records and chronicles, but into those
of almost every civilised country in Europe. The style of Mrs. Green is
admirable. She has a fine perception of character and manners, a
penetrating spirit of observation, and singular exactness of judgment.
The memoirs are richly fraught with the spirit of romantic
adventure."--_Morning Post._
"This work is a worthy companion to Miss Strickland's admirable 'Queens
of England.' In one respect the subject-matter of these volumes is more
interesting, because it is more diversified than that of the 'Queens of
England.' That celebrated work, although its heroines were, for the most
part, foreign Princesses, related almost entirely to the history of this
country. The Princesses of England, on the contrary, are themselves
English, but their lives are nearly all connected with foreign nations.
Their biographies, consequently, afford us a glimpse of the manners and
customs of the chief European kingdoms, a circumstance which not only
gives to the work the charm of variety, but which is likely to render it
peculiarly useful to the general reader, as it links together by
association the contemporaneous history of various nations. The
histories are related with an earnest simplicity and copious
explicitness. The reader is informed without being wearied, and
alternately enlivened by some spirited description, or touched by some
pathetic or tender episode. We cordially commend Mrs. Everett Green's
production to general attention; it is (necessarily) as useful as
history, and fully as entertaining as romance."--_Sun._