The “temptation” in the title of Elizabeth Norton’s new book refers to Elizabeth I’s early relationship with Lord Thomas Seymour of Sudeley, the “one man who had caught her fancy enough to tempt her to abandon herself to him”. Ever since John Neale first drew attention to the Seymour scandal in his 1934 biography of Queen Elizabeth, it has been of great interest to biographers, and more recently to gender historians. Did Seymour actually seduce the princess? Was the vulnerable teenager the victim of sexual abuse? What was the political significance of the affair?Norton tackles these questions, but she is equally interested in revealing the political intrigues of the mid Tudor court. In the first 65 pages we learn of Thomas Seymour’s ­character