More than any ship, it was she, body and crown, who served as the vessel of empire.

Catherine de Medici, Elisabeth de Valois and Mary Queen of Scots lived at the French court together for many years before scattering to different kingdoms. These three women embodied every type of Renaissance queen: queen consort, queen mother, sovereign queen. Their lives were intertwined politically and emotionally, as queens, they faced similar challenges and tragedies. And together they witnessed and endured the sea-changes that rocked sixteenth-century Europe.

To rule as a queen, they would learn, was to wage a constant war against the deeply entrenched misogyny of their time. Despite their royal crowns - or indeed because of them - their bodies remained subject to the ambition of powerful men. A crown could exalt a young woman. Equally, it could destroy her. For women, power always came with a price.

Following Catherine, Elisabeth and Mary from their earliest girlhoods through to their final days, Young Queens draws on new archival evidence to reveal the friendships, rivalries and fierce family bonds among them. Through their overlapping stories, Young Queens brings to vivid life a world in which a woman could wield power at the highest level yet remain at the mercy of the state, her body destined to serve as the currency of empire and dynasty.