In addition she wrote many drama and other scripts for BBC radio between 19. After the quartet she wrote Elizabethan England: Life in an Age of Adventure (1982). While working on this series she also published Tudor Women (1979). Collectively these books became known as Alison Plowden's 'Elizabethan Quartet'. Her first book, The Young Elizabeth(1972), was followed by Danger to Elizabeth (1973), Marriage With My Kingdom (1977), about Elizabeth's courtships, and Elizabeth Regina (1980), which presented the Queen at the height of her powers. In 1970 she decided to leave the BBC to go freelance. She later recalled: 'A secretary writing scripts was a little like a performing monkey at the BBC - there was a sort of 'Fancy, what a clever little girl' attitude.' She wrote the script for the television series Mistress of Hardwick (about Bess of Hardwick), which won her a Writers' Guild Award for the best educational television series, and several television plays, including Sweet England's Pride and The Case of Eliza Armstrong. Privately educated, she worked for the BBC as a script editor. She was born at Quetta in India, a descendant of Edmund Plowden and, collaterally, of Henry Chichele. ( January 2007) ( Learn how and when to remove this template message)Īlison Margaret Chichele Plowden (18 December 1931 – 17 August 2007) was an English historian and biographer well known for her popular non-fiction about the Tudor period. Please help to improve this article by introducing more precise citations. This article includes a list of references, related reading, or external links, but its sources remain unclear because it lacks inline citations.

The Young Victoria by Alison Plowden