It would be natural to expect from the favorites of royalty that they strive to maintain the favor of their august patrons at any cost. However, there are frequent cases in history when favorites became dissatisfied with their benefactors, and they not only stopped kissing the hand that showered them with favors, but also encroached on the right of this person to rule. Did the aged Queen of England Elizabeth I Tudor really not waver in her hand to sign the death certificate? sentence to his young favorite Robert Devereux, Earl of Essex? What prompted the wife of two favorites of King Louis XIII, the friend of his wife Anne of Austria, Duchess Marie de Chevreuse, to become an eternal, irreconcilable and indomitable opponent of the autocratic royal power? Why didn't Queen Anne Stewart, the mother of 19 offspring, leave behind a direct heir? How did the rivalry between her two favorites, Duchess Sarah of Marlborough and Lady Abigail Masham, affect the political life of Great Britain? – you will find answers to these tricky questions of human relationships in the new book by the famous writer Natalia Sotnikova.