The book by Kondraty Birkin (P.P. Karataev), an almost forgotten Russian writer, offers readers a rare opportunity to feel the atmosphere of palace secrets, intrigues and scandals in Russia, England, Italy, France and other states in the period of the 16th–18th centuries. For In England, the age of Elizabeth, in its enormous significance for this country, was the same as the age of Louis XIV was for France; for Russia – the century of our Peter the Great; for Prussia - the century of Frederick the Great. Great Britain owes its political unity, the beginning of its power on the seas, its glory on land, its honorable place in the sphere of European states, the development of its foreign trade and domestic industry to Elizabeth; finally, the brilliant successes of the sciences and arts.