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Elizabeth I

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  1. Introduction
  2. The historiographic house of Gloriana is an enormous edifice of many rooms and wings—even if its foundations have been relaid, and more “rooms” have been added on through the years. At the center, of course, stands the biography itself, of a continually fascinating and debated woman and queen; but extending outward, Elizabeth cannot be closed off from her policies, her gender, her religion and religious policies, or the significant institutions, councilors, and courtiers who surrounded her. Any bibliography must therefore take these ancillary aspects into account, in order to capture the many dimensions of a figure who defined her times and continues to provoke intense debate. The study of Elizabeth has also constituted one of the most interdisciplinary fields in recent years, with literary scholars, historians, and art historians adding their own perspectives in the exploration of texts, icons, and portraiture relating to her. In addition, religion during Elizabeth’s reign has been approached by different disciplines, most notably through the resurgence of interest in Catholicism and Catholic culture. Political culture, including parliament, the privy council, and the court, have continually been given reassessments, while the role of gender, once thought so important to Elizabeth’s persona and maintenance of power, has been questioned recently. Meanwhile, in her long period of rule, not one but two reigns have been identified, with the latter occurring from the 1590s to her death in 1603. Favorable or adverse, the verdicts on her, and her queenship, therefore continue, as even contemporaries such as Cecil could foresee. “I fear,” he wrote toward the end of her reign, that “her Highness shall be strangely and very variously chronicled.”
  3. General Overviews
  4. Excellent overviews of the Tudor period, and Elizabeth’s reign especially, continue to be published at a fairly regular interval, with Guy 1988 offering the most definitive political history, and Brigden 2000redressing traditional Anglocentric approaches to include extensive material on Ireland. Bindoff 1982and Rowse 2003 provide general and traditional narrative accounts, while Rex 2002 offers a more recent treatment in his concise survey. Palliser 1992 provides a larger contextual exploration, including Tudor economic policies, and Tittler and Jones 2004 the best recent coverage of key themes of the age.
  5. Bindoff, Stanley Thomas. Tudor England. Harmondsworth, UK: Penguin, 1982.
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  7. The classic but dated textbook of the Tudors, providing a well-written narrative account, with the last half devoted to Elizabeth, whose fame, Bindoff wrote, was due to “three things: her longevity, her long-preserved virginity, and her political genius.”
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  9. Brigden, Susan. New Worlds, Lost Worlds: The Rule of the Tudors, 1485–1603. New York: Viking, 2000.
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  11. A well-presented narrative of the Tudor century, incorporating new approaches and particularly strong in its presentation of Ireland and the Atlantic world.
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  13. Guy, John. Tudor England. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1988.
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  15. Perhaps the best analytical narrative and overview of Tudor England, incorporating original research and conclusions, particularly concerning Elizabeth’s financial policies. Above all a political history, the work concludes that the Tudor reigns, including Elizabeth’s, were mostly successful and certainly transformative of the English polity by the end of the century.
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  17. Palliser, D. M. The Age of Elizabeth: England under the Later Tudors, 1547–1603. 2d ed. London: Longman, 1992.
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  19. A comprehensive account of Elizabeth’s reign intended for the general reader and Tudor scholar alike, with special emphasis on economic life and policy as well as demographic changes, trade, transport, and communications.
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  21. Rex, Richard. The Tudors. Stroud, UK: Tempus, 2002.
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  23. A short and readable survey of the Tudors utilizing the most recent scholarship. Elizabeth is presented as something of a cipher, careful to maintain her public image, often a reactor to events rather than an agent or decisive ruler; England itself, however, is markedly changed by the end of her reign, its monarchy strengthened despite (and even because of) the succession question, its Protestantism firmly embedded within its sense of nationhood.
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  25. Rowse, Alfred Leslie. The England of Elizabeth: The Structure of Society. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 2003.
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  27. An underappreciated text. Although not without its problems and datedness, it nevertheless offers a full narrative of Elizabeth’s reign. Useful for undergraduates.
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  29. Tittler, Robert, and Norman Jones, eds. A Companion to Tudor Britain. Blackwell Companions to British History. Oxford: Blackwell, 2004.
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  31. Twenty-eight essays by leading scholars expert in their chosen areas. Covers all of the British Isles and utilizes the most recent historiographical approaches.
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  33. Reference Works
  34. A number of very good reference works explore all facets of Elizabethan England, although under the larger rubric of the Tudors. Though not wading fully into the extensive historiographical debates of certain subjects such as the Puritans or Parliament, many entries provide helpful introductions to them, and references to further reading. Fritze 1991 provides extensive coverage of the period, and Kinney and Swain 2001 is an excellent encyclopedic offering on the Elizabethan Age, while Matthew and Harrison 2004 contains both notable and obscure personages who contributed to the period.
  35. Fritze, Ronald, ed. Historical Dictionary of Tudor England, 1485–1603. New York: Greenwood, 1991.
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  37. A useful compendium of information on Tudor England, with entries focusing on individuals as well institutions, laws, economics, social history, military issues, and popular culture, and Irish and Scottish history. Includes a useful appendix of chronology and a bibliography with each entry and at the end.
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  39. Kinney, Arthur F., and David W. Swain, eds. Tudor England: An Encyclopedia. New York: Garland, 2001.
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  41. More than seven hundred entries representing all facets of the Tudor world, with strong entries on the Elizabethan period. An appendix of bibliographic essays is also included.
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  43. Matthew, Colin G., and Brian Harrison, eds. The Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004.
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  45. An invaluable resource in researching both prominent and obscure individuals in Tudor England. Available online and in print, this sixty-volume, recently revised work also contains illustrations and helpful bibliographic information from each contribution. The entry on Elizabeth is written by Patrick Collinson.
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  47. Bibliographies
  48. An updated and comprehensive bibliography incorporating the most recent approach remains to be written, though scholars such as John Guy (see General Overviews) have surveyed the field, and bibliographic essays can often be found online or in various studies and textbooks. Elton 1971extends through four centuries, but the chapter on Elizabeth is strong, while Read 1978 is the most exhaustive bibliography, and Levine 1968 is less so but also useful.
  49. Elton, Geoffrey R. Modern Historians on British History, 1485–1945: A Critical Bibliography, 1945–1969. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1971.
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  51. A comprehensive survey of nearly four hundred years of British history, this volume is particularly strong in discussing the existing primary sources and document collections, and devotes a chapter to the 16th century and Elizabeth.
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  53. Levine, Mortimer. Tudor England, 1485–1603. London: Cambridge University Press, 1968.
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  55. A listing of 2,360 sources that cover scholarship on the period up to 1968. Includes general surveys, constitutional and political history, military and naval history, economic history, and the arts and intellectual history. Usefully categorized and indexed.
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  57. Read, Conyers. Bibliography of British History: Tudor Period, 1485–1603. 2d ed. Totowa, NJ: Rowman and Littlefield, 1978.
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  59. A monumental work that covers thousands of sources and is heavily annotated and cross-referenced. Includes local histories as well as histories of Scotland and a huge range of other subject matter. Remains the best bibliography on the Tudor period, compiled and edited by one of its leading historians. Originally published in 1959.
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  61. Primary Sources
  62. An extensive collection of Elizabeth’s personal writings and speeches is available, allowing the student to understand the queen in the context of her life and reign. Elizabeth, however, was particularly given to separating the public persona and the private inner life, particularly in matters of her own faith; her writings therefore reflect this divide, without fully revealing the author’s intentions. The reader should also take care to note the audience that Elizabeth was addressing, whether it was Parliament or the diplomatic or personal recipients of her letters. Literary scholars have spent considerable energy on the works issued by the queen, studying them for their high quality as well as their often ambiguous nature; perhaps most important is the contribution her writings made in shaping her identity as a monarch and a Tudor, both in her own time and for posterity.
  63. PERSONAL WRITINGS AND SPEECHES
  64. Elizabeth’s writings and speeches are available in a number of volumes, though it should be noted that some works, particularly in Harrison 1968, are of doubtful provenance, while speeches were often transcribed and changed after the fact. The collection contained in Marcus, et al. 2002 is probably definitive, with May 2004 also providing a good sample. Mueller and Marcus 2003 andPrescott 2001 also provide Elizabeth’s foreign language compositions, with Neale 1953–1957offering the queen’s speeches to Parliament, and Nichols 1823 accounts of her public processions. Finally, Pryor 2003 provides a well-illustrated volume of Elizabeth’s letters.
  65. Harrison, G. B. Letters of Queen Elizabeth. New York: Funk and Wagnalls, 1968.
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  67. A compilation of the queen’s complete letters, although some are of dubious origin. Covers the personal letters written in her own hand, with the majority concerned with matters of state, or written on behalf of the queen by her ministers.
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  69. Marcus, Leah S., Janel Mueller, and Mary Beth Rose, eds. Elizabeth I: Collected Works. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2002.
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  71. An outstanding resource for students and scholars, this work contains poems, speeches, prayers and letters, in modernized English and arranged chronologically and by genre. Extremely useful textual and explanatory notes. Does not include Elizabeth’s translations (see Mueller and Marcus 2003).
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  73. May, Steven W., ed. Queen Elizabeth I: Selected Works. New York: Washington Square, 2004.
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  75. An anthology of the queen’s letters, prayers, speeches, translations and poetry, with special attention paid to their authenticity. Modernized spelling, commentary, and explanatory notes.
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  77. Mueller, Janel, and Leah S. Marcus, eds. Elizabeth I: Autograph Compositions and Foreign Language Originals. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2003.
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  79. A supplement to Marcus, et al. 2002, this volume focuses specifically on the compositions as they relate to Elizabeth’s learning and humanist education, as well as her Latin and foreign- language skills.
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  81. Neale, Sir John Ernest. Elizabeth I and Her Parliaments. 2 vols. London: Jonathan Cape, 1953–1957.
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  83. Contains complete transcripts of Elizabeth’s addresses to Parliament. Reissued in 1966.
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  85. Nichols, John. The Progresses and Public Processions of Queen Elizabeth. 3 vols. London: J. Nichols, 1823.
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  87. Excerpts of speeches the queen made on her progresses. Reprinted in 1966.
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  89. Prescott, Anne Lake. Elizabeth and Mary Tudor. The Early Modern Englishwoman: A Facsimile Library. Brookfield, VT: Ashgate, 2001.
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  91. Includes Elizabeth’s translation, dedicated to Katherine Parr, of “Le Mirroir de l’ame pecheresse” (1531), reproduced in John Bale’s 1548 edition as well as the 1568 edition, which also contains a set of prayers believed to be read by Elizabeth and an acrostic on “Elizabeth Regina.”
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  93. Pryor, Felix. Elizabeth I: Her Life in Letters. London: British Library, 2003.
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  95. Published in commemoration of the 400th anniversary of the queen’s death, this volume contains color illustrations and reproductions of the letter-manuscripts, as well as commentary by the editor.
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  97. Commentary
  98. Elizabeth’s speeches have merited a great deal of attention not only for their political import but also for their literary qualities. Green 1997 explores one of the most famous speeches, given at Tilbury Camp, while Shenk 2003 looks at her university orations and Heisch 1975 considers her speeches to parliament. Marcus 2000 and Marcus 2002 examine Elizabeth’s literary works, as well as her public and private persona. For a good overview of the queen’s speeches as a whole, students should also consult Teague 1992.
  99. Green, Janet M. “‘I my self’: Queen Elizabeth I’s Oration at Tilbury Camp.” Sixteenth Century Journal 28 (1997): 421–445.
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  101. A close reading that connects the famous Tilbury speech—which Green argues is genuine—to other speeches of the queen in its allusions, quotations, and rhetoric.
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  103. Heisch, Allison. “Queen Elizabeth I: Parliamentary Rhetoric and the Exercise of Power.”Signs 1.1 (1975): 31–55.
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  105. A perceptive analysis of Elizabeth’s speeches to Parliament (as well as to more private audiences), particularly as they served to exert monarchical authority and manipulate rhetoric as an “instrument of power.” Elizabeth’s “oratorical performance” was central, Heisch writes, to her control of Parliament, and by extension the nation, though the speeches also varied according to circumstances and intent over the course of her reign.
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  107. Marcus, Leah S. “Elizabeth the Writer.” History Today 50.10 (2000): 36–38.
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  109. Brief overview that explores Elizabeth’s literary productions and primarily her speeches (which are problematic in terms of their transcriptions) as well as her letters and verses.
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  111. Marcus, Leah S. “Queen Elizabeth I as Public and Private Poet: Notes toward a New Edition.” In Reading Monarch’s Writing: The Poetry of Henry VIII, Mary Stuart, Elizabeth I, and James VI/I. Edited by Peter C. Herman, 135–153. Medieval and Renaissance Texts and Studies 234. Tempe: Arizona Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies, 2002.
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  113. An illuminating essay that places Elizabeth within existing manuscript and print traditions, and contrasts her role as private poet with a larger, public purpose to utilize poetry in conjunction with her royal position.
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  115. Shenk, Linda. “Turning Learned Authority into Royal Supremacy: Elizabeth I’s Learned Persona and Her University Orations.” In Elizabeth I: Always Her Own Free Woman. Edited by Carole Levin, Jo Eldridge Carney, and Debra Barrett-Graves, 78–96. Burlington, VT: Ashgate, 2003.
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  117. Examines not only the evidence of Elizabeth’s humanist education in her learned speeches but also the political self-image and stances embedded within them. Taking specific speeches into analysis, Shenk demonstrates not only the “learned prince” aspect of them but also the manner in which the queen asserted her own “indisputable supremacy.”
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  119. Teague, Frances. “Queen Elizabeth in Her Speeches.” In Gloriana’s Face: Women, Public and Private, in the English Renaissance. Edited by Susan P. Cerasano and Marion Wynne-Davies, 63–78. Detroit, MI: Wayne State University Press, 1992.
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  121. Discusses and redresses the neglect given to the Queen’s oratory, particularly in their intellectual dimensions, political import, and literary merit. According to Teague, questions concerning the authenticity of some of the speeches are valid. But too many modern misconceptions and neglect of the textual issues at work, as well as the “gossip” that has accrued to the queen, have distorted understanding of the speeches, particularly to Parliament.
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  123. STATE PAPERS AND HISTORICAL SOURCEBOOKS
  124. Specialists working on all aspects of Elizabethan government, including its more informal and unofficial dimensions, must consult the multivolume State Papers series. Lemon and Green 1856–1872 covers the first half of Elizabeth’s reign, with Sainsbury 1860 extending through the remaining decades; Hamilton, et al. 1860 offers documents relating to Ireland, while Stevenson, et al. 1863–1950 provides coverage of foreign affairs up to 1588. The Patent Rolls collection, in Great Britain Public Record Office 1939 was incomplete until government funding in 1999 allowing the project of finishing the Elizabethan calendar to continue in Neal and Leighton 1999. Meanwhile, many useful sourcebooks covering different aspects of Elizabeth’s reign such as Kinney 1975 are available, withMayer 2003 focusing on the succession issue.
  125. Great Britain Public Record Office. Calendar of Patent Rolls Preserved in the Public Records Office. London: H. M. Stationery Office, 1939.
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  127. An invaluable source of records for the administrative, social, and political aspects of Elizabeth’s earlier reign, revealing information not only about government but also about patronage, culture, foreign policy, and land transactions and claims.
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  129. Green, Mary Anne Everett, ed. Calendar of State Papers Domestic: Elizabeth-Addenda 1580–1625. London: Public Records Office, 1872.
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  131. Official and unofficial papers covering the latter part of Elizabeth’s reign, in a continuation of Lemon, et al. 1856–1872.
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  133. Hamilton, H. C., E. G. Atkinson, and E. G. Mahaffy, eds. Calendar of the State Papers relating to Ireland in the Reigns of Henry VIII, Edward VI, Mary, and Elizabeth, 1509–1603. 11 vols. London: Longman, 1860.
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  135. A range of state documents, public and private, that encompasses Tudor policy and changing colonial approaches toward Ireland, including directives during the reign of Elizabeth.
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  137. Kinney, Arthur F., ed. Elizabethan Backgrounds: Historical Documents of the Age of Elizabeth I. Hamden, CT: Archon, 1975.
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  139. A useful collection of documents that covers (primarily) foreign as well as domestic matters in the age of Elizabeth. Includes portraits, speeches, and descriptions of processions.
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  141. Lemon, Robert, Mary Anne Everett Green, eds. Calendar of State Papers, Domestic Series. Edward VI, Mary, Elizabeth I, and James I. 146 vols. London: Public Records Office, 1856–1872.
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  143. Papers both private and official of secretaries of state relating to home affairs in the first half of Elizabeth’s reign, including political and religious policies, economic affairs, crown possessions, social directives as well as some foreign policy.
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  145. Mayer, Jean-Christophe, ed. Breaking the Silence on the Succession: A Sourcebook of Manuscripts and Rare Elizabethan Texts (c.1587–1603). Montpellier, France: Publications de la Recherche, 2003.
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  147. A useful selection of rare as well as unpublished texts reflecting a range of Protestant, Puritan, Catholic, Scottish, and European perspectives on the crisis. Illuminates the larger political culture as well.
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  149. Neal, Simon, and Christine Leighton, eds. Calendar of Patent Rolls Elizabeth I. Kew, UK: List and Index Society, 1999.
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  151. Continues the patent rolls into the later reign of Elizabeth, after the previous and uncompleted editions were abandoned due to lack of funding in the mid-1980s. The changing character of the Patent Rolls, as well as evolving government and patronage, are covered in the documents.
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  153. Sainsbury, W. Noel, ed. Calendar of State Papers, Colonial. Vol. 1. London: Public Records Office, 1860.
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  155. Covers the Elizabethan period from 1574 to her death (and in general up to 1660).
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  157. Stevenson, Joseph, A. J. Crosby, A. J. Butler, S. C. Lomas, A. B. Hinds, and Richard Bruce Wernham, eds. Calendar of State Papers Foreign, 1558–1589. London: Public Records Office, 1863–1950.
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  159. Documents produced by Elizabethan ministers relating to diplomacy abroad, including correspondence, original and draft treaties, intercepted intelligence, working papers, and material covering colonial policy. The series is continued after 1589 with List and Analysis of State Papers, Foreign Series: Elizabeth I. Preserved in the Public Record Office (London: H. M. Stationery Office, 1964–).
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  161. Edited Collections
  162. A number of important edited collections have been published on the queen, with the 400th anniversary of her death in 2003 witnessing the release of additional volumes, some based upon commemorative conferences. The work of leading scholars may be found in all of them, with some contributing important and original insights, particularly in the field of literary studies. For a good overview of the reign, the student should consult Haigh 1984 and Bindoff, et al. 1961 for an older sampling of articles on Elizabethan government. The essays in Guy 1995 focus on the darker years of the 1590s, as does Haigh 1984. The essays in Doran and Freeman 2003, in addition to Homem and Vieira 2006, explore the myth of Elizabeth, while Levin, et al. 2003 furthers the examination of the queen’s own self-presentation. Relatedly, the articles in Jansohn 2004 uncover Elizabeth’s legacy, as does Walker 1998 but through a more negative lens.
  163. Bindoff, Stanley Thomas, Joel Hurstfield, and C. H. Williams, eds. Elizabethan Government and Society: Essays Presented to Sir John Neale. London: Athlone, 1961.
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  165. An older but still beneficial and important anthology of essays covering a range of political, financial, and foreign policies, as well as the figures behind them, during the reign of Elizabeth.
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  167. Doran, Susan, and Thomas Freeman, eds. The Myth of Elizabeth. London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2003.
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  169. A short but rich group of essays that explores different dimensions of the Elizabeth myth, particularly in its origins and afterlife.
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  171. Guy, John, ed. The Reign of Elizabeth I: Court and Culture in the Last Decade. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1995.
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  173. A significant series of contributions that seeks to understand the 1590s, in Guy’s words, “on their terms and in context.” Emphasizing themes of Puritanism, patronage, and the political aspects of literary works, the essays also paint a portrait of an age in decline and the old order passing away.
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  175. Haigh, Christopher, ed. The Reign of Elizabeth. London: Macmillan, 1984.
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  177. A stimulating collection of essays by leading scholars, relating to politics, religion, the problems of the 1590s, the exchequer, as well as parliamentary history.
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  179. Homem, Rui Manuel G. de Carvalho, and Fátima Vieira, eds. Gloriana’s Rule: Literature, Religion, and Power in the Age of Elizabeth. Porto, Portugal: Editora da Universidade do Porto, 2006.
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  181. A gathering of studies based upon a 2003 conference that attempts to examine and interrogate the myth of Elizabeth and to connect to the political and religious circumstances of the period. Literature and iconography predominate, although foreign policy and religion also receive some attention.
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  183. Jansohn, Christa, ed. Queen Elizabeth I: Past and Present. Vol. 16. Münster, Germany: LIT, 2004.
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  185. An interdisciplinary volume, based upon a conference commemorating the 400th anniversary of Elizabeth’s death. Primarily a cultural and literary perspective.
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  187. Levin, Carole, Jo Eldridge Carney, and Debra Barrett-Graves, eds. Elizabeth I: Always Her Own Free Woman. Burlington, VT: Ashgate, 2003.
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  189. A wide-ranging collection that treats such subjects as Elizabeth’s court, her progresses through the country, her orations and approach to parliament, and, perhaps most interestingly, her relations with the outlaw pirate and Irish chieftain Grace O’Malley.
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  191. Walker, Julia M., ed. Dissing Elizabeth: Negative Representations of Gloriana. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1998.
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  193. Reflects the relatively recent turn in historiography that views Elizabeth in a less idealistic light. These eleven essays examine the darker contemporary portrayals of the queen through poetry that subverted the cult of the queen, Irish perceptions, biblical allusions that subtly criticized her, or even paintings that presented her (in response to the fawning posthumous eulogies) as a repulsive bird.
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  195. Biographies
  196. Neale 1957 is an extremely positive portrait of Elizabeth as a “political genius” and Protestant savior, which countered the previous negative accounts of historians and comprised the standard biographical approach for decades after. Since its publication in 1934, however, recent works have presented her in a more complex light. The latter part of her reign, from approximately 1585 through the 1590s has been viewed as especially troublesome in its costly wars, economic malaise, and authoritarian turn, coloring personal treatments of her as well. Popular biographies abound, but the following also include treatments of her political life and persona as well. Doran 2003 is one of the best explorations of Elizabeth, presenting the queen as a sympathetic figure and “hands-on” leader, while Haigh 1998 offers a negative portrait of a monarch who was “God’s servant… but not her people’s.” Levin 2002 also provides an excellent examination of the reign, with Loades 2003, Starkey 2001, and Ridley 1989 offering a more straightforward biographical treatment. MacCaffrey 1993 is also essential in providing a detailed overview of the queen’s rule, written by one of the leading historians of the subject.
  197. Doran, Susan. Elizabeth I. New York: New York University Press, 2003.
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  199. Targeted at a wide readership, this work is nevertheless typically scholarly and informed, arguing among other things that Elizabeth’s gender was not as important a component in her political rule as generally assumed.
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  201. Haigh, Christopher. Elizabeth I. 2d ed. Profiles in Power. London: Longman, 1998.
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  203. Not a biographical study so much as an examination of Elizabeth’s exercise of power. Short, well-written, and thematically oriented book revealing a flawed queen, her reign being “thirty years of illusion, followed by fifteen of disillusion.” Still, the political tests that she was forced to confront called upon considerable skill.
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  205. Levin, Carole. The Reign of Elizabeth I. Basingstoke, UK: Palgrave, 2002.
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  207. A series of examinations of various aspects of Elizabeth’s reign, from the religious settlement of 1559 to matters of diplomacy, marriage, and the succession issue that Levin argues defined her rule. Levin also differs from other scholars in analyzing the troubled 1590s from the perspective of Jews, Africans, the poor, and women accused of witchcraft.
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  209. Loades, David Michael. Elizabeth I. London: Hambledon, 2003.
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  211. A biography that balances the woman and the queen, the personal life and the broader political persona, written by one of the leading scholars of Tudor England. Particularly strong on Elizabeth’s early years, Loades argues for the influence of key episodes, such as her imprisonment under Mary, in shaping her later positions as a woman who was very much in control.
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  213. MacCaffrey, Wallace T. Elizabeth I. London: Arnold, 1993.
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  215. An exploration of Elizabeth’s political behavior and the manner in which it shaped the politics of the age. Focusing the loyalties of her subjects upon herself, through extensive use of self-promotion, Elizabeth was also flawed in her sometimes contradictory traits of caution and impulsiveness, as well as in her political isolation, conservatism, and frequent inflexibility, most evident in her later years.
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  217. Neale, Sir John Ernest. Queen Elizabeth. New York: Doubleday, 1957.
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  219. The classic but dated (and sometimes sentimental) treatment of Elizabeth, this volume utilizes contemporary works by John Foxe, Robert Naunton, and (most importantly) William Camden to present the queen in a highly complimentary and even loving light, as well as a masterful and subtle politician with formidable intellectual skills that contributed to the greatness of the Protestant nation.
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  221. Ridley, Jasper. Elizabeth I: The Shrewdness of Virtue. New York: Fromm International, 1989.
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  223. Argues that Elizabeth benefited from luck and her own basic political instincts rather than any deep wisdom or inherent greatness; it is nevertheless a positive account that attributes the reign’s success to her own decisions. Emphasizes, in addition, the role of religion in the queen’s domestic and foreign policy.
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  225. Starkey, David. Elizabeth: The Struggle for the Throne. New York: Harper Perennial, 2001.
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  227. Based on a television program, this popular yet well-researched work takes Elizabeth’s life from her birth up to the first days of her reign. Particularly strong on Elizabeth during her sister Mary’s reign.
  228. Find this resource:
  229. Gender and the Queen
  230. The role of gender in the life and rule of Elizabeth gained much currency with the emergence of feminist scholarship in the 1970s and is reflected in works such as Bassnett 1992 and Heisch 1980; recent assessments by Doran 2003 and others, however, have tended to lessen its importance, even in the queen’s iconography. Nevertheless, the fact that Elizabeth was a woman, and unmarried, could not help but raise a number of issues among her councilors and the public at large, all of which these works examine in some respect. Hackett 2006 explores the larger issues behind Elizabeth’s childlessness, while Mears 2005 examines the role of gender in contemporary political discourse. Finally, Levin 1994, in an important study, elucidates the role of gender in the queen’s own self-presentation.
  231. Bassnett, Susan. Elizabeth I: A Feminist Perspective. Oxford: Berg, 1992.
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  233. A biographical approach to Elizabeth that places her within the context of the period, at the same time that she is presented through a distinctly feminist lens, as a woman who chose to stay unmarried as a means to ensure her emotional and physical independence, as well as her political control over the realm.
  234. Find this resource:
  235. Doran, Susan. “Elizabeth I: Gender, Power, and Politics.” History Today 53.5 (2003): 29–35.
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  237. Downplays the role of gender in Elizabeth’s rule, which had to contend with the same issues of religion, politics, international affairs, and succession questions as in earlier reigns. Though the queen was distinct as a ruler, Doran writes, “She worked within the same institutional structures and adopted the same royal conventions as earlier monarchs.” Finally, and not least, Elizabeth was hardly a feminist icon in her conservative adherence to traditional gender assumptions.
  238. Find this resource:
  239. Hackett, Helen. “The Rhetoric of (In)fertility: Shifting Responses to Elizabeth I’s Childlessness.” In Rhetoric, Women, and Politics in Early Modern England. Edited by Jennifer Richards and Alison Thorne, 149–171. London: Routledge, 2006.
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  241. Investigates the meanings and reasons behind the persistent theme of the queen’s childlessness across Elizabeth’s reign and how the image of Elizabeth as mother of the nation “was used both to bolster her authority and to challenge it.”
  242. Find this resource:
  243. Heisch, Alison. “Queen Elizabeth and the Persistence of Patriarchy.” Feminist Review 4 (1980): 45–56.
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  245. A compelling essay that addresses Elizabeth’s status as an “exceptional woman” who nevertheless “did nothing to upset or interfere with male notions of how the world was or should be organized.” In her speeches, she did little to extend her own abilities to educable women as a whole, nor did she fail to belittle her gender as feeble.
  246. Find this resource:
  247. Levin, Carole. “The Heart and Stomach of a King”: Elizabeth I and the Politics of Sex and Power. Philadelphia: Penn State University Press, 1994.
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  249. An informative work on the role of gender in the construction and political life of the queen. Focusing on Elizabeth’s self-representation and the difficulties attendant upon them, Levin also examines the often ambivalent responses to such representations by courtiers, foreign ambassadors, and the public at large.
  250. Find this resource:
  251. McLaren, Anne. “Gender, Religion, and Early Modern Nationalism: Elizabeth I, Mary Queen of Scots, and the Genesis of English Anti-Catholicism.” American Historical Review 107.3 (2002): 739–767.
  252. DOI: 10.1086/532494Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  253. Argues that anti-Catholicism in England became central in English political life during the late 16th century in response to the threat posed by Mary Queen of Scots and the existence of “two queens in one isle.” The role of gender, and the “specter of feminine succession” and female rule was important in generating a “campaign” equating Catholicism and Mary, and asserting a discourse against both.
  254. Find this resource:
  255. Mears, Natalie. Queenship and Political Discourse in the Elizabethan Realms. Cambridge Studies in Early Modern British History. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2005.
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  257. Applies Jürgen Habermas’s influential sociological conception of the public sphere to Elizabethan England, examining the manner in which political debate was disseminated through a variety of networks from the court and council to those of the lower orders. Also contains a critique of feminist scholarship that overemphasized Elizabeth’s use of gender.
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  259. FEMALE RULE
  260. Not least of Elizabeth’s challenges was her status as a female ruler, and there was no shortage of preachers and polemicists who weighed in on the subject, for or against. Indeed, gender in this sense was essential in her legitimating claims of rulership, even if another female, Mary Stuart, was occupying another throne. John Knox was the most prominent contributor to the long-standing debate, but Elizabeth’s version of Protestantism complicated his position. At the same time, the lower orders also had something to say on the matter, as a few of these studies demonstrate.Christian 1993 demonstrates the importance of preachers and sermons in upholding and sometimes criticizing the queen, while Collinson 1998 and Healey 1994 explore John Knox’s position. Jordan 1987 analyzes the role of female rule in the context of contemporary political thought, and from the other end of the spectrum, Levin 1998 discusses the nature of gender and slander toward the queen. Richards 1999 argues that Elizabeth’s use of the language of love recalled (and complicated) an older political language, while also serving as an effective strategy to ensure obedience and create a bridge to her larger subjects with whom she shared—in her words—a “mutual love.”
  261. Christian, Margaret. “Elizabeth’s Preachers and the Government of Women: Defining and Correcting a Queen.” Sixteenth Century Journal 3 (1993): 561–576.
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  263. Explores through numerous sermons the often “uneasy” relationship between Elizabeth and the preachers, who contributed to the cult of the queen, compared her to biblical figures, advocated in favor of the obedience of her subjects, and thereby validated her legitimacy to the throne.
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  265. Collinson, Patrick. “John Knox, the Church of England, and the Women of England.” In John Knox and the British Reformations. Edited by Roger A. Mason, 74–96. Aldershot, UK: Ashgate, 1998.
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  267. An informative essay that explores Knox’s marriage as well as his female friendships, all of which mitigated, Collinson argues, subsequent charges of misogyny on his part. Nevertheless, Knox remained generally resolute against female rule, Elizabeth being a (temporary) exception.
  268. Find this resource:
  269. Healey, Robert M. “Waiting for Deborah: John Knox and Four Ruling Queens.” Sixteenth Century Journal 25 (1994): 371–386.
  270. DOI: 10.2307/2542887Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  271. A deep analysis of Knox’s views on female rule, which he opposed unless, as in the case of the biblical Deborah, God alone temporarily suspended his divine commandment. Although Knox initially hoped that Elizabeth as well as Mary Stuart would fulfill Deborah’s mission in reforming the nation to a godly Protestantism, their failure to do so according to his standards left him waiting for Deborah “in vain.”
  272. Find this resource:
  273. Jordan, Constance. “Woman’s Rule in Sixteenth-Century British Political Thought.”Renaissance Quarterly 40 (1987): 421–451.
  274. DOI: 10.2307/2862518Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  275. Jordan explores the existing literature that treated the question of female rule, particularly regarding Elizabeth, which borrowed from continental treatises while also presenting a “profoundly innovative” approach in its examination of scriptural pronouncements, philosophies of natural law, and customary legal practices.
  276. Find this resource:
  277. Levin, Carole. “‘We Shall Never Have a Merry World While the Queene Lyveth’: Gender, Monarchy, and the Power of Seditious Words.” In Dissing Elizabeth: Negative Representations of Gloriana. Edited by Julia Walker, 77–95. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1998.
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  279. Examines the seditious statements made and rumors circulating in Elizabeth’s reign, particularly compared to Henry VIII’s, especially as they touched upon the succession issue as well as her sexual behavior and other matters relating to her gender.
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  281. Richards, Judith M. “Love and a Female Monarch: The Case of Elizabeth Tudor.” Journal of British Studies 38 (1999): 133–160.
  282. DOI: 10.1086/386187Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  283. Argues that Elizabeth’s “wooing” of her subjects was not a romantic contrivance but a serious political expression that also encompassed humanist beliefs and existing monarchical articulations of power.
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  285. Politics and Government
  286. The long reign of Elizabeth represented momentous changes in politics and political thought, as well as a continuation of existing developments in institutional, administrative, and court life. The queen herself provoked a number of debates over issues such as the succession, while historians have viewed (and reputed) the nature and role of parliament as an oppositional force that would influence events of the following century. In recent years, the idea of a broader political culture encompassing not simply institutions such as parliament but also the court and patronage networks, has received attention from scholars seeking to understand the wider context of decision making and policy. The presence of factionalism and consensus in the council and court, the stirrings of empire and the beginnings of an emergent national identity, as well as the extent of republican thought, are some of the issues that have also stirred debate in recent years.
  287. ELIZABETHAN POLITICAL CULTURE AND THE EMERGING NATION
  288. Though scholars such as Hurstfield 1960 once asserted that the queen was successful in preserving unity and strengthening the monarchy, other arguments, found in such works as Collinson 1994, have claimed that prominent individuals, including advisors and councilors, harbored nonmonarchical and quasi-republican sentiments—a claim that has been qualified, however, by authors of essays found in McDiarmid 2007. The rhetoric of political and cultural nationhood was also fashioned during this time by authors discussed in Helgerson 1992, while McLaren 1999explores the shaping influence of gender in the political discourses of the age.
  289. Collinson, Patrick. “The Monarchical Republic of Queen Elizabeth I.” In Elizabethan Essays. By Partick Collison, 31–58. London: Hambledon, 1994.
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  291. Proposes the important and much-commented-upon thesis that Elizabethan England was “a republic that also happened to be a monarchy,” with councilors maintaining their own nonmonarchical ideological stances, as they considered themselves citizens in a shared commonwealth.
  292. Find this resource:
  293. Helgerson, Richard. Forms of Nationhood: The Elizabethan Writing of England. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1992.
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  295. A cultural rather than political examination, but one that focuses on the formation of an English national identity brought about through the “first Elizabethan generation” of writers born between 1551 and 1564, including lawyers, poets, topographers, dramatists, and theologians.
  296. Find this resource:
  297. Hurstfield, Joel. Elizabeth I and the Unity of England. New York: Macmillan, 1960.
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  299. A concise and unfailingly positive “political biography” arguing that Elizabeth’s abiding ideal was the “restoration and preservation of English unity,” despite the persistence of religious, social, and political changes and oppositions. Concludes that her rule, and the attainment of this ideal of unity—the great “theme” of her reign—was successful, despite still-unsolved political and religious issues.
  300. Find this resource:
  301. McDiarmid, John F., ed. The Monarchical Republic of Early Modern England: Essays in Response to Patrick Collinson. St. Andrews Studies in Reformation History. Aldershot, UK: Ashgate, 2007.
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  303. A rich collection of essays by leading scholars. Engages with Collinson’s famous thesis and extends it across other reigns before and after Elizabeth. Particularly important are essays by Quentin Skinner and Anne McLaren (on the early Stuarts) as well as Peter Lake and Johann Somerville, who caution against applying the term too broadly across groups and individuals in the Elizabethan period.
  304. Find this resource:
  305. McLaren, Anne. Political Culture in the Reign of Elizabeth I: Queen and Commonwealth, 1558–1585. Cambridge, UK, and New York: Cambridge University Press, 1999.
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  307. An exemplary revisionist work that also places gender, or the “wild card of gender,” at the center of its analysis. McLaren discusses conceptions of sovereignty and monarchy, begun under Henry VIII, as well as connections between ideology and political necessity, and the maneuverings of the queen during her rule.
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  309. THE SUCCESSION CRISIS
  310. Central to Elizabeth’s reign was the issue of who would be her successor to the throne—a problem that was of acute concern to the Privy Council and Parliament. The tangled and complex issues involving the succession question, and the actors behind them, have been the subject of a number of important studies over the years, with Alford 2002 the most significant recent contribution in terms of Cecil’s own role in it. Axton 1977 seeks to understand the succession issue as it was played out through drama, while McLaren 2002 also explores the matter through the lens of gender. Hurstfield 1961 and Levine 1966 provide a traditional older account, in contrast to the recent contribution by the essayists in Mayer 2004.
  311. Alford, Stephen. The Early Elizabethan Polity: William Cecil and the British Succession Crisis, 1558–1569. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2002.
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  313. Together with Alford 2008, this is an essential reappraisal of the life and career of William Cecil, who is presented here through the prism of the succession crises of the 1560s. Particular emphasis is laid on Anglo-Scottish relations of the period, including Cecil’s role in the war and the Treaty of Berwick; also emphasized is Cecil’s own conception of the English monarchy as a republican Protestant polity.
  314. Find this resource:
  315. Axton, Marie. The Queen’s Two Bodies: Drama and the Elizabethan Succession. London: Royal Historical Society, 1977.
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  317. An insightful exploration of the legal metaphor of the “two bodies,” most famously examined by Ernst Kantorowicz in his classic The King’s Two Bodies. Axton relates the idea to Elizabethan drama, which interpreted the idea in a variety of ways, also using it to implicitly criticize the queen herself.
  318. Find this resource:
  319. Hurstfield, Joel. “The Succession Struggle in Late Elizabethan England.” In Elizabethan Government and Society. Edited by Stanley Thomas Bindoff, Joel Hurstfield, and C. H. Williams, 369–396. London: Athlone, 1961.
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  321. Concentrates on the succession debates of the late 1590s, arguing for the importance and abilities of Robert Cecil in navigating the diplomatic and domestic waters (including his negotiations with the Catholics), and ensuring that by 1603 there was no longer any doubt in England as to who would come in and secure the goal of national unity.
  322. Find this resource:
  323. Levine, Mortimer. The Early Elizabethan Succession Question, 1558–1568. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1966.
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  325. A good if sometimes flawed examination that explores the complicated succession issue at its most acute moment in the early years of Elizabeth’s reign, particularly in terms of the claims made by Mary Queen of Scots and Catherine Grey.
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  327. Mayer, Jean-Christophe, ed. The Struggle for the Succession in Late Elizabethan England: Politics, Polemics, and Cultural Representations. Montpellier, France: Institut de Recherche sur la Renaissance, Université Paul-Valéry, 2004.
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  329. A rich collection of eighteen essays with many offering a refreshing French perspective on the succession struggle. Thematic sections discuss Anglo-Scottish diplomacy, political theory and the succession, religious polemical tracts concerning the subject, and theatrical and rhetorical expressions surrounding it.
  330. Find this resource:
  331. McLaren, Anne. “The Quest for a King: Gender, Marriage, and Succession in Elizabethan England.” Journal of British Studies 41.3 (2002): 259–290.
  332. DOI: 10.1086/341150Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  333. A thorough and insightful reading of the ideologically charged question of the royal marriage—as well as the linkage between marriage and “kingly identity” in general—particularly within the context of the Elizabethan polity. Convincingly argues against other historians on the question of Elizabeth’s refusal to marry and claims that circumstance led writers to recast traditional assumptions about marriage and dynastic succession in innovative ways.
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  335. ELIZABETHAN PARLIAMENTS
  336. The most controversial claim made in the study of Elizabethan Parliaments has been that of Neale 1953–1958, who argued in favor of an oppositional “Puritan choir” in the house of commons—a claim that was strongly refuted through the revisionist work of Elton 1986. For Neale in his Whiggish reading, such opposition would contribute to the later development of Parliament, particularly as it led to civil war in the next century. Elton, however, cast Parliament as an essentially cooperative body, at least legislatively. Since Elton and the revisionists, studies such as Dean 1996, Hartley 1992, and Graves 1987 have come down in the middle, arguing for cooperation despite distinct ideological oppositions and even conflicts. Hasler 1981 should also be consulted by students for its extensive biographies, while MacCaffrey 1971 provides an important analysis and Williams 1979good survey of the workings of government.
  337. Dean, David M. Law-making and Society in Late Elizabethan England: The Parliament of England, 1584–1601. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1996.
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  339. Like Hartley 1992, Dean straddles the divide between Neale 1953–1953 and Elton 1986 in asserting the role of Parliament as performing its legislative functions while also conducting debates of high politics and ideology. Dean buttresses his arguments by utilizing lesser-known sources such as borough, corporation, and livery company records.
  340. Find this resource:
  341. Elton, G. R. The Parliament of England, 1559–1581. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1986.
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  343. A highly detailed study of the legislative process and a thorough refutation of Neale 1953–1958. Argues against Neale by asserting that Parliament under Elizabeth was, on the whole, a dutiful and cooperative organ of government, fulfilling its legislative functions rather than serving as an oppositional constitutional force.
  344. Find this resource:
  345. Graves, Michael A. R. Elizabethan Parliaments, 1559–1601. London: Longman, 1987.
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  347. A revisionist work that attributes the success and cooperativeness of Elizabethan Parliaments to the management of Cecil. Like Elton 1986, Graves also emphasizes the House of Lords as an extremely important body in its own right.
  348. Find this resource:
  349. Hartley, T. E. Elizabeth’s Parliaments: Queen, Lords, and Commons, 1559–1601. Manchester, UK: Manchester University Press, 1992.
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  351. Positioning himself between Neale 1953–1958 and Elton 1986, Hartley argues that the Nealean “Puritan choir” was a myth, just as the lords were overlooked as well. Yet he says that revisionists are also wrong to downplay conflict between Crown and Parliament, which did exist even if it was based upon a commonly shared “idea of Protestant Elizabethan England.”
  352. Find this resource:
  353. Hasler, P. W., ed. The House of Commons, 1558–1603. 3 vols. London: Her Majesty’s Stationery Office, 1981.
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  355. An enormous and sometimes difficult-to-navigate biographical dictionary of House of Commons MPs during the reign of Elizabeth, containing a wealth of material on various personages but excluding the proceedings of Parliament as well as the business related to the lords.
  356. Find this resource:
  357. MacCaffrey, Wallace. The Shaping of the Elizabethan Regime: Elizabethan Politics, 1558–1572. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1971.
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  359. The beginning of MacCaffrey’s magisterial if conventional trilogy on the subject of Elizabethan high politics, this volume covers the reign up to 1572 (the subsequent volumes should also be consulted), including the marriage and succession question, members of the council and court, as well as religious policies and relations with Parliament.
  360. Find this resource:
  361. Neale, Sir John Ernest. Elizabeth I and Her Parliaments, 1559–1581. 3 vols. New York: St Martin’s, 1953–1958.
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  363. The standard but now-dated (and Whiggish) reading of Elizabethan parliaments, in which Neale famously argues, among other points, in favor of the rise of a Puritan “choir” and its influence on the settlement of 1559. The thesis has been most notably debunked, though Neale has been accepted as correct in his view of Elizabeth herself as reluctant to embrace such “forward” Protestantism.
  364. Find this resource:
  365. Williams, Penry. The Tudor Regime. Oxford: Clarendon, 1979.
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  367. A detailed exploration of the Tudor workings of government, including Parliament, particularly in the relationship between rulers and ruled, or between the government’s constitutional, political, financial, and social policies and communities across England.
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  369. THE COURT AND THE COUNCIL
  370. Compared to the traditional and procedural studies of Parliament under Elizabeth, examinations of the Privy Council and the Court have been relatively recent, at least as they extend beyond purely institutional studies to explore instead the interactions and interrelationships between the Queen and members of the court and council, or between the individuals themselves—all of which informed policy disputes, and indeed, politics itself. One of the strongest debates has concerned the issues as to whether the council suffered from factionalism; while competition for patronage, the ambitions of Leicester, the questions of marriage and the succession and other points of conflict were certainly evident, the empirical case for a broader policy factionalism did not actually arrive until Essex in the 1590s, with historians such as Adams 2002 arguing in favor of a united collegiality, at least in the council—particularly in the face of the queen’s own indecision and conservatism. For the role of William Cecil, Alford 2008 is the best source, while Hammer 1999 provides the perspective from the Earl of Essex. Elton 1975 is still the most effective brief overview, while Loades 1987 and Pulman 1971 explore the court and council respectively, and MacCaffrey 1961 provides an older account of the importance of patronage.
  371. Adams, Simon. Leicester and the Court: Essays on Elizabethan Politics. Politics, Culture, and Society in Early Modern Britain. Manchester, UK: Manchester University Press, 2002.
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  373. A collection of sixteen important essays—particularly “Eliza Enthroned? The Court and its Politics”—that incisively examines the court and council of Elizabeth and its supposed factions, as well as the role of patronage, Parliament, nobility, and the Earl of Leicester. Argues against positions asserting a persistent factionalism at court, at least before Essex; instead, politicians maintained, with some exceptions, a marked degree of collegiality among themselves.
  374. Find this resource:
  375. Alford, Stephen. Burghley: William Cecil at the Court of Elizabeth I. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2008.
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  377. An important study of Cecil that revises the standard picture of him as a faithful servant-bureaucrat and argues instead that he was a man with a political vision for Britain, as well as a deep ability to approach and actively shape politics practically and ideologically.
  378. Find this resource:
  379. Elton, G. R. “Tudor Government: The Points of Contact. II, The Council.” Transactions of the Royal Historical Society 5th ser., 25 (1975): 195–211.
  380. DOI: 10.2307/3679093Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  381. An excellent survey of this relatively neglected subject. Focuses largely on Henry VIII, though Elizabeth’s own relations with her men are also discussed. According to Elton, she maintained “perfect control” over her choice of councilors, of whom she kept relatively few, even though they could also act independently of her. Individual councilors throughout her reign are also briefly touched upon.
  382. Find this resource:
  383. Hammer, Paul E. J. The Polarisation of Elizabethan Politics: The Political Career of Robert Devereux, Second Earl of Essex, 1585–1597. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1999.
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  385. A masterful work that revises the traditional picture of Essex to present him as a central and serious player on the late Elizabethan political stage. Hammer argues that politics was increasingly (and ideologically) polarized in the 1590s, reflected in part through the rivalry between Essex and the Cecils, William and Robert.
  386. Find this resource:
  387. Loades, David. The Tudor Court. Totowa, NJ: Barnes and Noble, 1987.
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  389. A useful synthesis that examines all aspects of the Tudor court as a vital institution and political force, particularly as it could unite the private and the public, the political and the domestic, patronage and culture, stagecraft and quotidian power struggles.
  390. Find this resource:
  391. MacCaffrey, Wallace. “Place and Patronage in Elizabethan Politics.” In Elizabethan Government and Society: Essays Presented to Sir John Neale. Edited by Stanley Thomas Bindoff, Joel Hurstfield, and C. H. Williams. London: Athlone, 1961.
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  393. Examines how the monarchy in great part “rested… on the substantial pillars of its capacity to reward and to advance its supporters, offering them ‘material advantages’ as well as appealing to their ‘moral sense.’” Through the use of favor, the crown was largely successful in “master[ing] the subtler arts of persuasion and manipulation” and thereby securing the compliance of most of the elite classes.
  394. Find this resource:
  395. Pulman, Michael Barraclough. The Elizabethan Privy Council in the 1570s. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1971.
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  397. A pioneering work that examines this executive institution during a crucial time in Elizabeth’s reign, with detailed analysis of its accounting procedures, revenues, expenses, enforcement procedures (or lack thereof), and ultimately failed attempts at self-reform.
  398. Find this resource:
  399. WARDS, SPIES, AND COURTS OF LAW
  400. As with studies of the Privy Council, additional monographs need to be written that focus on other institutions of government and points of power, as well as the interacting personalities within them. The following is a select list of the more established examinations of these other power centers, with Bossy 2001 and Plowden 1991 exploring the world of espionage, Hurstfield 1958 the wardships, andJones 1967 the Court of Chancery.
  401. Bossy, John. Under the Molehill: An Elizabethan Spy Story. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2002.
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  403. An entertaining narrative of espionage involving the French and Mary Queen of Scots. In his quest to uncover the mole who leaked information to the English, Bossy also argues that the secret service was a personalized agency of Walsingham’s, rather than a government body. Contains useful transcripts of related documents.
  404. Find this resource:
  405. Hurstfield, Joel. The Queen’s Wards: Wardship and Marriage under Elizabeth I. London: Jonathan Cape, 1958.
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  407. A social history as well as a broader examination of an essential institution, particularly as wardships contributed to government finance—a particularly pressing matter in the 1590s.
  408. Find this resource:
  409. Jones, William John. The Elizabethan Court of Chancery. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1967.
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  411. A needed and definitive study of the practical workings of the legal court during Elizabeth’s reign, including the institution itself, its procedure, and its relations with other jurisdictions and courts. In addition to studying the men at court, Jones also places the Chancery within its larger social context.
  412. Find this resource:
  413. Plowden, Alison. The Elizabethan Secret Service. Hemel Hempstead, UK: Harvester Wheatsheaf, 1991.
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  415. An effective exploration of the Elizabethan secret service in relation to the conduct of foreign policy. Though larger details of the workings of the service tend to be neglected, the narratives involving Mary and the conspiracies against Elizabeth are lively and informative.
  416. Find this resource:
  417. Foreign Policy
  418. Debates concerning Elizabeth’s foreign policy have centered upon who exactly made policy, whether that policy was defensive or aggressive, and what precisely defined the nature of the queen’s relations with the Continental powers. Recent examinations have added more complexity to the picture of Elizabethan foreign policy, as Ramsay 1984 has demonstrated the influence of mercantile interests, or others have raised the importance of diplomacy with the German states and Scandinavia, as well as France and Spain. Elizabeth and her councilors are also no longer seen as vacillating and hesitant in their dealings with foreign powers, at least in the early part of the reign, as evidenced by Adams 2004. Meanwhile, the recent extension of the purview of England to include the larger British context has enriched later studies, with Scotland taking a more notable role in foreign policy considerations (see Dawson 1989). For a brief survey, see Ramsay 1984 and Doran 2000, and in a more detailed capacity, MacCaffrey 1992 and Wernham 1980. Read 1978 is also useful in explicating foreign policy through the perspective of Walsingham.
  419. Adams, Simon Lester. “Elizabeth I and the Sovereignty of the Netherlands 1576–1585.”Transactions of the Royal Historical Society 6th ser., 14 (2004): 309–319.
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  421. Examines the Anglo-Dutch negotiations in 1576 and 1585 in which Elizabeth was offered the sovereignty of the Netherlands and by extension enjoined to enter war with Spain. Concludes that Elizabeth and her councilors, contrary to the accepted position, acted with “impressive speed and efficiency when they wanted,” and defined their policies well, at least in this matter—particularly in situations “more complex than the clichés allow.”
  422. Find this resource:
  423. Dawson, Jane E. A. “William Cecil and the British Dimension of Early Elizabethan Foreign Policy.” History 74.241 (1989): 196–216.
  424. DOI: 10.1111/j.1468-229X.1989.tb01486.xSave Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  425. An excellent investigation of the “British context” in the early foreign policy of William Cecil, and his goal to create “a united and Protestant British Isles,” involving the full conquest of Ireland and the establishment of a new alliance with Scotland.
  426. Find this resource:
  427. Doran, Susan. Elizabeth I and Foreign Policy, 1558–1603. London: Routledge, 2000.
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  429. Focused on the student, this book provides a concise overview of Elizabeth’s foreign policy, emphasizing the queen’s decision making amidst often conflicting council members. Provides a good summation of different historiographical arguments concerning the subject.
  430. Find this resource:
  431. MacCaffrey, W. T. Elizabeth I: War and Politics, 1588–1603. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1992.
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  433. The last of MacCaffrey’s massive trilogy, this work focuses on the later wars with Spain as well as Ireland, attuning the reader to the intricacies of Elizabethan diplomatic relations on the continent especially, as well as financial policies and internal disputes among policy makers and commanders.
  434. Find this resource:
  435. Ramsay, George. “The Foreign Policy of Elizabeth I.” In The Reign of Elizabeth I. Edited by Christopher Haigh, 147–168. Basingstoke, UK: Macmillan, 1984.
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  437. A detailed overview of Elizabeth’s foreign policy, particularly regarding its economic and trade aspects, as well as her dealings with France and the Netherlands. Concludes that while the negative assessments of her foreign policy are not incorrect, “her objectives were prosaic and local, but practicable,” particularly measured by the survival of England’s cloth trade and the Armada.
  438. Find this resource:
  439. Read, Conyers. Mr. Secretary Walsingham and the Policy of Queen Elizabeth. New York: AMS, 1978.
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  441. The classic account of Walsingham and the policies he urged the queen to pursue. The manner in which Walsingham’s personal Calvinist conviction and militant anti-Catholicism shaped his own vision of England’s foreign policy is also examined at length. Originally published in 1925 (Oxford: Clarendon).
  442. Find this resource:
  443. Wernham, Richard Bruce. The Making of Elizabethan Foreign Policy, 1558–1603. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1980.
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  445. Based on a series of lectures, this short volume examines the origins and development of Elizabeth’s foreign policy, arguing in favor of its coherence, even if based on changing circumstance. As in his After the Armada: Elizabethan England and the Struggle for Western Europe, 1588–1595(Oxford: Clarendon, 1984), Wernham also argues for a greater consistency in foreign policy than traditionally believed.
  446. Find this resource:
  447. Wilson, C. H. Queen Elizabeth and the Revolt of the Netherlands. London: Macmillan, 1970.
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  449. Based on his Ford Lectures, this volume brings together various aspects of the crisis, particularly from the Dutch point of view. Wilson believes that Elizabeth should have done more to intervene in the conflict, and his view of her attitudes and policies toward the Low Countries is a negative one; still, he sees her as one of the age’s “great political leaders,” even if she failed in this case.
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  451. ELIZABETH AND MARY QUEEN OF SCOTS
  452. The bitter relations between Elizabeth and Mary have been extensively pursued by historians over the decades, with most scholars contrasting the superior political skills and pragmatism of Elizabeth with the emotionalism and misguided decisions of Mary. Guy 2004, however, argues that Mary in fact carried her own political skills, particularly when dealing with a nemesis such as Cecil. Details of the conspiracies, including the Babington Plot—treated in Pollen 1922—can be found in works cited under Foreign Policy; the following selected list attempts to cover many aspects of Mary’s career as they related to Elizabeth, particularly in terms of her captivity (Collinson 1987) and Darnley’s release (Adams 1988). The trial of Mary can be found in Steuart 1995, while Dawson 2002 and Wormald 1988 also provide valuable insight from a Scottish perspective, with Warnicke 2006 being another recent biographical treatment.
  453. Adams, Simon. “The Release of Lord Darnley.” In Mary Stewart: Queen in Three Kingdoms. Edited by Michael Lynch. New York: Blackwell, 1988.
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  455. Attempts to answer the question as to why Elizabeth allowed Darnley to go to Scotland, and discusses as well the support by Elizabeth, ultimately misguided, of the Lennox claims in Scotland.
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  457. Collinson, Patrick. The English Captivity of Mary Queen of Scots. Sheffield, UK: Sheffield History Pamphlets, 1987.
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  459. A well-written examination of Mary’s deposition as queen in Scotland, in 1567, and her subsequent English captivity. Describes the colorful language and debates about her future that she provoked in Parliament and the shock that her captivity caused across Catholic Europe.
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  461. Dawson, Jane. The Politics of Religion in the Age of Mary, Queen of Scots: The Earl of Argyll and the Struggle for Britain and Ireland. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2002.
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  463. An important study not of Mary (or Elizabeth) but of the influential Earl of Argyll, close advisor and brother-in-law to the Queen of Scots. Places Argyll within a broader Gaelic context, as he shared with Cecil the belief that the security of a Protestant Britain meant the pacification of the north of Ireland.
  464. Find this resource:
  465. Guy, John. My Heart is My Own: The Life of Mary Queen of Scots. New York: Harper Perennial, 2004.
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  467. Working from original manuscripts rather than printed documents, Guy provides an astute and partisan reassessment of the Queen, arguing for her canny political skill (with her marriage to Darnley, for example—and even Bothwell, to an extent—constituting a rational political gesture) and her misfortunes as a case of bad luck more than personal failure.
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  469. Pollen, John Hungerford. Mary Queen of Scots and the Babington Plot. Edinburgh: Scottish Historical Society, 1922.
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  471. A collection of original documents relating to the Babington Plot, with Pollen’s commentary toward Mary being decidedly sympathetic.
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  473. Steuart, A. Francis, ed. Trial of Mary Queen of Scots. Holmes Beach, FL: Gaunt, 1995
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  475. A useful analysis and collection of source material concerning the trial of Mary and the charges and evidence brought against her. The legal issues determined by Elizabeth’s agents, as well as the precedents laid for future treatments of royalty, are given extensive treatment. Originally published in 1923 (London: W. Hodge).
  476. Find this resource:
  477. Warnicke, Ruth. Mary Queen of Scots. Routledge Historical Biographies. New York: Routledge, 2006.
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  479. A comprehensive, detailed and scholarly biography of Mary from a cultural rather than purely political perspective, with extensive discussions of her conspiracies against and relations with Elizabeth.
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  481. Wormald, Jenny. Mary Queen of Scots: A Study in Failure. London: George Philip, 1988.
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  483. A recent critical reassessment of a much-studied monarch who, in the author’s views, failed not only in her rule but in her navigation of Scottish kinship structures and other informal bodies of power. Wormald discusses at length the role played by a vacillating Elizabeth in Mary’s life, conspiratorial dealings, and death, and faults Mary for her English ambitions at the expense of all else.
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  485. THE ARMADA
  486. The defeat of the Spanish Armada has been taught for generations as a defining and victorious moment in English history, but even older studies have pointed out that the war with Spain did not end with it, nor—as Fernandez-Armesto 1988 and Mattingly 2005 argue—did it lead in any way to a new and brighter spirit of the age. Many studies, such as Wernham 1966 and McDermott 2005, remain Anglocentric in approach, though others have utilized Spanish sources to reveal a more complex picture not of English victory but of Spanish failure. The work of Parker 1988 and Martin and Parker 1988 has also deepened studies of the Armada by drawing on new evidence, including archeological findings in the wreckages.
  487. Fernandez-Armesto, Felipe. The Spanish Armada. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1988.
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  489. A richly detailed work, arguing against the historical verdict that the English “won” the Armada battle, since the Spanish lost “only in a heavily qualified sense.” The reputation of Medina Sidonia is rehabilitated here and the Spanish ships defended in spite of their deficiencies; while English ships for their part were undoubtedly excellent, the accompanying strategy and organization left something to be desired.
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  491. Martin, Colin, and Geoffrey Parker. The Spanish Armada. New York: Norton, 1988.
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  493. An extensively illustrated and innovative study that utilizes archeology and new evidence from the Spanish archives to understand the Armada from both sides. While Spain and the failures of Philip II are given the most consideration, the English role in the conflict is also extensively examined.
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  495. Mattingly, Garrett. The Armada. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 2005
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  497. First published in 1959, this is a classic work on the Armada, and a well-written and well-documented narrative of the events as they unfolded. Particularly informative in balancing the Spanish and English perspectives and in recounting the reception of the battle among both publics. Mattingly also argues against the Armada as leading to an “optimistic” spirit in England; nor was the battle entirely decisive, as it did not end the war between England and Spain, for example.
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  499. McDermott, James. England and the Spanish Armada: The Necessary Quarrel. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2005.
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  501. An (admittedly) Anglocentric account of the long history behind the Armada as well as the naval battle itself, with fresh perspectives on English piracy and the Royal Navy. Like Mattingly 2005, McDermott emphasizes the ultimate inconclusiveness of the battle, though the anti-Spanish and anti-Catholic antipathies it generated did contribute to an emerging sense of nationhood.
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  503. Parker, Geoffrey. “Why the Armada Failed.” History Today 38.5 (1988): 26–33.
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  505. A concise essay based upon new archival and archaeological evidence that seeks to understand not why England won, but why Spain failed. Above all, the problem lay in a “true disharmony between strategy and tactics,” with none of Philip II’s plans corresponding to his commanders’ own proposals; it was the king above all, and not Parma or Medina Sidonia, who was the most to blame for the failure.
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  507. Wernham, Richard Bruce. Before the Armada: The Growth of English Foreign Policy, 1485–1588. London: Jonathan Cape, 1966.
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  509. Carefully examines policies leading up in the hundred years before the Armada; during the reign of Elizabeth, however, Elizabeth and Cecil are presented as reluctant to engage with Spain and delaying wherever possible in the conflict. See also Wernham’s Return of the Armadas: The Last Years of the Elizabethan War against Spain, 1595–1603 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1994).
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  511. EXPLORATION AND THE BEGINNING OF EMPIRE
  512. The origins of the British Empire during the reign of Elizabeth were once believed to comprise a confident expansion of commercial and maritime interests as well as the pursuit of political liberties; yet recent scholarship, such as Armitage 2004, has argued for its essentially defensive, belated, and “derivative” aspects, with Elizabeth herself a reluctant imperial figure. While England’s explorations during Elizabeth’s reign have long received attention, particularly through the heroicized exploits of a Drake (see Williamson 1939) or Raleigh, newer investigations have been influenced, indirectly or not, by critical questions regarding empire and its meanings, and the relation of exploration to an emergent national British identity. For the latter, see Cormack 2001, Mancke 2002, and Parry 2006.Quinn 1974 provides an older yet still classic account; Andrews 1985 argues for its part that the overseas efforts were nothing like a sustained success, while Mancall 2007 also provides new insights by examining the enterprise through the biographical lens of Richard Hakluyt.
  513. Armitage, David. “The Elizabethan Idea of Empire.” Transactions of the Royal Historical Society 6th ser., 14 (2004): 269–277.
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  515. An authoritative account of the Tudor idea of empire, which was a “product and extension of state formation,” particularly over Scotland and Ireland and one that was essentially “derivative” in its borrowings from contemporary Continental and classical discourses.
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  517. Andrews, K. R. Trade, Plunder, and Settlement: Maritime Enterprise and the Genesis of the British Empire, 1480–1630. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1985.
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  519. An ambitious work by one of the leading scholars of early modern English expansion, Andrews’s study extends before and after Elizabeth’s reign, though it is important for recasting the nature of the exploration enterprise in the later 16th century.
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  521. Cormack, Lesley B. “Britannia Rules the Waves? Images of Empire in Elizabethan England.” In Literature, Mapping, and the Politics of Space in Early Modern Britain. Edited by Andrew Gordon and Bernhard Klein, 45–68. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2001.
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  523. An interesting examination of the imperial messages contained in popular geographical texts, with particular focus placed on their illustrated frontispieces. It was through geographers, and men such as John Dee especially, that attitudes and assumptions encouraged a sense of English superiority over space that could be measured, controlled, and therefore claimed.
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  525. Mancall, Peter C. Hakluyt’s Promise: An Elizabethan’s Obsession for an English America. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2007.
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  527. The first full-scale biography of Hakluyt in decades, this well-researched work not only explores the man’s own motives in settling new territories but also examines the historical conditions that shaped his travel narratives and treatises on settlement—both of which would reflect an evolution “from inchoate notions to a national propaganda.” Hakluyt’s consultative relations with the beginnings of the East India Company and other mercantile operations are also discussed.
  528. Find this resource:
  529. Mancke, Elizabeth. “Negotiating and Empire: Britain and its Overseas Peripheries, c.1550–1780.” In Negotiated Empires: Centers and Peripheries in the Americas, 1550–1820. Edited by Christine Daniels and Michael V. Kennedy, 235–265. New York and London: Routledge, 2002.
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  531. Although the content of this essay extends well into the 18th century, it nevertheless provides a valuable interpretation of empire in the 16th century, which came about through a process of “negotiating” with rival empires and competing internal interests and in delineating relations between peripheries and authorities at the metropolitan center.
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  533. Parry, Glyn. “John Dee and the Elizabethan British Empire in its European Context.”Historical Journal 49.3 (2006): 643–675.
  534. DOI: 10.1017/S0018246X06005462Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  535. The imperial writings of John Dee receive an extensive and nuanced analysis in this article, which reveals Dee’s more apocalyptic, magical, and globalist visions as opposed to the confidently expansionist commercial-Protestant tendency that scholars have read into them. Especially effective is Parry’s discussion of the place of these writings, and their reception, in relation to the circumstances of the time.
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  537. Quinn, David Beers. England and the Discovery of America. New York: Knopf, 1974.
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  539. A collection of essays that brings together some of the most important pieces written by the premier historian of exploration. Focusing primarily on the Tudor period, Quinn examines the shift in the exploration enterprise from one of being narrowly aimed at the discovery of fisheries or routes to the east, to the undertaking, during Elizabeth’s reign, of colonization by military adventurers, religious dissidents, or profit seekers.
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  541. Williamson, James Alexander. The Age of Drake. London: Adams and Charles Black, 1939.
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  543. A traditional, older account of the exploration enterprise, focusing on Hawkins’s building of the fleet and the voyages themselves. Valuable for its placing the enterprise within a larger political and diplomatic history, as well as its command of naval detail. Williamson’s portrait of exploration as a purposeful and focused mission has been questioned in recent decades, however.
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  545. Elizabethan Ireland
  546. The Elizabethan colonizing enterprise in Ireland has been the subject of a renewed interest in recent decades and has benefited from a number of excellent studies, primarily from Irish historians who have decentered the conquest from its previous Anglocentric historiographical perch. Nicholas Canny was one of the first historians to take the enterprise into new directions (Canny 1976), whileMcGurk 1997 remains oriented toward England, though still valuable in its approach. Ellis 1985 is a dense account, examining policy through an administrative and institutional rather than colonizing framework; for a more stinging treatment of Elizabethan (mis)governance, see Morgan 2004. Knowledge of Irish-language sources is now essential for any work that pertains to the Tudor endeavor in Ireland, for example, and relatively recent theoretical studies of colonization and its meanings have enriched approaches. Cavanagh 1993 explores the role of Elizabethan perceptions in shaping colonial policy, while works from literary scholars such as McCabe 2002, Hadfield 2001, and Palmer 2001 have deepened understandings of the linguistic and poetic dimensions of and behind colonization, particularly regarding Spenser in Ireland. In this and other aspects, the Elizabethan contribution to—and transformation of—the larger Tudor conquest was essential.
  547. Canny, Nicholas P. The Elizabethan Conquest of Ireland: A Pattern Established, 1565–76. Hassocks, UK: Harvester, 1976.
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  549. Canny describes the changing policies and attitudes toward the Irish, beginning with the appointment of Henry Sidney in 1565, discussing not only the intricacies of financial and other policies but also the increasing polemical barbarization of the Irish that would color English attitudes from then on. Elizabeth herself makes a relatively minor appearance in this book, however.
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  551. Cavanagh, Sheila T. “‘The Fatal Destiny of That Land’: Elizabethan Views of Ireland.” InRepresenting Ireland: Literature and the Origins of Conflict, 1534–1660. Edited by Brendan Bradshaw, Andrew Hadfield, and Willy Maley, 116–131. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1993.
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  553. Explores the various sources of “discontent” felt by the English toward the Irish, particularly regarding their inability “to place the Irish population within comfortable categories.” Frustration toward Irish political structures, legal systems, personal habits and “barbarities,” as well as the rebellions, are discussed through the prism of texts by Spenser, Barnaby Rich, Fynes Moryson, and others.
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  555. Ellis, Steven. Tudor Ireland: Crown, Community, and the Conflict of Cultures, 1470–1603. London: Longmans, 1985.
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  557. A detailed and somewhat controversial survey of Ireland under the Tudors, through the prism of the English state. Primarily an administrative problem—at least according to Ellis—the governance of Ireland emerged during Elizabeth’s reign as a transitional entity balanced between Tudor general expansion and a more aggressive colonial policy in the 1590s. Somewhat problematic in ignoring the colonial context of the Irish venture and also overlooks important Gaelic sources.
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  559. Hadfield, Andrew. “Censoring Ireland in Elizabethan England, 1580–1600.” In Literature and Censorship in Renaissance England. Edited by Andrew Hadfield, 149–164. Basingstoke, UK: Palgrave, 2001.
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  561. An examination of motives for the relatively few texts on Ireland published for a wider readership in England between 1580 and 1603, especially compared to the profusion of state papers on the subject.
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  563. McCabe, Richard. Spenser’s Monstrous Regiment: Elizabethan Ireland and the Poetics of Difference. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002.
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  565. An important work that examines Spenser’s (and England’s) literary and practical relations with Ireland, utilizing extensive knowledge of Irish-language sources and imaginatively exploring the complicated relation of Spenser’s art to ideology, as his poetry “interrogat[ed] his politics so profoundly as to discover the heart of darkness at the centre of the colonial enterprise.”
  566. Find this resource:
  567. McGurk, John. The Elizabethan Conquest of Ireland: The 1590s Crisis. Manchester, UK: Manchester University Press, 1997.
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  569. An intentionally Anglocentric account of the conflict with Ireland, arguing that the war’s implications for England were grievous, as it weakened the realm financially, brought on inflation and disgruntlement, and even led to political breakdown at the center. At the same time, and perhaps paradoxically, the conflict also brought increasingly centralized powers to the state, as it exerted itself over localities through financial demands, recruitment, and other means.
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  571. Morgan, Hiram. “‘Never Any Realm Worse Governed’: Queen Elizabeth and Ireland.”Transactions of the Royal Historical Society 6th ser., 14 (2004): 295–308.
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  573. According to Morgan, in this outstanding and important article, though Elizabeth’s intentions toward Ireland may not have been evil (she was, however, “not a great monarch”), her policies in Ireland led to disastrous consequences and were an egregious example of misgovernance. Indeed, most important was the appointment of a number of secretaries, such as Henry Sidney, whose efforts proved “ruinous” and resulted in resistance, bloody wars, and the “sullen and forced obedience” at the end of her reign.
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  575. Palmer, Patricia. Language and Conquest in Early Modern Ireland: English Renaissance Literature and Elizabethan Imperial Expansion. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2001.
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  577. A significant contribution to the study of linguistic colonization in early modern Ireland, exploring English administrators’ knowledge (or lack thereof) of the Irish language, as well as the general encounter with what they called foreign speech akin to “making a racket.” Palmer also discusses Irish attempts to make their own voices heard in English texts, despite a general lack of dialogue between communities.
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  579. Religion
  580. Recent decades have witnessed a turn, or perhaps a return, to religion as a decisive historical factor in shaping individual and political motivations. Certainly the question of religion was central to Elizabeth’s reign, whether it was manifested in the debates over the Religious Settlement, or the difficulties presented by Catholics and Puritans who challenged or at the very least attempted to influence her rule. Elizabethan Catholicism in particular has witnessed a surge of interest among literary scholars and historians, while Puritanism continues to be a problematic term, if one that is still valid for referring to godly individuals who sought greater changes in the established church. Meanwhile, Elizabeth’s own religion continues as a subject of debate in terms of her own policies as well as a temperament that, in Susan Doran’s words, reflected “equivocation” and “eirenical” tendencies.
  581. ELIZABETH’S OWN RELIGION
  582. Elizabeth’s personal faith, apart from her outward orthodoxy to the 1559 Settlement, remains frustratingly elusive, as Collinson 1994 reflects. Scholars who look for clues in her books of devotions (see Haugaard 1981), her prayers, and her letters (Doran 2000) come to different conclusions apart from a general agreement on her “evangelical humanism” and the influence of the religious upbringing she received under Catherine Parr. For a good overview of Elizabeth’s private beliefs as well as her stance toward others, see Doran 1994.
  583. Collinson, Patrick. “Windows in a Woman’s Soul: Questions about the Religion of Queen Elizabeth I.” In Elizabethan Essays. Edited by Patrick Collinson, 87–118. London: Hambledon, 1994.
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  585. An important essay that asks if Elizabeth was really religious—or, apart from her conventional religious practices, if there was no window into her own soul. Looks for answers in her books of private devotions and a range of other texts; still, the answer is somewhat inconclusive.
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  587. Doran, Susan. Elizabeth I and Religion, 1558–1603. Lancaster Pamphlets. London: Routledge, 1994.
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  589. A concise but useful overview of religion during the time of Elizabeth, including the queen’s own views, as well as the 1559 Settlement, and other religious groups such as Separatists and Catholics.
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  591. Doran, Susan. “Elizabeth I’s Religion: The Evidence of her Letters.” Journal of Ecclesiastical History 51.4 (2000): 699–720.
  592. DOI: 10.1017/S0022046900005133Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  593. Effectively redresses the neglect of scholars in examining the queen’s letters as a clue to her religious beliefs, which include both a personal piety and a conservative attachment to the 1559 Prayer Book, the Royal Supremacy, and uniformity.
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  595. Haugaard, W. P. “Elizabeth Tudor’s Book of Devotions: A Neglected Clue to the Queen’s Life and Character.” Sixteenth Century Journal 12.2 (1981): 79–106.
  596. DOI: 10.2307/2539502Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  597. Examines the personal dimension of Elizabeth’s life through the prism of the previously understudied source of her Book of Devotions. While the private prayers reveal a traditional Protestant orthodoxy, particularly hewing to the 1559 Book of Common Prayer, they also present a personal direction and “vigorous piety,” emphasizing the petitionary, penitential, and thanksgiving aspects of prayer regarding her royal vocation and duties.
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  599. RELIGIOUS POLICIES, EPISCOPACY, AND THE SETTLEMENT
  600. The religious policies of Elizabeth, including the Acts of Supremacy and Uniformity of 1559, necessarily intersect with debates about Parliament and Puritans, as the revisionist study Jones 1982 attests; Jones is responding in part to the assertions made by Neale 1970. For a good collection of primary sources and analysis of the Royal Supremacy in relation to the church, seeCross 1969. In addition, the role played by Elizabethan bishops—themselves examined by Heal 1980 and Guy 1995—has also been the recipient of much attention concerning the aims and enforcing mechanisms of the ecclesiastical polity; Collinson 1979 provides the best study of one figure, the archbishop Edmund Grindal. In a more general and theological sense, as MacCulloch 1990 and Haugaard 1968 demonstrate, the development of the established Elizabethan Church and its role in the “later Reformation” continue to provoke debate, particularly as religious questions were never fully resolved, and would undergo further challenges and transformations in the period that followed Elizabeth’s death.
  601. Collinson, Patrick. Archbishop Grindal, 1519–1583: The Struggle for a Reformed Church. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1979.
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  603. A masterful biographical and intellectual-theological history. Examines Grindal and his effective Episcopal management, his early attempts to reform the ministry in the north through training and discipline, and his ascension in 1575 to the archbishopric of Canterbury, where he had his famous confrontation with the queen over his refusal to suppress prophesyings.
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  605. Cross, Claire. The Royal Supremacy in the Elizabethan Church. New York: Barnes and Noble, 1969.
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  607. Examines the Royal Supremacy in theory and practice, followed by fifty extracts of related documents.
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  609. Guy, John Alexander. “The Elizabethan Establishment and the Ecclesiastical Polity.” In The Reign of Elizabeth I: Court and Culture in the Last Decade. Edited by John Guy, 126–149. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1995.
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  611. Examines the ecclesiastical situation in England during the 1590s, with the ascension of a new generation of Elizabethan bishops, “rigidly authoritarian conformists” distinct from their more moderate forebears. Men such as John Whitgift, who the queen preferred, accounted for this shift, which Guy examines through a number of texts, as their “jure divino theses of monarchy and episcopacy were increasingly voiced in pulpit and press.”
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  613. Haugaard, William P. Elizabeth and the English Reformation: The Struggle for a Stable Settlement of Religion. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1968.
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  615. A reassessment of the subject that advances the thesis that Elizabeth’s religious proclivities influenced an emergent Anglicanism.
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  617. Heal, Felicity. Of Prelates and Princes: A Study of the Economic and Social Position of the Tudor Episcopate. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1980.
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  619. A lucid study of the Tudor bishops, including their temporal and spiritual possessions and claims. Includes analysis of Jewel, Aylmer, and Parkhurst during Elizabeth’s reign.
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  621. Jones, Norman. Faith by Statute: the Elizabethan Settlement of 1559. London: Royal Historical Society, 1982.
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  623. Strongly challenges Neale’s thesis (Neale 1970) by asserting, among other points, that the godly minority, far from challenging Elizabeth, supported her “zeal” for the true religion and that it was the Marian bishops and their lay peers who posed the real danger to the Settlement. Describes how the crown succeeded in breaking the resistance of the conservatives.
  624. Find this resource:
  625. MacCulloch, Diarmaid. The Later Reformation in England. New York: St. Martin’s, 1990.
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  627. A nuanced examination of religious policy as well as religious life during the later Tudor reigns, including Elizabeth’s. MacCulloch agrees with other scholars that 1559 was the culmination of the Reformation in England, as he proceeds to explore the official and political policies of the church and contrasts them with the variety of popular or nonofficial religious expressions that the church attempted to regulate or control.
  628. Find this resource:
  629. Neale, Sir John Ernest. “The Elizabethan Acts of Supremacy and Uniformity.” In Historical Studies of the English Parliament. Vol. 2, 1399–1603. Edited by E. B. Fryde and Edward Miller, 217–245. Cambridge University Press, 1970.
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  631. A still-useful essay that works from elusive contemporary documents to untangle the goings-on of both houses of parliament before the passage of the 1559 Acts of Supremacy and Uniformity.
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  633. ELIZABETH AND THE PURITANS
  634. Elizabethan and Stuart Puritanism has been one of the most debated subjects in historiography, which is partly due to the problematic term itself. Some scholars have claimed that Puritans remained a distinct group in what is taken to be their predestination doctrine, while others, notably Peter Lake (Lake 1982 and Lake 1988), have attempted to modify this picture, especially since all Protestants ostensibly shared a broad “Calvinist consensus.” Kaufman 1998 argues for its part against the social conservatism of the Puritans, while Patrick Collinson (Collinson 1990 andCollinson 1983) advises against too rigorous a definitional term at all. What is important here is the question they address concerning the perception and policy toward Puritanism by the queen. All agree that she carried a distaste for it, evident in her occasional prosecutions; but Puritans also constituted an abiding presence that she and her councilors had to accommodate—at least in the first thirty years of her reign—as they proclaimed their desire for “further reformation” in “pulpit, press, and parliament.” For a good case study of Puritanism in one locale see Sheils 1979, as well as the more general essays in Durston and Eales 1996.
  635. Collinson, Patrick. Godly People: Essays on English Protestantism and Puritanism. London: Hambledon, 1983.
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  637. A collection of Collinson’s significant essays, including studies of the Puritans Edward Dering and John Field, and also including the latter’s relationship with Archbishop Whitgift.
  638. Find this resource:
  639. Collinson, Patrick. The Elizabethan Puritan Movement. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1990.
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  641. First published in 1967 (London: Jonathan Cape), this classic work argues that puritans constituted a movement for reform within the Church of England; as Collinson famously asserted, Puritanism was “not a thing identifiable in itself, but one half of a stressful relationship” competing with other voices to determine the future of the church.
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  643. Durston, Christopher, and Jacqueline Eales, eds. The Culture of English Puritanism, 1560–1700. New York: St. Martin’s, 1996.
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  645. Though this collection of essays extends into the 17th century, useful and related essays examine the continuity of Puritanism, as well as church courts in the period.
  646. Find this resource:
  647. Kaufman, Peter Iver. “How Socially Conservative were the Elizabethan Religious Radicals?”Albion 30 (1998): 29–48.
  648. DOI: 10.2307/4052382Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  649. Challenges historians’ assumptions that religious radicals, “including puritans,” were socially conservative in disdaining the poor in their midst and asserting social distancing. Although that could be the case, responses to the poor and to social conditions generally were much more varied than previously assumed.
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  651. Lake, Peter. Moderate Puritans and the Elizabethan Church. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1982.
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  653. A characteristically well-written and significant contribution to the understanding of those “moderate” Puritan divines of the Cambridge circle, including Dering, Cartwright, Whitaker, and Chaderton, all of whom proceeded to conform under pressure, albeit reluctantly and with protest.
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  655. Lake, Peter. Anglicans and Puritans? Presbyterian and English Conformist Thought from Whitgift to Hooker. London: Unwin Hyman, 1988.
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  657. Working insightfully from contemporary printed sources, Lake examines a vast range of writers, arguing that they worked within a larger framework of Calvinism but also remained firmly separate from each other in their doctrinal emphases.
  658. Find this resource:
  659. Sheils, W. J. The Puritans in the Diocese of Peterborough, 1558–1610. Northampton, UK: Northamptonshire Record Society, 1979.
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  661. A meticulous examination of the impact of Puritanism in the localities, in this case Northhamptonshire, during the reign (and beyond) of Elizabeth. Based on church court and other records, this study details attempts by the bishops to establish conformity, and their inability to make such an imposition on the godly community, due to lack of enforcement and other mechanisms.
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  663. ELIZABETH AND THE CATHOLICS
  664. In the area of literary studies, the study of Elizabethan (and Stuart) Catholicism has flourished in recent years, after being released from the Protestant-oriented work of past scholarship. Numerous works have been devoted to the subject of the Catholic literary imagination, while among historians, the identity of the early modern Catholic community—or more accurately, communities—has been revised to accommodate the fluid allegiances and conversionary tendencies of its adherents. The great 1980s debate between Bossy 1976 and Haigh 1981 concerning the continuity, or lack thereof, of Elizabethan Catholicism has been tempered in recent years, but scholars continue to pursue other questions and approaches, leaving the field one of the most vibrant in Elizabethan studies. McCoog 1996 offers a good exploration of Jesuits in England, Scotland, and Ireland, while Questier 2006presents a comprehensive portrait of a community under siege; Pritchard 1979 and Rose 1975address the question of loyalism and strategies of resistance on the part of that community, whileMcGrath 1967 adds Puritans to the discussion as well. For an excellent literary analysis of Catholic writings, see Shell 1999.
  665. Bossy, John. The English Catholic Community: 1570–1850. New York: Oxford University Press, 1976.
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  667. A seminal work by the leading scholar of Catholicism in England, this work traces the development of a community across centuries, beginning with the reign of Elizabeth. Important theses include the emergence of a “new” and invigorated Catholicism with the missionary priests (with no real sustaining presence in Elizabeth’s reign before 1570), and the place of Catholicism as firm part of the English “nonconforming tradition.”
  668. Find this resource:
  669. Haigh, Christopher. “The Continuity of Catholicism in the English Reformation.” Past and Present 93 (1981): 37–69.
  670. DOI: 10.1093/past/93.1.37Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  671. Counters the thesis of Bossy 1976 by arguing that the influence of seminary priests “has been much exaggerated—as has the growth of recusancy.” Indeed, the mission “brought nothing new to English Roman Catholicism and made numerous mistakes, turning existing Roman Catholic groups throughout the country into a ‘rump community’ confined to the gentry families in the North.”
  672. Find this resource:
  673. McCoog, Thomas. The Society of Jesus in Ireland, Scotland, and England 1541–1588: “Our Way of Proceeding?” New York: E. J. Brill, 1996.
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  675. An examination of the early part of Robert Persons’s and William Allen’s careers, as well as those of other Jesuits, and the dilemmas they confronted in the English mission. Faced with the conflicting choice between serving their church and engaging in secular politics, Catholics found themselves divided in England, as this perceptive study demonstrates; equally strong are McCoog’s explorations of the situation in Ireland and Scotland.
  676. Find this resource:
  677. McGrath, Patrick. Papists and Puritans under Elizabeth I. New York: Walker, 1967.
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  679. An insightful demonstration of the commonalities between Catholics and Puritans in their response to the Elizabethan persecutions, their perspective toward the state, their conversionary endeavors, and even their spirituality.
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  681. Pritchard, Arnold. Catholic Loyalism in Elizabethan England. London: Scolar, 1979.
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  683. A well-written account of late-Elizabethan Catholicism, discussing the archpriest controversy, the philosophy of Robert Persons and William Allen, and the Appellants, as well as broader questions of conscience, loyalty, and other spiritual and political matters.
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  685. Questier, Michael C. Catholicism and Community in Early Modern England: Politics, Aristocratic Patronage, and Religion, c. 1550–1640. Cambridge, UK, and New York: Cambridge University Press, 2006.
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  687. The best recent examination of Catholicism and Catholic patronage networks under Elizabeth (and beyond), examining the faith through the prism of various aristocratic families. Questier differs fromBossy 1976 in favoring a view of Catholics as still actively engaged politically and with other segments of English society.
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  689. Rose, Elliot. Cases of Conscience: Alternatives Open to Recusants and Puritans under Elizabeth I and James I. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1975.
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  691. Examines the options open to those Catholics who chose political compliance while maintaining their faith. Although much of the book is devoted to Puritans, Rose is particularly interested in matters of conscience as they pertained to Catholics, and to the instruction they received on the subject of moral theology and legal procedure from their brethren on the Continent.
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  693. Shell, Alison. Catholicism, Controversy, and the English Literary Imagination, 1558–1660. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1999.
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  695. An astute study of the varied strands of Catholicism—Jesuit, recusant, exilic, mystical, Catholic-clerical—across the Elizabethan and Stuart reigns, focusing on its expression in the literary imagination. In addition to Robert Southwell (in Elizabeth’s reign), Shell analyzes lesser-known texts and their circulation, arguing for the Catholic influence on the larger body of literature in early modern England.
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  697. Representations, Iconography, And The Cult Of The Queen
  698. Perhaps more than any other Tudor with the possible exception of her father, Elizabeth was a master of image management, projecting royal authority in terms that advanced the interests of her person and her rule. Elizabeth was distinct, however, for the manner in which she manipulated gender in her self-representations, which were expressed in portraits and pageants as well as theater and poetry. Historians have always recognized this dimension of Elizabeth—this skilful, if at times problematic, self-expression that easily lent itself to a cult; recent years, however, have brought forward a number of examinations treating the iconography of Elizabeth from an art historical or literary approach, resulting in some fine dissections of the visual and verbal workings of power.
  699. PORTRAITS AND ICONOGRAPHY OF THE QUEEN
  700. The pioneering works of Strong 1999 and Yates 1999 have given way to a new generation of scholarship on the rich subject of Elizabeth’s portraits, particularly as they have been explored by literary scholars. Recent work, however, has questioned the universality of the cult of the queen, at least in terms of its positive reception; and while the gender and virginal aspects of the portraits were also traditionally upheld, these claims have also come under scrutiny by Doran 2003 and others.Fischlin 1997 should also be consulted for its treatment of the Rainbow Portrait, while Frye 1993draws on contemporary literature and entertainments, and Howard 2004 works from monuments and sculptures. Montrose 2006 offers an expert literary reading of the representations, and Sharpe 2009presents the most recent assessment of Tudor power projection.
  701. Doran, Susan. “Virginity, Divinity, and Power: The Portraits of Elizabeth I.” In The Myth of Elizabeth. Edited by Susan Doran, and Thomas Freeman, 171–199. Basingstoke, UK: Palgrave, 2003.
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  703. A new look at the visual representations of Elizabeth, arguing that not much Marian iconography can actually be found in these works, and that the queen herself “was seldom directly responsible for devising her own image.” Where she did serve as patron, her depiction centered on her role more “as a Protestant ruler than a virgin queen.”
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  705. Fischlin, Daniel. “Political Allegory, Absolutist Ideology, and the ‘Rainbow Portrait’ of Queen Elizabeth I.” Renaissance Quarterly 50 (1997): 175–206.
  706. DOI: 10.2307/3039333Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  707. Argues that the portrait, while replete with symbolism, embodies above all a political allegory, “one whose religious dimensions underpin an iconographic representation of sovereign self-investiture.”
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  709. Frye, Susan. Elizabeth I: The Competition for Representation. New York: Oxford University Press, 1993.
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  711. This book examines, as the author puts it, “the struggle for meanings embodied in the queen’s body by treating Elizabeth I as a discursive agent, as a woman engaged in a continual, fluid struggle for the images she became.” Actively constructing her own image as a woman, and as a being existing outside of female roles, Elizabeth acted as a “mediator” between groups that attempted to encase her in their own particular representations and iconography.
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  713. Howard, Maurice. “Elizabeth I: A Sense of Place in Stone, Print and Paint.” Transactions of the Royal Historical Society 6th ser., 14 (2004): 261–268.
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  715. After reviewing the historiography of Elizabethan portraiture, Howard examines sculptures and funerary monuments as well as other imagery, placing all within their contexts, or “localities public and private throughout Tudor England.”
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  717. Montrose, Louis. The Subject of Elizabeth: Authority, Gender, and Representation. Chicago: Chicago University Press, 2006.
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  719. An important work by a leading literary scholar that assesses changing contemporary and collective understandings of the queen, focusing on visual material as well as literary, religious, and political texts.
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  721. Sharpe, Kevin M. Selling the Tudor Monarchy: Authority and Image in Sixteenth-Century England. New Haven, CT, and London: Yale University Press, 2009.
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  723. The most recent contribution to the study of the Tudors (and particularly Henry VIII and Elizabeth) and their advancement of the royal image, and power generally, through literary and visual representations, as well as material culture and consumption practices.
  724. Find this resource:
  725. Strong, Roy C. The Cult of Elizabeth: Elizabethan Portraiture and Pageantry. London and New York: Random House, 1999.
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  727. A seminal (if subsequently revised) work that examines the portraits and pageantry of the queen, and the social and historical relations in which they were embedded, as specifically constructing a cult whose purpose was the exercise of political power.
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  729. Yates, Frances. Astraea: The Imperial Theme in the Sixteenth Century. London: Routledge, 1999.
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  731. A collection of essays that focuses in part on the cult of Elizabeth and how through image manipulation and other means it “used every ingredient of the Elizabethan renaissance,” including allusions to Astraea as well as the Virgin Mary to advance its political agenda.
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  733. PAGEANTS AND PROCESSIONS
  734. Though scholars, beginning with John Nichols in the early 19th century (Nichols 1823, Nichols 2009) and continuing through Bergeron 1971, have long noted the importance of pageantry and processions in the bolstering of Elizabeth’s power, recent years have witnessed historians and literary scholars applying fresh approaches to their larger semiotic and symbolic meanings; the best examples of more recent work include McCoy 1990, Leahy 2005, and Cole 1999 and most recently the essays in Archer, et al. 2007. The complication of the cult-of-Elizabeth idea has also brought attention to the reception of these pageants among the public, which did not always view them favorably. Nevertheless, all tend to agree that pageantry remained an essential component in Elizabeth’s arsenal of image management and power. See also Warkentin and Parsons 2004 for the primary text of Elizabeth’s 1559 progression through the City of London.
  735. Archer, Jayne Elisabeth, Elizabeth Goldring, and Sarah Knight, eds. The Progresses, Pageants, and Entertainments of Queen Elizabeth I. Oxford; New York: Oxford University Press, 2007.
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  737. A valuable collection of thirteen essays and an introduction examining Elizabeth’s progresses and their larger purpose and meaning, particularly in employing symbolism and the spectacular in the exercise of power.
  738. Find this resource:
  739. Bergeron, David. English Civic Pageantry. Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 1971.
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  741. A broader study of pageantry that includes significant material on royal progresses and entries during the reign of Elizabeth. Particularly strong in discussing the symbolic, allegorical, emblematic, and thematic aspects of such pageants, particularly as they were harnessed to serve the interests of the monarch.
  742. Find this resource:
  743. Cole, Mary Hill. The Portable Queen: Elizabeth I and the Politics of Ceremony. Massachusetts Studies in Early Modern Culture. Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 1999.
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  745. An extensive and impressive examination of the twenty-three trips and progresses made by Elizabeth during her reign, as she chose to stay in the safest parts of the realm, preferred to reside in private homes, and continued to undertake these activities despite pressing business at court—all as an essential aspect of her maintenance of power.
  746. Find this resource:
  747. Leahy, William. Elizabethan Triumphal Processions. Aldershot, UK: Ashgate, 2005.
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  749. An examination of the reception of the processions among common people; Leahy argues that rather than processions being received (and given) as a display of queenly omniscience, “ambiguities and anxieties… have been traditionally ignored or overlooked” behind such exertions and receptions of power. The audience, poor and often skeptical, could thus only receive such processions in a “much more sporadic, reluctant, attenuated way” than scholars have previously claimed.
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  751. McCoy, Richard C. “‘The Wonderfull Spectacle’: The Civic Progress of Elizabeth I and the Troublesome Coronation.” In Coronations: Medieval and Early Modern Monarchic Ritual. Edited by J. M. Bak, 217–227. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1990.
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  753. An illuminating essay that discusses the problems inherent in Elizabeth’s coronation, and the effective theatrical skills and “secular pageantry” (as opposed to sacred rites) she utilized to divert attention from them.
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  755. Nichols, John. The Progresses and Public Processions of Queen Elizabeth. Among which Are Interspersed Other Solemnities, Public Expenditures, and Remarkable Events during the Reign of That Illustrious Princess. London: J. Nichols, 1823.
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  757. A monumental work and an essential reference for any study of the subject, containing primary source material of her speeches, verses dedicated to her, and contemporary descriptions of the progresses compiled by the antiquarian and printer.
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  759. Nichols, John. The Progresses and Public Processions of Queen Elizabeth I: A New Edition of the Early Modern Sources. Vol. 4, 1596–1603. Edited by Jayne Elisabeth Archer, Elizabeth Clarke, and Elizabeth Goldring. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009.
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  761. A new scholarly edition of Nichols’s classic work, with updated scholarly annotations and other texts and illustrations. Focuses on the last years of the queen’s reign, including her summer and winter progresses as well as civic receptions and Accession Day entertainments.
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  763. Warkentin, Germaine, and John Carmi Parsons, eds. The Queen’s Majesty’s Passage and Related Documents. Toronto: Victoria University Centre for Reformation and Renaissance Studies, 2004.
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  765. A critical edition that includes modernized primary source texts of the queen’s passage into the City of London in January of 1559. Also includes contemporary foreign and domestic reports of the event, as well as valuable secondary source material that explores the political imagery, the biblical references to Deborah, and the firmly Protestant message conveyed in the event.
  766. Find this resource:
  767. CONTEMPORARY LITERARY AND ALLEGORICAL REPRESENTATIONS
  768. As McLaren 2003 and Walsham 2003 note, Elizabeth’s stated affiliation with the Old Testament Deborah was one of the most prevalent associations used to legitimize her power, while the image of the Virgin Mary (King 1990 and Hackett 1996) has been viewed—though not by all scholars—as a means by which to harness a powerful, primarily Catholic figure to work toward the queen’s own emergent Protestant identity. Meanwhile, a providential rhetoric likening the queen to the savior of the nation was employed by martyrologists such as John Foxe, though Elizabeth’s religious proclivities tended to bring on disappointment (at least to the godly), as even critiques could be embedded within the idealizations that surrounded her, as explained in Freeman 2003.
  769. Freeman, Thomas S. “Providence and Prescription: The Account of Elizabeth in Foxe’s ‘Book of Martyrs.’” In The Myth of Elizabeth. Edited by Susan Doran and Thomas Freeman, 27–55. Basingstoke, UK: Palgrave, 2003.
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  771. Examines the presentation and increasingly critical treatments of Elizabeth across the four editions of the Acts and Monuments published in Foxe’s lifetime.
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  773. Hackett, Helen. Virgin Mother, Maiden Queen: Elizabeth I and the Cult of the Virgin Mary. London: Macmillan, 1996.
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  775. An important work that examines changing applications of virgin iconography to the queen, though the notion that Elizabeth inherited the now-vacant position of the Virgin Mary is questionable, just as the idea of the “cult” itself is a 20th-century imposition.
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  777. King, John. “Queen Elizabeth I: Representations of the Virgin Queen.” Renaissance Quarterly43 (1990): 30–74.
  778. DOI: 10.2307/2861792Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  779. A comprehensive article that tracks the Elizabethan cult of virginity from her early life to her later years and beyond, with the accompanying iconography constituting not a “timeless phenomenon” but instead closely mirroring her life and the changing political events and literary persuasions of her reign.
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  781. McLaren, Anne. “Elizabeth I as Deborah: Biblical Typology, Prophecy and Political Power.” InGender, Power, and Privilege in Early Modern Europe Women and Men in History. Edited by Jessica Munns and Penny Richards, 90–107. Harlow, UK: Pearson, 2003.
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  783. This essay insightfully uncovers the political meanings behind the identification of Elizabeth with the biblical Deborah over the course of her reign, particularly as it validated (and sometimes challenged) female rule.
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  785. Walsham, Alexandra. “‘A Very Deborah?’ The Myth of Elizabeth I as a Providential Monarch.” In The Myth of Elizabeth. Edited by Susan Doran and Thomas Freeman, 143–168. Basingstoke, UK: Palgrave, 2003.
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  787. An excellent analysis arguing that Elizabeth “stood uneasily in the shoes of a providential monarch,” despite the “obsequious praise” showered upon her for fulfilling such a role. Walsham also provides a deeper questioning of the royalist myth, and reveals the manner in which providential language (and praise) also could contain a subtle critique of the queen.
  788. Find this resource:
  789. Spenser and Elizabeth
  790. The subject of Spenser—not only the Spenser of the Faerie Queene but also the Spenser in Ireland—constitutes a field in its own right. The following select works, however, touch on Spenser’s complicated relationship solely with Elizabeth as it affected and infiltrated his Faerie Queen. Hadfield 2003 is a noteworthy contribution by one of the best Spenser scholars, while Bowman 1990 andMehl 2004 also provide incisive analyses of the poet’s treatment of Elizabeth in his great work.
  791. Bowman, M. R. “‘She There as Princess Rained’: Spenser’s Figure of Elizabeth.” Renaissance Quarterly 43.3 (1990): 509–528.
  792. DOI: 10.2307/2862557Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  793. Examines the “rather bewildering” episode in the Faerie Queene of Britomart’s actions and her restructuring of Amazon society—and reinstating male rule—as containing a number of broader political resonances. In Britomart, Bowman writes, Spenser created a “subtle and complex” figure who shared the same forces with which Elizabeth had to contend—but who the poet himself omitted when he came to describe his work.
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  795. Hadfield, Andrew. “Duessa’s Trial and Elizabeth’s Error: Judging Elizabeth in Spenser’sFaerie Queene.” In The Myth of Elizabeth. Edited by Susan Doran and Thomas Freeman, 56–76. Basingstoke, UK: Palgrave Macmillan, 2003.
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  797. A significant contribution by one of the leading Spenser scholars, suggesting that the figure of Duessa, with her duplicity and doubleness, may have constituted a veiled critique of the queen, even if she was positively mythologized elsewhere in the poem.
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  799. Mehl, Dieter. “Edmund Spenser’s Gloriana: Elizabeth as ‘Faerie Queene.’” In Queen Elizabeth I: Past and Present. Edited by Christa Jansohn, 89–100. Studien zur Englischen Literatur 19. Münster, Germany: LIT, 2004.
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  801. A useful overview of Spenser’s aims in the Faerie Queene and the manner in which Elizabeth “shadows” the work; the various interpretations of literary scholars over the years, and their approach to Elizabeth’s Spenserian representation, are also discussed.
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  803. Culture
  804. Elizabethan culture extended far beyond the queen herself, particularly when it came to popular theater or balladry; still, the figure of Elizabeth, who understood the power of dramatic spectacle, and the workings of patronage and the art and entertainment of the court, could not help but cast a long shadow over all artistic expression of the day. A vibrant if chaotic scientific culture, as well as developments in other forms of knowledge, also characterized the era, as did important advances in theorizing and practicing the law. The following is a highly selective list of sources that best capture the artistic, legal, and scientific climate of the age.
  805. ENTERTAINMENTS AND ELIZABETHAN THEATER
  806. Elizabethan theatrical entertainments at court that upheld and mythologized power could often come into conflict with a developing public and popular theater that was sometimes perceived as subversive in relation to the state. Licensing, regulation, and other means of control were available to authorities, but as many studies have demonstrated, theater as an emerging cultural institution did not reside at the center but on the literal and sometimes figurative margins of society. Chambers 2009 is an older yet seminal study and is required reading for students who seek to understand the theater and companies that existed during Elizabeth’s reign. Gurr 1992 is a more recent survey, and Shenk 2008 analyzes academic entertainments. Ashton 1983 explores the relationship between entertainments and the question of order and disorder, while Dutton 1991 examines government regulation and censorship of drama. Montrose 1996 also elucidates the relationship between the state and the stage (or Shakespeare’s stage), as does Mullaney 1988.
  807. Ashton, Robert. “Popular Entertainment and Social Control in Later Elizabethan and Early Stuart London.” London Journal 9.1 (1983): 3–19.
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  809. An excellent overview of the variety of popular entertainments available in Elizabethan London and the manner in which authorities were able to contain—or not contain—their more unruly and subversive elements.
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  811. Chambers, Edmund Kerchever. The Elizabethan Stage. 4 vols. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009.
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  813. A massive and classic four-volume work, first published in 1923 (Oxford: Clarendon), that examines the theaters and companies of the Elizabethan world, as well as the social backgrounds of the players and writers involved plus the larger historical context of the period. The first volume focuses mostly on the productions that entertained Elizabeth and her court as well as other festivities and revels.
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  815. Dutton, Richard. Mastering the Revels: The Regulation and Censorship of English Renaissance Drama. Iowa City: University of Iowa Press, 1991.
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  817. An astute examination of the censorship and regulation of the theater in Elizabethan and Jacobean England. Argues that the Masters of the Revels in this period ensured stability (and thus economic success) and even a range of political and religious expressions at the same time they suppressed seditious material and protected the good name of the crown.
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  819. Gurr, Andrew. The Shakespearean Stage, 1574–1642. 3d ed. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1992.
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  821. A concise yet comprehensive examination of the acting companies, stagings, and audiences in the original Shakespeare productions.
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  823. Montrose, Louis. The Purpose of Playing: Shakespeare and the Cultural Politics of the Elizabethan Theatre. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1996.
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  825. Argues in part that any dichotomizing of Shakespeare’s relationship to the Elizabethan state as one that achieved either “subversion and containment” or “resistance and complicity” is “hopelessly reductive,” and does not encompass the alternative and oppositional discourses that could slip away from the state’s grasp.
  826. Find this resource:
  827. Mullaney, Steven. The Place of the Stage: License, Play, and Power in Renaissance England. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1988.
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  829. Analyzing the relationship between place or topography and the stage on the outskirts of London, Mullaney argues that although Shakespearean drama has come to be seen as central to our notion of Elizabethan culture, “we need to keep in mind the fact that… popular drama emerged as a cultural institution in England only by… dislocating itself from the strict confines of the social order and taking up a place on the margins of society.”
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  831. Shenk, Linda. “Gown Before Crown: Scholarly Abjection and Academic Entertainment under Queen Elizabeth I.” In Early Modern Academic Drama. Edited by Jonathan Walker and Paul D. Streufert, 19–44. Studies in Performance and Early Modern Drama. Farnham, UK: Ashgate, 2008.
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  833. Examines the implications of university scholars appearing as actors in performances before the crown, and the manner in which such performances established a power dynamic that “diminished the public image of the scholar as a serious figure” and tied the actor-entertainers “more closely (and abjectly) to the crown’s authority.”
  834. Find this resource:
  835. KNOWLEDGE, SCIENCE, AND THE LAW
  836. The court of Elizabeth, and the patronage it bestowed, contributed to the development of a culture of knowledge, which could encompass the law, occult philosophies (as with John Dee), and science—even though scientific culture, as Harkness 2007 has demonstrated, extended well beyond the queen’s purview to flourish in the more chaotic urban atmosphere of London. In pursuing new enterprises such as exploration or economic activity, the state also encouraged technological innovations, which in turn required what Ash 2004 has termed “expert mediators” to act as middlemen. An enormous body of scholarship has been devoted to different aspects of these subjects, with Binns 1990 looking at Latinate culture, and Mack 2002 the influence of humanist rhetoric; in terms of the law, Boyer 2003 provides a good examination of the contributions of Coke, and Prest 1972 offers a history of the Inns of Court. Finally, Yates 1979 is a classic work that presents a fine overview of occult thinkers such as John Dee, scientific philosopher-adviser to the queen.
  837. Ash, Eric H. Power, Knowledge, and Expertise in Elizabethan England. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2004.
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  839. An interesting study of the rise of “expert mediators,” or educated middlemen who bridged the gap between craftsmen and administrators at court seeking out new and innovative technologies. Ash examines the relationship between patrons and mediators in such areas as copper mining and navigation.
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  841. Binns, J. W. Intellectual Culture in Elizabethan and Jacobean England: The Latin Writings of the Age. Leeds, UK: Francis Cairns, 1990.
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  843. An enormous and erudite work that surveys the Latinate culture of the age, as it was manifested in poetry, drama, theology, politics and political science, history, and other areas of thought. Though the work extends to 1640, important examinations are devoted to the period of Elizabeth’s reign.
  844. Find this resource:
  845. Boyer, Allen D. Sir Edward Coke and the Elizabethan Age. Jurists—Profiles in Legal Theory. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2003.
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  847. A readable yet scholarly biography that treats the life of Elizabeth and James’s attorney general, his alliance with Cecil and disputes with Francis Bacon, his shaping of the common law, and his place within the larger context of the times.
  848. Find this resource:
  849. Harkness, Deborah E. The Jewel House. Elizabethan London and the Scientific Revolution. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2007.
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  851. A rich examination of the scientific communities as they centered upon London during Elizabeth’s reign, and how those networks were dependent upon an urban setting and its communication channels to further an emerging experimental theory and practice.
  852. Find this resource:
  853. Mack, Peter. Elizabethan Rhetoric: Theory and Practice. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2002.
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  855. An enlightening work that focuses on the influence of humanist rhetorical conventions and education on developing prose writing in Elizabethan England.
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  857. Prest, Wilfrid Robertson. The Inns of Court under Elizabeth I and the Early Stuarts, 1590–1640. Harlow, UK: Longman, 1972.
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  859. The first full history and still-definitive study of the Inns of Court, this work explores England’s “third university” and its membership, professional aspects, administrative practices, and legal educational program, as well as its influence on larger political and religious developments.
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  861. Yates, Frances. The Occult Philosophy in the Elizabethan Age. London: Routledge, 1979.
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  863. A small volume that nevertheless encompasses a commanding range of material relating to the prevalence in England of a “Christian Cabbala,” the various doctrines of occult philosophy, the thought and work of the gigantic figure of John Dee, and the manifestation of these ideas in various dramas and contemporary literature.
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  865. Society
  866. As with the subject of culture, society under Elizabeth generates its own enormous bibliography, though some basic works provide insight into the nature of the social world during her long reign. Though issues of control and order had long been paramount in the Tudor period, the 1590s proved an especially challenging period in terms of its economic malaise; Archer 1991 and Slack 1988discuss the means by which authorities attempted to maintain social order and harmony over the potentially disruptive upheavals that could result. More studies, in the meantime, need to be conducted regarding perceptions of the queen among the lower orders; as Mendelson 2003 points out, they were not always favorable or in lockstep with the court’s desires. In general, the surveyWrightson 1982 remains definitive, while Cressy 1997 and Greaves 1981 are among the leading social historians of this period.
  867. Archer, Ian. The Pursuit of Stability: Social Relations in Elizabethan London. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1991.
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  869. Archer examines the important issues of social relations and the maintenance of stability in London, particularly in the troublesome 1590s. Countering other historians in his emphasis on conflict and the tenuousness of stability, Archer describes ruling elites as fully aware of the tensions they presided over, particularly during times of demographic change, bad harvests, and economic decline.
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  871. Cressy, David. Birth, Marriage, and Death: Ritual, Religion, and the Life-Cycle in Tudor and Stuart England. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997.
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  873. Drawing on a wide range of sources, Cressy explores the manner in which church rites and rituals revealed and elicited larger social and cultural tensions, and were manifested (and debated) in the ceremonies of baptism, marriage, funerals, and other moments of the lifecycle.
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  875. Greaves, Richard L. Society and Religion in Elizabethan England. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1981.
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  877. A huge and impressive work of social history that seeks to analyze “Anglican and Puritan social thought” and apply it to “social practice,” or religious and social questions including those relating to the godly household, usury, sumptuary laws, litigation, funerary practices, suicide, and bastardy.
  878. Find this resource:
  879. Mendelson, Sara. “Popular Perceptions of Elizabeth.” In Elizabeth I: Always Her Own Free Woman. Edited by Carol Levin, Jo Eldridge Carney, and Debra Barrett-Graves, 192–214. Burlington, VT: Ashgate, 2003.
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  881. Addresses the manner in which the general populace, through ballads and other genres, perpetuated the cult of the queen and carried a range of often contradictory—though for the most part positive—perceptions of her.
  882. Find this resource:
  883. Slack, Paul. Poverty and Policy in Tudor and Stuart England. London: Longman, 1988.
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  885. A stimulating exploration with fresh interpretations of poverty, and the manner in which it was dealt with, in early modern England, with some emphasis on the important period of the Elizabethan poor laws. For Slack, the poor laws were an example of central directives meeting local initiatives, resulting in the slow emergence of a new kind of institution in which policy and poverty were conjoined and mutually transformed.
  886. Find this resource:
  887. Stone, Lawrence. The Crisis of the Aristocracy, 1558–1641. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002.
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  889. A seminal but subsequently much-criticized work on the state of the aristocracy from Elizabeth’s reign through the next century. Stone’s thesis postulates an English peerage whose economic fortune declined significantly in this period (a point that has been disputed, along with his focus on the peerage alone as opposed to the larger landed class).
  890. Find this resource:
  891. Wrightson, Keith. English Society, 1580–1680. London: Hutchinson, 1982.
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  893. Though Wrightson takes up his narrative later in Elizabeth’s reign, his work is still important in providing a fine analysis of the structures and hierarchy of English society, as well as kinship, family, paternalism, and neighborliness during the Queen’s rule. The role of literacy, demographics, and economic transformation is emphasized throughout.
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  895. Legacy
  896. The 400th anniversary of Elizabeth’s death in 2003 brought on a spate of commemorative collections, as well as a general tendency (perhaps coinciding with the field of memory studies) to reflect upon the history of her afterlife. Dobson and Watson 2002 and Walker 2004 represent good examples of this pursuit, while Watkins 2002 and Hageman and Conway 2007 examine her 17th-century legacy, and Moss 2006 her 20th-century fame. Collinson 2003 provides one of the better accounts of her historiographical fate, but other studies have examined the visual, poetic and, withBetteridge 2003, cinematic fate. One of the most central questions underlying all these studies concerns the reasons why Elizabeth is one of the most resonant figures in history, and what about her—or our image of her—speaks to us, or our own preoccupations, today.
  897. Betteridge, Thomas. “A Queen for all Seasons: Elizabeth I on Film.” In The Myth of Elizabeth. Edited by Susan Doran and Thomas Freeman, 242–259. Basingstoke, UK: Palgrave Macmillan, 2003.
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  899. A comprehensive analysis of Elizabeth on film, arguing that cinematic representations of the queen reveal more about modern concerns than they do any historical reality. Films that receive particular scrutiny are Fire over England (1937), The Private Lives of Elizabeth and Essex (1939), and Elizabeth (1998).
  900. Find this resource:
  901. Collinson, Patrick. “Elizabeth I and the Verdicts of History.” Historical Research 76.194 (2003): 469–491.
  902. DOI: 10.1111/1468-2281.00186Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  903. A typically erudite essay on the judgments of Elizabeth’s historians, beginning with William Camden—who was not as hagiographical as many have claimed—and continuing through John Neale and those still pursuing the “monarchical republic” school.
  904. Find this resource:
  905. Dobson, Michael, and Nicola J. Watson. England’s Elizabeth: An Afterlife in Fame and Fantasy. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002.
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  907. In their introduction to this rich volume, the authors argue that the reason Elizabeth has compelled (and disquieted) generations is due in part to the power inherent in her virginity. Particularly interesting discussions are also devoted to the 19th-century co-optation of Elizabeth in regard to Victoria, as well as her role in the project of modern empire building
  908. Find this resource:
  909. Hageman, Elizabeth H., and Katherine Conway, eds. Resurrecting Elizabeth in Seventeenth-Century England. Madison, NJ: Farleigh Dickinson University Press, 2007.
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  911. A collection of essays that examines Elizabeth’s textual legacy in the 17th century, by writers such as Ben Jonson, Anne Bradstreet, and Margaret Cavendish, as well as polemical tracticians and ambassadorial secretaries.
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  913. Moss, David Grant. “A Queen for Whose Time? Elizabeth I as Icon for the Twentieth Century.”Journal of Popular Culture 39.5 (2006).
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  915. Explores the many 20th-century literary and filmic portrayals of Elizabeth, from romantic “trademark” queen “to quasi-feminist hero,” Thatcherian warrior-queen, a “trying to have it all” woman-in-control, and even an icon of domestic life.
  916. Find this resource:
  917. Walker, Julia M. The Elizabeth Icon, 1603–2003. Basingstoke, UK: Palgrave Macmillan, 2004.
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  919. A wide-ranging survey of the posthumous history of Elizabeth across texts, monuments, and images, particularly as they came to contribute to her iconic affiliation with England itself. Jacobean public memory, the political interpretations of the queen, the mass production of the image in modern times, and her cinematic representations are all treated and contextualized.
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  921. Watkins, John. Representing Elizabeth in Stuart England: Literature, History, Sovereignty. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2002.
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  923. An effective survey of the variety of interpretations and mythic permutations that Elizabeth underwent in the vexed 17th century, and ending in 1714 with Queen Anne, who likened herself to the Tudor queen. Especially interesting are Watkins’s discussions of the sexualized “secret histories” of the queen in the period, as well as his demonstration that she was deployed as a symbol for both sides in the mid-century oppositional divide.
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