The Queen’s Second Body
Representations of Queen Elizabeth I
in Seventeenth-Century Histories
1603 - 1660
Masterscriptie Engelse Taal en Cultuur, Rijksuniversiteit Groningen Supervisor: Dr J. Flood
Ingrid Sennema (0326917)
1 CONTENTS
Introduction ………..……. 2
Chapter 1: Early reactions to the death of Queen Elizabeth I (1603-1620)………..…..7
Chapter 2: Histories between 1620 and 1640 ...16
Chapter 3: Chapter 3: Histories during the Civil Wars and Interregnum (1642-1660) ….…..27
Conclusion ...……….…………...38
Works cited ……….……….…41
Pictures front page:
Left: The Armada Portrait (1588?), attributed to George Gower. In Susan Doran. Queen Elizabeth I. The British Library Historic Lives. London: The British Library, 2003. 123
Right: Elizabeth with Time and Death (c.1622), attributed to Marcus Gheeraerts. In Julia M. Walker. Dissing
Elizabeth. Negative Representations of Gloriana. Durham and London: Duke UP, 1998. Cover. The idea to
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Introduction
No matter how committed Queen Elizabeth I was to her motto semper eadem (always the same), she could not prevent the emergence of numerous images after her death, many of which she would probably have disapproved of. Elizabeth could, obviously, not direct her posthumous image in the way she had tried to control her image during her lifetime. Starting soon after her death, the queen inspired numerous new representations, ranging from
Protestant warrior queen to romantic heroine and from absolute ruler to rubber duck1.
This thesis is about the ways Elizabeth is represented in a selection of histories from her death in 1603 until the Restoration in 1660. I will focus specifically on representations of personal aspects of the queen in relation to the evaluation of her reign. To conceptualize the separation between Elizabeth‟s official and private capacity, I will use the “theory of the king‟s two bodies”, a political and legal concept about royal power that was current at the time. This theory endowed the monarch with a “body natural” and a “body politic”. The theory of the king‟s two bodies has been studied before by Marie Axton in her analysis of sixteenth-century entertainments performed by the Inns of Court relating to Queen Elizabeth I. As prose has different possibilities from dramatic representation, I was interested to find out whether the theory could also be used as a tool to analyse a prose genre relating to Elizabeth.
I have chosen the genre of histories because in the seventeenth century they dealt directly with government and politics, while their authors were often connected to the centre of power through office or patronage. Because the histories were usually written with a more or less hidden agenda or ultimate aim, reference to Elizabeth‟s body natural and body politic had further implications than just her own reign and was part of the political debate of the seventeenth century. It is my assumption that authors used the representation of certain aspects of the queen‟s body natural to say something about the queen‟s body politic. The fact that Elizabeth was a female ruler of a patriarchal society gave authors extra scope for
commenting on her body natural by using contemporary ideas about women. Below I will explain these points in further detail as together they form my conceptual framework.
In the next three chapters I will attempt to answer the following questions. First, which aspects of the queen‟s body natural are used in the texts? Second, how does the author use these aspects in relation to her body politic? And third, how does the representation of Elizabeth contribute to the ultimate aim of the text?
1 As depicted on the cover of Julia M. Walker. The Elizabeth Icon 1603-2003. Basingstoke and New York:
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The theory of the king‟s two bodies refers to the idea that a sovereign has two united bodies: the body politic, which is infallible, spiritual and eternal, representing the government and management of the people and the realm, and which is bestowed by God, and the body natural, which is subject to physical and mental illness, minority, old age and death. Gender also belongs to this category. While the monarch lives, the body politic is contained in, but also superior to the “lesser” body natural (Kantorowicz 7-9). Therefore, it is of no importance whether the monarch is a child, senile or, in Elizabeth‟s case, a woman. When the body natural of the monarch dies, the perpetual body politic becomes invested in the body natural of his or her successor. The idea was based on medieval ecclesiastical thought and was secularized by lawyers during the reign of Henry VIII (Axton 12). It was first used in a lawsuit in 1561 by the eminent lawyer Edmund Plowden (1518-1585). The theory never became orthodox and remained controversial, but the image of “the twinned person of the monarch” was familiar to a wider circle than just lawyers (Axton 27).
The concept of the king‟s two bodies must have been of great value to the queen, since, theoretically, it downplayed the importance of her natural female body and in that regard legitimized her rule (Levin 123). Elizabeth herself refers to the theory in one of her first speeches to her council: “And as I am but one bodye naturallye considered though by this [God‟s] permission a bodye politique to governe, so I shall desyre yow all my Lordes ... to bee assistant to me” (State Papers 12/7: “Wordes spoken by the Queene to the Lordes”, qtd in Axton 38). Another example are her famous words in the Tilbury speech (if she really spoke them), “I have but the body of a weak and feeble woman, but I have the heart and stomach of a king” (qtd in Elizabeth I and her age 392). On the other hand, with a female ruler on the throne, the importance of separating the personal from the official capacity of the queen became more important to her councillors and her other subjects, as women were considered incapable of living up to the ideal of kingship as embodied in the body politic (Levin 122). Despite the theory, in practice the body natural was still of great importance. Levin argues that, “if there are two images of the queen, the one male, the other female, then the male image is the one with power while the female image lacks it” (125).
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Diana and Lady Beauty (Ibid. 38). In the Christmas entertainments of 1561-62, for example, a masque was shown pressing the queen to marry, asking the consent of both bodies of the queen. Next, the play Gorboduc was staged, demonstrating the disastrous results if the two capacities of the king were at variance (Ibid. 40). Axton argues that the entertainments provided an “important outlet” for the lawyers who, like many others, were concerned about the succession, but could not express this in their professional capacity, only on the stage (5). They operated in the margins of the Prohibition of 16 May 1559 of all plays dealing with religion or governance except when staged by “menne of aucthoritie, lerning and wisdomme” (qtd in Axton 11-12), and apparently they got away with it.
Not only the succession, but the mere fact that Elizabeth was the unmarried, female ruler of a patriarchal society was considered problematic and caused much concern among her subjects (Levin 67). Women were generally seen as weak and unfit to rule on medical and religious grounds. Because of their humoral constitution they were thought to lack rationality and moral sense, and to be overemotional, frail and sexually voracious. (Fletcher 69-70). Eve‟s role in the Fall of Man had resulted in their subordination to men. The inferiority of women was drummed into people regularly, for example in church when the homily on marriage (1562) was read (Fletcher 70). Apart from this, all women were supposed to get married and bear children. This was certainly true for queens, who bore the responsibility for producing an heir to the throne. Uneasiness about Elizabeth‟s sexuality, combined with concern about the succession, resulted in widespread speculation and gossip about lovers, illegitimate children and her physical condition and which was to continue into the queen‟s old age (Levin 66-67). Rumours about the queen, both in England and abroad was fed by her many courtships (Doran, 52). Gossip had political implications, as a reputation of chastity was part of the female code of honour and was of great importance to a female ruler. Because corruption of the monarch‟s body was thought to reflect on the body politic and thus the whole realm, calling Elizabeth unchaste equalled calling her a bad ruler (Levin 76).
Gender played a significant role in Elizabeth‟s self-representation and in images other people created of her during her lifetime. She managed to turn her gender into an asset rather than a liability, playing on both the masculine and feminine aspects of her queenship.
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latter part of her reign as a perpetual virgin, forever beautiful and wedded to her people (King 30-32ff, 51). Her later portraits as the Virgin Queen set her apart from mortal humans and symbolize magnificence, peace and justice (Strong 768).
Elizabeth‟s official portraits, controlled from above, show how much she and her councillors were concerned with the representation of her body natural, especially in the latter part of her reign. Around 1594, a policy of “deliberate rejuvenation” of the queen was
instigated, reflecting not only vanity but also a genuine fear of the dangers of depicting an ageing sovereign while the succession was still unsettled (Ibid. 753). The official image of the queen was to be “of a legendary beauty, ageless and unfading” (Ibid.)
In poetry, the queen was often compared to biblical women and classical goddesses, for example Cynthia or Diana, virgin goddesses associated with the moon; Astreaea, virgin goddess of justice; Esther, the Jewish queen who had saved her people; or Deborah, the biblical judge and prophet of Israel who had defeated a powerful army. The Deborah image, portraying Elizabeth as a militant Protestant heroine, was not created officially for her, but was devised by her Protestant subjects as early as her accession, in the hope that she would live up to it (Haigh 159). The same was true for the narration about her in John Foxe‟s Acts
and Monuments (1563) in which she was providentially saved by God during her sister‟s
reign so that she could restore true religion in England (Ibid. 159-160). After the Bible this was the most popular book in England (Bucholz 112). The second edition had, by government order (1571), been placed in cathedral churches throughout England. Influential and enduring were also Edmund Spenser‟s images of her in the allegorical The Faerie Queene (1590): Gloriana (or the Fearie Queene), the immortal embodiment of the English nation, Britomart, the female knight associated with chastity, and Belphoebe, associated with virginity (Abrams and Greenblatt 622-624, King 64).
An important motive for writing history in early seventeenth-century England was the idea that moral or practical lessons could be drawn from the past. History had an instructive
function, in particular for kings and others in powerful positions. Studies of former kings were written as models for incumbent monarchs to emulate, as indirect advice and sometimes as coded criticism. History was also a toolbox for flattering princes. Comparing a monarch to an illustrious figure from the past was one of the most common forms of praise (Woolf, The Idea 31-32). Because of this utilitarian principle, the historical truth for its own sake was not the prime objective: “truth” equally referred to moral as well as factual verity. It was, for
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and rhetoric were important instruments to get the lessons from history across (Collinson, “History” 58). William Camden‟s work, which was based on documentary evidence, would be an important innovation in this regard.
History dealt with “high politics” and was written by those who had direct experience of that world (Ibid.) Until 1640, there was a broad consensus on the basic premises of history. God‟s providence was the primary cause of everything that happened. In addition, all
historians wrote from the perspective of the Tudor and Stuart monarchy (Woolf, The Idea 9,31). The only exception to this broad consensus can be found in ecclesiastical history. English Catholics did not subscribe to the political and religious status quo and used the past for polemical rather than for didactic purposes. At the beginning of the 1640s, the start of the Civil Wars, polemical writing about the past would become a general practice. The
Parliamentarian side blamed the Stuarts for the outbreak of the wars while the Royalists defended them (Woolf, “Two Elizabeths?” 168-169).
This debate continues into our own times and is important for the interpretation of posthumous representations of Elizabeth. For a long time, Parliamentarian (later called liberal or Whig) historiography predominated. In this view, nostalgia for Elizabeth arose
spontaneously as a reaction to the enlargement of the royal prerogative of the Stuarts. This nostalgia fuelled Parliamentarian resistance. The corresponding image of Elizabeth was that of a model of ecclesiastical and constitutional harmony (Watkins, “Old Bess” 95-96). From the mid-1970s onwards an alternative vision has evolved. Revisionist historians pointed out that the extent of popular discontent with the Stuarts had been exaggerated, that nostalgia for Elizabeth had not been so spontaneous or widespread, but had been driven by vested, polemic interests (Ibid. 96), that the queen had not been very popular during last years of her reign, and that there was a good deal of continuity between the policies of Elizabeth and the Stuarts (Woolf, “Two Elizabeths?” 171ff). New arguments on both sides are still being put forward, for example Julia Walker‟s interpretation of Elizabeth‟s tomb and her reburial by her
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Chapter 1: Early reactions to the death of Queen Elizabeth I (1603-1620)
In this chapter I will discuss a number of texts about the queen which appeared in the first years after her death. These include elegies, the unpublished history Certain Observations
Concerning the Life and Reign of Queen Elizabeth (written in 1603) by John Clapham, Sir
Francis Bacon‟s The Felicity of Queen Elizabeth and Her Time (1608) and Robert Parson‟s tract The Iudgment of a Catholicke English-man (1608). In addition, some alternative images of Elizabeth will be discussed from early Jacobean plays and memorial texts found in London parish churches.
Queen Elizabeth I died on 24 March 1603, or, symbolically, on the last day of 1602 according to the calendar in use at the time. In spite of concern about the succession, which had been uncertain until the very end, there was a measure of relief among her subjects when the old queen finally died. This was understandable, as in the 1590s and early 1600s all was not well England: there was an economic crisis, bad harvests and outbreaks of the plague, resulting in high death rates, widespread poverty and famine. People were also tired of the endless taxes to finance the Irish war and the Dutch revolt. In these circumstances, an ageing Elizabeth increasingly failed to work her usual magic (her “Golden Speech” was her final performance in this regard) and her popularity declined (Bucholz and Key 151,185). When King James was proclaimed very soon after her death, and the succession went ahead peacefully, there was an outbreak of public joy and celebrations at the prospect of a king, complete with heir and spare.
Elizabeth‟s death sparked off an immediate literary response in the form of funeral poems and tributes, ranging from sophisticated elegies copying classical examples, to ballads and quatrains aimed at the more popular end of the market, such as the incongruously titled A
mournefull Dittie, Entituled Elizabeth‟s losse, with a welcome for King James. To a pleasant new tune (1603). Many were available for sale within weeks or even days after her death
(Loomis, “And all the world” 68). Some elegies celebrate pre-existing idealized images of Elizabeth like that of a rose, a virgin mother and chaste Belphoebe and imperial Gloriana from The Faerie Queene (Wilson 383-384). In other poems there is conventional praise for the late queen‟s qualities as a ruler, as in Anthony Nixon‟s poem Elizaes memoriall. King
Iames his arriual. And Romes downefall (1603). In this poem the traditional princely virtues
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queen and her subjects. The more popular poems make “the Queen‟s death and the King‟s succession seem as natural and inevitable as the end-rhymes” (Loomis, “And all the world” 66-67), like in the anonymous Englands Wedding Garment (1603) which skips lightly over the queen‟s death to the king‟s happy arrival as early as the third stanza:
Scarce had the dolefull bell rung out, Oure Queene Elizaes mournefull knell, But Prince borne Iames our King proclaim‟d Our feare soon past, and all was well. (Englands Wedding Garment A2r)
Although the elegies for Elizabeth are very different in tone and content, they all mourn the dead queen and celebrate the imminent arrival of the new king (Loomis, “And all the world” 78). James is often portrayed as the sun and the coming of spring, or as a
bridegroom on his way to his bride England – a reversal of the image of Elizabeth as a bride married to England, echoing the familiar biblical image of Christ as a bridegroom married to the Church.2 This sorrow-mirth motif is inherent in the genre. English elegies from the sixteenth century onwards can be defined as poems of “mortal loss and consolation” (Sacks 2). One of its conventions is that it follows “the basic passage through grief or darkness to consolation and renewal” whereby the mourner distances himself or herself from the deceased as part of the mourning process (Ibid. 19-20).
The characteristics of the genre are well-suited to reflect the idea that, while the body natural of the old monarch has passed away, the body politic will be invested in her successor. In one poem Elizabeth‟s moon – referring to the moon goddess Cynthia – is eclipsed by James‟ sun (Loomis, “And all the world” 72):
Take comfort heauie minde:
For though thy moone decaies, thy sun doth rise: (...) And now will farre surpasse
The most large vnbound hopes we could expect. („Griefe rule my panting heart‟, Sorrowes Joy 27)
The author seems to imply that the country is actually better off with James than with Elizabeth. Another, rather more startling, example of distancing, or even rage, is Thomas
2 Christ‟s wedding to the new Jerusalem in Revelations 21:2 and 9 and 19:7-8. See also St. John 3:29. In
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Newman‟s Antropoïon Delion, or the Death of Delia (1603). In his lament the worms in the Queen‟s grave address her physicians, telling them their work has been in vain:
And we in life too filthy for her tooth, Are now in death the next unto her mouth.
With that the greedy wormes their heads shrunk down (B4r- B4v)
The funeral poems appearing after Elizabeth‟s death stress the continuity of the body politic as opposed to that of the body natural. They convey the message that the old queen is dead, but the monarchy remains.
The following two texts are histories by John Clapham and Sir Francis Bacon which were written in 1603 and 1608 respectively. Both Bacon and Clapham had connections with the court, especially Bacon, and had experienced or observed politics at close quarters. Francis Bacon hoped to engage James‟s attention to further his career at court by refuting a Catholic attack on Elizabeth by the priest in exile, Robert Parsons (Woolf, “Two Elizabeths” 174). Clapham‟s and Bacon‟s histories can be interpreted as advice to James based on the historical example of Elizabeth‟s reign.
The historian John Clapham (1566-1619), a clerk in the Chancery, was connected to the household of William Cecil, Lord Burghley, and later to that of his son Robert Cecil. He wrote his history a few months after the queen‟s death and, although he had added a
welcoming verse for James at the end, it was never published until the edition of 1951. His editors speculate that the reason for this was that Clapham expressed doubt with regard to the official story of how Elizabeth appointed James as her successor on her deathbed (22): “These reports whether they were true indeed or given out of purpose by such as would have them so believed, it is hard to say. Sure I am they did no hurt” (98). This is a very strange statement for a client of Robert Cecil, who had, after all, been closely involved in the succession of James (Bucholz and Key 212, Croft). His comment not only discredits Cecil, it also casts doubt on James‟s legitimacy.3
In Certain Observations Concerning the Life and Reign of Queen Elizabeth, Clapham sketches an unadorned picture of Elizabeth. He uses simple language, peppered with
3 I can only guess why Clapham wrote this, as I found nothing that accounts for it in the sources available to me.
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earth observations, to praise, but also to criticize her reign, for example the many subsidies and taxes which impoverished people, especially “the meaner sort” (113), or the
“dishonourable” wars in Ireland (58). When praising Elizabeth he refers to her moderation in religion and personal habits. He omits the story of Mary Queen of Scots, possibly because he feared that James might blame Burghley for her execution, but he also fails to mention Elizabeth in his account of the Armada, which gets no more than a few lines anyway (61-62), possibly because he, like Burghley, disapproved of the war faction in the Privy Council headed by the Earl of Leicester and later by the Earl of Essex. Clapham‟s praise of Elizabeth becomes even more qualified when he implies that it is actually Burghley, who, as a paragon of moderation and patience, is behind everything: “she put into his hands the helm of state, which he guided with such prosperous success during the space of forty years, as this land never enjoyed quiet at home ... than in his time” (75). Elizabeth handed over her body politic to Burghley, as it were. There is some truth in Woolf‟s evaluation of Clapham‟s work as “largely a biography of Burghley” (The Idea 56), extending to include, I would add, his son Robert, who would become James‟s secretary of state.
Clapham critically addresses the dangerous side of courtiers and court life, and especially flattery and bad counsel. He was of the opinion that Elizabeth listened too much to the many flatterers around her, good-looking men like Leicester, Hatton, Raleigh and Essex – all enemies of Burghley. Although “the consideration of her sex ... may seem to carry some color of excuse” (87), flattery “should not be tolerated by a prince without imputation of his weakness in judgment”(97). Another instance of flattery refers to Elizabeth‟s appearance in old age. Clapham first refers to Elizabeth‟s (womanly) vanity by mentioning that she was always “magnificent in apparel” when appearing in public, “supposing haply thereby that the eyes of her people, being dazzled with the glittering aspect of those accidental ornaments, would not so easily discern the marks of age and decay of natural beauty” (86). However, as Elizabeth tried to delude her subjects, so her courtiers have deluded her. Not long before her death, “she had a great apprehension of her own age and declination by seeing her face, then lean and full of wrinkles, truly represented to her in a glass.” This made her realize how she had been “abused by flatterers whom she held in too great estimation” (all 96). It is surely no coincidence that Clapham describes flattery in gendered terms, echoing the conventional belief that women were prone to vanity: when describing princes‟ actions by flattery rather than by telling the truth, it is “like a painted face without a shadow to give it life” (97).
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faultless while Elizabeth‟s person is criticized through the gendered faults of vanity and susceptibility to (male) flattery. Clapham uses Elizabeth‟s gender to diminish her and to glorify Burghley.
The queen‟s mortal body and mind also provided ammunition for her enemies, for example Robert Parsons‟s (1546-1610) in The Iudgment of a Catholicke English-man (1608). This tract mainly deals with the Oath of Alliance, but also contains an assessment of
Elizabeth‟s character, virtue and treatment of Catholics. It was a response both to the anonymous Triplici nodo, triplex cuneus (1607), which was actually written by King James himself (Houliston), and to claims made by Sir Edward Coke about the queen.4 Robert
Parsons (or Persons) was a Jesuit priest who had fled the country and was actively involved in attempts to launch a Catholic invasion and restore Catholicism in England. Parsons portrays Elizabeth as a Misera Fœmina (miserable woman) (29). He lists a number of “infelicities of body and soul” (34) such as her alleged affair with Admiral Seymour and her own
illegitimacy (32-33). He also mentions the “continuall suspicions, feares, and frights of her mynd and spirit, euen in the midst of all these sensuall delights, & contentments” (33), resulting in mindless cruelty and bloodshed of Catholics and Puritans alike. This “gryping passion and iealousy did so vexe & consume her inwardly, as she was neuer well” until she had executed Mary Queen of Scots (34). Parsons also writes about Elizabeth‟s “pitifull end”, the account of which was written by an eyewitness, “a person of much credit”. He refers to Elizabeth Southwell‟s account of Elizabeth‟s deathbed which she had submitted to Parsons, the content of which “he passes over for breuity and modestyes sake” (all 29-30). According to Southwell‟s account, the queen had suffered hallucinations recalling the torments of hell. After her death, her body had exploded: “her bodie and head break with such a crack that spleated the wood lead and cer cloth”. To Parsons, this must have been a satisfactory and suitable demonstration of “God‟s vengeance at work on the body of the excommunicated queen”, justified by the life she had led (Loomis, “Elizabeth Southwell‟s Manuscript” 499-501). For him, the explosion of the queen‟s body natural may also have foreshadowed a much hoped for eruption of the English body politic (Ibid. 499), in other words the breakdown of the English political system, including the Chuch of England, and a return to Catholicism.
Parsons‟s representation of Elizabeth as Misera Fœmina was refuted point by point in
In felicem memoriam Reginae Elizabethae (1608) by Sir Francis Bacon (1587-1657),
4 Robert Pricket. The Lord Coke his speech and charge VVith a discouerie of the abuses and corruption of
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translated into English as The Felicity of Queen Elizabeth and Her Times in 16515 (Watkins,
Representing 24). Bacon was a nephew of Burghley. He became Lord Chancellor under
James and wrote extensively on natural philosophy and history, among other things a tract on the unification of Scotland and England (1603). In his account of Elizabeth‟s reign, he turns her alleged defects into advantages by listing a number of her “felicities”, such as her long and prosperous reign, her mother Anne, who could only do her credit (5), and her “gentle and happy departure” (19). Her dealings with Mary Queen of Scots are not mentioned here – Bacon probably reckoned that this might not be appreciated by James.
One of Elizabeth‟s greatest posthumous felicities, according to Bacon, was the succession by James, “who albeit in regard of his masculine vertue and fair progeny, and access of a new Kingdom, might somewhat shadow or exceed her glory, yet he always
honoured her name, and gave a kind of perpetuity to her deeds” (20-21). Thus, Bacon stresses the continuity between the houses of Tudor and Stuart and turns Elizabeth‟s barrenness into an asset as James is depicted as even better than a natural son. The image of James as Elizabeth‟s son may also echo the theory of the king‟s two bodies. Elizabeth used to call possible heirs to the throne her children. In January 1560 she reportedly called Lady Catherine Grey her daughter “although the feelings between them can hardly be that of mother and child” (Calender of State Papers Spanish: Elizabeth, 1558-1567, qtd in Axton 39). Marie Axton observes that since the queen possessed a body politic, she could also have a “family politic” (Ibid.)
Bacon also addresses the moral and especially sexual corruption Parsons accuses Elizabeth of. Parsons was not alone in this; during her reign there had always been much speculation and gossip about her sexual behaviour which was directly reflected on Elizabeth‟s reputation as a ruler (Levin, Heart and Stomach 66 ff). Bacon counters Parsons‟s attack not by a flat denial, but by pointing out Elizabeth‟s moderation in that respect, and by denying the effect on her rule:
Greater is the wonder, for albeit that we often see, that a State is loosened by the looseness of the Prince, yet, these delights [being courted and wooed] she used with such a curb, that they little dimmed her fame, less her Majesty, and softened the vigour and dispensation of her State nothing at all (39-40). Bacon asserts that Elizabeth‟s reputation was not damaged (although her majesty is affected even less) and in addition he challenges the direct relationship between an unchaste (female)
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body natural and a corrupted body politic. This great “wonder” was the result of Elizabeth‟s famed moderation. Thus Bacon turns Parsons‟s charge of unchaste behaviour into a
celebration of Elizabeth‟s moderation. This should probably be construed as a rhetorical exercise rather than a frontal attack on existing prejudices against women.
All the texts discussed so far, with the exception of Robert Parsons‟s tract, emphasize the continuity between the reigns of Elizabeth Tudor and James Stuart, treating both monarchs more or less equally. Early on in James‟s reign, as a result of growing dissatisfaction with James‟s rule, especially among militant Protestants, this begins to change. As early as 1604, the year James concluded a peace treaty with Spain, a renewed interest in Elizabeth can be detected (Barton 712), while after the first decade of the seventeenth century feelings of nostalgia “came to cluster more and more thickly around the memory of the Virgin Queen” (Ibid. 710). Examples of this renewed interest for Elizabeth are the revived commemoration of her coronation day and the reprinting, in folio, of Spenser‟s Faerie Queene in 1611, 1612, 1613 and 1617 (Dobson and Watson 48).
Another example of the revival of Elizabeth are the memorials erected for her between 1607 and 1631 in 32 out of 97 London parish churches. They were described by John Stow and his co-writers in The Survey of London (1633). The memorials were usually paid for by the wealthier members of the congregation (Walker, The Elizabeth Icon 46). The text on the memorials used most frequently is 2 Timothy 4:7-8, beginning with “I have fought a good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the faith” (Ibid. 40). The most pervasive image in the memorial texts is that of Elizabeth as a militant Protestant warrior queen, as in the
following lines, which appeared eleven times: Spaines rod, Romes ruine, Netherlands reliefe, Heavens Iem, Earths joy,
worlds wonder, Natures Chiefe (Stow, e.g. 851).
The revival of Elizabeth‟s memory especially found expression in the Jacobean theatre. Apparently, there was a market for plays about Elizabeth. In the first decade after James‟s accession, five plays celebrating Elizabeth were produced, giving rise to the subgenre of “costume drama” (Dobson and Watson 49ff), so named because of the important part of costumes and dresses in the style of Elizabeth. In these plays, she is represented either as young and innocent, or as a militant Protestant. She appears as an infant in All is True (Henry
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under her half-sister Mary Tudor (Thomas Heywood, If You Know Not Me, You Know
Nobody, or: The troubles of Queene Elizabeth, part 1 (1605)6 and, in Sam Rowley‟s When
You See Me, You Know Me (1604), as the invisible author of a letter written to her
half-brother Edward. All is True is probably associated with the wedding in 1613 of James‟s daughter Elizabeth to the Protestant Elector Palatine and thus with the court (King 68). In the play, Archbishop Cranmer prophesies that Elizabeth‟s reign will bring “a thousand thousand blessings / which time shall bring to ripeness” (5.4.17-20). He also mentions her death and James‟s succession, possibly referring to the concept of the king‟s two bodies:
Nor shall this peace sleep with her, but, as when The bird of wonder dies – the maiden phoenix – Her ashes new create another heir
As great in admiration as herself (5.4.39-42)
The “maiden phoenix” may be interpreted as the body politic, since the phoenix myth was closely connected to the body politic and the succession of James (Axton, 117). In this play the continuity between the Tudor and Stuart dynasties is reflected.
In contrast to this image of hope and innocence, in The Whore of Babylon by Thomas Dekker (1607), and at the end of If You Know Not Me part 2 (1606), Elizabeth is represented as a warrior queen, a role which she had shunned in real life and which was also incompatible with James‟s pacific policy. In the latter play the defeat of the Armada is re-enacted, with Elizabeth in the role of a general: “A mayden Queene will be your Generall” (2639). Besides, she is also shown to be a friend of the London citizens (Perry 95). Dekker‟s The Whore of
Babylon, reminiscent of the imagery of The Faerie Queene (King 67-68), stages Elizabeth as
Titania defending her Faery Land against the Whore who represents the international popish empire (Perry 100). The plays, contrasting Mary I‟s reign to the “golden age” under
Elizabeth, can be understood as oblique advice to James not to repeat Mary‟s mistakes, (King 66). On the other hand, James (and later Charles) were often linked with Elizabeth as
champions of Protestantism, connecting the Armada and the Gunpowder Plot of 1605 into a “two-act drama” in which both Rome and Spain were defeated (Walsham 159).
In these early Jacobean plays, Elizabeth‟s damaged reputation of the last years of her reign was mended (Dobson and Watson 44). This meant reconstructing an ideal Elizabeth and erasing the ageing and unpopular queen most people could still remember. This resulted in an image of Elizabeth as “a model ruler whose perpetual virginity symbolized political integrity,
6 In 1631 Heywood “translated” If You Know Not Me, You Know Nobody, part 1 into a prose history which will
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Protestant ideology, and a militantly interventionist policy against Spain” (King 67). Elizabeth‟s gender, which had been considered problematic for her popularity especially towards the end of her life, was now used to advantage: the outspoken representation of her gender could not easily be appropriated by James. Dobson and Watson argue that Jacobean costume drama is “completely untroubled by the perceived discrepancies between her
womanhood and her queenship”, and that “there is no conflict … between the private and the public” aspect of Elizabeth (55).
Even authors who have questioned the early nostalgia for Elizabeth, agree that by 1620 “Elizabethanism” had intensified (Woolf, “Two Elizabeths?” 168,171, Watkins “Old Bess” 98) and was used as a weapon against the Stuarts. This was caused by continuing concerns about James‟s peaceful policy towards Spain, his Scottishness and his dealings with Parliament which became more urgent when his eldest son Prince Henry, who cultivated a much more militantly Protestant image than his father, died in 1612 (Dobson and Watson 47). There had been attempts by the court to divert some of the Tudor nostalgia to James‟s
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Chapter 2: Histories between 1620 and 1640
In this chapter I will discuss based three histories which were written in the 1620s and 1630s: Robert Naunton‟s Fragmenta Regalia, or Observation on the Late Queen Elizabeth, Her
Times and Favorits (1641); William Camden‟s The History of the Most Renowned and
Victorious Princess Elizabeth, Late Queen of England (first English edition1625) and Thomas
Heywood‟s England‟s Elizabeth (1631). I will pay specific attention to Elizabeth‟s
relationship to her councillors, her gender, her virginity and her minority. In the discussion of these aspects of the queen‟s body natural I will also refer to the accounts of John Clapham and Francis Bacon.
As we have seen, John Clapham criticizes Elizabeth for succumbing to flattery from her advisers. Earlier in his Certaine Observations, he paints a rather more positive picture of the queen presiding over her council, marvelling that “a woman sitting in council among the gravest and best experienced men of her time should be able to examine and individually to control their consultations” (Clapham 70). The relationship between the monarch and the Privy Council and Parliament was extremely important in early modern England. In order to rule, all monarchs were dependent on advice and support from their councillors, and on permission from Parliament to raise taxes (Bucholz and Key 47). The delicate relationship between a monarch and his or her councillors is an important theme in conventional advice to princes. Its paradoxical nature is neatly summed up in a phrase from the Secretum
Secretorum, “to rule well, a king must be ruled” (Ferster 40)7.
For a queen, this advice was even more pressing. Considered unfit to rule on account of her sex, she was expected to submit to male counsel (Fletcher 79). In Memoirs Of The Life
Of Colonel Hutchinson, Lucy Hutchinson, writing after the Restoration, interpreted
Elizabeth‟s rule as “submission to her masculine and wise councillors” (Ibid.) Dependence on counsel made a ruler, and particularly a female ruler, vulnerable, however. As a woman, she was thought to be incapable of sound judgement and of distinguishing between good and bad advice, especially from attractive male councillors (Ibid. 69). John Neale, writing in 1934, compares Elizabeth‟s position in her Privy Council to that of “a hostess in an exclusive, all-male club” (Neale, 84).
7This is repeated almost literally in Heywood‟s If you know not me, you know nobody part 2, when Leicester tells
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The most elaborate portrait of Elizabeth as queen-in-council, both in form and content, is found in Robert Naunton‟s Fragmenta Regalia, or Observation on the Late Queen
Elizabeth, Her Times and Favorits (1641). Naunton (1563-1635) was a Member of Parliament
and, as a protégé of the Duke of Buckingham, became secretary of state and a member of the Privy Council. He later became master of the court of wards under Charles. His Fragmenta
Regalia was probably written as advice to King Charles, but there may have been an
underlying motive. Naunton was seriously ill in 1634, and he probably wanted to remind the king that his mind was still functioning properly so he would not lose his position at court (Schreiber).
Before it was printed, the text, which was probably written in 1633 (Cerovski 26) or 1634 (Schreiber), had already circulated in numerous manuscript copies and, once printed, remained popular: it ran to five editions in twelve years (Watkins, Representing 69).
Fragmenta has been written as a series of individual character studies of Elizabeth and her
principal courtiers. The latter are grouped into togati (councillors) and militia (military men), although many courtiers appear in both categories. This may convey the idea that the queen‟s role in the government was limited, but Naunton emphasizes that it was the queen who was in charge, refuting the general opinion that women naturally submitted to advice from male advisers. The ministers bore a great part of the burden of government, “but they were only Favourites, not Minions; such as acted more by her own Princely rules and judgements, than by their own wills and appetites” (Naunton 5-6). Moreover, the queen “ruled much by faction and parties, which of her self, both made, upheld, and weakened, as her own great judgment advised” (6). Naunton concludes that “she was an absolute Soveraign, Mistris of her Graces: and that those to whom she distributed her favours, were never more than Tenants at will, and stood on no better ground then her Princely pleasure, and their own good behaviour”(7).
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well have been a male monarch. Instead, he subverts existing reports of her which could be interpreted as a feminine approach. For example, he questions whether she really loved her subjects or just manipulated them by her “masterful theatricality” and empty, external gestures (Watkins, Representing 71):
For I believe no Prince living that was so tender of honour, and so exactly stood for the preservation of sovereignty, that was so great a Courtier of her people, yea of the Commons, and that stoopt and descended lower in presenting her person to the publike view (Naunton 9).
Remarkably, in subsequent years, Fragmenta would be reinterpreted as pro-Parliamentarian and critical of the Stuart monarchy, and would be appropriated by Whig (Parliamentarian) historiography. This was accomplished by emphasizing only one aspect of Naunton‟s description, the queen‟s rule by factions, and neglecting the other, her insistence on royal prerogative (Watkins, Representing 73).
William Camden draws a less straightforward picture of Elizabeth‟s relationship to her councillors, especially during the episode of the execution of Mary Queen of Scots. Camden (1551-1623), the most famous historian of Queen Elizabeth‟s reign, was first commissioned by Burghley and later by James himself, who wanted him to salvage his mother‟s reputation.8 Camden had been given access to Burghley‟s papers and the royal archives, supplemented by documents of Robert Cotton (Camden, “Introduction” xxvii). Camden wrote in Latin for an international audience. The first three books of the Annales rerum Anglicarum, et
Hibernicarum, regnante Elizabetha were first published in 1617, the fourth, at his own
request, in 1625, after his death. The first English translation was also published in 1625 (Herendeen).
The appraisal of Camden‟s canonical work differs. In the seventeenth century,
Osborne maintains that Camden‟s “lines had been directed by King James” in the interests of vindicating the honour Mary Queen of Scots rather than that of Elizabeth (Osborne, Historical
Memoires 60). In the twentieth century, Woolf writes that Camden shaped the image of
Elizabeth as the reluctant warrior, moderate Protestant, and arbiter in European politics (“Two Elizabeths?” 190). The translators added eulogistical elements, especially in the preface and the illustration on the front page (Collinson, “Elizabeth I” 479-480). Hugh Trevor Roper praises Camden for writing the first secular, “civil” history, looking for social and political
8 For a full account of the circumstances under which Camden wrote this work, see e.g. W.T. MacCaffrey‟s
introduction in William Camden, The History of the Most Renowned and Victorious Princess Elizabeth, Late
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explanations of events and rejecting moralistic and providential interpretations of history (Trevor Roper 20-21).
The tone of Camden‟s book is, for the most part, sober and distanced. On the whole, he represents Elizabeth as a strong, active queen who acts of her own accord. A large part of
The History of the Most Renowned and Victorious Princess Elizabeth, Late Queen of England
is devoted to the relations between England and Scotland, and the events involving Mary Queen of Scots, resulting in the happy outcome of her son James‟s succession. Camden‟s mission impossible, with James looking over his shoulder, was to reconcile the positions of Queen Elizabeth and Mary Queen of Scots, although the first had held the second imprisoned for years and then had her executed, while the second had been involved in conspiracies against the first.9
Camden‟s representation of Mary is, on the whole, sympathetic. He blames her misfortunes on the men around her: her half brother Moray, her mother‟s family the Guises, and the unruly Scottish nobility – a conventional ploy when describing faults in monarchs. Mary herself is depicted as basically good and well-intentioned, but trapped by uncontrollable forces around her. In the beginning of the narration she is frequently described in terms of (womanly) emotions. Camden reports how her Scottish enemies use qualifications against her like her “womanish Anger” and “immoderate Love” and her “many tears and prayers” (70). In order to describe her exasperation with her long and hopeless imprisonment, he allows his language to border on the melodramatic, referring to the Queen of Scots having her “Mind full of Cares and Doubts, being overlay‟d with Miseries, and languishing with the Calamity of a long Imprisonment without all Hope of Liberty, deplored her hard Destiny”. She wrote a letter to Elizabeth about “the sad Condition” of her son James “which her Motherly Love and the Anguish of her Mind wrung from her” (all 146). This representation of Mary had a built-in risk, however, as it brought to mbuilt-ind Elizabeth‟s imprisonment and alleged built-involvement built-in plots under Mary I, as narrated in Foxe‟s Acts and Monuments. In fact, in her letters to Elizabeth Mary reminds her of this on two occasions, hoping for sympathy and a kinder treatment (177, 254).
Camden implies Mary‟s involvement in plots to put her on the English throne, but blames this partly on her “great Sorrow and Indignation” (182) and her gender: whether “her weak Sex might be thrust forward to her own Destruction, as we shall shew afterwards” (183). During the trial and before the execution, however, this image turns around, and Mary
9
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is described as facing both events “undaunted” and “with a composed Spirit” (284). On the day of her execution she comes forward “with State, Countenance and Presence majestically composed, a chearfull Look, and a matron-like and modest Habit” (286).
Mary‟s death warrant was signed by Elizabeth after a long period of delay, indecision and confusion. Camden exonerates her, however, by shifting the blame unto her Privy
Council and her servant Davison. The latter had delivered the signed warrant to the Privy Council by mistake, although Elizabeth had meanwhile changed her mind yet again and had decided against execution. The councillors had rushed the execution through, however, after hearing fresh rumours of plots against the queen. By shifting the blame onto others, Camden diminishes Elizabeth‟s aura of sovereignty and control, which is so predominant in the rest of his book. The image he creates is that of a tragedy involving the two queens, but scripted by others (Collinson, “Elizabeth” I 90).
Camden also refers to gender in order to absolve Elizabeth of responsibility for the execution. When the death sentence is publicly proclaimed, after months of delay, Camden reports:
In this Proclamation the Queen seriously protested, that this Publication was extorted from her, to the exceeding Grief of her Mind, by a kind of Necessity ... though there were some that thought this to proceed from the Art and Guise of Women, who, though they desire a thing never so much, yet will always seem rather to be constrained and forced to it (267).
Camden observes that “She, being a Woman naturally slow in her Resolution, began to consider in her Mind whether it was better to put her to Death, or to spare her” (281). This long period of indecision conveniently allows Camden to endlessly repeat both the arguments for and against execution, as well as the queen‟s “doubtfull Cares and Thoughts” (263). When she finally reaches a decision and repeals it too late, the final impression is that she had ultimately been against the execution, but had been faced with a fait accompli as a result of the machinations of her councillors and her own womanly nature, both of which are beyond her grasp. The question remains, of course, who has been manipulating whom: the Council the queen or the queen the Council so she could wash her hands of the whole thing? In any case, the queen‟s behaviour, whether construed as incompetent or as devious, does not compare well to Mary‟s dignified behaviour at the end of her life.
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her life and her country, Camden refers to “womanish Emulation” that existed between them, “wherewith that Sex is much transported” (98). Or, on another occasion, Elizabeth “found some conflict in her self, on the one side out of Fear grown from an inveterate Emulation, which amongst Princesses never dieth; and on the other side out of Commiseration and Compassion” (110). These fears were exploited “by those who knew how to increase Suspicions between Women that were already displeased with one another” (178). Here Camden seems to say that Elizabeth‟s ambiguity about Mary is in the realm of womanly squabbles and is therefore relatively harmless and not to be taken too seriously. The use of this ploy comes across as a bit artificial, as Camden usually writes with more distance. In his introduction he announces, moreover, that he will refrain from prying into “the hidden Meaning of Princes”10
, which is exactly what he is doing here.
Gender is used in an inverted way to heap scorn on the Earl of Leicester, for whom, like Clapham, Camden reserved a special hatred – hardly surprising for clients of Burghley – and which caused him to lose his characteristic impartiality whenever he wrote about him. He twice mentions how Leicester manipulates Elizabeth with tears, normally a typically womanly ploy. When Leicester accepted the title as Governor of the Low Countries against her express wish, for example, he knew well “how with Tears, and a pretended Trouble for what had past, to reconcile the favour of his mild Princess to him self, her Displeasure by little and little vanished away and was forgotten” (215). This description of Leicester speaks for itself, but it also implies criticism of the queen‟s judgment, or in this case, her lack of it. In order to account for the attraction between them, Camden mentions the fact that they had both been imprisoned under Mary I (53), but he twice reverts to a supernatural explanation, something which he shuns in the rest of his book: he was “most dear” to the queen “by reason of a certain Conjunction and Affinity of their Minds, and that haply through a hidden Conspiracy and Consent of their Stars” (329, see also 53).
Another aspect of Elizabeth‟s person in relation to her reign is the time before her accession. The story of Elizabeth‟s minority and especially her sufferings under her half sister Mary I are touched on by most of the histories discussed here and are described as a “school of
affliction” (e.g. Naunton 4) preparing her for her later status as queen. Thomas Heywood‟s popular history, Englands Elizabeth (1631), written for a wide, unscholarly audience (Woolf,
10 This can also be found by Clapham (“The affairs of princes are no fit subject for every private man‟s pen: their
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The Idea 245)11, is entirely about that period of her life and has been enormously important in the shaping of the myth of Elizabeth (Watkins, Representing 36). Thomas Heywood (c.1573-1641), playwright and poet, had no first-hand experience of court life and had not known Elizabeth himself (Watkins 37), so that reality did not interfere with her idealized image. His representation of Elizabeth was heavily indebted to Foxe‟s Acts and Monuments (1563) and familiar to most people. Similarities are, for example, the treatment of the young Elizabeth as providential queen before her accession, the epigram she inscribes in her Bible (“Much suspected by me, nothing prov‟d can be”), and Elizabeth kissing the Bible during her entry into London (King 67).The material for Englands Elizabeth was recycled from Heywood‟s earlier play If you know not me, You know no bodie: or The troubles of Queene Elizabeth (1605/1606) which was also enormously popular and went through eight editions between 1605 and 1639 (Watkins 36).
Already on the first page of Englands Elizabeth it is apparent that this is not an
account of kingship but, rather, of non-kingship. Whereas most histories start with the lineage of the queen through her father, this one starts with the mother. Anne Boleyn dies a martyr‟s death, a fate to which she submits “with a smiling and cheerfull countenance” (29). The same happens to Lady Jane Grey, who is also depicted as a paragon of piety and virtue. Catharine of Aragon, Henry‟s first wife, who is ruthlessly cast aside, is given a sympathetic treatment despite her Catholicism. Thus the stage is set with three meek female martyrs who have not died or been cast aside for their religion, but are sacrificed to the interests of an absolute monarch. When Elizabeth‟s troubles start under Mary I, she is depicted in a similar vein: religious, humble, ill-treated by gaolers and supporters of Mary, but still courageous and loyal to her sister. The language is sometimes melodramatic, as in “she had no comforter but her innocence, no companion but her Booke” (106), or ; “she swam to the Crown through a Sea of Sorrow (93)”. Two things stand out in particular: the love she enjoys from the ordinary people and the references to the physical side of her suffering.
Although Heymans describes the enforced hearing of a Catholic mass as Elizabeth‟s biggest trial (128), the references to her physical distress are more frequent. She is “in her bed and dangerously sicke” when Mary‟s supporters barge in to take her away. “The cheerfull blood forsaking her fresh cheeks”, leave nothing but “ashy palenesse in her visage” (113). She often laments that her death is imminent and refers to the state of her heart. This may have had dramatic and popular appeal; references to her physique are even more obvious in If you
11 Woolf mentions that “for every reader of a work by Selden or even Camden, dozens more would read
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know not me, part 1, in which there is mention of her legs and body weight, making her “a
potential object of erotic desire” (Loomis, “And all the World” 187). However, the emphasis on the suffering and vulnerable body natural of the future queen also draws away attention from the much more formidable body politic she would incorporate later on.
Her portrayed closeness to the common people, who greet and support her wherever she is taken and whom she helps and protects if she can, serves a similar goal. Through her troubles and uncertainties she shared the life of the common people, many of whom also led lives of uncertainty and hardship, and this made her one of them. The image of “reciprocal goodwill” between Elizabeth and the people helped erase memories of her as an absolute queen (Watkins, Representing 36-38). In the close relationship between the princess and the people, the latter are also transformed and develop “political agency” in order to help her, something which Mary‟s helpers were incapable of and which was unfeasible in real life under an absolute monarch (Ibid. 38). In this sense, Englands Elizabeth can be read as a narration opposing absolute monarchy by bringing in the image of a non-regal, non-sovereign and vulnerable Elizabeth which slowly took over the memory of the real Elizabeth. However, as the contents were based on the older play (1605) and the still older account in Acts and
Monuments (1563), it is probably more correct to say that nostalgia for Elizabeth as she never
was already existed, but now acquired a more acute political dimension as a counter image to be employed against the Stuarts.
A final but crucial aspect of Elizabeth‟s body natural was the fact that she was unmarried and (presumably) a virgin. During her lifetime this was the source of much anxiety at court and among the population at large, both because she failed to produce an undisputed heir to the throne and because her unmarried state was considered transgressive (Levin 67-68). At the same time, in Elizabeth„s self-representation her virginity, became an asset and a symbol of strength (King 30,32).
After her death, Elizabeth‟s virginity was also described in positive terms. Robert Naunton mentions practical, pecuniary reasons for his positive appraisal, pointing out that the fact that Elizabeth had no husband, children or other dependants to provide for “who
oftentimes exhaust and draw deep” from the Crown‟s financial reserves, kept the expenditures of the royal court relatively low (10-11). This can also be read as an implicit defence of the Stuarts, who did have a families to support and had often been criticised for their
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because she had once been “greatly affected” by Edward Courtenay, after which she had been less inclined to marriage. He rather touchingly adds “that first love commonly maketh the deepest impression, or else that the condition of princes differeth from a common person‟s” (Ibid.) According to Francis Bacon, the reign of women is often “obscured with marriage, whose worth and actions are commonly smothered up under the names and covert of their husbands” (16). Moreover, Elizabeth deserves all the more praise because she had no support from a husband or family members.
Camden is most outspoken in extolling the advantages of her unmarried state. He even goes so far as to manipulate a speech of Elizabeth, thereby compromising his professed “Love of Truth”, which, he vows in his preface has been his only incitement to undertake the present work (Camden 4). In 1559 a Parliamentary delegation urged the queen to get married and produce and heir. The queen answered that this would be “a point of inconsiderate Folly” (29) as she could not combine her public role governing the kingdom with the “Cares of
Marriage”. Then Camden reports Elizabeth as saying
„Yea, to satisfie you, I have already joined my self in Marriage to an Husband, namely the Kingdom of England. And behold (said she, which I marvell ye have forgotten,) the Pledge of this my Wedlock and Marriage with my Kingdom.‟ (And therewith she drew the Ring [her coronation ring] from her Finger, and shewed it.) ... „And do not (saith she) upbraide me with miserable lack of Children: for everyone of you ... are Children and Kinsmen to me‟ (29). Later historical research has shown that reliable contemporary manuscripts of this speech contained no reference to Elizabeth‟s marriage to her country, nor to the dramatic act of the showing of the coronation ring (King 36-38). By using the metaphors of marriage and
25
reference of Elizabeth‟s marriage to her country echoes the biblical marriage of Christ to his Church, lending it an added authority.12
Elizabeth‟s virginity and unmarried state were also positively connected with England‟s independence and territorial integrity. Camden reports that early on in her reign, there was still the possibility that Elizabeth would marry Philip II of Spain. It was feared that Elizabeth would in that case be easily persuaded to give up the English claim on Calais in favour of Spain. However, she resisted Spain‟s interference over Calais, as she would later reject Philip‟s suit. “Queen Elizabeth, being a Virgin of a manly Courage, professed that she was an absolute free Princess to manage her actions by her self or her Ministers” (Camden 25). In this way, Camden links Elizabeth‟s virginity to an independent foreign policy, territorial integrity and a firm rejection of Spain, both in the public and the private sphere.
In the historical accounts discussed here, care is taken not to present Elizabeth as too overtly warlike, as this was considered unsuitable for women (Levin 139-140). Clapham explains the intervention in the Netherlands partly on the basis of Realpolitik, partly on “female pity” for the Dutch rebels (60). Camden balances Elizabeth‟s firm position to Spain over Calais with the observation that Elizabeth preferred peace to war “in respect of her Sex” (24). Francis Bacon marvels that a female prince should have governed such a “Warlike and stout a People” as the English and that they should “stir and stop at the beck of a woman”, whereas it “would have been no marvel that a female Prince should command effeminate Nations”, such as “the milk sops of Asia”. The warlike attitude of her people “never hindered [her] from loving and the keeping of peace”. Here, Elizabeth is portrayed as a peaceful yet valiant queen keeping her war-loving masculine subjects in check (F. Bacon 9). It is
remarkable that most histories except Camden‟s do not say very much about the Armada or Elizabeth‟s role. When Camden describes the defeat of the Armada and Elizabeth‟s
appearance at the camp at Tilbury in 1588, he again does a balancing act. According to him, Elizabeth, “trusting not to the Recommendation of others” (Camden 312) masterminds the entire English operation behind the scenes. Later, the queen riding on horseback, “with masculine spirit” came and inspected the camp at Tilbury, “with a Leader‟s Truncheon in her Hand, sometimes with a martial Pace, another while gently like woman” (Ibid. 326). Here Camden first constructs a masculine, martial role for her which he then tones down with her feminine style of riding.
12
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In this chapter it has been demonstrated how references to Elizabeth‟s body natural were used for various purposes. Elizabeth‟s virginity and unmarried state are viewed as positive
attributes, used to represent her close tie to country and people, and as a metaphor for national integrity. Clapham and Bacon make the connection between her unmarried state and her position as absolute queen without interference from a husband. Camden employs gender in a less positive way to absolve Elizabeth of the responsibility for Mary‟s execution, and to cover up problematic aspects in the relationship between the two queens. Naunton, who stresses Elizabeth‟s absolute sovereignty, hardly uses meaningful references to her mortal body. Heywood, on the other hand, uses the description of her physical suffering during her
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Chapter 3: Histories during the civil wars and Interregnum
(1642 – 1660)
In the 1640s and 1650s, the political upheaval during the Civil Wars and Interregnum had a profound effect on historical writing. The lifting of the censorship in 1641 unleashed a flood of pamphlets, news books and historical treatises by both Royalist and Parliamentarian supporters. Historians joined this war of propaganda, looking for explanations of the conflict in the near or remote past which blamed their opponents (Woolf, The Idea 247). Both sides were convinced only they were writing the truth. Pro-Parliamentarian writers usually seized the initiative in the debate, putting forward a particular version of the past which provoked a response from their Royalist counterparts. This subjective, ideologically inspired
interpretation of history was not unlike the earlier religious debates and histories like John Foxe‟s Acts and Monuments and stood in contrast to the historical writing of the early seventeenth century, which had been based on consensus and one historical truth (Ibid. 259). Wedgwood argues that John Foxe‟s image of Elizabeth as the provident Protestant Deborah in
Acts and Monuments had an enormous impact on Oliver Cromwell and many educated
Protestants of his generation who grew up with this image of her, later reproduced in, for example, Heywood‟s Englands Eliza and other popular works. She maintains that these memories of the former queen “were an element in the climate of opinion which made a civil war possible and which enhanced a sense of historic and God-given mission in bringing down the government of King Charles” (Wedgwood 12,20).
Royalists as well as Parliamentarians used the image of Queen Elizabeth in their polemical writing. Each side constructed an image of her which suited their argument best. This was possible because, as time moved on, less and less people had first-hand recollections of her. Thus memories of Elizabeth became “hazier and feelings stronger as she receded in time” (Wedgwood 9). In addition, especially in the case of Parliamentarian writers,
recollections of the former queen became blurred with memories of her Privy Council and Parliaments. Authors freely claimed an “Elizabethan” authority for practices and opinions Elizabeth herself had never, or only reluctantly, supported, such as the assistance of the Protestant rebels in the Low Countries (Watkins, Representing 87).
During the Interregnum (1649-1660), relatively little was written about Elizabeth because of the counterrevolutionary potential of her image (Ibid. 97). Wedgwood argues that Cromwell‟s attitude to Elizabeth‟s reign was, on the whole, positive. In the manifesto
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latter was explicitly linked to Elizabeth in the reference to the many Spanish and Roman Catholic attempts to destroy Elizabeth and subdue England (Wedgwood 21).
In this chapter I will discuss one Parliamentarian and two Royalist texts: on the Royalist side An Easy and Compendious Introduction for Reading all sorts of Histories (1648) by Mathias Prideaux and Godfrey Goodman‟s The Court of King James the First, vol. 1, (1839, written in 1651); on the Parliamentarian side Nathaniel Bacon‟s The Continuation of
an Historicall Discourse of the Government of England (1647). Finally, as a prelude to the
Restoration, Historical Memoires on the Reign of Queen Elizabeth and King James (1658) by Francis Osborne, formerly a supporter of the Commonwealth, and his earlier republican tract
A Perswasive to a Mutuall Compliance under the Present Government. Together with a Plea for a Free State Compared with Monarchy (1652).
According to Watkins, Royalist supporters emphasized Elizabeth‟s image as Spenser‟s Gloriana, the embodiment of national greatness and absolutist authority (Representing
Elizabeth 88). The fact that a woman could rule so successfully demonstrated the uniqueness
of the hereditary authority of monarchy, suspending the “laws of nature” whereby women were subjected to men (Ibid. 94). During his reign, Charles I himself had asserted continuity between the Tudor past and the Stuart present, for example by reinstating strict Elizabethan court protocols which positioned the royal person firmly as the source of all power, and his professed defence of the Elizabethan consensus in the debate on prerogative and common law jurisdictions (Ibid. 88-89) and of her religious settlement and Church of England doctrine and discipline (Wedgwood 17-18). In a Royalist broadside poem, November by William
Cartwright (1647), Elizabeth‟s religious doctrine and her royal honour is defended against Parliamentary attacks:
That Forme, by her allow‟d, of Common Pray‟r Is styl‟d vaine Beating of the Ayre.
How doe they Honor, how forsake her Crowne! Her Times are still Cry‟d up, but Practis‟d Downe (qtd in Watkins, Representing 91).
In the brief entry about Queen Elizabeth in An Easy and Compendious Introduction
for Reading all sorts of Histories (1648) by Mathias Prideaux (1622-1646), a young scholar
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334)13. Prideaux depicts Elizabeth as a martial, victorious monarch whose achievements were renowned throughout the world. It is striking that he refers to the same imagery used in Parliamentarian and Puritan writings, such as the “overthrow of the Invincible Armado of the Spaniards” (335) and the support of the rebels of the Low Countries.
Watkins‟s assertion that Royalists tended to portray Queen Elizabeth as the
embodiment of absolute sovereignty and royal prerogative is not entirely true for Godfrey Goodman‟s The Court of King James the First (written in 1650, published in 1839). Bishop Goodman (1583-1656) had ties to the Stuart court as he had been one of the household chaplains of Anne of Denmark, James‟s wife, before he became Bishop of Gloucester. In 1641 he was impeached by the Commons after earlier accusations of Roman Catholic leanings (Cranfield). The Court of King James I was probably a rejoinder to Sir Anthony Weldon‟s anti-Stuart The Court and Character of James I, a scurrilous tract reviewing the vices, sins and crimes that allegedly went on in James‟s court.14 Weldon, a disgraced former royal servant, left James‟s court under a cloud and from 1642 onwards sided with the
Parliamentarians. In his tract, Weldon hardly mentions Elizabeth, but when he does so he sets her up as a foil to James‟s shortcomings, describing her as “the most glorious Sun that ever shined in our Firmament of England (the never to be forgotten Queen Elizabeth of happy memory” (Weldon Br). In glaring contrast to his description of James‟s corrupt court, in her days “there was none in Court but men of eminencies” (Weldon 50).
When Goodman responded to Weldon‟s allegations, he reversed the roles of James and Elizabeth. He portrays James in a much more favourable light, though not wholly uncritically. Elizabeth, on the other hand, is treated much more ambiguously. He initially describes her in conventional terms as a “lady very wise and of an extraordinary courage” and of unparalleled “princely carriage and behaviour”, much admired and loved (or, rather,
fancied) by Philip II of Spain (4). He praises her reign, emphasizing the continuity between her and James, although he accuses her of interfering in Scottish affairs, quoting Mary Queen of Scots that Elizabeth “governed as much in Scotland as she did in England” (12). Goodman describes how in 1588, as a small boy, he ran outside to see the queen going into council and how she addressed the people, saying “You may well have a greater prince, but you shall never have a more loving prince”. This endearing but in itself rather doubtful recollection of
13
An Easy and Compendious Introduction was posthumously published by the author‟s father, John Prideaux, Bishop of Worcester.
14 According to Joseph Marshall and Sean Kelly in the ODNB, Weldon‟s authorship of The Court and Character
of James I is not entirely certain, nor are the allegations of Weldon‟s disgraceful dismissal from court. The ESTC
