The Reign of Elizabeth I
Court and Culture in the Last Decade

A study of politics and political culture of the 'last decade' of the reign of Elizabeth I, in effect the years 1585 to 1603.

John Guy (Edited by)

9780521443418, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 7 September 1995

328 pages
23.6 x 16.3 x 2.8 cm, 0.655 kg

"John Guy's impressive gathering of essays addresses the Tudor dynasty's twilight moment...as virtually a "second reign" for the aging queen. Richard McCoy's superb treatment of the politics of the poetical anthology, combined with Alistair Fox's assessment of patronage's decline, clears a way for fresh understanding of thiss urgent aspect of early literary production and transmission." International Journal of the Classical Tradition, vol.6.1

This book is about the politics and political culture of the 'last decade' of the reign of Elizabeth I, in effect the years 1585 to 1603. It argues that this period was so distinctive that it amounted to the second of two 'reigns'. It also invites readers, at times provocatively, to take a critical look at the declining Virgin Queen. Many teachers and their students have failed to consider the 'last decade' in its own right, or have ignored it, having begun their accounts in 1558 and struggled on to the defeat of the Armada in 1588. Only two major political surveys have been attempted since 1926. Both consider mainly the war with Spain and the politics of war, and each allots inadequate space to Crown patronage, puritanism and religion, society and the economy, political thought, and literature and drama. This book, written by some of the leading scholars of their generation, will be indispensable to a fuller understanding of the age.

Preface
Abbreviations
Introduction: the 1590s: the second reign of Elizabeth I? JOHN GUY
1. The patronage of the Crown in Elizabethan politics: the 1590s in perspective SIMON ADAMS
2 .Regnum Cecilianum? A Cecilian perspective of the court NATALIE MEARS
3. Patronage at Court, faction and the earl of Essex PAUL E. J. HAMMER
4. Peers, patronage and the politics of history LINDA LEVY PECK
5. The fall of Sir John Perrot HIRAM MORGAN
6. The Elizabethan establishment and the ecclesiastical polity JOHN GUY
7. Ecclesiastical vitriol: religious satire in the 1590s and the invention of puritanism PATRICK COLLINSON
8. Ecclesiastical vitriol: the kirk, the puritans and the future king of England JENNY WORMALD
9. Social strain and social dislocation, 1585–1603 JIM SHARPE
10. Lords of Liberty: Francis Davison and the cult of Elizabeth RICHARD C. McCOY
11. The complaint of poetry for the death of liberality: the decline of literary patronage in the 1590s ALISTAIR FOX
12. Summer's Last Will and Testament: revels' end MARIE AXTON
13. The theatre and the court in the 1590s FRITZ LEVY
Index.

Subject Areas: Early modern history: c 1450/1500 to c 1700 [HBLH], British & Irish history [HBJD1]