ELIZABETH
The Virgin Queen and the men who wrote her story
The many faces of Elizabeth
Calculating
And
Shrewd
negotiator
WOMAN
LED BY HER
COUNCIL
Queen
Pressured
By
puritans
ELIZABETH
Indecisive
On marriage
Gloriana
Naive
But
lucky
Seductress
In court
What are the Debates
 Constructions of Elizabeth’s identities and
gender;
 Neale, Elton, Haigh, Bassnett
 Political and Administrative Leadership;
Camden, Neale, Elton, Bassnett
Religious beliefs and policies;
 Camden, Lingard, Neale, Haigh Carole Levin
CONTEMPORARY SOURCES
Elizabeth herself, letters,
diaries and speeches
Spencer’s Fairie Queen
Court Gossip
Parliamentary papers
John Foxe Book of Martyrs
Proto Whig
William Camden- “ a golden queen
tending her people in a golden age.”
“Her second care was to hold an even
course in her whole life and all her
actions; whereupon she took for her
motto SEMPER AEDUM that is
“always the same” “
Oxford Scholar, who in 1575 appointed
Master of Westminster school.
He entered the influential sphere of
William Cecil, Lord Burghley. Used his
vacations to travel the English counties
doing Antiquarian research
In 1586 published his first book, Britannia.
Camden’s aim in writing the Britannia was to
“illustrate this I’e of BRITAINE…that I would
restore antiquity to Britaine, and Britain to his
antiquity”
In writing the biography of Elizabeth, Lord
Burghley made all state papers ( surviving?)
available to Camden
He wrote in the style of the Tacitean Annals and it
remained the definitive template for over 100 years
“Renowned Queen” & “Incomparable Princess”
Camden’s Annals was a filtered biography with “
Gloriana” as its focus. The narrative did not seek to
assess or explain events within her reign
Loyalist in religion and politics
Camden dedicated his Annals not to Elizabeth’s
memory but to his “country and posterity at the altar
of truth”
Camden first wrote the Chronicle in 1559 but it was
not published until 1615. The second volume was
published in 1617
Camden obvious praise of Elizabeth’s reign must
be seen in the light of its position, lying between
the chaos of Mary 1 and the disappointment of
James 1. Haigh describes the Annales as “
commentary on the rule of James 1 in the guise of a
history of the rule of Elizabeth.”
Camden’s history was a civil history and he
deliberately distances himself from Ecclesiastical
history, such as the writings of John Foxe ( Book
of Martyrs)
Revisionist/Catholic
Father John Lingard 1830
“ My object is truth and in the pursuit of
truth I have made it a religious duty to
consult the original historians.”
Lingard’s aim was to produce a history
that protestants would read. Once you
removed a readers prejudice and presented
them with the truth, the groundwork of
conversion was laid.
Papal Cardinal ordered that he have
access to the Vatican manuscripts
Whig Historians/Nationalistic
Sir John Neale
 J E Neale “ honest and considered judgments based upon
careful study of the original authorities.”
 “This biography has been written for a particular occasion
and a particular public.” ( 4th centenary of Queen
Elizabeth’s birth) 1933
 Protestant
 Writing his book The Reign of Elizabeth 1 during the
1930’s when world threats from a militant Germany
required a nationalistic response.Parallels can be drawn
WITH England under threat from Spain in Elizabeth’s
time
Neale’s Thesis “ The Puritan Choir.”
The book was later republished in 1952 for the
coronation of Elizabeth 11. “So far as the main
narrative is concerned, continuous study of books and
documents, since it was written has not suggested the
need for change….the accession of a second Queen
Elizabeth will surely stimulate interest.”
The book was later republished in 1952 for the
coronation of Elizabeth 11. “So far as the main
narrative is concerned, continuous study of books and
documents, since it was written has not suggested the
need for change….the accession of a second Queen
Elizabeth will surely stimulate interest.”
Objectivist/Revisionist view
Geoffrey Elton- ““What really matters,
of course, is Elizabeth’s ability in politics,
her standing as a queen rather than her
pretty obvious failings as a woman.”
Patriarchal viewpoint that women were
inferior
Elton’s parents escaped Poland and Jewish
persecution in World War 11
Admired English democratic institutions
and sought to retrace the birth of this
democracy
Author of the Tudor
Constitution and England
Under the Tudors
Elton’s grand thesis saw
Elizabeth’s reign as a
continuation of the
Cromwell revolution which
saw the establishment of a
bureaucratic Parliament
able to function efficiently
irrespective of the ruler’s
capabilities
Christopher Haigh. Revisionist. “This is my
view of Elizabeth” 1984
Oxford University
“The monarchy of Elizabeth I
was founded on illusion”
“She was bossy, she was
something of a fishwife”
“Elizabeth I was a bully..”
“Elizabeth was a show-off and
she dressed to kill..”
Haigh context
Christopher Haigh in the post war, secular society,
was also writing during Margaret Thatchers “iron
fist in a velvet glove “rule. “It was first written
under the shadow of Margaret Thatcher when
government by tantrum was the order of the day; it
has been revised in the time of Tony Blair when
government by bluff is the style Elizabeth was
there first; she also ranted and she also could spin.”
Haigh
Elizabeth 1
a feminist perspective 1988
Susan Bassnett- “It is quite likely that even
without a kingdom Elizabeth would still have been
a woman of striking achievement.”
“ Long before I knew why , I supported Elizabeth.
It was not only that she seemed to be a winner,
whereas Mary was the feminine victim incarnate,
but because every account I read, in whatever form,
gave me an image of a woman who was determined
to live according to some private inner pattern. She
was in short, a model of an independent woman for
a girl growing up in the 1950’s, long before the
Women’s movement had announced itself
“There are countless stories of Elizabeth’s abrupt
changes of heart, which have sometimes been
perceived as an example of feminine
capriciousness…..It would be patronizing and
unjust to continue to dismiss such behavior
simply as evidence of a women’s instability
“ Historians writing about her have been male
while most novelists have been female and this
has also contributed to the process of
constructing a written portrait of Elizabeth,
just as the political position of the writer and his
or her religious standpoint have also been
significant.”
Post Modernist-Representations of
Elizabeth in Portraiture
 Roy Strong Gloriana
 The Ditchley Portrait 1592
IMAGE
AND
REPRESENTATION
Relativist- Dissing Elizabeth; Negative
Representations of Gloriana
Julia Walker 1998
American
 “What we seek to illuminate, however, is another, darker
discourse, the less famous discourse of disrespect and dissent
which also existed from Elizabeth's troubled days as a princess
and into the decades after her death.
 Elizabeth's perennial popularity--due in part to her undoubted
accomplishments and virtues and also growing from her status
as a cultural anomaly--has always cast her in an unrealistically
golden light
 While few writers have gone so far as to present a perfect
queen, there has always been the assumption that criticism of
her was somehow particularly mean-spirited -- too simply the
product of medieval misogyny or blind religious prejudice.
 What we are doing, however, is to challenge
the perception of these moments of opposition
as isolated among Protestants or limited to
Catholics, and to present them in the dark side
of the Cult of Elizabeth, a minority discourse
which, al- though its sources shift continually,
was a constant element of the life, reign, and
memory of this powerful, successful, and
generally popular monarch. The essays in this
collection open discussion on neglected texts,
lost cultural artifacts, overlooked patterns of
discourse, and buried facts”
Post Modernist
 “All that separates this volume from other
historicist studies of the age of Elizabeth is that
we have focused on the body of material critical
of the queen before, during, and after her reign.
 Ranging over foreign and domestic political
issues, religious factionalism, the conflict between
free speech and treason, gossip, sermons, art
history, architecture, and the literary modes of
epic, drama, and lyric, the topics of these essays
offer a rich variety of scholarly discussion “
Populism-History for the Masses
“a racy read and a first rate history”
 David Starkey poor Quaker family (
extreme Protestant) but claims to be a
radical atheist
 Poor background with distant, emotionless
father and dominating mother
 Gained a scholarship and became a pupil of
Geoffrey Elton with whom he clashed often
 “ Elizabeth is extraordinary. She looks
extraordinary. She behaves in an
extraordinary way. And as a woman
moving so effortlessly in a man’s world, she
is doubly extraordinary.”
 I try as far as possible to suspend hindsight,
and to tell things as they happened with
cliffhangers and narrow escapes. If the
results read like a historical thriller, I shall be
well pleased.”
 “ Elizabeth is extraordinary. She looks
extraordinary. She behaves in an
extraordinary way. And as a woman moving
so effortlessly in a man’s world, she is doubly
extraordinary.”
 I try as far as possible to suspend hindsight,
and to tell things as they happened with
cliffhangers and narrow escapes. If the
results read like a historical thriller, I shall be
well pleased.”
Shekhar Kapur Elizabeth and The Golden Age
Film is a meeting
place between
The world that it
depicts , and the worlds
Of both composer and
responder
Films often tell
Us more about the
Period in which
They were made
Than the period
They depict
Film Tags ? What do they suggest about
the directors purpose and our world?
Absolute power demands absolute loyalty
Woman Warrior Queen