The Reign of Elizabeth I

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.
The reign of Elizabeth I
The reign of Elizabeth I

Court and culture in the
last decade
Edited by
John Guy
University of St Andrews
Published in association with the

Folger Institute, Washington, DC
I CAMBRIDGE
UNIVERSITY PRESS
PUBLISHED BY THE PRESS SYNDICATE OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CAMBRIDGE
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Cambridge University Press
This book is in copyright. Subject to statutory exception
and to the provisions of relevant collective licensing agreements,
no reproduction of any part may take place without
the written permission of Cambridge University Press.
First published 1995
Reprinted 1999
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloguing in Publication data
The reign of Elizabeth I: Court and culture in the last decade / edited by John Guy.
p.
cm.
Includes papers presented at a workshop held at the Folger Institute,
Washington, DC, 4-5 October 1991.
Published in association with the Folger Institute,
Washington, DC.
Includes index.
ISBN0 521 44341 5 (he)
1. Great Britain - History - Elizabeth I, 1558-1603 - Congresses.
2. Great Britain - Court and courtiers - History - 16th century - Congresses.
3. Great Britain - Civilization - 16th century - Congresses.
4. Elizabeth I. queen of England, 1533-1603 - Congresses.
I. Guy, J. A. (John Alexander) II. Folger Institute.
DA355.R45 1995 942.05'5-dc20 94-42371 CIP
ISBN0 521 44341 5
Transferred to digital printing 2003
CE
Contents
List of
Preface
List of contributors
List of abbreviations
figures
Introduction The 1590s: the second reign of Elizabeth I?
page ix
xi
xii
xiii
1
JOHN GUY
1 The patronage of the crown in Elizabethan politics: the 1590s

in perspective
20
SIMON ADAMS
2 Regnum Cecilianum} A Cecilian perspective of the Court
46
NATALIE MEARS
3 Patronage at Court, faction and the earl of Essex
65
PAUL E. J. HAMMER
4 Peers, patronage and the politics of history
87
LINDA LEVY PECK
5 The fall of Sir John Perrot
109
HIRAM MORGAN
6 The Elizabethan establishment and the ecclesiastical polity
126
JOHN GUY
7 Ecclesiastical vitriol: religious satire in the 1590s and the

invention of puritanism
150
PATRICK COLLINSON
8 Ecclesiastical vitriol: the kirk, the puritans and the future king
of England
171
JENNY WORMALD
9 Social strain and social dislocation, 1585-1603
192
JIM SHARPE
vii
viii
Contents
10 Lord of Liberty: Francis Davison and the cult of Elizabeth
212
RICHARD C. McCOY
11 The complaint of poetry for the death of liberality: the decline

of literary patronage in the 1590s
229
ALISTAIR FOX
12 Summer's Last Will and Testament: revels' end
258
MARIE AXTON
13 The theatre and the Court in the 1590s
274
FRITZ LEVY
Index
301
Figures
1 Quality of harvests in England, 1585-1603
page 195
2 Annual totals of persons accused of felony, Home Circuit,

1585-1603
2Q1
3 Proportion of persons accused of felony capitally convicted on

the Home Circuit, by year, 1585-1603
202
Preface
Many of the papers in this volume were first presented at a workshop held at
the Folger Institute, Washington, DC, on 4-5 October 1991. The theme of
the workshop was 'Court and Culture during the Reign of Elizabeth I: The
Last Decade'. Not all the contributors on that occasion wished to publish
their papers, while at the same time some highly relevant studies were being
undertaken by scholars who had been unable to attend. The outcome is that
four scholars were recruited to reinforce the 'original' team: Paul E. J.
Hammer, Natalie Mears, Hiram Morgan and Jim Sharpe. I am extremely
grateful for their contributions, and for those of the participants in the
original workshop. The workshop was sponsored by the Folger Institute
Center for Shakespeare Studies and was supported by a grant from the
Education Division of the National Endowment for the Humanities. I
would like to express gratitude to the Folger Institute staff, in particular
Barbara A. Mowat (Chair), Lena Cowen Orlin (Executive Director), Carol
Brobeck (Program Assistant), Ivy Gilbert (Program Assistant) and Molly
Haws (Administrative Assistant).
The editorial work was undertaken at the University of St Andrews. My
secretary, Lorna Harris, helped with correspondence and retyped the bulk
of the contributions to enable inconsistencies to be resolved. I am grateful
for her heroic support which was forthcoming at the time when I was
exceptionally busy as Head of the School of History and International
Relations. Rachel Guy assisted with the initial copy-editing and the preparation of the index. I remain irretrievably in her debt. I also wish to thank
Richard and Emma, who patiently observed the proceedings and showed
more tolerance and interest than I could reasonably expect. Last but not
least, I wish to express my thanks to William Davies and the editorial and
production staff of Cambridge University Press for their courtesy and
efficiency.
Contributors
Simon Adams
University of Strathclyde
Marie Axton
University of Cambridge
Patrick Collinson
University of Cambridge
Alistair Fox
University of Otago
John Guy
Paul E. J. Hammer
University of New England
Fritz Levy
University of Washington, Seattle
Richard C. McCoy
City University of New York
Natalie Mears
Hiram Morgan
University of Ulster, Coleraine
Linda Levy Peck
University of Rochester
Jim Sharpe
University of York
Jenny Wormald
University of Oxford
xii
Abbreviations
AgHR
APC
BIHR
BL
CSPD
DNB
EcHR
EHR
HA
HJ
HLQ
HMC
JBS
JHI
LPL
MLN
MS
PRO
SB
SP
SP
STC
Agricultural History Review

Acts of the Privy Council of England, ed. J. R. Dasent et al. (new
series, 46 vols., London, 1890-1964)
Bulletin of the Institute of Historical Research
British Library
Calendar of State Papers, Domestic, ed. Robert Lemon
(vols. i, ii, 1547-90); ed. M. A. E. Green (vols. iii-vi, 1591-1603,
and addenda, and vols. vii, xii, and addenda, 1566-1625;
London, 1856-72)
Dictionary of National Biography, ed. Leslie Stephen and
Sidney Lee (63 vols., London, 1885-1900)
Economic History Review
English Historical Review
Historical Association
Historical Journal
Huntington Library Quarterly
Historical Manuscripts Commission
Journal of British Studies
Journal of the History of Ideas
Lambeth Palace Library
Modern Language Notes
Manuscript
Public Record Office, London
Studies in Bibliography
MS State Papers, at the Public Record Office
Studies in Philology
Short-Title Catalogue of Books Printed in England, Scotland, and
Ireland, and of English Books Printed Abroad, 1475-1640,
A. W. Pollard, G. R. Redgrave, et al (London, 1926, repr.
1946)
Xlll
xiv
STC2
List of abbreviations
Short-Title Catalogue of Books Printed in England, Scotland, and

Ireland, and of English Books Printed Abroad, 1475-1640, A. W.
Pollard, G. R. Redgrave, et at., second edition revised by W. A.
Jackson, F. S. Ferguson and Katharine F. Pantzer (3 vols.,
London, 1976-91)
TRHS
Transactions of the Royal Historical Society
Wing
Short- Title Catalogue of Books Printed in England, Scotland,
Ireland, Wales, and British America, and of English Books Printed
in Other Countries, 1641-1700, D. G. Wing (New York, 1945-51)
In giving dates, the Old Style has been retained, but the year is assumed
to have begun on 1 January.
Introduction
The 1590s: The second reign of Elizabeth I?
John Guy
This book is about the politics and political culture of the 'last decade' of the
reign of Elizabeth I, interpreted to mean the years from 1585 to 1603. It will
open with a proposition, which goes like this: there were two reigns of
Elizabeth I, each with distinctive features. Her 'first' reign ended about
1585 with the dispatch of an English expeditionary force to the Netherlands. This seemingly dramatic reversal of the queen's non-interventionist
foreign policy was followed by the trial and execution of Mary, Queen of
Scots, and by the outbreak of war with Spain and her ally, the French
Catholic League. Mary's execution resolved one political and constitutional
crisis, but precipitated another. For the war engulfed multiple theatres:
English forces were deployed in France, the Netherlands, the Atlantic and
latterly Ireland. Costs and casualties were high. England was several times
threatened with encirclement by the superior forces of the CounterReformation.
The physical and emotional strains were acute. In politics the anxiety of
courtiers fused with the poverty of the crown and the competition for
patronage to kindle factionalism, self-interest and instability which - in the
shape of Essex's frustrated ambition - sparked an attempted coup. In the
country xenophobia, war-weariness, and the turmoil created by rising
prices, bad harvests and outbreaks of plague and influenza, fomented particularism and resistance to the crown's fiscal and military demands. All
this, in turn, triggered an authoritarian reaction from privy councillors and
magistrates, whose emphasis on state security, the subversiveness of religious nonconformity, and the threat of popularity' and social revolt became
obsessional.
We need to look no further than the Court to see a transition in train. A
traditional mystique surrounds the history, and in particular the definition,
of the Elizabethan Court, and this should be dispelled. In its physical aspect
the Court was the royal household, comprising perhaps 1,700 people.
Eighty to one hundred - chiefly nobles, privy councillors and intimate body
servants - were permitted routinely to enter the privy apartments, and some
500-600 others had access to the public rooms 'above stairs'. Another 1,000
1
John Guy
or so lived or worked 'below stairs', performing duties in the royal palaces or

their environs as servants in the kitchens, pantry, bakehouse, spicery,
laundry, stables, falconry, etc. In this sense the 'Court' was like a luxury
hotel, though if so, it was a hotel on wheels, since it remained peripatetic
until 1625 because of its needs in respect of victualling, sanitation and
recreation. In particular, the summer progresses of Elizabeth were designed
as occasions when tableaux vivants, aquatic pageants, triumphal arches and
civic spectacles could promote nationally the cult of Astraea and the
'imperial' Virgin.
The Court was politically fluid and culturally polycentric. As well as
peregrinating more or less systematically between Whitehall, Greenwich
and Windsor between September and May, and visiting the houses of the
nobility and other locations within roughly a 100 mile radius of London
during the queen's summer progresses, it spilled over into the West End of
London, where the nobility were increasingly building city mansions, and
to the Inns of Court where revels were staged at Christmas in honour of the
queen.1 To the fixed elements of personnel and location must also be added
that of time. The Court as a political nexus comprised the queen and those
significant persons - nobles, office-holders and privy councillors - who
attended her presence at the particular moment in question. Simple to define
in theory, this entity was in practice kaleidoscopic, since it fluctuated
continuously as councillors and office-holders oscillated in the queen's
favour or migrated between the Court and their estates, or departed,
sometimes for years at a time, on military or naval expeditions, or were
despatched on embassies abroad. In this respect the Court was a hydra,
constantly sprouting new heads. It was in a constant state of flux. Poets and
dramatists described it as 'constant only in its inconstancy', and invoked a
wide range of metaphors - not to mention gossip and innuendo - to describe
the whirlpool of relationships in which the queen and her favourites lay at
the vortex.
Yet a clear change of personnel delineates the transition from Elizabeth's
'first' to her 'second' Court. Between 1588 and 1590 occurred the deaths of
four doyens of the first-generation establishment: Robert Dudley, earl of
Leicester (1588), his brother Ambrose, earl of Warwick (1590), Sir Walter
Mildmay (1589) and Sir Francis Walsingham (1590). Leicester was the
queen's first favourite. His influence had balanced, and complemented, if
not rivalled, that of Burghley in the Privy Council since 1562. Moreover, all
four were linchpins of protestantism. In particular, Leicester and Walsingham had championed the European protestant cause. Their deaths altered
the balance of opinion in politics and the Privy Council.
1
See also Linda Levy Peck, The Mental World of the Jacobean Court (Cambridge, 1991),
pp. 3-12.
The 1590s: the second reign of Elizabeth I?
Leicester's death created a double vacuum. His voice in support of the

protestant cause was silenced. He also lacked a legitimate heir; hence the
members of his affinity were forced to seek a new patron and many gravitated towards Essex. Whereas Leicester's protestant zeal had hitherto held
Burghley's fear of fiscal and military overextension in equilibrium, now
caution and conservatism prevailed. Burghley (unlike his client Lord Buckhurst) was in tune with moderate puritanism, but he consistently favoured
realpolitik over religion in the making of foreign policy. At home he worked
pragmatically, if sometimes uncomfortably, with those who shared the
queen's abhorrence of nonconformity: Sir Christopher Hatton until his
death in 1591 and Archbishop Whitgift. In some respects Burghley became
a Polonius-figure in the 1590s: he was the supreme political survivor. Yet
this should not be exaggerated. Whatever view is taken of his role in the fall
of Sir John Perrot in Ireland (perhaps the murkiest episode in which
Burghley became embroiled), he retained his political edge.2 He lacked the
energy and conviction he had displayed in the 1550s and 1560s. This was
inevitable; but unlike Polonius his authority as Lord Treasurer was unsurpassed.
From the vantage-point of the reign of James VI and I, Francis Bacon
recalled how Elizabeth had 'allowed herself to be wooed and courted, and
even to have love made to her', observing that these 'dalliances detracted
but little from her fame and nothing at all from her majesty'.3 In these
remarks Bacon put his finger on the essence of Elizabethan politics: first,
that to succeed at Court politicians had to pretend to be in love with the
queen; secondly, that the conduct of the 'game' of courtship was Elizabeth's
most effective tool of policy. For the dithering, prevarication and generally
dismissive behaviour which was understood to be archetypical of the conventional 'mistress' provided Elizabeth with her weapons of political manipulation and manoeuvre. In order to beat her male courtiers at their own
game, she changed the rules and capitalized on the power granted to her by
virtue of her gender.
Hatton was Elizabeth's second favourite. After his death, Sir Walter
Ralegh seemed most likely to succeed. As captain of the guard he had
untrammelled access to the privy chamber, gaining influence to the point
where others felt threatened. But Elizabeth banished him from Court
(briefly sending him to the Tower!), when he seduced her maid. Sexual
jealousy was widely suspected: Elizabeth's vanity was the one constant force
of her reign. Ambassadors in the 1590s noted her extravagant attire and
low-cut dresses, yet she could barely ride, she wore a wig, her teeth were
2
3
See below, pp. 109-25.

Catherine Bates, The Rhetoric of Courtship in Elizabethan Language and Literature (Cambridge, 1992), pp. 45-88.
John Guy
bad, and she placed a perfumed silk handkerchief in her mouth before
receiving visitors. When her third and last favourite, Essex, failed in
Ireland, his most flagrant offence was not to desert his post - though that
was heinous enough - but to burst unannounced into her presence at ten
o'clock in the morning before she had applied cosmetics. By his recklessness
he became the only courtier (other than the bedchamber servants) to have
seen the 'imperial' Virgin stripped of the veil of state. This was lese-majeste
and condemned him to disgrace.
In her 'second' reign Elizabeth's grip on events slackened markedly. In
her 'first' reign she knew her mind even when she procrastinated; her
judgement was not infallible, but her instinct was shrewd: often shrewder
than that of her privy councillors. As the 1590s advanced, her inaction led to
political marginalization as her mind and body aged. From 1585 onwards,
England was at war, the conduct of which required strategic planning and
instant reflexes. Since Elizabeth persistently dithered, decisions were taken
on her behalf, and for the first time she tacitly condoned the fact. Never
before had the queen allowed her councillors to seize the initiative, and
when they had done so covertly- for example in 1563,1566,1572, and most
sensationally in 1587 over the dispatch of the warrant for the execution of
Mary, Queen of Scots - she had reacted furiously. The danger in the 1590s
was that a disappointed councillor - such as Essex - having subverted his
instructions in favour of his own ambition and yet still failed, would pose a
direct threat to her monarchy.
In her 'second' reign Elizabeth declined to fill vacancies in the Privy
Council or to reinforce the nobility. The vast majority of Court offices
remained in the hands of her oldest friends and contemporaries. As mortality thinned the ranks, she refused not only to reward but even to replace
those with whom she had surrounded herself. After Burghley's death in
August 1598, the Privy Council was reduced to ten, fewer than half the
number when she came to the throne. A memorandum of 1598 drew
attention to 'Noblemen that have served in her Majesties warrs or borne
publick places, not being now of the Council'.4 Eight earls and eighteen
barons were listed as candidates for promotion. Yet only after Essex's revolt
did Elizabeth yield and promote the earls of Shrewsbury and Worcester to
the Privy Council.
In January 1589 Burghley had written: 'Her Majesty, finding a great want
of noblemen for Parliament, is minded to create some earls and barons.' But
nothing was done. Unlike her successor James VI and I, whose generosity
opened the floodgates, Elizabeth obstinately refused to use grants of honour
as political rewards. She had resolved to maintain the peerage as a select
4
caste for men of ancient lineage and to restrict its size in relation to the
availability of estates. This reflected her social conservatism. Despite some
claims to the contrary, Elizabeth's peerage creations more or less compensated for attainders and genetic failures in the male line. Yet the dynamic
political issue was not the size of the peerage, but the unsatisfied ambition of
the courtiers and military commanders who sought promotion during the
long war with Spain and remained unrewarded.
Fiscal considerations partially explain the dearth of peerage creations, but
it is less obvious why the lord lieutenancies were allowed to lapse after 1590.
County government had been markedly strengthened by the lieutenancy
system which had been reconstituted in 1585. The appointees assumed
responsibility for musters, militia training and the levying of militia rates. 5
Later civilian duties were added: law and order, management of food
supplies, collection of forced loans, detection of recusants, and enforcement
of economic regulations. The military and administrative significance of the
late-Elizabethan lieutenancies is obvious. Yet sixteen were left unfilled for
as long as three years, seven for as long as ten years, and thirteen were vacant
by 1603.6 In districts where vacancies arose, commissioners for musters
were appointed on an interim basis on the nomination of the Privy Council.
Robert Cecil compiled a list of those districts with vacancies to draw
attention to the need to make new appointments, but the queen declined
to act.
Where patronage and finance were concerned, Burghley's influence was
paramount after Leicester's death. The reservoir of patronage remained the
queen, who always retained a keen interest in the specification of grants.
However, bills for lands and leases required the signatures of the Lord
Treasurer, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, and the Attorney- and
Solicitor-General, and in this process the Lord Treasurer's opinion was
decisive. Again, Burghley exerted a dramatic influence on the manipulation
of the customs revenues through farming, and on the exploitation of monopolies and concessionary interests. By 1585 it can be argued that a fundamental reconstruction of royal patronage was in train. 7 The main element of
this policy was the shift from a system of patronage based on leases or
alienations of the Crown lands to a system based on export concessions and
grants of commercial licences or monopolies. Burghley was prominent as a
patron of monopolies, both of imported commodities and domestic manufactures. Given the dearth of conventional forms of patronage after the
outbreak of war, it was but a short step to the use of monopolies purely for
5
Gladys Scott Thomson, Lords Lieutenants in the Sixteenth Century (London, 1923);
A. Hassell Smith, County and Court: Government and Politics in Norfolk, 1558-1603 (Oxford,
1974).
7
John Guy
the purpose of rewarding courtiers, thereby shifting the costs of such

rewards from the crown to the commonwealth.
If, however, Burghley's was the dominant voice in patronage after Leicester's death, this does not mean there was a regnum Cecilianum. Burghley
himself was irritated by the term, and considered himself maligned. No
analysis of the politics of the 1590s will be entirely satisfactory until
second-rank councillors like Buckhurst, Howard of Effingham (created earl
of Nottingham, 1597), Sir Francis Knollys and Sir John Fortescue are put
under the microscope and our knowledge of Court networks is enhanced.
There is evidence of a political and social modus vivendi which broke down
as a result of ideological and political disparities. 8 The earliest ideological
fissures did not involve Essex, but rather Whitgift and (possibly) Buckhurst.
The latter pair entered the Privy Council in 1586 at Burghley's nomination,
but were less tightly aligned to Burghley in the 1590s.9 Whitgift and
Burghley differed fundamentally over the archbishop's anti-puritan campaign, which the Lord Treasurer several times compared to the 'Romish' or
'Spanish inquisition'. When in 1591 Lord Chancellor Hatton and Whitgift
promoted the prosecutions in Star Chamber of Thomas Cartwright and the
presbyterian leaders for sedition, Burghley was a conspicuous absentee. 10
Buckhurst was firmly attached to the Cecilians in matters of patronage, but
was recruited by Whitgift as a judge in the Court of High Commission in
1588. He stood apart from Burghley on religious policy. Whitgift outlived
Burghley, and was secure in royal favour until the queen's own death. He
was rebuked in 1595 over his attempt to issue the Lambeth articles, but the
setback was purely temporary; the queen's favour reached its zenith when
Whitgift's private troops played a crucial role in the defence of Whitehall
during Essex's revolt. It is conventional to observe that the Cecilians had a
monopoly of influence in the 1590s, but as long as Whitgift enjoyed unrestricted access to the privy chamber, Burghley was pushed onto the sidelines
where religion was concerned.
More generally, the politics of the 1590s were driven by the ambition and
spectacular misjudgements of Robert Devereux, the dazzling but paranoid
second earl of Essex. Essex's relationship with the Cecils soon became
the motor of political strife. Yet the relationship was ambivalent until
Burghley's death. Burghley had been one of Essex's guardians as a child and
a mutual respect endured between them even when they came into conflict.11
It is likely that the feud was primarily between Essex and Sir Robert Cecil,
who were roughly the same age. Physical attributes also came into the
8
9
10
See below, pp. 46-64, 65-86.

It is noteworthy that Robert Cecil systematically rebuilt the relationship with Buckhurst in
ecclesiastical politics after Burghley's death.
n
See below, pp. 12^-30.
See below, pp. 46-64, 65-86.
equation: Essex was tall and well proportioned; his aristocratic bearing and
lofty disposition were legendary. By contrast, Cecil was only the second son
of the Lord Treasurer, and he suffered from a deformed spine and diminutive height: Elizabeth called him her 'little elf. Essex initially regarded
Cecil as a 'friend', but had little difficulty in disparaging him once friction
arose between them.
Essex was Leicester's stepson. He succeeded his stepfather as Master of
the Horse, and within three years had staked his claim to the mantle of the
European protestant cause. By 1591 he was said to be 'like enough, if he had
a few more years, to carry Leicester's credit and sway'.12 In 1593 he was
admitted to the Privy Council. But he made mistakes. By the end of 1596 the
feud between Essex and Robert Cecil had escalated into a factional battle to
dominate the Privy Council and control both royal policy and the succession
to the throne. Moreover, this battle was as disruptive as anything since the
death of Henry VIII, because Essex pursued ideology as well as patronage.
He embellished his chivalric protestantism with demands that the war be
run by generals and not civilians. He urged the switch to an aggressive
strategy in Europe and the Atlantic. By contrast, the Cecils, like Elizabeth
herself, saw England's goals as essentially defensive; designed to keep the
power of Philip II at bay and prevent Spain from seizing control of the
French Channel ports or intervening in Ireland.
In his rhetoric Essex advocated the values of aristocratic 'honour5, but in
practice he displayed a preference for methods of government more easily
adopted in Ireland than in England. By fighting duels and alluding to his
rights under the 'law of nature', he proselytized his belief in the nobility's
right to use violence in the defence of honour and the pursuit of political
ends. 13 The writings of Sir Philip Sidney and the chivalric pageantry of the
Accession Day tilts were crucial to Essex's self-fashioning, but the neofeudal dimension may be deceptive. It can be argued that beneath the
rhetorical smokescreen, Essex was the first politician since Richard III to
equate control of royal patronage with factional power. His pressure on
patronage at all levels created hostility even among those who were his
friends. Whatever the truth of this, his tactics were inept. When he sought
to build an affinity in the counties which disclosed elements of premeditated
military purposefulness, he overreached himself. For the subordination of
'overmighty subjects' to the crown, and the conduct of civil government by
law and not the sword, were shibboleths.
A sense of fin de siecle is crucial to an understanding of Elizabeth's
'second' reign. Contradictory forces charged the atmosphere: ambition,
12
13
CSPD, Addenda, 1580-1625, p. 320.

M. E. James, Society, Politics and Culture: Studies in Early Modern England (Cambridge,
1986), pp. 416-65.
John Guy
apprehension, expectation, insecurity, authoritarianism, self-interrogation.

In Parliament the speeches and draft legislative proposals of ordinary
members revealed their deep-seated anxieties over crime, poverty and
unemployment. Since relatively little that was new was accomplished by way
of remedy even in the vastly overrated Elizabethan Poor Laws, it was
unsurprising that discord and displacement aggression characterized the
set-piece debates on purveyance, taxation and monopolies. The monopolies
debates of 1597-8 and 1601 produced the ugliest parliamentary scenes
before the revival of impeachment in the 162Qs, signalling unequivocal
resentment of the economic privileges and abuses promoted by courtiers
and privy councillors solely for their private gain.
Faced by pungent criticism and demands for a committee of inquiry in
1597, Elizabeth neutralized the attack by promising a commission to
investigate monopolies and by intimating that she would personally intervene to prevent dishonest patentees from invoking the royal prerogative to
impede legal actions in the courts. But the promised reforms failed to
materialize. After Parliament was dissolved in 1598, there were more new
monopolies granted than old ones rescinded. Shortly before the 1601 Parliament assembled, Lord Treasurer Buckhurst and Cecil attempted a lastminute survey of monopolies in an effort to prune the worst of them before
it was too late. But the task was not completed, and when the 1601 Parliament assembled, the outcome was a minor constitutional crisis.
Nor were the parliamentary allegations misplaced, since by 1601 venality
permeated the regime. A 'black market' was well established at Court in
which nominations to offices were overtly traded. For a minor post 200
would be offered, with competitive bids of between 1,000 and 4,000 for
lucrative offices such as the receivership of the Court of Wards or the
treasurership at war. There was even a queue for a minor Irish office that
Burghley wished to suppress: hard cash was offered 'in the Chamber and
elsewhere'. As Spenser quipped in 1591, 'For nothing there is done without
a fee: / The Courtier needs must recompensed be.'14 And since bids were
investments, extortion and embezzlement were rife. The royal household,
the Exchequer, and the Court of Wards (where Burghley himself presided
until his death) were all the subjects of spectacular scandals.
A list of Burghley's income as Master of the Wards during the last two
and a half years of his life shows that he accepted 3,301 from suitors as
'arrangement fees' for eleven grants of wardship at a time when his official
annual salary as master was 133. His profit tripled that of the crown, which
gained a mere 906 from these transactions. It was the crown's receipts that
were entered in the official records; Burghley's profits were listed in a paper
14
Mother Hubbard's Tcde, lines 515-16, in E. de Selincourt (ed.)j Spenser's Minor Poems
(Oxford, 1960), p. 210.
endorsed: 'This note to be burned.' Yet Burghley was the least unscrupulous of his contemporaries. Gifts of plate to privy councillors and judges
were frequent; the value of Burghley's own collection approached 15,000.
Yet opinion thought this sum modest in relation to his opportunities.15
By contrast, it was said of Sir Thomas Heneage in 1592, 'I think your best
friend unto him will be your 1,000.' And it was notorious that he accepted
60 as Chancellor of the Duchy for subscribing a bill for a minor official.
When Sir John Carey learned that Elizabeth had criticized his wife for
selling minor offices in the garrison at Berwick, he complained, 'If her
Majesty would search into takers so narrowly . . . she might find takers of
another kind nearer hand, such as take more in one day than she [Lady
Carey] hath done in all her life.' Again, when Sir Thomas Shirley,
Treasurer at War, was accused in 1593 of misappropriating 30,000 per
annum of the funds allocated for campaigns in the Netherlands, the charges
were inter alia that he had 'infinitely bribed' Burghley's clerk to secure his
ends; had speculated with the soldiers' pay; sold concessions to army
victuallers; and operated as a moneylender. His income ranged between
3,000 and 16,000 per annum, yet his official salary was 365. 16 It was
said of Robert Cecil, 'You may boldly write for his favour . . . You paid well
for it'! Whereas it took Burghley fifty years in office to build three houses
and acquire a landholding appropriate to a peer, his son accumulated larger
estates and built five houses in under sixteen years, even though Burghley
received more land by way of outright gifts.17
It is fairly observed that late-Elizabethan political history has rarely been
written in terms of the preoccupations of contemporaries. Crime, vagrancy
and economic misfortunes, especially catastrophic harvest failures in 1596
and 1597, headed the immediate list of concerns, and it has long been
debated whether or not these amounted to a 'crisis'. According to the Guide
Michelin taxonomy adopted by Professors Wrigley and Schofield, the distress of the 1590s constituted a two-star, but not a three-star crisis.18 The
emergency was not uniform in its impact, nor was irreparable damage
inflicted upon the agricultural and commercial infrastructures. Prices were
high, but economic growth continued, if at a slower rate than before. For the
15
16
17
18
J. Hurstfield, The Queen's Wards: Wardship and Marriage under Elizabeth I (London, 1958),
pp. 266-9; J. E. Neale, Essays in Elizabethan History (London, 1958), pp. 63-4, 72.
CSPD, 1591-1594, pp. 326-7; A. G. R. Smith, Servant of the Cecils: The Life of Sir Michael
Hickesy 1543-1612 (London, 1977), pp. 66-8; Neale, Essays in Elizabethan History,
pp. 65-6; P. W. Hasler (ed.), The House of Commons, 1558-1603 (3 vols., London, 1981),
III, pp. 375-6.
Lawrence Stone, Family and Fortune: Studies in Aristocratic Finance in the Sixteenth and
Seventeenth Centuries (Oxford, 1973), pp. 56-9; Neale, Essays in Elizabethan History, p. 75;
Hasler, The Commons, I, p. 578.
E. A. Wrigley and R. S. Schofield, The Population History of England, 1541-1871: A
Reconstruction (London, 1981), pp. 332-6, 645-85, and passim.
10
John Guy
first time since the epidemics of Mary's reign, population growth slackened
or was static, but mortality caused by starvation was concentrated in upland
areas where population density was low and crops were grown under
marginal conditions. By contrast, the plague and influenza epidemics that
decimated the urban communities were concentrated in London, the larger
towns, the mixed farming lowlands, and areas in the south and east of
England with well-developed communications.
While this analysis is statistically correct, there is something reminiscently Thatcherite about an explanation that concentrates on economic growth
at the expense of real people. Agricultural prices climbed higher in real
terms in 1594-8 than at any time before 1615. Real wages plunged lower in
1597 than at any time between 1260 and 1950.19 Perhaps two-fifths of the
total population of four million fell below the margin of subsistence. Whole
families were thrown onto parish relief, and the much-vaunted Poor Laws
proved inadequate to stem the tide. Poor relief was meagre in material terms
and operated chiefly as a placebo. Furthermore, it was administered by
parochial officials in ways which underscored the economic dependence of
the poor.
It is sometimes claimed that during the long war with Spain, Elizabethan
government succumbed to a mixture of external pressure and internal
structural decay. There was no slide to disaster in Elizabeth's 'second'
reign; the regime held together and the problems of James VI and I had
more to do with post-1603 events than with the legacy of Elizabeth I. Yet
the key to political stability in the 1590s was the solidarity of the elite.
Economic conditions accelerated a process of polarization between rich and
poor which subverted traditional perceptions of order and degree yet which
simultaneously fostered the values of authoritarianism and a class society. 20
The assize judges confronted a rising tide of property crime. It was no
coincidence that sitting alongside privy councillors in the Court of Star
Chamber, they took the criminal law into their own hands by remoulding
and reinterpreting it to enable offences against private property to be
punished as public crimes. Increasingly property-owners of whatever rank
or position identified themselves with the prosperity of the gentry against
the rabble. Lesser yeomen and tradesmen, whose ancestors had marched
19
20
Joan Thirsk (ed.), The Agrarian History of England and Wales, IV: 1500-1640 (Cambridge,
1967); E. H . Phelps Brown and S. V. Hopkins, 'Seven Centuries of the Prices of Consumables, Compared with Builders' Wage Rates', Economica, new series, 2 3 (1956), 296-314;
C. G. A. Clay, Economic Expansion and Social Change: England, 1500-1700 (2 vols., Cambridge, 1984); Keith Wrightson, English Society, 1580-1680 (London, 1982); Steve Rappaport, Worlds within Worlds: Structures of Life in Sixteenth Century London (Cambridge,
1989); Ian W . Archer, The Pursuit of Stability: Social Relations in Elizabethan
London
(Cambridge, 1991).
11
with Jack Cade in 1450 or camped with Robert Kett in 1549, now assumed
local office, settled their disputes in the law courts, and closed ranks against
masterless men, domestic servants, transient workers and urban immigrants. The link between poverty and unemployment, crime and disorder, is
highly complex; but no late-Elizabethan magistrate would have doubted
that vagrancy was criminal, that democracy was the worst form of government, and that plebeian forces were dangerously on the increase. The
aftermath of the Oxfordshire Rising of 1596, when two men were tortured
by the Privy Council to disclose a conspiracy that never was, vividly indexes
the paranoia of the establishment.21
As to religious divisions, these too were exacerbated during Elizabeth's
'second' reign, but in a highly insidious way. It can be argued that Whitgift's subscription campaign against the puritan ministers, promulgated in
1583-4, was only the first tier of a two-tier strategy.22 The second tier was
the reinforcement of the metropolitan authority of the southern High
Commission by the assimilation into current practice of the full range of
procedures governing ex officio investigations as set forth in the textbooks
and manuals of Roman canon law. It was a subtle and effective solution to
what Whitgift doubtless saw as an operational problem. It was entirely
within the remit of the lawyers and officials of the ecclesiastical courts, and
it avoided the political backlash which reinforcement by means of revised
instructions to the judges of High Commission would undoubtedly have
provoked while Leicester and Walsingham were still alive.
A legal challenge to High Commission brought in the Court of Queen's
Bench in 1591 by James Morice and the supporters of Robert Cawdrey
backfired, producing instead a vindication by the common-law judges of the
queen's 'imperial' authority as supreme governor of the church. In a
sweeping decision the judges held that the queen might empower High
Commission because 'by the ancient laws of this realm this kingdom of
England is an absolute empire and monarchy'. This was the language of
Henry VIII's Act of Appeals: the judges' decision meant that they interpreted Elizabeth's imperium to be as theocratic as Henry's.
The result was that the collision over presbyterianism and puritan nonconformity became a constitutional and not simply a religious confrontation. It raised the corrosive issue of the power of the 'imperial' supremacy
in relation to the functions of parliamentary statute and common law. The
polemical contest first waged in the reign of Henry VIII between the clergy
and the common lawyers over the Act for the Submission of the Clergy was
effectively resumed. In the 1530s the authoritative defence of the common21
22
J. Walter, CA "Rising of the People"? T h e Oxfordshire Rising of 1596', Past and Present,
107 (1985), 90-143.
12
John Guy
law position had been written by Christopher St German, who also attacked
the theory of the undivided royal supremacy. He maintained that it was not
the 'vicar of God' but the 'king-in-Parliament' which was 'high sovereign
over the people'. 23 He agreed with Henry VIII that church and state were
coextensive. But he annexed the vocabulary of the 'mixed polity' in order to
argue that the king of England should govern in a parliamentary way.
By Elizabeth's 'second' reign, the 'mixed polity' was discredited since
Cartwright had advocated it as the ideal form of government in church and
state during the Admonition Controversy. The establishment view was that
sovereignty resided in the queen alone: the 'mixed polity' was incompatible
with a monarchical state. This marked a change. For hitherto the
'ascending' and 'descending' interpretations of the royal supremacy had
coexisted peacefully. The ambiguity had been disguised by the claim that
the royal supremacy was ordained by God, but that the people had given
their assent by their free votes in Parliament. This may be compared to a
man who fits two locks, each by a different manufacturer, to his front door.
The locks have incompatible mechanisms and different keys, but when used
in combination they double the level of security. Apologists from Stephen
Gardiner, writing his De vera obedientia in Henry VIII's reign, to Lord
Chancellor Hatton, addressing Parliament in 1589, took this prudent line.
But Whitgift's anti-puritan crusade and the judges' decision in Cawdrey's
Case precipitated a bolder discourse. Whereas in the 1560s and 1570s the
doctrine of 'mixed polity' was the prevailing orthodoxy in political discourse, by the 1590s careerists were advancing the thesis that Elizabeth
possessed an 'imperial' sovereignty, that she alone enacted the laws, and
that she herself was above the law by the prerogative of her imperium. Here
the circle of Richard Bancroft, John Bridges, Thomas Bilson and Hadrian
Saravia formed the vanguard. 24 (A similar swing to the right occurred in
Scotland, where James VI personally took the lead.) Moreover, these publicists aimed at a double target, since the view that England was a 'mixed
polity' was propagated not only by presbyterians, but also by Catholics
23
24
In a reading proleptic of Book VIII of Richard Hooker's Of the Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity,
St German argued that all law, whether secular or ecclesiastical, was properly made by king,
lords and Commons in Parliament assembled, 'for the Parliament so gathered together
representeth the estate of all the people within this realm, that is to say of the whole catholic
church thereof. John Guy, 'The Henrician Age', in J. G. A. Pocock (ed.), The Varieties of
British Political Thought, 1500-1800 (Cambridge, 1993), pp. 13-46. Book VIII was left in
draft when Hooker died, and not published until 1648. For the significance of Hooker's
Laws as a critique of both extremes in the religious debates of the 1590s, see Peter G. Lake,
Anglicans and Puritans? Presbyterian and English Conformist Thought from Whitgift to
Hooker (London, 1988).
Lake, Anglicans and Puritans?, pp. 88-139; J. P. Sommerville, Politics and Ideology in
England, 1603-1640 (London, 1986); Glenn Burgess, The Politics of the Ancient Constitution
(London, 1992).
13
eager to frustrate James VI's succession to the English throne. The Jesuit
Robert Parsons held that the ruler's prerogative was strictly limited by law
and, following Bellarmine, that while the pope derived his powers directly
from God, kings drew theirs from the people. Whereas in the 1560s the
royal prerogative had been discussed and justified 'by the order of the
common law', in the 1590s it was annexed to the 'divinity' that hedges a
king.
Of course, similar things had been said in the reign of Henry VIII, when
his advisers first experimented with the thesis of 'imperial' kingship. It is
easy to draw a straight line between Henrician and late-Elizabethan theory;
but this is misguided. Tudor and early-Stuart constitutional history
was not unilinear. In particular, the 'first' Elizabethan polity was quite
different. Shaped by the elite of the Privy Council, it was tantamount to
what Professor Collinson has called 'a monarchical republic'.25 Until 1585
or thereabouts the Privy Council's political creed may be summarized thus:
1. England was a 'mixed polity' in the terms defined by St German; 2. the
prerogative of the ruler was limited by the advice of the Privy Council; and
3. the assent of the whole realm in Parliament was required to effect
significant political or religious change and in particular to resolve the issue
of the succession to the throne.
This was Burghley's political creed in Elizabeth's 'first' reign. It is
therefore important that we recognize the corollary, which is that until 1585
he and the queen subscribed to discordant political philosophies despite
their enduring political relationship. Historians have conventionally treated
Elizabeth and Burghley as if they shared the same intellectual genes. The
reality is that they were virtually different species. The issue crystallizes on
the subject of 'councils' and counselling. Was the 'sovereignty' of the ruler
to be limited by the advice of the Privy Council? Like her father, Elizabeth
believed that her imperium was ordained by God alone and her prerogative
unlimited by her councillors' advice. The full implications of this dissonance did not become apparent until the collision over the execution of
Mary, Queen of Scots, but the issue had been alive since the religious
settlement of 1559, for on that single, but crucial, occasion, Elizabeth was
outmanoeuvred and manipulated by her councillors. Burghley had gone
further down the protestant road than the queen had either intended or
preferred. In this respect the 'first' Elizabethan regime was established on
false premisses.26
25
26
Patrick Collinson, 'The Monarchical Republic of Queen Elizabeth I', Bulletin of the John
Rylands Library, 69 (1987), 394-^24.
I have signalled this argument in 'The Tudor Age', in K. Morgan (ed.)> The Oxford History
of Britain (Oxford, 1988), p. 302, and also in Tudor England (Oxford, 1988), pp. 258-64. It
will be developed in my forthcoming Elizabeth I (Cambridge University Press).
14
John Guy
So what happened after 1585? It will be an uphill task to argue that the
'second' Elizabethan polity was a 'monarchical republic'. The Privy Council
met nearly every day, sometimes both mornings and afternoons. But the
frequency of its meetings was dictated by the war effort. Attendances were
sparse: Robert Beale, the Privy Council's clerk, had on occasion to seat
himself among the lords to make up the presence. Debates were also
relatively few. When Burghley disagreed with Whitgift, he simply absented
himself from the Council. Most revealing of all, the Lord Treasurer sat
alone to authorize warrants for payment. He scrawled 'allowed by the lords
and others of the Privy Council... signed W. Burghley' on the back of each,
but it is clear from the context that his colleagues were not consulted. It was
a complete reversal of the collegiality of the 'first' Elizabethan regime
whereby warrants were authorized by three or more privy councillors at the
board, and a warrant signed by one councillor alone would be considered
invalid.27 When Essex's supporters complained of a regnum Cecilianum> this
was possibly the sort of thing they had in mind.
The watershed which permitted Burghley's integration into the new
order was the execution of Mary, Queen of Scots. Faced with Catholic
conspiracy and Mary's title to the throne, the elite of the Privy Council
sought to limit the powers of the monarchy should Elizabeth die or be
assassinated. Not only were their initiatives in 'orchestrating' parliamentary
debates predicated on the view of England as a 'mixed polity'; Burghley's
contingency plans up to and including those of 1584-5 provided that, in the
event of Elizabeth's death, the Privy Council and Parliament should not fail
to act despite the lapse of their authority. His drafts for the succession
variously envisaged a 'Council of State', 'Great Council' or 'Grand Council'
which would form a provisional government in the absence of a ruler and
which would adjudicate the claims of candidates for the succession in
conjunction with Parliament.28 Not only was this aristocratic republicanism
27
28
The changing approaches in the Privy Council's system for authorizing payments between
1547 and the 1590s can be traced in PRO, E 404/105-135.
See especially PRO, S P 12/28/20 (fos. 68-9); SP 12/176/22, SP 12/176/28, SP 12/176/29,
SP 12/176/30; Henry E. Huntington Library, Ellesmere M S 1192, annotated and corrected
by Burghley; J. E. Neale, Elizabeth I and her Parliaments (2 vols., London, repr. 1969), I,
pp. 112-13; II, pp. 44-57; G. R. Elton, The Parliament of England, 1559-1581 (Cambridge,
1986), p. 362; Collinson, 'Monarchical Republic of Queen Elizabeth', pp. 418-22; Guy,
Tudor England, pp. 270, 332-3. Professor Collinson has recently argued that 'A breefe
discourse against succession knowen' (SP 12/176/32 (fos. 71-82)), which includes objections to the Interregnum scheme, should be attributed to Burghley. This is despite the fact
that the 'breefe discourse' has hitherto been attributed to Thomas Digges by Neale (see
above), and by Collinson himself in 'Monarchical Republic' (pp. 418-20) on the grounds
that its contents can be related to other papers more confidently attributable to Digges.
Collinson sets out the case for Burghley's authorship in the appendix to his Raleigh
Lecture for 1993, 'The Elizabethan Exclusion Crisis', Proceedings of the British Academy,
84 (1995), pp. 87-92. But the reattribution is unconvincing. It is suggested mainly on the
15
par excellence, one wonders how, if at all, the Privy Council's schemes differ
from the initial stages of the Revolution of 1688 when a committee of peers
and privy councillors formed themselves into a provisional government in
the absence of the king.29 These plans became redundant after Mary's
execution, since the succession of her son, the protestant James VI, became
(at least theoretically) assured.
The transition between what I have called the 'first' and 'second' Elizabethan polities was silently accomplished. Yet the writers, dramatists and
translators of the period interrogated the cultural attributes of change. This
inquiry was quickened partly by the decline of literary preferment after the
deaths of Leicester and Sir Philip Sidney, and partly by the sterility of the
'cult of Elizabeth' and the Accession Day tilts in the last decade.30 Writers
became fascinated in and after 1591 by the themes of kingship, authority,
and the acquisition and retention of power, particularly in relation to
humanist-classical definitions of 'virtue' in its civic and military aspects.
The role of 'counsel' and 'counselling' in monarchies and republics, and the
endemic problems of corruption and dissimulation, were put under the lens.
The aim was to explain how 'vice', 'flattery' and 'ambition' had come to
supersede the traditional values of 'wisdom', 'service' and respublica. Political commentary acquired Tacitean overtones which stressed how the
Roman emperors and their counsellors had corrupted one another. Tacitus
had long been available to humanists such as Guicciardini and Thomas
More, but was read in the 1590s as the historian who thought the past too
29
30
grounds that the author of the 'breefe discourse' intimates that he was the queen's 'sworne
servant', which Collinson believes indicates a privy councillor. But all incumbents of Court
offices, both salaried and supernumerary, and not just privy councillors, in the Tudor period
were supposed to take an oath to the ruler (usually administered by the Lord Chamberlain
or his deputy), and they were described in the official records as the ruler's 'sworn servants'.
In addition, every paid official and M P was required to take the oath of supremacy by
1 Eliz. I, c. 1. Digges was appointed General Surveyor of Works at Dover Harbour in July
1581. N o t only was this post salaried, it was more particularly within the establishment of
the Queen's Works, which in Elizabeth's reign was still considered part of the Court. Digges
appears in the Acts of the Privy Council, and voluminously in the State Papers in the 1580s,
when he was repeatedly writing to members of the Privy Council, especially Walsingham.
He was also an M P who acted regularly on behalf of privy councillors as a 'man of business'
in the Commons and its committees. H . M . Colvin (ed.), The History of the King's Works,
IV, pt 2 (London, 1982), pp. 757-60; M . A. R. Graves, 'The Management of the Elizabethan House of Commons: T h e Council's "Men of Business"', Parliamentary History, 2
(1983), 11-38; Graves, The Tudor Parliaments: Crown, Lords and Commons,
1485-1603
(London, 1985), pp. 148-50; Hasler, The Commons, I I , pp. 37-9. Moreover, even if it were
to be established that the author of the 'breefe discourse' was a privy councillor, this would
not be proof in itself that Burghley was its author. T h e authorship, nevertheless, remains a
very important issue. I am grateful to Professor Collinson for kindly sending m e a proof
copy of his article in advance of publication.
R. Beddard, A Kingdom without a King: The Journal of the Provisional Government in the
Revolution of 1688 (Oxford, 1988).
See below, pp. 212-28, 229-57.
16
John Guy
complex and recalcitrant to be reduced to straightforward moral lessons.

Tacitus had given his descriptions of political conduct a distinctive moral
edge by arguing that Tiberius' greatest attribute was his ability to dissimulate. This approach permitted distinctions to be made between 'honest
servants' and 'base slaves'. Corrupt counsellors in turn became identified
with 'flatterers': the 'caterpillars' and 'subverters' of the commonwealth,
who sowed 'discord' and 'division', were greedy for wealth and titles, and
abused their power at the expense of the people for reasons of personal gain.
In the hands of Tacitean authors, the providentialist bias of the traditional
English historiography was dethroned in favour of a cynical and sceptical
outlook which intimated that great men attained their ends by the autonomous exercise of politic will, but did so with morally ambiguous results.
To those outside the Essex circle, Taciteanism was a model that objectivized fears of corruption, deceit and moral turpitude, and then linked them
by association to a specific factional group. To those within the circle, as
previously for Thomas More when compiling the History of Richard III,
Tacitus offered a model for comprehending the rule of a 'tyrant'. Yet in the
case of Essex's most intimate advisers, Tacitus also functioned as a handbook for political survival when subject to tyrannical rule: it appears that at
least on certain occasions, they had convinced themselves that Elizabeth fell
into this category.31 Their argument was that the distinguishing mark of
tyranny was the queen's capriciousness, especially in the matter of
favourites. All this sprang from Essex's frustrated ambition: he not only saw
himself as engaged in a factional contest with Robert Cecil, but also realized
that he was losing the battle. From his viewpoint, that could only mean that
Elizabeth relied on a 'favourite' or 'evil councillor' whose moral worth did
not justify his position. Discord and civil commotion were the inevitable
consequences, just as when Tiberius had abdicated his responsibilities by
choosing the ambitious and unworthy Sejanus as his chief councillor.
The least inhibited medium of late-Elizabethan political commentary was
the theatre; the pre-eminent Tacitean dramatist Ben Jonson, whose Sejanus
was first performed at Court during the winter of 1603-4. Jonson was
summoned before the Privy Council and accused of 'popery' and 'treason'.
By then, the hot political issue may have been less the resemblance between
'Sejanus' and the earl of Essex, than the assumed link between the play and
the trial of Ralegh for alleged conspiracy in the Main Plot of 1603. Jonson
denied the political charges, and the narrow issue of topicality is irrelevant.
What matters is the mental world which Sejanus evoked, and this was the
31
See below, pp. 277-8; J. H. M. Salmon, Renaissance and Revolt (Cambridge, 1987),
pp. 27-53; Salmon, 'Seneca and Tacitus in Jacobean England', in Peck (ed.), The Mental
World of the Jacobean Court, pp. 169-88; Fritz Levy, *Hayward, Daniel, and the Beginnings
of Politic History in England', HLQ, 50 (1987), 1-34.
17
mental world of the final years of Elizabeth I, because Jonson had been
writing the play for two years before its first performance.32 The resemblance to aspects of Ralegh's case may have been purely coincidental.
Whether or not the character of 'Sejanus' is taken to be modelled on that
of Essex, the play illuminates the Tacitean vogue. As one outmoded and
disillusioned senator observed to another:
We have no shift of faces, no cleft tongues,
No soft and glutinous bodies, that can stick,
Like snails, on painted walls; or, on our breasts
Creep up, to fall from that proud height to which
We did by slavery, not by service, climb.
We are no guilty men, and then no great;
We have nor place in court, office in state,
That we can say we owe unto our crimes;
We burn with no black secrets, which can make
Us dear to the pale authors; or live feared
Of their still waking jealousies, to raise
Ourselves a fortune, by subverting theirs.33
By contrast, the corrupt clients of Sejanus 'Know more than honest
counsels'. They knew how to clie, / Flatter, and swear, forswear, deprave,
inform, / Smile, and betray' to get their way. They knew how to 'Laugh
when their patron laughs; sweat when he sweats . . . Look well or ill with him
- ready to praise / His lordship if he spit, or but piss fair'.
From the more distant perspective of the reign of Charles I, Bishop
Goodman remarked of Elizabeth I's 'second' reign: 'The people were very
generally weary of an old woman's government.'34 The queen might have
died at any moment between 1585 and 1603. As time dragged on, it was clear
that James VI had the de facto claim to the succession: he was male,
protestant and available. Yet a peaceful accession was not a foregone conclusion. It wasfinallyengineered only because Robert Cecil had paved the way,
because a consensus emerged in the Privy Council and among the leading
32
33
34
Ben Jonson, Sejanus His Fall, ed. P. J. Ayres (Manchester and N e w York, 1990), esp. intro.,
pp. 16-22. It can be argued that some of Shakespeare's work, although Tacitean in neither
slant nor conception, represents the image of Essex, first in the character of Coriolanus, and
then in that of the duke of Buckingham in Henry VIII. Like Essex, Coriolanus had been a
great military hero, utterly convinced of his indispensability and so enamoured of his birth
and honour that he mistook martial for civic virtue, made unwarranted assumptions about
the extent of his popular support, and followed his own foreign policy against the dictates of
his government, only finally to lapse into treason. Whatever the truth of this interpretation,
it was not for nothing that the earl's accusers at his examination at York House in 1600
explicitly made the connection to Coriolanus. Again, the resemblance of Essex to Shakespeare's Buckingham is suggestive, though ultimately inconclusive. See below, p. 295.
Sejanus His Fall, ed. Ayres, pp. 77-9.
J. Hurstfield, Freedom, Corruption and Government in Elizabethan England (London, 1973),
p. 105.
18
John Guy
nobility that James was the most realistic alternative, and because James
himself laboured systematically to build that consensus. What was never
obvious to contemporaries was that the period that I have called the queen's
'second' reign would last so long.
Of course, the thesis that there were 'two' reigns of Elizabeth I is
something of a tease. This book is less provocatively entitled The Reign of
Elizabeth I: Court and Culture in the Last Decade. I believe it includes
original and important contributions: perhaps the most fertile and arresting
essays on late-Elizabethan politics and political culture to have appeared for
thirty years. The book does not attempt to provide a full political narrative,
nor has it been the purpose of this introduction to provide a comprehensive
summary of the contributions, which should be read in their own right.
The purpose of the book is to invite readers - in some cases for the first
time - to consider the politics and political culture of the Virgin Queen's
declining years on their own terms and in context. The basic topography of
the long reign of Elizabeth I is familiar enough, but beneath the surface lies
a labyrinth of caverns which this book explores. It is striking how many
teachers and their students have failed either 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 to collapse thereafter
from mental and physical exhaustion. Only two comprehensive political
surveys have been attempted since 1926, when E. P. Cheyney's two-volume
History of England from the Defeat of the Armada to the Death of Elizabeth
was completed.35 One is Professor R. B. Wernham's After the Armada:
Elizabethan England and the Struggle for Western Europe, 1588-1595, which
appeared in 1984.36 The other is Professor Wallace T. MacCaffrey's Elizabeth I: War and Politics, 1558-1603, published in 1992. Yet Wernham's
agenda is exclusively the war with Spain (especially the land war in France),
while the third volume of MacCaffrey's trilogy is addressed to the politics of
war, and has little space to spare for the topics of Crown patronage,
puritanism and religion, political thought, society and the economy, and
literature and drama.
In the last resort what matters is balance, and the atmosphere and the
colour of the age. The atmosphere was claustrophobic in the 1590s since the
late-Elizabethan establishment felt itself increasingly beleaguered. It perceived the enemy within to be even more dangerous than the enemy abroad.
Works like Bancroft's Daungerous Positions and Cosin's Conspiracie, for
35
36
T h e first volume of Cheyney's study was published in 1914, and the second in 1926.
While this volume was in production, R. B. Wernham's The Return of the Armadas: The
Last Years of the Elizabethan War against Spain (Oxford, 1994) was published. T h e new
study extends the chronology of Wernham's original investigation to 1603 and its scope to
include later Spanish sea power and the Irish rebellion. M y general point that no historical
survey has adequately addressed the agenda of the present volume is unaffected.
19
pretended reformation not only provided the mise-en-scene, they showed also
that this establishment considered intolerance to be a virtue, and named it
'justice'. Even where conspiracy did not exist, it had to be invented. In his
chapter Professor Collinson has spoken of the 'nasty nineties', and I shall
not quarrel with that.
The patronage of the crown in Elizabethan

politics: the 1590s in perspective*
Simon Adams
I
In February 1597, after learning of the initial discussions of the naval
operation that would become known as the 'Islands Voyage', Sir Francis
Vere observed to Sir Robert Sidney: 'Of my Lord of Essex's going to sea, I
am sorry to hear, unless I could persuade myself that before his going he
would furnish the court with offices, for that it will else prove his adversaries
work whilst he is absent.' 1 These comments were no doubt an allusion to the
events of the previous summer, when Sir Robert Cecil was finally successful
in obtaining formal appointment as Principal Secretary of State while Essex
was absent on the voyage to Cadiz, but their general import is no less
interesting. They contain several of the apparent truisms of Elizabethan
Court politics: the competition for patronage, the need for a constant
presence at Court, and the dual function of office under the crown as both
the prize and the instrument of politics. Such commentary is found
throughout Sidney's correspondence, which since its publication in 1746
has been one of the best-known sources for the Court politics of the 1590s.
The editor, Arthur Collins, then noted to a friend that in the Sidney Papers
'the intrigues of Queen Elizabeths court [are] more fully set forth than has
been published and wch shows how the Cecilian Faction Reigned'. 2
Quite ironically, perhaps, this eighteenth-century perception of the
* This chapter has been revised in the light of works published since 1991, the most important
being R. W. Hoyle (ed.), The Estates of the English Crown 1558-1640 (Cambridge, 1992).
Earlier versions were delivered to a seminar at the University of Birmingham in 1988 and a
conference on Patronage, Politics and Literature 1550-1660 at the University of Reading in
1989. Reference to the Penshurst Papers, the Dudley Papers at Longleat House, the Cecil
Papers at Hatfield House and the Pepys MSS is by kind permission of the Viscount De
L'Isle, the Marquess of Bath, the Marquess of Salisbury and the Pepysian Librarian.
1
L. Howard (ed.), A Collection of Letters (2 vols., London, 1753), I, p. 388,8 February 1596/7.
This letter is not included in A. Collins (ed.), Letters and Memorials of State ... transcribed
from the originals at Penshurst Place (2 vols., London, 1746) [hereafter Sidney Papers].
2
Maidstone, Centre for Kentish Studies, K[ent] Archives] O[ffice], U 1475 [Penshurst
Papers]/C 236/art. 26, Collins to William Pervy, 3 Sept. 1744.
20
The patronage of the crown in Elizabethan politics
21
relationship between the patronage of the crown and Elizabethan Court

factions is shared by the most advanced modern scholarship. Yet this
scholarly consensus is not completely convincing; if the underlying arguments are examined the relationship between patronage and faction is by no
means so clear cut, and a number of questions are posed that have yet to
receive answers. The earliest modern analysis of Elizabethan politics in
factional terms was that outlined by Conyers Read in the first decades of this
century during the preparation of his study of the career of Sir Francis
Walsingham. In what was essentially a revision of J. A. Froude's portrait of
the dedicated Walsingham and Lord Burghley managing the country on
behalf of a wayward queen, Read pointed to a serious difference of opinion
between the two over the conduct of foreign policy, about which the rest of
the Privy Council divided. But this factional dispute was inspired specifically
by the debate over intervention in the Netherlands, which was limited to
the decade 1575-85. The conciliar factions were to some extent shaped by
religious allegiances and clashes of personality, but they were not otherwise
concerned with issues of domestic politics. Nor was Read himself then interested in whether this factional division was continued into the succeeding
decade or came to an end in the years 1585-8.3
The connection between patronage and factional politics was first drawn
by Sir John Neale in his Raleigh Lecture of 1948. In what was a reappraisal
of the sixteenth century inspired by Sir Lewis Namier's earlier re-interpretation of eighteenth-century parliamentary politics, Neale argued that 'The
place of party was taken by faction, and the rivalry of the factions was
centred on what mattered supremely to everybody: influence over the
Queen, and, through that influence, control of patronage with its accompanying benefits.'4 If the distinction between party and faction was ultimately derived from Namier, Neale was nonetheless clear that the battleground was the Court, not Parliament: 'As we should expect, clientage
reached its fullest expression at Court. Here was the Mecca of patronage:
place and profit incomparable to be had through the favour of the great ones
of the land.'5 Yet while Namier had supplied a carefully articulated case for
the importance of the patronage of the crown to eighteenth-century politics,
Neale took it more or less as proven.6 Similarly the assumption that the
motor of faction was the pursuit of patronage was also taken for granted.
3
4
5
6
For a fuller discussion and references, see S. Adams, 'Favourites and Factions at the
Elizabethan Court', in R. G. Asch and A. M. Birke (eds.), Princes, Patronage and Nobility:
The Court at the Beginning of the Modern Age c. 1450-1650 (Oxford, 1991), pp. 283-5.
'The Elizabethan Political Scene', reprinted in Essays in Elizabethan History (London,
1958), p. 70.
The Elizabethan House of Commons (London, 1949), p. 23.
Namier's case can be found in The Structure of Politics at the Accession of George III
(London, 1965 edn), pp. 16-17.
22
Simon Adams
The relationship between factions of this type and Read's 'ideologically

driven' factions was never explored.
Neale did, however, develop several further very influential theories
about the politics of Elizabethan patronage. He argued that patronage also
gave the crown a potent instrument for political control and manipulation;
careful exploitation of its powers of patronage could thus become the key to
successful monarchical government. Elizabeth's skilful control of Court
factions, an argument Neale drew from Sir Robert Naunton's seventeenthcentury commentary Fragmenta regalia, by means of patronage thus became
an important theme in his revision of the queen's reputation.7 Yet he also
recognized that if this type of politics had worked successfully during the
first thirty years of the reign, the same could not be said for the final decade.
Precisely why there was a deterioration in the 1590s was less clear, however,
and he attributed it variously to the weakening powers of the ageing queen,
the strains of the war with Spain, and the possibility that 'the standard of
public morality was declining sharply in the last decade or so of the reign'.
He then confused the issue by drawing almost all the examples of patronage
disputes cited in 'The Elizabethan Political Scene' from the 1590s, and, as
he himself admitted, by relying heavily on the correspondence of Michael
Hickes, which was largely concerned with the administration of the Court of
Wards.8
Subsequent work on Elizabethan politics has in the main elaborated these
themes. Wallace MacCaffrey has argued that there was a deliberate employment of patronage to cement loyalty to the crown; that this was a Tudor
rather than a specifically Elizabethan policy; and that it helped to transform
the 'dynastic factionalism' of the fifteenth century into the Court- and
patronage-centred politics of the seventeenth. The successful exploitation
of patronage was a central element in the stability of Elizabeth's reign, for
which the credit went both to Burghley, whom he described as a 'patronage
minister', and to the queen, who created 'a rough system', for, by 'refusing
to limit her favour to a single favourite, she kept open a number of channels
to her bounty'. Unlike Neale, MacCaffrey did attempt an assessment of the
actual resources of patronage at the crown's disposal and having noted the
limited number of offices of profit available suggested that other forms of
'royal bounty' may have been more significant than office-holding.9 Law7
8
9
'Eliz. Political Scene', pp. 78-9. Future reference to Naunton's Fragmenta regalia will
be made to J. S. Cerovski's edition (Washington, DC, 1985). For reservations about the
reliability of the Fragmenta, see Adams, 'Favourites and Factions', pp. 280-2.
'Eliz. Political Scene', p. 74.
'Place and Patronage in Elizabethan Polities', in S. T. Bindoff et al. (eds.), Elizabethan
Government and Society (London, 1961), pp. 108-9. The argument is rehearsed with little
modification in 'Patronage and Politics under the Tudors', in L. L. Peck (ed.), The Mental
World of the Jacobean Court (Cambridge, 1991), pp. 21-35.
23
rence Stone advanced a similar thesis. While he accepted Neale's general

argument that patronage gave the crown 'great powers of leverage over the
nobility', he was also influenced by the contemporary debate over the
'General Crisis' of the seventeenth century, and the role of the expansion of
an essentially parasitic Court. This led him to suggest that the 1590s saw the
emergence of a specific crisis of patronage in which pressure on the finite
patronage resources of the crown from a growing population had by the end
of the sixteenth century created an imbalance between supply and demand
that neither Elizabeth nor the first two Stuarts were able to resolve. 10
This 'concentration on the politics of patronage' Christine Carpenter has
defined as a characteristic of 'the "new history" of the period'.11 For Linda
Peck, 'The basis of English politics in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries was the patron-client relationship between the monarchy and the
most important political groups in the state, the peerage and the gentry.'12
Even Christopher Haigh, a critic of Neale on other issues, advances the
impeccably Nealean observation that 'the Court was the clearing-house for
royal patronage, and the distribution of patronage was a key to political
power'.13 The 'patronage system' features prominently in textbooks on the
period.14 More recently the relationship between factional politics and
patronage has been a leading issue in the debates over early-Tudor Court
politics, and, specifically, the apparently ideological factional struggles of
the 1530s.15 The connection between the two has been argued most strongly
10
11
12
13
14
15
The Crisis of the Aristocracy 1558-1641 (Oxford, 1979 edn), chap. 8. For further elaboration
of this argument, see also Stone, 'Office under Queen Elizabeth: The Case of Lord Hunsdon
and the Lord Chamberlainship in 1585', HJ3 10 (1968), 279; R. C. Braddock, 'The Rewards
of Office-Holding in Tudor England', JBS, 14 (1975), 29-30; L. L. Peck, 'Corruption at the
Court of James I: The Undermining of Legitimacy', in B. C. Malament (ed.), After the
Reformation (Manchester, 1980), pp. 77-8.
C. Carpenter, Locality and Polity: A Study of Warwickshire Landed Society, 1401-1499
(Cambridge, 1992), p. 4.
L. L. Peck, 'Court Patronage and Government Policy: The Jacobean Dilemma', in G. F.
Lytle and S. Orgel (eds.), Patronage in the Renaissance (Princeton, NJ, 1981), pp. 28-9. For
further recent general comment, see Peck, '"For a King not to be bountiful were a fault":
Perspectives on Court Patronage in Early Stuart England', JBS, 25 (1986), 31-61, and
A. Maczak, 'From Aristocratic Household to Princely Court: Restructuring Patronage in
the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries', in Asch and Birke (eds.), Princes, Patronage and
Nobility, pp. 315-28. V. Morgan, 'Some Types of Patronage, mainly in Sixteenth- and
Seventeenth-Century England', in A. Maczak (ed.), Klientelesysteme im Europa der Fruhen
Neuzeit (Schriften der Historischen Kollegs, Kolloquien IX, Munich, 1988), pp. 91-115,
on the other hand, does not address this subject.
Elizabeth I (London, 1988), pp. 88-9.
See, for example, A. G. R. Smith, The Government of Elizabethan England (London, 1967),
chap, v, 'The Patronage System'; and his Tudor Government (HA, New Appreciations in
History, no. 20, 1990), pp. 10-12.
For the disputed role of patronage-based factions in the fall of Anne Boleyn, see G. W.
Bernard, 'The Fall of Anne Boleyn', EHR, 106 (1991), 591-5, and R. M. Warnicke, 'The
Fall of Anne Boleyn Revisited', EHR, 108 (1993), 653-65, and the references cited there.
24
Simon Adams
by Eric Ives, who claims that patronage 'produced the simplest form of
Tudor faction, the patron and the clients who depended on him and on
whom he depended'.16 But he and Pam Wright have also detected an
apparent reduction in factional tension over patronage in the middle years
of Elizabeth's reign. This stability he considers to have been an anomaly;
the factionalism of the 1590s was not so much a novel deterioration of
standards as a return to the Tudor norm.17
II
I have elsewhere advanced the argument that factional politics were not
endemic to the Elizabethan Court and must be seen as quite specific
responses to certain political conjunctures.18 Such an interpretation would
therefore fly in the face of this general agreement on the centrality of
patronage-based factions. A resolution is to be found in a re-phrasing of the
question. There is no need to dissent from the general agreement over the
factionalism of the 1590s; the issue is really the nature of the equally
generally perceived distinction between the 1590s and the previous decades,
if not the rest of the century. Had the patronage of the crown taken on new
significance during the course of Elizabeth's reign, or were the 1590s simply
a return to normal Tudor politics? The answer that will be advanced here
is a two-fold one:first,there had been a major re-shaping of the patronage of
the crown during the course of the century, and second, the 1590s saw a
dramatically different style of political behaviour. The conjunction between
the two created a new politics of patronage.
It is important to start by laying aside the assumption that the employment of patronage by the crown was political in inspiration, and to address
the subject instead from the contemporary perspective of the reward of
service. The issues involved were outlined succinctly by the earl of Salisbury on behalf of James I in 1608:
For as no Sovereign can be without service, nor service without some reward, so we
confess no prince is more desirous than we are to reward the merits of our servants
and other subjects in things that might befittingfor us to give, provided always that
16
17
18
E. Ives, Faction in Tudor England (HA, New Appreciations in History, no. 6, 1986), p. 7. A
similar approach is found in K. Sharpe, 'Faction at the Early Stuart Court', History Today,
33 (Oct. 1983), 39-46. Cf. Sharpens reference (p. 39) to patronage as 'the cynosure . . . of
early modern government'.
Ives, Faction, p. 21. P. Wright, 'A Change in Direction: The Ramifications of a Female
Household, 1558-1603', in D. Starkey (ed.), The English Court from the Wars of the Roses to
the Civil War (London, 1987), esp. p. 170. This point has also been made to me more
explicitly by Professor Ives in conversation.
See 'Favourites and Factions', Taction, Clientage and Party. English Politics, 1550-1603',
History Today, 32 (December 1982), 33-9, and 'Eliza Enthroned? The Court and its
Polities', in C. Haigh (ed.), The Reign of Elizabeth I (London, 1985), pp. 55-77.
25
the same be not prejudicial either to the main part and limbs [sic] of any revenue
which we are desirous to leave to our posterity.19
The basic definition of service was extremely loose. Claims for reward could
be framed in terms of service either rendered in the past, or to be rendered
in future, or both simultaneously. Henry VIII granted Sir Thomas Poynings a barony in 1545 cas well for some declaration of our goodness towards
him, as also to encourage him to serve us the better'.20 Service could be
either specific and contractual, or general. It was not necessarily directly
remunerated: wages were a descendant of the provision of board and
lodging in the household, and, as the transitional phrase 'board-wages'
reveals, were a consequence of the decline of the household, and therefore
intended primarily for those who could not maintain themselves on private
means.21 Nor were the fees attached to offices necessarily intended to supply
adequate reward for the services rendered; indeed they may have served
primarily as a formal symbol of the relationship between servant and
master. This would account for the widespread sixteenth-century practice
of supplementing offices with annuities.22
Office was not therefore assumed to be its own reward. The pattern was
more likely to be one of long periods of un-, or poorly, paid service in
expectation of a substantial reward at the end. The universally desired
reward was an estate of inheritance, for, as a medieval poet put it, 'servise is
non heritage'.23 Since this estate could be obtained most easily through a
direct grant, the late-medieval and Tudor monarchy faced the dilemma of
paying for generosity in reward through the alienation of its own landed
estate. For this reason policy towards patronage was an aspect of the crown's
overall financial policy, and changes in one had an immediate impact on the
other. The dilemma took on a particular form at the beginning of the
sixteenth century owing to three quite specific developments of the past two
19
20
21
22
23
PRO, SP 14/37/145v, also quoted, though in slightly different form, in L. L. Peck, Northampton: Patronage and Politics at the Court of James I (London, 1982), p. 29.
Quoted in H . Miller, Henry VIII and the English Nobility (Oxford, 1986), p. 34.
On board-wages in the sixteenth century, see Braddock, 'Rewards', 38. T h e decline of the
noble household is a theme of both J. M . W . Bean, From Lord to Patron: Lordship in Late
Medieval England (Manchester, 1989), and K. Mertes, The English Noble Household, 12501600 (Oxford, 1988).
Annuities had been the most 'open-ended' form of reward since the thirteenth century, see
Bean, Lord to Patron, pp. 13-14. By the sixteenth century they were used both to remunerate officers, see e.g. the 1515 Act of Resumption (below, p. 34), MacCaffrey, 'Place and
Patronage', pp. 114-15, and Stone, 'Hunsdon', and as compensation for surrendered
offices, see e.g. W . C. Richardson, History of the Court of Augmentations 1536-1554 (Baton
Rouge, La., 1961), pp. 181, 254-5, 258.
Quoted in S. J. Gunn, Charles Brandon, Duke of Suffolk 1485-1545 (Oxford, 1988), p. 224.
For further sixteenth- and seventeenth-century illustrations of this crucial distinction, see
D . Thomas, 'Leases of Crown Lands in the Reign of Elizabeth I', in Hoyle, Estates of the
English Crown, p. 183.
26
Simon Adams
centuries. The earliest was the final severance during the fourteenth century
of land held in feudal tenure from any meaningful obligations of service;
thus the crown was forced to reward the service of those who were nominally its chief tenants.24 The second was the disappearance in 1453 of the
crown's possessions in France as a source of reward.25 Ireland remained a
potential alternative, but Irish lands were not attractive, and in the sixteenth century they were largely reserved for service in the Irish administration and garrison, or for those prepared to settle or reside there. 26 The third
was the new concern to maintain the revenue from the Crown estate that
began with Henry IV's retention of the duchy of Lancaster in 1399, and
reached its highpoint under Edward IV and Henry VII. 27
The clearest illustration of the relationship between the politics of
patronage and financial policy can be seen in promotions to the peerage,
which is all the more striking given Elizabeth's reputation for parsimony in
the creation of peers. Underlying promotions was the unwritten assumption
that a peerage was an absurdity without sufficient landed wealth to maintain
the estate, and further that there should be a clear distinction in stature
between the various ranks of the peerage. Liberal creations of senior peers
would therefore necessitate substantial alienations from the Crown estate,
and it was precisely for this reason (give or take other political motives) that
the creations of Richard II and Henry VI were so strongly criticized.28
Elizabeth's parsimony is in fact an illusion caused by viewing her reign from
the perspective of the Stuarts, who essentially revolutionized the peerage.29
Between 1400 and 1603 the peerage was largely static both in overall
numbers, roughly between fifty and sixty, and in its internal composition,
the norm being a handful of non-royal dukes and marquesses, between ten
and twenty earls, another handful of viscounts, and (in the sixteenth century
at least) upwards of thirty barons.30
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
K. B. McFarlane, 'Bastard Feudalism', in England in the Fifteenth Century: Collected Essays

(London, 1981), p. 24. T h e running debate over bastard feudalism is not directly relevant to
this essay, but S. L. Waugh, 'Tenure to Contract: Lordship and Clientage in ThirteenthCentury England', EHR, 101 (1986), 811-39, contains a valuable discussion of this point.
For their earlier importance, see R. Massey, 'The Land Settlement in Lancastrian Normandy', in A. J. Pollard (ed.), Property and Politics: Essays in Later Medieval
History
(Gloucester, 1984), pp. 76-96.
The complaints of lord deputies when it was violated testify to the 'general rule', see e.g.
PRO, S P 61/3/97, 187, Sir James Croft to the duke of Northumberland, 27 July, 18 Nov.
1551.
R. A. Griffiths (ed.), Patronage, the Crown and the Provinces in Later Medieval England
(Gloucester, 1981), intro. p. 11. B. P. Wolffe, The Crown Lands 1461-1536 (London, 1970)
and The Royal Demesne in English History (London, 1971).
See, for example, the seventeenth-century observations by the marquess of Newcastle,
quoted in Peck, 'For a King not to be bountiful', p. 59.
As noted by Stone, Crisis, pp. 97-8, though this is not reflected in his further comments.
For the composition of the peerage in the sixteenth century, see the tables in Stone, Crisis,
p. 99 and Appendix VI, p. 758. In the fifteenth century the numbers were slightly inflated
27
Although there is no evidence that any figure either for overall size or
composition was ever established as optimal, it is difficult to avoid the
conclusion that the result was not wholly accidental. In other words the size
of the peerage was determined by the availability of estates. Replacing
political casualties posed no real problem in this respect, for the forfeited
estates of the victims could simply be re-granted to their successors. More
difficult was the failure of male lines through natural causes and the
subsequent dispersal of the estates through female inheritance. Thus while
at law earldoms and above descended only in tail male, there was nonetheless a general willingness to accord some recognition to female descents, and
many of the leading families of the Tudor 'new nobility' claimed historic
titles in this way: the Dudleys and the Grey viscountcy of Lisle and the
Beauchamp earldom of Warwick, Sir Anthony Browne and the Neville
viscountcy of Montague, and the Devereux and the Bourchier earldom of
Essex being the most obvious examples.31
Recruitment followed a consistent pattern. Leaving aside certain specific
exceptions, such as marital connections with the royal family (which
accounted for the ennobling of Charles Brandon and Edward Seymour),
new creations were made at the level of baronies, while the upper ranks were
replenished by the promotion of the wealthier barons and viscounts to
earldoms.32 In 1525 Lords Roos, Clifford and Fitzwalter became the earls of
Rutland and Cumberland and Viscount Fitzwalter. In 1529, in the largest
single burst of creations in Henry VIIPs reign, seven new barons were
created and Viscount Fitzwalter, Viscount Rochford and Lord Hastings
became the earls of Sussex, Wiltshire and Huntingdon. For all that is
written about the great plundering under Edward VI, the creations of his
reign followed his father's practice.33 During 1547 an earl holding the office
31
32
33
by baronies by writ, see K. B. McFarlane, The Nobility of Later Medieval England (Oxford,
1973), pp. 175-6.
The Dudley claim came through Edmund Dudley's marriage to Elizabeth, the Grey heiress.
See PRO, SP 10/1/104, Warwick to Paget, 24 March 1547. For the Devereux, see P. E. J.
Hammer, ' "The Bright Shining Sparke": The Political Career of Robert Devereux, 2nd
Earl of Essex', unpublished Cambridge Ph.D. dissertation (1991), p. 17. (I am most
grateful to Dr. Hammer for giving me a copy of his thesis.) For Browne, see J. A. Froude,
History of England (London, 1893 edn), VI, p. 153, though no source is given. On the
complications created by female heirs, see B. Coward, 'Disputed Inheritances: Some
Difficulties of the Nobility in the Late Sixteenth and Early Seventeenth Centuries', BIHR,
44(1971), 194-215, esp. 194-5, 198-9.
Miller, Henry VIII, pp. 11-12. Members of the royal family, however broadly denned, had
the first claim on the patronage of the crown (see McFarlane, Nobility, pp. 156-8), but since
this was not an issue in Elizabeth's reign, it need not be pursued here.
E.g. H . Miller, 'Henry VIII's Unwritten Will: Grants of Lands and Honours in 1547', in
E. W . Ives et al. (eds.), Wealth and Power in Tudor England (London, 1978), pp. 87-105.
Note, however, the initial rejection of Henry's 'deathbed' promotions by those proposed,
'thinkeng the land to litle for their mayntenaunce which was appoynted to them' (p. 88).
28
Simon Adams
of Lord Protector and directly connected to the royal house became a duke
(Somerset), and a second, brother to the queen dowager, a marquess
(Northampton); a baron and a viscount became earls (Southampton and
Warwick); and four barons (Rich, Paget, Sheffield and Seymour of Sudeley)
were created. In 1550 two more barons became earls (Bedford and
Wiltshire), and a third a viscount (Hereford).34 In April 1551 on his
appointment as Lord Chamberlain of the Household, Sir Thomas Darcy
received a barony, and (significantly) 'for maintenance whereof he had given
him 100 marks to his heirs general and 300 to his heirs male'.35 October 1551
saw the last creations of the reign: the earl of Warwick became duke of
Northumberland ostensibly on appointment as Warden General of the
Marches (and on receiving many of the Percy lands); the marquess of Dorset
became duke of Suffolk, a title to which he possessed a claim through his
wife; the earl of Wiltshire, marquess of Winchester; and Sir William
Herbert, earl of Pembroke, a title to which he possessed a claim through an
illegitimate descent.36 Mary's major creations were restorations of the
victims of Henry VIII: the dukedom of Norfolk and the earldoms of Devon
and Northumberland. Her other creations consisted of one viscount (Montague) and five barons.37
At her accession Elizabeth was also faced with an issue of restoration, in
this instance the attainted Edwardian peers. At her coronation she made two
restitutions - the marquess of Northampton and Somerset's son, the earl of
Hertford - and created three new peers: two barons (Hunsdon and St. John
of Bletso) and one viscount (Howard of Bindon).38 More complicated was
the position of the two surviving Dudley brothers. In 1561 and 1562 they
34
35
36
37
38
T h e limited expansion of the Edwardian peerage is noted in M . A. R. Graves, The House of

Lords in the Parliaments of Edward VI and Mary I (Cambridge, 1981), p. 12.
Lords Russell and Paulet had received their baronies together with William Parr, the future
marquess of Northampton, on 9 March 1539. Russell was unusual in the extent to which his
estate was composed of ex-monastic property ( D . Willen, John Russell, First Earl of
Bedford: One of the King's Men (London, 1981), p. 122), but Paulet could not have been far
behind.
The Chronicle and Political Papers of King Edward VI, ed. W . K. Jordan (London, 1966),
p. 57.
W. K. Jordan, Edward VI: The Threshold of Power (London, 1970), p. 53. It might also be
noted that through his wife Suffolk was a member of the royal house as well. Pembroke was
the only man to rise directly to an earldom in the reign.
Mary's policy is discussed in G. W. Bernard, 'The Fourth and Fifth Earls of Shrewsbury: A
Study in the Power of the Early Tudor Nobility', unpublished Oxford D.Phil, dissertation
(1978), pp. 229-30, and D . Loades, The Reign of Mary Tudor (2nd edn, London, 1991),
pp. 52-3.
Hertford had been restored in blood by Mary in 1553. On 7 May 1559 he received a licence
to enter upon lands entailed by his father (Calendar of Patent Rolls, Elizabeth I, 9 vols,
London, 1939-86), I: 1558-60, p. 100; he did not receive a further endowment. Hunsdon
was an immediate Boleyn relation and had been a gentleman of Elizabeth's household in
1554 (APC, 1554-5, p. 25). Stone considers St. John and Howard of Bindon also to have
been royal cousins (Crisis, p. 98), but they were of minimal political importance.
29
received portions of their father's estate, and the barony of Lisle and the
earldom of Warwick went to Ambrose, the elder brother, in 1561. Robert,
the more politically significant, needed a separate and new creation. His
endowment on creation as baron of Denbigh and earl of Leicester in 1564
was the most generous single grant of a landed estate in the reign - he was
also the only man Elizabeth promoted directly to an earldom. 39 Only one
further creation was made in the decade, the promotion of Sir Thomas
Sackville, heir to the notoriously wealthy Sir Richard Sackville, to the
barony of Buckhurst in 1567.
The years 1570-2 saw the largest series of creations of the reign. The
upper peerage was replenished by the promotion of Lord Clinton and
Viscount Hereford to the earldoms of Lincoln and Essex, ostensibly for
service in the rebellion of 1569, and the 'restoration' of the earl of Kent. One
baron (De La Warre) was restored, and four (Burghley, Norris, Compton
and Cheyney) created. Cecil's barony may have been a consequence of his
services, but, despite his protests, he could certainly afford the dignity.
Norris had old associations with Elizabeth and had been ambassador in
France, but baronies were not usually awarded for diplomatic service and
'his living is known to be great' - his wife was a co-heiress of Lord Williams
of Thame. 40 Compton and Cheyney were devoid of political significance,
but they were the descendants of leading men of Henry VIII's Court and
notably wealthy. No less significantly, Sir Henry Sidney refused a barony in
1572 without a grant of lands from the crown, on the ground that his own
estate could not bear the dignity. 41 The first Lord Howard of Effingham was
under consideration for an earldom, but was rejected, apparently, because
'he hath not an earl's living'. 42 Similar concerns can also be found in the
proposals for a new series of creations in 1589, when lists of barons (all of
them principal officers of the crown) and wealthy gentlemen 'meet to be
advanced' were drawn up. 43 Nothing was done then, but the two creations
of the 1590s were men on these lists: the second Lord Howard of Effingham
became an earl (Nottingham) and Lord Thomas Howard (the duke of
Norfolk's second son) became Lord Howard de Walden. It is probable that
a similar pattern can be traced in the bestowing of knighthoods, although
39
40
41
42
43
T h e complexities of the Dudley restoration are discussed in S. Adams, 'The Dudley

Clientele, 1553-1563', in G. W . Bernard (ed.), The Tudor Nobility (Manchester, 1992),
p. 254.
PRO, SP 12/74/43, Walsingham to Cecil, 22 Oct. 1570. Walsingham described Norris this
way in requesting financial assistance if he was to succeed him in Paris, on the ground that
he was otherwise in danger of being 'charged above my calling'.
PRO, SP 12/86/159-v, Mary Sidney to Burghley, 2 May 1572. In April 1582, when Sidney
was approached about serving as Lord Deputy in Ireland for a third time, he demanded
both a peerage and an augmentation of his estate as the price, see KAO U 1475/C 7/art. 4.
PRO, SP 52/23/art. 6, Hunsdon to Burghley, 7 May 1572.
PRO, SP 12/222/32, 46-7.
30
Simon Adams
the process would be more complex. In her instructions for Essex in 1599,
Elizabeth warned that knighthoods were only to be awarded to those who
deserved it by 'some notorious service' or those who had 'in possession or
reversion sufficient living' and claimed that sufficient moderation had not
been employed in the past - no doubt a reference to the 'Cadiz knights' of
1596.44
The conclusion to be drawn from this survey is that honours, with certain
specific exceptions, were granted only to those who could already afford
them. The scales were weighted heavily in favour of the cadet lines of
greater families (the Howards being the greatest beneficiaries) and the
descendants of certain major office-holders: five baronies (Rich, North,
Williams of Thame, Buckhurst and Norris) were granted to families whose
fortunes were founded by officers of the Court of Augmentations. One
effect of this policy was almost to detach peerages and honours from any
'patronage system', since they were so rarely awarded for service. Attempts
to find a political motive behind specific creations, for example those of
1529, 1559 or 1570-2, may be misdirected.45 The crown's hand may only
have been forced by the desire to promote individuals to great offices of state
that were normally expected to be held by peers, thus Burghley's promotion
following his appointment as Lord Treasurer, or Lord Darcy's as Lord
Chamberlain in 1551. Elizabeth's conservatism did, however, create a specific tension over claims through the female line to extinguished peerages, for
fourteen peerages died out during the reign. Robert Sidney's vociferous and
obsessive pursuit of the Dudley earldoms of Warwick and Leicester during
the 1590s is a case in point. Yet there were quite valid reasons for resisting
his claims - notably the existence of two widowed countesses and the
dispersal of Leicester's estate owing to his debts to the crown and his
bequest to his illegitimate son - and we can query whether Sidney's lack of
success was the work of political enemies.46
44
45
46
J. S. Brewer (ed.), Calendar of the Carew Manuscripts (6 vols., London, 1867-73), III,
p. 295.
It has been argued (e.g. Miller, Henry VIII, pp. 22-3) that the purpose of the mass creation
of 1529 was to create a majority of temporal peers in the Lords. However, Henry Pole, Lord
Montague or John, Lord Hussey were odd choices if peers hostile to the church were
sought.
The discussion of Sidney's pursuit of the Dudley earldoms and estates in M. V. Hay, The
Life of Robert Sidney, Earl of Leicester (1563-1626) (Washington, D C , 1984) is inadequate.
Peregrine Bertie managed to establish a claim to the barony of Willoughby d'Eresby by a
female descent in 1580-1, but only after considerable lobbying, see PRO, SP 12/144/51,
R. Bertie to Leicester, 11 Nov. 1580, and BL, Lansdowne M S 31, fo. 36, to Burghley, 13
Nov. 1580. Richard Fiennes and Edward Neville were unsuccessful in their respective
claims to the baronies of Saye and Sele and Burgavenny; see H M C , Manuscripts of the
Marquess of Bath, V, p. 91, and Manuscripts of the Marquess of Salisbury, III, pp. 251-2.
Neville is also discussed in Coward, THsputed Inheritances', 199-201. Sidney, Fiennes and
Neville were among those proposed for baronies in 1589, see PRO, SP 12/222/32.
31
III
If Elizabeth's 'policy' towards the peerage was very much within the Tudor
norm, her reign did see a major transformation of the patronage of the
crown. This, however, was as much the consequence of changes in financial
policy as the politics of patronage itself. Here the distinction between Henry
VIII's policy and his daughter's becomes most apparent, for Henry
employed a specific type of patronage that came to an end in the financial
collapse of the late 1540s, while Elizabethan practice was shaped by the
mid-century response to that collapse.
Henrician patronage was dominated by the 'royal affinity', a subject that
has only recently received serious attention. 47 The Tudor royal affinity was
the product of two major trends of the fifteenth century: the crown's
attempt to gain a monopoly over liveried retaining by creating its own
retinue or affinity, and the use of the Crown estate to support this affinity.48
Patronage was supplied by leases, annuities, rent charges and, most importantly, offices, particularly stewardships of Crown lands, rather than alienations. Offices of this type provided the crown with further specific forms of
service, in administration of the estate, in local government and in war. The
significance of the royal affinity to the raising of armies was made clear by a
statute of 1495, which stated that while all subjects owed military service, it
was 'specially suche persones as have by hym [i.e. the king] promocion or
avauncement, as grauntes and giftes of offices, fees and annuities, which owe
and verily be bounden of reason to gif their attendaunce upon his roiall
person to defend the same'. 49 The employment of offices in this way was
advocated by Sir John Fortescue in his proposals for re-endowing the
crown.50 As a policy it was pursued more or less consistently by Edward IV,
Henry VII and Henry VIII. 51 Under Henry VIII stewardships of royal
estates became one of the most widely employed types of reward. Many of
47
48
49
50
51
J. A. Guy, Tudor England (Oxford, 1988), pp. 165-8. D . Starkey, 'Intimacy and Innovation:
The Political Role of the Privy Chamber, 1485-1547', in The English Court, pp. 87-91.
C. Given-Wilson, The Royal Household and the King's Affinity (New Haven, Conn., 1986),
esp. chap. iv. Bean, Lord to Patron, pp. 205, 207, 210-11.
11 Henry V I I , c. 18, quoted in Miller, Henry VII, p. 133. T h e military function of the
affinity is further discussed in S. Adams, 'The English Military Clientele, 1542-1618', in
the proceedings of the Colloque on Patronage and Clienteles in England, Spain, France and
Italy 1550-1750, held at the Institut Francais (London) in May 1990 and to be published by
the Universite Charles de Gaulle-Lille III.
The Governance of England by Sir John Fortescue (ed. C. Plummer, Oxford, 1926),
pp. 143-4, 150-3.
For Edward IV, see D. A. L. Morgan, 'The House of Policy: The Political Role of the Late
Plantagenet Household, 1422-1485', in Starkey, The English Court, pp. 63-7. For Henry
VII, M. Condon, 'Ruling Elites in the Reign of Henry VIP, in C. Ross (ed.), Patronage,
Pedigree and Power in Later Medieval England (Gloucester, 1979), pp. 109-42, and Bean,
Lord to Patron, pp. 220-1, 226.
32
Simon Adams
the key figures of the Court in its first three decades - Sir William Compton,
Sir Ralph Egerton and William Brereton are the most closely studied to date
- built up long strings of crown stewardships, frequently in their counties of
origin or settlement, which made them figures of major local influence. 52
Grants in fee simple or fee tail were, by contrast, 'an exceptional favour',
as Helen Miller has observed for the reign of Henry VIII. 5 3 A statute of
1504 drew a further distinction between those merely possessing life interests, and those holding land of the king's gift, 'by reason they are more
bounden', in qualifying the obligation to military service. 54 The fact that
these were grants at pleasure or for life worked to the crown's advantage
politically as well as financially, for they made local influence very much
dependent on the good will of the king and on a position as the king's
servant, as was the case in the attachment of the stewardships of the Crown
estates in the northern counties to the wardenships of the Marches. 55 There
is even evidence from Henry VIII's reign of this patronage being exploited
to manage the House of Commons. During the debate on the subsidy in the
Parliament of 1523, it was reported that: 'There has been suche hold that the
Hous was like to have bene dissevered; that is to sey the Knights being of the
Kings Counsaill, the Kings servaunts and gentilmen, of the oon partie,
whiche in soo long tyme were spoken with and made to sey ye; it may
fortune, contrarie to their hert, will, and conscience.' 56 But this form of
patronage also accounted for two of the more prominent features of Tudor
Court life: the attempt to establish some form of semi-heritable interest the long lease, or reversions and grants in survivorship of offices or leases and the scramble for those life grants that became available on the death of
an office-holder.57
52
53
55
56
57
E. W. Ives, 'Court and County Palatine in the Reign of Henry VIII: T h e Career of William
Brereton of Malpas', Transactions of the Historic Society of Lancashire and Cheshire, 123
(1971), 1-38; 'Patronage at the Court of Henry VIII: T h e Case of Sir Ralph Egerton of
Ridley', Bulletin of the John Rylands Library, 52 (1969-70), 346-74. G. W . Bernard, 'The
Rise of Sir William Compton, Early T u d o r Courtier', EHR, 96 (1981), 745-77. See also
Gunn, Suffolk, pp. 178-9, and for a Yorkist example, I. Rowney, 'Resources and Retaining
in Yorkist England: William, Lord Hastings and the Honour of Tutbury', in Pollard,
Property and Politics, pp. 139-55.
M
Henry VIII, p. 224.
19 Henry V I I , c. 1, quoted in Miller, Henry VIII, p. 134.
See, for example, the assignment of crown stewardships to Sir Thomas Wharton on
appointment as deputy-warden of the West March in 1537, M . E. James, 'Change and
Continuity in the Tudor North: Thomas First Lord Wharton', in Society, Politics and
Culture (Cambridge, 1986), p. 121, though James does not give prominence to the crown's
lordships in the North in his studies of the northern nobility. See also the comments of
G. W. Bernard in 'The Fall of Anne Boleyn', EHR, 106 (1991), 594-5.
Quoted in J. A. Guy, 'Wolsey and the Parliament of 1523', in C. Cross, et al. (eds.), Law and
Government under the Tudors (Cambridge, 1988), p. 3.
For an example of the pressure for reversions, see Ives, 'Egerton', 365. T h e creation of a
semi-heritable interest through father and son holding office in survivorship was an
established tactic, see, for example, A. J. Slavin, 'Sir Ralph Sadler and Master John Hales at
33
John Guy and David Starkey have described Henry VIIPs royal affinity
as a wide network, encompassing almost the entire political nation during
the 1520s and 1530s.58 Guy estimates that during the latter years of his reign
Henry had between 1,000 and 1,200 significant paid offices at his disposal. 59
These were very much under the king's direct control, moreover he had
little regard for the convention that officers could appoint their own subordinates. 60 No general record (outside the Patent Rolls) appears to have been
kept of the king's grants, at least under Cardinal Wolsey. When Compton
died in 1528, no one had any idea of the extent of his offices and fees and a
search in Chancery had to be undertaken. 61 Wolsey's attempts to control the
Privy Chamber suggest that he had no monopoly of influence over the
crown's patronage. It may be of significance that such a charge did not
figure among those brought against him by the council in December 1529.62
In its military role, the royal affinity reached its apogee in the expedition
to Boulogne in 1544.63 There is some ground, therefore, for considering the
capitulation of Boulogne (14 September 1544) as marking the end of an era.
The reasons for the collapse of the royal affinity after 1544 were both
financial and military. The financial problem was created by the fact that
although the funding of the affinity avoided permanent alienation of the
Crown estate, it created its own dangers by burdening it with fees and
offices. Despite the scanty evidence for the administration of the land
revenue in the first half of Henry's reign, there is some indication that by the
early 1530s it was unable to meet the demands placed upon it. 64 The last
Parliament of Edward IV (1483) had seen the passing of a statute assigning
the revenues of certain Crown estates to the support of the household, in
order to assure payment to tradesmen and other suppliers. 65 Similar statutes
were passed in the first Parliaments of Richard III, Henry VII and Henry
VIII. Henry VIIFs statute (1510) declared explicitly that it was intended to
58
60
61
62
63
64
65
the Hanaper: A Sixteenth-Century Struggle for Property and Profit', BIHR, 38 (1965),
46-7. A major scramble for offices occurred on the death of Sir William Compton in 1528;
the best account is in P. Gwyn, The King's Cardinal: The Rise and Fall of Thomas Wolsey
(London, 1990), pp. 196-8.
59
G u y , Tudor England, pp. 167-8.
Ibid., p . 166.
See, e.g., Richardson, Augmentations, p p . 192, 225, Miller, Henry VIII, p . 179, and State
Papers . . . Henry VIII (11 vols., London, 1830-52), I, p . 651, the duke of Norfolk to the
Council, 16 Oct. 1540.
Bernard, 'Compton', 761-2.
F o r the charges against Wolsey, see B L , Cotton M S Vespasian F I X , fos. 175-7v. T h e best
account of Wolsey and the patronage of the crown is in Gwyn, King's
Cardinal,
pp. 190-201. Cf. Bernard, 'Compton', 775. Starkey, 'Intimacy and Innovation', does not
discuss the subject.
Discussed in Adams, 'English Military Clientele'.
J. D . Alsop, ' T h e Theory and Practice of T u d o r Taxation', EHR, 97 (1982), 21-2. Wolffe,
Crown Lands, pp. 8 2 - 3 , 85-6.
A. R. Myers (ed.), The Household of Edward IV: The Black Book and the Ordinance of 1478
(Manchester, 1959), p. 36.
34
Simon Adams
prevent the revenues of the named estates being used for rewards.66 This
concern is also reflected in the Act of Resumption of 1515, which noted that
'your lands . . . being so greatly minished by reason of the manifold gifts,
grants and releeves . . . that the residue thereof now remaining . . . no wise
sufficeth . . . to bear or maintain your great charges'. To this end a number
of grants - annuities not connected to office-holding, reversions to offices
and absentee officers - were abolished.67 A second statute of assignment for
the household was passed in 1531, specifically transferring the burden from
the land revenue to the customs so that more of the estate could be used for
patronage.68
The expropriation of the monastic lands should have rectified the situation, for, not being considered part of the Crown's inherited estate, they
could be employed to relieve the burden of patronage.69 There is also
evidence - the shadowy 'King's Book' of the 'names of such persons to
whom the king's majesty will now give any lands, fees or offices' projected in
1537 - that at the same time Thomas Cromwell was seeking to obtain a
greater (if not monopoly) control over grants.70 However, Cromwell's plans
died with him and the military and financial crisis of 15445 overwhelmed
the land revenue by massive overseas borrowing and land sales; the continuation of the war to 1550 made it impossible to recoup. Moreover, the war
itself amounted to a minor military revolution, for it was fought in the main
with fortresses and permanent garrisons employing firearms, for which the
retinues provided by the royal affinity were of little use. As a military
institution, the retinue did not disappear overnight, but its replacement
during the course of the second half of the century by the revived militia and
the standing garrison led to pressure for new forms of remuneration and
reward for the professional officer.71
In providing permanent employment and a career structure a standing
army does at least resolve the question of reward. In its absence the crown
was faced with recurrent demands for other forms of reward for its military
servants. Part of the Edwardian crisis was the increase in demands for
military rewards combined with diminished revenues and increased basic
military expenditure. The lower level of Elizabethan military activity prior
to 1585 reduced the pressure, but even so the demands created by such
66
67
68
70
71
1 Henry VIII, c. 16; c. 17 was a similar act passed for the Wardrobe.
6 Henry VIII, c. 25. This was derived from earlier acts of Resumption, see Miller, Henry
VIII, p. 198 and S. J. Gunn, 'The Act of Resumption of 1515', in D . Williams (ed.), Early
Tudor England (Woodbridge, 1989), pp. 87-106. Gunn's comments on the patronage of the
crown in the early years of Henry's reign on pp. 9&-104 are valuable.
69
22 Henry VIII, c. 18.
Miller, Henry VIII, pp. 224-5.
B L , Cotton M S Titus B I, fo. 457. On the 'King's Book', see D . Starkey, 'Court and
Government', in C. Coleman and D . Starkey (eds.), Revolution Reassessed (Oxford, 1986),
pp. 53-4, and 'Tudor Government: T h e Facts?', / / J , 31 (1988), 922.
See Adams, 'English Military Clientele'.
35
standing forces as Elizabeth consented to maintain were considerable. The

annuity of 1,100 that Lord Hunsdon received as governor of Berwick was
compared favourably to the potential profits of the lord chamberlaincy.72
After 1585 military rewards once again became a major issue. The establishment of the permanent English contingent in the Netherlands did
provide a partial alleviation, but compared to the overall forces raised
during the 1590s it was only a limited one. 73
Faced with near-bankruptcy in August 1550 the Privy Council
announced a moratorium on all suits 'in any man's behalf for land to be
given, reversion to offices, leases of manors or extraordinary annuities,
except for certain captains who served at Boulogne, their answer being
deferred to Michaelmas next'.74 There followed a debate over financial
reform that lasted over the course of the decade and which shaped policy for
the remainder of the century.75 The victory went to the marquess of
Winchester, thanks largely to his survival into Mary's reign. Winchester's
solution was to restore the value of the Crown estate by halting alienations,
more economic management, and reducing the burden of offices both on the
estates and in the household, while simultaneously increasing the yield of
the customs. The best known of his 'reforms' were the 1558 book of customs
rates and the absorption of the combined Court of Augmentations and
General Surveyors by the Exchequer. However, the wider consequences on
the use of office-holding for patronage were of major importance. The new
policy led initially to the great survey of the crown's office-holders of
1552.76 It may also have inspired the statute of 1553 prohibiting sale of
offices involved in the administration of justice or services of trust.77 The
Court of Augmentations had possessed a substantial bureaucracy, both
central and local. Winchester's reforms involved the elimination of most of
these offices - although their immediate incumbents were compensated by
72
73
74
75
76
77
Stone, 'Hunsdon', 283-5. For examples of the claims of professional officers for rewards, see
B L , Lansdowne M S 12, fo. 216, C. Vaughan to Cecil, [1560-2], and Magdalene College
[Cambridge], Pepys M S 2502, p. 553, Sir J. Croft to Leicester, 28 February 1566.
T h e importance of the Netherlands regiments is discussed in Adams, 'English Military
Clientele'.
Chronicle of Edward VI, p. 45.
T h e best discussion so far is C. Coleman, 'Artifice or Accident? T h e Reorganization of the
Exchequer of Receipt, c. 1554-1572', in Revolution Reassessed, p p . 163-98, but see also
Hoyle, 'Introduction: Aspects of the Crown's Estate, c. 1558-1640', in Estates of the English
Crown, pp. 33-9.
B L , Stowe M S 571, discussed in D . Hoak, 'The King's Privy Chamber, 1547-1553', in
D . J. Guth and J. W. McKenna (eds.), Tudor Rule and Revolution (Cambridge, 1983), p. 89,
n. 7. See also J. Alsop, 'The Revenue Commission of 1552', HJ, 22 (1979), 511-33, which
notes (p. 526) that although the commission began in the misplaced belief that there were
extensive debts to the crown outstanding, it soon focussed on offices as the main source of
potential economies.
5&6 Edward VI, c. 16.
36
Simon Adams
generous pensions.78 At the same time, the circumstances of Mary's accession caused many of the chief recipients of Edwardian military patronage to
lose their offices and rewards.79
It may not be stretching the point to suggest that the collapse of the royal
affinity and the financial crisis of the 1550s created a 'mid-Tudor crisis in
patronage', and that the chosen solution involved the elimination of officeholding as the major instrument of royal patronage for the remainder of the
century, in direct contrast to France.80 The frequently commented-upon
absence of a national royal bureaucracy was not an accident but a deliberate
act of policy. The other relevant consequence of Winchester's reforms was
the enhancement of the potential role of the Lord Treasurer - who now
controlled directly all the major sources of the land revenue (with the
exception of the Duchy of Lancaster) - as a patronage minister. Winchester
appears to have obtained from Mary 'a promise not to determine the gift of
any land without [my] consent', and may have been successful in practice in
holding her to it.81
IV
Elizabeth's awareness of the financial restraints on patronage was signalled
by Sir Nicholas Bacon - albeit highly rhetorically and with an element of
special pleading - in his opening speech to the Parliament of 1559. After
referring to the 'marvellous decays and waste of the revenue of the crown',
he drew attention to the 'huge and most wonderful charge, newly grown' of
fortifications and the navy, which 'in mine opinion . . . doth exceed the
ancient yearly revenue of the crown', and then drew the conclusion: 'The
necessity and need of this ragged and torn state . . . should by force so bridle
and restrain the noble nature of such a princess, that she is not able to show
such liberality and bountifulness to her servants and subjects, as her heart
and inclination disposeth her highness to.' 82 Given the increased power of
78
79
80
81
82
Richardson, Augmentations, pp. 207, 220-6, 246-7. T h e importance of the Augmentations

bureaucracy is emphasized by D . L. Thomas, < The Administration of the Crown Lands in
Lincolnshire under Elizabeth I', unpublished London Ph.D. thesis (1979), pp. 16-17, 46.
The subject of the displaced Edwardians is addressed in Adams, 'Dudley Clientele', pp. 248,
255-7; see also Slavin, 'Sadler and Hales', pp. 38-40.
For the thrust of Winchester's policy, see the answers to the 'articles propounded for the
diminution of charges and safe answering of the revenue of the crown' of 1555, BL, Cotton
M S Titus B IV, fos. 129-31. M . Gray, 'Power, Patronage and Politics: Office-Holding and
Administration on the Crown's Estates in Wales', in Hoyle, Estates of the English Crown,
pp. 137-62, argues for the continued importance of local office-holding in Wales, but elides
officers of the Crown estate and noble estates, cf. Hoyle, in ibid., pp. 44-5.
B L , Cotton M S Titus B I I , fo. 136, 4 July 1555[?]. See also Richardson, Augmentations,
p. 260, for Winchester's influence on leases.
T . E. Hartley (ed.), Proceedings in the Parliaments of Elizabeth I, I: 1558-1581 (Leicester,
1981), pp. 37-8.
37
the Lord Treasurers after 1554 it is tempting to see policy as demarcated by

the succession in office of Winchester, Burghley and Lord Buckhurst, yet
the central figure remained the queen. Whatever her parsimony in other
respects, Elizabeth took pride in 'her old wont, which is always to hold both
ears and eyes open for her good servants'. 83 Like Henry VIII, she took a
close and detailed interest in the minutiae of patronage.84 No officer of the
crown appears to have controlled the sign manual in the way that Cromwell
had sought. While the secretaries of state possessed lists of offices and fees,
there is no evidence of a 'queen's book' of grants as Cromwell in the reign of
Henry VIII and Salisbury in the reign of James I attempted to establish.85
The two treatises on the secretaryship written by Robert Beale and
Nicholas Faunt in 1592, both of which probably reflect Walsingham's
influence, are more concerned with matters of state than patronage. Faunt
says nothing on the subject, while Beale's advice is almost to avoid becoming involved. As much as possible suits were to be referred 'unto others of
the Chamber or the household under whom they serve'; members of the
queen's kin and the privy chamber were to be pleasured, but with regard to
the latter 'yet yield not to their importunity for suits'. Ordinary suits were to
be dealt with by the masters of requests. Since bills for lands and leases
needed the signatures of the Lord Treasurer, the Chancellor of the
Exchequer, and the Attorney- and Solicitor-General, Beale's treatise can be
seen as a recognition of the Lord Treasurer's central role, with the Secretary
of State playing purely a bureaucratic one. 86
The evidence of the process of suing reveals two important features. In
general it was up to the suitor to make his own case, yet there appears to
have been a convention that to sue directly for oneself was 'not commendable'. 87 This applied at the highest level and contributed to the pronounced
degree of collegiality among the Privy Council which is characteristic of the
first three decades of the reign. Examples are extensive, but one is very
83
84
85
86
87
M S S of the Marquess of Salisbury, Hatfield House, Cecil Papers 11, fo. 97 (calendared in
H M C , Calendar of the MSS of the Marquis of Salisbury, I I , p . 403), Leicester to Walsingham, 30 July 1581.
Thomas, 'Lincolnshire', pp. 16, 44. She could be as cavalier as her father in appointing to
under-offices nominally in the gift of a superior. For an example, see PRO, S P 12/105/163,
Leicester and Walsingham to the earl of Shrewsbury, 15 N o v . 1575.
T h e proposal to regulate approaches of suitors to the masters of requests in February 1594
(PRO, SP 12/247/98-9) was inspired by a concern for security at the court, not by a desire to
systematize patronage.
Beale's treatise is printed in C. Read, Mr. Secretary Walsingham and the Policy of Queen
Elizabeth (3 vols., Oxford, 1925), I, pp. 4 2 1 - 4 3 , esp. pp. 437-8. Faunt's was published by
C. Hughes in EHR, 20 (1905), 499-508.
Magdalene College, Pepys M S 2503, p. 307, Archbishop Parker and Bishop Grindal to
Leicester, 2 June 1569. Although this comment referred to ecclesiastical patronage, the
general point was made by Sir Geoffrey Elton in discussion during the Anglo-German
Conference on the Early-Modern Court at Madingley Hall, Cambridge, in 1987.
38
Simon Adams
revealing of the consequent difficulty in establishing direct 'patronagebroking5. In 1571 William Fitzwilliam, Sir Walter Mildmay's son-in-law,
was appointed a gentleman pensioner, and W. J. Tighe in his study of the
gentlemen pensioners drew the natural conclusion that the appointment
reflected Mildmay's influence. In fact it was obtained by the earl of
Leicester as a favour to William Fitzwilliam's father, Sir William Fitzwilliam, then Lord Justice in Ireland. 88 No less important is the impression that
the suitor's main difficulty lay in persuading the queen to go through with
verbal agreements. She appears to have been more than ready to halt
proceedings for second thoughts and to haggle extensively. The process
from verbal agreement to the passing of letters patent under great seal could
take months.
A well-documented example of the process as a whole is Leicester's
conduct of a major exchange of lands with the queen in 1566. His pressing
need for financial assistance having been discussed for some months, he
received a verbal agreement from Elizabeth in February 1566, and then left
the Court to visit in the country. He did not return until early April, having
been delayed by the illness of his sister, the countess of Huntingdon, much
to Elizabeth's growing annoyance. He left his suit to be negotiated by Cecil
in his absence, in whom he appears to have placed complete confidence. It
was the queen herself who decided that the original proposal was unfavourable to her, and referred it to the auditors of the Exchequer for renegotiation; it was not until 29 June that the letters patent were finally sealed. 89
Where the Lord Treasurers were most influential was in the relationship
of patronage to wider financial policy. Winchester initially appears to have
attempted to continue his Marian policy of reorganizing the Crown estate,
and the statute of 1563 assigning revenues to support the household drew
mainly on the land revenue. 90 During the middle of the 1560s he concentrated on improving the administration of the customs. Burghley's succession to the office does seem to have initiated a new policy. Several of his
memoranda reveal an appreciation of the political advantages of patronage.
In April 1572, he regretted the queen's failure to erect and advance 'to
estates and degrees multitudes of chosen and faithful persons to assure
88
89
90
W. J. Tighe, 'The Gentlemen Pensioners in Elizabethan Politics and Government',

unpublished Cambridge Ph.D. thesis (1983), p. 189. Cf. Bodleian Library, M S Carte 57, fo.
212, Mildmay to Fitzwilliam, 15 Dec. 1571.
See PRO, SP 12/39/105, 125, Leicester to Cecil, 20 Feb., 20 March 1566; SP 15/13/11-13,
14-15, John Dudley to Leicester, 29, 31 March.
5 Eliz. c. 32. Of the 40,000 assigned, only some 13,000 came from customs receipts. For
Winchester's policy towards the Crown estate in the early 1560s see R. W. Hoyle, 'Customary Tenure on the Elizabethan Estates', in Estates of the English Crown, pp. 198-9, and
S. Adams, 'The Composition of 1564 and the Earl of Leicester's Tenurial Reformation in
the Lordship of Denbigh', Bulletin of the Board of Celtic Studies, 26 (1976), 490-1.
39
91
herself thereby'. In January 1580 he advised Elizabeth in the event that

she rejected the Anjou marriage: 'That you gratyfye your nobylyte and the
principall persons of your realme to bynde them faste to you with such
things as have heretofore bene cast away upon them that in tyme of neede
can serve you to no purpose; whereby you shall have all men of value in your
realme to depend only upon you.' 92
No less importantly, Burghley also appears to have presided over a major
re-shaping of the financial basis of the crown's patronage. Recent work on
the Elizabethan Crown estate has suggested that under Burghley there was
something of a return to the Henrician exploitation of the estate for patronage purposes, although there is no evidence for an overall policy. 93 In
Lincolnshire the estate consisted of a large number of small ex-monastic
properties, which were difficult to administer effectively, and David
Thomas has argued that the crown gave up any attempt to realize the
financial value of its lands and employed them purely for patronage. 94
Katherine Wyndham, on the other hand, suggests that in Somerset, where
the Crown estate was also not extensive, there was a sustained effort to
retain the major portions of it. 95 More recently it has been argued that it was
only after Buckhurst took office in 1598 that there was a sustained attempt to
improve the return on the Crown's lands. 96 More significant, and characteristic of Burghley's administration, was the employment of new types of
grant, first seen in the 1560s, but far more prominent after 1570: favourable
leases, leases in reversion, exchanges, grants in fee-farm and searches for
concealed ex-monastic lands. 97
Where Burghley appears to have had a more dramatic impact was on the
real novelty of Elizabethan patronage: the exploitation of the customs
revenues through farming, various import and export concessions and
monopolies. Winchester opposed customs farming and tried to block the
91
92
93
94
95
96
97
J. Bain et al. (eds.), Calendar of State Papers, Scotland (13 vols., Edinburgh, 1898-1969), IV,
p. 272.
W . M u r d i n (ed.)> A Collection of State Papers . . . left by ... Lord Burghley ( L o n d o n , 1759),
p. 340.
D . Thomas, 'The Elizabethan Crown Lands', in Hoyle, Estates of the English Crown,
pp. 78-81.
Ibid., p. 63, and 'Lincolnshire', p. 382.
K. H. S. Wyndham, 'The Redistribution of Crown Land in Somerset by Gift, Sale and
Lease, 1536-1572', unpublished London Ph.D. thesis (1976), p. 266, and 'Crown Land and
Royal Patronage in Mid-Sixteenth Century England', JBS, 19 (1980), 33.
Hoyle, '"Shearing the Hog": T h e Reform of the Estates, c. 1598-1640', in Estates of the
English Crown, pp. 204-62.
Thomas, 'Elizabethan Crown Lands' and 'Leases of Crown Lands in the Reign of Elizabeth
I', in Hoyle, Estates of the English Crown, pp. 79, 169-90. See also Thomas, 'Leases in
Reversion on the Crown's Lands, 1558-1603', EcHR, 2nd ser., 30 (1977), 67-72, and C. J.
Kitchin, 'The Quest for Concealed Lands in the Reign of Queen Elizabeth I', TRHS, 5th
ser., 24 (1974), 63-78.
40
Simon Adams
earliest proposals in 1568-9. The major farms were all established in the
1570s with the leading crown servants - Leicester, Hatton, Walsingham and
then Essex - being the recipients.98 No less important were export concessions, particularly of wool or cloth. The first major recipient had been
Leicester in 1560-3, when they were clearly intended as a temporary source
of income while his estate was resolved." Thereafter they became a regular
feature of the crown's patronage. Burghley has been considered a leading
encourager of monopolies, both of imported commodities and of domestic
manufactures. Initially the latter were intended to support a policy of
import substitution, but after about 1572 monopolies began to feature
prominently as rewards.100
By the 1580s, therefore, a major re-shaping of the patronage of the crown
had in fact taken place. If the treatment of the Crown estate has similarities
to its use under Henry VIII, the novel exploitation of the customs and the
creation of monopolies can be considered the Elizabethan equivalent of the
contemporary French exploitation of sale of office. The main characteristic
of the new sources of reward was the limited pressure they placed on the
crown's landed resources. Like the Henrician use of offices, they possessed
the benefit for the crown of being temporary or life-grants, which could be
reclaimed on death or loss of favour. Elizabeth's largess to Leicester could
thus be justified as a subsidy for his attendance at Court in the requisite
style. Once he died she considered herself equally justified in cancelling his
patents and calling in his debts. The new rewards did not resolve the issue of
heritable interests and the scramble for vacancies remained a regular feature
of Court life. Yet unlike the Henrician offices, the Elizabethan concessions
did not involve regional power; instead they created what Robert Ashton
has called the 'concessionary interest'.101 This can be considered a form of
centralization by default, but here the City of London was as important as
the Court and the most important consequence was the strengthening of a
central financial nexus. The concessions also fell heavily on the consumer,
inspiring a major body of criticism by the end of the reign. In this respect,
the revival of the demand that the king should live of his own was a response
not simply to increased parliamentary taxation, but also - and more
specifically - to the shifting of the burden of the reward of its servants from
the crown to the commonwealth. There is a certain irony in the fact that
98
99
100
101
F. C. Dietz, 'Elizabethan Customs Administration', EHR, 45 (1930), esp. 41-5, 117. For a
good example of the combination of grants received by senior privy councillors, see
S. Doran, 'The Finances of an Elizabethan Nobleman and Royal Servant: A Case Study of
Thomas Radcliffe, 3rd Earl of Sussex', Historical Research, 61 (1988), esp. 290, 293.
CPR, 1558-60, p. 321,1560-63, pp. 244-5, 2 7 0 - 1 , 361.
G. D . Duncan, 'Monopolies under Elizabeth I, 1558-1585', unpublished Cambridge
Ph.D. thesis (1976), esp. p. 116.
R. Ashton, The City and the Court 1603-1640 (Cambridge, 1979), pp. 12ff.
41
main targets of Salisbury's proposed reforms of the patronage of the crown

after 1608 were precisely those devices that his father had encouraged.102
As important to late-Elizabethan patronage as the employment of the new

sources of reward were new attitudes towards service. The brevity of the
reigns of Edward and Mary inhibited the creation of a new type of royal
affinity. Elizabeth's raises more complex questions, for there is some evidence to suggest that her accession marked the triumph of an affinity. A
large number of her grants in 1559, both of offices and of lands, were
bestowed on men identified simply as the queen's servants, with no particular office attached. Some of these men were clearly minor household
figures, but there were also a number of greater significance: Sir John
Perrot, Thomas Fisher of Warwick, John Harington of Stepney, Simon
Musgrave, Sir Thomas Chaloner and Sir George Howard.103 Some later
obtained office, but others did not. The scanty evidence of the mobilization
of support in the autumn of 1558 has long been known; it may be that these
grants were the subsequent rewards.
Thereafter, however, a distinct royal affinity is difficult to discover,
though an echo of the Henrician policy may be detected in Burghley's
memoranda of 1572 and 1580. One reason may be the consistent hostility
Elizabeth displayed towards any manifestation of liveried retaining, which
greatly encouraged the decline of retaining in general during the reign. 104
Yet elements of such an affinity may be reflected in the collegiality of the
Privy Council on matters of patronage. Not the least interesting aspect of
Leicester's 1566 exchange is the evidence it supplies for querying whether
absence from Court was indeed dangerous and colleagues on the Privy
Council not to be relied upon. The collegiality within the Privy Council,
and particularly that between Burghley and Leicester, is an essential
element in the politics of patronage prior to 1588. For all that has been
written of the 'Leicester-Burghley rivalry' hard evidence for patronage
contests has been difficult to come by. When their various efforts at advancing suits are studied, the beneficiaries turn out to be much the same people,
the central core of the crown's servants. In 1585 Burghley became quite
upset at gossip that he monopolized patronage and considered himself
maligned by the regnum Cecilianum.105 Nor is there evidence of Leicester
102
104
105
103
See P R O , S P 14/37/152.
See CPR, 1558-60, pp. 27, 45, 59, 86, 90, 93.
See Adams, 'English Military Clientele'.
P R O , S P 12/181/138v, 158-60, W. Herle to Burghley, 11 Aug., Burghley to Herle, 14 Aug.
1585. T h i s appears to have been the earliest use of the term, which became more common
during the 1590s.
42
Simon Adams
possessing an access to the queen behind Burghley's back. This does not
mean that there were no disagreements over policy, or that either was slack
at pursuing his own interests, but disputes over policy did not transform
themselves into disputes over patronage.106 Indeed a certain mutual sympathy over their respective financial positions can even be detected. In 1571,
Burghley, reflecting on the borrowing he was forced to undertake to support
'my fond humour of Building', observed 'And so I had rather do, my lord,
and leave my heir less land to repay than by bribery in any office I have to set
up one brickstone, or by being too importunate to her majesty to seek
further relief of her majesty. You see of what disease I labour, not unlike
your own in my opinion.'107 In 1575 Leicester wrote in a similar vein: 'I
know your lordship's charge to be as mine and as your place requireth.'108
What helped to reinforce this collegiality were two novel approaches to
service. The first was a demand for religious allegiance which can be
detected at the beginning of the reign in the purge of the Court, and then in
the removal of the earl of Northumberland from the wardenships of the East
and Middle Marches at the end of 1559, following Sir Ralph Sadler's doubts
about his loyalty.109 The second was a more self-consciously classical
definition of service. By the mid-1580s Walsingham was employing the
phrase 'public service' regularly, most clearly in the context of the Netherlands expedition. In September 1585 he informed Leicester: 'But yf your
lordships requests shall mynister matter of charge, thowghe yt be for
publycke servyce, the impedyment wyll be fownde in her majestye .. .' u o In
the summer of 1587 he commented, 'Sorry I am to see men so unwilling and
discomforted to be employed in any public service.'111 There are echoes of
Fortescue's regnum politicum et regale here; Leicester, for example, distinguished in 1573 between his 'private good will to yourself and for public
106
107
108
109
110
111
M . M . Leimon, 'Sir Francis Walsingham and the Anjou Marriage Plans 1574-1581',
unpublished Cambridge P h . D . thesis (1989), has attempted to revive this connection, by
arguing (pp. 77ff) that Walsingham exploited his influence o n patronage to create a ideologically sympathetic following in the Irish administration, while Leicester and Burghley
played a 'passive role*. However, Leimon did not examine Leicester's extensive Irish
correspondence, which reveals that many of the men h e claims to have been Walsingham's
clients (Sir Nicholas Maltby, for example), were already Leicester's. Leicester's Irish
correspondence is discussed in S. Adams, 'The Papers of Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester.
II. T h e Atye-Cotton Collection', Archives, 20 (1993), 136-8.
M S S of the Marquess of Bath, Longleat House, Dudley Papers, II, fo. 57, 10 Aug. 1571.
B L , Harleian M S 6992, fo. 11, 28 June 1575. T h e one discordant note is the complaint of
Leicester on Burghley's failure to help h i m relayed by the earl of Northumberland to
Burghley in February 1576, see B L , Lansdowne M S 2 1 , fo. 75.
For the removal of Northumberland, see A. Clifford (ed.), The State Papers and Letters of
Sir Ralph Sadler (2 vols., Edinburgh, 1809), I, pp. 409, 460, 4 7 0 - 1 .
J. Bruce (ed.), Correspondence of Robert Dudley, Earl of Leycester (Camden S o c , X X V I I ,
1844), p. 9.
BL, Cotton MS Galba D I, fo. 47, to Leicester, 8 June 1587.
43
respect of my country and the queen's majesty's service'.112 The commonwealth tradition may also have had an influence, but it employed a terminology of private commodity and the common weal, while this use of 'public
service' would appear related to the increasing use of 'the state'.113 The
significance of such a definition of public service lay in its qualification of
the crown's powers to define service at will. There were now public criteria
to be taken into account, and some types of service would be more worthy
than others. This provided both a basis for claims of merit and a basis for
criticism of the crown's choice. One consequence of the new emphasis on
merit may be the 'memoirs of services' that begin to survive from the 1570s.
The longest and best known is that supplied by Sir Henry Sidney to
Walsingham in 1583, but the earliest surviving one was drawn up by Henry
Killigrew some time after 1573. A second (and later) one by Killigrew has
also survived, as have others by Sir James Croft and Sir Thomas Wilkes,
while Sir Robert Carey provides a Jacobean example.114 These have generally been consulted for the valuable biographical information they often
uniquely contain, but their purpose was not that of a private memoir, but to
support a claim for reward.
In its combination of the pressures of war, particularly on a patronage
'system' now heavily dependent on the profits of trade, and the revived
demand for military patronage, the 1590s saw a return to the tensions of the
reign of Edward VI. But there was a major novelty in the public identification of the earl of Essex with the conduct of an aggressive war against Spain,
and his efforts, as the self-proclaimed spokesman for this military interest,
to arrogate to himself a monopoly of military patronage.115 Moreover this
military interest adopted the rhetoric of public service which was being
deprived of its due reward. Instead of a broad band of royal servants
presided over by a collegial council, a division into military and civil
factions, reflected in the pseudo-Plutarchianism of Naunton's Fragmenta
regalia, was encouraged.116 It is in this context that Essex's impact on
112
113
114
115
116
Bodleian Library, MS Carte 56, fo. 221, to Sir William Fitzwilliam, 26 Oct. 1573.
Some of the earliest uses of 'the state' are found in Irish correspondence, as, for example,
'this state here erected', in BL, Addit. MS 32091, fo. 57v, Sir J. Perrot to Leicester,
20 April 1572.
The most accessible version of Sidney's memoir is found in Cal. Carew MSS, II,
pp. 334-60. Killigrew's earlier memoir is BL, Lansdowne MS 106, fo. 132. His second and
Wilkes' are printed in Howard, Collection of Letters, I, pp. 184-5, and II, pp. 518-21.
Croft's has been published by R. E. Ham, 'The Autobiography of Sir James Croft', BIHR,
50 (1977), 48-57, and Carey's by F. H. Mares, The Memoirs of Robert Carey (Oxford,
1972).
See the complaints of Lord Grey in 1598, HMC, Salisbury MSS, VIII, p. 269, and also
James, 'At a Crossroads of the Political Culture: The Essex Revolt, 1601', in Society,
Politics and Culture, pp. 427-9.
I.e. the distinction between the togati and the militia, see Sir R. Naunton, Fragmenta
regalia, p. 48.
44
Simon Adams
Elizabethan politics should be assessed. The neo-feudal and neo-chivalric

aspect is deceptive, for it is in Essex's circle that the growing classicization
of politics becomes explicit.117
The pressure on conciliar collegiality was further heightened by Essex's
radical identification of friends and enemies at the level of both county and
Court and his open use of his influence to advance one or depress the other.
A good example is his decision in February 1597 to support Robert Sidney
against Lord Cobham as Warden of the Cinque Ports on the latter's father's
death. There were several legitimate reasons against the appointment of
Sidney, as Essex himself appreciated; his motive was purely to stop
Cobham: 'such hath his base villanies bene towards me, which to all the
world is to well known, that he shalbe sure never to have yt if I can keepe
him from yt'.118 Such efforts to monopolize the patronage of the crown to
conduct private vendettas created an edge to factionalism not seen before.
With this came a political language of controlling the Court, as Vere's
comments, quoted at the beginning, illustrate. Essex was thus the first
Elizabethan political figure to equate control of patronage with power, and
his pressure on patronage at all levels created hostility even among those
who were previously his friends.119 Only after Essex lost his influence at
Court did he adopt the rhetoric of popular discontent with the concessionary interests.
The 1590s therefore saw the emergence of a politics of patronage which
had not been present earlier. It was not so much the result of a demographic
crisis of supply and demand, as a reflection of the novel political significance
of patronage in those years. The crisis of supply and demand arose in the
mid-Tudor decades; to this Elizabeth and her councillors had found a
temporary resolution in the new devices of the 1570s and 1580s. But this
resolution in turn created a new framework in which the wealth generated
by the concessionary interest became essential for anyone seeking to play a
major political role. It was also accompanied by a redefinition of service.
During thefirsthalf of the century service had been defined by the crown at
will; in Elizabeth's reign it became increasingly subject to wider criteria,
which created a new justification for criticism and discontent, the more so
since the burden of reward was now borne by a wider public. In the course
117
118
119
The neo-feudal and neo-chivalric case is made in James, 'Crossroads', pp. 416-65, and
R. C. McCoy, The Rites of Knighthood (Berkeley, Calif., 1989), chap. 4. For the neo-classical
tone, see e.g. the correspondence between Essex and Lord Willoughby in 1599, HMC,
Salisbury MSS, IX, pp. 9-11, 34-5.
Collins, Sidney Papers, II, p. 20, R. Whyte to Sidney, 27 Feb. 1597, see also I, p. 115, ibid.,
4 March 1597.
For examples, see HMC, Salisbury MSS, VI, p. 197, VIII, p. 233; and H. Ellis (ed.),
Original Letters (London, 1824-46), 3rd ser., IV, pp. 112-17, R. Beale to Burghley, 24
April 1595.
45
of this process, the relationship between faction and patronage was transformed. Patronage became both a means to an end and a demonstration of
political power; factions became the norm of Court politics rather than the
exception. The politics of collegiality were replaced by the politics of
competition.
Regnum Cecilianum} A Cecilian perspective

of the Court
Natalie Meats
They that say in a rash and malicious mockry, that England is become a
regnum Cecilianum may please their own cankered humour with such a
device; but if my actions be considered, if there be any cause given by me
of such a nickname, there may be found out in many other further causes to
attribute other names then mine. (Lord Burghley)1
Sir John Neale argued, in his British Academy Raleigh Lecture in 1948, that
public perception of a regnum Cecilianum^ or kingdom of the Cecils, was
common currency in the 1590s, invoking Spenser's lament that a once
virtuous councillor had turned conservative and ambitious with age, seeking
the advance of none but his own son, Sir Robert Cecil. Though initially
cautious to affirm that such Cecilian influence and style, in reality, permeated the whole fabric of government, he presented the 1590s as a decade
of constant disruptive factionalism headed by the earl of Essex and the
Cecils. Arguing that Burghley's experience, subtlety and, most importantly,
authority were 'unrivalled' he indicated that Spenser's criticism of Cecilian
hegemony had some substance. It may have been the reckless, demanding
and mercurial behaviour of Essex that drove the queen to back the Cecilian
'faction' to cut the political ground from under the earl's feet, but the cause
was immaterial: it was a regnum Cecilianum nonetheless.2
Neale, however, decontextualized regnum Cecilianum. Burghley's defence
against political slander, to an unidentified recipient, was written not in the
1590s but on 14 August 1585. John Strype, who published the letter in his
Annals in 1709, connected it directly to nothing more than a general
I would like to thank Professor Wallace MacCaffrey, Dr John Morrill and Professor Patrick
Collinson for their guidance on earlier research of this subject. I am grateful to Professor John
Guy for his comments on earlier drafts of this chapter, and to Air Robin Harcourt Williams,
Librarian and Archivist to the Marquess of Salisbury for his help and support in my research.
Documents in the PRO are cited by permission of the Comptroller of HM Stationery Office.
1
J. Strype, Annals of the Reformation and Establishment of Religion, and Other Various
Occurrences in the Church of England, during Queen Elizabeth's Happy Reign, together with an
Appendix. A New Edition (4 vols. in 7, Oxford, 1824), III, 2, pp. 379-83, 14 August 1585,
Lord Burghley to [?].
2
J. E. Neale, 'The Elizabethan Political Scene' (first published 1948) in his Essays in Elizabethan History (London, 1958), pp. 80-2.
46
Regnum Cecilianum? A perspective of the Court
47
profusion of slander against the Lord Treasurer at the time, but conceded to
contemporary suspicions, 'And it was justly to be suspected that that haughty
earl [Leicester] might be instrumental in those misreports mentioned above.
It was certain this great favourite was very jealous of the Lord Burghley.'
The context was the particular situation of 1585-6. The implication is that
Burghley was deliberately exploiting, or was the beneficiary of, the queen's
reaction to rumours of Leicester setting up court in the Netherlands and his
acceptance, in January 1586, of the governor-generalship of the States, by
seeking the appointments of John Whitgift, Lord Cobham and Lord Buckhurst to the Privy Council. Burghley wrote subsequently to Leicester to say
that he had heard the earl had no liking for him though he had never sought
or provoked his disapproval: Leicester responded that such talk was the
work of informers sowing seeds of discontent between councillors.3
This has resonances for the 1590s. It can be argued that Cecil gained
advancement in 1596 not merely because of Essex's absence but because of
his impolitic actions - but little more. Neale failed to assess the composition
and functioning of the Privy Council after the deaths of men like Leicester,
Hatton and Walsingham and, as such, his presentation of factionalism is
imprecise. Grounds for hostility were assumed; foundations for a modus
vivendi were not. He thus followed the historiographical tradition of the past
350 years which, spoilt by the existence of State Papers and large private
collections of correspondence, has favoured the Court gossip and rumour of
lower levels of Essexian supporters rather than considering the realities of
political and social connections and alliances of individual courtiers.
Camden, virtually alone in what could unsatisfactorily be defined as 'Cecilian' historians, gave evidence of Essex's chagrin at Cecil's advancement but
no explanation; though giving centre stage to his patron, Burghley, he did
not consider one of his later ambitions, the establishment of his younger son
into political service.4 The mid-eighteenth-century collections of the Bacon
and Sidney papers, by Birch and Collins respectively, gave credence to the
rumour-mongering and constant talk of factionalism nurtured by agents like
Rowland Whyte rather than highlighting what were, from their own evidence, fluid and protean relations.5 Devereux's Lives and Letters of the
Devereuxy Earls of Essex, essentially a work of family piety, considered Essex
solely in personal terms.6
3
4
5
Strype, Annals of the Reformation, III, 1, pp. 502-7.

W. Camden, The History of the Most Renowned and Victorious Princess Elizabeth (3rd edn,
London, 1675), pp. 524-35, 557, 567-77, 584-5.
T. Birch, Memoirs of the Reign of Queen Elizabeth (2 vols, London, 1754), I, pp. 72-3, 114;
II, pp. 61, 81-103; A. Collins (ed.), Letters and Memorials of State . . . Written and Collected
by Sir Henry Sidney (2 vols., London, 1754), I, pp. 343, 365-83 and passim.
Hon. W. Devereux, Lives and Letters of the Devereux, Earls of Essex (2 vols., London, 1853),
I, pp. 276-80.
48
Natalie Mears
From this tradition, one figure has been absent: Sir Robert Cecil himself.
Until the publication of the final volume of Wallace MacCaffrey's Elizabethan trilogy, talk of regnum Cecilianum had largely excluded Cecil's role or
perspective.7 The existence of the extensive and well-calendared collection
of Cecil Papers at Hatfield House has had a perverse effect: dominated by
in-coming letters and containing little comparable to Burghley's notes of
political musings, Cecil remains a shadowy, elusive figure whilst Essex
shines transparently through his vivid perceptions of himself and others.8
This essay will make an attempt to realign the historiographical thrust of
concepts of the 1590s by reconstructing court relations between Cecil and
Essex, from a Cecilian perspective, and assessing the competition for
advancement by the new generation in the context of a less interventionist
monarchy and contracting opportunities for patronage. Until other councillors like Buckhurst, Knollys and Effingham receive greater attention, and
the lacunae in our knowledge of political alliances are filled, no assessment
of the complex and kaleidoscopic relations and alliances at Court can be
all-embracing. But there is testimony of a political and social modus vivendi
which broke down as a result of ideological and political disparities and this
will be explored, in relation to the petty gossip of faction and the atmosphere
that caused Neale to characterize the 1590s as a regnum Cecilianum, to
challenge established historiographical traditions regarding the Court and
the substance of the material on which they are based.
So strong have been the notions of a regnum Cecilianum that they have
mythologized the more prosaic yet more complex relations between Cecil
and Essex. The queen may have argued that 'she would make no continuance of inheritance in any [of] her offices' but it had long been clear
that Cecil was a repository for Burghley's hopes.9 He sought to augment
dynastic fortune and status through Robert's political career, accumulating
local and national office to build up a landed base and to further entrees
into the 'old' aristocracy through Cecil's marriage to Elizabeth Brooke.10
7
8
9
10
Wallace T. MacCaffrey, Elizabeth I: War and Politics 1558-1603 (Princeton, NJ, 1992),
pp. 460-1, and chaps. 23-6.
Hatfield House, Hertfordshire, Cecil MSS, calendared in HMC, A Calendar of the Manuscripts of the Most Hon. the Marquess of Salisbury, preserved at Hatfield House, Hertfordshire
(24 vols., London, 1883-1976). Citations from the Cecil MSS are included by kind permission of the Marquess of Salisbury. For example, Cecil MSS, 20/99, Essex to Cecil, 23
Dec. 1591; Cecil MSS, 57/109, Essex to Cecil, 22 Dec. 1557 and Cecil MSS, 63/75, Essex
to the queen, 26 Aug. 1558 (copy).
Hatfield House, Cecil MSS, 23/44, Dr William Aubrey to Cecil, 28 Aug. 1593.
P. M. Handover, The Second Cecil: The Rise to Power 1563-1604 (London, 1959), p. 12;
MacCaffrey, Elizabeth I: War and Politics, p. 460.

The irritating dearth in the correspondence between Cecil and Burghley
in the early 1590s is a testament to the closeness with which they worked
together. Burghley's, and therefore Cecil's, political allies exemplified his
age and experience: they were a mixture of established Court figures like
Lord Buckhurst and Charles, second Lord Howard of Effingham, and
rising stars like Sir John Stanhope, who became Treasurer of the
Chamber in 1596, and Sir Thomas Heneage.11 In contrast, Essex had no
support at Council level from those who were later to be identified as
members of his faction until the appointments of Sir William Knollys
and Lord North in 1596: his circle was dominated by the Sidneys, whilst
links to officials like the Attorney-General, Sir Thomas Egerton, were
tenuous.12
But this was no Cecilian hegemony. Essex may have had to maintain the
modus vivendi on account of his lack of support at Council level but relations
were characterized by reciprocity; as Cecil sought Essex's intercession in
1587, so too did Essex seek that of Cecil in May 1593 regarding petitions by
Sir Christopher Blount and by Captain St John who sought military service
abroad.13 This reflected a wider co-operation, as Dr Hammer shows, in
larger political issues such as support of Henry IV. 14 Though Essexian
allies like Sir Robert Sidney, Lord Henry Howard and Lord Mountjoy were
politically aligned to the earl, they too kept communication lines open to
other councillors, including the Cecils, Sir Robert Sidney petitioning both
Essex and Cecil in June 1594.15 Burghley's pre-eminence in age, experience
and political status was balanced by the rising stardom of Essex who gained
much leverage as the highest-ranking peer and sole military adviser on the
Privy Council as well as through his status as a favourite - both men
directed Cecil's political pretensions.16 It was only at more provincial levels
of support - family connections in Wales where there was a heavier emphasis on lineage and loyalty and from families like the Heydons of Norfolk who
felt under siege from 'parvenu' families like the Bacons (coincidentally also
Essexians) - that the malicious gossip of factionalism and plots peppered the
11
12
13
14
15
16
John Guy, Tudor England (Oxford, 1988; repr. 1991), p. 441; Simon Adams, 'Eliza
Enthroned? The Court and its Polities', in C. Haigh (ed.), The Reign of Elizabeth I (Hampshire and Hong Kong, 1987), p. 68.
Guy, Tudor England, p. 441
See below pp. 65-36; Hatfield House, Cecil MSS, 169/77, Essex to Cecil, 8 May 1593; ibid.,
169/89, Essex to Cecil, 29 May 1593.
See below pp. 65-86.
Guy, Tudor England, p. 441; HMC, Report of the Manuscripts of Lord De Lisle and Dudley
preserved at Penshurst Place (6 vols., London, 1925-66), III, p. 153, Sir Robert Sidney to
Lady Sidney, 3 June 1594.
MacCaffrey, Elizabeth I: War and Politics, p. 461; P. E. J. Hammer, * "This Bright Shininge
Spark": The Political Career of Robert Devereux, 2nd Earl of Essex, c.1585 - c.1597',
unpublished Cambridge Ph.D. thesis (1991), p. 281.
49
50
Natalie Mears
decade and was rumour-mongered by men like Rowland Whyte and Sir
Thomas Lake to higher echelons.17
This modus vivendi was divided on ideological approaches to royal service.
Burghley told Cecil, 'serve God by servynge of the quene, for all other
service [?] is indede bondage to the devilP.18 Cecil took Burghley's advice to
heart, extravagantly commending himself in a letter to the queen.
Herein I am most blessed that I am a Vassal to her Celestial Creature ... I have no
other purpose of lyving but to witness what I would performe if I had power ... if I
could doe as much as all the world it were neither praise nor thankes worthy in
respect of the duty I owe and the princesse whom I serve.19
This exemplified the noblesse de robe that the Cecils, and other councillors,
personified: though they sought personal advancement and profit this was
always in respect of royal service within the circumference of a government
based on civil and common law headed by the queen and one in which
education was more of a prerequisite than blood. Essex, however, represented the French noblesse d'epee in which natural and martial law had
precedence over civil and common law, and where natural social hierarchies were traditional and inflexible.20 As a nobleman perceiving himself as a
natural councillor whom the queen had a duty to consult and reward, he
complained of his failure to be appointed as Chancellor of the University of
Oxford in 1591: 'comfort me nott for the Queens wrong and her unkindness
is too great'.21 The noblesse de robe put Cecil firmly into the political
establishment, providing an ideological or methodological sympathy with
other councillors, whilst Essex effectively isolated himself by promoting a
military stance, and one in which the element of personal allegiance could be
dangerous.
The queen's refusal to appoint Cecil to the secretaryship when politely
petitioned at the festivities Burghley held in her honour at Theobalds in
1591 underlined that, irrespective of his close connections to the Court,
largely through Burghley, he remained on probation.22 His political affiliations may have identified him with the political establishment but he was
still subject to the competition for patronage as the new generation sought to
realize their pretensions. It was in this climate that Essex sought to advance
Francis Bacon to the Attorney-Generalship vacated by Egerton on his
17
18
19
20
21
22
Mervyn James, Society, Politics and Culture: Studies in Early Modern England (Cambridge,
1986), pp. 425, 430; A. Collins, Letters and Memorials of State, I, pp. 343-4, Sir Thomas
Lake to Sir Robert Sidney, 22 Aug. 1595 and ibid., I, pp. 365-6, Rowland Whyte to Sir
Robert Sidney, 23 Sept. 1595.
Cambridge University Library, M S Ee iii 56, no. 138, Burghley to Cecil, 10 July 1598.
Hatfield House, Cecil M S S , 98/62, Cecil to the queen, 29 Sept. 1592.
Guy, Tudor England, pp. 443-4; James, Society, Politics and Culture, pp. 428-30.
Hatfield House, Cecil M S S , 20/99, Essex to Cecil, 23 Dec. 1591.
Algernon Cecil, A Life of Robert Cecil, First Earl of Salisbury (London, 1915), pp. 46-52.
Regnum Cecilianurri? A perspective of the Court

promotion to Master of the Rolls in 1593. Acknowledging that Bacon had
fallen into disfavour with the queen over his opposition to the triple subsidy
proposed in the Parliament of 1593, Cecil responded to the petition, 'it is
not likely to find the queen apt to give an office, when the scruple is not
removed of her forbearance to speak with you', advising condescendingly
that Bacon should return home to his mother.23 Essexian literature, principally Birch's Memoirs, presented Cecilian reluctance to support their
cousin as an example of petty jealousy over political office aimed at frustrating Essex's largess.24 Though the episode is recounted by the Essexian, Sir
Anthony Standen, it is difficult not to perceive that the competition over
office had created an atmosphere of hostility: Cecil mischievously proffering
the advice to Essex that the Solicitorship 'might be of easier digestion to her
majesty'.25 But Cecil's goading of the earl was a mere sideshow: having only
a junior role on the Privy Council and no solid recommendations to power
independent of Burghley, Cecil was not in a position to lend sole or
principal weight to any petition of this magnitude. Instead, he had to
demonstrate not only his willingness to work with established Court
members, but also his fitness for political power in terms of judgement and
astuteness. Bacon's disfavour was no match for Solicitor-General Coke's
experience and Cecil recognized this. 26 He was only willing to put greater
weight behind Bacon's candidacy for the Solicitorship after Coke's appointment and following the lead of Egerton, acknowledging the Master of the
Rolls' support as both a 'friendly and kind offer' and one of which Bacon
was worthy.27
Though these concerns were evident a year later when charges of plotting
to poison the queen were levied against Lopez, the competitive edge
between Essex and Cecil, as each sought to maintain the initiative over the
other, sharpened as Cecil attempted to secure a position outside the shadow
of Burghley. Essex only conferred with Cecil after consulting the queen;
Cecil was keen to inform the queen of the earl's continued prosecution of the
doctor.28 Cecil was still governed by the restrictions placed on him as a
probationary politician, particularly as the vacancy of the secretaryship
loomed ever larger with each succeeding year: recognizing the queen was
reluctant to accept that Lopez was guilty, he informed her of Essex's
unproductive investigations.29 This proved, however, a welcome cover for
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
Birch, Memoirs, I, pp. 123-4, Cecil to Francis Bacon, 27 Sept. 1593.

Ibid., I, pp. 7 2 - 3 .
Ibid., I, pp. 152-3, Sir Anthony Standen to Anthony Bacon, 3 Feb. 1594.
Ibid., I, p. 126.
Hatfield House, Cecil M S S , 25/111, Cecil to Sir Thomas Egerton, 27 March 1594.
Ibid., Cecil M S S , 169/42, Essex to Cecil, 29 Feb. 1594; Birch, Memoirs, I, pp. 149-50, Sir
Anthony Standen to Anthony Bacon, 30 Jan. 1594.
Ibid.
51
52
Natalie Meats
the weaknesses in the Cecilian intelligence network revealed in this first

direct confrontation with Essex. As early as November 1592, Richard
Young had informed Cecil that an agent, Andrada, who had already been
incriminated in the confession of a suspected Spanish agent, was staying at
Lopez's house. 30 Both Cecils continued to use his services and Andrada
was later incriminated by Tinoco and others during the Lopez investigations.31 With a queen who discouraged a consensus of advice and information, the effectiveness of personal intelligence networks was at the
foundation of courtiers' ability to lay claim to political power. It is difficult
to assess whether Essex's subsequent vociferous prosecution of Lopez was
an attack on Cecil or merely an attempt to salvage or exonerate his own
political credibility. To have revealed fundamental flaws in the Cecilian
network at this stage, when the ephemerality of the old political establishment was increasingly apparent, would have seriously damaged Cecil's
aspirations.
In the early stages of the investigation against Lopez, Burghley, in a
postscript of a letter to Cecil, seemed critical of exploiting the matter for
political gain: 'In [error crossed out] folly I see no poynt of treason
intended to the Q[ueen] but a redyness to make some [Gayn?] to the [trust?]
of [name scratched out].' 32 But as rumours of a Spanish invasion multiplied in late 1594 and early 1595, resulting in Drake and Hawkins' expedition to Panama, it became more difficult for Burghley to manage Court
disputes and compensate for the queen's inconstant intervention. 33 Sir
Thomas Lake reported to Sir Robert Sidney on 22 August 1595, c The
expectation of this Danger bred here great Diversity of Opinions, of the
Proceeding of our Sea Voyage.'34 The political tide was turning in favour of
Essex's militarism and against Cecilian prudence. Cecil had been warned
against those '[who] have no regard of her state, but to ease themselves with
throwing their burdens upon her' and was later advised, 'he that sets up his
30
31
32
33
34
Hatfield House, Cecil M S S , 168/146, Richard Young to Cecil, 21 Nov. 1592; ibid., 169/2,
Richard Young to Cecil, 28 N o v . 1592.
Emanuel D'Andrada to Burghley, 3/13 June 1593 ( H M C , Salisbury MSS, IV, p. 330); 5/15
June 1593 (ibid., IV, p. 331); 29 June/9 July 1593 (ibid., IV, p. 333); 31 July/10 Aug. 1593
(ibid., IV, p. 342); 5/15 Aug. 1593 (ibid., IV, p. 348); P R O , S P 12/247/100 Heads of
indictment against D r Lopez [28 Feb.] 1594; S P 12/247/102 Abstract of evidence before the
jury in the Lopez trial; S P 12/247/19 Statement of [Manuel Louis Tinoco] 23 Jan. 1594; S P
12/247/84 Confession of Tinoco 23 Feb. 1594.
Cambridge University Library, M S Ee iii 56 no. 15, Burghley to Cecil, 23 Jan. 1594. T h e
postscript is cryptic, with two errors crossed out. T h e first may hide the name 'lopez'
indicating that Burghley was sceptical of the doctor's guilt and considered the investigations
to be pursued for the political advantage of an anonymous individual.
Hatfield House, Cecil M S S , 29/17, Sir Thomas Honiman to Cecil, 4 D e c . 1594; ibid.,
170/95, 170/106 and 32/15, Sir Edward Norrys to Essex, 7 and 23 Feb., 3 May 1595.
Collins, Letters and Memorials of State, I, pp. 3 4 3 - 4 , Sir Thomas Lake to Sir Robert
Sidney, 22 Aug. 1595.
Regnum Cecilianuni? A perspective of the Court

rest to live by that profession [war] can hardly be an honest man or a good
Christian'.35 His own acceptance of this approach is evident in the acknowledgement by the governor of Connaught, Sir Richard Bingham, of the
closeness with which the two Cecils worked on foreign policy and also
Cecil's own rough notes on war, written in 1592.36 Though it began 'this is a
war good for England . . . if we look for old remedies for new necessities we
shall do like bad Physicians which hurt the Patient more than they help
him', it was dominated by financial considerations.37 Though Cecil deferred
to the queen's opinion in foreign issues, just as he had done over Bacon and
Lopez, forsaking financial prudence to advocate the triple subsidy in the
Parliament of 1593, working on the committees and reporting the names of
those reluctant to support the bill, by late 1594 the Cecils seem to have been
fighting a rearguard action to maintain, by default, some semblance of their
own personal response to the Continental situation.38 Burghley encouraged
not a via media but threw up obstructions to restrict Essex's aggrandizement
of influence that was inherent in a shift towards a more offensive foreign
policy. The Cecils seem to have deliberately manipulated and delayed the
supply of powder, provoking Rowland Whyte to comment to Sidney, '[these
courses] are consulted upon by the Father and the son only, the Lords not
privy to them all'.39 Cecil seems to have deliberately failed to deliver
unspecified dispatches to Essex in September 1595. Whyte, again reporting
to Sidney, recounted how Cecil had instructed him to deliver the dispatches, with a covering letter, first to Burghley and then to Essex: 'he
[Essex] demanded another letter which I told him I had not, but the next
day, Sir Robert Cecill brought it here from Tibbols, as it should seem
enclosed within my Lord Treasurer's Packett'.40
Though rumours of Spanish invasion and physical attacks by Spanish
ships on Penzance in 1594 and 1595 pushed the competition for the secretaryship into the background, the ideologically confused confrontations
over the English response to them meant that, with even a tacit recognition
of Burghley's mortality, hostility would simmer on and undermine the
modus vivendi that had characterized the re-establishment of court relations
after the deaths of Leicester, Hatton and Walsingham.
35
36
37
38
39
40
Hatfield House, Cecil M S S , 22/96 Burghley to Cecil, 26 May 1593; D . Cecil, The Cecils of
Hatfield House (London, 1973), pp. 80-1.
H M C , Salisbury MSS, IV, p. 338, Sir Richard Bingham to Cecil, 18 July 1593; Hatfield
House, Cecil M S S , 169/25 Cecil's rough notes on war, undated [1592].
Ibid., Cecil M S S , 169/25.
P. W. Hasler, The Commons, 1558-1603 (3 vols., London, 1981), I, pp. 572-3.
Collins, Letters and Memorials of State, I, pp. 365-6, Rowland Whyte to Sir Robert Sidney,
25 Nov. 1595.
Ibid., I, p. 348, Rowland Whyte to Sir Robert Sidney, 23 Sept. 1595.
53
54
Natalie Mears
II
In July 1596, Lady Bacon warned her son, Anthony, 'you more need now to
be more circumspect and advised in your discoursings, doings and dealings
in your accustomed matters . . . You know what terms he standeth towards
yourself . . . so very vehement he was.' 41 Cecil's appointment, that same
month, to the secretaryship was not a response to rising factionalism by
which the queen chose between competing interests. Instead, it was an
action to humble Essex, temporarily reducing the power and pretensions of
a demanding and overbearing courtier. Though Essex had sought to blame
Lord Admiral Howard for the plans to go to Cadiz - 'For the project of
going to Cadiz, I have ever confess'd it was my lord admiral's' 42 - it is clear
from his written proposals to the queen that he not only overrode her
instructions but timed his communication of this to prevent any countermand by the Privy Council. It was a flagrant abuse of the councillor's role
and power, an exploitation of his hold as favourite over the queen to pursue
his personal aims and ambitions. 'On the coasts of Spain your troops shall
possess ports unguarded . . . and take towns unfortified . . . by our journey
your majesty shall weaken the king of Spain and give him a blow by the sea;
which being done he cannot be fearful to your estates; you shall assure
Ireland.' 43 Though this ran contrary to Cecil's own prudent approach,
Essex criticized, '[those who] would wish your majesty to do nothing: the
other a self-loving humour, would have your majesty lose all your royal sea
and land forces, to serve their terms'. 44 It was the transparency of the earl's
comment, 'the counsel, execution and glory of all successes are your own,
and none can rob you of any part of them' that stimulated what seems like a
rescindment by the queen not to appoint a secretary whilst Essex was
away.45 On his return, the earl was at the peak of his popularity: pamphlets
were printed in his praise on the Continent and this exaltation was common
in England:
Vere Dux, Devereux, et verior Hercule:
Gades Nam semet hie est: vicit ac ille simul.46
Furthermore, Essex not only attempted, through his secretary, Reynoldes,
to get the archbishop of Canterbury to proclaim a public thanksgiving in
honour of the victory, but also asked Reynoldes to have a report published
in which, though the victory was attributed to the queen, his own heroic role
41
42
43
45
46
Birch, Memoirs, I I , p . 6 1 , Lady Bacon to Anthony Bacon, 10 July 1 5 % .

Ibid., I I , p p . 57-8.
Ibid., I I , pp. 19-20, Essex to the queen, undated [before 3 J u n e 1596].
** Ibid.
Ibid.
'Alcides yield to Devereux: h e d i d see T h y beauties, Cadiz: Devereux conquered thee',
Devereux, Lives and Letters, I , p . 379.
Regnum Cecilianurri? A perspective of the Court
55
was emphasized.47 In effect, Essex had subverted the queen's power and
cultivated public popularity in opposition or as an alternative focus to her.
Fostering annoyance and discontent, Essex's action could disrupt the
unhindered flow of advice between Council and the queen, turning the
Council chamber into a melee and ultimately threatening to make the queen
a hostage to individual or factional interests. Cecil was critical - 'I think it
bootless for your lordship to stay there; for if they be not already come about
with ships, then they have discharged the land army and so nothing left for
you to do' - and sneered at his cultivation of popularity, 'Because you may
see what good reports ladies make of you I send you a pamphlet printed in
Paris, of the taking of Cadiz.' 48 The Privy Council as a whole came down
hard on Essex: the archbishop of Canterbury refused to give licence to the
report's publication and Essex's other secretary, Henry Cuffe, was prevented from dealing with the matter on pain of death. 49
Cecil's role was peripheral; the climax of what had been increasing,
though sporadic, tension between him and Essex was provoked by the earl's
actions rather than by a management of two-sided factionalism by the
queen. The benefits were not. Cecil had not only greater, but independent,
weight on the Council, which seemed to assure a personal inheritance of
Council service for the dynasty. Cecilian entrenchment in government
created a sense that there was a division between the civilian approach to
government, the noblesse de robe of which Cecil was one representative, and
Essex's militarism. This distinction, and the imbalance of power between
Cecil and Essex of which it was a product, inflated discontent amongst
lower-level Essexians who attacked the rising hegemony of Cecil by invoking images of faction and plotting. Rowland Whyte wrote to Sir Robert
Sidney in September 1596, 'A principal follower of 1000 [Essex] saies that
200 [Cecil] doings are so well knowen unto hym, that their is no hope of
reconcilement.' 50 Sir Thomas Lake also reported to Sidney, 'The Plotte we
layd to discover something more than yet we can perceive, is stayed . . . The
Factions never more malicious .. .' 51 Their complaints, however, were a
rhetorical device to account for and justify Essex's misfortune: they
reflected the strength of personal allegiance that Essex inspired but in
reality only in as much as Essex's sulks away from the Court favoured Cecil
47
48
49
50
51
Birch, Memoirs, I I , p . 45, Essex to Reynoldes, undated [after Cadiz, 1596); ibid., I I , p . 8 1 ,
H e n r y Cuffe to Reynoldes, 30 July 1596; ibid., I I , p . 47, Essex to Reynoides, undated [after
Cadiz, 1596].
Ibid., I I , p p . 102-3, Cecil to Essex, 12 Aug. 1596.
Ibid., I I , p . 95, Reynoldes to Essex, 9 Aug. 1596.
H M C , De Lisle and Dudley, I I , p p . 217-18, Rowland W h y t e to Sir Robert Sidney, 22 Sept.
1596.
Collins, Letters and Memorials, I I , p p . 7 - 8 , Sir T h o m a s Lake to Sir Robert Sidney, 4 N o v .
1596.
56
Natalie Mears
more by preventing the earl from maintaining proximity to the queen and
hence his role as counsellor and patronage-broker.
Fractious outbursts there were, notably over the appointment of Sir
George Carew to investigate the financial success of Essex's campaign:
Essex perceived him to be a Cecilian and complained he 'was to be charged
that nothing was brought home', concluding angrily to Anthony Bacon,
'And this day I was more braved by your little cousin than ever I was by any
man in my life.'52 But the gossip and rhetorical complaints of rumourmongerers personally loyal to Essex belied a two-year period from 1596 of
calculated political tokenism in which a superficial modus vivendi was maintained, partly initiated by Cecil, but independent of any guiding management from the queen or Burghley. Whyte himself acknowledged to Sidney
on 20 February 1597, 'I heard that 200 [Cecil] hath bene with him [Essex]
and desired his love and favour, with great Protestations of Assuredness
unto him .. ,'53 In May, Whyte again reported, 'Great kindness continueth
between hym [Essex] and 200 [Cecil] and of late between him and 900
[Burghley]', and Cecil was carefully accommodated by Essex when he
visited the fleet at Sandwich.54 The queen's intervention in 1596 to secure
the subservience of the Court to her authority, rather than to Essex's, far
from re-establishing her hegemony, was unexpectedly exploited by Cecil
and Essex who, taking matters into their own hands, sought mutual benefits.
On 4 March, Whyte revealed that Ralegh was acting as a mediator between
the two men: a 'Treaty of Peace' agreed over dinner on 19 April in which, in
return for support for the Islands expedition, mutual assistance would be
given in petitions for Cecil to gain the Chancellorship of the Duchy of
Lancaster, Essex the Mastership of the Ordnance and Ralegh the Captaincy
of the Guard.55 Though Cecil's status in the Council had been augmented,
by Essex's actions at Cadiz and his subsequent absences from Court, Cecil
was not acting from a position of dominance: his reluctance to lead the
embassy to France in the spring of 1598 was a tacit recognition that his
position was not so unassailable as to be able to weather his absence without
its being exploited by the earl:
Many privat Conferences, many Consultations were observed between the Earl of
Essex and 200 [Cecil] before his going away, as I sayd in my last, he was resolved not
to stir one Foote, til 1000 [Essex] assured hym, that nothing should pass here in his
52
53
54
55
Birch, Memoirs, II, p. 131, Essex to Anthony Bacon, 8 Sept. 1596.

Collins, Letters and Memorials, II, pp. 2 2 - 3 , Rowland Whyte to Sir Robert Sidney.
H M C , De Lisle and Dudley, I I , pp. 276-7, Rowland Whyte to Sir Robert Sidney, 14 May
1597; Hatfield House, Cecil M S S , 52/50 Essex to Cecil, 23 June 1597.
Collins, Letters and Memorials, II, pp. 2 4 - 5 , Rowland Whyte to Sir Robert Sidney, 4 March
1597; ibid., II, pp. 4 1 - 2 , Whyte to Sidney, 19 April 1597.

Absence that might be a Prejudice or offensive into hym, and uppon that Assurance
he is gon.56
Cecil clearly bought off Essex, who was given 7,000 worth of cochineal
and awarded a lucrative 50,000 contract at 18 shillings per pound
compared to the market value of 30 to 40 shillings. 57 Cecil's fears were
correct - Essex attempted to have Sidney recalled even before Cecil had left
England - but appearances were maintained in strained sincerity, Essex
writing on 11 February, 'I send this bearer to see your safe passage and to
bring me news of it. I am thus curious of all whom either I value in
judgement or love with affection.'58 Burghley instructed Cecil to thank
Essex for his honourable conduct during his absence: *ywe shall doe well
by yor l[ett]res to be thankefull to my L. of Essex for the paines he taketh in
yor absence, about matters that yowe should he[ir?] supplie'. 59
Honourable it may have been, indicative of a genuine modus vivendi it was
not. The element of teamwork that had characterized the early 1590s was
now tenuous, confined to the public sphere alone. Cecil does seem to have
complied with Essex's request to stay the parliamentary session in 1597 and
did so to his own detriment: though securing the nomination of MPs
including Michael Hickes for Gatton and Sir Anthony Mildmay for Westminster, he made a number of elementary mistakes in securing other
boroughs.60 Such assiduity was tellingly absent in his support for Essex's
private petitions: in August 1597, after already praising Cecil's support 'your honour hath latelye geven full demonstration to all the world of your
honourable minde to my Lorde in renewing his lease for the sweet wines' Reynoldes and Lindley complained to the queen that Cecil had no recollection of this: 'we have attended Mr Secretarye from whom we have received
this answer: that he was never spoken to by his L[ordship]'. 61
It said little for the state of Elizabeth's government: the readiness to lay
aside personal disagreements and rivalries for mutual benefit stole the
political initiative from the queen but the ephemerality and ingenuity of
such alliances meant that, though a front against her was neither united nor
permanent, the hollow relations made a return to earlier congeniality difficult, if not impossible. Attention was paid to appearances - Cecil supporting
56
57
58
59
60
61
Ibid.y II, pp. 89-90, Rowland Whyte to Sir Robert Sidney, 12 Feb. 1598.
Devereux, Lives and Letters, I, p. 473.
Collins, Letters and Memorials, II, pp. 84-91, Rowland Whyte to Sir Robert Sidney, 25 Jan.
1598, 1 Feb. 1598, 15 Feb. 1598; Hatfield House, Cecil M S S , 49/31, Essex to Cecil, 11 Feb.
1598.
PRO, SP 12/266/73, Burghley to Cecil, 23 Feb. 1598.
Hatfield House, Cecil M S S , 54/47, Essex to Cecil, 14 Aug. 1597; Handover, The Second
Cecil, p. 158.
Hatfield House, Cecil M S S , 53/100, Reynoldes to Cecil, 3 Aug. 1597; ibid., 58/30,
Reynoldes and Lindley to the queen, [?] Aug. 1597.
57
58
Natalie Mears
the Islands voyage of 1597 by sending a herald's coat to Essex, 'I know it can
never be sent in a braver cause nor from a worthier general', and venturing
to advise though 'a mere blynd Judg, yet out of ye Measure of my great
afection to ye Journey'62 - whilst being otherwise lukewarm, in tacit recognition that his support was born out of Ralegh's peace treaty. He wrote to
Lord Burgh, Lord Deputy of Ireland, though he hoped 'only for the
keeping up of the journeys reputation', concluding, 'the Fleet at Ferroll will
not be burnt, the Carickes are come home, the Hands can not be taken, so
these weake watery hopes (you must think) do but jointly nourish the noble
Erie's hart's comfort'.63 In such an atmosphere of hostility and cynicism,
tension was ready to explode publicly: Burghley interjected to Essex, 'that
he breathed forth nothing but War, Slaughter and Blood', and pointed to
the verse in his Psalter,' "Men of Blood shall not live out half their days.">64
ni
In retrospect, the relative ease with which Cecil maintained and strengthened his position at Court after the death of Burghley obscures the actual
fluidity of the political situation in 1598. Cecil's unease at leaving for the
embassy to Henry IV had shown that his power was not assured and
Burghley's death in the spring of 1598 reopened the competition for political spoils which had been at an impasse until this vacuum was created at
the apex of government. It was a competition undisguisedly characterized
by, at times vehement, hostility, though some of this is a product of
Essexian gossipers seizing the situation like vultures round a carcase: on 21
July 1598 Lord Grey complained to Cobham that Essex 'hath forced me to
declare myself either his only or friend to Mr Secretary, and his enemy:
protesting that there could be no neutrality'.65
But even so, it was a factionalism of an unusual kind: whilst Essex
cultivated support, Cecil was assured in his relations with both longestablished friends like Lord Buckhurst, and those, like Nottingham, who
had been closely, though not exclusively, identified with Essexian interests.
Cecil's 'faction' was, in fact, the Court itself. Cecil moved effortlessly into
the Chancellorship of the Duchy of Lancaster, whilst Essex had stormed at
the promotion of Effingham to the earldom of Nottingham which had set the
Lord Admiral above the earl in the Privy Council and thus contrary to his
perception of his own eminence. The mistake was an inadvertent one but it
62
63
64
65
PRO, SP 12/264/5, Cecil to Essex, [?] July 1597; ibid., 12/264/37, Cecil to Essex, [19?] July
1597.
Hatfield House, Cecil M S S , 54/75, Cecil to Lord Burgh, 21 Aug. 1597.
Camden, History, p. 555.
Hatfield House, Cecil M S S , 62/71, Lord Grey to Lord Cobham, 21 July 1598.
Regnum Cedlianum? A perspective of the Court
59
nevertheless heightened the contrast between Essex's ill-fortune and Cecil's

run of favour. It made accusations of a regnum Cedlianum easy: it was
awkward that Effingham's promotion had been Burghley's suggestion. 66 In
this situation, Whyte and Lake's conspiracy theories penetrated upwards to
Essex himself. Ignoring that he had been unable to inherit Burghley's
mantle as Lord Treasurer, Essex perceived that Cecil was able both to get
advancement for himself and to manipulate the queen's patronage to the
disadvantage of others, notably himself and his followers. 67 Proposals to
appoint Sir William Knollys, Essex's uncle and one of only two 'Essexian'
privy councillors, to the Lord Deputyship of Ireland were met as unwelcome promotion by the earl who saw it as another deliberate attempt by
Cecil to weaken his base of support. Essex pushed hard to have Sir George
Carew appointed, attempting what he wrongly perceived Cecil to be doing,
manipulating patronage, but it earned him a sharp rebuke from the queen
who deliberately humbled him by boxing his ears as he turned from her and
drew his sword. 68 This only encouraged councillors to entrench their
support for the queen and political establishment: Lord Keeper Egerton
advised *ye beginnynge and longe continuing of this unresonable discontentment you have seen and prooved . . . yf you hould still this course
[which?] hitherto you finde to be worse and worsse .. .'. 69 The more Essex
stormed, the more councillors rallied to the defence of the establishment
and the more ineffective and isolated the Essexian faction became.
Cecil has been presented as the architect of Essex's fall: rumours and
libels accusing him increased in number and vociferousness throughout the
country in the months succeeding the earl's execution in 1601. On 14
March, Cecil received a report from the Welsh Marches that he was accused
of being 'such a base and corruptt felowe' who ruled the queen and plotted
the death of the earl. 70 On 18 April, the JPs of Surrey informed Cecil that a
number of vagrants had been arrested who had said that, 'Sir Robte Cecill
might pray to God that the Quenes Maj[esty] might not remove from
London for . . . he should be killed.' 71 Sir John Byron informed Cecil of
libels circulating in Mansfield and Mansfield Woodhouse accusing Cecil of
taking Essex's offices whilst he was absent and predicting the earl's death
would be revenged by Whitsunday by a force of 20,000 men. 72 Essex had
66
67
68
69
70
71
72
Guy, Tudor England, p. 445.

See below pp. 65-86.
Camden, History, p. 555; Edward P. Cheyney, History of England from the Defeat of the
Armada to the Death of Elizabeth (2 vols., Massachusetts, 1914-26, repr. 1967), II, p. 506.
PRO, SP 12/268/43, Lord Keeper Egerton to Essex, [?] Aug. 1598. H e advises Essex at
length to be more conciliatory and to return to the Privy Council fold.
Hatfield House, Cecil M S S , 77/55-7, Paul de la Hay to Cecil, 14 March 1601.
Ibid., Cecil M S S , 85/154 and 85/162, JPs of Surrey to Cecil, 18 April 1601.
Ibid., Cecil M S S , 182/1-2, Sir John Byron to Cecil, 26 April 1601. See also: Cecil M S S ,
192/84, 182/103, 88/44 and 89/40 for further libels.
60
Natalie Meats
complained to the Council in July 1599, 'I am armed on the breast, but not
on the back.' 73 But this was no Cecilian plot: Essex may have written to
Lord Willoughby on 4 January, 'Into Ireland I go. The Queen hath
irrevocably decreed it; the Council do passionately urge it' but, as he
recognized in the same letter, 'I am tied to my own reputation to use no
tergiversation .. .' 74 By his own volition, Essex had carved out a reputation
for himself as the country's premier military leader and patron: after the
crushing defeat of the English at Yellow Ford, there were few others the
Privy Council could look to.
It was an unwelcome choice to make. Before Essex's departure, Thomas
Churchyard's The Fortunate Farewell was published in which the earl's skill
was compared to the genius of Publius Cornelius Scipio. 75 At the same time,
John Hayward's The First Part of the Life and Raigne of Henry IIII
appeared, dedicated to Essex. Hayward's work illustrated the overthrow of a
monarch made unpopular by high taxation and covetous and corrupt citizens who dealt for private profit.76 The analogies with the queen's unpopular taxation policies, and with Essex's widespread popularity in the country
in contrast to libels that were later levelled at Cecil, were transparently
obvious. To the Privy Council, the possibilities that this cultivation of
popularity encouraged - providing an alternative focus to the queen, subverting her authority and disrupting Council relations - were more dangerous than they had been in the summer of 1596. Essex's alienation from the
political establishment, his fall from royal favour and exile from Court, had
made his relations with the Council more fractious and his control of the
army more threatening: it could be a means to force him back in to the
queen's favour and take revenge on those whom he perceived as his enemies.
Just prior to Essex's unsolicited return from Ireland in the autumn of 1599
there were genuine fears of an invasion or attack on the queen which,
coupled with her essentially cold reception of the earl, made the Privy
Council close ranks in her defence rather than plot Essex's destruction. In
his Star Chamber speech in 1599 Lord Keeper Egerton criticized 'some
wicked and traitorous persons (Monsters of Men) that without regard of
dutie or conscience . . . [to charge] her Ma tie . . . as though, after one and
fortie years go^mt and experience, her highness did fayle . . . to provide for
her dominions and people'. Lord Treasurer Buckhurst's criticisms were
more direct: 'my Lo. of Essex to be so honourable and so just, as himself will
73
74
75
76
Calendar of State Papers, Ireland 1599-1600, pp. 76-7, Essex to the Privy Council, 1 July
1599.
Hatfield House, Cecil M S S , 58/86, Essex to Lord Willoughby, 4 Jan. 1599.
Guy, Tudor England, pp. 446-7.
Ibid., pp. 447-5; John F. Manning (ed.), The First and Second Parts of John Hayward's The
Life and Raigne of King Henrie IIII, Camden Fourth Series, vol. 4 2 (London, 1991),
pp. 1-32,113-14, 134-7.
Regnum Cecilianurn? A perspective of the Court

not deny, but that most royally and plentifully he hath bene furnished with
them a l l . . . his owne L[ette]rs are extant', wherefore these libels were 'false
and villanous'. Cecil too praised the queen for her successful intervention in
Scotland, Ireland, France and the Low Countries, campaigning against
usurpation and tyranny. 77
Cecil took an active role in the prosecution of Essex - his Star Chamber
speech of 14 February was damning, deliberately and acceptably littered
with false accusations; he was able to inform the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland
that Essex would be executed before he received the letter; in a letter to
Attorney-General Coke on 19 February he requested a deliberate suppression of certain public declarations by Sir Christopher Blount regarding
Essex's rebellion and gave orders to the bishop of London concerning the
content of sermons at St Paul's Cross. 78 Long-term political allies were just
as severe; Lord Buckhurst wrote to Cecil on 9 February 1601, 'if her
Majesty do not make an example thereof in the severity of justis upon such
as shal be found principall actors, let her Majesty nowaies persuade herself
that she is yet free from danger till that be doon'. 79 Sir John Fortescue
wrote, 'yowe know we have heretofore always suspected such a sequell' and
hoped that, 'the bottom be sifted out'. 80 But Essex's fate was already sealed.
It had long been recognized, as Camden revealed: 'his Friends began
shrewdly to fear his Ruine, who observed that Fortune is seldome reconciled to her Foster-children whom she hath on[c]e forsaken; and Princes
more seldome to those they have before offended'. 81 Even Sir William
Knollys, whose appointment to Ireland had roused Essex against the queen,
concluded, cin case of treason, the bonds of loyalty [to the queen] cause all
others to be foregotten'. 82
IV
In the months succeeding Essex's execution on 25 February 1601, Sir
Robert Cecil began on what was to become an extensive programme of
building work. Already in January 1600, he had been 'by the Queen warned
to provide him another House', causing him immediately to let his 'Litle
house . . . and removed all his staff away'. 83 Not content with a newly con77
78
79
80
81
82
83
PRO, SP 12/273/75, Speeches in Star Chamber, [28?] Nov. 1599.

PRO, SP 12/278/54, Speeches in Star Chamber, 13 and 14 Feb. 1601; ibid., fo. 44, Cecil to
Lord Lieutenant of Ireland and English Offices in Low Countries, [10?] Feb. 1601; ibid., fo.
96, Cecil to Attorney-General Coke, [19 Feb. 1601]; Hatfield House, Cecil M S S 76/75,
180/27 and 100/27, bishop of London to Cecil, 15 Feb. 1601, 21 Feb. 1601, 21 Feb. 1601.
Hatfield House, Cecil M S S , 76/44, Lord Treasurer Buckhurst to Cecil, 9 Feb. 1601.
Ibid., Cecil M S S , 76/48, Sir John Fortescue to Cecil, 9 Feb. 1601.
PRO, SP 12/278/54, Speeches in Star Chamber, 13 Feb. 1601.
H M C , De Lisle and Dudley, I I , p. 429, Rowland Whyte to Sir Robert Sidney, 12 Jan. 1600.
61
62
Natalie Meats
stnicted terrace, planned with Walter Cope in March, 84 Cecil became more
ambitious: letters from Simon Basyll on 14 and 18 August indicate that
Cecil had demanded that the facade of the house be pulled down and
replaced quickly, using 30 tons of Oxford stone for crest and pier decorations.85 A number of people sought to provide him with gifts of materials:
Lady Sidney offered an unspecified quantity of stone in her letter of
24 August86 and the bishop of London, who had executed instructions from
Cecil for sermons at St Paul's Cross, offered him Caen stone which had been
left over from church restoration.87 The correspondence regarding the
building work gives only a hint of the cost: Roger Houghton's financial
report of 3 October shows that 500 had been paid in wages to workmen
whilst Houghton had sought loans without success via Levinus Munck,
necessitating Houghton taking out a personal loan on behalf of Cecil. He
reminded the secretary of his government allowance that could be utilized to
pay for the building work.88
Cecil's public demonstration of wealth and status consummated the aims
that Burghley had for his son in the 1590s, establishing him in high political
office, theoretically indoctrinated in Burghley's deferential and prudent
approach to government. The queen's growing reluctance to promote the
new generation as the old order, like Hatton, Mildmay and Leicester, died,
made competition for office all the stronger, but as is clear from the modus
vivendi that characterized the first half of the decade, Essex's challenge to
Burghley's plans was not obstructive. Though representing very different
approaches to government, Burghley, Cecil and Essex were tied by both
social and political bonds: Essex's court of largely political 'outs' necessitated working with, rather than against, Burghley and Cecil. Gossipers like
Whyte and Lake chose to ignore this and seized upon Cecil's mischievous
goading of Essex over Bacon's petition to the Attorney-Generalship as
evidence of factionalism. But at this time, Cecil was not in a position for
such rivalry: though well established in his relationship at Court, he lacked
official or independent status, and thus competed with Essex for the secretaryship. Far from provoking factionalism on his own behalf, he sought to
prove his worth and skill by maintaining the modus vivendi rather than
upsetting it. With each succeeding year that the secretaryship remained
vacant, this did become more difficult: sparks clearly flew when the Cecilian
intelligence network came under pressure in the Lopez investigations in
1594. Even when this was pushed into the background, as with growing
84
85
86
87
88
Hatfield House, Cecil M S S , 77/35, Walter Cope to Cecil, 7 March 1601.

Ibid., Cecil M S S , 183/7 and 87/112, Simon Basyll to Cecil, 14 and 18 Aug. 1601.
Ibid., Cecil M S S , 87/138, Lady Sidney to Cecil, 24 Aug. 1601.
Ibid., Cecil M S S , 183/24, bishop of London to Cecil, 26 Aug. 1601.
Ibid., Cecil M S S , 88/87, Roger Houghton to Cecil, 3 Oct. 1601.
Regnum Cecilianwn} A perspective of the Court
63
fears of Spanish invasion in late 1594 and 1595, the competition continued
by proxy as the Cecils, in an uncharacteristically imprudent manner, manipulated supplies and information to undermine the new political dominance
of Essexian military foreign policy.
When the secretaryship was finally resolved - in Cecil's favour - it was the
queen's fitful management not so much of factions but of an overbearing
and mercurial subject who seemed to disrupt the modus vivendi of the Privy
Council: Essex's cultivation of popularity, having subverted royal commands in favour of his own ambitions, was a dangerous challenge to her
hegemony. It recalled Cartwright's attempts, as he was accused by Whitgift,
to found both spiritual and political power in the people which was regarded
as encouraging partiality and chaos not only in the discipline and organization of the church, but in central and provincial government in opposition
to equitable and divinely appointed government by crown.89 Cecil's hand
was strengthened, and far from stimulating a polarization of interests in all
but the minds of Essexian supporters it created a fragile political tokenism.
Both Cecil and Essex were willing to accept and initiate reconciliation in
public matters, but that these were necessary said much for the collapse of
control by the queen of her government, and the influence wrought by the
new generation, under the competition for scarce political spoils. Under
such a thin veneer, it was hardly surprising that even men like Burghley
exploded in anger.
When faction broke out openly, after Burghley's death in 1598, it was a
curiously lop-sided affair: Cecil's entrenchment into the political establishment made Essex's cultivation of faction look like opposition. It was this
very relationship - rather than a more equal duel between two opposing
factions - that encouraged Essex's fall rather than deliberate machinations
by Cecil. The Privy Council rallied together when Essex's actions, in some
respects a replay of 1596, threatened more dangerous consequences.
Though the situation had looked fluid in 1598 - up until Essex's execution
some had still contemplated his return to favour as a potential reality90 Cecil's position had proved the stronger.
Regnum Cecilianum was a rhetorical device of criticism. It was founded on
the paranoia of those who considered that they were at a political disadvantage to the Cecils and to their perceived supporters; it was a term of
abuse to define what the Essexians were not; it was certainly not the reality,
as Neale argued for the 1590s. The kingdom was still the queen's: the Cecils
had been able to entrench themselves into the Court establishment but such
strength had always been dependent on the royal will, which had shaped
89
90
Peter Lake, Anglicans and Puritans? Presbyterianism

Whitgift to Hooker (London, 1988), p p . 60-6.
Cheyney, History of England, I I , p . 506.
and English Conformist
Thought from
64
Natalie Mears
much of both Cecil's and Essex's response by its absence or fitful appearance. What the rivalry had revealed was a distinction between what have
been termed the noblesse de robe and noblesse d'epee. When push came to
shove, the Elizabethan establishment rallied decisively around the civilian
code of administration. The claims of the ancient aristocracy to prominence
as the queen's natural counsellors were rejected, as was the alleged superiority of martial values and natural law. It was to this consensus that Cecil was
aligned, both ideologically and politically. Hence the 'kingdom of the
Cecils' was much more an issue of maintaining the status quo than of
Cecilian political aggrandizement.
Patronage at Court, faction and the earl of

Essex
Paul E. J. Hammer
Since the time of Queen Elizabeth I herself, notions of 'faction' have been
considered profoundly important for understanding Elizabethan high politics. Perhaps the most vitriolic piece of political criticism of the reign,
Leicester's Commonwealth^ accused the earl of Leicester of deliberately
building up a 'faction' to control the realm and ensure that his brother-inlaw, the earl of Huntingdon, became Elizabeth's successor. 1 In the early
seventeenth century, a number of writers, such as William Camden and Sir
Robert Naunton, looked back on Elizabeth's reign and lauded the queen for
her 'princely' skill in 'balancing' factions. 2 Although such praise was
bestowed with more than half an eye to the political controversies of their
own day about the monopolizing of royal favour, this view of Elizabeth
proved to be highly influential over the succeeding centuries. 3 In modern
times, Conyers Read re-emphasized the notion of faction when he suggested
that the foreign policy of Elizabeth's reign needed to be understood as the
product of a long-term struggle between rival 'factions' on the Privy
Council.4 In the late 1940s, J. E. Neale refocussed the terms of debate over
faction. Influenced by the views of Naunton and by his own research into
the politics of parliamentary elections, Neale reasserted the link between
1
2
3
4
Leicester's Commonwealth: The Copy of a Letter Written by a Master of Art of Cambridge

(1584) and Related Documents, ed. D. C. Peck (Athens, Ohio and London, 1985).
Naunton's Fragmenta regalia (first published 1641) is the locus classicus for this analysis but
emphasis on factional rivalries and glorification of the queen is also strongly evident in such
works as Camden's Annals (1615; complete English edition 1625) and Sir Henry Wotton's A
Parallel betweene Robert Late Earle of Essex and George Late Duke of Buckingham (1641),
which is itself indebted to Camden's views. For reflections on the tradition in which these
works were written, and the differences between them, see S. Adams, 'Factions and
Favourites at the Elizabethan Court', in R. G. Asch and A. M. Birke (eds.), Princes,
Patronage and Nobility: The Court at the Beginning of the Modern Age c.1450-1650 (Oxford,
1991), pp. 265-87.
For the influence of Camden, in particular, see C. Haigh (ed.), The Reign of Elizabeth I
(Basingstoke and London, 1984), pp. 6ff.
C. Read, 'Walsingham and Burghley in Queen Elizabeth's Privy Council', EHR, 28 (1913),
34-58.
65
66
Paul E. J. Hammer
faction and patronage, rather than with matters of policy. 5 In the words of a
subsequent essay by Wallace MacCaffrey which elaborated on Neale's
theme, Elizabethan political life was seen to be centred on an unending
struggle between rival factions for 'place and patronage'. 6 In this conception, 'factions' were associations composed of a patron and his clients which
competed against rival groupings to obtain the largest possible share of royal
bounty.7
In more recent years, the work of a number of scholars has opened to
question the whole nature of 'faction' in Elizabethan high politics. Conyers
Read's notion of a Privy Council split by rivalry over foreign policy in the
1570s and 1580s has been undermined by MacCaffrey,8 by R. B. Wernham 9
and, in particular, by Simon Adams. In a series of articles, including a
chapter in the present volume, Dr Adams has also questioned the Nealean
orthodoxy about faction and patronage. Scrutinizing the career of the earl of
Leicester, one of the two greatest putative faction leaders of Elizabeth's
reign, Dr Adams' work has consistently downplayed or rejected the political
role of faction in Leicester's career. 10 Where faction once seemed to be a
creature abundant in Elizabethan politics, under Dr Adams' close scrutiny
it now seems to be becoming something of an endangered species.
However, despite this revisionist view of politics in the 'high' Elizabethan
period, there is no dispute that faction did dominate high politics in the later
1590s. This chapter seeks to explore the nature of this factionalism in
Elizabeth's last decade. It aims to explain how and why English politics
became so sharply polarized in the years after Leicester's death. To that
end, this chapter ventures some general comments about the pursuit of
patronage at Court. These comments are not intended to embody any
all-embracing reinterpretation of patronage, but merely to emphasize those
aspects of patronage which are necessary for an understanding of the growth
5
6
8
9
10
J. E. Neale, 'The Elizabethan Political Scene' (first published 1948) in his Essays in
Elizabethan History (London, 1958), pp. 59-84.
W. T. MacCaffrey, 'Place and Patronage in Elizabethan Polities', in S. T. Bindoff, J. Hurstfield and C. H. Williams (eds.), Elizabethan Government and Society: Essays Presented to Sir
John Neale (London and Toronto, 1961), pp. 95-126.
Neale, 'Elizabethan Political Scene', p. 70. Cf. A. G. R. Smith, The Government of Elizabethan England (London, 1967), p. 63; Smith, Servant of the Cecils: The Life of Sir Michael
Hickes, 1543-1612 (London, 1977), pp. 52-3; J. Hurstfield, 'Political Corruption in Early
Modern England', in his Freedom, Corruption and Government in Elizabethan England
(London, 1973), p. 157; Hurstfield, 'Tradition and Change in the English Renaissance', in
ibid., p. 228.
W. T. MacCaffrey, Queen Elizabeth and the Making of Policy, 1572-1588 (Princeton, NJ,
1981), pp. 17-20, 444ff, 502-4.
R. B. Wernham, The Making of Elizabethan Foreign Policy 1558-1603 (Berkeley and Los
Angeles, Calif., 1980), pp. 8-13.
S. Adams, 'Faction, Clientage and Party: English Politics, 1550-1603', History Today, 32
(Dec. 1982), 33-9; Adams, 'Eliza Enthroned? The Court and its Polities', in Haigh, The
Reign of Elizabeth /, pp. 55-77; Adams, 'Favourites and Factions'.
Patronage at Court, faction and the earl of Essex
67
of faction. There is also no attempt here to discuss local factionalism or the

quest for local offices in the counties. Although they strongly influenced
Neale's interpretations of faction and patronage, I believe that these
struggles involved quite different tactics and dynamics from the manceuvrings at Court. 11 Although they could reflect tensions which had developed
at Court, local rivalries confuse, rather than clarify, the growth of faction in
high politics in the 1590s.
I
The word 'faction' is an awkward term. Like that other troublesome Elizabethan word, 'puritan', 'faction' has been used somewhat promiscuously by
historians, both because it is a contemporary term and because its meaning
seems inherently obvious. Clearly, the word has connotations of coordinated political action in which personal advantage is placed above any
sense of equity or the greater good. However, historical debate requires
more precision in its use of analytical terms. Despite some recent soulsearching about how 'faction' should be understood in early modern
England, historians continue to employ the word in significantly different
ways.12 Stated crudely, the essential point of difference lies in whether
historians see factionalism as widespread and endemic in early modern
politics or as an occasional aberration. For the Elizabethan period, these two
positions are exemplified by the Nealean conception of faction and by
Dr Adams' revisionist stance. By equating faction with clientage networks,
the Nealean view portrays faction as an omnipresent and inevitable
phenomenon in Elizabethan politics. According to this view, the Court, and
indeed elite society in general, was full of such 'mutual benefit' societies,13
all bent on advancing their own mercenary interests at the expense of their
rivals. By contrast, Dr Adams has argued for a much tighter definition of
faction, warning that 'there is a great danger of trivialising contemporary
11
12
13
For some rather cursory comments on this subject, see P. E. J. Hammer, '"The Bright
Shininge Sparke": The Political Career of Robert Devereux, 2nd Earl of Essex, c.1585c.1597', unpublished Cambridge Ph.D. thesis (1991), p. 234.
Adams, 'Faction, Clientage and Party'; Adams, 'Favourites and Factions'; D. Starkey,
'From Feud to Faction: English Politics circa 1450-1550', History Today, 32 (Nov. 1982),
16-22; Starkey, The Reign of Henry VIII: Personalities and Politics (London, 1985), passim;
K. Sharpe, 'Faction at the Early Stuart Court', History Today, 33 (Oct. 1983), 39-46; E. W.
Ives, Faction in Tudor England (HA, New Appreciations no.6, 2nd edn, 1986); Ives, 'Stress,
Faction and Ideology in Early-Tudor England', HJ, 34 (1991), 193-202; G. W. Bernard,
'Politics and Government in Tudor England', HJ, 31 (1988), 159-82. For some particularly
trenchant comments on the debate over Elizabethan 'faction', see also M. M. Leimon, 'Sir
Francis Walsingham and the Anjou Marriage Plan, 1574-1581', unpublished Cambridge
Ph.D. thesis (1989), pp. 59ff.
Neale, 'Elizabethan Political Scene', p. 70.
68
Paul E. J. Hammer
political disputes by considering them all to have been factional'. 14 He

defines a courtly faction as consisting of a body of men who felt themselves
personally bound to one particular great man and who also saw themselves
as necessarily opposed to other men who had a similar bond with a different
leader.
The present essay will follow this latter, narrow definition of faction
because, as will become apparent, the identification of faction with clientage
obscures, rather than illuminates, the nature of politics in the 1590s.
Furthermore, the association of faction with the common workings of the
patronage system threatens to distort our understanding of patronage itself.
'Faction', like 'puritan', was a distinctly pejorative term in the late sixteenth
century.15 It was something which one accused one's bitter adversaries of
embracing. Elizabethans talked and wrote incessantly about the vital
importance of obtaining patronage, and about the practical means of doing
so. From this constant outpouring, it is clear that they meant something by
'faction' which was quite different from any normal expression of the
client-patron relationship. Although the pursuit of patronage frequently
entailed dubious practices and complaints about the 'backbiting' of
'enemies', the alleged appearance of factions meant that the contest for an
office or grant had ceased to be a matter of competition between rival suitors
and had become a political issue. Faction, in other words, involved a rigidity
in personal relations which was inimical to the kinds of dutiful courtesies
and horse-trading on which the normal pursuit of patronage depended.
Faction was seen as the perversion of the patronage process, not its common
manifestation.
During the first half of the 1590s, and perhaps at other times as well, one
of the most obvious features of the pursuit of patronage at Court was its
relative fluidity or pluralism. Suitors not only often tried to pursue several
suits at once but also frequently sought to gain the support of as many
different patrons as possible. In his long-running suit to win a reversion to
one of the clerkships of the privy seal, Francis Galle at various times claimed
to have garnered the support of Nicasius Yetsweirt, his father-in-law and
secretary for the French tongue, 16 Charles Yetsweirt, his brother-in-law
and a clerk of the signet, Thomas Windebank, a clerk of the signet who
enjoyed the queen's favour, Sir Francis Walsingham, Essex, Burghley,
14
15
16
Adams, cFaction, Clientage and Party', p. 34.

The only non-pejorative uses of the term in this period seem to be occasions where it is used
ironically, such as Gabriel Harvey's plea to be accepted as a member of Philip Sidney's
poetic 'faction' ([Gabriel Harvey and Edmund Spenser], Three proper and wittie, familiar
letters lately passed betwene two universitie men touching the earthquake in Aprill last, and our
English refourmed versifying [London, 1580 (STC 23095)], sig. H4r).
For Yetsweirt (often simply called Mr Nicasius), see C. A. Bradford, Nicasius Yetsweirt:
Secretary of the French Tongue (London, 1934).
69
Cecil and Lord Cobham.17 As late as May 1597, William Cornwallis sought
the backing of Essex, Cecil and the countess of Warwick in his attempt to
win appointment to the post of groom-porter.18 Perhaps more typical was
Jane Yetsweirt, the widow of Charles and successor to his contentious
printing privilege, who sought the good lordship of Burghley to 'let my
contenders knowe that I have a protector', even though she had already won
the active support of Essex.19 Similar tendencies can also be observed
among suitors who were clearly devoted followers of one particular courtier.
Anthony Standen, for example, was both a partisan supporter of the earl of
Essex and a man who harboured considerable resentment towards the
Cecils. However, neither of these facts inhibited him from making repeated
requests for assistance to the Lord Treasurer and his son.20
These few examples illustrate some of the essential characteristics of the
quest for patronage at Court in these years. Without the backing of at least
one high-level patron, and preferably of several, suits often dragged on for a
long time. Francis Galle claimed that he had been pursuing his suit for
fourteen years by 1597.21 More successful were Philip Henslowe and
Edward Alleyn, who finally won the Mastership of the Bears in 1604, six
years after they had launched their campaign to gain the office, and longer
still since they had begun to make heavy investments in bear-baiting.22 The
long delays in many suits exacerbated the pervasive feeling of insecurity
among suitors at Court. Every twist and turn of a suit was seen to be the
result of human authorship, often of conjectured or imaginary 'adversaries'.
Suitors of all kinds believed themselves vulnerable to the 'secrett stinges of
smilinge enemies' at Court. 23 For many suits, however, the Machiavellian
manoeuvres attributed to such 'enemies' were real enough because competition was ferocious, especially for offices which offered the prospect of a
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
Hatfield House, Hertfordshire, Cecil M S S , 55/98, Francis Galle to Sir Robert Cecil, 6 Oct.
1597. This document is incompletely calendared in H M C , A Calendar ofthe Manuscripts of
the Most Hon. the Marquis of Salisbury, preserved at Hatfield House, Hertfordshire (24 vols.,
London, 1883-1976), V I I , p. 419. Citations from the Cecil M S S are included by kind
permission of the marquess of Salisbury.
PRO, SP 12/263, fo. 105r-v, Cornwallis to Cecil, [?] May 1597.
B L , Harleian M S 6997, fos. 18r, 16r, respectively Jane Yetsweirt to Burghley, 7 May 1595,
and Essex to Lord Keeper Puckering, 7 May [1595].
B L , Lansdowne M S 79, fo. 204r, Standen to Burghley, 8 June 1595; ibid., M S 85, fo. 62r,
same to same, 1 Oct. 1597; ibid., Harleian M S 6845, fos. 101r-102r, same to same, 5 July
1596; L P L , M S 652, fo. 320r, same to same, [ D e c ] 1595; Hatfield House, Cecil M S S
175/85, Standen to Cecil, 20 June 1597 [pr. H M C , Salisbury MSS, VII, pp. 260-1]. For
Standen, see P. E. J. Hammer, *An Elizabethan Spy who Came in from the Cold: T h e
Return of Anthony Standen to England in 1593', Historical Research, 65 (1992), 277-95.
Hatfield House, Cecil M S S , 55/98.
S. P. Cerasano, 'The Master of the Bears in Art and Enterprise', Medieval and Renaissance
Drama in England, 5 (1991), 201.
PRO, C 115, box M 15, no. 7364, Sir George Carey to John Scudamore, 15 June 1585.
70
Paul E. J. Hammer
tidy profit. In 1595, Nicholas Trott complained that, when he began his suit
for the post of Clerk to the Council of the North, 'I made account of many
adverse parties and of the ordinarie preceding of the Court, the which is
from inquisition into my life to likely suspition, and from thence to plain
fiction.' Instead, he found 'that impudence in [my] competition [who]
taketh not that which is next and likeliest [i.e. an attack on his credentials for
the job] but reacheth at that which is of surest spede', bare-faced
'slawnder'.24
In this conspiracy theory prone environment, not all those who received
favours from great men were their clients. Suitors scrambled to secure the
support of the most influential men at Court in any way they could. The earl
of Essex's desire to be a model of aristocratic virtues, including liberality,
meant that he was frequently overwhelmed with eager suitors, especially
after he became a privy councillor in 1593. Curious results sometimes
sprang from such pressure. In one case, he had to apologize to his mother,
whose interests he had unwittingly harmed: *I protest I know nott thatt my
hand was sett to any lettre thatt did concerne ether your ladyship or any
towardes you. Butt, amongest the infinite lettres which are offred to us to
signe, I might signe some such ere I knew whatt yt was.' 25 Many of Essex's
other favours for suitors were also performed, not because of any attachment to the man in question, but because of the special trust which he
placed in the friend who brought the suit to his attention. Anthony Bacon,
for example, sent a constant stream of requests to Essex, almost all of which
were treated favourably. In another instance, Essex indicated how much
stock he set on pleasing his special friends: Sir Thomas Gerard 'is so much
my frend as withowt question I sholde take any man upon his worde'. 26 For
Essex, far more than any other politician of the time, such support for his
intimates was a matter of honour, matching the loyalty to him which he
expected from them.
Although Essex was an extreme case, it is clear that patronage at Court
needs to be treated carefully if it is to be used as evidence of political
allegiances or membership of factions. Observing a patronage connection is
not sufficient. The crucial test is the quality of that connection. It is also
important to recognize where the primary source of dynamism is centred in
this patronage system. The overwhelming sense which comes from the
surviving evidence is that it was usually the desires and fears of the suitors
which drove the actions of the patrons, not the other way around. The
24
25
26
L P L , M S 651, fo. 134r, Nicholas Trott to Anthony Standen, 22 May 1595.

H M C , Twelfth Report. Appendix. Part IX. The manuscripts of the duke of Beaufort, K.G., the
earl of Donoughmore, and others (London, 1891), p. 169 (Hulton M S S ) , Essex to countess of
Leicester, 1 Sept. [?].
L P L , M S 3199, p. 633, Essex to the earl of Derby, 17 Jan. 1594.
71
predominant pressure in this system was upward. Since Dr Linda Levy

Peck has observed the same phenomenon in her study of the earl of
Northampton in the reign of James I, 27 this may be broadly true of the early
modern period as a whole.
If patronage links can often constitute slippery evidence about the political affiliation of individual courtiers, there were nevertheless some reasonably solid dimensions to the quest for royal bounty. The sharply defined
rules of who had direct access to the queen and the less tangible, but hardly
less well-known, dictates of who currently enjoyed royal favour both determined the range of courtiers from whom suitors might choose their
potential patrons. To some extent at least, there also seems to have been a
recognition that many suits fell into the area of responsibility for specific
members of the Privy Council. Financial matters, for example, such as suits
for the purchase of Crown lands, came within the sphere of the Lord
Treasurer and the Chancellor of the Exchequer. By the mid-1590s, suits
involving military commands and contracts for the army were clearly dominated by the queen's de facto commander-in-chief on land, the earl of Essex.
Although relations between many suitors and the brokers of patronage
were often quite fluid, some connections were also quite firmly grounded
and constituted a genuine client-patron relationship. Such constellations
changed over the years. However, while they lasted, these ties were
especially important, for it was men bound by such ties who ultimately
formed the rank and file of any faction. In the latter half of 1593, for
example, Anthony Standen eagerly sought the furtherance of Lord
Burghley and Sir Robert Cecil, but he was clearly a client of Essex. In fact,
Standen had formerly been a client of Burghley and his sudden volte face in
June of that year ensured that he won little favour from the Cecils thereafter, in spite of his frequent overtures to them. 28 Standen became one of a
group of men who clustered around Essex and put pressure on him by their
bitterness towards the Cecils and their frequently expressed anxieties about
the prospects for their future careers. Although nephews by marriage to
Lord Burghley, Francis and Anthony Bacon both felt thwarted by the Lord
Treasurer, whom they believed to be advancing his son, Sir Robert Cecil, at
the expense of any preferment for themselves. 29 Sir Francis Aleyn was an
old soldier who fretted over his ill health and his lack of any new command.
27
28
29
L. L . Peck, Northampton: Patronage and Policy at the Court of James I (London, 1982),
p. 38. Similar points about the workings of the patronage system to those made above are
expressed in ibid., esp. chaps. 2 - 3 and Peck, Court Patronage and Corruption in Early Stuart
England (Boston, Mass., 1990), passim.
See Hammer, "An Elizabethan Spy', passim.
L P L , M S 659, fo. 25r-v, Anthony Bacon to Essex, [11 Sept. 1596]; ibid., M S 649, fo. 426r,
Anthony Standen to Anthony Bacon, 18 Dec. 1593. Lady Anne Bacon shared the same
opinion (ibid., M S 650, fo. 33r, Lady Anne Bacon to Anthony Bacon, 24 Jan. 1594).
72
Paul E. J. Hammer
He believed that Burghley was continuing an old vendetta against his

family.30 Although frequently abroad, Sir Roger Williams, one of England's
most famous soldiers, was another member of this bitter circle.31 So, too,
was the notorious Antonio Perez, the former secretary of Philip II who had
defected to the service of the king of France in 1591. It was Perez who
coined the name for Cecil of 'Robertas diabolus'. 32 Perez's mordant wit and
dislike of the Cecils (the feeling was entirely mutual) probably did much to
crystallize the tensions between them and the circle around Essex.
This group of clients possessed many of the characteristics which one
might associate with a factional grouping. Although they covered their true
feelings with public shows of courtesy, they were united by hostility
towards Burghley and Cecil and by the belief that they were all victims of
Cecilian persecution. However, bitter though they were, these clients of
Essex do not demonstrate that there was factionalism at Court in 1593.
What cooperative action these men undertook was not against the Cecils but
rather against their own patron, Essex, whom they constantly badgered to
advance their various suits. As Francis Bacon asserted with typical arrogance, 'no other faute hathe the erle but he muste contynewally be puld by
the eare, as a boy that learneth ut, re, me, fa'. 33 More importantly, there was
also no sign of a rival Cecil faction. Although the disappointed hopes of
these men, and Essex's own public backing of their suits, produced distinct
tensions at Court in 1593, they did not produce factionalism. That was to be
the product of more profound differences between Essex and the Cecils in
the years that followed.
n
Essex's changing relationship with the Cecils was in many ways the driving
force of political strife in the 1590s. At least until the death of old Lord
Burghley in August 1598, this was a decidedly ambivalent relationship.
Burghley was one of Essex's guardians as a child and a mutual respect seems
to have endured between them even when they came into conflict and
exchanged 'housoulde wordes'. 34 By contrast, Sir Robert Cecil was almost
the same age as Essex, ill-favoured in appearance and only the second son of
30
31
32
33
34
Ibid., M S 650, fo. 50r-v, Sir Francis Aleyn to Essex, 14 Jan. 1594.
Ibid., M S 649, fo. 388r, Anthony Standen to Anthony Bacon, 17 Nov. 1593.
G. Ungerer (ed.), A Spaniard in Elizabethan England: The Correspondence of Antonio Perez's
Exile (2 vols., London, 1974-6), I, p. 388, Perez to Essex, 19 Dec. 1595; ibid., I I , p. 191,
Anthony Bacon to D r Henry Hawkyns, 2 D e c . 1596. Bacon is reporting the words of Perez.
Another of Perez's names for Cecil was 'microgibbus' (ibid., I, p. 336, Perez to Essex,
[mid-July 1595]).
L P L , M S 650, fo. 81r, Anthony Standen to Anthony Bacon, 3 Feb. 1594. Standen is
reporting a conversation with Francis Bacon in this part of the letter.
B L , Additional M S 11042, fo. 87v, Richard Wigmore to Sir John Scudamore, 4 Aug. [1594].
73
the Lord Treasurer. Essex initially viewed him as a friend but later had no
difficulty in viewing him as an inferior rival.
Essex's relations with 'the father and the son' were also profoundly
conditioned by the political circumstances of the 1590s. At the beginning of
the decade, after the deaths of Leicester, Walsingham and Hatton, Burghley
attained a quite unprecedented share of power and influence under Elizabeth. He was simultaneously Lord Treasurer, Master of the Court of Wards
and acting Secretary of State. As a result, the old sense of balance and
collegiality which Dr Simon Adams sees as characterizing high politics
during the middle decades of the reign, and the conduct of the Privy
Council in particular, was lost at the start of the 1590s. Burghley's preeminence was further underlined by the fact that between the death of the
sixth earl of Shrewsbury in November 1590 and the promotion of Lord
Admiral Howard to the earldom of Nottingham in October 1597, the only
nobleman on the Privy Council above the rank of baron was Essex. The
pattern of political power was therefore quite different from what had gone
before. Instead of shared influence among a number of friendly rivals,
Burghley's own example now demonstrated that power meant the almost
total domination of the queen's government.
If Burghley was the 'olde Saturnus' 35 of Elizabeth's Court and a living
'code of laws'36 for her administration, Essex was widely seen as the coming
man of English politics by the early 1590s. Burghley himself seemed to be
deliberately hitching the wagon of his son Robert to the earl's rising star. As
early as September 1587, Cecil pointedly used Essex's intercession to secure
the reversion to his father's Hertfordshire offices.37 In 1591, when Burghley
was instrumental in winning command of the Rouen expedition for Essex,
Cecil kept in close touch with the earl and acted as an alternative route of
communication between him and his father. More importantly, Essex,
Burghley and Cecil were all fully agreed on the utter necessity of making the
queen provide military support for the tottering regime of Henry IV of
France. However, Essex and the Cecils supported the French king's cause
for quite different reasons. For Essex, as he wrote on a later occasion,
France was 'at thys daye the theater and stage wheron the greatest actions
are acted'. 38 It was there, he believed, that Spain's apparent bid for world
35
36
37
38
H M C , Report on the Manuscripts of the Lord De Lisle and Dudley preserved at Penshurst Place
(6 vols., London, 1925-66), I I , p. 122, Thomas Lake to Sir Robert Sidney, 1 Oct. 1591.
V. von Klarwill (ed.), Queen Elizabeth and Some Foreignersy being a Further Series of
Hitherto Unpublished Letters from the Archives of the Hapsburg Family > trans. T. H. Nash
(London, 1928), p. 359.
B L , Cotton M S S , Titus B V I I , fo. 57r, William Herlle to the earl of Leicester, 8 Sept.
1587.
University of London Library, M S 187, fo. 14r. Perhaps significantly, Essex's friend Sir
Henry Unton used the same expression about France as 'the stage of Christendome', in a
speech to the 1593 Parliament which drew the queen's ire (PRO, S P 12/244, fo. 165v, copy
74
Paul E. J. Hammer
domination must be resisted and defeated. Reinforcing this belief was a

strong personal commitment to the French king himself, the result of their
contact during the Rouen campaign. By contrast, the Cecils, like Elizabeth,
saw England's intervention as essentially a necessary defensive measure to
prevent the Spanish seizing control of the French Channel ports. The
essence of this approach was caught in a comment by Thomas Wilkes in
1593: 'if the king of Spayne be dead, wee are like enoughe to care little for
France'. 39 Henry was therefore required to promise that he would ultimately
repay every last penny which he received in aid from England.
If Essex championed the belief that England's destiny lay with Europe,
while the Cecils ultimately sought to safeguard the integrity of the British
Isles, such differences were relatively unimportant while the situation in
France remained grave. With the threat of disaster still looming, all hands
had to pull together. This was perfectly illustrated by events in 1592. Essex
returned from his command in Normandy at the beginning of that year
embittered by his difficulties in securing adequate support from home and
frustrated by the indecisive nature of the campaign. Perhaps inevitably,
much of his bitterness attached to his chief backer in the expedition, Lord
Burghley. Essex's anger soon also extended to Sir Robert Cecil, for Elizabeth brushed off his appeals for compensation for the enormous costs of
leading the Rouen campaign and made him deal in the matter through Sir
Robert, then the newest and most junior member of the Privy Council.
Elizabeth was clearly trying to accustom the two men to working with each
other but the move caused sharp frictions between them for several months.
Eventually, aided by the Cecils, Essex got his grant from the queen, in the
form of a fee-farm of certain royal parks. 40 As was so often the case, Essex
received this royal largess not simply because he was the queen's favourite,
as most commentators tend to assume, but because he spent more than
anyone else in the queen's service.
More important for present purposes is the light which these events cast
on the earl's relationship with the Cecils. In July 1592, one reporter
described Essex as, 'of all other, the most discontented person of the
Court'. 41 He signed off one letter to Cecil as 'your friend, if I have cause'.42
Yet, despite such bitterness, Essex and the Cecils remained united in their
39
40
41
42
of Unton's speech [24 March 1593]; BL, Cotton M S S , Caligula E IX(i), fo. 171r,
Thomas Edmondes, 17 May 1593).
Ibid., fo. 182v, Thomas Wylkes to Thomas Edmondes, 20 Sept. 1593.
For the terms of this grant and the ways in which they changed, see Hammer,
Career of Essex', p. 281, n. 104.
The Letters and Despatches of Richard Verstegan (c.l550-1640),
ed. A. G. Petti
Record Society, LII, 1959), p. 59.
W. Murdin, A Collection of State Papers relating to Affairs in the Reign of Queen
from the Year 1571 to 1596 ... (London, 1759), p. 655.
Unton to
'Political
(Catholic
Elizabeth,
75
endeavours to maintain the queen's wavering commitment to assist

France. 43 Just as the nightmare that Mary Stuart might succeed to the
English throne had served to constrain real conflict among privy councillors
in the 1570s and 1580s, so the prospect of Spanish bases across the Channel
had a sobering effect on high politics in the early 1590s.
If the threat of Henry I V's defeat provided an essential focus of common
purpose for Essex and the Cecils, it also remained true that Burghley was
old and that his extraordinary political influence must eventually pass into
other hands. Burghley himself was highly conscious of this fact and worked
hard to place his son Sir Robert in the pivotal office of Secretary of State
after Walsingham's death. Essex disturbed these plans, perhaps unintentionally, when he urged the queen to recall William Davison, Walsingham's
former junior colleague and the scapegoat for the execution of Mary
Stuart.44 Neither side had its way and the post was left vacant. As the
situation in France worsened and Essex pleaded to command the army
going to Normandy, the conflict over the secretary's office faded into the
background. However, as the post remained unfilled and tensions gradually
mounted between Essex and the Cecils, the eventual choice of Secretary of
State attained greater significance with every year that passed.
The Rouen campaign was a crucial turning-point in Essex's career. Essex
went to Normandy believing that he could commit the queen to an expansive war in France, and enhance his own prestige and influence, simply by
achieving victory on the battlefield. By the time he finally handed over his
command, he had learnt that the politician's pen was mightier than the
soldier's sword - that undertaking the kind of war which he envisaged was
impossible without first securing full political commitment at home. In
consequence, Essex 'resolved to give this satisfaction to the queen, as to
desist for a tyme from his cowrse of the warrs and to intend matters of
state'. 45 Essex now began in earnest to invest in the collection of foreign
intelligence.46 He also pressed for a place on the Privy Council, which he
finally gained in February 1593. Although the most recent addition to its
membership, his title of earl immediately ranked him third in the Council's
all-important order of precedence.
Essex's elevation to the Council also heralded the beginning of a year of
43
F o r some specific instances, see B L , Cotton M S S , Caligula E V I I I , fo. 176r; Correspondence of Sir Henry Unton, knt, Ambassador from Queen Elizabeth to Henry IV king of France,
44
45
in the years MDXCI and MDXCII, ed. R. J. Stevenson (Roxburghe Club, London, 1847),
pp. 277ff. At a more general level, see R. B. Wernham, After the Armada: Elizabethan
England and the Struggle for Western Europe 1588-1595 (Oxford, 1984), p. vi.
P R O , S P 15/32, fo. 9v; ibid., S P 12/239, fo. 244r; Bodleian Library, T a n n e r M S 82,
fos. 42v-43r. I n one letter, Essex promised Davison that ' I will not be forgetfull [of you] like
Pharo's butler' (ibid., T a n n e r M S 79, fo. 99r).
L P L , M S 653, fo. 3r.
* H a m m e r , 'Political Career of Essex', p p . 98ff.
76
Paul E. J. Hammer
palpable tension between himself and the Cecils. Essex believed that Burghley was not long for this world, and acted accordingly: * their chief hour
glass hath little sand left in it and doth run out still'.47 Essex began to push
hard to establish himself as the obvious man to succeed to the old Lord
Treasurer's status as the chief pillar of the queen's government. Although
the very idea that he might cease to be in charge rankled with Burghley,
Essex exacerbated matters by making capital out of the fact that his intelligence system was beginning to supplant the Lord Treasurer's as the
queen's chief source of foreign secrets. Anthony Standen's volte face and
the appearance of the circle of malcontents around Essex were deeply
galling to Burghley. Even worse was the way in which Essex attempted to
use his position as the queen's favourite to lever Francis Bacon into the
office of Attorney-General. In matters of policy, the consensus over France
was also creaking, as Elizabeth and Burghley recoiled from Henry IV's
proposed, and then actual, conversion to Catholicism. Relations between
Essex and the Cecils probably reached their nadir at the beginning of 1594,
when the earl accused a royal physician, Dr Lopez, of plotting to poison the
queen.
Although probably instigated by Bacon, and certainly sustained by him,
Essex's bid to win the Attorney-Generalship for Francis Bacon was clearly
a test-case for the earl's hold on the queen. Ultimately, it was a test which
he failed and, considering Bacon's weak credentials, one which he probably
never had a chance of winning. Nevertheless, there was method in Essex's
maddening behaviour. Essex deliberately sought to force the issue by trying
the queen's patience, in order to defeat her usual tactic of simply delaying
hard decisions. While keeping up the pressure on Elizabeth, Essex also
tried to force Burghley into supporting Bacon's candidature. Essex himself
possessed no office or expertise which qualified him to make a judgement on
filling this office but Burghley's advice would be decisive. Essex's campaign
for Bacon not only strained the limits of what was acceptable behaviour for
a favourite but also threatened to twist Burghley's relationship with the
queen. In response, the Lord Treasurer desperately tried to arrange a
compromise, in which he would support Bacon for the lesser post of
Solicitor-General. At first, Essex refused the compromise: 'disgest me no
disgestions . . . the attorneyship for ffrances ys that I must have'.48 Subsequently, however, this arrangement foundered on a different rock, the
queen herself. Elizabeth refused point-blank to make any appointment
while Essex and Burghley supported the same candidate. She simply could
47
48
H M C , Salisbury MSS, IV, p. 116, Essex to Sir Henry Unton, 8 June [1593]. For the correct
dating of this letter, see C. Read, Lord Burghley and Queen Elizabeth (London, 1960),
p. 586, n. 22.
LPL, M S 650, fo. 81r, Anthony Standen to Anthony Bacon, 3 Feb. 1594.
77
not allow herself to be seen as having her hand forced by her leading
councillors.49
This development provides a significant insight into how Elizabeth tried
to manage her Court. As a woman, Elizabeth's great fear was that she would
be dictated to by her greatest male subjects and she spent her whole reign
trying to avoid this fate. This was one reason why the execution of Mary
Stuart, when the Privy Council collectively took matters into their own
hands, was so traumatic, even though it produced a result very close to what
she had wanted. By the 1590s, Elizabeth's interventions in the personal
relations among her Court were becoming rather fitful but she clearly still
wanted healthy competition among her courtiers to ensure that they and her
Privy Council could not line up against her. To this extent, Naunton's
notion of Elizabeth 'balancing' the forces of her Court has some merit.
Unable to dominate her leading subjects in the manner of a powerful king,
she chose to divide and rule. It was Elizabeth herself, for example, who
made sure that Essex and Francis Bacon heard that the Lord Treasurer was
'the sole obstacle' to Bacon's appointment in December 1593. 50 Nevertheless, such behaviour does not suggest that Elizabeth encouraged factionalism at her Court. That was a quite different matter. Indeed, it is an
inherent feature of the definition of 'faction' adopted here that the appearance of factionalism would herald a diminution of royal power and control at
Court.
Ill
The first half of 1594 saw a renewed warmth return to relations between
Essex and the Cecils. Although Francis Bacon remained without a royal
office,51 the Cecils did finally support the second test of Essex's credibility,
the charges against Lopez. Events in France also encouraged cooperation
between them because the Spanish attack on Brittany posed a threat that
was obvious to all. Over a period of months, a kind of modus vivendi was
established, with Essex backing off from his bid to lay claim to Burghley's
position and the Cecils biding their time in the quest for the post of
Secretary of State for Sir Robert. Significantly, the impetus for this
renewed cooperation initially came from the Cecils, and Sir Robert in
49
50
51
Ibid., fos. 33r, 45r, 148r, 197r, respectively Lady Anne Bacon to Anthony Bacon, 24 Jan.
1594, John Stanhope to Francis Bacon, 20 Jan. [1594], Essex to Francis Bacon, 28 March
1594, same to same, 18 May 1594.
Ibid., M S 649, fo. 426r, Anthony Standen to Anthony Bacon, 18 Dec. 1593.
However, as compensation for his failure to become Attorney-General, Bacon was given the
special title of 'queen's counsel extraordinary' in late 1594 (J. Martin, '"Knowledge is
Power": Francis Bacon, the State and the Reform of Natural Philosophy', unpublished
Cambridge Ph.D. thesis (1988), p. 153).
78
Paul E. J. Hammer
particular. His wooing of Essex in the early months of 1594 was important
because it underlined the fact that he was now more than merely his father's
shadow. Such forwardness was undoubtedly influenced by the expectation
that he and Essex would have to deal with each other for the rest of their
respective political careers. However, the desire by both Cecils for compromise with Essex also perhaps illustrates a larger point. For at least as long as
Burghley lived, it was always the Cecils who endeavoured to restore relations with Essex after each period of conflict between them, even after the
gap had really become unbridgeable. 52 This needs to be seen as a reflection
of the political stance which Burghley had learnt the hard way during the
middle decades of the century - that he was the queen's servant first and
foremost, and hence above all personal feuds and anything else which might
disrupt the queen's service. To some degree, this stance represented Burghley's genuine belief and his frequent endeavours to placate and assist Essex
must therefore be seen as evidence of his conviction that Elizabeth truly
needed the earl's talents and energy. 53 Nevertheless, this pose of serving
only the queen was also an excellent means of ensuring her continued
support, and of encouraging her to appoint the son whom he had trained in
the ways of government to the post of Secretary of State.
Despite occasional tensions, the modus vivendi between Essex and the
Cecils lasted well into 1595. Constrained by their stance of only serving the
queen, no Cecil faction appeared to match the bitter circle of partisans
around Essex. While the Cecils increasingly began to concentrate on the
growing problems in Ireland, Essex was given a more or less free hand to
expand his contacts and intelligence operations on the Continent. Both sides
sought to avoid antagonizing each other. However, such civility and
harmony could not last. Burghley's ill health in early 1595 emphasized how
pressing the problem of Cecil's future remained. In May, Essex was suddenly thrown into disgrace by the birth of a child by his secret liaison with
Elizabeth Southwell. It seems very likely that the Cecils used this opportunity for an all-out effort to secure the secretaryship, and only just failed. 54
The appointment now became the focus of a running battle between Essex
52
53
54
Burghley h a d demonstrated a similar attitude towards the earl of Leicester in 1585, When
talk of political back-stabbing over England's impending dispatch of an army to the
Netherlands became impossible t o ignore, Burghley wrote directly to Leicester himself in
early August in an effort to defuse the tensions (J. Strype, Annals of the Reformation, and the
Establishment
of Religion, and other Various Occurrences
in the Church of England . . . ( 4 v o l s . ,
London, 1709-31), I I I , Appendix, p p . 131ff).
T h u s , one of the very last letters which Sir Robert Cecil received from 'your languishyng
father' warned: 'serve G o d by servyng the quene, for all other service is in dede bondage to
the devill' (Cambridge University Library, M S Ee.iii.56, no. 138, Burghley to Cecil, 10 July
1598).
H a m m e r , 'Political Career of Essex', p p . 288-9.
79
and the Cecils. In September 1595, Anthony Bacon reported that Cecil still
'neves harde to b[e] secretary'. 55 Essex himself now began to mount what
seems to have been a full-scale propaganda campaign to convince members
of the governing class and the London public that he was a true statesman
and a worthy successor to Burghley as the queen's right-hand man. Essex's
well-known entertainment at the Accession Day tournament in November
1595 was only one element of this campaign. 56 Other components included
the circulation in manuscript of Essex's letter of advice to the earl of
Rutland 57 in early 1596 and the elaborate burial of his friend and military
adviser, Sir Roger Williams, in something of a reprise of Sir Philip Sidney's
internment nearly nine years earlier.
Like Sidney's funeral, the obsequies for Sir Roger Williams provided a
platform for glorification of the war against Spain. This was a vitally
important consideration for Essex, who footed the bill for the funeral,
because the whole military situation had changed over the course of 1595.
After the Spanish defeat in Brittany at the beginning of the year, all English
troops were withdrawn from France. Now that Henry IV's regime was more
stable and the Channel ports free from threat, Elizabeth and Burghley both
refused to strain the English exchequer any further by keeping an army in
France, despite Essex's strong protests. In the view of Elizabeth and
Burghley, any new military expenditure should be spent instead on the
worsening situation in Ireland. A series of envoys from Henry merely made
the queen more adamant and embarrassed Essex by their conduct. Then, in
late July, the war came to England for the first time since 1588, when
Spanish troops made a lightning raid on Cornwall. As a result, Essex began
to argue that England needed to change the whole direction of its war effort
and that it should carry the fight into Spain, in order to head off such threats
at their source and, ultimately, to destroy Spanish power. Although maintaining his support for Henry, Essex increasingly began to argue with
Elizabeth and Burghley for the adoption of his new strategy. The result was
'great distemper of humures on both sides'. 58
Essex's dismay at what he saw as the blindness of Elizabeth and Burghley
can hardly be overstated. As he remarked in exasperation on one occasion: 'I
55
56
57
58
LPL, MS 652, fo. 51r.

T h e surviving materials from this entertainment are cited in E. K . Chambers, The Elizabethan Stage (4 vols., Oxford, 1923), I I I , p p . 212-13.
T h e letter is printed in The Letters and Life of Francis Bacon, including all his Occasional
Works, ed. J. Spedding (7 vols., London, 1861-74), II, pp. 6-15.
A. Collins (ed.), Letters and Memorials of State, in the Reigns of Queen Mary, Queen
Elizabeth, King James [etc, papers of the Sidney family J . . . from the originals at Penshurst
Place in Kent (2 vols., London, 1746), I, p. 343, Thomas Lake to Sir Robert Sidney, 22 Aug.
1595.
80
Paul E. J. Hammer
know I shall never do her service butt against her will.' 59 Privately, Essex
wrote of the queen as the Juno to his Aeneas, suggesting that she embodied a
perverse female opposition to the dictates of a divinely approved national
destiny which he was dutifully obeying. Burghley was cast as Aeolus,
custodian of the winds, implying that he was Juno's hack and an old
wind-bag.60 In strict secrecy, Essex tried to undermine the queen's refusal
to aid France by instructing the new ambassador to France to exaggerate the
circumstances which necessitated renewed English military assistance.61
Having tried and failed to divert the Panama expedition of Sir Francis
Drake and Sir John Hawkins to attack Spain in the previous autumn,62
Essex gratefully seized on the opportunity in early 1596 of becoming
involved in a pre-emptive strike against the new Armada which was massing
in Spanish ports. Essex's spies had been reporting this build-up since the
middle of 1595 but it was some months before Elizabeth or Burghley were
willing to believe him. Once this was confirmed, however, everyone recognized that the only possible response was to attack the enemy fleet before it
could sail. It was this operation which ultimately became the Cadiz expedition of 1596.
The common focus provided by the preparation of the Cadiz campaign
served to smooth over the rivalry between Essex and the Cecils. So, too, did
Burghley's decision at the end of 1595 to join with Essex in supporting
Henry Savile, a confidant of the earl who was bidding for the provostship of
Eton.63 Once again, it seemed, the modus vivendi had been re-established.
However, the secretaryship remained an open sore and the differences over
the war and England's place in Europe remained unresolved. The Cadiz
expedition served as a focus for these tensions and destroyed the tenuous
balance at Court.
Even before the fleet sailed for Spain, jealousies arose between Essex and
Lord Admiral Howard because Howard felt that Essex was trying to make
him play secondfiddlein the venture, even in matters pertaining to his office
as Lord Admiral. Taking their cue from their generals, the officers of the
expedition became split between army and naval commanders. After the
capture of Cadiz, the soldiers blamed the sea officers for failing to capture
the Spanish merchant fleet which was anchored in the harbour, while the
59
60
61
62
63
W[arwick County] R[ecord] O[ffice, Warwick], T D 69/6(ii), item 82, Essex to Edward
Reynoldes, 10 May [1596]. I am most grateful to the earl of Aylesford for permission to cite
from this manuscript. Anthony Bacon's copy of Essex's letter is L P L , M S 657, fo. 140r.
Ungerer, Spaniard in Elizabethan England, I, pp. 329, 354, 367, 401-2; ibid., II, pp. 365-6.
Anthony Bacon's copy of these instructions is L P L , M S 652, fo. 264r-v.
K. R. Andrews, The Last Voyage of Drake & Hawkins (Hakluyt Society, 2nd series, C X L I I ,
1972), chap. 1.
H. C. Maxwell Lyte, A History of Eton College (1440-1910)
(4th edn, London, 1911),
pp. 183-5.
81
naval men accused the army of stealing all the best plunder from the city and
concealing it from the queen's officials. More significantly, the expedition's
council of war was split by Essex's demand that Cadiz should be kept as a
permanent English base in Spain. Essex had outlined this idea in a letter
which he left behind to be delivered to the Privy Council a week after the
fleet's departure.64 The crucial point about this letter is that it ran counter
to the whole idea of a pre-emptive strike and directly contravened the terms
of the queen's orders. In short, having failed to get his way in the argument
over strategy in the previous autumn, Essex was declaring that he intended
to hijack the whole expedition to suit his own view of how England should
fight the war. Although the expedition's council of war ultimately refused to
accept Essex's demand, and thereby avoided an open confrontation with the
queen, this letter undoubtedly had much to do with Elizabeth's decision to
go back on her promise not to appoint Cecil Secretary of State while Essex
was away.
Cecil's formal appointment as Secretary on 5 July 1596 threw Essex's
friends and clients who remained at Court into despair. The Cecils had
finally won the long tug of war over the secretaryship, undermining all the
good which their master might achieve in Spain. In fact, Essex's supporters
at Court had been anxious even before the fleet sailed. The earl's departure
meant that all their suits had to be put on hold until his return - if he
survived. Henry IV of France was also adamantly opposed to the venture
because it would divert Essex and English resources away from France. He
hoped that two of Essex's friends, the duke of Bouillon and Antonio Perez,
would be able to stop him going. In the event, Essex won Perez around to
his point of view, which unleashed a violent attack on Perez from the rest of
the French delegation in England. This criticism was soon picked up and
repeated by Perez's English enemies.65 Bouillon's attempts to forestall
Essex's departure by claiming that the Cecils would take advantage of his
absence also soon found a resonance within the English Court. Cecil's
promotion seemed to confirm that a full-scale conspiracy was under way
against Essex and his friends, like Perez. Such anxieties were subsequently
aired in the letters which were sent off to Essex himself, exacerbating his
frustration over the failure to keep Cadiz. From the Cecilian perspective,
Essex's behaviour demonstrated that he was prepared to twist the queen's
service to fit his own designs and that he was simply not a man to be trusted.
64
65
T h e original letter is PRO, SP 12/259, fos. 30r-31v. There are many copies of the letter,
which suggests that it may have been circulated by Essex after his return. Essex's instructions about the delayed delivery of the letter are contained in W R O , T D 69/6(ii), item 80,
Essex to Edward Reynoldes, 31 May [1596].
Ungerer, Spaniard in Elizabethan England, I, pp. 305-9.
82
Paul E. J. Hammer
The exposure of the earl's attempt to publicize his own part in the victory at
Cadiz only confirmed this impression. 66
By the time the Cadiz force arrived back in England, even the impending
attack by the hastily repaired Spanish fleet could not conceal the sharp
divisions which had appeared at Court. A loose coalition was beginning to
emerge in opposition to Essex, including the Lord Admiral and Sir Walter
Ralegh, who both felt aggrieved over Essex's attempts to claim the glory of
the victory at Cadiz, Lord Buckhurst, who resented Essex's influence at the
University of Oxford (where Buckhurst was chancellor), and Henry Brooke,
heir to Lord Cobham and a personal rival of Essex. Although the Cecils
were not openly factious, Sir Robert Cecil was married to Brooke's sister
and Buckhurst had long been groomed as Burghley's successor as Lord
Treasurer. None of Essex's friends - men like the Bacon brothers, Essex's
secretary Edward Reynoldes, Edward Dyer, Lord Willoughby d'Eresby and
the earl of Worcester - had any doubt where Cecilian loyalties lay. Men who
might have played the role of mediator as friends of both sides, such as Sir
Thomas Heneage and Henry, Lord Hunsdon, were dead. The whole nature
of the debate which followed the Cadiz expedition also added an ideological
edge to the growing political divide. Essex was grilled by the queen and his
fellow councillors, and an investigation was launched into the disappearance
of prize goods. Essex was particularly angered by the 'base' nature of the
inquiry and the aspersions which it cast on him and his soldier followers.
While the latter literally clamoured at his door for help, the thrust of this
criticism was dangerously close to impugning the whole field of martial
honour. Instead of receiving praise for the 'merit' of their recent service,
they were faced with pusillanimity. Lord Willoughby reflected the intense
bitterness of the soldiers towards the auditors: 'howsoever you deck him, he
will prove an harpie and contrary to sound jugement & weale publicques'. 67
Here perhaps can be seen something of the genesis of the debate about
honour and martial virtue which occupied the Essex circle in the latter years
of the decade.68 Here, too, can be seen the reason why Essex insisted on
redressing the failure of the Azores expedition in 1597, and the slur on his
achievements at Cadiz which was embodied in the Lord Admiral's promotion to the earldom of Nottingham, by demanding the office of Earl
66
67
68
T h i s was t h e affair of t h e notorious ' A t r u e relation of t h e action of Cales ...', whose

clandestine publication was forestalled when the courier bringing it back to England handed
it over to Cecil. Details of the affair can be followed in L P L , M S 658, fos. 88r-v, 135r, 214r 5
234r, 259r-260v.
Ibid., M S 659, fo. 290r.
See M . James, 'At a Crossroads of the Political C u l t u r e : T h e Essex Revolt, 1601', in Society>,
Politics and Culture: Studies in Early Modern England (Cambridge, 1986), pp. 416-65; R. C.
McCoy, The Rites of Knighthood: The Literature and Politics of Elizabethan Chivalry
(Berkeley, Los Angeles and London, 1989), chap. 4.
83
Marshal and emphasizing its military connotations. Such an emphasis was

all the more significant because Essex's pursuit of specifically military posts
broke with accepted notions about the political weight attached to great
offices of state since 1539, when military offices were given a relatively low
ranking in the formal table of precedence.69
IV
The Cadiz expedition crystallized the tensions which had built up over the
preceding years and introduced open factionalism into high politics in 1596.
According to one reporter, by mid-September, '200 [Cecil's] doings are so
well knowen unto hym [Essex] that their is no hope of reconcilement.'70
However, the months which followed this crisis again witnessed that characteristic phenomenon of the mid-1590s, the attempt to resurrect the old
modus vivendi after a bout of conflict. Elizabeth put aside her fury at Essex
and tried to restore the balance of political life by joining together the Lord
Admiral, Essex and Burghley in courtly rituals. 71 As in the past, the Cecils
made overtures of friendship to Essex, preparing the way with separate
visits to Anthony Bacon by Lady Elizabeth Russell (unsuccessfully) and Sir
George Carew.72 By New Year, relations were beginning to thaw. By March
1597, despite the earl's ugly battle with the new Lord Cobham over the
wardenship of the Cinque Ports, Essex, Cecil and Ralegh were in frequent
consultation, allegedly over the allocation of vacant royal offices and plans
for what became the Azores expedition.73
If this supposition is correct, as contemporary observers believed it to be,
it says much about the collapse of the queen's control over her own Court
and policies by 1597. When factional rivals managed to put aside their
69
70
71
72
73
D . Starkey (ed.), Rivals in Power: Lives and Letters of the Great Tudor Dynasties (New York,
1990), pp. 15-16, 234. Francis Bacon therefore reflected conventional political wisdom
when he apparently urged Essex to seek great offices of a civil, rather than military, nature:
'I cannot sufficiently wonder at your lordship's course' (Letters and Life of Bacon, ed.
Spedding, II, pp. 40-5). By the time of his campaign to win the earl marshalship, Essex had
already won appointment as Master of the Ordnance for life in March 1597.
H M C , De L'Isle & Dudley, II, p. 218, Rowland Whyte to Sir Robert Sidney, 22 Sept. 1596.
The polarization of the English Court at this time was so obvious that planners in Spain
hoped to use the cleavage between Essex and the Cecils to win control of England in the
event of Elizabeth's death (The Letters of the English Catholics under the Penal Laws, chiefly
from the Archives of the See of Westminster. II. The Letters and Memorials of William
Cardinal Allen [1532-1594], ed. T. F. Knox [London, 1882], pp. 43^-41).
Bodleian Library, Tanner MS 77, fo. 96v; Calendar of State Papers and Muniments, relating
to English Affairs, existing in the Archives and Collections of Venice, and in other Libraries of
Northern Italy, ed. H. F. Brown, IX, 1592-1603 (London, 1898), p. 238.
Carew visited Bacon several times during December. Lady Russell's contact with Bacon in
early September was a fiasco (Hammer, 'Political Career of Essex', pp. 310-12).
H M C , De L'Isle & Dudley, II, p. 268, Rowland Whyte to Sir Robert Sidney, 18-19 April
1597.
84
Paul E. J. Hammer
differences for mutual short-term benefit, the loser, it seems, was their
sovereign, for she now had to face pressure from a united front of her most
influential servants and courtiers. Moreover, Elizabeth could no longer risk
attempting to break up this united front because that only threatened a
return to open conflict. In the event, as the courtiers no doubt calculated,
she could only delay and then finally give in: Essex and Ralegh got their new
expedition against Spain and Cecil got the chancellorship of the duchy of
Lancaster.
Observing the new bonhommie between Essex, Cecil and Ralegh, Sir
William Knollys felt moved to question the sincerity of this renewed
cooperation: 'yf we lyved not in a cunning world, I shold assure my self that
Mr Secretarye wear whollye yours'. 74 Knollys' comment perhaps captures
the changed atmosphere at Court after Cadiz. Instead of the wary rivalry of
1594-5, relations between Essex's following and those who now openly
opposed them constituted a calculated suspension of hostilities. Despite
Cecil's conspicuous support in mid-1597 for suits by close associates of
Essex like Edward Reynoldes and Sir Gelly Meyrick, it was clear that such
assistance was political tokenism. The old pluralism and fluidity in the quest
for patronage at Court was rapidly disappearing, replaced by reckonings of
factional allegiance. In such circumstances, the suspension of hostility was
inevitably temporary and the misfortunes of the Azores expedition and the
insensitive handling of the Lord Admiral's promotion provoked a new bout
of conflict at Court over the closing months of 1597. Factionalism was now
endemic. Although there were again periods of renewed cooperation
between the earl and his erstwhile enemies - during early 1598, when Essex
had been appointed Earl Marshal and when parliamentary business and the
threat of peace between France and Spain required collaborative action, and
in late 1598 and early 1599, when the queen's hold on Ireland teetered on
the brink of disaster - the battle-lines were nevertheless indelibly drawn.
Each outburst of conflict was more bitter than the last and each subsequent
cessation of hostilities more artificial and difficult. Despite the desperate
attempts by many courtiers to remain on good terms with both sides, there
was less and less room for manoeuvre. As Lord Grey reported to Lord
Cobham in mid-1598, Essex 'forced mee to declare my self either his only or
frend to Mr Secretary and his enimy, protesting that ther could bee no
neutrality'.75
Factionalism in the last decade of Elizabeth's reign, then, was not simply
about the struggle for 'place and patronage'. The winning of suits was
74
75
W R O , T D 69/6(ii), item 45, Knollys to Essex, [late June 1597].

Hatfield House, Cecil M S S , 62/71, Grey to Cobham, 21 July 1598 (pr. H M C ,
MSS, VIII, p. 269).
Salisbury
85
vitally important to the rank-and-file members of the factions,76 and

perhaps also for the Cecils, who benefited so handsomely from control of
key positions in the exchequer, court of wards and royal secretariat.77
However, patronage was not the crucial determinant in the rivalry between
Essex and 'the father and son'. Essex undoubtedly believed that he would be
able to dominate patronage when he replaced Burghley as the helmsman of
the ship of state - that would be a suitable reward for the 'merit' of his
efforts on the queen's behalf. On the other hand, Essex was prepared even to
hazard his favour with the queen, at least in the short term, in order to get
his way in what he considered to be the greater and more urgent question of
England's war policy. In reflecting on Essex's actions, there is little to be
gained by pondering whether he was motivated more by altruism or hopes
of self-aggrandizement. For him, the two were virtually synonymous.
Essex's whole life was predicated upon performing 'the publike use for
which wee are all borne', and being rewarded accordingly.78 Nevertheless,
until his return from Cadiz, Essex was clearly more concerned about
winning the fight over the direction of the war than about the rewards which
his service might receive. Ultimately, it was Essex's manoeuvres to prevail in
the field of policy which opened the door to outright factionalism in 1596.
In a sense, this was perhaps inevitable, for the earl's views on the war
reflected a cluster of values which were quite different from those shared by
Elizabeth and the Cecils. More precisely, Essex's actions were informed by
a series of ideas which the pressure of events, especially in the late 1590s,
gradually shaped into a rough, but increasingly oppositionist, political
agenda. This pattern was not reflected among his opponents, who remained
united by little more than hostility towards Essex and a desire to profit from
his exclusion from royal favour. Events in the early years of the reign of
James I showed that this was a fragile basis for cooperation once the threat
posed by Essex was removed. In the mid-1590s, the differences between
Essex and the Cecils, as well as Elizabeth herself, began to emerge in their
divergent views of policy. Where the latter sought to maintain the integrity
of the queen's realms and to stave off national bankruptcy, Essex and the
sizeable number of gentlemen who thought like him believed that England's
natural role was as the champion of a Europe freed from the domination of
76
77
78
Rowland Whyte, for example, lamented that Essex's actions in early 1598 impaired his
ability 'to do good to his friends' ( H M C , L'Isle & Dudley, I I , pp. 322, 328, Whyte to Sir
Robert Sidney, 12 and 27 Feb. 1598).
Hurstfield, Freedom, Corruption and Government, pp. 142, 151-2; Hurstfield, The Queen's
Wards: Wardship and Marriage under Elizabeth I (London, N e w York and Toronto, 1958),
pp. 264ff, 299ff; Smith, Servant of Cecils, pp. 73ff.
L P L , M S 653, fo. 210r, Essex to Anthony Bacon, n.d. Similar comments by Essex can be
found, for example, in ibid., M S 657, fo. 136r (Essex to Lord Keeper Egerton, 17 May 1596)
and An apologie of the earle of Essex against those which falsly and maliciously taxe him to be the
onely hinderer of the peace and quiet of his countrey ([London, 1600?], STC 6788), sig. A3v.
86
Paul E. J. Hammer
Spain, that martial endeavour was a sign of a nation's vitality, and that
'merit' must not go unrewarded. Although many of Essex's supporters
shared these ideas, most did so because these ideas seemed to offer new
opportunities in the quest for patronage. As events later in the decade were
to show, these fine ideas tended to go out of the window when the earl's
limitations as a patron began to become apparent: as his political fortunes
waned, so too did his support. However, Essex's own commitment to these
values was so strong that he could brook no compromise on war policy, and
accept no defeat - even from the queen herself. Indeed, Essex's position was
so firm that he was unable to find a suitable new role after the deteriorating
situation in Ireland and the peace between France and Spain cut the
political ground from under his feet in 1598.
The mid-1590s saw a coming together of many causes of friction between
Essex and the Cecils. Burghley's age made the question of Cecil's future
increasingly urgent. Essex's consolidation of his position on the Council
made him ever more of a genuine rival to Burghley's previously unquestioned dominance in the queen's affairs. The age and character of Elizabeth
herself also made matters worse. Her actions were often heavy handed,
while her inability to make rapid decisions drove many at Court to the point
of despair, and added to the earl's personal sense of frustration. Essex's
consequent willingness to act behind Elizabeth's back was especially offensive to the Cecils' sense of duty to the sovereign, and helped to convince
certain other courtiers that he was a dangerous maverick. However, it was
the decision by Elizabeth and Burghley to turn away from Henry IV, and
hence also from a Continental destiny for England, which caused Essex to
trigger the complex events of 1596. His attempts to force the issue crystallized all the tensions which were already present and introduced new ones.
Seen in this light, the polarization of Elizabethan politics in the 1590s must
ultimately be seen to possess a strong ideological dimension. For Essex,
success and failure in bids for patronage were not the primary issue in his
struggle for political primacy. The real battle was for control of the direction of the queen's policies, and for the assertion of those values which that
control would represent.
Peers, patronage and the politics of history

Linda Levy Peck
The earl had sought political power throughout the last decade of Elizabeth's reign. A soldier, a courtier, a patron of the arts and sciences, he lived
on a grand scale and spent sumptuously. As the era drew to a close he moved
to secure his own hold on power by marshalling his followers and counselling James VI of Scotland. To the Scottish king he expressed the peers'
discontent with Elizabeth's policies:
The nobility are unsatisfied that places of honour are not given them ... that offices
of trust are not laid in their hands to manage as they were wont; that her majesty is
parsimonious and slow to relief their wants ... They repine that the state value them
not at that rate they prise themselves worthy of.1
The earl challenged the power of Robert Cecil, became a leading political
patron himself and, indeed, demanded to oversee royal patronage. In the
end, he fell in a plot against his sovereign.
While such a story might suggest only one man, Elizabeth's favourite,
Robert Devereux, earl of Essex, it actually chronicles his brother-in-law
Henry Percy, ninth earl of Northumberland. Scion of the northern earls
who were long keepers of the borders between England and Scotland,
Percy's story is not as well known as that of the earl of Essex. Yet Northumberland's complaints to King James vividly display demands for political
power and patronage by members of the Elizabethan nobility that went
unanswered in the last years of Queen Elizabeth's reign. At the same time
the scope of his ambition and, more generally, of most Elizabethan peers
differed significantly from that of the earl of Essex.
This chapter first scrutinizes the accuracy of Northumberland's complaint that Queen Elizabeth failed to reward her nobility with important
political appointments and favour as her reign drew to its close. Secondly, it
* I am grateful to John Guy and Cynthia Herrup for their comments on earlier drafts of this
essay.
1
John Bruce, Correspondence of King James VI of Scotland with Sir Robert Cecil and Others in
England, Camden Society, o.s. 78 (1861), p. 59. He went on to refer to 'discontents rising
from the ingratitude of human nature, which for the most part forgets former benefits if
unsatisfied in his last desires'.
87
88
Linda Levy Peck
examines the claims to power made on behalf of the Elizabethan nobility as

the reign ended with no official arrangements for a peaceful succession.
By the end of the sixteenth century political patronage had been firmly
centralized in the hands of the monarch. The competing interest of the
church had been successfully defeated in the 1530s and aristocratic revolt
checked in 1569. The crown had generated new privileges to win the
support of local elites.2 Younger peers remembered the Elizabethan age as
halcyon days: on the eve of the Restoration, William Cavendish, later duke
of Newcastle, urged the future Charles II to rely on the great magnates to
rally the country gentry for the king. He recalled the Elizabethan earl of
Shrewsbury, the Earl Marshal, whose gentry followers paid him homage by
wearing his livery to mark St George's day. For
Thus they did oblige my Lord, to be their servant all the year after with his power to
serve them both in court and Westminster Hall... whatsoever business His Majesty
had in any county in England, or in all England, it was but speaking to Shrewsbury
or Derby and such great men and it was done... and what does it cost your Majesty,
a blue ribbon [the order of the garter], a privy councillorship or such offices as your
Majesty cannot bestow better, than upon such great men.3
Situated in the aftermath of civil war, Newcastle's vision of Elizabethan

noble affinities who would rally to the standard of their lord and prince in
return for royal patronage was comforting then and now underlies most
studies of early modern clientage. But is it a realistic picture of Elizabethan
reward at the end of her long reign?
That Elizabeth was parsimonious is a truism although historians have
until recently lauded her careful management of inadequate resources.4 But
what is most striking about late-Elizabethan patronage compared to the
early-Stuart period is the lack of royal reward to some sixty peers living
between 1590 and 1603. While the queen continued to demand service from
almost every peer there was scant reward for any who was not also a
prominent official such as the Lord Treasurer, Lord Burghley, the Lord
2
3
See Joan Thirsk, Economic Policy and Projects: The Development of a Consumer Society in
Early Modern England (Oxford, 1978).
Thomas P. Slaughter (ed.), Ideology and Politics on the Eve of the Restoration: Newcastle's
Advice to Charles II (Philadelphia, Pa., 1984), pp. 47-8. He continued Tor the people do not
envy great men, as they do meaner men and then all their kindred, friends, dependences,
servants, tenants are well pleased and your Majesty safe.'
a . Sir John Neale, Elizabeth I (London, 1953); J. E. Neale, 'The Elizabethan Political
Scene', in Essays in Elizabethan History (New York, 1958), pp. 59-84; Christopher Haigh,
Elizabeth I (London, 1988); Wallace MacCaffrey, 'Patronage and Politics under the
Tudors', in Linda Levy Peck (ed.), The Mental World of the Jacobean Court (Cambridge,
1991), pp. 21-35.
89
Admiral, Charles Howard, earl of Nottingham, and household officials like

Lord Hunsdon.
In fact, for most of the Elizabethan nobility in the 1590s the cupboard was
bare. In the aftermath of the Armada the crown needed leadership from
peers both in defence and in local government. For example, fortifications in
Plymouth had faltered despite contributions from the queen and the earl of
Bath. She ordered him therefore to inform his deputy lieutenants of the
danger and to prepare a book of names and the sums they had contributed
sent to the Council, 'that it may appear who have a natural care of their
country and who the contrary'.5 A month later she thanked him for his
diligence which would be rewarded.6 But what was his reward?
Indeed, the larger historical problem is how to measure royal favour. The
patent rolls seem the obvious answer but enrolment of grants on the patent
rolls, which were issued under the great seal, required extra payment and
may, therefore, not be complete.7 Let us, nevertheless, begin there. In the
first decades of Elizabeth's reign, somewhere around 1,000 items were
enrolled on the patent rolls each year, ranging from 774 items in 1569 to
1,331 ten years later in 1579. In the midst of the last decade, 1596, there
were 986 items; of these forty-four, or fewer than 5 per cent, concerned the
peerage.
What were these entries? Some were licences to alienate land held by
knight's service but most were appointment to commissions of the peace, of
over and terminer and of sewers. A close study of the patent rolls for 1600
shows that almost all peers were named to commissions of the peace, most to
the quorum. Some were appointed to commissions of just one or two
counties. Thus Thomas Darcy, third Lord Darcy, was appointed only to the
commission of the peace in Essex.8 Those that were politically stronger were
named to commissions for several counties. The earl of Bath was on the
commission of the peace for Devon, Dorset and Somerset and the commission of over and terminer for Cornwall and Somerset.9 Even the earl of
Essex, under house arrest during 1600, was still named to commissions of
the peace in Berkshire, Essex, Hertford, Middlesex, Surrey, Stafford,
Shropshire, Warwick, Monmouth, Brecon, Glamorgan, Radnor, Carmarthen, Pembroke, Cardigan and Montgomery and commissions of oyer
5
7
8
9
6
CSPD, 1591-1594, p. 538, 17 May 1591.
Ibid., p. 555, 11 Sept. 1594?
I am grateful to Amanda Bevan for her advice and for allowing me to see her introduction to
PRO, C 82, Warrants for the Great Seal, Series II, which explains the complex and manifold
ways in which royal grants were signified and recorded.
PRO, C 66/1523, m 15d, 23 May 1600; PRO, Z Box 1/10, Calendar of 42 Elizabeth, C
66/1517-1547.
PRO, C 66/1523, mm. 6d, 12d, 14d, 23 May 1600; PRO, Z Box 1/10, Calendar of 42
Elizabeth, C 66/1517-1547.
90
Linda Levy Peck
and terminer in Monmouth, Gloucester and Canterbury.10 But for the

entire year, the patent rolls appear to record that the queen granted only one
wardship and one lease to almost sixty peers.11 Can this be correct?
The process of signifying grants was quite complex. To go behind the
patent rolls it is necessary to look at the intermediate warrants between
various seal offices.12 If we turn to the privy signet bills, those orders from
the queen to Robert Cecil, the Secretary of State, to command a warrant
from the great seal, these have survived only patchily. A single box at the
Public Record Office contains all that survive from 28 Elizabeth to 44
Elizabeth. There are none at all for 1600. But those that survive for the next
year, 1601, show that the queen appointed Edward Somerset to the office of
Master of the Horse, named the earl of Hertford lord lieutenant for Somerset and Wiltshire, and Viscount Bindon, lord lieutenant of Dorset. William
Lord Compton, Master of the Queen's Leash, was granted commission to
take up greyhounds; the earl of Cumberland's patent to license cloth was
continued and Lord Cobham was granted land in perpetuity.13 In another
class, Warrants for the Great Seal, which is organized monthly, the only
grant to a peer for the entire month of December 1599 is to Lord Lumley.
Earlier Queen Elizabeth had let the great park of Nonesuch to Lumley for
twenty-one years for the yearly rent of 220. Now she allowed 111 of the
rent to be assigned to one of his servants for his own use. 14 Whether we look
at the patent rolls, the privy signet bills or Warrants for the Great Seal we
are only catching glimpses of royal reward.
An intensive study of all these records supplemented as well by those of
the Signet and Land Revenue offices would yield a more systematic answer
to the question of the extent and type of Elizabeth's rewards to her peers.
But it is possible to demonstrate that she did not name them to positions to
which they aspired, the Privy Council and the lord lieutenancy. Indeed, a
structural anomaly may have affected the queen's dispensation of favour.
In 1577 the herald and antiquary Francis Thynne recorded 'The nobility
placed according to their degree and after the ancestry of their creations.'15
At that time there were sixty-eight peers of the realm. Between 1577 and
10
11
12
13
14
15
PRO, C 66/1523, mm. 4d, 5d, lid, 14d, 17d, 18d, 20d, 23d, 24d, 27-30d, 23 May 1600;
PRO, Z Box 1/10, Calendar of 42 Elizabeth, C 66/1517-1547.
The lease was to Thomas Lord Scrope for afineof 91-13-6 for lands in Yorkshire. PRO, C
66/1532, mm. 23-31, 20 June 1600; the wardship of Frances Willoughby, daughter of Sir
Francis Willoughby, was granted to Philip Lord Wharton, C 66/1539, m. 9, 11 June 1600.
On these see Amanda Bevan's introduction to the PRO, Standard List C 82.
PRO, PSO 2/20, 43 Elizabeth.
PRO, C 82/1640, 17-30 Nov.; C 82/1641, Dec. 1600. Grants are also occasionally to be
found in Calendar of State Papers. Lord Sheffield received the survivorship of mastership of
the game in the lordships of Hatfield and Thorpe, in Yorkshire. CSPD 1591-4, p. 565, 24
Nov. 1594.
BL, Stowe MSS 1047, fos. 245, 1577.
91
1590 the queen created only one earl, Charles Howard, elevated to earl of
Nottingham, while the earl of Leicester had died without an heir. In the
1590s Elizabeth allowed the numbers of peers to decline to their lowest
number since the reign of Henry VII: fifty-five, two fewer than when she
came to the throne. Throughout her long forty-five-year reign she created
only ten new titles, revived, recognized or restored six more while two titles
were increased by marriage or female descent. This increase of eighteen was
decreased by twenty, fourteen because of biological failure, six by
attainder.16 Although ennoblements were planned to celebrate the Armada
when William Lord Cobham was to become earl of Suffolk and Sir Robert
Sidney, Baron Penshurst, the queen refused to act.17
Strikingly, the queen's failure to renew the nobility was accompanied by
an unwillingness to reward the younger generation of peers due in part to an
oddity in the demography of the Elizabethan peerage. In 1590 that demography displayed two striking bulges: twenty-five peers were between 25
and 35; twenty-two were 51 or over; only ten were between 35 and 50. A
closer examination of these age groups shows the dramatic differences in the
queen's patterns of reward.18
If we begin with the very youngest, the eight under 21 at the beginning of
the decade, five of whom were teenagers, it is not surprising perhaps that by
1603 none had been named as privy councillors or lords lieutenant. Neither
had they been named to major offices in the household or central administration. They were not, however, politically inactive: at least three joined
Essex's revolt, another was involved in the Main and Bye Plot in 1603.
Six nobles were aged between 20 and 25 in 1590 but only Essex himself
was to enjoy Court office: he was made a privy councillor, a lord lieutenant
and an officer of the household. The view that Essex was not an effective
patron may need to be reassessed: what is surprising is not his inability to
secure the queen's patronage for others, but his success in securing so much
for himself!
16
17
18
Lawrence Stone, The Crisis of the Aristocracy (Oxford, 1965), p. 756.

Peter A. Clark, English Provincial Society from the Reformation to the Revolution: Religion,
Politics and Society in Kent 1500-1640 (Hassocks, Sussex, 1977), pp. 133, 433n62; Haigh,
Elizabeth I, p. 51.
The demography of the peerage appears to differ somewhat from that of the English
population as a whole. For the general population in the sixteenth century there was growth
each decade until the early 1550s. After a decline in the late 1550s population stagnated until
the 1570s when it once again began to rise. But of those seventy-four Elizabethan peers alive
in the 1590s, the largest number (twenty-one) were born in the 1550s. In fact, the late 1550s,
which was a period of population decline for the population as a whole, saw the largest
number of births of peers (fourteen) who were still alive in the 1590s. Most late-Elizabethan
peers were born in the 1550s and 1560s (thirty-six), followed by those born in the 1520s and
1530s (twenty-one). The 1540s, which was a boom period for the population as a whole,
provided only seven of the late-Elizabethan peers. See D. M. Palliser, The Age of Elizabeth,
1547-1603 (London, 1983), pp. 33-8.
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In fostering her own cult Elizabeth encouraged Accession Day tilts in

which the younger nobility took an important part. 19 Younger nobleman,
'our gallants' as John Chamberlain described them, prepared for battle in
the Low Countries and then in Ireland. 20 Yet of the eleven aged between 26
and 30 in 1590 none over the course of the decade were named to the Privy
Council, only two were named lords lieutenant and to offices at Court.
Several served in the military: five served in the Armada and in the Low
Countries and three joined Essex's revolt. Indeed, these revolts were the
work of young men: no peer aged over 30 in 1590 joined these plots against
the queen.
Thirty nobles, more than half of the Elizabethan peerage, were aged
between 35 and 48 at the queen's death. These were men who served the
queen in their localities, on embassies abroad and in the military. Yet only
two had been named to the Privy Council; only five had been named lords
lieutenant, only three had been named to household offices and only two to
offices in the central administration by the end of the reign. 21
Court offices were, then, overwhelmingly in the hands of the queen's
oldest friends and contemporaries. In 1590 the queen herself was 57. Three
of the seven peers aged between 56 and 60 in 1590 were privy councillors,
four were lords lieutenant, two held household offices. Did offices open up
to which the queen might have named her younger nobility? Of the oldest
cohort, the seven peers aged between 61 and 69, all died between 1593 and
1601 including four privy councillors and three household officers.22
The queen not only refused to reward but even to replace those old
friends with whom she had surrounded herself. In 1598 after the death of
Burghley the numbers of councillors were down to ten, fewer than half the
number when she came to the throne. But an important memorandum of
1598 drew attention to 'Noblemen that have served in her Majesties warrs
or borne publick places, not being now of the Council'. 23 Clearly these eight
19
20
21
22
23
Roy Strong, The Cult of Elizabeth (London, 1977), Appendix I.

Letters Written by John Chamberlain during the Reign of Queen Elizabeth, Camden Society,
o.s. 79 (1861), pp. 9, 5&-9, 60, 82.
There were six peers aged between 36 and 40. Of these, two were named to the Privy
Council, one was a lord lieutenant, two went on embassies and four held local office. There
were only two aged between 41 and 45 of whom one was a lord lieutenant and the other held
local office. Of five between 46 and 50 none was a privy councillor, three were lords
lieutenant, all five held local offices. Of the eight who were between 51 and 55 four were
lords lieutenant, five held local office. One was a privy councillor who also held household
and central administrative office.
Of those between 56 and 60 three died, two of whom were privy councillors. Of those
between 51 and 55 four died. Of those between 31 and 35 four out of thirteen died, but only
one younger than this died - Essex himself.
Penry Williams, 'Court and Polity under Elizabeth I s , Bulletin of the John Rylands Library,
65 (1982-3), 280-6. Many - Northumberland, Shrewsbury, Worcester, Cumberland,
93
earls and eighteen barons were candidates for promotion. But only after
Essex's revolt, in July 1601, did Elizabeth agree to name Shrewsbury and
Worcester to her Privy Council.
Lords lieutenant, appointed by the queen, exercised broad powers in the
localities.24 The appointment, usually for life, was overwhelmingly the
preserve of the peers. In addition to superintending the military preparedness of the county, lords lieutenant also had oversight of the local magistracy. At the beginning of Elizabeth's reign, in 1559, for instance, they had
been ordered to monitor the justices of the peace, to recommend those
qualified for the post and to ensure that all took the requisite oath. Hassell
Smith points out that in 1585 the crown appointed lords lieutenant in almost
all counties, creating an important linchpin to oversee local government, to
collect loans and ship money, enforce economic regulations and attack
recusancy.25 Indeed, historians of Elizabethan England generally suggest
that 1585 was a watershed when lords lieutenant were named for almost all
counties.26 Victor Stater has pointed out, however, that the systematic
appointment of lords lieutenant did not occur until the reign of Charles I.27
After 1590, in fact, the queen increasingly allowed the lieutenancy to lapse:
by 1603, thirteen counties lacked a lord lieutenant; sixteen had no lord
lieutenant for three years and seven counties for over a decade.28 In Norfolk,
Lord Hunsdon held the post from 1585 to 1596, but when he died in 1596 the
queen did not appoint another.29 In Buckinghamshire there was no lord
lieutenant from the death of Arthur Lord Grey in 1593 to the appointment of
Thomas Egerton, Lord Ellesmere, in 1607. In the interim, commissions for
musters were appointed by the Lord Chancellor on the nomination of the
Privy Council.30 Although Cecil drafted a list of counties with vacancies,
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
Rutland, Sussex, Southampton, Lincoln and Hertford - were of more ancient creation than
those who sat on the Council.
T h e Council appointed his deputies, apparently on his nomination and recommendation of
six privy councillors. A. Hassell Smith, County and Court, Government and Politics in
Norfolk, 1558-1603 (Oxford, 1974), p. 127n.
Hassell Smith emphasizes the increasing control of the lord lieutenant at the cost of the local
magistracy, pp. 127-33.
Penry Williams, 'The Crown and the Counties', in The Reign of Elizabeth I (London, 1985),
p. 126; Hassell Smith, County and Court, pp. 128-30.
Victor Stater, 'The Lord Lieutenancy in England, 1625-1688: T h e Crown, Nobility and
Local Governance', University of Chicago Ph.D. (1988).
J. C. Sainty, 'Lieutenants of Counties, 1585-1642', BIHR, special supplement no. 8 (May,
1970), pp. 3-4.
Hassell Smith, County and Court, pp. 63, 67, 127, 283, 313. When in 1603 it was thought
that James would revive the lord lieutenancy in Norfolk, Philip Gawdy lobbied Lord
Thomas Howard, the earl of Northumberland, Lord Zouche and Lord Henry Howard, for
appointment as deputy lieutenant. Hassell Smith, County and Court, p. 67.
Hassell Smith, County and Court, pp. 313-14. In reality the deputy lieutenants along with
the sheriff did the work. Gladys Scott Thompson, Lord Lieutenants in the Sixteenth Century
(London, 1923), p. 71.
94
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presumably, as with the list of noblemen who were candidates for the
council, to draw attention to the need to make new appointments, the queen
did not act.31
Elizabeth addressed the issue directly in a proclamation of 1596: 'we did
authorise certain noblemen, whereof some of them were of our Privy
Council, to be our Lieutenants in our divers counties . . , who are departed
this life'. Summarizing a series of deaths over several years, she ordered
their duties to be carried out by the sheriff and 'the most principal men of
authority and account within the said shires' until she made new appointments. 32 This she failed to do. In 1601 only seventeen of thirty counties had
lords lieutenant.33 Thus even as England faced threats of invasion and
continuing warfare on the Continent Elizabeth refused to name her peers to
these important posts and her refusal to act continued even after Essex's
revolt. It must be said that James VI and I moved slowly himself to fill the
vacant lord lieutenancies but his reward of the nobility in every other way
was in striking contrast to Elizabeth's. Newcastle's vision of rewarding
territorial magnates is not a picture of Elizabethan policy in the 1590s.34
The queen was lavish with one royal favour in the 1590s: her appointment
of English peers as knights of the garter. Because the appointment was for
life and numbers were limited to twenty-five, new investitures depended on
mortality. When openings arose in the 1590s the queen did not choose
foreign princes and dignitaries but her own nobility, more (sixteen) in that
decade than in any other of her reign. Two, William Stanley, earl of Derby,
and Thomas Cecil, Lord Burghley, were installed in May 1601 within
months of the Essex uprising.35
Elizabeth's response to her younger peers can be illustrated with a few
individuals. Let us return to Newcastle's exemplar of the Elizabethan
magnate, George Talbot, sixth earl of Shrewsbury, perhaps the richest
31
32
33
34
35
H M C , Salisbury MSS, V, p. 533 (1595).

T h e counties mentioned in the proclamation were Middlesex, Buckinghamshire,
Northamptonshire, Nottinghamshire, Staffordshire, Warwickshire, Chester, Lancaster,
Yorkshire, Cumberland, Northumberland, the Bishopric of Durham, Leicestershire and
Rutland.
Quoted in T h o m p s o n , Lord Lieutenants in the Sixteenth Century, p. 70.
There were n o lords lieutenant in Cambridge between 1600 and 1602; in Chester and
Lancaster from 1593 to 1607; in Cumberland, Northumberland and Westmorland between
1595 and 1607; none in Dorset from 1598 to 1601; none in Durham from 1595 to 1615; none
in Essex between 1598 and 1603; none in Hertford from 1598 to 1605; none in Lincoln from
1598 to 1603; none in Norwich from 1596 to 1605; none for Northampton from 1591 to
1603; none for Nottingham from 1590 to 1626; none for Staffordshire from 1590 to 1612;
none for Suffolk from 1596 to 1605; none for Warwick from 1590 to 1603; none for
Yorkshire from 1595 to 1599. Sainty, 'Lieutenants of the Counties'.
The Letters of John Chamberlain, ed. N . E. McClure (2 vols., Philadelphia, Pa., 1939), I,
p. 123, 27 May 1601.
95
nobleman in Elizabethan England. Shrewsbury was lord lieutenant of three

counties, Earl Marshal, custodian of Mary, Queen of Scots, with licence to
retain 100 liveried servants on his household staff.36 At his death in 1590,
his successor, Gilbert Talbot, seventh earl of Shrewsbury, received many
letters of condolence, most coupled with requests for patronage from the
new earl, specifically for aid in land disputes, pensions, and local offices that
ranged from deputy lord lieutenant of Nottinghamshire, to recorder of
Doncaster, steward of Shrewsbury manors and porter of Pontefract Castle.
Although one writer hoped that Earl Gilbert would 'repaire the decayed
honour of your noble and ancient house5, others called him 'prince' in two
counties, and Sir Henry Unton wrote of those who were 'desyrous to repair
[to] your cloth'. 37 Rituals of condolence signified the nobility's power,
prestige and patronage. When Francis Needham reported to Earl Gilbert
about preparations for the earl of Shrewsbury's funeral, he wrote scathingly
about the heralds' lack of knowledge. So Needham himself collected materials on the funerals of Edward Stanley, third earl of Derby, John Manners,
fourth earl of Rutland and Mary, Queen of Scots. 38 In conference with
William Dethicke, Garter King at Arms, who was mainly concerned with
his own fees, Needham debated whether to have Shrewsbury's funeral on
horseback from the manor which was more fitting or on foot from Sheffield
Castle which was more convenient to the church. 39 In the event twenty
thousand people were said to have flocked to the funeral.
The queen, however, temporized as to how to acknowledge Shrewsbury's
death. When moved 'to condole' with the new earl by letter and emissary,
Elizabeth 'answered that it was not her manner to send in that sort to any
but to absolute Princes, of equal dignity with herself. Urged 'to witness' to
Shrewsbury and his county 'the account she made of him, the queen agreed
to write. When her well-known dilatoriness delayed the letter, Sir John
Stanhope, Treasurer of the Chamber, again pressed her but she claimed her
36
37
38
39
H M C , A Calendar of Shrewsbury and Talbot Papers, I I , Talbot Papers in the College of Arms,
ed. G. R. Batho (London, 1971), p . xvii.
Ibid., p p . 159-63.
Joseph Hunter, Hallamshire: The History and Topography of the Parish of Sheffield in the
County of York, ed. Rev. A. Gatty (London, 1869), pp. 97-8, 97n. 'The nowe officers at
armes are verie weeke in their knowledge of matters appertayning to their charge.' Needham
borrowed books and papers on funerals from Thomas Milles, heir, he noted, to the late
Somerset herald who had been knowledgeable about such matters. These he made up into a
book for Shrewsbury asking the earl to return it so that he could continue to collect material
on the subject.
H M C , Shrewsbury and Talbot Papers, I I , Talbot Papers, p. 162. Francis Needham to the earl
of Shrewsbury, 6 Dec. 1590, from London. Needham commented that usually 'noble
personages are to be buried from their principall houses and . . . it ought to be done on
horseback'. Hunter, Hallamshire, pp. 97-8. Francis Thynne, the herald and antiquary,
collected materials on funerals in his commonplace book, BL, Stowe MSS 1047.
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hand had been so sore she could not sign it - to which Stanhope replied that
no order had been given to draft it. 40
Although the seventh earl of Shrewsbury kept house on almost as lavish a
scale as his father, his political clout was less awesome.41 The queen was
willing to name him to two of the three northern lieutenancies held by his
father, Derbyshire and Nottinghamshire, but the lieutenancy of Staffordshire and Warwickshire was desired by the earl of Essex and the
justiceship in eyre had been promised to George Clifford, the third earl of
Cumberland, continuing competitors for the queen's favour.42 Although
Earl Gilbert was made a knight of the garter and sent on foreign missions, he
was not named Earl Marshal and not named to the Privy Council and the
Lord Presidency of Wales until after Essex's death.43
The Howard branch that flowered under Elizabeth were the earls of
Effingham whose power came not from territory but from office in the gift of
the crown. Both William and Charles Howard served as Lord Admiral and
the latter enjoyed lucrative patents of monopoly and licences for privateering.44 The eldest branch of the Howard family fell on hard times with
the execution of Thomas Howard, fourth duke of Norfolk, in 1572 just a few
years after the rising of the North brought the demise of the great northern
earls, Percy and Neville. In 1589 when his son, Philip Howard, earl of
Arundel, was arrested for treason he recalled his efforts to serve the queen:
Since hisfirstcoming to Court nine or ten years since it has always been his desire to
please her, but she gradually became estranged from him, protected his adversaries
40
Edmund Lodge, Illustrations of British History (3 vols., London, 1838), II, pp. 432-3, 9 Dec.
1590:
I told her then that I thought her gracious manner had ever been in like cases, to
choose persons to send such comfort as their estate required, and themselves were
worthy of; and I am sure it would be most comfortable, and for many respects
acceptable to you.
41
42
43
44
In contrast, Stanhope had already sent his own letter of condolence in which he stated
Elizabeth's view of 'what a losse she had of so great a parson as both for his lyking and
fydelyte to herself and her estate' and her appreciation 'that he had left one so suffycient to
supply his place'. H M C , Bath MSS. V, p. 101, 22 Nov. 1590.
H M C , Shrewsbury and Talbot Papers, II, Talbot Papers, p. xvii. H e had between fifty-two
and ninety-six household servants.
Ibid., p. 163; See Lodge, Illustrations of British History, II, p. 432.
Another major northern family, the Cliffords, were also in decline. T h e third earl of
Cumberland lost a fortune in a series of privateering ventures while his brother Francis who
remained at home and served as vice-president of the Council of the North became more
and more dependent on the Cliffords' man of business in London, John Tailor. Tailor
handled the financial and political problems of the family and when Francis succeeded his
brother as earl, generally guided Earl Francis on all his political duties. BL, Althorp Papers,
Clifford papers; G. C. Williamson, George, Third Earl of Cumberland (n.p., 1920).
See Robert W. Kenny, Elizabeth's Admiral (Baltimore, Md., 1970).
97
and gave bitter speeches of him, without informing him of the ground of her
displeasure.45
More content was Ferdinando, earl of Derby:
I will . . . be at the court tomorrow morning for I cannot see my mother until
Monday night, and therefore wish that I may see her Highness, when she shall
please, holding myself the happier the more I see her.46
How many Elizabethans - and not just the nobility - would gladly have
participated in the happiness created by access and its near accompaniment,
success, at Court? Court favour may, of course, have had its drawbacks: the
earl of Worcester wrote to another courtier
Myself having her Majesty's favour will be pleased with a poor country life as better
fitting my education and more agreeable to my fortune, and being the only mean to
repair my estate, which although it has not been bettered by any Court favours, yet I
must account it some steady satisfaction in that I made it no worse.47
If the queen failed to reward her magnates this is not to suggest that she did
not support them at all. Christopher Haigh argues that the queen 'was
protective of the dignity of her nobility'. 48 She insisted on the importance of
their economic viability so long as others were giving out the land and tacitly
supported the marriage building alliances that the Cecils undertook. While
Wallace MacCaffrey has emphasized the increasing bureaucratization of
English government, the Cecils also sealed their hold on office by traditional
means. Haigh points out Burghley's fascination with genealogy which was
displayed by murals at Theobalds. 49 The wardships that Burghley controlled linked his house to the ancient nobility, to the Howards, the de
Veres, the Devereux, the Wriothesleys and the Manners and marriages
arranged by the Cecils in the 1590s with the Howards and Cliffords further
cemented their position at Court.
After Essex's rebellion aristocratic rivalries still flared. Four months after
Essex's execution, John Weakley wrote to Francis Clifford, later fourth earl
of Cumberland:
Their is still at the court a watch kept for what cause I cannot learne it is thought
there is some little feud between Sir Ro[bert] C[ecil] and Sir Walter R[alegh]. My
Lorde of Shrewsburie, my Lord of Worcester and Sir John Stanhope are all sworne
of the Privy Council and this daye sitteth in the Star Chamber some thinketh Sir
Walt Ra is not well pleased that he made not the 4th.50
45
46
47
49
50
H M C , Salisbury MSS, X I I I , p. 421, Arundel to Queen Elizabeth.

H M C , Salisbury MSS, X I I I , p. 491, 13 Oct. [1593].
H M C , Salisbury MSS, X I V , p. 220 (1589-1603).
Haigh, Elizabeth /, p. 64.
Haigh, Elizabeth /, p. 51. Similarly, William Lord Howard displayed his genealogical and
antiquarian treasures at Naworth.
B L , Althorp Papers, Althorp B2, John Weakley? to Francis Clifford, Esq., 2 July [1601].
Essex was executed in February 1601. Shrewsbury and Worcester were named to the Privy
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Linda Levy Peck
Nevertheless, Court factions knit together in the aftermath of the Essex

rebellion not only with office but also with ceremony. The queen became
godmother, and Lord Buckhurst, the Lord Treasurer, and Charles Howard,
earl of Nottingham, the Lord Admiral, became godfathers to the earl of
Northumberland's son Algernon Percy.51 At the same time, the peaceful
accession which Elizabeth refused to arrange was underway as leading
courtiers became clients of the future king to ensure their continued access
to political power and royal favour. Robert Cecil replaced Essex as James
VI's principal contact at the Elizabethan Court and he was joined by Henry
Howard, representative of the older branch of the Howard family.
Northumberland joined too.
n
What did the Elizabethan nobility want? What were the political
implications of the chivalric and antiquarian impulses that shaped lateElizabethan aristocratic culture which have been so richly described by
Mervyn James, Richard McCoy, Frances Yates and Roy Strong?52
M. E. James describes Essex's uprising as 'the last honour revolt', placing
it in a series of late-medieval and sixteenth-century rebellions carried out in
the name of and surrounded by rites of chivalry and aristocratic honour.
Although he points to a revival of what he calls 'aristocratic oppositionists'
in the 1620s, James concludes that 'the revival of honour in the traditional
sense as a significant source of political ideas and social values proved to be a
non-starter'.53 Recently, however, historians have drawn attention to the
continuing political importance of aristocratic politics in the late sixteenth
and early seventeenth centuries too soon put to death in Lawrence Stone's
The Crisis of the Aristocracy.54 Indeed, it might be argued that in English
historiography today, the rise of the gentry has given way to the rise of the
peerage.
David Starkey and John Adamson, in particular, have drawn attention to
51
52
53
54
Council on 28 and 29 June respectively. Letters Written by John Chamberlain, 112, 8 July
1601.
Letters Written by John Chamberlain, 157-S, 15 Oct. 1602.
See Mervyn James, 'English Politics and the Concept of Honour, 1485-1642', Past and
Present, supplement 3 (1978); Richard McCoy, Rites of Knighthood (Berkeley, Ca., 1989);
Strong, The Cult of Elizabeth; Frances Yates, Astraea: The Imperial Theme in the Sixteenth
Century (London, 1975).
James, 'English Polities', p. 88.
See for instance the work of James S. Hart, Justice Upon Petition: The House of Lords and the
Reformation of Justice (London, 1991); David L. Smith, ' " T h e More Posed and Wise
Advice": T h e Fourth Earl of Dorset and the English Civil Wars', HJ, 34 (1991), 797-830;
Smith, 'The Fourth Earl of Dorset and the Personal Rule of Charles I', JBS, 30 (1991),
257-^88.
99
the peers' claims to vice-regal powers once concentrated in the great medieval offices of Lord High Steward, Lord Constable and Earl Marshal, part
of the thirteenth- and fourteenth-century tradition of baronial revolt. These
offices had been allowed to lapse, in the case of the Steward in the fifteenth
century except for ceremonial occasions, and in the case of the Constable by
Henry VIII, because they were regarded as dangerous to the monarch.
David Starkey argues that a copy of the fourteenth-century Modus Tenendi
Parliamentum commissioned by the fourth duke of Norfolk as Earl Marshal
and later owned by Sir Edward Coke was an important political artefact: 'an
actual means by which medieval tradition was transmitted to the seventeenth century'.55 As evidence that magnate politics constituted a salient
feature of the English Civil War in the 1640s, Adamson suggests that the
third earl of Essex, son of Elizabeth's favourite, claimed the great offices of
Lord Steward and Lord Constable and, with them, revived claims to the
political power sought by his father in the 1590s.56
When the earl of Essex became Earl Marshal in 1597 he was provided
with a series of tracts that argued that the Earl Marshal possessed a
jurisdiction over arms and, in the absence of a Lord Constable, a court in
which to hear cases concerning the peerage and the heralds.57 While presiding at the Court of Earl Marshal in 1598 the earl of Essex articulated the
aspirations of the late-Elizabethan nobility. He began by declaring that
nobility originated in the act of the monarch by stating that 'all nobility is
from the prince'. No claim to nobility could be recognized but by the
monarch's allowance. At the same time he described the relationship
between monarch and nobility with organic and reciprocal analogies. To
uphold the nobility was necessary to a hierarchical society and a religious
duty. Moreover, if the prince was the proverbial head of the body politic,
the nobility was its shoulders: 'When nobility is suppressed, the magistrates
are condemned, and consequently all government subverted.' Just as
important as the support that the nobility provided to the government was
the web of relationships they maintained with people in the localities. Tor
55
56
57
David Starkey, 'Stewart Serendipity: A Missing Text of the Modus Tenendi

Parliamentutn\
Fenway Court (1986), 39-51.
Starkey, 'Stewart Serendipity', pp. 3 9 - 5 1 . John Adamson, 'The Baronial Context of the
English Civil War', TRHS, 5th ser., 40 (1990), 93-120.
See Sir Anthony Wagner, The Heralds of England: A History of the Office and College of
Arms (London, 1967); James, 'English Politics and the Concept of Honour', pp. 2 2 - 8 . In
one tract presented to Essex, Henry Howard dwelt on the crucial role of the Earl Marshal in
controlling social mobility; when Mary Tudor had restored his grandfather, the third duke
of Norfolk, to the earl marshalship, she enjoined him to 'erase the cotes of those base persons
out of the book of honour'. T h e orders of his brother, the fourth duke, prevented the
heralds from granting arms without the Earl Marshal's consent. Howard celebrated the
'torches that are lighted and the bonfires that are made (in signe of joy) all England over
when gentility is houlden in regard for the late admission of our Marshal to that honourable
place'. Folger Shakespeare Library, Vb 7.
100
Linda Levy Peck
England', Essex declared, 'was most mighty when the nobility led and
commanded in war and were great housekeepers at home and compounded
causes against their neighbours.5 Essex's vision that sixteenth-century
political patronage was dependent on the role of the nobility found its echo,
as we have seen, in Newcastle's advice to Charles II.
But, as we have also seen, Elizabeth's patronage of her nobility was
meagre in the last decade of her reign. To what remedies could they, indeed,
did they, turn? In a nutshell one might say: to rebellion and to the rising
sun. While most of Elizabeth's Court turned their eyes to the north as the
reign came to an end, Essex turned to revolt after his monopoly of the patent
for sweet wines was withdrawn. And in what language and with what
practices did the nobility or their clients articulate their claims? When asked
by what authority he had sought to raise London, to seize the Tower and
gain access to the queen, Essex replied that as Earl Marshal he needed no
further authority. Around the Essex revolt swirled historical reference from
Shakespeare's Richard II to John Hayward's Henry /K. 58
In interpreting the last decade of Elizabeth's reign, however, perhaps we
have placed too great emphasis on Essex's revolt and too little on the
complex contexts in which the late-Elizabethan nobility's claims to power
are situated. Richard McCoy has suggested that when in the 1530s and
1540s writers such as Thomas Starkey and John Ponet discussed the
importance of these offices they did so to endorse a theory of mixed polity
opposed to Tudor theories of divine right monarchy. 'From Thomas
Starkey through the antiquarians to Coke there is a shared interest in the
great feudal offices and a shared belief in the supremacy of mixed government.'59
But from the thirteenth century the language of baronial revolt, whether
centred around the powers of the great medieval offices of Lord High
Steward, Lord Constable and Earl Marshal, or around parliamentary
culture, offered differing meanings originally embedded in their medieval
texts.60 How such meanings were appropriated at different times must be
carefully teased out; we cannot assume that the discussion of these great
58
59
60
McCoy, Rites of Knighthood, pp. 94ff. We need to place the language of baronial revolt and
antiquarianism in a larger context. T h e 1590s saw the publication of numbers of works on
civil war at the beginning of the decade that concerned not baronial revolt but the civil wars
in France. Their focus was not baronial claims to the throne but the problem of disorder and
religious upheaval. In these the nobility were not the heroes but the menace.
McCoy, Rites of Knighthood, pp. 94ff. See Thomas Mayer (ed.), Thomas Starkey: A
Dialogue Between Pole and Lupset, Camden Society, 4th ser. vol. 37 (London, 1989),
pp. 121-2. Thomas Starkey does counterpoise the Lord High Constable to the king but
because the power of the office is too dangerous to be held by one person he suggests the
Constable become head of a council representing the whole body of the people.
I am grateful to John Guy for discussion of this point at the Folger seminar on Parliamentary Culture, June 1992.
101
medieval offices always meant that the writer endorsed a mixed polity.
Indeed, I would argue that in the last decade of Elizabeth's reign discussion
of these offices tended as much to support royal power as to subvert it.
For the context in which Essex delivered his address on nobility was at its
heart heraldic, the long-standing battle over the Abergavenny peerage and
whether or not it could descend to the heirs general instead of the heirs male.
In the case Essex turned to the judges for advice and relied on materials put
together by the heralds and others including William Camden, Clarencieux.
Essex's speech appears in Camden's commonplace book amongst other
heraldic materials. Moreover, the issue that repeatedly arose throughout the
sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries was whether the heralds had a
right independent of the Earl Marshal to grant arms. Essex's view of the earl
marshalship drew on the reforms of Thomas Howard, fourth duke of
Norfolk, who, as Earl Marshal in the 1560s, asserted his control not of the
queen but of the heralds. Norfolk's brother Henry advised Essex in 1597 and
tried to enforce Norfolk's orders as one of the commissioners for the earl
marshalship in the first decade of King James' reign.61
And what of the tracts on the great medieval offices read by the Elizabethan Society of Antiquaries at the end of Elizabeth's reign.62 These
heralds, lawyers and country gentlemen had personal ties to Elizabethan
courtiers and nobles including the earl of Essex.63 Their work has been
linked by Christopher Hill to the parliamentary 'opposition'64 and by John
Adamson to politically active peers who claimed the vice-regal powers of the
Lord High Steward, the Lord Constable and the Earl Marshal. 65 The
antiquaries' meetings were suppressed in 1614 by James I as touching on
royal authority and there is no question that their historical investigation
had contemporary political resonance. But how should we interpret the
antiquaries' interest in baronial offices at the end of Elizabeth's reign?
61
62
63
64
65
See Linda Levy Peck, Northampton: Patronage and Policy at the Court of James I (London,
1982), pp. 13, 156-60; Richard McCoy draws attention to one of the tracts prepared for
Essex suggesting that the powers to the Earl Constable and Earl Marshal be combined,
stressing that Essex had hereditary interest in those offices as well as currently holding the
position of Master of the Horse, Rites of Knighthood, pp. 91-5. This tract, BL, Cotton M S S
Vespasian C X I V , fos. 103-6, uses language similar to Henry Howard's. It does not discuss a
mixed polity, does not suggest that the three offices be combined as an aristocratic counter
to the monarch but compliments Essex as Master of the Horse on his hereditary pretensions
to those offices. After all the Howards themselves claimed the earl marshalship by hereditary descent.
See Linda Van Nordern, 'The College of Antiquaries', unpublished U C L A Ph.D. thesis
(1948).
See for instance Francis Thynne's commonplace book, B L , Stowe M S S 1047, which
includes materials on the earls of Essex since the Conquest and heraldic materials on
precedence and funerals. H e became Lancaster Herald in 1602 after the earl's death.
Christopher Hill, 'The Norman Yoke', in Puritanism and Revolution (Oxford, 1958).
Adamson, 'The Baronial Context of the English Civil War', pp. 93-120.
102
Linda Levy Peck
Ten tracts addressed the powers of the Lord High Steward; three
explicitly drew on the medieval tract of the Lord High Steward written in
the period of baronial revolt against Edward II in the 1320s, tracts by
Robert Cotton, the antiquary, by Hayward Townshend, MP, whose diary
for 1601 is one of the principal sources for that parliamentary session, and
an anonymous tract. Adamson focuses on the anonymous tract which was
published in 1642 as Certaine Observations Touching the Two Great Offices of
the Seneschalsey . . . and High Constableship of England. Adamson writes:
intended as a polemical work, it reflects the attitudes of Essex's (that is, the third
Earl) and Mandeville's circle within the Lords to the authority and jurisdiction of
the great officers of the state. The treatise attributed to the Steward and Constable
quasi-regal powers. Citing a [sic] 'an old booke of Parchmine' once in the possession
of Recorder William Fleetwood - the fourteenth-century Treatise on the Steward the tract printed in 1642 argued that the Steward's jurisdiction was 'immediately
after the King, to oversee and governe the whole Kingdome of England, and all the
Offices of the Justice ... in all times both of Peace and Warre'.
What may have been polemical was the 1642 title page not the tract. While
the title page claims the tract will deal with the Lord High Steward and the
Lord Constable the tract itself actually discusses the Lord High Steward
and Steward of the Household, the issues that the Antiquaries took up at
their meeting in 1601.
Robert Cotton cited the same passage from the fourteenth-century tract
on the Lord High Steward 'being in some antiquaries' hands', to make a
different point from the one that Adamson suggests. Originally, Cotton
wrote, the 'office is under, and immediately after the king, to oversee, and
governe the whoole kingdome, and all the officers of justice boeth in peace
and warre'. 66 But he concluded:
So insupportable grew the ambition, and the authority so unlimited of the lords high
stewards in the former tymes, that his majesty's predecessors in this kingdome have
bin constrained to extinguish the inheritable right and ordinary execution of their
office, and wholly to incorporate the same into their royall crowne and soveraigne
prerogative, communicating it onely to the subjects for very short space, either in
cases of greatest necessity, or in tymes of highest solemnity.67
66
67
Wing 1713; Adamson ' T h e Baronial Context of the English Civil W a r , ' p . 99; T h o m a s
Hearne, A Collection of Curious Discourses (2 vols., L o n d o n , 1775), I I , p p . 1-11. T h e Lord
High Steward advised the king o n evil councillors, attempted to remove them and could
pronounce a sentence of death against any peer found guilty. Ironically, a L o r d High
Steward was appointed specifically for Essex's trial held before the earl's peers performing
just the function that Cotton had described in his tract.
Hearne, Curious Discourses, II, p. 12.
But sithence the tyme of Henry the Fourth, this office hath been extinct in the
crowne, being revived onely by patent under the broad seale, att extraordinary
tymes of the princes funeral!, coronation, feasts, parliaments, or at the arraignment
103
If there was a polemical meaning to the publication of the tract in 1642, it

cannot be ascribed in retrospect to the Elizabethan Society of Antiquaries or
to circles around the second earl of Essex.
Moreover, the effort to interpret these tracts on the great medieval offices
as part of Essex's challenge to Elizabeth founders on their date. While the
Antiquaries discussed the origin of noble titles in 1590 and again in 1598,
their tracts on the great medieval offices of the Lord High Steward, the
Lord Constable and the Earl Marshal were delivered from 1601 to 1603,
after Essex's execution for treason not before. 68
We all know that Elizabeth said to the Recorder of London, William
Lambarde, 'know ye not that I am Richard II?'. But what did the queen
herself think the function of the office and the powers of the Earl Marshal
and Lord Constable in the aftermath of the Essex revolt? In 1590 Elizabeth
had put the office of Earl Marshal into commission after the death of the earl
of Shrewsbury when she entrusted it to William Cecil, Lord Burghley, the
Lord Treasurer, Charles Howard, Lord Effingham, the Lord Admiral and
Lord Hunsdon, the Lord Chamberlain. In 1597 she had granted the office to
the earl of Essex. After Essex's execution in February 1601 she left the office
vacant. But in December 1601 she again placed the earl marshalship in
commission, to the Lord Treasurer, now Thomas Sackville, Lord Buckhurst, Charles Howard, now earl of Nottingham and Lord Admiral, and
Edward, earl of Worcester, Master of the Horse.
Prompted by complaints from the heralds during the Parliament held
between October and December 1601, this was the queen's charge: 69
Whereas the office of the Earl Marshall of this our realme of England is void by the
attaynder of the late Earl of Essex, and by reason . . . there are and willbe many
accidents of Arms and Chivalry belonging to the sayd office undetermined . . . we are
informed that divers errors are committed by certen heralds now deceased, and by
some such as do live to the dishonour of our nobility and Chivalry and to the
disgrace of sundry families of eminent bloud . . . And likewise that for gaine or other
affection, the said heralds have appointed armes . . . for... persons of base birth or of
meane vocation and quality of living that were meete for persons of good birthe and
lineage to receive honour eyther for service in pollitick government or in martiall
Armes: which errors and disorders wee of our princely and royal dignity (from
68
69
of a peere, being bounded within very streight limit ts of tyme, & pro ilia vice
tantum. II, p. 7.
Indeed, these offices had been omitted from Henry VIII's table of precedence codified in
statute at the end of his reign.
During Essex's tenure as Earl Marshal the Antiquaries discussed the dimensions of land,
the antiquity of arms, epitaphs, funerals and mottoes, the antiquity of cities, castles and
parishes. At the time of Essex's uprising they were to discuss duelling but the meeting was
postponed. See Hearne, Curious Discourses; Tate's notebook containing the questions posed
to the members: Archaeologia, 1 (1770), vi; B L , Stowe M S 1045.
PRO, PSO 2/20, Privy Signet Bills 44 Elizabeth, no. 6, 10 Dec. 1601.
104
Linda Levy Peck
whence all inferior honours and dignities ought to be derived or protected) mynding
to reforme.
The 1601 commission recapitulated the commission of 1590. It found its
echo, we can now see, in the speech that Essex delivered in the Earl
Marshal's court in 1598. Queen Elizabeth authorized the commissioners
to exercise all accons belonging to the office of the Earl Marshall... to call before you
all officers of Armes . . . and to cause due Inquisition to be made of all manner of
Armes by them of late years to any person without good warrant by the lawe of
Arms, given or usurped . . . and upon due examination and triall thereof to revoke
and disannul all such as shalbe so tryed and found unlawfully or unworthily assigned
. . . And further to consider of such good ordinances as have been by former Earl
Marshals or Constables of England for the direction of the said heralds in their
severall offices for the limitation of their authorities and their orderly visitation and
to restore the same to their ancient usage, and to prescribe to all the heralds and
pursuivants in what order every of them shall behave themselves in the pursuit of
their several offices.
The queen authorized them to choose 'meete and skillful persons' for any
vacancies.
And generally we do authorize you to do and execute a l l . . . things and acts that of
right might be done and executed by any Earl Marshall of England according to the
law and custome of this our realme, and according to the laws martiall.
The queen's commission responded to the heralds' petition to have a

subcommittee of the commissioners for the earl marshalship look into
abuses associated with Sir William Dethick, Garter King of Arms or so they
claimed.70 It echoed the programme of reform begun by Thomas Howard,
fourth duke of Norfolk in the 1560s, recapitulated at length by Henry
Howard for the earl of Essex in 1597 and later reported by Howard, Sir
Robert Sidney and Sir Edward Dyer in 1602 when they served on that
subcommittee for which the heralds had petitioned and to whom the
commissioners for the earl marshalship had delegated the queen's directions
for reform.71
Adamson suggests that material on the great medieval offices was ignored
until the antiquarian revival in the 1630s and 1640s when it was used in the
interest of the third earl of Essex. But Robert Cotton's loan lists demonstrate that some of these antiquarian tracts were constantly circulated in the
early seventeenth century. Henry Howard, earl of Northampton, borrowed
material on the Earl Marshal throughout the first decade of James' reign as
did George Carew, earl of Totnes, later on. For instance Howard took away
70
71
B L , Cotton M S S Faustina E I, fos. 175-. T h e heralds complained that the queen's

commission did not go far enough.
See Peck, Northampton, pp. 156-7.
105
'Certen notts out of the records being a copy of a book in my lord of

Salesburys study. ComposLig pattents to the Erls marshyall. Foil'. 72 In fact
British Library Cotton MSS Titus C I, from which Adamson draws the
anonymous tract on the Lord High Steward, later published in 1642, is a
volume that Cotton put together after Howard's death. It includes not only
the Society of Antiquaries tracts but also Howard's own collections on the
earl marshalship and duelling.73 Does this mean that Salisbury, James I's
Lord Treasurer, Howard, the Lord Privy Seal, and Carew, Vice Chamberlain of the Household, secretly wished to claim the medieval powers of the
Lord High Steward, Constable and Earl Marshal and to establish a mixed
polity? It seems more likely that they were concerned with the rituals of a
hierarchical society in which, as we have seen, funerals as well as
christenings and marriages were carefully constructed according to status
and precedent, and to maintain the standing of the nobility by purging the
heralds' office of the corrupt granting of arms. 74
Moreover, at issue was whether in the absence of the Lord Constable the
Earl Marshal's court had a jurisdiction separate from and not controlled by
the common law. John Dodderidge, a leading common lawyer, a member of
the Society of Antiquaries and later a justice of the Court of King's Bench,
argued in 1605 that it did. 75 Such an argument enabled the Earl Marshal to
exercise control over the granting of arms, crucial in a society based on
hierarchy, and also suggested a way to tax the gentry, fining them, for
example, for assuming arms not properly theirs. Both James I and Charles I
turned to such projects for revenue. Indeed, the powers of the prerogative
Court of Earl Marshal increased at much the same time as other prerogative
courts such as Star Chamber when it claimed jurisdiction over words that
might lead to duelling. Thus the powers that inhered in the great medieval
officers could threaten the hegemony of the common law just as well as
underpin parliamentary opposition or challenges to the crown. As a result,
the jurisdiction of the Court of Earl Marshal was repeatedly questioned. In
1613 James Whitelocke brought suit on behalf of the herald Richard
St George, claiming that in the absence of a Lord Constable the Earl
Marshal could not hold a court. The suit was thrown out by the Lord
Chancellor and, ironically, remanded to the Earl Marshal's court. Only
when James I provided a patent of Lord Constable and Earl Marshal to the
72
74
75
73
B L , Harleian 6018, fo. 160.
B L , Cotton M S S Titus C I.
T h e Society of Antiquaries took up issues of arms, epitaphs, mottoes, and funerals in 1600
just before addressing the great medieval offices in 1601. B L , Stowe M S S 1045.
Hearne, Curious Discourses, pp. 281-92; Peck, Northampton, pp. 117-18. For another tract
by Dodderidge see Pauline Croft, 'Sir John Dodderidge, King James I, and the Antiquity of
Parliament', Parliaments, Estates and Representation, 12 (Dec. 1992), 95-107.
106
Linda Levy Peck
earl of Arundel in 1622 was the issue settled.76 The Long Parliament
declared the Court of Earl Marshal a grievance in 1641 and denied that it
had jurisdiction over speech. Still this hierarchical society could not do
without its functions and in 1646 the Long Parliament passed an ordinance
to prevent abuses in heraldry and to that end itself established a Court of
Chivalry.77
Ill
While many peers studied genealogy and antiquities, they recognized that
their future lay in supporting monarchy and especially the new monarch.
Essex's rebellion got little noble support, even from those who had identified themselves with him earlier. In secret correspondence with King James
the earl of Northumberland blamed Essex for claiming the office of Lord
Constable and the right to call Parliament into session. (These charges may
have been bogus.) He and others welcomed James VI as their future ruler
for the benefits he would bestow. For 'the annexing of theas thrie kingdoms
most neides be glorious and great for the king that must guveirne tham . . .
and happie for us, since subjects ar euer soe where largest dominions are'.
One of those younger peers who had served in the Low Countries,
Northumberland, thirsted for imperial glory, 'to see this contrie of myne
florishe in it selfe, and give the law to other nations about it'. He reassured
James that he would be welcomed at the queen's death for:
the world assumeth a greater freedom since Essex death to speak freely of your title,
with the [greater] allowance of it than ever, nor can I mark out any one precedent
that any man is troubled for i t . . . which to me argueth that it is not distastefull to
the chief agents in our state.78
76
77
78
Recalling Essex's contest with Nottingham over precedence, Bishop John Williams advised
Buckingham to take up the position of Lord High Steward, pointing out that it was superior
to the Master of the Horse, and the Admiralty: only the king's relatives, favourites or what
he described as 'counter-favourites (raised up of purpose to balance the great one)' had
previously held the office. T h e position of Lord High Steward provided 'very competent
gettinges', and, more importantly, gave the favourite his own bounty to distribute, so that he
was not merely the conduit of royal favour. Most of all, Williams recommended 'this great
opportunitye, to be neerest unto the Kinge, that is, to be upon earth as your pietye will one
daye make you in heaven, an everlastinge favouritt'. John E. B. Mayor, Letters of Archbishop
Williams (Cambridge, 1866), pp. 52-5. Williams called attention to the example of the earl
of Leicester,
who (beinge the onely favouritt in Q. Elizabeth hir time that was of any continuance)
made choise of this place onelye, and refused the Admiraltye two severall times, as
being an occasion, either to withdrawe him from the Court or to leave him there
laden with ignominye.
G. D . Squibb, The Court of Chivalry, pp. 66-9.
Bruce, Correspondence of King James VI, pp. 54-5.
107
The importance of the peers to a peaceful transition was recognized both by

James VI and the Elizabethan Privy Council. Sir Robert Cecil devised a
formula to have a makeshift Great Council recognize the new monarch.79 As
Elizabeth lay dying her Privy Council called on those noblemen on hand in
the capital, including the earl of Northumberland, to help proclaim
James VI as James I of England. Appearing with a retinue of 100 men after
the queen's death, Northumberland supported the king's title. But, arguing
for the privileges of the old nobility, he questioned the authority of the now
legally defunct but still functioning Elizabethan Privy Council. To recognize the authority of the nobility (or the power of Northumberland's
retinue) Lord Keeper Egerton offered, with his associates, to move to the
lower part of the table, an offer that was not taken up. 80 The new king was
proclaimed by a group including the Elizabethan privy councillors, officeholders, nobility and gentry.81
As the new king entered London, James signalled his intention to change
Elizabeth's policy towards the peerage. He issued a proclamation from
Howard House increasing the size of the Privy Council so that he could add
members of 'the ancient nobility whose birth and merit makes them more
capable than others' as well as his own followers the Scots.82 Although he
was wary of their strength, unlike Elizabeth in the 1590s, James was content
to give the nobility their place in the sun or at least allow them to bask in his
reflected glory. He gave them offices and monopolies and met the pent up
demand for titles beyond their wildest dreams. The cupboard was no longer
bare but overflowing; indeed it had become a cornucopia.83
Because Northumberland recognized the crucial importance of what
Essex had defined as 'near access' to the monarch, he insisted on rooms in
79
80
81
82
83
Cecil drafted the proclamation before the queen's death and, in secret correspondence with
the king, secured James' approval before it was issued. T h e proclamation declared James VI
of Scotland, King of England, 'who . . . by law, lineal succession, and undoubted right is
now become the only sovereign lord and king of these imperial crowns'. STC 8297; Percy
Schramm, A History of the English Coronation (Oxford, 1937), pp. 167-8; Stuart Royal
Proclamations, ed. J. F. Larkin and Paul Hughes (2 vols., Oxford, 1973), I, pp. 1-4.
Salisbury M S S 99/43. Bruce, Correspondence of King James VI, p. 47.
T h e peers on the Council refused this suggestion. S. R. Gardiner, History of England,
1603-1640 (London, 1884), I, pp. 85-6. Bruce, Correspondence of King James VI, p. 1.
Northumberland promised James his loyalty and said that most supported his title,
pp. 53-76.
'The Councell of state and nobility caused at one instance the Queen's death and the King's
proclamation of his infallible right to be . . . published.' John Hawarde, Les Reportes del
Cases in Camera Stellata, 1593-1609, ed. W. P. Baildon (London, 1894), p. 179. This
formula has become the model for the announcement of the new monarch down to the
present. Francis Thynne's description of James VI's proclamation as king of England
describes those present, BL, Stowe M S S 1047, fos. 268v-70.
PRO, S.O. 3/2, 10 May 1603.
See Linda Levy Peck, Court Patronage and Corruption in Early Stuart England (London,
1991).
108
Linda Levy Peck
the palace next to Thomas Howard, now earl of Suffolk and Lord Chamberlain, the chief officer of the royal household (even though it meant giving
James' Scottish surgeon the boot).84 Granted Syon House by James in 1604,
Northumberland insisted on being one of those vetting petitions for favour
and was widely regarded as an important patron from 1601 to 1605.85
Northumberland fell when his relation Thomas Percy was implicated in the
Gunpowder Plot. In defending himself against charges of treason in 1605
the earl described his activities since James' accession: 'examine but my
humours in buildings, gardening and my private expenses these two years
past'.86 Unwittingly, Northumberland suggests that some of the Jacobean
nobility was well launched on a voyage of discovery that led away from
baronial revolt towards the creation of a new Baroque Court culture:
towards a reinvention of the English nobleman as a European connoisseur
and towards conspicuous consumption that did not challenge the crown but
constructively underpinned it.
84
85
86
PRO, SP 14/9/85, Suffolk to Northumberland, 1604.

CSPD 1603-1610,?.
12;PRO, SP 14/1/108.
Quoted in Mark Nicholls, Investigating Gunpowder Plot (Manchester, 1991), p. 144.
The fall of Sir John Perrot

Hiram Morgan
John Bossy's Giordano Bruno and the Embassy Affair and Charles Nicholls'
The Reckoning: The Murder of Christopher Marlowe represent two of the
most compelling recent studies of our period. Both use imaginative and
painstaking detective work to reveal the conspiratorial underbelly of Elizabethan politics.1 The following preliminary study explores another aspect of
the same murky amoral world. It is equally compelling, with a rich cast of
dubious characters and a splendid plot involving espionage, counterfeiting,
mistaken identity, betrayal and courtroom drama. The subject is the
treason trumped up against Sir John Perrot at the start of the 1590s. The
object is not to vindicate Perrot, that much is obvious from a glance at the
Calendars of State Papers^ but rather to show how he was deliberately and
systematically framed and in conclusion to offer some explanation of the
mysterious fall of such a staunch supporter of the Elizabethan regime.
Of course it is not for his alleged treason that Perrot is best known. Rather
it is for who he may have been - the reputed son of Henry VIII - and for
what he did as Lord Deputy of Ireland. Perrot was born in 1527 or 1528 out
of wedlock to Mary Berkeley who afterwards married one Thomas Perrot
Esq.2 If he was Henry VIII's son, the king never acknowledged the fact. But
Perrot was popularly held to be his son, being large in frame, choleric in
temper, tyrannical in government and a lady's man by inclination.3 These
personality traits came to the fore during his government of Ireland between
1584 and 1588. Perrot proved an exceptionally energetic Lord Deputy,
inaugurating various departures in policy and scoring a notable success with
the Composition of Connaught. His vigorous approach trod on many vested
interests not just in the country at large but also within his own Council
which caused an acrimonious dispute with Loftus, the Lord Chancellor and
1
2
3
John Bossy, Giordano Bruno and the Embassy Affair (London, 1991); Charles Nicholls, The
Reckoning: The Murder of Christopher Marlowe (London, 1992).
DNB, XLV, pp. 20-6; P. W. Hasler, The Commons, 1558-1603 (3 vols., London, 1981), III,
pp. 205-7.
Sir Robert Naunton, Fragmenta regalia or observations on the late Queen Elizabeth her times
and her favourites, 3rd edn, London 1653, in English Reprints, ed. Edward Amber (London,
1870), pp. 41-4.
109
110
Hiram Morgan
archbishop of Dublin, an unseemly brawl with Sir Nicholas Bagenal, the

seventy-nine year old Marshal of the Army, and the imprisonment of Sir
Geoffrey Fenton, the Secretary to the Council, for non-payment of debts.
Although Perrot did exaggerate his successes and sweep under the carpet
the disagreements, his government can be judged a reasonable success. He
left the country in peace - rather than having provoked a rebellion - and
when the Armada arrived shortly after his departure the population determined to massacre the shipwrecked survivors instead of joining forces with
them. 4
On his return from Ireland Perrot was elected MP for Haverfordwest in
his native Pembrokeshire and after appointment to the Privy Council in
February 1589 he helped pilot a number of government bills through
Parliament.5 It was also obvious that Perrot would remain influential in
directing Irish affairs as revealed by the Council book entry: 'Lord Buckhurst, Sir John Perrot, Mr Fortescue did sit to hear Irish causes.' 6 Almost
immediately allegations and counter-allegations were exchanged between
Perrot and his successor as Lord Deputy, Sir William Fitzwilliam. Perrot
complained about Fitzwilliam's displacement of his appointees, most
notably of Stephen Seagar, the constable of Dublin Castle, while Fitzwilliam
alleged that Perrot's much trumpeted reforms existed on paper only. Many
Irish nobles were now writing directly to Perrot in London or resorting
to him with their petitions. In September and October 1589 Perrot's
supporters on the Irish Council used the visit of Sir Thomas Cecil, the
dim-witted son of Lord Treasurer Burghley, to make Fitzwilliam look an
imbecile. Fitzwilliam was in danger of becoming a lame duck of a deputy he told Lord Burghley, 'My credit and service is already in the balance and
cannot stand long overthrown.' 7 By the start of 1590 Perrot was making
allegations of bribery and corruption at the Council board in London amid
growing expectations that the queen was about to reappoint him to complete
the job he had begun in Ireland back in 1584.8
In February 1590 Fitzwilliam launched an attack on Perrot, acting on
information received from Sir Dennis O'Roughan, a priest who was a
prisoner in Dublin Castle. This priest had allegedly said mass to Lord
Deputy Perrot and had administered the sacrament to him. Moreover he
had a letter purportedly written by Perrot to the king of Spain in 1585. In it
Perrot had offered to help Philip II conquer both Ireland and England in
return for an hereditary grant of Wales. Only Fitzwilliam's private secre4
5
6
7
Hiram Morgan, Tyrone's Rebellion: The Outbreak of the Nine Years War in Tudor Ireland
(Woodbridge, 1993), chap. 3.
Hasler, The Commons, III, pp. 206-7.
Acts of the Privy Council of England, ed. J. R. Dasent (32 vols., London, 1890-1907), XVIII,
pp. 76, 133.
8
PRO, SP 63/147, no. 35.
Morgan, Tyrone's Rebellion, pp. 55-7.
111
tary, Philip Williams, and the constable of the castle, John Maplesden, were
in the know. Fitzwilliam's son, John, was sent to the queen with the letter the original of this letter no longer exists. 9 Awaiting developments from
London, Fitzwilliam got O'Roughan to set down his full dealings with
Perrot. Significantly, this 'Book of Accusations' has also been lost.
However, it is plain from the evidence drawn from it that O'Roughan said
that he had not received the letter directly from Perrot but that when he was
being paid by one of Perrot's servants it fell out of a money box and he
picked it up. He had not tried to deliver the letter to the king of Spain,
rather his wife, Margaret Leonard of New Ross, had secreted the letter for
five years in a dovecot.10 At this point O'Roughan produced a second letter
which Perrot had allegedly written to Sir William Stanley in 1586. This man
had gathered troops in Ireland during Perrot's time for service in the
Netherlands where he turned traitor and went over to the king of Spain.
Significantly this letter is also missing; not even a copy exists. 11
Obviously this was a conspiracy against Perrot and as conspiracies go a
pretty inept one. It becomes more so, the more we look at the principal
source - Sir Dennis O'Roughan. O'Roughan had first come to public
attention when he was arrested on returning from Spain in 1584. At the time
he was examined by Perrot and another Irish councillor, Sir Edward
Waterhouse, about the activities of Catholic seminary priests. O'Roughan
agreed to renounce his Catholicism and to swear the oath of supremacy. In
1585 he was released on bail having further agreed to act as a priest-catcher.
But by the end of that year he was back in gaol. He had been arrested by
Miler Magrath, the archbishop of Cashel, because he had in his possession
forged warrants and forged travel documents. More dangerous from the
government's point of view, Perrot's signature had been counterfeited on
these documents. Since these papers related to the Ecclesiastical Commission, its deputy registrar, Henry Bird, was also arrested. It was known that
O'Roughan had visited Henry Bird in his study and when the study was
searched a sheet was found on which Perrot's signature had been
practised.12 In the Court of the Castle Chamber - the Irish equivalent of the
Star Chamber - O'Roughan insisted that Bird had done the counterfeiting.13 Bird and O'Roughan were in fact involved in a scam to fleece
leading recusants. O'Roughan would travel round the country saying mass
to Catholics - then he would reveal their names to Bird. Bird instead of
dutifully arresting the suspects would then extract bribes from the Catholics
on a regular basis. 14 Foolishly, Perrot pardoned O'Roughan in 1587 and
employed him as a spy to find out which noblemen had pro-Spanish views
9
12
13
SP 63/150, nos. 44, 44(1), 76.

SP 12/232, no. 6.
SP 63/152, nos. 25(1-3).
10
14
SP 12/233, no. 44.
SP 63/155, nos. 33(1-4).
SP 63/151, no. 34.
112
Hiram Morgan
and also in the hope of entrapping a notable rebel, Walter Reagh

Fitzgerald.15 But in 1589 O'Roughan was back in gaol, this time arrested
for Popish activities by Archbishop Loftus.16
Indeed the initial reactions of two of Perrot's old enemies to O'Roughan
are significant. Loftus said, 'I have ever since his coming out of Spain
known him to be a dishonest man and void of all truth.'17 Secretary Fenton,
who was on business in London, mentioned that Sir Dennis had during his
most recent imprisonment written
a book in the manner of a libel, wherein he reproved the religion of the Protestants
and extolled that of the Papists, with a bitter invective against him[self ] in that he
had disguised himself in the profession of a protestant to betray his brethren the
Catholics as he called them, for which he held himself no better than was Judas that
betrayed his master Christ.18
Clearly the general opinion was that O'Roughan was a wholly unreliable
individual, if not a consummate liar. The opinions of these two are particularly relevant because they later worked to build a case against Perrot.
Fitzwilliam's patron in London, Lord Treasurer Burghley, was furious.
He complained that Fitzwilliam had undertaken this business without the
knowledge of any other members of the Irish Council and that Perrot's
alleged letter to the king of Spain had been shown to the queen without
Burghley himself seeing it first.19 Of course once the queen had seen the
letter, there had to be an investigation. Tudor England was paranoid about
conspiracies; the country had gone into overdrive as the threat of invasion
by Spain loomed larger and larger. In this atmosphere, everyone was a
potential suspect, even a trusted official and a staunch protestant like Sir
John Perrot. However, the commission appointed to investigate the allegations of treason against Perrot in Dublin was favourable to him. It was
composed of Old English councillors who had been his allies whilst in
government as well as Englishmen and Welshmen who were either his
friends or his appointees. The only exception was the bishop of Meath, who
was Loftus' sidekick.20 Fitzwilliam was now in a very difficult spot, fearful
that the whole conspiracy would rebound against him. He banned all travel
to England, except that by merchants, to prevent further information
reaching Perrot in London.21 In Dublin he attempted to get Sir George
Carew, a new member of the Irish Council, and Sir Henry Harrington, an
occasional attender, to write letters in favour of his actions, in particular
that he had not suborned O'Roughan.22
15
18
21
22
16
17
SP 12/234, no. 55.
SP 63/151, no. 34; 152, no. 12.
SP 63/152, no. 12.
19
SP 12/232, no. 31.
SP 63/151, nos. 34, 93.
APC, X V I I I , pp. 424-6.
SP 12/231, no. 73.
Calendar of the Carew Manuscripts preserved in the archiepiscopal library at Lambeth,
1515-1624, ed. J. S. Brewer and William Bullen (6 vols., London; 1867-73), III, pp. 25-6,
30-1.
113
In April 1590 the whole situation changed completely. Sir Francis

Walsingham, the Principal Secretary of the English Privy Council, died.
Since the death of the earl of Leicester two years earlier, Walsingham had
been Perrot's principal patron.23 There now began a great factional struggle.
Lord Treasurer Burghley was anxious to prevent a nominee of the earl of
Essex, the royal favourite, being put into the secretary's chair which he
wanted for his younger son, Robert. Perrot's connection with Essex was
more nominal than real. His son Thomas was married to the earl's sister but
there was a long-standing controversy between Sir John's tenants and
followers in Wales and those of the earl. Also Essex's role, even if he had
been anxious to help, was circumscribed by his non-membership of the
Privy Council.24 Perrot should have seen which way the wind was blowing
when he himself asked for Walsingham's other office, the chancellorship of
the Duchy of Lancaster. Burghley had a fit; Perrot apologized profusely.25
Nonetheless Sir John remained sanguine about the allegations of treason
against him, absurdly so. He was sure that the commissioners in Ireland
would find in his favour, not least because Fitzwilliam's administration was
very unpopular there. He thought Burghley well-disposed towards him,
being aware that the Lord Treasurer had tried to get John Fitzwilliam to
persuade his father to desist. Perrot was so confident that he did not bother
to broach the matter personally with the queen.26 But by the end of April
Perrot's enemies in England had ganged up against him. The queen was
persuaded to appoint a commission to investigate Perrot's cause in England.
It was composed of Burghley, Sir Christopher Hatton, the Lord Chancellor,
Lord Hunsdon, the Lord Chamberlain, Howard, the Lord Admiral, and
Lord Buckhurst.27 Of these Perrot had particular cause to fear the malice of
Hatton whose daughter Elizabeth he had allegedly seduced and impregnated.28 However it was to be Burghley who dictated the course of proceedings against Perrot. He remained in direct contact with Fitzwilliam and
composed many of the interrogatories or questionnaires on which witnesses
were examined and these he made out in a leading fashion which tended to
compound the allegations against Sir John rather than to exonerate him. 29
This new commission determined to sideline completely the workings of
its Irish forerunner. In a letter in Burghley's own hand, Burghley and
Hatton ordered the Irish commission to hand O'Roughan over to a servant
of Fitzwilliam's for escort to London instead of, as previously agreed,
entrusting his delivery to the queen's own messenger. Burghley and Hatton
23
24
25
28
29
Morgan, Tyrone's Rebellion, pp. 3 0 - 1 ; Hasler, The Commons, III, p. 206.

26
27
SP 12/231, no. 66.
SP 12/231, no. 73.
SP 63/153, no. 22; 154, no. 6.
DNB, X L V , pp. 20-6.
SP 63/151, no. 66; 161, nos. 19, 53.
114
Hiram Morgan
claimed to be acting on the queen's instructions but I find it extraordinary

that the queen should overlook the services of her own official messenger
sent over for this precise purpose in favour of a private servant of someone
else!30 Soon after O'Roughan's arrival in London, Perrot was summoned on
30 May before his colleagues in the Privy Council. Kneeling on bare floorboards in the presence of his accuser, Perrot was forced to listen to an
oration and was then committed at the queen's express order with no formal
charges being made against him. Sir John claimed that such treatment was
unheard of for one of his station, service and office. Perrot now found
himself under house arrest at Burghley's residence in the Strand.31
In London O'Roughan made allegations against the commissioners who
had examined him in Dublin. He claimed that Sir Nicholas White, the
Master of the Rolls, and Richard Meredith, the bishop of Leighlin, Perrot's
former chaplain, had urged him to retract his story, at times threatening him
with hanging and at other times offering him reward. Indeed they had not
only urged him to retract but had also encouraged him to declare that
Fitzwilliam had cooked up the whole thing.32 Furthermore he claimed that
he had been tortured by being put into manacles by Sir Edward Moore and
the bishop of Leighlin. As a result instructions were sent to Dublin to have
the commissioners questioned individually before Fitzwilliam and Loftus.33
They all denied torturing O'Roughan. It is somewhat paradoxical that they
should have had to do this because torture by various means including the
rack was not unknown in treason cases in England.34 At night a handlock
had been put on O'Roughan which was in turn chained to the leg-irons he
usually wore. This was allegedly done to prevent the priest writing, doing
himself any damage or attempting to escape and in the morning the handlock was removed. The bishop of Meath, the only commissioner not linked
to Perrot, had also consented to this being done.35 Whether or not this
amounted to torture is difficult to say but by contemporary standards the
answer is assuredly negative. However, the commissioners were guilty of
one very serious misdemeanour. They took the grossly illegal step of
sending their proceedings and examinations to the accused. Doubtless this
decision was taken because, when they concluded in mid-May, events were
clearly militating against Perrot's interest. On 13 May Fitzwilliam wrote
that the commissioners had sent Perrot the night before a double of their
examination of O'Roughan. This went out in a Welsh boat 'contrary to the
general stay of passage'.36 Significantly the proceedings of the Irish Com30
32
33
34
35
31
SP 63/151, no. 85.
Alnwick Castle, Northumberland Papers VI, no. 29 fo. 57.
S P 12/232, no. 57.
SP 63/153, nos. 4,6.
John Bellamy, The Tudor Law of Treason (London, 1979), pp. 10-20.
M
SP 63/153, no. 22.
SP 63/152, no. 27.
115
missioners are missing from the official state papers. Had it not been for
their solicitude towards Perrot, these papers would no longer be extant,
existing as they do amongst Perrot's defence papers in the muniments of the
duke of Northumberland. But they paid the price for their audacity Perrot's supporters were either silenced or suspended. By the end of the
year the principals, White and Leighlin, had been brought to London and
were in prison, the former in the deanery of St Paul's and the latter in the
gatehouse at Westminster.
Perrot's accuser, Dennis O'Roughan, was also held in the gatehouse. We
can gauge his state of mind from the numerous rambling and self-affirming
letters he wrote during his captivity. At the start he made allegations in all
directions, attempting to include Sir Francis Knollys and the earl of Essex
in his charges against Perrot. Burghley endorsed these letters respectively 'a
very vain letter' and 'a very frivolous letter'.37 Clearly the commissioners
dealing with Perrot's case did not form a high opinion of O'Roughan. The
priest complained that Hunsdon, the Lord Chamberlain, visited the
gatehouse and called him a mad man.38 Maurice Pickering, O'Roughan's
gaoler, relayed the opinion of the Privy Council that he was a liar. Indeed
O'Roughan alleged that at dinner in the company of Seagar and Leighlin,
Pickering abused him, spat on him and called him *a devil's priest without
all truth'.39
One of the reasons for the great calumny heaped upon O'Roughan was the
accusation against him that he was a bigamist and that he had a deserted first
wife living in Chester named Elizabeth Knee. Burghley got the Mayor and
aldermen of Chester to search out this woman and have her questioned. She
gave two depositions in June and July 1590, both consistent, the second far
more detailed than the first. She said that she had met Sir Dennis twelve
years before when he was a priest at Christchurch in Dublin. She married
him a year later, giving details of who married them and who witnessed the
ceremony. She said that soon after their child was born, O'Roughan cleared
off- she had heard he had gone abroad. After the child died in 1584, she had
returned to Chester. She had received but not retained three letters from
O'Roughan addressed to her as his wife in the last year. Asked to describe
O'Roughan, she said that he was 'a brownish black man and of middle
stature'.40 O'Roughan repudiated Knee's statement. He claimed that he had
not been in Dublin before 1584 and that he had no connection with
Christchurch. He claimed that he was possibly being confused with other
O'Roughans in Ireland, most likely the family connected with Cashel
cathedral.41 He wrote to Burghley:
37
40
41
M
SP 12/232, nos. 63, 64.
SP 12/233, no. 50.
SP 12/232, nos. 59, 59(1); 233, nos. 23, 23(1 & 2).
SP 12/233, nos. 5, 37.
SP 12/234, no. 21.
116
Hiram Morgan
I require your honourable lordship to send for the woman of Chester, Elizabeth
Knee, that she may look upon me, for she saith that I am a black brownish man. Of
myfidelity,my beard is as red as blood. Ergo, the woman is mistaken & taketh me for
another Sir Dennis & it will fall out so, for by my maker I know not this woman
Knee, neither I made promise to no earthly woman but to my lawful wife, Margaret
Leonard.42
Knee was eventually sent up to London. She and O'Roughan confronted

each other on 9 October 1590. She denied that he was her husband and said
that she had never seen him before, in like sort he disavowed her as his
wife.43 What can we make of this whole episode? In the first place Knee
sounded convincing in that the chronology of her story coincided with Sir
Dennis' departure for Spain. I have not investigated the records to see if
O'Roughan did have a prior connection with Christchurch or the details of
their alleged marriage. Such things may be impossible to verify at this
distance. Anyhow the whole matter seems to fall down in the crucial area of
identification. One possible explanation is that Elizabeth Knee had been
coached by some of Perrot's friends in an elaborate attempt to discredit Sir
Dennis.
Despite all this, the crown was still anxious to use O'Roughan. He was
allowed to see many of the examinations taken up in the case and his
suggestions for further examinations were frequently followed up. There
was always the danger that O'Roughan might retract his evidence. In
November Malachy O'Mollony, a Catholic bishop also imprisoned in the
gatehouse in relation to Perrot's case, came close to persuading Sir Dennis
to make a retraction. As a result Burghley had Malachy shifted to solitary
confinement.44 Nearer the trial in January 1592 O'Roughan was again
having pangs of conscience.45 Of course, the priest was wise enough not to
deviate in his course because if he retracted he knew he was a dead man. On
the contrary he was generally insistent on the truthfulness of all that he
alleged. From the outset of his coming to London, he was anxious for a
quick trial of Perrot in which he would prove the privy councillor a traitor. 46
Perrot himself was also eager for a quick trial to vindicate his innocence,
knowing the longer the matter dragged on the less the likelihood that he
could clear himself.47 In Burghley's house in the Strand he was closely
watched and his main contact with the outside world was through his son,
Sir Thomas. 48 He sent letters to the queen on a number of occasions
protesting his innocence and demanding a trial but their receipt was
42
45
46
48
43
SP 12/233, no. 46.
SP 12/233, no. 91.
** SP 12/234, nos. 22, 24, 25.
SP 12/241, no. 5.
47
SP 12/234, no. 41.
SP 12/234, no. 44; Northumberland Papers, VI, no. 16 fo. 29.
Huntingdon Library, San Marino, Calif., Ellesmere M S no. 6224; Northumberland Papers,
VI, no. 28 fo. 56; SP 63/153, nos. 49, 49(1).
117
refused. 49 Eventually, in the autumn of 1590, there were a few days of

preliminary examinations. At these he made a very strenuous and forthright
case in his defence, questioning in particular the authenticity of the letters
O'Roughan had produced against him. He showed that he could not have
sent O'Roughan with a letter to Sir William Stanley at the latter's house at
Lismore on 12 May 1586 because in fact Stanley was only that day disembarking in Dublin to begin his recruitment drive. Perrot complained
later that he had handed over his copy of this letter and copies of the
warrants O'Roughan and Bird had counterfeited but that they had not been
returned to him. 5 0 His demolition job on the king of Spain's letter was even
more effective if the paragraph in his defence papers is anything to go by.
This reads:
the forged letter made by Sir Dennis to the Spanish king in my name beareth date
the 25 of June 1585 written in English but of Irish orthography a very foolish style,
the hand not good, the counterfeit of my hand as ill, the paper worse and neither my
private or ordinary seal of arms thereunto, the letter seeming to be an answer to a
letter that the Spanish king had sent unto me when I was president of Munster
thirteen or fourteen years before the date of that forged letter in which time I had
leisure to write a wiser letter and in some other tongue my self speaking the Spanish
and French tongue and understanding the Italian and Latin tongues. And where Sir
Dennis saith he brought me a letter in Anno 1584 from the Viscount Baltinglass in
the Spanish king's name, it were strange that I would forget to write in the supposed
letter to the king an answer of that later letter as well as to answer the said king of
that he wrote so long before. And it is as possible for me to perform the contents of
that forged letter as it is for me to dance around with [St] Paul's steeple on my
thumb.51
Notwithstanding this spirited defence, Perrot was formally charged in
December 1590. 52 In March 1591 he was moved from Burghley's house on
the Strand where he had access to the garden, to the Tower of London
where he was confined henceforth to a small room with only a bed and a
table for furniture. 53
It was obvious to the crown prosecution that they could not rely on the
insubstantial allegations of O'Roughan to convict Perrot. Other charges
based on other sources would be necessary. Most of these charges were
suitably embellished from incidents which had taken place in Connaught
during Perrot's deputyship. During that time Perrot had had a continuous
and acrimonious jurisdictional dispute with the Chief Commissioner of
49
51
52
53
Northumberland Papers, VI, no. 15 fo. 27.

5 SP12/233, no. 85.
Northumberland Papers, VI, no. 1 fos. 1-6.
APC, X X , p. 103.
SP 63/161, no. 42; SP 12/238, no. 21; 241, no. 16; T . B. Howell (ed.), A Complete
of State Trials (London, 1816), I, pp. 1327-32.
Collection
118
Hiram Morgan
Connaught, Sir Richard Bingham.54 Bingham was now called upon to

provide evidence against Perrot but he was somewhat reluctant to do so, not
out of love for his former adversary, but for fear that his own service record
might be called into question. He would rather have stayed aloof from the
whole affair.
As early as August 1590 Burghley was interested in the case of certain
rhymers who had allegedly composed poems against the queen claiming that
she was not the lawful queen of England and that Perrot had released them
rather than have them punished after they had been arrested by Captain
Woodhouse.55 In December 1590 Perrot refuted this completely. He
explained that he had given the earl of Thomond permission to have some
northern rhymers settle on his waste lands. However the O'Clerys who were
anxious to escape a succession dispute in the lordship of Tirconnell were
arrested and their goods distrained by Captain Woodhouse on the grounds
that they had composed rhymes against the queen. Perrot, who knew
Woodhouse did not know Irish, believed that this was a mere pretext for
highway robbery. He therefore released the O'Clerys on bail and handed the
matter over to the presidential council of Connaught.56 In February 1591
Bingham was called upon to give his version of the event. He said that the
rhymes had been found on Conn O'Clery and that they had been perused by
Edward White, the clerk of the Connaught council and his servants. Anything sensitive was Englished, i.e. translated. The most political statement
found was in a poem addressed to the O'Connor Don that 'he should be a
wise hungry greyhound and should drive all Englishmen over the salt sea'.
In other words there was nothing especially treasonable in the rhymes and
Bingham said that he had subsequently forwarded the rhymes to Dublin at
the request of Fitzwilliam.57 Nevertheless Fitzwilliam and Burghley continued to harass Bingham about the rhymers.58 Edward White was brought
up to Dublin, jailed and eventually replaced by a Fitzwilliam appointee.59
The crown persisted in its charges that Perrot had permitted these dangerous rhymers to go free; an ironic charge against a Lord Deputy who had paid
O'Neill's rhymer to sing the praises of the queen.60
The crown was also anxious to link Perrot with the revolt of Brian
O'Rourke, the lord of West Breifne, recently shired as County Leitrim.61
Perrot was vulnerable on this matter because he had used O'Rourke as a
pawn in his jurisdictional dispute with Bingham, indeed as early as April
1590 he had alleged that Fitzwilliam was examining prisoners in Dublin
Castle seeking 'to make me the author of O'Rourke's rebellion'.62 One of
54
57
60
62
55
%
Morgan, Tyrone's Rebellion, p. 33.
SP 12/233, no. 45.
SP 12/234, no. 58.
59
SP 63/157, no. 24.
SP 63/157, no. 66; 158, no. 22.
SP 63/158, no. 57.
61
SP 63/136, no. 68; See also PRO, E101 525 1.
SP 12/232, no. 30.
SP 12/231, no. 73.
119
O'Rourke's crimes was said to be that in 1586 he had set up an image or

picture of a woman, inscribed it with the name of Elizabeth and then got his
gallowglasses to drag it through the mud and then chop it up. Perrot was to
be accused of letting this crime of lese-majeste go unpunished. In fact this
story had only emerged in 1589 when Bingham and Fitzwilliam were
planning a joint attack on O'Rourke and needed a convenient pretext. By the
summer of 1591, Fitzwilliam wanted Bingham to supply a first-hand
account and to say that he had informed Perrot about it at the time.
Bingham complained to Burghley about the extreme arm-twisting that he
and others suffered in Dublin in July 1591:
It is very hard when young and private men shall be drawn to deliver a declaration
against an apparent truth, and extreme threatenings uttered to enforce a witness
after an oath and that vehemently to persuade a man to say more than remembrance
doth serve him, yea such conjurations (for little better may I term them) have been
used to them in the examinations of my knowledge in the treason of the picture, as
the commissioners have said that myself and my brother should be hurled together
and sent into England to Your Honours with further threatenings of hanging as
though we were rebels or traitors. My good lord, if we have any way misdemeaned
Her Majesty, let us receive due punishment for it, and for this treason of the picture
I trust no man will think that I would go about to conceal it or yet to deny
acquainting Sir John Perrot with it, if I were any way able in conscience to charge
him with it, for I would freely deliver it against him or any like matter touching Her
Majesty's service as any man living, under Her Majesty's dominion, and as soon
against Sir John as any man else.63
In fact, the original incident had been a charivari, the ritual humiliation of
someone who breaks the rules of communal behaviour or acts against the
prevailing moral code. This is evident from the declaration of John Ball,
though I must admit that I did not recognize it as such the first time I read
it. I suppose one does not always notice in one's own backyard what
according to social historians was a common phenomenon elsewhere in early
modern Europe. 64 John Ball said that in October 1586:
I was sent into O'Rourke's country, there to receive Her Majesty's composition, and
in the time of my being there at McGlannagh's town, standing upon a green, I saw
the picture of a woman carved in a block, standing upon wheels of small timber. I
asked the inhabitants what it was. They told me it was made for a calliagh (or old
woman). I asked who she was. They told me, one that denied a carpenter of milk. I
demanded where she did dwell. They said on the far side of the water. By the town
there was a lough. I thought they meant the far side thereof, and so said no more of
that. In a five weeks after or thereabouts Mr Clifford, then under-sheriff of that
country, asked me, being at Dromahair, if I did remember such a picture. I said I
did. He asked if I knew what it was. I told him that I heard it was made for one that
63
64
SP 63/159, no. 20.

Morgan, 'Extradition and Treason-Trial of a Gaelic Lord: T h e Case of Brian O'Rourke',
Irish Jurist, 22 (1987), 293-^1.
120
Hiram Morgan
denied a carpenter milk. He said it was not so, for it was made for Her Majesty. I
asked him how he knew that. He said he had heard it for certain to be true.65
So much for the treason of the picture.
Burghley and Fitzwilliam were also anxious to get their hands on O'Rourke's secretary, Cairbre 6 Treabhair, who was known to them under anglicized versions of his name as Charles Trevor and Charles Travers. 66 They
were furious with Bingham for letting Trevor go after he had been arrested
when O'Rourke's country had been overrun and his followers dispersed in
the spring of 1590.67 Now it was widely rumoured that Trevor knew who
had counterfeited the letter to the king of Spain because he had been in jail
in Dublin Castle at the same time as O'Roughan.68 But this was not the
reason why the crown prosecution wanted Trevor; indeed there was a
maxim relating to these treason cases that it was not the duty of the crown to
prove evidence against itself.69 Rather they wanted Trevor to pin further
crimes on Perrot. Early in 1589 Trevor had helped O'Rourke's son escape
from Oxford University where he had been sent to be educated. It is
apparent from an interrogatory prepared for Trevor that the crown wanted
to prove that Perrot was privy to Brian O'Rourke's sudden departure from
Oxford. However this interrogatory was left unanswered because Charles
Trevor was never apprehended.70 It would have been a cruel irony indeed to
have charged Perrot with this crime; after all he had been instrumental in
sending O'Rourke's son to Oxford and indeed he was himself a major
benefactor of that university.71
During 1591 those anxious to get rid of Sir John Perrot had a remarkable
stroke of luck. In February 1591 O'Rourke arrived in Scotland to recruit
mercenaries; by April he had been extradited to England with the full
cooperation of James VI. In May O'Rourke was examined but swore
clutching his crucifix that he knew nothing about the things Perrot was
charged with.72 Nevertheless the crown remained determined to implicate
Perrot in his so-called rebellious actions against the state. This explains the
extreme measures, already referred to, which were taken with Bingham and
his Connaught associates to try to force them to lie about the treason of the
picture in July 1591. It also explains why O'Rourke was tried and hanged in
England rather than returned to Ireland where his trial and execution would
obviously have had a more exemplary effect on the conduct of the natives.
Indeed in order to try O'Rourke the English judges had to come up with a
65
68
69
70
71
72
67
SP 63/151, no. 90.
SP 12/232, no. 52.
SP 63/154, nos. 25, 25(1), 27.
SP 63/153, nos. 49, 49(1), 54; 154, no. 6; 160, no. 6.
Bellamy, Tudor Law of Treason, p. 81; Northumberland Papers, VI, no. 15 fo. 27.
SP 63/161, no. 53.
Joseph Foster, Alumni Oxonienses, 1500-1714 (4 vols., Oxford, 1891), III, p. 1092.
SP 12/238, no. 188.
121
special ruling. O'Rourke was an Irishman and his crimes had been committed in a separate jurisdiction which had its own laws. However the judges
managed by various legal tergiversations to decide that he could be tried in
England on the grounds that, even though his crimes were in another
jurisdiction, O'Rourke was still a subject of the queen against whom the
crimes had been committed. The scene was now set for O'Rourke's trial in
November 1591. On the day O'Rourke refused to recognize the jurisdiction
of the court when called upon to enter a plea; technically the case should
have been stopped at this point and O'Rourke should have been declared
guilty on the charges contained in his indictment. 73 This did not happen as
Richard Broughton writing to his father-in-law Richard Bagot states:
Upon his not answering, the Queen's council to satisfy the audience, opened the
indictment, mentioned Her Majesty's gracious dealing in pardoning his Irish rebellious incursions; and made some glance at Sir John Perrot's bearing [i.e. tolerating]
of that shewing [i.e. chopping-up] of Her Majesty's picture etc, so that some
supposed that Sir John Perrot would shortly come out of the Tower to trial. Sir
Thomas Perrot shortly after was commanded to keep his room; some think for
sueing for his father's liberty.74
It is all too apparent from this account that O'Rourke's trial was an
elaborate propaganda exercise. It was a preliminary, the necessary prelude
to the trial of Perrot himself.
Before looking at the trial itself, I want to detail one more area in which
evidence was twisted in Perrot's disfavour. During his imprisonment the
prosecution had made a collection of exclamatory statements which he had
made whilst he was governor of Ireland. When Perrot received a rebuke
from the queen or received countermanding orders, he would shoot off his
mouth. These included remarks such as:
If she use men thus, she will have but cold service, for one day she shall have need of
me;
Stick not so much upon Her Majesty's letter, she may command what she will, but
we will do what we list;
Ah, now silly woman, now she shall not curb me, she shall not rule me now;
God's wounds, this it is to serve a base bastard piss kitchen woman, if I had served
any prince in Christendom I have not been so dealt withal.75
Most of these statements were proved by Philip Williams. He was now
Fitzwilliam's private secretary but he originally did the same job for Perrot
before being sacked and jailed for leaking Perrot's secrets to Lord Chancellor Loftus. 76 Such statements required a second witness who was usually
Loftus, Fenton or another councillor or servant of Perrot. Doubtless these
73
75
76
Morgan, 'Extradition and Treason-Trial', pp. 290-6.

Bodleian Library, Willis M S 58, fos. 247-8; 263-305.
Morgan, Tyrone's Rebellion, pp. 32, 45.
74
H M C , Report, 4, p. 336.
122
Hiram Morgan
remarks were spoken in some form or other but they were bad-tempered
remarks from a highly strung personality whose energetic approach to the
government of Ireland was being thwarted; they were in no way indicative
of malice towards Queen Elizabeth. Yet in the hands of Burghley and the
other commissioners these heat of the moment remarks became evidence of
a traitorous heart towards the queen. Indeed slanderous words against the
monarch were the most Tudor of all treasons.77 They imputed conspiracy they were being emphasized in this instance to show that Perrot had a
predisposition to commit the other treasons with which he was charged.
Perrot's trial finally took place on 27 April 1592. Treason trials were great
public occasions; in the 1590s only the opening night of the latest Shakespeare play would have come near. Perrot was brought up the river from the
Tower to Westminster Hall where the Court of Queen's Bench sat. He was
indicted on four counts; of pronouncing contemptuous and malicious
speeches against the queen, of maintaining and protecting traitorous
persons namely rhymers and popish priests, of practising with foreign
enemies against the state and of animating and supporting rebels in Ireland
namely Brian O'Rourke. In such cases the queen's Council had a game plan
which left the defendants who were not permitted legal advisers in treason
trials and had only just learned the full details of their indictments with little
chance.78 The whole thing was a travesty. Evidence was produced from
Loftus and Williams whom Perrot protested were his mortal enemies and
from John Garland, his messenger, Reece Thomas, his chamberlain, and
Stephen Seagar, his constable of Dublin Castle, all of whom he scorned for
betraying their master. Evidence also came from a former supporter of
Perrot's, Miler Magrath, the archbishop of Cashel, who was in trouble with
Fitzwilliam. The prosecution tried to prove Perrot a man of no religion even
though he insisted he had been a protestant these forty-five years. When
O'Roughan was produced, Perrot claimed that the priest had changed his
religion five times in six years and called him a sorcerer and a witch. All of
this was to no avail, the jury pronounced Perrot guilty after being out for
three quarters of an hour. Then an extraordinary thing happened. Perrot
was not taken away at once but retired into Chancery with the prosecuting
commission!79
In treason cases a guilty verdict invariably meant an immediate pronouncement of sentence. This was not so with Perrot, his sentence was
stayed until Her Majesty's pleasure was known. The earl of Essex, at last
openly active on Perrot's behalf, tried in vain to get the queen to stop the
proceedings.80 However judgement wasfinallydelivered on 16 June; for this
77
79
80
Bellamy, Tudor Law of Treason, pp. 31-6.

Howell, State Trials, I, pp. 1315-27.
SP 12/242, no. 4.
78
Ibid., pp. 142-4.
123
purpose Sir John was brought back to Westminster Hall. Interestingly the
reporter of Perrot's trial gave almost as much space to the judgement as to
the trial proper. Frankly the crown prosecution began to look stupid at this
stage. Sir John was given leave to speak. By this point most treason suspects
had been broken down sufficiently to admit their guilt and to throw themselves wholly on the queen's mercy. Perrot however insisted that his innocence was betokened by the fact that the queen had already stayed judgement against him six times. He claimed that the witnesses who had been
procured by his enemies had perjured themselves, that many of them were
Irish and thereby no respecters of oaths. He protested vehemently against
the assertion that he was a crypto-Catholic. The judges frequently interrupted this speech but Perrot only answered their expostulations with further
vituperation. Eventually Lord Chief Justice Anderson condemned Perrot to
hang at Tyburn declaiming that he had been at many treason trials but that
the treasons of Sir John Perrot surpassed them all.81
Sir John Perrot was never executed - he died in the Tower in September.
It was normal for the lands of traitors to be confiscated by the crown. This
did not happen either. Through the efforts of the earl of Essex, Sir Thomas
was restored in blood by an act of Parliament early the next year and was
able to inherit the ancestral seat at Haroldston. Carew Castle did revert to
the crown but the queen granted it to Sir John's widow. 82 This failure to
execute and to confiscate can no doubt be taken as a royal presumption of
innocence.
Some concluding thoughts. Most of the persons the Tudors convicted for
treason were guilty in some way or other. Either they had been involved in
conspiracies against the state or if they happened to be Catholic activists
they were considered dangerous to the state's existence. Perrot was none of
these. He was an insider - a successful governor of Ireland and indeed one
who in the darkest days of the English Reformation had protected protestant divines. Why did the state then go to such lengths to destroy one of its
own? Perhaps his enemies were anxious to get their grubby hands on his
Welsh estates - during his imprisonment he was able to raise 1,500 at short
notice from the current rental.83 If so, they were disappointed. Perrot's
alleged parentage might be a factor. A number of contemporary statements
do show that he was held to be the son of Henry VIII. 84 The queen's own
peer group was beginning to die off; indeed in the 1590s the queen's death
was always imminent. Furthermore, in the 1580s the French and English
governments had supported a bastard, Dom Antonio, for the Portuguese
throne against the claims of Philip II. However, Henry VIII had never
81
83
84
Howell, State Trials, I, pp. 1327-32.

Ibid., p. 207.
For example: SP 63/167, no. 6(1).
82
Hasler, The Commons, III, pp. 207-^8.
124
Hiram Morgan
acknowledged Perrot as his son and the name never came up in any discussion about the succession. Therefore I think we must dismiss this
explanation of Perrot's fall as too far-fetched but the issue does at least have
to be considered, if only to be rejected, because the future king of England
had played his part by the speedy extradition of O'Rourke.
The real explanation must lie in the connection between Lord Burghley
and his client Sir William Fitzwilliam. Burghley was married to Fitzwilliam's cousin, Mildred Cooke.85 The whole thing was an exercise by Burghley to save his reputation as a factional leader, first to save Fitzwilliam
from his own idiocy of concocting a ridiculous conspiracy and second to
prevent the Lord Deputy's corruptions in Ireland being exposed. All this
only became possible when Perrot's patron, Walsingham, died in April
1590 but it took two years of concocting further evidence actually to nail
Perrot. This was not merely a vindictive action against a friendless colleague; it brought further, greater problems in Ireland. Fitzwilliam's opponents on the Irish Council were wiped out; Sir Nicholas White and the
bishop of Leighlin were tried and found guilty by the Court of Star
Chamber in England.86 Fitzwilliam had a free hand in Ireland. His growing
corruption was a factor in the outbreak of war. The increased use of bribery
entailed a breakdown of trust between the government and the Gaelic Irish
and made policy development erratic. In 1593 Robert Legge, the deputy
remembrance of the Irish Council, who had fallen out with Fitzwilliam,
sent Burghley a sixty-three page book detailing Fitzwilliam's corruptions in
various departments of state and how bribes were handled. Burghley
ignored this extensive memorandum.87 Again the following year Burghley
prevented Thomas Lee making known to the queen the complaints of the
northern Irish lords against Fitzwilliam.88 After Fitzwilliam retired from
government, Burghley protected him from impeachment when the Gaelic
confederates made numerous allegations against him during the 1596 peace
negotiations.89 Basically, Burghley's protection of Fitzwilliam was negligent, criminally negligent. Burghley himself was directly involved in
Ireland with the campaign to discover concealed lands. This moneyspinner which involved such individuals as Richard Boyle, the future earl of
Cork, was run by Burghley from London. Its activities in Munster and
especially Connaught were one of the reasons for the spread of war to those
85
86
88
89
M . E. Finch, The Wealth of Five Northamptonshire

Families, 1540-1640 (Northampton,
1956), p. 105.
87
APC, X X I V , pp. 44, 135.
SP 63/169, nos. 2 , 3.
See H . Morgan, T o m Lee: T h e Posing Peacemaker', in B. Bradshaw, A. Hadfield and
W. Maley (eds.), Representing Ireland: Literature and the Origins of Conflict,
1534-1660
(Cambridge, 1993), chap. 8.
Sir James Perrot, The Chronicle of Ireland, 1584-1608, ed. Herbert Wood (Dublin, 1933),
pp. 101-2; APC, X X V , pp. 2 6 0 - 1 .
125
90
provinces. The extent of the government in London's negligence stretches

to the attempted reappointment of the counterfeiter, Henry Bird.91 This did
not happen because further information about Bird's malpractices was
found in the course of the investigations into Perrot's case.92
Could the Nine Years War have been avoided if Perrot had been permitted to return to Ireland? Certainly Hugh O'Neill, the earl of Tyrone, was on
a collision course with the state from 1587 onwards, and to a certain extent
Fitzwilliam's policies were a logical extension of Perrot's. Perrot would have
done much more to contain O'Neill's rival for supremacy in Ulster, Sir
Henry Bagenal, about whom the earl complained so often. Furthermore
Hugh O'Donnell's return to Tirconnell allowed Hugh O'Neill to fight an
effective war. Had Perrot been in charge O'Donnell might not have escaped
from Dublin Castle owing to the negligence of Fitzwilliam's constable, John
Maplesden. O'Neill might have been forced to compromise for a Connaught-style settlement. And if war had broken out nonetheless, the state
might have been in a better position to fight because the military establishment was run down under Fitzwilliam and the Irish Council riddled
with men willing to take back-handers from O'Neill.93
This is of course supposition, but what this chapter does do above all else
is to put Lord Burghley in a very bad light. Camden, the historian of
Elizabeth's reign and the leading apologist of Lord Burghley, fails to
mention the Lord Treasurer's detailed involvement in the downfall of
Perrot, blaming it instead on the malice of Hatton (who had died in 1591)
and on 'the unbridled and lavish sauciness' of the victim's own tongue
(which remarks were dredged up in the course of the investigation). On the
contrary he claims that Burghley tried to stop the prosecution of Perrot in
1593.94 The state papers tell a different story - of Burghley's despicable
behaviour towards a fellow privy councillor and of an irresponsible, negligent and possibly corrupt policy towards Ireland in the early 1590s. In
Ireland he destroyed good servitors and backed crooks in their place. What
did Burghley himself get out of it? Was English policy in other areas where
Burghley's influence was paramount similarly erratic and equally defective?
Did English policy go completely haywire with the death of Secretary
Walsingham in April 1590?
90
91
93
94
T . O. Ranger, 'Richard Boyle and the Making of an Irish Fortune, 1588-1614', Irish
Historical Studies, 10 (1957), 258-64.
92
APC, X I X , pp. 379-80.
SP 63/155, no. 33.
These are possible actions which may have prevented conflict. For a discussion of the causes
which actually provoked the war see Morgan, Tyrone's Rebellion, passim.
William Camden, History of the Most Renowned and Victorious Princess Elizabetht Late
Queen of England (London 1675), pp. 462-3, 556-9.
The Elizabethan establishment and the

ecclesiastical polity
John Guy
'Where there is quietness, there is not the truth.' This had been Hugh
Latimer's riposte to Cardinal Pole's appeal for religious peace in Mary
Tudor's reign. Whatever one supposes the religion of protestants to have
been, disputation and controversy were its lifeblood. It might seem on the
surface that the 1590s were a period of relative religious peace, at least
when compared to the 1550s, the 1570s and the 1580s. Membership of the
political elite was effectively limited to protestants, since avowed Catholics
were excluded from Parliament and the commissions of the peace. The
erosion of parish Catholicism was virtually complete. The Prayer Book of
1559 had won general acceptance, and the missions of the Catholic
seminarians and Jesuits had largely been confounded. At the other end of
the spectrum, the organized puritan movement had been decisively
routed.1
Yet appearances are deceptive. As the first generation of Elizabethan
bishops died in the 1580s, they were replaced by a different species: more
rigidly authoritarian conformists led by John Whitgift whom the queen
preferred to Canterbury in 1583. Whereas the careers of the first generation
episcopate had been shaped in the same mould as the moderate puritans,
1
Patrick Collinson, The Elizabethan Puritan Movement (London, 1967); Collinson, Archbishop
Grindal, 1519-1583: The Struggle for a Reformed Church (London, 1980); Collinson, Godly
Rule: Essays on English Protestantism and Puritanism (London, 1983); Collinson, The Religion
of Protestants: The Church in English Society, 1559-1625 (Oxford, 1982); Peter G. Lake,
t
Calvinism and the English Church, 1570-1635', Past and Present, 114 (1987), 32-76; Lake,
Moderate Puritans and the Elizabethan Church (Cambridge, 1982); Christopher Haigh,
English Reformations (Oxford, 1993); Haigh, 'From Monopoly to Minority: Catholicism in
Early Modern England', TRHS, 5th ser., 31 (1981), 129-47; Haigh, 'Puritan Evangelism in
the Reign of Elizabeth F, EHR, 92 (1977), 30-58; Haigh, Reformation and Resistance in Tudor
Lancashire (Cambridge, 1975); Haigh (ed.), The English Reformation Revised (Cambridge,
1987); Haigh (ed.), The Reign of Elizabeth I (London, 1984); John Guy, Tudor England
(Oxford, 1988), pp. 290-308, 369-407; J. E. Neale, Elizabeth I and Her Parliaments (2 vols.,
London, repr. 1969); Neale, Essays in Elizabethan History (London, 1958); Neale, The
Elizabethan House of Commons (rev. edn, London, 1963); Wallace T. MacCaffrey, The
Shaping of the Elizabethan Regime: Elizabethan Politics, 1558-72 (London, 1969); MacCaffrey, Queen Elizabeth and the Making of Policy, 1572-1588 (Princeton, NJ, 1981); MacCaffrey, Elizabeth I: War and Politics, 1558-1603 (Princeton, NJ, 1992).
126
The establishment and the ecclesiastical polity
127
those of the second generation derived from the polemical attack on presbyterianism and external church government out of scripture which the
Admonition Controversy had ignited in the 1570s. The result was that jure
divino theses of monarchy and episcopacy were increasingly voiced in pulpit
and press after 1589.2
To appreciate the significance of this shift, we should briefly survey its
origins. The 'divine right' argument was first tentatively deployed by
Whitgift when he was Master of Trinity College, Cambridge. His assignment was to defend the civil magistrate's role as supreme governor of the
Church of England in reply to the presbyterian leader Thomas Cartwright's
claim that the institutions of church and state should be distinct and the
government of the church be purely spiritual. Since Cartwright's ecclesiastical polity was presbyterian, it was theoretically 'populist'. He held that
the Aristotelian or Polybian 'mixed polity' was the ideal form of government
in church and state, since it accorded with reason and with the form
of government chosen by God for his church and revealed in the New
Testament. As Cartwright asserted:
the church is governed with that kind of government which the philosophers that
write of the best commonwealths affirm to be the best. For, in respect of Christ the
head, it is a monarchy; and, in respect of the ancients and pastors that govern in
common and with like authority amongst themselves, it is an aristocracy, or the rule
of the best men; and, in respect that the people are not secluded, but have their
interest in church-matters, it is a democracy, or a popular estate. An image whereof
appeareth also in the policy of this realm; for as, in respect of the queen her majesty,
it is a monarchy, so, in respect of the most honourable council, it is an aristocracy,
and, having regard to the parliament, which is assembled of all estates, it is a
democracy.3
In reply, Whitgift rejected Cartwright's vision of England as a 'mixed
polity'. 'I know', he said, 'that all these three kinds of governments may be
mixed together after divers sorts; yet still the state of government is named
according to that which most ruleth, and beareth the greatest sway.' In
England both church and state were subject to the government of the
prince. In Parliament 'although all the [e]states be represented, yet, because
the judgement, confirmation, and determination resteth in the prince,
therefore the state is neither "aristocracy" nor "democracy" but a
"monarchy."' Whitgift emphatically concluded: 'The government of this
kingdom is a right and true monarchy.' Elizabeth derived her authority
2
W. S. Hudson, The Cambridge Connection and the Elizabethan Settlement of 1559 (Durham,
NC, 1980); Peter G. Lake, Anglicans and Puritans? Presbyterian and English Conformist
Thought from Whitgift to Hooker (London, 1988).
J. Ayre (cd.), The Works of John Whitgift (3 vols., Cambridge, 1851-3), I, p. 390; III,
pp. 196-7; Lake, Anglicans and Puritans?', pp. 55-6.
128
John Guy
directly from God in church and state. Presbyterianism was fundamentally

incompatible with a monarchical state. 4
The 1590s saw a swing to the right, and the explanation is simple. When
Cartwright propounded his ideal of a 'mixed polity' he touched a nerve
which the political establishment could not ignore. The first Elizabethan
regime was to all intents and purposes a 'mixed polity', but the link with
religious 'popularity' made it lese-majeste to declare this fact in print or to
claim that there were things the queen could not do without Parliament. An
unforeseen result of the puritan experience was the far-reaching discovery
that to argue for one form of church government was to deny the legitimacy
of a related form of civil administration.
Nothing in Elizabethan politics is straightforward. It is striking that
Whitgift had clashed with Cartwright before the Admonition Controversy
erupted. Cartwright, a fellow of Trinity College, had succeeded Whitgift as
Lady Margaret Professor of Divinity, when the latter was promoted to the
Regius Professorship of Divinity. It was remarked that Cartwright's
preaching and prose style were better than his predecessor's. Doubtless this
rankled, and Cartwright overstepped the mark by testing Whitgift's authority after the latter's appointment to the Mastership. There had previously
been a row over the wearing of the surplice in the college chapel. More
substantially, Cartwright and Whitgift collided over the role of episcopacy
in the church and the nature of ecclesiastical discipline. Whatever may be
said in Whitgift's favour, he did not tolerate insubordination. 5 In order to
crush his opponent, he orchestrated a revision of the university's statutes to
increase the powers of heads of houses. Six weeks after the new statutes
passed the great seal (September 1570), Whitgift had been appointed ViceChancellor. A month later he invoked the new statutes to deprive Cartwright of his professorship. Within another year he had stripped Cartwright
of his fellowship.6
The disputes of 1567-71 played out in microcosm what would unfold on
the national stage. During the later stages of the Admonition Controversy
the argument that the queen derived her authority directly from God was
increasingly deployed by the conformists. This paved the way for the main
establishment thesis of Elizabeth's second reign: that puritanism, and in
particular presbyterianism, was subversive, factious and seditious. As the
propaganda litany maintained, the genetic impulse of puritanism was
towards anabaptism. This would precipitate social as well as religious
4
5
6
Ayrc (ed.), Works of John Whitgift, I, pp. 393, 467; III, pp. 196-7; Lake, Anglicans and
Puritans?) pp. 62-4.
It was not for nothing that Whitgift's opponents later satirized him as the 'pope of Lambeth'.
C. H. and T. Cooper (eds.), Athenae Cantabrigienses (2 vols., Cambridge, 185861), II,
pp. 360-6, 369-79; DNB, s.v. Whitgift, John. It was the loss of his fellowship at Trinity that
precipitated Cartwright's departure for Geneva.
129
revolution. Puritanism would also increase taxes. It would deny landowners

their impropriate tithes. The costs of a puritan ministry would require the
reconfiscation of the ex-monastic lands! In 1589 written evidence of a
network of presbyterian classes was accidentally uncovered in the hunt for
Martin Marprelate, whereupon conformist rhetoric emphasized the
'malice', 'secrecy' and 'confederacy' of the puritans. In the 1590s it was
flatly asserted that presbyterianism was a conspiracy to overthrow the state.
No distinction could be drawn between this threat and that posed by the
seminarians and Jesuits. 7
In the Privy Council the prime movers of the crusade were Lord Chancellor Hatton and Whitgift. Burghley dissented, but after the deaths of
Leicester, Walsingham and Sir Walter Mildmay it was increasingly difficult
to hold the line. 8 Whitgift had been promoted to the Privy Council in
February 1586, when Lord Buckhurst and Lord Cobham were also
appointed. In the context of Leicester's expedition to the Netherlands, the
appointments were a victory for Burghley. But Whitgift detached himself
from the Lord Treasurer, and courted Buckhurst assiduously. 9 He lobbied
for the latter's election as chancellor of Oxford (the rival candidate was the
earl of Essex), and the nomination found favour with the queen. 10 Buckhurst remained attached to the Cecils, but on religious issues he took an
anti-puritan stance. He was appointed as a judge in the Court of High
Commission and became a linchpin of the politics of the 1590s.11
Hatton worked hand in glove with Whitgift until his death in November
1591.12 The great seal was in commission for six months, whereupon Sir
John Puckering was appointed lord keeper and sworn of the Privy Council.
Puckering had condemned John Udall at his trial at Surrey Assizes, delivering a 'large set speech' against puritanism which bore close similarities to
7
10
11
12
This thesis was most fully developed by the prosecution lawyers in the trial in Star Chamber
of the presbyterian leaders in 1591. Collinson, Elizabethan Puritan Movement, pp. 417-31.
See also ibid., pp. 313-15; Lake, Anglicans and Puritans?, pp. 101-13.
It is noteworthy that Burghley was an absentee from the caucus in Star Chamber which
assembled to discuss the prosecution of the presbyterian leaders. Collinson, Elizabethan
Puritan Movement, p. 419; see also ibid., p. 411.
It is conventionally observed that Whitgift was no politician, but this statement should be
questioned. No one could dispute that his habit of speech was pedagogic, abrasive and
contentious. But hubris was not his Achilles heel. He knew how to watch his back, and was
constantly fostering connections. He even approached Beale through Walsingham to solicit
his friendship and company'; Collinson, Elizabethan Puritan Movement, p. 282.
Collinson, Elizabethan Puritan Movement, p. 428.
Cooper (ed.), Athenae Cantabrigienses, II, pp. 484-92.
The link was so close that Robert Beale, clerk of the Privy Council and Whitgift's
archbishop's most acrimonious critic, could observe some years later that the subscription
campaign against the puritan ministers had been Hatton's policy. BL, Lansdowne MS 73,
art. 2, fo. T. For the clash between Beale and Whitgift in the Parliament of 1584, see Neale,
Elizabeth I and Her Parliaments, II, pp. 65-8; Collinson, Elizabethan Puritan Movement,
pp. 281-6.
130
John Guy
Hatton's speech against Cope's bill and book in the Parliament of 1587.13
He played a crucial role in the prosecutions of the 1590s, when he worked in
close collaboration with the civil lawyers of High Commission and the
members of Whitgift's circle.14 Court gossip said that the lord keepership
was his reward for vigilance in Star Chamber. By contrast Burghley
opposed the prosecutions in Star Chamber, and was pushed onto the
sidelines. A telling incident occurred in February 1593, when Puckering
effectively rebuked Burghley in the Privy Council for his protection of
James Morice.15
The transition from the first to the second reign of Elizabeth was not
exclusively generational. It can be traced in the careers of individuals,
notably that of John Aylmer. On the fringes of the radical circle known as
the 'Athenians' in the 1550s, Aylmer was tutor to Lady Jane Grey and sat
out Mary's reign in exile in Strasburg and Zurich. In 1559 he argued in
print that
the regiment of England is not a mere monarchy, as some for lack of consideration
think, nor a mere oligarchy, nor democracy, but a rule mixed of all these ... the
image whereof, and not the image but the thing in deed, is to be seen in the
parliament house, wherein you shall find these three estates.16
After Cartwright's Second Admonition to the Parliament such views were
politically incorrect. Aylmer recanted them by his actions after he obtained
the bishopric of London in 1577. He became a staunch defender of High
Commission and the queen's absolute prerogative. Under his direction
High Commission increasingly invoked its metropolitan powers in ecclesiastical causes.17 Suspected nonconformists could expect to be examined not
in the bishop's consistory court as before, but at Lambeth. When Cartwright returned to England from the Netherlands in 1585, it was Aylmer
who took him into custody (and Burghley who released him!).18 It was
Aylmer who precipitated a vitriolic battle with the common lawyers in the
1590s by depriving the Rutland minister Robert Cawdrey of his benefice.
Alongside Whitgift and Bishop Cooper of Lincoln, Aylmer became a prime
target for traducement.
13
14
15
16
17
18

Ibid., pp. 411, 418, 421, 427, 428.
Neale, Elizabeth I and Her Parliaments, II, p. 275.
John Aylmer, An Harborowe for Faithfull and Trewe Subiectes (STC2 1005), sig. H3;
Collinson, 'The Monarchical Republic of Queen Elizabeth', Bulletin of the John Rylands
University Library, 69, no. 2 (Spring 1987), 401; Cooper (ed.), Athenae Cantabrigienses, II,
pp.16S-73.
Collinson, Elizabethan Puritan Movement, pp. 201-7; G. R. Elton, The Tudor Constitution
(2nd edn, Cambridge, 1982), pp. 221-32; J. R. Tanner, Tudor Constitutional Documents
(Cambridge, 1940), pp. 360-74.
131
It is understandable that so many bishops and conformists supported

Whitgift's onslaught on presbyterianism. What is surprising is the shift of
opinion among the common-law judges. To index the direction of change it
is necessary to reconsider Cawdrey's case (1591). It is well known that
within months of his elevation to Canterbury, Whitgift launched a subscription campaign against the puritan ministers. This was reinforced by ex
officio mero prosecutions in High Commission: that is to say prosecutions in
which the judges acted on their 'mere motion' or by virtue of their office
alone.19 Modelled on the procedures of Roman canon law, ex officio prosecutions were inquisitorial. Defendants were put on oath and then compelled
to answer interrogatories presented to them by their ecclesiastical judges.
The legality of these proceedings was increasingly challenged by those who
denied the right of the bishops to deprive nonconformist ministers on
grounds of conscience. And in turn, the legality of the commissioners to
whom Elizabeth deputed the exercise of her ecclesiastical prerogative by
letters patent was disputed.
Robert Cawdrey was a minister from South Luffenham who had been
suspended by Aylmer in High Commission for refusing the oath ex officio. It
was alleged that he had depraved the Book of Common Prayer, calling it 'a
vile book, and fie upon it' from the pulpit, a serious offence, if proved, under
the 1559 Act of Uniformity.20 He had been summoned before High Commission in May 1586,21 but refused to take the ex officio oath. He was
therefore deprived of his benefice for contumacy. He consistently denied
that he had 'depraved' the Prayer Book. He claimed generally to have
followed its rubrics. He conceded that he had omitted the cross in baptism
and the ring in marriage,22 but these were matters judged by Queen's Bench
in previous cases to be outside the letter of the Act of Uniformity. In any
case, the nub was his deprivation. This, he claimed, was unwarranted by the
law, because the Act of Uniformity limited deprivation as a punishment to
the second offence. Cawdrey had been deprived by Bishop Aylmer for a first
offence. Furthermore, as his common-law counsel later argued, Cawdrey
had neither confessed to the charges against him, nor had he been convicted
by the verdict of a jury, as the Act of Uniformity specified. His sentence was
therefore invalid.
19
20
21
22
Ex officio cases were of two types: ex officio mero^ in which the judge acted alone of his 'mere
motion', and ex officio promoto, in which he was acting on the information of an individual or
individuals who promoted his action. (A hybrid form of procedure also existed in which
instance and 'office' procedures could be combined.) This chapter is almost exclusively
concerned with procedure ex officio mero in which the judge acted inquisitorially, where
there was no promoter of the action, on the basis of 'notoriety' or 'common fame'.
BL, Lansdowne M S 68, art. 47, fo. 108.
There may be a confusion over the date in the certificate from High Commission. T h e
correct date may be May 1587. BL, Lansdowne M S 68, art. 47, fo. 108.
132
John Guy
While some of this argument is plainly ex pane, there was a very real sense
in which Cawdrey had received rough justice. As would shortly be confirmed in the cause celebre of Cartwright and the presbyterian leaders, by
refusing the oath ex officio, Cawdrey had effectively brought his trial in
High Commission to a halt and the sentence of deprivation issued against
him was not the result of a legal conviction but was essentially a penalty for
contumacy.23 His refusal of the ex officio oath therefore became a test case
for the puritan ministers generally.
There was no appeal from High Commission, but Cawdrey had the
support of James Morice, one of the most gifted lawyers of his generation
and Burghley's client. Morice realized that the case could be re-opened in
what was tantamount to an appeal. In 1591 he took Cawdrey's case into
Queen's Bench by suing the minister's successor as parson of South Luffenham for trespass. The jurors sworn in as witnesses to the facts found that the
defendant had committed no offence as long as High Commission had
possessed the original authority to deprive Cawdrey. Thereafter Cawdrey's
case became the Roe v. Wade of Elizabethan constitutional law. The question was: Could the queen empower High Commission? The questions
behind the question were: What was the extent of the queen's 'imperial'
prerogative by the common law of England? And in particular: Could the
queen's 'imperial' prerogative override statute and common law?24 At stake
was that fact that, if Cawdrey's deprivation was upheld by Queen's Bench,
then High Commission, which many common lawyers as well as puritans
held to be an ecclesiastical court foreign to the common law, might lawfully
deprive beneficed ministers of their freeholds contrary to the laws and
customs of England and contrary to chapter 39 of Magna Carta. In law,
ecclesiastical benefices were deemed to be freeholds, since they were held
for life and not for a term of years or at will. While there were circumstances
in which it was legal by both canon law and common law to deprive a
minister of his benefice for crimes or statutory causes, the point at issue was
that refusal of the oath ex officio was not one of them.
In a sweeping decision the judges held that the queen might empower
High Commission because cby the ancient laws of this realm this kingdom of
England is an absolute empire and monarchy'. And again,
the kingly head of this politic body is instituted and furnished with plenary and
entire power, prerogative, and jurisdiction to render justice and right to every part
and member of this body, of what estate, degree, or calling soever, in all causes
ecclesiastical or temporal, otherwise he should not be a head of the whole body.25
23
24
25
B L , Lansdowne M S 68, art. 45, fo. 104; 1 Eliz. I, c. 2. An additional ground of action
specified by the statute was 'the notorious evidence of the fact'. For discussion of 'vehement
suspicion' in relation to ex officio procedure in ecclesiastical courts, see below.
Elton, Tudor Constitution, pp. 221-32; Tanner, Constitutional Documents, pp. 361-2, 372-3.
Tanner, Constitutional Documents, pp. 372-3.
133
This was the language of Henry VI IPs Act of Appeals: the judges cited that
act almost verbatim. Their decision meant that they interpreted Elizabeth's
imperium to be as theocratic as Henry VIII's. They acknowledged that
Parliament had enacted the legislation whereby the religious settlement of
1559 had been erected, but held that Parliament was merely the instrument
whereby the ruler's prerogative was set forth. Their interpretation of the
royal supremacy corresponded almost exactly to the high view prevalent
during the reign of Henry VIII and summarized by Stephen Gardiner in De
vera obedientia and by Edward Fox in De vera differentia.2^ The legislation
of 1559, like that of 1533-4, had thus been strictly declaratory. Parliament
was not the source, but merely the agent of the queen's 'imperial' prerogative. Accordingly High Commission was not bound by statutory limitations.
The role of Parliament had been to announce (belatedly!), and make binding
in all the courts of the realm, regal powers which had been integral to the
'imperial' crown since Lucius I was converted to Christianity in 187 AD. 27
The royal supremacy became an inalienable function of regality. Elizabeth
was an 'imperial' queen. Even if Parliament had never met, she could
exercise her ecclesiastic prerogative in person or delegate it to whomsoever
she chose by letters patent.
This was indeed a swing to the right. The judges' decision was so
controversial, it had the effect of settling everything and nothing. It vindicated the 'imperial' interpretation of the royal supremacy and confirmed the
legality of the letters patent which had 'authorized' High Commission. But
the judges had made no attempt to investigate the specific procedures
whereby High Commission under Aylmer and Whitgift had gone about its
business. In particular, no opinion was offered concerning the legality of the
oath ex officio.
Establishment politics partly informed the judges' decision. All along

Whitgift had taken the necessary precautions. When, after three years,
Cawdrey was still refusing the ex officio oath, Whitgift had arranged that he
be convented before a select group of commissioners who included hand26
27
John Guy, T h e Henrician Age', in J. G. A. Pocock (ed.), The Varieties of British Political
Thought (Cambridge, 1993), pp. 3546; Alistair Fox and John Guy, Reassessing the Henrician Age: Humanism, Politics and Reform (Oxford, 1986), pp. 151-78.
It is often claimed that whereas the Henrician royal supremacy was 'imperial', the Elizabethan supremacy was not, because Parliament alone could reinstate the queen as supreme
governor of the church following the Marian repeals. This is misleading. Parliament was
necessary under both Henry VIII and Elizabeth to declare the royal supremacy to be legally
in force, to exact oaths of allegiance and to punish offenders in the courts of common law.
But, according to the thesis of 'imperial' kingship, Parliament's role was merely instrumental. T h e resort to statute did not - or at least was not intended to - diminish the crown's
regality. For a similar interpretation, see Elton, Tudor Constitution, pp. 2 2 2 - 3 . T h e power
of the queen to delegate her ecclesiastical prerogative to ecclesiastical commissioners by
letters patent is affirmed in 1 Eliz. I, c. 1.
134
John Guy
picked privy councillors and judges: Sir John Wolley, Sir John Fortescue,
the Lord Chief Justice of the Common Pleas, the Lord Chief Baron of the
Exchequer and the Attorney-General, as well as Whitgift and his protege
Richard Bancroft. When Cawdrey was degraded from his ministry in May
1590, it was by sentence of this selected group of commissioners and not
Whitgift and Aylmer alone.28 The Chief Justice of the Common Pleas was
Sir Edmund Anderson, the hammer of the puritans, and the Chief Baron of
the Exchequer Sir Roger Manwood, an establishment pawn. In the Court
of Queen's Bench, Sir Christopher Wray, a former Speaker of the House of
Commons, presided. Wray was a decent man. If anything, he had Catholic
sympathies. Yet whatever he was, he was not politically courageous. He had
presided unquestioningly over the proceedings against John Stubbs for
writing The discoverie of a gaping gulf, and he had pronounced sentence
against Secretary Davison in Star Chamber for dispatching the warrant for
the execution of Mary, Queen of Scots. He was an exceptionally safe pair of
hands; not the man to upset the apple cart by overthrowing the anti-puritan
campaign. In all legally important cases, furthermore, the judges conferred
in advance with their colleagues from other courts in order to reach consensus and ensure consistency of approach. While not impossible, it was
virtually unthinkable that any Elizabethan chief justice would overrule
colleagues in a politically sensitive case.29 It was a foregone conclusion that
Cawdrey would fail in Queen's Bench, and Whitgift knew it.
What had been done politically might be undone politically. Throughout
1591 Cawdrey was writing to Burghley who was quietly intervening on his
behalf. Cawdrey apostrophized Burghley as 'my very good Lord and
Patron', and while this mode of address was essentially rhetorical, it did
contain elements of truth.30 In May Cawdrey boldly petitioned Burghley to
intervene, asking whether a mandatum might be obtained from the queen to
overrule the verdict of High Commission. He also sought Burghley's aid to
be allowed to proceed in forma pauperis in his action in the Queen's Bench.31
Burghley not only reacted, he wrote in June to Bishop Aylmer to ask High
Commission to review and re-examine the sentence against Cawdrey in the
light of legal exceptions submitted by Morice. While Aylmer's reply was
courteous, the bishop was manifestly displeased by this intervention, and
protested the legality of Cawdrey's punishment. He argued that the sentence was consistent with the Act of Uniformity and reminded Burghley
28
29
30
BL, Lansdowne M S 68, art. 47, fo. 108r-v.

T h e same applies to the privy councillors who had sat in judgement on Cawdrey in High
Commission, since the Chief Justices worked as colleagues alongside members of the Privy
Council in the Court of Star Chamber; John Guy, The Court of Star Chamber and its Records
to the Reign of Elizabeth I (London, 1985).
31
BL, Lansdowne M S 68, arts. 51, 57, 59.
135
that High Commission had been reinforced by common-law judges and

members of the Privy Council when Cawdrey had been degraded.32
Burghley was also in contact with Morice. He advised him to tone down
his inflammatory rhetoric and exclude from his 'writing' opinions irrelevant
to Cawdrey's case. This was typical of Burghley at this date. Yet what is
remarkable is that contact of this sort occurred at all. Morice understood
what he was up against. 'I know very well my good Lord', he wrote to
Burghley in July, 'how offensive it will be to find fault with Judicial
proceedings.' He was, however, determined to press on with Cawdrey's
defence, thinking it 'unseemly in a man of my profession to be afraid of
every frown, especially having (as I assure myself) the Law to take my
part'.33
Later in the month Cawdrey was again writing to Burghley, complaining
how Whitgift had abused him. He repeated his belief that deprivation for a
first offence was illegal, and asserted that, in any case, for the offences with
which he was charged he should have been indicted at the local assizes and
not punished summarily by High Commission. Cawdrey was visibly shaken
by the verdict of Queen's Bench. But what chiefly riled him was that
Anderson and Manwood had countenanced his 'illegal' sentence as ecclesiastical commissioners. Once more he pleaded with Burghley to use his
political clout to overrule the commissioners.34
Cawdrey was honest but naive: a minnow out of his depth in the swirling
torrents of the 1590s. It is astonishing that Burghley continued to intervene
on his behalf, writing next to the officials of High Commission over the
summer vacation. They in turn reported to Whitgift, who sat on the papers
until November. Finally, he replied that he was content to reinstate
Cawdrey, but only on condition that he subscribe to certain 'articles' which
he had been proffered by the commissioners. Cawdrey was indignant,
maintaining that it was his refusal to subscribe which had all along been the
cause of his troubles. Burghley approached Whitgift a final time, but the
primate flatly declined to exempt Cawdrey from subscription.35 The
Rutland minister thereafter falls into obscurity. Like the more celebrated
ministers hauled into High Commission and Star Chamber in 1590-1, he
declined to submit and thus ended up, like Cartwright, an inhabitant of the
no-man's land which was a function of the stalemate between Burghley and
the bishops.
Yet his case released the genie from the bottle. Ex officio procedure was
put under the spotlight, and when the forensic experts had done their work
it emerged that, while Whitgift's opinion of High Commission had been
32
34
35
33
B L , Lansdowne M S 68, art. 54, fo. 123.
Details as reported in B L , Lansdowne M S 68, art. 59.
136
John Guy
upheld juridically, the view of political power as a divine ordinance and an

'imperial' vision of the ecclesiastical polity that was the corollary was
unpalatable to divines even of the temper of Richard Hooker.36 It began to
be observed that, even in the Court of Star Chamber, where defendants
were sworn on oath to the truth of their answers, they were not sworn to
answer generally to articles submitted without reference to previously stated
facts, but were sworn to confirm the truth and be examined upon facts they
had themselves set out in earlier written pleadings. The danger of selfincrimination was thus much less than in ex officio procedure, and in Star
Chamber every litigant had the right to be represented by counsel.
In the Parliament of 1593 Morice launched a set-piece attack on Whitgift's subscription campaign and use of ex officio proceedings. He appealed
to Magna Carta and the common law, and challenged the bishops 'to declare
to the world by what authority they do these things'. He introduced two
bills couched as petitions against unlawful oaths and illegal imprisonment,
asking the House to read the first immediately. The enacting clause of the
first bill provided that if High Commission or any ecclesiastical person in
future offered 'any such or like kind of general oath', or punished anyone for
refusing such an oath, or offered any oath contrary to the laws, statutes or
liberties of the realm, then the offender should incur the penalties of
praemunire (i.e. loss of property and imprisonment at the queen's pleasure).
A stormy debate ensued in which Morice was opposed by three speakers:
James Dalton, an establishment lawyer, Sir John Wolley, who had sat as a
judge at Lambeth when Cawdrey was degraded from his ministry, and Dr
William Lewin, a civil lawyer and a more junior member of High Commission. Vigorous support for Morice came from Robert Beale and Sir Francis
Knollys, the latter a senior privy councillor and Elizabeth's cousin by
marriage. Knollys was particularly incensed, insisting that Morice be not
impugned for his 'good zeal and meaning'. He cited the Act for the Submission of the Clergy (1534) which, he reminded the House, had been made
when he was himself a member of Parliament.37 The extent of Knollys'
passion is shown by the letter he wrote to Burghley the following day. He
said that the civilians 'and other confederates of the Clergy government
would fain have a kind of monarchy in the said Clergy government as is in
the temporalty: the which Clergy government they would have to be exempted from the temporal government'.38
There was more than a grain of truth in this insight, but the parlia36
37
38
Lake, Anglicans and Puritans?', pp. 197-225; Richard Hooker, Of the Laws of Ecclesiastical
Polity, ed. A. S. McGrade, Bk V I I I , chap. 3 , iii (pp. 145-7); Bk V I I I , chap. 6, x-xiii
(pp. 191-7).
Neale, Elizabeth I and her Parliaments, I I , pp. 268-79; P. W . Hasler, The Commons,
1558-1603 (3 vols., London, 1981), III, pp. 98-100.
137
mentary scene which provoked it went a great deal too far for Elizabeth.
Retribution was exacted. Morice and six others were put under house arrest,
Knollys was marginalized until his death, and Beale was forbidden from
attending both Court and Parliament. He was also suspended from his
clerkship of the Privy Council for four years. Morice was rebuked by the
Privy Council, and put in the custody of Sir John Fortescue (another of the
judges who had degraded Cawdrey). Thanks to Burghley's efforts he was
treated indulgently: his confinement lasted a mere two months.
By contrast Beale was dealt with harshly. He had irritated Elizabeth by a
speech in the subsidy debate, and it still rankled that he had borne the
warrant for the execution of Mary, Queen of Scots to Fotheringay and
published it from the scaffold. Beale, nevertheless, knew the score. As he
advised Burghley, the 'principal cause' for his disfavour was that he was
suspected of being 'a plotter of a new Ecclesiastical government'. This he
denied. All he had desired was that the parliamentary statutes enacted since
1534 for the reform of ecclesiastical law should be put into effect. He had
already sent Burghley a book published in the reign of Henry VIII which he
believed impugned an article to which the puritan ministers had been
required to subscribe. He had also compiled a summary collection of 'Notes'
against ex officio proceedings in church courts designed to prove that such
proceedings were against scripture and both canon and common law. The
contents of these 'Notes' had become widely known. A copy had been
obtained by Beale's detractors and a comprehensive refutation printed. 39
The author of this refutation was the civil lawyer Richard Cosin, another
of Whitgift's proteges whom he had appointed dean of the Arches and
vicar-general of the diocese of Canterbury. 40 Cosin and Richard Bancroft
had jointly drafted the interrogatories which were administered to Cartwright and the presbyterian leaders at their trials in High Commission and
Star Chamber.41 Like Bancroft, Cosin was an experienced purveyor of
anti-puritan polemic. His Answer to . . . an abstract of certeine acts of
Parliament (1584) had excited the wit of Martin Marprelate. 42 His Conspiracies for pretended reformation: viz. presbyteriall discipline (1592) was
designed to 'expose' a puritan conspiracy which allegedly surrounded the
39
40
41
42
BL, Lansdowne M S 73, art. 2, fos. 4-13. The full title of the treatise was 'Notes to prove the
proceeding ex officio, and the oath and subscription which are now required, to be against
the Word of God, the ancient Fathers, and Canons of the Church, and the laws, liberties and
customs of the Realm of England'. See STC2 5821, sig. D 2 .
Mr James E. Hampson has recently begun work on a Ph.D. dissertation on Cosin at the
University of St Andrews. A discussion of Cosin's significance in relation to Shakespeare's
King John is Donna B. Hamilton, Shakespeare and the Politics of Protestant England
(Lexington, Ky., 1992), pp. 11-58.
Collinson, Elizabethan Puritan Movement, pp. 417-31; Hasler, The Commons, I, pp. 660-1;
Cooper (ed.), Athenae Cantabrigienses, II, pp. 230-2.
STC2 5819.5.
138
John Guy
affair of William Hacket, 43 but the work was distinguished only by its
efforts to unveil a plot where there was none. 44 More interestingly, Cosin
was a friend of Lancelot Andrewes. He began in 1589 or thereabouts to
compile a pedagogic manual later published under the title Ecclesiae
Anglicanae politeia in tabulas digesta45
About the time of Cawdrey's audience in Queen's Bench, Cosin wrote a
treatise entitled An apologie: of, and for sundrie proceedings by jurisdiction
ecclesiastical. It may not at first have been intended to lay this work before
the public. Instead forty copies were printed for private circulation. 46
Within two years, however, the treatise was expanded and revised for
publication under the title An apologiefor sundrie proceedings.47 It was this
edition of the book which attacked Beale's 'Notes'. The work by Morice
which was attacked had appeared in or about 1590 under the title A briefe
treatise of oathes exacted by ordinaries and ecclesiasticall judges.4* The
publisher had evaded censorship by issuing it at Middelburg in the
Netherlands. Whether or not Morice himself had sought its publication is
unclear. He freely admitted that he had circulated copies in manuscript,
but implied in a letter to Burghley that someone else had sent it to the
press.49
The patronage link between Whitgift and Cosin must not pass unremarked. Cosin had been Whitgift's pupil at Cambridge. He was a student and
later (along with Cartwright!) a fellow at Trinity College. He was in almost
every respect - intellectual and professional - Whitgift's dependant. He
owed his career to his mentor whom he first followed to the diocese of
Worcester as chancellor, only to remove himself to Lambeth within three
months of Whitgift's translation to Canterbury. Finally, it was due to
Whitgift's influence that Cosin was preferred to the lucrative post of master
in ordinary of the Court of Chancery. 50
Cosin arrived at Lambeth shortly after Whitgift had published his
'articles touching preachers and other orders for the Church'. These
required that puritan ministers should subscribe to the Book of Common
Prayer as containing nothing contrary to the word of God and also promise
to use that book alone in their ministries. This was, in effect, the promulgation of Whitgift's subscription campaign. Burghley, in a graphic phrase,
43
44
45
46
47
50
STC2 5823.
Hacket was an unfortunate madman who had mounted a cart in London and proclaimed
himself the Messiah and king of Europe in 1591. See Collinson, Elizabethan
Puritan
Movement, p. 424.
STC2 5824. T h e work appeared in 1604.
STC2 5820 (for the printing history see STC2 5821, sig. Blr).
49
STC2 5821-2.
STC2 18106.
Ibid., I, pp. 660-1; Cooper (ed.), Athenae Cantabrigienses, II, pp. 230-2.
139
complained that the articles savoured of the 'Romish inquisition, and [were]
rather a device to seek for offenders than to reform any'.51
It is not properly understood that Whitgift's articles were only tier one of
a two-tier strategy. Cosin's task - for which it must be said he was superbly
qualified - was to construct the second tier. Aylmer had already cemented
the metropolitan authority of the southern High Commission. Cosin now
set about the reinforcement and toughening of criminal procedure
throughout the ecclesiastical courts by the assimilation into current practice
of the full range of procedures governing ex officio investigations as set forth
in the latest textbooks and manuals of Roman canon law. It was a subtle and
effective solution to what Whitgift doubtless saw as an operational problem.
It was entirely within the remit of the civil lawyers and officials of the
ecclesiastical courts themselves, and it avoided the political backlash which
reinforcement by means of revised letters patent to the judges of High
Commission would undoubtedly have provoked while Leicester and Walsingham were still alive.
The letters patent issued to the judges of High Commission in Elizabeth's
reign remained remarkably consistent,52 but this does not mean there was
no change in the practice of the courts. Whereas Archbishops Parker and
Grindal had invoked canon law cautiously, mindful of its disputed status
since 1534 and especially conscious of the antagonism of the common
lawyers - it was said of Grindal that he had begun prosecutions under the
Act of Uniformity by verdict of a grand jury and not by canon law procedure53 - under Cosin's tutelage the southern High Commission would
invoke the procedure ex officio mero confidently and vigorously. The most
fundamental change of emphasis was that Cosin justified criminal prosecutions on the basis of reputation or 'notoriety'. Whereas Grindal had preferred to act upon churchwardens' presentments or the written depositions
of witnesses, Cosin held that 'notoriety' or 'speeches and informations'
brought to the ears of the judge, despite the absence of accusers or presentments, were legal and actionable.54 It was no coincidence that Cosin had
been one of the judges in High Commission when Cawdrey's case was
decided.
The crux is contained in a confidential memorandum signed by Cosin and
his Lambeth team. This noted that some crimes were hardly to be proved by
witnesses, but were 'vehemently suspected and offensive to the well disposed, and dangerous to be suffered, as being ill examples in a well governed
51
52
54
Collinson, Elizabethan Puritan Movement, pp. 243-8; CSPD 1581-90, p. 188; Tanner,
Tudor Constitutional Documents, pp. 373-4.
53
Elton, Tudor Constitution, pp. 221-30.
B L , Lansdowne M S 73, art. 2, fo. 9v.
Apologiefor sundrie proceedings (STC2 5821), Pt 2 , chap. 6, p. 51.
140
John Guy
commonwealth'.55 Such cases had to be dealt with 'by inquiry' and 'all good
means to be discovered, that they may be reformed, the party brought to
penitence, and others discouraged from committing the like'. Occasionally a
party other than the judge might be prepared to promote the prosecution.56
But where a promoter could not be found, the judge had a duty to proceed ex
officio mero, in which case the party accused was compelled without any
equivocation to answer on oath touching his own crimes punishable by the
court.
As Cosin's memorandum continued, the party accused by his sworn
answers would 'clear' or 'convict' himself, whereupon his compurgators (or
'oath-helpers') were to swear that he had taken a true oath. If the party
accused succeeded in his compurgation, he was to be discharged. If he
failed, he was deemed 'to be guilty of the Crime, and to be reformed'.57
When Cosin insisted in this memorandum that the party accused was
compelled to answer on oath touching his crimes in ex officio mero proceedings, it is noteworthy that he failed to inform his readers of the rule of canon
law as laid down in the Gregorian Decretals, that no one was obliged to
incriminate himself in a criminal case. It is true that there were exceptions,
ampliations and fallations in the rule against compelled self-incrimination,
but Cosin did not invoke them, and even if he had, it is far from clear that
such exceptions would have overridden the general rule of canon law on this
point. Furthermore, the rule against self-incrimination had been reiterated
in the Practica criminalis of Julius Clarus, a standard sixteenth-century
compendium of canon law.58
55
56
57
58
LPL, M S 2004, fo. 65. T h e phraseology concerning 'vehement suspicion' is important.

According to Lyndwode's Provinciate, the term Vehemently suspected' referred to the case
of the suspect who had knowingly visited heretics, or given them alms, or received their
books, or defended their persons, but who could not be convicted in court. In such a case,
demonstrationes leves or 'light proofs' sufficed to justify abjuration and the imposition of
penitential pains by judges acting ex officio. In his Debellation of Salem and Bizance (1533)
Sir Thomas More maintained that the person proved a 'vehement suspect' (which implies
demonstrationes leves but cannot mean conviction in court) could be compelled to 'abjure' his
heresy, admittedly 'rather to purge him of the suspicion' - this was made clear. But More
continued: 'And then for using himself in such wise before [that is, so behaving that he
became a vehement suspect]: though he do penance he hath but right', which confirms that
it was indeed his opinion that a 'vehement suspect' might be required to perform penance
even though he had not been convicted by ordinary process of law. William Lyndwode,
Provinciate seu constitutiones Angliae (Oxford, 1679), pp. 302-3 (gl. s.v. 'Vehementer suspecti'); The Complete Works of St Thomas More, X: The Debellation of Salem and Bizance,
ed. John Guy, Ralph Keen, Clarence H . Miller and R. McGugan (New Haven, Conn., and
London, 1987 [1988]), pp. 116-18, 127.
Where this was the case, the accused was not bound to answer on oath concerning the
principal crime objected, although he might still be bound to answer on oath to related
articles, i.e. in instance litigation or proceedings ex officio promoto. See also Apologie for
sundrie proceedings (STC2 5821), Pt 2, chap. 6, pp. 5 0 - 1 .
L P L , M S 2004, fo. 65.
R. H. Helmholz, Roman Canon Law in Reformation England (Cambridge, 1990), pp. 156-7.
141
It is likely that in practice the matter was even less straightforward. In his
Apologiefor sundrie proceedings Cosin acknowledged that in ex officio cases
pursued on the basis of 'notoriety', the judge was legally required to obtain
the testimony of neighbours in order to validate the specific charges filed
against the accused before administering the oath: the canonical 'twowitness' rule presumably applied here.59 However, as Cosin continued, even
if the examination of neighbours resulted in the absence of proof of notoriety, the prosecution could still continue and the oath ex officio be administered 'although not warranted by lav? if the accused party 'make none
opposition'.60 In other words, if a party accused of 'notoriety' voluntarily
agreed to submit to the court's jurisdiction in ex officio proceedings, he
could be examined on oath (illegally) and compelled thereby to incriminate
himself. This statement raises a crucial issue of practice. Proctors (i.e.
ecclesiastical legal counsel) were not usually allowed to represent parties in
ex officio proceedings.61 The matter was contested, but the most affirmative
opinion found in the English court records is that representation by proctor
rested in the judge's discretion. The question does arise, to what extent, if
any, was pressure exerted on accused persons in High Commission during
the 1590s to submit 'voluntarily' to the jurisdiction of the court?
The memorandum evaded the issue of the course to be followed where the
party accused refused the oath ex officio or was otherwise contumacious. It
was noted that 'if the party deny the Crime objected, then he is by law
enjoined his purgation', but this did not address the case of the defendant
who declined to 'purge' himself. In his Apologie Cosin observed that it was
'necessary' to punish the wilful contumacy of those who refused 'sundry
times upon their oaths' to answer 'articles objected on her Majesty's behalf
so far as by law they were required. Beyond that, he had little to say. For a
writer so unabashed at blinding his audience with legal science, Cosin was
surprisingly reticent on the very issue which was, of course, the hottest topic
of all: the issue which had underpinned the decision of High Commission in
Cawdrey's case.62
59
60
61
62
T h e Roman canon law had long held that defendants could not be put to their oaths in ex
officio proceedings unless there were respectable public fame that they had committed the
offence. Helmholz, Roman Canon Law in Reformation England, p. 119.
Apologie for sundrie proceedings (STC2 5821), Pt 2, chap. 6, p. 51. Support for this view
could be adduced from the Practica criminalis of Julius Clarus, which confirmed that under
the law the existence of 'public fame' against an individual must be proved by the testimony
of witnesses before proceedings against him could begin, but Clarus added that 'although
this is true de jure, a practice teaches the exact opposite, which is what is observed'.
Helmholz, Roman Canon Law in Reformation England, pp. 17-18. It was doubtless for this
reason that Clarus was not an acceptable authority to Beale and the puritans. H e was, in any
case, easily discredited in puritan eyes as an Italian jurisconsult whose career spanned the
Counter-Reformation and the Council of Trent.
Helmholz, Roman Canon Law in Reformation England, pp. 117-19.
Apologiefor sundrie proceedings (STC2 5821), Pt 2, chap. 10, pp. 91-2.
142
John Guy
Cosin finally argued that it would be illogical not to punish contumacious

parties when it was apparent to the judges that their contumacy was not only
'intolerable', but was judged 'to tend also unto the utter overthrow of the
whole fundamental justice of this Realm, if it should be suffered'.63 Possibly
aware of the subjective nature of this thrust, he informed his readers that the
penalties enjoined by ecclesiastical judges by way of 'reformation' and
'satisfaction' were to be regarded in law not as poenae but as medicinae.64
This issue was especially relevant to Cawdrey's case, because on that
occasion there had been no trial. (The trial had been pre-empted by the
accused party's refusal to take the ex officio oath.) It was crucially important
to discover what the legal status was of the decision to deprive Cawdrey of
his freehold and degrade him from the ministry. By what legal authority was
this done?
To pursue this point we must take a brief excursus into the Middle
Ages.65 When William Lyndwode glossed the decree Ad abolendam in his
classic compendium of canon law (1420-33),66 he interpolated his opinion
that the bishop could inflict 'penitential pains' {poenae poenitentiales) on
63
64
65
66
Apologiefor sundrie proceedings (STC2 5821), Pt 2, chap. 10, pp. 91-2.

Apologie for sundrie proceedings (STC2 5821), Pt 2, chap. 8, p. 78. This argument also
appeared in the memorandum, L P L , M S 2004, fo. 65v.
Lyndwode, author of Provinciate seu constitutiones Angliae, was a doctor of both civil and
canon law, dean of the Arches under Archbishop Chichele, and later bishop of St David's.
D . M . Owen, The Medieval Canon Law: Teaching, Literature and Transmission (Cambridge,
1990), p. 2.
At the Council of Verona, in 1184, Pope Lucius III issued the decree Ad abolendam, later
ratified by the Fourth Lateran Council, which provided that bishops or their delegates were
to examine reliable witnesses on oath in their provinces or dioceses once or twice a year in
order to detect suspected heretics. (Decretales Gregorii IX, 5.7.9; Corpus iuris canonici, ed.
E. L. Richter and E. A. Friedberg (2 vols, Leipzig, 1879-S1), I I , pp. 780-2.) Anyone
refusing to swear was to be deemed a heretic himself, and accused persons might be cited on
suspicion alone. If the accused would not confess or could not be proved guilty, he was not
necessarily to be absolved. H e could be required to purge himself by swearing under oath
that he was not guilty and by supporting his oath with those of other credible persons willing
to swear that they believed him to be speaking the truth. In 1231 Pope Gregory IX issued a
codifying decree entitled Excommunicamus et anathematisamus. This provided that suspects
who did not purge themselves within a year were to be punished as if they had been duly
convicted of heresy. (Decretales Gregorii IX, 5.7.13; Corpus iuris canonici, II, pp. 787-8.)
Later, when the papacy had settled at Avignon, Clement V by his decree Multorum querela
empowered the bishops (or their delegates) to summon and investigate suspected heretics
without the prior denunciations of witnesses. But safeguards were instituted. T h e decree
required those who proceeded ex officio to act in conjunction with papally appointed
inquisitors if they intended to imprison or torture suspected heretics, or if they proposed to
sentence them. (Clementinae, 5.3.1; Corpus iuris canonici, II, pp. 1181-2). Multorum querela,
which the Council of Vienne confirmed in 1312, thus authorized ecclesiastical judges to
proceed ex officio mero. Later this procedure was extended to cover a variety of moral crimes
or deviations from the teaching of the church. But the legislation was directed to the initial
detection and investigation of offences. T h e canon law remained vague and unspecific as to
what powers of sentence were available if firm proofs (i.e. two 'credible' witnesses) were
lacking or the defendant was contumacious. T h e only exception was in cases of heresy,
where a suspect who declined to take the oath ex officio or incriminate himself might be
sentenced after a year as if convicted by due process of law.
143
suspected parties in cases of heresy by way of purgation.67 When those

Vehemently suspect' would not confess and could not be proved guilty, they
were not necessarily to be absolved. In such cases 'purgation' could take the
form of poenae\ suitable punishments included 'abjuration', confinement in a
monastery, or building a church or hospital.68 In the case of 'abjuration', the
accused party could be compelled to swear that he renounced certain
doctrines or beliefs of which he stood accused, and these suspect opinions or
beliefs could be laid before him in the form of a bill of articles. However,
there was nothing in the strict canon law which authorized this. These
matters were Lyndwode's interpretation as stated in the gloss.
Lyndwode's interpretation became controversial in the reign of Henry
VIII. For it could be considered a denial of due process of law if, by way of
canonical purgation, a suspect who could not be proved guilty had to swear
not that he was innocent, but that he renounced the heretical doctrines of
which he was accused. This was rough justice, and Thomas More's polemical opponent, Christopher St German, attacked it. 69 A genuine sense of
outrage permeates St German's writings, because he was one of the select
few who comprehended that while the canon law - as opposed to the
interpolations of Lyndwode - had authorized the punishment of suspects in
heresy cases who refused the oath in ex officio proceedings, there was nothing
{pace Cosin) which said ihdXpoenae (or medidnaeX) could be exacted in other
types of case. For all of this even in Lyndwode's interpretation applied
exclusively to cases of heresy. It had no relevance to ex officio proceedings
concerning (for example) benefices, tithes, probate or testamentary fees,
contempt of the clergy, or offences involving the fabric of churches.
It is now clear why Beale and Morice were incensed by the assertion that
the penalties enjoined upon contumacious parties in High Commission were
67
68
Provinciate, p. 290 (gl. s.v. 'Purgaverit').

T h e punishment was to match the crime and the suspect's social rank. As Sir Thomas More
put it in his Debellation of Salem and Bizance (1533):
And therefore those wise men that made the law, left the thing in the ordinary's
discretion to assign him that is proved suspect of heresy, such kind of purgation as
the circumstances of the person, and the people and the time shall most require,
(p. 116)
More continued:
69
And therefore will the ordinary to some man so suspect, sometime assign him . . .
that he shall openly confess that those heresies that the people took him to mean, be
very false heresies indeed / and openly shall detest them and swear that he so
believeth them to be / and swear that he neither meant to teach them, nor never was
minded that any man should take him so, nor never would afterward teach nor hold
heresies, but abjure them for ever.
And yet for the further purgation of such suspicion, the ordinary might also
enjoin him some certain things to do, such as may declare the more clearly, that he is
not of such mind / as open preaching against the self same heresies, & the doing of
some such things as those heresies did stand against, {ibid.)
Fox and Guy, Reassessing the Henrician Age, pp. 95-120.
144
John Guy
to be taken in law not zspoenae but as medicinae. At times Beale could invoke
contorted arguments, as for example when he protested that he fully
endorsed the 1559 Act of Uniformity except that the Book of Common
Prayer in use was not the one authorized by the statute! Yet on this aspect of
ex offido procedure he had grasped the crux.70 The issue was not whether
ecclesiastical judges might proceed ex officio> which had never been in
doubt.71 It was whether in proceedings ex offido mero the judge was legally
permitted to enforce self-incrimination, and whether the accused party who
refused to swear the ex offido oath might be convicted for his refusal.
It was even more galling that the protocol described by Lyndwode had
been abrogated in 1534 by the Act for the Submission of the Clergy and the
Heresy Act.72 Knollys and Beale were familiar with these events: Knollys,
after all, had been present! They knew that the 'Supplication against the
Ordinaries' (1532) and the Act for the Submission of the Clergy had been
triggered by abuses of ex offido procedure.73 The Supplication led to the
70
71
72
73
Beale's 'Notes' appear to be lost, but a summary of their contents is included in B L ,

Lansdowne M S 73, art. 2, fos. 7v-13. H e complained that the extended procedure which
Cosin had devised was not part of the ordinary course of the canon law, but derived instead
from 'an extraordinary course of an inquisition established by the pope only for heresy*.
N o one doubted that the canon law had been received into England. Ex offido procedure,
purgation, proof by sworn witnesses, and oaths of calumny or 'of speaking the truth' were all
routinely practised by the ecclesiastical courts in the pre-Reformation era. T h e records of
the courts prove that ex offido procedure was well entrenched by the fifteenth century in
cases involving simony, blasphemy, sorcery, fornication, sodomy and usury. Naturally these
proceedings encroached to some extent upon the jurisdiction of the king's courts. T h e
interesting fact is that the common lawyers at first raised no objection to ex offido investigations of spiritual crimes. What sparked clashes between church and state were the heresy
prosecutions which were triggered by the spread of Lollardy. Helmholz, Roman Canon Law
in Reformation England, pp. 2 - 3 , 21, 24, 104, 117; H. A. Kelly, 'English Kings and the Fear
of Sorcery', Mediaeval Studies, 39 (1977), 206-38.
T h e Heresy Act provided that accusations in heresy cases were not to be initiated by
ecclesiastical judges alone, but were to arise from common-law presentments (i.e. the
verdicts of grand juries) or the testimony of at least two 'lawful' witnesses. Persons arrested
on suspicion were to be allowed bail and everyone who was accused was to stand trial in open
court. Only persons convicted by due process (i.e. on the testimony of known and credible
witnesses) were liable to abjuration and the performance of 'reasonable' penance. If they
refused, they were not to be punished by the church courts but surrendered immediately to
the secular power. The act required the secular power to burn obstinate or relapsed heretics,
but in each case officials were required to obtain a writ de heretico comburendo from Chancery
(25 Hen. VIII, c. 14). When the Act of Six Articles reached the statute book in 1539, the
Heresy Act became subject to its terms. But the setback for the common lawyers was only
temporary. After renewed agitation against ex offido procedure, Parliament enacted in 1544
that no one was to be tried under the Act of Six Articles except after indictment by a grand
jury. Presentments were to be made within a year of the alleged offences, and the arrest or
imprisonment of suspects before indictment was forbidden. These safeguards were emasculated when Protector Somerset swept away the treason and heresy laws on the death of
Henry VIII (31 Hen. VIII, c. 14; 35 Hen. VIII, c. 5; 1 Edw. VI, c. 12).
T h e attack was predicated on the belief in the common-law rights of presumed innocents
whom the bishops suspected but whom they could not punish without resort to trickery. Cf.
145
Submission of the Clergy (15 May 1532).74 The latter provided that Convocation was not to assemble in future without the king's writ; no new canons
were to be enacted without royal assent; existing ones were to be vetted by a
royal commission; and those canons deemed 'repugnant' to royal prerogative or the laws and customs of the realm were to be annulled. These terms
were later enshrined in statute, a move again precipitated by parliamentary
lobbying against ex officio procedure.75
The Act for the Submission of the Clergy referred the pruning of canon
Fortescue, De laudibus legum Anglie, ed. Chrimes, esp. chap. 27. T h e 'Supplication' claimed
that defendants were
daily convented and called before the said spiritual Ordinaries, their Commissaries
and Substitutes, ex officio . . . for displeasure, without any probable cause . . . and
sometime, upon their appearance ex officio ... they be committed to prison without
bail or mainprise: and there some lie, as it is reported, half a year and some more ere
they can come to their declaration.
74
75
Charges were brought 'when there is none accuser, nor common fame lawfully proved,
nor any presentment in the Visitation', yet suspects were 'constrained to answer to many
subtle questions and interrogatories only invented and exhibited at the pleasure of the said
Ordinaries'. By this means the unlearned, or even a well-witted layman, might be trapped
and induced by an ignorant answer 'to the peril of open penance to his shame, or else to
redeem the same penance for money, as it is commonly used'. Again, witnesses, even if
produced in support of the charges, may be 'never so sore defamed, of little truth or
credence, [and] adversaries or enemies to the party', and yet on the strength of inadequate
testimony the party accused might be put ex officio 'to open penance, and then to redemption for money'. PRO, S P 6/1, art. 22; A. G. Ogle, The Tragedy of the Lollards' Tower
(Oxford, 1949), pp. 324-30. John Guy, The Public Career of Sir Thomas More (New Haven,
Conn., and Brighton, 1980), pp. 175-201; G. R. Elton, Studies in Tudor and Stuart Politics
and Government (4 vols., Cambridge, 1974, 1983, 1992), II, pp. 107-36.
Guy, Public Career of Sir Thomas More, pp. 175-201.
T h e journal of a London citizen records that on 5 March 1534:
the Comyn house went before the king into his palace and the speaker made a
proposition to the king to and in the name of all his subjects, desiring his grace of
reformation of the acts made by the spiritualty in the convocation against his grace
and his subjects in calling many of his subjects to the courts ex officio and not
knowing their accuser and to cause them to abjure or else to burn them for pure
malice and upon their abominable curses taking of tithes and offerings contrary to
justice and that they were judges and parties in their own causes. Therefore at that
time it was ordained that viii of the lower house and viii of the higher house and xvi
Bishops with other of the clergy should discuss the matter and the king to be
umpire. (J. P. Cooper, 'The Supplication against the Ordinaries Reconsidered',
EHR, 72 (1957), 636)
John Rokewood informed Lord Lisle that on this day, 'the whole Parliament house were
with the King at York Place in his gallery the space of iij hours, and after that all the Lords
went into the Council House at Westminster and there sat till x a'clock at night'; The Lisle
Letters, ed. M . St. Clare Byrne (6 vols., Chicago, 111., 1981), II, p. 66. T h e Commons'
lawyers persisted in their criticism of ex officio proceedings. Copies of the heresy acts of
1382, 1401 and 1414 were obtained, and their contents were meticulously compared with
Magna Carta and other pre-1414 statutes. On the basis of this comparison the acts of 1401
and 1414 were deemed deficient in nine respects because they conflicted with earlier
legislation on subjects' liberties. PRO, SP 1/82, fos. 63-8.
146
John Guy
law to a committee comprising the king, sixteen lay persons to be chosen

from both Houses of Parliament, and sixteen clergy. 76 Since the proposed
revision was a massive task, it was agreed that canons not 'repugnant' to the
king's prerogative or the laws and customs of the realm could remain in
force on a provisional basis. The revision was undoubtedly begun, but was
never completed. Twice Henry VIII sought additional parliamentary authority for the appointment of commissioners. 77 In 1549 powers were once
again obtained, and in 1552 Cranmer prepared a comprehensive Reformatio
legum ecclesiasticarum. But the project failed in Parliament. Peers who could
barely tolerate the reform of rites and doctrine would not also accept the
reformation of discipline. Cranmer's report thus remained in manuscript
until 1571, when it was printed. Alas attempts in the parliamentary session
of that year to obtain recognition for the Reformatio came unstuck when the
radical William Strickland introduced a bill for a revised version of the Book
of Common Prayer. Elizabeth intervened, and Burghley (who had all along
supported the reform of canon law) ran for cover. 78
The religious acts of Henry VIII (including the Act for the Submission of
the Clergy) were repealed by Mary and the heresy laws reconstituted in
their medieval form.79 All this, however, was overturned by the 1559 Acts of
Supremacy and Uniformity. 80 In Elizabeth's reign the legal position may be
summarized as follows: 1. ex officio jurisdiction remained inherent in the
ecclesiastical courts by virtue of the vacuum created by the failure to revise
canon law; 2. the powers of the ecclesiastical courts to proceed to sentence
against defendants who refused to take the ex officio oath, or against whom
there were inadequate proofs, were deficient because the relevant legislation
of the Middle Ages was restricted to cases of heresy by the terms of strict
law; 3. in respect of High Commission, the court might conceivably proceed
to sentence in cases where defendants were contumacious or where proofs
were inadequate, but only if the view was taken that the queen herself had
expressly licensed the commissioners to apply her 'imperial' prerogative in
defiance of the rule of the Gregorian Decretals that no one was obliged to
incriminate himself in a criminal case; 4. irrespective of the nature of the
commissioners' licence, the Act for the Submission of the Clergy had been
revived in 1559 and it was a provision of this statute that the canon law was
valid only in so far as it was not 'repugnant' to the royal prerogative and the
laws and customs of the realm. As I have already shown, in Cawdrey's case
an accused party had been deprived of his freehold contrary to chapter 39 of
76
78
79
25 Hen. VIII, c. 19.

27 Hen. VIII, c. 15; 35 Hen. VIII, c. 16.
F. D . Logan, 'The Henrician Canons', BIHR, 47 (1974), 99-103; 3 & 4 Edw. V I , c. 11;
Norman L. Jones, 'Fine Tuning the Reformation', in John Guy and H. G. Beale (eds.),
Law and Social Change in British History (London, 1984), pp. 86-95.
1 & 2 Philip and Mary, c. 6; 1 & 2 Philip and Mary, c. 8.
1 Eliz. I, cc. 1-2.
147
Magna Carta and against the provision of the Act of Uniformity which
stated that deprivation for 'depraving' the Book of Common Prayer was the
punishment for a second offence.
It is necessary to ask how it was that Whitgift and Cosin were prompted to
endorse an interpretation of the canon law which was legally dubious. Part
of the answer lies in the expansion of the scope of ex officio prosecutions in
the ecclesiastical courts for which they had been partly responsible.
Offences tackled by ex officio procedure in the late-Elizabethan courts
included teaching schoolchildren without a proper licence, failing to secure
copies of the Bible and Bishop Jewel's Apology for use in churches, contempt of the clergy, swearing, drunkenness, pre-marital unchastity, interrupting the preacher's sermon, wearing a hat during the reading of the
Gospel, speaking abusively against the churchwardens, playing football on
Sundays, and even throwing a snowball in the churchyard.81 While such
offences as pre-marital unchastity had theoretically been actionable during
the Middle Ages, in practice subsequent marriage had been allowed to
'clear' the antecedent fornication.82 This was not so by 1600. Conduct in
and around one's parish church was closely regulated by ex officio investigations by the 1590s.83 Had Whitgift and Cosin allowed High Commission
to be impugned by contumacious defendants, then the authority of the
church courts generally would have collapsed.
Another reason may derive from Whitgift's background. It appears from
a memorandum compiled by Thomas Byng, a civil lawyer in High Commission, that Whitgift's revision of the university's statutes at Cambridge made
it possible for the Vice-Chancellor to summon and investigate any preacher
who in his sermon spoke against 'any law, order, or estate of persons etc.
established in this Realm'. 84 The preacher could be required to revoke his
statements at the Vice-Chancellor's direction, and if he refused he could be
expelled from the university. It was this process which, in effect, had been
used against Cartwright. The question posed by the memorandum was
whether in seeking proof of the preacher's offence, the Vice-Chancellor was
authorized to proceed ex officio even though witnesses were available and
the university's statutes made no explicit mention of inquisitorial procedure. While conceding that the issue was contested, Byng maintained that
the full panoply of ex officio procedure by the canon law was available to the
Vice-Chancellor. Further research is evidently required, but in the light of
81
82
83
84
Helmholz, Roman Canon Law in Reformation England, p p . 109-17. It is noteworthy how

many of Helmholz's examples are post-1588.
Ibid., p . 110.
Ibid., p . 112.
L P L , M S 2004, fos. 66-8. Other (and dissenting) opinions followed at fos. 68-76. It is
remarkable that procedure at Cambridge University was thought relevant to the proceedings in High Commission in the 1590s. This subject is worthy of further research.
148
John Guy
Byng's opinion it is conceivable that a resort to ex officio investigations was a

habit Whitgift had acquired as Vice-Chancellor over a decade before he
arrived at Lambeth.
The third reason is apparent from the passage of Cosin's Apologie in
which he insisted that the penalties imposed by ecclesiastical judges by way
of 'reformation' and 'satisfaction' were to be regarded in law not as poenae
but as medicinae. To refuse the oath ex officio was a crime against the state.
The contumacy of those who refused the oath was not only 'intolerable', but
was judged 'to tend also unto the utter overthrow of the whole fundamental
justice of this Realm, if it should be suffered'. More than any other opinion
expressed in what was (after all) supposed to be a legal treatise, this assertion
sprang directly from the authoritarian and anti-puritan mind-set that pervaded the Lambeth circle during the 1590s.
It is striking that Cosin's Apologie remained unanswered. This was not
for lack of effort by Morice, who wrote a rebuttal but was apparently
forbidden to publish it. 85 Again, Cosin was refuted obliquely in the eighth
book of Hooker's Of the Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity, but this remained
unpublished until 1648. It was a silence born partly of censorship, but
chiefly of careerism. The triumph of Cosin's interpretation spoke volumes
for the manner in which the Elizabethan 'mixed polity' was extinguished.
For not only did Cosin defend the 'imperial' interpretation of the Act of
Supremacy. He announced the thesis that canon law was constitutionally
independent of common law and claimed that the church formed a societas
separate from the civil state. 86 While this reflected the emphasis which
second-generation conformists placed upon worship and the sacraments
and was proleptic of the Laudian attack on sacrilege, it was not far short of
sacerdotalism and was an argument which had scarcely been heard in
England since the death of Mary. Again, with reference to the words lex
terrae in chapter 39 of Magna Carta, Cosin held that canon law, admiralty
law and martial law were as much part of the 'law' of England as common
law and parliamentary statute.
Taking these arguments together we begin to accelerate towards the
milieu of the 1620s with its debates on the Petition of Right, and of the Long
Parliament with its debates on the canons of 1640, the impeachment of Laud
and the root-and-branch attack on episcopacy. This is not to imply that
there was a high road to religious conflict. James VI and I sought peace and
unity in the church and cannot be held responsible for the failure of the
Hampton Court Conference. But when Bancroft succeeded Whitgift, the
conformist drive for hierarchy and order was further intensified. Factiona85
86
LPL, MS 234.
E.g. Apologie for sundrie proceedings (STC2 5821), P t 1, chaps. 8, 12-15 (esp. p p . 102-14);
Pt 2, chaps. 5-10, 13 (esp. pp. 73-9); Pt 3, chap. 7 (pp. 85-131).
149
lism and economic instability contributed to this trend. So did the demands
of finance, which encouraged the thesis that the prerogative was an administrative tool which could and should be exploited and expanded to improve
the revenues and increase the power of the government. 87 Again, jure divino
theory eased the shift towards patriarchalism in society, since the argument
that the obedience of inferiors to superiors was commanded by God bolstered the authority of heads of households in general. Yet, where political
theory is concerned, religion made the running. The split which occurred
between first generation Elizabethan conformist thought and the claims of
the avant-garde was decisive. And in this respect Elizabeth's last decade
may be interpreted as the first of the early Stuarts.
87
Victor Morgan, 'Whose Prerogative in Late Sixteenth and Early Seventeenth Century
England?', in A. Kiralfy, M. Slatter and R. Virgoe (eds.)j Custom, Courts and Counsel
(London, 1985), pp. 39-64.
Ecclesiastical vitriol: religious satire in the

1590s and the invention of puritanism
Patrick Collinson
The 1590s present the historian of the Elizabethan church with a professional problem. The decade lies in a kind of double rain shadow. On the
far side loom the mountainously momentous 1580s, when militant puritanism briefly threatened ecclesiastical revolution, in part a response to the
apparently extreme danger posed by an equally vigorous Catholic revival.
Two deeply antithetical, intensely politicized religious fanaticisms confronted a hardline archbishop of Canterbury, John Whitgift, backed up by a
queen impersonating a rock, Semper Eadem. This gives the historian of the
mainstream with an instinct for narrative plenty to write about. On the
other side of the rain shadow extend the early years of the next century and
of the new dynasty, which for a time, and especially at the Hampton Court
Conference, brought a large Scottish question mark to bear on the English
ecclesiastical polity, one which Dr Wormald will clarify elsewhere in this
volume. This too makes a story. By comparison, the intervening nineties
were strangely uneventful.
To be sure, uneventfulness and the ordinariness of conformity throw
down a challenge to which historians of religion should not be afraid to
respond. One recalls the poet Clough and his image of the silent main,
flooding in 'far back through creeks and inlets'. In those creeks and inlets
this was a decade of ecclesiastical growth and improvement: a rising proportion of candidates for ordination who held university degrees, 1 more
preachers than ever before. Archbishop Whitgift thought that in his first
year, 1583, there may have been no more than 2,000. Now there were about
4,000, 100 per cent growth in perhaps fifteen years. 2 In some of the slimier
1
Rosemary O'Day, The English Clergy:
The Emergence and Consolidation
of a Profession
1558-1642 (Leicester, 1979).

Westminster Abbey Muniments, Muniment Book 15, fos. 72-4. (I owe this reference to Dr
Anthony Milton.) Compare the surveys prepared in 1603-4 in BL, Harleian MSS 280 and
595. See the anti-Martinist tract The First Pane of Pasquils Apologie: 'The first petition he
makes is for a preaching Ministerie: he comes in very late with this request, we have thys
alreadie. Thousands of able Ministers in the Church of England; number for number, no
kingdome under heaven can shew the like.' (The Works of Thomas Nashe, ed. Ronald B.
McKerrow (Oxford, 1958), I, p. 117.)
150
Religious satire and the invention of puritanism
151
creeks and inlets the next generation of church leaders was emerging,
deviously, even corruptly.3 But it was for the most part a more effective
episcopal leadership than that of earlier Elizabethan decades, whether we
measure effectiveness by the standards of ecclesiastical governance, epitomized in Richard Neile, or by those of pastoral dedication, whose representative we can make Tobie Matthew. 4 Neile and Matthew were two future
archbishops of York, two glittering prizemen of the nineties. Matthew was
not without his slimy side, a simonist convicted by his own correspondence
of parting with large sums of money to secure his preferment. But this was
also the man who as bishop and archbishop preached as many as 1,500
sermons, most of them in country churches and market towns, and actively
promoted thousands more. 5 Although this part of the scene has still to be
adequately explored, we are evidently looking at a time when, in spite of
difficult economic conditions and wartime taxation, thousands of nameless
and obscure lay pillars of the church paid constructive attention to the
fabrics of their parish churches, amongst other improvements rebuilding or
otherwise modifying their towers to accommodate the more advanced and
demanding bell machinery with which the change-ringers would celebrate
the triumphs and narrow squeaks of the next century: the gunpowder which
failed to go off in 1605, the return of the prince without a Spanish bride in
1623.6 In these and other respects, the Elizabethan church stood poised on
the threshold of a Jacobean heyday.
3
5
6
For a highly circumstantial account of the murky processes by which the bishops of one see,
Exeter, emerged in the 1590s (Gervase Babington 1595-7, William Cotton 1598-1621), see
J. A. Vage, 'The Diocese of Exeter 1519-1641: A Study of Church Government in the Age of
the Reformation', unpublished Cambridge Ph.D. thesis (1991), pp. 210-21, 247-52. Of
Babington's promotion, which was mostly the work of Lord Burghley's brother-in-law
Henry Killigrew, Dr Vage remarks (p. 216): 'It is difficult to imagine a courtier so controlling
events prior to the 1590s.' I am grateful to Dr Vage for permission to cite his thesis.
Andrew Foster, 'The Function of a Bishop: The Career of Richard Neile, 1562-1640', in
Rosemary O'Day and Felicity Heal (eds.), Continuity and Change: Personnel and Administration of the Church in England, 1500-1642 (Leicester, 1976), pp. 33-54; Andrew Foster,
'Church Policies of the 1630s', in Richard Cust and Ann Hughes (eds.), Conflict in Early
Stuart England: Studies in Religion and Politics 1603-1642 (London, 1989), pp. 193-223;
Kenneth Fincham, Prelate as Pastor: The Episcopate of James 1 (Oxford, 1990).
Patrick Collinson, The Religion of Protestants: The Church in English Society, 1559-1625
(Oxford, 1982), pp. 45-52.
Andrew Woodger, 'Post-Reformation Mixed Gothic in Huntingdonshire Church Towers
and its Campanological Associations', The Archaeological Journal, 141 (1985), 269-308. This
article employs archaeological evidence to argue that more church towers than hitherto
suspected were reconstructed or improved in the late sixteenth and early seventeenth
centuries in the style the author identifies as 'Mixed Gothic'; and relates these improvements
to the invention of the three-quarter wheel which facilitated a more inventive practice of
bell-ringing. A similar argument has been stated by Dr Andrew Foster in a seminar paper, as
yet unpublished. See also Richard Morris, Churches and the Landscape (London, 1989). For
the political and religious culture of bell-ringing, see David Cressy, Bonfires and Bells
(London, 1989).
152
Patrick Collinson
Yet the professional problem remains. The church historian of the nineties has little to contribute to the discussion of high politics, the topics of
Court and faction so prominent in this volume. It is not a waste of time to
discuss the religion of the earl of Essex or of Sir Robert Cecil, or their
church patronage, but these are side issues to the anatomy of the factional
competition which, with the war and depression, dominates the decade.7
For religion was no longer as straightforwardly relevant to state policy as it
had appeared to some in the seventies and eighties, and many of those
'some' were now dead. In Parliament, according to Sir John Neale, secular
matters, quite literally bread and butter issues, took over from religious as
the main preoccupation. Bread, it was said in 1601, will soon be made a
monopoly, adding a frisson of horror to the dominant politics of that
Parliament.8
So whatever happened, in this decade, to puritanism? Apparently it had
been suppressed. Eusebius Paget, a preacher whom we shall meet later in
this chapter, had been so effectively silenced and otherwise rendered redundant that in 1591 he wrote of men 'lothe that I shoulde have leasure allowed
me to swallow myne owne spittle'.9 So both Neale and myself have been
forced to talk in terms of the Puritan Movement, the existence of which we
both (unlike Sir Geoffrey Elton) have believed in, disappearing underground, biding its time in preparation for a better day.10 Christopher Hill
has some profound reflections on this subject, headed with a motto from the
nineteenth-century socialist William Morris: 'I pondered all these things,
and how men fight and lose the battle, and the thing that they fought for
comes in spite of their defeat, and when it comes turns out not to be what
they meant . . . ' Puritanism now ceased to be a political campaign and
underwent a double internalization, in localized communities and especially
households, and in individuals. Both became progressively more responsive
to moral duty under the moral law: hence Sabbatarianism, a phenomenon
roughly datable from the 1590s and the writings on the subject of Richard
Greenham (published 1598) and Nicholas Bownd (1595). So fin de siecle
turns out to be important in religious history after all. But at this point what
Christopher Hill calls 'the new Puritanism' begins to escape from the grasp
of the politico-ecclesiastical historian and to become a topic for religious
psychologists, authors of books with titles like The Heart Prepared and
God's Caress, or even William Haller's Rise of Puritanism^ which, as a
7
8
9
10
On Cecil's religion and ecclesiastical policy, there is important work in progress by

Dr Pauline Croft. For Essex, see Paul Hammer, chap. 3 above.
J. E. Neale, Elizabeth I and Her Parliaments, 1584-1601 (London, 1957), p. 380.
Paget to the Lord Admiral (Howard), 3 June 1591; BL, Lansdowne MS 68, fos. 196-7.
Neale, Elizabeth /, pp. 325-439; Patrick Collinson, The Elizabethan Puritan Movement
(London, 1967), pp. 432-^7.
153
movement of dynamic spirituality, Haller dated from about 1600. 11 Not that
religious psychology is devoid of wider historical implications. Max Weber
made this kind of puritanism a mandatory topic for all who have aspired to
understand the transformation of England as a society and an economy, in
the seventeenth century and beyond. But for the time being the narrative
historian can no longer do much with it.
In the very different tradition of Anglican historiography, the 1590s have
been regarded as the period when the Church of England began to recover
its equilibrium and to assert (or reassert) the distinctive sanity of the via
media, marginalizing not only puritanism but Calvinist theology as alien to
its proper nature. (Dr Nicholas Tyacke has more recently shown how
mistaken those traditional perspectives are but that is beside my present
purpose. 12 ) This Anglican achievement has been attributed to Richard
Hooker almost single-handed, since Hooker wrote what is generally
esteemed as the most important and certainly the loftiest book of the
nineties, The Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity (1594-7). Among recent authors,
Dr Peter Lake takes a rather different measure of the Laws, but if anything
he sharpens our sense of Hooker as the virtual inventor of Anglicanism. 13
What all these accounts of the 1590s are liable to overlook, with their
varying emphases on stabilization, routinization and even secularization, is
that this was not only or especially a decade of sweetness and light, of
incipient puritan piety and mellowing Anglicanism, but a rather ugly
decade, when the going got tough and unpleasant for all parties. This was
the decade which launched the formal English satire in the style of Juvenal
and Martial and it ended with an edict by the archbishop himself, utterly
forbidding the printing of 'satires or epigrams', followed by legislation to
extend the law of libel to epigrams, rhymes and other scandalous writings. 14
It was the decade not so much of Richard Hooker as of Richard Bancroft
who wrote (but chose not to acknowledge) two very nasty books, Daungerous
Positions and A Survay of the Pretended Holy Discipline (both 1593).15 Even
11
12
13
14
15
Christopher Hill, Society and Puritanism in Pre-Revolutionary England (London, 1966),

pp. 501-11. (In retrospect, the 'Conclusion' to Society and Puritanism contains the first of a
number of reflections by Christopher Hill on 'the experience of defeat' by radical reformers
of the early modern period.) Norman Pettit, The Heart Prepared: Grace and Conversion in
Puritan Spiritual Life (Middletown, Conn., 1966); Charles L. Cohen, God's Caress: The
Psychology of Puritan Religious Experience (New York, 1986).
Nicholas Tyacke, Anti-Calvinists: The Rise of English Arminianism c.1590-1640 (Oxford,
1987, rev. edn 1990).
Peter Lake, Anglicans and Puritans? Presbyterianism and English Conformist Thought from
Whitgift to Hooker (London, 1988), pp. 145-238.
Martin Ingram, 'Ridings, Rough Music and Mocking Rhymes in Early Modern England',
in Barry Reay (ed.), Popular Culture in Seventeenth-Century England (London, 1985),
p. 188.
Bancroft's authorship of these two books is never questioned and is not called in question
now. But it is very slenderly documented. In Archbishop Whitgift's testimonial (see below)
154
Patrick Collinson
Hooker's Laws was, if not, to be sure, a nasty book, a good deal more
polemical than it has sometimes been represented.16 Bancroft's testimonial
when he was made a bishop in 1597 reads like the career profile of a former
KGB general or CIA director, running for high political office: 'He hath
been an especiall Man of his calling, that the L: ArchBp: of Canterbury hath
used for the space of 9: or ten years, in all the Stirs which have been made by
the factious, against the good of the Church, which hath procured him
great dislike amongst those, who ar that way inclined.'17
In what follows I shall hope to make a case for the nastiness of the nineties
and for the importance of that nastiness, with particular reference to the
extraordinary episode of Martin Marprelate and the consequential antiMartinist backlash.18 The particular point to be made will be that whether
or not the last Elizabethan decade, thanks to Hooker, invented Anglicanism,
it reinvented puritanism and gave it a new and very long lease of life, this
being due, in large measure, to the phenomenon of Martin and AntiMartin. This argument may appeal to those readers who are interested in
the late-Elizabethan drama, since I shall suggest that it was Martin and
Anti-Martin who created the Stage Puritan (a character implicit in Shakespeare's Malvolio) and otherwise made the stock figure or caricature of the
puritan a subject for more or less sophisticated literary treatment. In the
course of establishing this point I hope that we shall discover something
interesting and by no means trivial about the complex interactions of what
are conventionally classified as higher and lower forms of cultural expres-
16
17
18
it was said: 'The last Parliament [scil., of 1593], he did sett out two Books in defence of the
State of the Church, & against the pretended Holy Disc: w** were liked & greatly commended, by the learnedest Men in the Realm.' This leaves the authorship of Daungerous
Positions less certain than that of the Survay. See also the similar expose published by
Bancroft's colleague Richard Cosin, Conspiracy for Pretended Reformation (1592, repr.
1699).
This is most apparent from Hooker's autograph notes on the hostile A Christian Letter
(1599), where he addresses his opponent as 'goodman goose' and a representative of 'the
purified crew' and exclaims: 'How this asse runneth kicking up his heeles as if a summerfly
had stung him. Great corsing but to no end.' (Richard Hooker, Of the Laws of Ecclesiastical
Polity: Attack and Response, Folger Edition of the Works of Hooker, IV (Cambridge, Mass.,
1982), pp. 68,42.)
Tracts Ascribed to Richard Bancroft, ed. Albert Peel (Cambridge, 1953), pp. xvii-xx.
The impact of the Marprelate Tracts depends to a great extent on the original typography
etc. and I prefer to cite the original editions (STC 17453-9) as readily available in facsimile
in The Marprelate Tracts (1588-1589) (Scolar Press, Leeds, 1967), rather than The
Marprelate Tracts 1588-1589, ed. William Pierce (London, 1911). Although very few of the
anti-Martinist pamphlets (STC 17460-5 are the most prominent) can be confidently
ascribed, the majority are reprinted in the Works of Thomas Nashe (either The Works of
Thomas Nashe, ed. R. B. McKerrow, revised F. P. Wilson (5 vols., Oxford, 1958) or The
Complete Works of Thomas Nashe, ed. A. B. Grosart (6 vols., London, 1883-5); or The
Complete Works of John Lyly, ed. R. W. Bond (3 vols., London, 1888-90). An Almond for a
Parratt, by far the most successful of the Anti-Martins in capturing not only Martin's tone
but his informed use of anecdotal material, is nowadays confidently attributed to Nashe.
155
sion, what Professor Michael Hattaway has called traffic between the
academic and the demotic'. 19 But that will be an added bonus since it is not
exactly what I have been asked to write about.
To make sense of what follows it is necessary to understand the extent to
which 'puritanism' had no substantial existence beyond what was attributed
to it by those enemies who first invented it as an abusive term. That is to say,
a certain nastiness was inherent in the idea of puritanism, since the word
was a broad and sticky brush with which to tar those who usually denied that
they were puritans and insisted that they were nothing but orthodox and
loyal protestant Christians, which they believed was more than could be said
of those who defamed them as puritans. (It goes without saying that
between these polarities, nastiness was not a prerogative of one side only.)
In other words, the term 'puritan' is indicative not so much of an entity and
a state, puritanism, as of a situation with at least two sides to it, and of a
dynamic, unstable and stressful process: a particular example of the cultural
phenomenon of definition and reification through stigmatization, indicative
of polarity and contributory to polarity. In earlier publications, and
especially in an essay called The Puritan Character, I may have overstated
the proposition that puritanism had no content of its own, venturing upon
the paradox of suggesting that our concept of the puritan depends critically
upon knowing as little about particular 'puritans' as possible.20 Peter Lake
thinks that I have made too much of that point and he is probably right.
Marginal and dubious cases scarcely deserving the title of puritan do not
mean that no puritans existed. While agreeing that terms like puritanism
which historians want to use for analytical and descriptive purposes contemporaries used as polemical and political weapons, Dr Lake nevertheless
insists that puritanism had a 'stable, distinctive and relatively clear cut
meaning', not so much an ideal type as simple reality. 21 Otherwise it would
have had no polemical use. So no doubt it became. The seventeenth century
could recognize a puritan when it saw one. Nevertheless, it is still necessary
to insist, especially, if I may say so, to some North American audiences, that
the character of a puritan, both in the literary-generic sense and more
generally, originated as an attributed character, charged with intensely
polemical resonances.
19
20
21
Michael Hattaway, Elizabethan Popular Theatre: Plays in Performance (London, 1982), p. 1.

Patrick Collinson, The Puritan Character: Polemics and Polarities in Early
SeventeenthCentury English Culture (Los Angeles, Calif., 1989).
Peter Lake, review of Patrick Collinson, The Religion of Protestants, in Journal of Ecclesiastical History, 34 (1983), 627-9; Peter Lake, 'Puritan Identities', ibid., 35 (1984), 112-23;
Peter Lake, 'Defining Puritanism - Again?', in Puritanism: Transatlantic Perspectives on a
Seventeenth-Century Anglo-American Faith, ed. Francis J. Bremer (Boston, Mass., 1993),
pp. 3-29. Some reflections cited here and elsewhere in this paper are drawn from another
forthcoming essay of Dr Lake, 'Chasing the White Wolf: Puritanism, Laudianism and
Anabaptism in a London Parish', to which I refer by Dr Lake's kind permission.
156
Patrick Collinson
And so to Martin and Anti-Martin. Readers will not need to be told that a
series of pseudonymous and satirical pamphlets, seven in all, targeted
principally at the bishops and professing to contain the utterances of one
Martin Marprelate, appeared from a clandestine and migratory press
between October 1588 and June 1589, when certain equipment and persons
fell into the hands of the authorities and Martin's voice was silenced.
It was a hilarious voice and no discussion of Marprelate, however pressed
for time, should altogether suppress the hilarity which we find, for example,
in a running headline to the second tract, where the ponderous theological
tome to which Martin professed to respond was described as 'a very
portable booke, a horse may car[r]y it if he be not too weake'. 22 Take one
further example of hilarity, the bishop who chose on St John's Day to
preach on the general theme of St John: 'John/ John/ the grace of God/ the
grace of God/ the grace of God: gracious John/ not graceles John/ but
gracious John. John/ holy John/ holy John/ not John ful of holes/ but holy
John'. 23 Nor should we ignore those extraordinary linguistic devices, not
irrelevant to the argument of this paper, which would once have been called
'patter', but which we now know as 'rap': noises made with the mouth (in
the words of an early version of Hamlet 'blabbering with his lips') 24 , not
coherent speech but meaningful noises belonging to the streets, the pub and
the popular stage, rather than to constructive discourse, religious or
otherwise:
Ha ha ha
Sohow Brother Bridges
Ha/ha/ D. Copcot are ye there
Wohohow brother London
Py hy hy. hy. I cannot but laugh/ py hy hy hy. I cannot but laugh.25
Readers will also know that among various defensive reactions to Martin's
attack, other pens were hired to write anti-Martinist pamphlets in the same
style. According to Richard Bancroft's CV this was his stratagem. Besides
masterminding the detective operation which uncovered the Martinist press
and books and briefing counsel when the culprits were brought into Star
Chamber, it was by Bancroft's 'advice that course was taken, which did
principally stop Martin and his Fellows' mouths, viz. to have them
answered after their own vein in writing'. 26
It is one of the paradoxes of this story that while (as I shall argue) Martin
22
23
24
25
26
Oh Read Ouer D. John Bridges, for it is a Worthy Worke: or an Epitome (1588), fo. 1.
Oh Read Ouer D. John Bridges, for it is a Worthy Worke: or an Epitome . . . Epistle (1588,
preceding the Epitome and known as the Epistle), p . 47.
Hattaway, Elizabethan Popular Theatre, p. 90.
T h e Epistle, p p . 10, 3 , 36; Hay Any Worke for Cooper (1589), Sig. A3r.
Tracts Ascribed to Richard Bancroft, p. xviii.
157
Marprelate gave a new lease of life to the public issue of puritanism and even
led to the perfection of the polemical puritan character, Martin himself
displayed few of the stereotypical puritan characteristics and explicitly
dissociated himself from the puritans, who he said would be angry with him,
which many of them were.27 Nevertheless, the Marprelate episode has
always been seen as a particular climactic moment in the progress, or rather
degenerative regress of the Elizabethan Puritan Movement. Direct political
confrontation in Parliament and elsewhere had proved impotent to secure
the 'further reformation' to which the puritans aspired, indeed counterproductive.28 Even argument was silenced as more legitimate publications
were suppressed. The very press on which the livelihood of Martin's
original printer, Robert Waldegrave, depended was sawn in half.29 So the
Marprelate Tracts were a weapon of last resort. As C. S. Lewis once put it,
this weapon was, in effect, poison gas which, as in twentieth-century
chemical warfare, invites a similar response, or simply blows back in the
faces of those who use it.30 So it was with Martin and Anti-Martin.
It is the sad fate of anonymous and pseudonymous texts to be neglected as
texts while most critical attention is paid to the academic parlour game of
hunt the disguised author. In the case of Martin, a total of twenty-two real
identities have been proposed. It may be that this fascinating but in itself
rather sterile exercise came to a satisfactory conclusion in 1981 with the
publication of Leland Carlson's Martin Marprelate^ Gentleman which
argued, not for the first time, for the authorship of that radical Warwickshire Parliament man, Job Throkmorton. 31 But Carlson spoiled an otherwise excellent case with the overkill of dubious logic and a distinctly
amateurish approach to the technicalities of style and vocabulary, so, given
27
28
29
30
31
'The Puritans are angrie with m e / 1 meane the puritane preachers. And why? Because I am
to open . . . I did thinke that Martin shoulde not have been blamed of the puritans/ for telling
the trueth openly' {An Epitome, Preface). In Hay Any Worke Martin wrote (Sig. A2v,
p. 20), 'He be even with them to', 'I knowe that I am disliked of many which are your
enemies that is of many which you cal puritans.' And in Theses Martinianae (1589) (Sig.
Aii): 'Those whom foolishly men call Puritanes like of the matter I have handled, but the
forme they cannot brooke.'
Collinson, Elizabethan Puritan Movement.
Martin complained of 'this monstrous crueltie' in the Epistle, p. 23.
C. S. Lewis, English Literature in the Sixteenth Century Excluding Drama (Oxford, 1954),
p. 409.
Leland H. Carlson, Martin Marprelate, Gentleman: Master Job Throkmorton Laid Open in
his Colors (San Marino, 1981). Sir John Neale had presented fresh evidence for Throkmorton in Elizabeth I and her Parliaments, 1584-1601, pp. 218-21. Carlson is particularly
concerned to argue that Martin was not the Welsh preacher and separatist John Penry,
traditionally the most plausible identification and most recently argued in D. J. McGinn,
John Penry and the Marprelate Controversy (New Brunswick, NJ, 1966). Carlson makes an
invaluable work of reference for the controversy as a whole. See also William Pierce, An
Historical Introduction to the Marprelate Tracts (London, 1908).
158
Patrick Collinson
the many false trails laid by Martin himself, I doubt whether we have heard
the last of this conundrum.
I should love to spend my time restating the case for identifying Martin
with another radical parliamentarian, the entrepreneur and industrialist
George Carleton, perhaps as one of a consortium including Throkmorton, 32
but I shall resist the temptation, since the real identity of Martin is less
important than the status, derivation and character of the Tracts themselves, as texts. They are, of course, very complicated texts, too complex to
be tackled by a mere historian in a short chapter which is supposed to have a
somewhat general scope. So I shall restrict my comments to the pedigree of
the Tracts, an important matter since the distinctiveness of Marprelate as
introducing to print a relatively free and uninhibited prose style represents
their significance in literary history, and this cannot be simply attributed to
the individual genius of Martin, whoever may have been hidden behind
Martin's mask.
In a recent Oxford D.Phil, thesis, Dr Benger has explored the connections at the level of satirical strategy between the Marprelate Tracts and a
preceding half-century of polemical publication in the protestant and, later,
puritan interest.33 This adds a new and rich dimension to an already
established bibliographical pedigree involving, for example, the Admonition
to the Parliament of 1572 and certain concomitant pamphlets. 34 My interest
is a little different and concerns what Martin may have owed to the oral and
vernacular culture of Elizabethan England, called by C. J. Sisson 'underground literature' 35 and consisting of a repertoire of verbal and compositional skills which, like the Marprelate Tracts themselves, was simultaneously playful, a 'pastime', and vicious.
Literary scholars have always known that Martin Marprelate would
probably never have seen the light of day but for those areas of the
Elizabethan popular theatre which operated, as it were, below the belt.36
Just behind Martin stands, or rather prances, that famous comedian, the
32
33
34
35
36
First proposed by Miss Katherine Longley and briefly stated in m y Elizabethan

Puritan
Movement, pp. 394-6. It is a remarkable circumstance that the Epistle should be 'given at
my Castle between two wales', when Carleton was keeper of the recusant prisoners at
Wisbech Castle, a place surrounded by place-names enjoying the prefix 'waP, after a Roman
wall or bank. Carleton even christened a son 'Castle Carleton'. In The Protestatyon of
Martin Marprelat (1589), Martin wrote (pp. 15-16): 'I may be maried, & that ere it be long.'
In 1589 Carleton married Mrs Elizabeth Crane under whose roof at East Molesey, Surrey,
the first Tracts were printed. For Carleton's career generally, see my account in P. W .
Hasler, The Commons, 1558-1603 (3 vols., London, 1981) I, pp. 552-4.
See J. S. Benger, 'The Authority of Writer and Text in Radical Protestant Literature 1540
to 1593 with Particular Reference to the Marprelate Tracts', unpublished Oxford D.Phil,
thesis (1989).
Puritan Manifestoes, ed. W. H . Frere and C. E. Douglas (London, 1907, repr. 1954).
C. J. Sisson, Lost Plays of Shakespeare's Age (Cambridge, 1936), p. 187.
Hattaway, Elizabethan Popular Theatre.
159
Rabelaisian genius who was Dick Tarleton. 37 'You should ha' seen him',
says the stage-keeper in the Induction to Jonson's Bartholomew Fair,38 and
we take the point, since Tarleton's talent is not adequately conveyed by the
bare texts of what profess to be Tarlton's Jests.39 Joseph Hall wrote of
Tarleton's stage appearance as he 'comes leaping in . . . And laughs and
grins, and frames his Mimick face'40 - a face on which half his laughs
depended since it was compressed, almost noseless, and distinguished by a
squint which may have been his trademark. Either Martin himself or
representations of him on the stage, or both, were Tarletonesque:
Suchfleering,leering, iarring fooles bopeepe;
Such hahaes, teehees, weehees, wild colts play.. .41
Tarleton died on 3 September 1588, a matter of weeks before the printing
of the first of the Marprelate Tracts and the coincidence was not lost on
contemporaries, who identified Martin as a fool or vice filling the vacant
Tarleton-shaped space.42 Without Tarleton, it seems, there would have
been no Martin Marprelate. But then, or so we have been told, 'had there
been no Tarleton there would not have been any gravedigger in
Hamlet9.43
The essential theatricality of Martin and Anti-Martin is an important

consideration to which I shall return in a moment. But first it will be helpful
to note Martin's affinity to the rather different but complementary tradition
of composing mocking and libellous rhymes and libels, a form of Elizabethan culture which on the face of it appears as amateur and grass-rootsish
as Tarleton's world was professional and metropolitan.44 But like the
popular theatre, the mocking and libellous rhyme functioned in both oral
37
38
39
40
42
43
44
W. J. Lawrence, 'On the Underrated Genius of Dick Tarleton', in his Speeding Up

Shakespeare: Studies of the Bygone Theatre and Drama (London, 1937), pp. 17-38.
Hattaway, Elizabethan Popular Theatre, pp. 89-90.
Tarltons Jests (1600) (edns 1613-), Tarltons Newes Out of Purgatorie (1590); reprinted in
Tarlton's Jests and News Out of Purgatory, ed. J. O. Halliwell, Shakespeare Society no. 20
(1844).
41
Lawrence, Speeding up Shakespeare, p. 30.
Works of Lyly, III, p. 418.
Lyly in A Whip for an Ape (April 1589) wrote: 'Now Tarleton's dead the Consort [i.e., the
dramatic company] lackes a vice:/ For knaue and foole thou [Martin] maist beare pricke and
price' (ibid., p. 419). Tarleton's true successor was Will Kemp, to whom the best of the
anti-Martin tracts (almost certainly by Thomas Nashe), An Almond for a Parrat (1590), was
dedicated as 'Vice-gerent generall to the Ghost of Dicke Tarlton'. If Kemp were to refuse it,
'He preferre it to the soule of Dick Tarlton' (Works of Nashe, III, p. 341).
Lawrence, Speeding up Shakespeare, p. 35.
A pioneering study of mocking rhymes and libels, drawing upon Star Chamber materials,
was included in Sisson's Lost Plays of Shakespeare's Age. T h e fullest account is by Ingram,
'Ridings, Rough Music and Mocking Rhymes', pp. 166-97. But see now Adam P. Fox,
'Aspects of Oral Culture and its Development in Early Modern England', unpublished
Cambridge Ph.D. thesis (1993).
160
Patrick Collinson
and written forms45 and depended in some measure on the London stage
which was also a provincial stage. (When Tarleton was billed in Norwich he
caused a riot in which a man was killed.) At the other extremity, libellous
ballads related to shaming rituals which were not only illiterate but nonverbalized: the 'antique show' of the skimmington or rough riding with
which Hudibras would later have a famous encounter.46
The practice of polemical 'ballading' (to which Falstaff refers in
Henry IV Part If1 had a certain cultural consistency. The verses were
composed by small groups, always of men, and often employing some 'dab
hand' more or less skilled at this kind of thing. The setting was often an
alehouse. The ballads were subsequently both memorized and sung48 in
public places and private houses, and they were also written out in copies
which were scattered in paths, highways and church pews, or posted on the
church door, perhaps to lend to a private quarrel the spurious appearance of
community approval. Mocking rhymes suggest a process of interaction with
metropolitan print culture as well as the London theatres, since they were
often modelled on published broadsheet ballads and were sung to popular
tunes. Or they were composed by local sophisticates with some experience
of the London scene.49
In many recorded cases, from Northampton in 1570 to Stratford-uponAvon soon after Shakespeare's death, the concern expressed in these lampoons was partly or wholly religious, and very often this was the hostility
felt for the so-called 'puritans', who frequently included the ostensibly
religious and respectable magistrates and ministers who were tightening the
45
46
47
48
49
In written form large numbers of rhyming libels survive in the records of the Court of Star
Chamber since, as an authority on that court reported in 1630, 'libelles be oftentimes dealt
with in Star-chamber' (Richard Crompton, Star Chamber Cases (1630), pp. 10-11).
Samuel Butler, Hudibras, ed. J. Wilders (Oxford, 1967), Part 2, Canto II, lines 566-848,
pp. 142-50. T h e fullest accounts of 'ridings' (or the English 'charivari') are in Ingram,
'Ridings, Rough Music and Mocking Rhymes'; Martin Ingram, 'Ridings, Rough Music and
the "Reform of Popular Culture" in Early Modern England', Past and Present, 105 (1984),
79-113; D . E. Underdown, 'The Taming of the Scold', in Anthony Fletcher and John
Stevenson (eds.), Order and Disorder in Early Modern England (Cambridge, 1985),
pp. 116-36.
'An I have not ballads made on you all and sung to filthy t u n e s . . . '
One should not necessarily assume bad, raucous singing. In the Nottingham libelling
episode of 1617, the libels were sung in four parts by the town waits and even 'prickt in 4
parts to the vyalls' (Sisson, Lost Plays of Shakespeare's Age, p. 198).
For a sophisticated example, see 'The Quintessence of Wit', contributed by one William
Williams alias Morgan to the Wells libelling of 1607, which plays a new variation on the old
literary trope of the three (or four) Ps: 'Softe who goes ther, whatt p. P and P,/ poxe,
puncke, and purittan? the dyvell yt is,/ and may be soe; for Sir, some tymes we see,/ poxe,
plageth Puncke, for Purittans amyse' (ibid., pp. 183-5). A libel perpetrated in 1631 in the
Leicestershire village of Coal Orton was said to be 'without rhyme or reason', and the
incompetent author was on the lookout for someone capable of knocking it into shape and
ambitious of having it published. Even in its raw state, it was said to be in every young man's
mouth in the town. (Huntington Library, Hastings M S S , Legal Box 5(8)).
161
grip of their 'severe' government on many a provincial town. We are not a

thousand miles away from the plot and the characterizations of Measure for
Measure. So it was that in Stratford people (some people) sang:
Stratford is a Towne that doeth make a great shewe,
but yet it is governed but by a fewe.
0 Jesus Christe of heaven,
1 thinck they are but seaven,
Puritants without doubt.50
In a rash of'ballading' in Colchester in 1575 things got out of hand, no less
than fourteen distinct libels being perpetrated against local notables in a
matter of months, with titles like *A choke peace for a pigg'. 51 (Compare the
anti-Martinist titles, An Almond for a Parratt, Pappe With a Hatchet.) It
was perhaps unusual for so-called puritans to fight back with the same
weapons which, in effect, was the strategy of Martin Marprelate. 52 But a far
from uncommon practice was for radical preachers and their supporters to
spread mocking libels against the sermons of their conformist opponents.
Thus the mad enthusiast William Hacket, soon to be proclaimed the
Messiah on a cart in Cheapside, went to sermons 'of purpose to gibe, mock
and carp at them', repeating parodies of the sermons in alehouses.53
What has all this to do with Martin Marprelate, whose platform was
50
51
52
53
The rhyming libel made against the Northampton preacher Percival Wiburn and its
confutation must be some of the earliest material of this kind to find its way into print. (An
Answer to a Papisticall Bylly Cast in the Streetes of Northampton (1570) (STC 15030, unique
copy in Huntington Library); An Answer at Large to a Most Hereticall ... Byll, in English
Verse, Which was Cast Abrode in the Streetes of Northampton (1570) (STC 15030.5, unique
copy in St John's College, Cambridge, whence repr. Northampton, 1881). The second
version is fuller than the first, the offensive verses the same.) See Collinson, Elizabethan
Puritan Movement, p. 142. Was it mere coincidence that Wiburn was invoked by Martin
Marprelate, immediately before Eusebius Paget (see below): 'Will you not send
M. Wyborne to Northampton / that he may see some fruits of the seed he sowed there 16. or
18. yeares ago' (Epistle, p. 28). The Stratford-upon-Avon libel of some fifty years later is in
the same tradition: 'A Satyre to the Cheife rulers in the Synagogue of Stratford', reprinted
in Sisson, Lost Plays of Shakespeare's Age, pp. 193-6. See also Edgar I. Fripp, Shakespeare:
Man and Artist (2 vols., L o n d o n , 1938).
M . S. Byford, ' T h e Price of Protestantism: Assessing t h e Impact of Religious Change on
Elizabethan Essex: T h e Cases of Heydon a n d Colchester, 1558-1594', unpublished Oxford
D.Phil, thesis (1988), p p . 21149. I a m grateful to D r Byford for allowing me to consult and
cite his thesis.
But in 1607 a group of radical Puritans in Colchester composed twenty stanzas of execrable
verse in defence of some Brownists imprisoned in Colchester Castle a n d against a preacher
of the town. I n the usual manner these were 'said', 'sung' and 'published' in Colchester and
beyond. ( P R O , STAC8/177/5 m.9. I owe this reference to A d a m Fox.) It is likely that this
libel h a d its roots in the late 1590s since the imprisoned Separatists were said to have
denounced John, archbishop of Canterbury, as ' t h e Antechristian Pope of L a m b e t h ' .
Whitgift died in 1604 and both this phrase and the general anti-prelatical rhetorical tone of
the verses are characteristic of the atmosphere of the nineties, which Martin had done m u c h
to create.
Cosin, Conspiracy for Pretended Reformation (1699 edn), pp. 4, 6.
162
Patrick Collinson
national, not local, and who wrote for the most part in prose and for the
printing press? The answer is partly contained in a newly discovered letter
from the bishop of Exeter, John Woolton, to Archbishop Whitgift,54 in
which the bishop reacts to early reports which had reached him in the West
Country of the first of the Marprelate Tracts, 'a slaunderous libell latelie
caste abroade in London intituled Martin Mar Prelate', and says that he
thinks that he may know who Martin is: a preacher and schoolmaster of that
name associated with a certain Paget, whom he had expelled from his
diocese, out of Devon into Chard, a town just over the Somerset border.
Here Martin had organized a school in which he taught 'manie puritantes
sonnes'. 'I have bene informed of written Pamphletes that he hath sent from
hand to hand full of all malicious slaunders.'
The bishop was no doubt mistaken in his identification of Martin,
although who can tell? But note his description of the first of the Tracts
as not so much published as 'cast abroad', which he connects with other
pamphlets, presumably hand-written, sent 'from hand to hand' by the
Martin that he knows. Now that Martin certainly existed, a certain Philip
Martin, although the bishop's allegation that he was an Oxford graduate
cannot be verified. And it is even more certain that his supporter 'Paget'
existed. A few years earlier the curate of Barnstaple had complained:
Tagett with others had procured a minister to be placed in the said
towne, one Phillippe Martin, to the intent and purpose that he should
followe the orders of the seid Pagett.'55 Paget was a well-known preacher
called Eusebius Paget, well connected in Northamptonshire and also in
naval circles but forced to migrate from the Midlands to the borders of
north Devon and Cornwall, where the earl of Huntingdon's brother Sir
Francis Hastings had persuaded Sir Richard Grenville of the 'Revenge'
to present him to the living of Kilkhampton.56 Paget is named more
54
55
56
Westminster Abbey Muniments, Muniment Book 15, fo. 87. (I owe this reference to D r
Anthony Milton.) This is clearly what this puzzling document is, although it is inexplicably
endorsed: 'Advertisements touching the Ecclesiastical! states in the He of Jersey' and
headed 'Touching the Captainship of Jerseye'.
'Farmers supplication against M r Pagett', D r Williams' Library, Morrice M S , 'A Seconde
Parte of a Register I F , fo. 69b. See The Seconde Pane of a Register, ed. Albert Peel
(Cambridge, 1915), I, p. 239. Bishop Woolton refers to 'one Martyn a Batchelor of Arte of
Oxford' but no such Martin occurs in Joseph Foster's (very imperfect) Athenae.
The Letters of Sir Francis Hastings 1574-1609, ed. Claire Cross, Somerset Record Society,
69 (1969), no. 20, pp. 25-7; Carson I. A. Ritchie, 'Sir Richard Grenville and the Puritans',
EHR, 77 (1962), 518-23. See many references to Paget in Collinson, Elizabethan
Puritan
Movement. Paget's naval connections are inferred from the fact that he had preached in
Deptford and had a house in Deptford, and that he on one occasion addressed an appeal to
the Lord Admiral on Sir John Hawkins' recommendation. (Eusebius Paget, A Godly
Sermon: Preached at Detford (scil., in 1572) (1586); Eusebius Paget, The History of the Bible
(1602); BL, Lansdowne MS 68, fos. 196-7.)
163
than once in the Marprelate Tracts and was even suspected of being
Martin.57
A few years before Bishop Woolton wrote to Whitgift, precisely the kind
of activity of which he complained had been exposed in the neighbourhood
of Kilkhampton.58 Paget had recruited a Scottish schoolmaster, later a
celebrated preacher in Edinburgh, one David Black. Black, much like Philip
Martin at Chard, had organized a school for gentlemen's sons which won
the ironical title of 'the Reformed College'. Like Martin, Black took his
scholars around the country to other parishes where they confronted the
conformist clergy and scattered written libels against them. At Holdsworth,
they took notes at a sermon and 'very unchristianly' libelled against the
preacher. When Paget was excluded from the pulpit at Stratton, Black's
scholars retaliated and 'spreade and cast abroad in the hyghwayes from
Kilkhampton to Stratton' 'sundrye fond letters directing the same to
sondrye inhabiters'. It may have been by some such means that the damaging 'surveys of the ministry' were compiled for use as propaganda for a
'further reformation', in Parliament and on other occasions.59 Some of
these, and notably the Cornish survey, were themselves exercises in tight
and economical satire. And were the little squadrons of puritan schoolboys
the 'visitors' whom Martin Marprelate claimed to have at his command?
'To this purpose I will place a yong Martin in everie diocesse which may
take notice of your practizes . . . I will place a Martin in everie parish.' 'I
have a register at Burie/ & by that time my visitors will be come out of
Cornwall/Devon & Hampshire.'60
We are accustomed to thinking of the Marprelate Tracts as 'books',
published products of the printing press appealing to 'readers', and consequently as constituting landmarks in the history of something called
'English Literature'. But these connections with the ritual of defamatory
'ballading' suggest that we should rather see the Tracts as more or less
accidentally serving to fix in imperishable print an otherwise more
ephemeral and localized polemic, part oral, part written down, flourishing
primarily in the word spoken and sung, secondarily in handwritten form,
and only exceptionally printed, for an exceptional reason. A similar observation can be made about the anti-Martinist tracts which proceeded to flyte
57 C
M. Paget shalbe welcome to Devonshire / he is more fit to teach men then boyes. I marvaile
with what face a man that had done so muche good in the Churche as he did among a rude
people could be deprived' (Epistle, p. 28). Paget is included in a list of suspected Martins in
58
59
Hay Any Worke,p.2\.
LPLj M S Carte Miscellanea X I I , nos. 15 and 16 are, respectively, 'Articles exhibited before
the Queenes maiestye highe Commissioners against David Blake Schoolemaster of Kilkehampton in the Countie of Cornwale' and 'The Proceedings against David Blake', a paper
book of sixteen sheets containing the depositions of nine parishioners and Black's responses,
taken in Exeter and forwarded to High Commission.
Seconde Pane of a Register, II, pp. 88-174.
> Epistle, p. 40; Hay Any Worke, p. 47.
164
Patrick Collinson
with Martin in his own language. Although composed by writers whom we

know as established and canonical Elizabethan 'authors', these confections
appear to draw upon an already established underground repertory of
anti-puritan stereotypical satire which had not hitherto found expression in
print but which we may almost assume to have been available to those who
'railed' on puritans in small-town pressure cookers and sometimes libelled
them in amateurish rhyming ballads. (But not necessarily employing the p
word, puritan. Dr Mark Byford, who has studied the Colchester mocking
rhymes of 1575 in context, has hardly ever come across 'puritans' by name
and makes no use of the term in his thesis.) 61
Just as the comedian Tarleton was plagiarized in amateur ballads composed in places as far apart as Essex and Wiltshire, 62 so the printed texts of
both Martin and Anti-Martin will have been exchanged back into the
currency of the streets, alehouses and barbers shops, where they were most
at home. Towards Christmas 1588 the bishop of Peterborough complained
that a deprived minister in his diocese, Robert Cawdrey (a notorious barrack
room lawyer), on returning from London (which is significant) had gathered
'companies' in his house where were 'read at the least, if not all soe spred
abroade' the 'most sclaunderous libells of Martin Marprelett'. 63 Consequently, or so I would guess, frequenters of puritan conventicles were
soon denouncing Archbishop Whitgift as 'the pope of Lambeth' and Bishop
Aylmer as 'Don John of London'. 64 This was the language of Martin
Marprelate and it left its own mark on the nasty 1590s. By something of the
same token, the anti-Martinist backlash served to imprint on the public
consciousness, and at a more than ephemeral level, the hostile stereotype of
the puritan, with consequences which take us as far as the Civil War and
beyond, to Samuel Butler's Hudibras (1658-62). It has been observed that
the metre of a rhyming, anti-puritan ballad promulgated in Nottingham in
1617 was 'precisely the metre of Hudibras'.65 It is unlikely to have been a
metre invented in Nottingham. So who was plagiarizing whom, and when?
Such was the ultimate religious and cultural legacy of the 1590s.
Martin, it seems to me, had two consequences. As the polemical climax of
the Elizabethan Puritan Movement as a pamphleteering campaign, he
provoked a heavy artillery barrage of more or less serious, even learned
refutation: Hooker, but also the two nasty Bancroft books. But it is a
remarkable fact that the people we know as puritans were only called
puritans once, in the entirety of Bancroft's venomous publications. (Other61
62
63
64
65
Byford, Trice of Protestantism', p. 5.

Ingram, 'Ridings, Rough Music and Mocking R h y m e s ' , p p . 179-80.
Bishop Howland of Peterborough to L o r d Burghley, 19 Dec. 1588, B L , Lansdowne M S 57,
art. 77, fo. 172.
Collinson, Elizabethan Puritan Movement.
Sisson, Lost Plays of Shakespeare's Age, p. 200.
165
wise the future archbishop calls them 'our English Genevators', 'the seekers
of the pretended Discipline', 'the pretended reformers', 'our pretended
English reformers', 'our Disciplinarian men'.) 66 The word 'puritan' and
what it would resonate, for the seventeenth century and for much of the
remainder of English history, owed everything to a rather different reaction
to Martin Marprelate, less respectable although equally indebted
(apparently) to Richard Bancroft. This was the phenomenon of literary and
even more dramatic anti-Martinism.
This returns us to the theatricality of Martin Marprelate, of what preceded him and followed him, on the popular stage. It is a layered onion of
theatricality. Not only is Martin a character from and for the popular
theatre, Tarleton's successor.67 He makes the church which he attacks a
theatre, the bishops richly comedic figures in the tradition of the old
moralities, now writ large. And he was immediately answered, not in print,
but from the popular stage. The evidence is thin but sufficiently transparent. Anticipating the earliest anti-Martinist printed pamphlets by Nashe
and Lyly (appearing in the summer of 1589) Martin, dressed up as an ape (a
'martin' is a monkey), was lampooned on the common stage, lanced and
wormed in the vivid expression of the pamphleteer (apparently not Nashe)
who called himself Pasquill of England. These attacks would almost certainly have taken the form of the 'jigs' which Tarleton had either invented
or introduced to the London stage, and which were either tacked on to more
respectable plays or devised as a piece of extra entertainment for a rather
different and less sophisticated audience. 68
Such jigs had a close affinity to the practice of libelling in the country,
66
67
68
Daungerous Positions speaks on p. 3, uniquely, of 'the Consistorian Puritanes'. For the other
terms quoted here, see A Survay, pp. 60, 103, 127, 242, 394. As examples of Bancroft's
vitriol one may quote the following, from A Survay: 'their bastardly Discipline, that
secretlie and seditiouslie eight or nine yeares since, they have agreed uppon (after their
fashion like dogges and cats) in manie of their assemblies' (p. 345); 'their disciplinary Babel.
It is nothing els b u t . . . a meere fantasticall dreame' (p. 400); 'these caterbraules and pittiful
distractions' (p. 414); 'But doe I call it a schisme? T h e worde is too milde' (p. 434).
'Marforius' in The Returne of the Renowned Caualiero Pasquil of England claims to have a
'worke' in hand entitled The Maygame of Martinisme 'verie defflie set out' with various
theatrical 'trickes, and deuises', with Martin himself cast as a transvestite Maid Marian
wearing the cast-off kerchief of Mrs Margaret Lawson, the puritan termagant whom the
Tracts had made famous (Works of Nashe, I, pp. 82-3). However, Lyly's A Whip for an Ape,
while it may appear to give an account of the same stage show ('Then in he leapes with a wild
Morrice daunce;/ N o w strike he vp Dame Lawsens lustie lay') seems to me to be giving an
account of the Marprelate Tracts themselves in the terms of a theatrical metaphor (Works of
Lyly, III, pp. 418-19). Admittedly 'Marforius' in Martins Months Minde says that Martin
took it 'verie grievouslie to be made a Maygame upon the Stage' (Complete Works of Nashe,
III, p. 175).
Works of Nashe, I, p. 59. For the jig, see Sisson, Lost Plays of Shakespeare's Age, pp. 125-56
(and for the May Game, pp. 157-85) and Hattaway, Elizabethan Popular Theatre, pp. 66-9.
'It is even conceivable, therefore, that at the conclusion of King Lear the King's M e n
performed a jig.'
166
Patrick Collinson
since sometimes the ballads or mocking rhymes which constituted the libels
were turned into musical playlets which travelling companies of actors
could be persuaded to perform before their provincial audiences. 69 There is
just enough evidence to make it probable that these anti-Martinist
'operettas' (as Sisson called jigs), which were suppressed for a time but then
perhaps revived, had as their impresario John Lyly, and that behind Lyly
stood the bishops, which is to say Bancroft.70 Gabriel Harvey knew that
these 'comedies' were an instrument of power. 'Such is the publique
reputation of their Playes. He must needes be discouraged whom they
decipher. Better anger an hundred then two such .. .' 71
There is (I think) no evidence that puritans were lanced and wormed on
the stage before Martin. To be sure, the nineteenth century knew what
purported to be 'Tarlton's Jigge of a horse load of Fooles', in which among
other types of folly the puritan was duly lambasted in the person of the
anti-theatrical writer Stephen Gosson. 72 This might suggest that the Stage
Puritan dated from the late seventies, when the acting profession may have
fought back against the onslaught of the pulpit. But Tarleton's Jig purported to be a mid-seventeenth-century transcription in the possession of none
other than John Payne Collier and it is most unlikely to be authentic. 73
It was the Martinist affair which made the Stage Puritan a perennial stock
character, so that when Maria says of Malvolio in Twelfth Night (1601)
'sometimes he is a kind of Puritan' and 'the Devil a Puritan that he is!', 74
Shakespeare can assume that this complex and problematical character can
be apprehended by his audience in relation to a by now familiar stereotype,
69
70
71
72
73
74
Sisson, Lost Plays of Shakespeare's Age, pp. 129-56, where the Yorkshire playlet 'Michael
and Frances* and the Shropshire piece 'ffooles fortune/ to the tune of A:B:C:' are discussed.
Addressing himself to Lyly, Gabriel Harvey wrote: 'He hath not played the Vicemaster of
Powles, and the Fool master of the Theater for naughtes: himselfe a mad lad, as even
twanged, never troubled with any substance of witt, or circumstance of honestie, sometime
the fiddle-sticke of Oxford, now the very bable of London ...' (Pierces Supererogation Or A
New Prayse of the Old Asse (1593), pp. 133-4). It is also possible that the 'operettas' starred
Will Kemp. See Pierce's comment on a mention of Kemp in Martin Iuniors Epilogue (The
Marprelate Tracts, p. 333 n.2).
Pierces Supererogation, p. 134.
'This foole he is a Puritane,/ Goose son we call him right' (Tarlton's Jests, pp. xx-xxvi).
Halliwell reported: 'Mr. Collier possesses the very curious M S in which this unique and
precious document was copied about the middle of the seventeenth century; and to his
liberality the members of the Shakespeare Society are indebted for its publication.'
T h e jury is still out on the extent of Collier's fabrications, with attention concentrated on
the so-called Perkins Folio (Huntington Library) and the Hall Commonplace Book (Folger
Shakespeare Library, M S V.a.339). O n the one hand, see Giles E. Dawson, 'John Payne
Collier's Great Forgery', Studies in Bibliography: Papers of the Bibliographical Society of the
University of Virginia, 24 (1971), 1-26; on the other, D e w e y Ganzel, Fortune and Men's
Eyes: The Career of John Payne Collier (Oxford, 1982). (I have been helped in this matter by
Dr Alex Walsham.) Tarleton's Jig smells very suspiciously to my nose, especially the
reference to 'Goose son'.
Twelfth Night, Act II, Sc. iii.
167
one which will come to a climax with Ben Jonson's Alchemist and Bartholomew Fair and will remain remarkably consistent at least until the time of
Hudibras, in the 1650s. In that decade an audience in the little town of
Whitney in Oxfordshire, three or four hundred packed into an inn, was still
laughing at the Tarletonian Clown in an amateur production of the evergreen play Mucedorus.75 The Clown, called Mouse, scared by a bear,
abandons the bale of hay he has been carrying and says that he'll make his
father's horse turn puritan and observe a fast. That mild little anti-puritan
joke, typical of about 1590 when Mucedorus began its long, Mousetrap-like
run, was sufficiently potent to provoke not only a local preacher but the
wrath of God, who retaliated with a sad accident which killed six people. 76
The Stage Puritan is ostensibly pious but in truth hypocritical, to the
extent that 'puritan' came to be synonymous with hypocrisy. Under a cloak
of specious religiosity, the puritan is three things: covetous, seditious and
randy. For randiness, we may refer to the play attributed to Thomas
Middleton, The Family of Love (1607),77 in which Mistress Purge gets up to
no good in night-time conventicles; and for a heady mixture of randiness
and greed, The Puritaine or the Widdow of Wattling-streete (before 1607)
which features a lustful widow and the puritan servant of a puritan knight
who steals his master's gold chain 'most puritanically'. 78 The puritan, in the
perception of the sophisticate, is also as thick as two planks, as in the
university play The Pilgrimage to Parnassus (1597) where the plodding
75
76
77
78
Included in C. F. Tucker Brooke (ed.), The Shakespeare Apocrypha: Being a Collection of

Fourteen Plays Which Have Been Ascribed to Shakespeare (Oxford, 1908). See George
F. Reynolds, 'Mucedorus, Most Popular Elizabethan Play?', in Josephine W. Bennett et al.
(ed.), Studies in the English Renaissance Drama (London, 1961), pp. 248-68. Reynolds
compares Mucedorus to a third-rate movie.
Tragi-Comoedia by John Rowe, ed. A. Freeman (New York, 1973).
Included in The Works of Thomas Middleton, ed. A. H. Bullen, III (London, 1885). Gabriel
Harvey supplies these titles for the original anti-Martinist jigs: The Zelous Love-letter, or
Corinthian Epistle to the Widow, The Holie Oth of the Martinists, that Thinking to Sweare by
his Conscience, Swore by his Concupiscence {Pierces Supererogation, pp. 134-5). An Almond
for a Parr at called Eusebius Paget 'a most heavenly whooremaster' {Works of Nashe, III,
p. 362). See this kind of thing imitated in the Nottingham libels of 1617: 'By night they
Catichise each other/ the holy sister with the brother' (Sisson, Lost Plays of Shakespeare's
Age, pp. 201-2). See also The Times' Whistle: Or A Newe Daunce of Seven Satires . . .
Compiled by R. C. Gent (Richard Corbet?), ed. J. M . Cowper, Early English Text Society,
48 (1871), which denounced the puritan matron 'Mistris Simula', taken in bed with her
husband's apprentice, 'a young, tender, smoothfaced Ganimed'. 'Out, lascivious whore!'
(Satira 2m lines 733-42, p. 26.) In real life, 'godly' ministers were often accused, and in all
probability defamed, of 'whoredom', much as conformists were routinely charged with
drunkenness. For some examples, see John Fielding, 'Conformists, Puritans and the
Church Courts: T h e Diocese of Peterborough 1603-1642', unpublished Birmingham Ph.D.
thesis (1989), pp. 146-202. I am grateful to D r Fielding for allowing me to consult his
thesis.
The Puritan Or The Widow of Watling Street (1607), Tudor Facsimile Texts (n.p., 1911,
repr. N e w York, 1970).
168
Patrick Collinson
puritan is called Stupido and says of the trendy French logician Peter
Ramus: 'And surelie in my minde and simple opinion Mr Peter maketh all
things verie plaine and easie.' Sell all your text books, he says, and buy 'a
good Martin'.79
Two details, acutely observed and then repeated ad nauseam: the puritan
is scandalized by swearing, his strongest oaths being 'yea' or 'verily'. And he
or as often as not she turns up the white of the eye. One of the stage
directions for the puritan wife in Two Wise Men and All the Rest Fooles
(before 1617) demands that she should open her Bible and make show to
read, 'and many times turnes her eye with the white upward'. Mistress
Purge in The Family of Love speaks of her congregation as 'the goodliest
people that ever turned up the white o' th' eye'. A character in Thomas
Dekker's The Wonder of a Kingdom (1623) speaks of a woman#who carries a
feather bed and a man in it 'in her minde, when in the streete she cast up the
white of her eye like a Puritane'. Anti-Martin may well have invented this
figure, derived from where? Pasquil speaks critically of 'the heaving up of
the eyes to heaven'.80
Now Martin Marprelate, picaresque and iconoclastic, a kind of cousin of
Nashe's Unfortunate Traveller, was none of these things (unless he was
seditious). He was neither covetous nor lustful, no hypocrite, never known
to turn up his eyes heavenward. Without characterizing them Martin
distances himself from such people. And yet his very different persona
served to release these stereotypes, or at least to bring them into a more
public, polite and permanent domain from the merely vernacular level
where they had (presumably) existed before. And now the cardboard
cut-out, the stock accusations, were returned with interest, not only to the
relatively unsophisticated world of malicious small-town libels, where they
were imitated, but to the new genre of formal satire, as well as to the stage. It
would be absurd to make Martin and Anti-Martin wholly responsible for
the taste for mordant Juvenalian satire, the new voice of the malcontent nineties. But the famous Nashe-Harvey flyting was, in part, a spin-off from the
Marprelate affair. The reputation of the distinguished if thoroughly ambivalent academic Dr Andrew Perne would probably not have been blighted
for all time tofcome but for Martin, and for Gabriel Harvey whose character
79
80
The Pilgrimage to Parnassus with the Two Parts of the Return from Parnassus. Three Comedies
Performed in St. John's College Cambridge A.D. MDXCVII-MDCI,
ed. W. D . Macray
(Oxford, 1886), Act III, lines 322-73.
Two Wise Men and All the Rest Fools (1619), Tudor Facsimile Texts (n.p., 1913, N e w York,
1970), Act IV, Sc. ii; The Family of Love, Act III, Sc. iii, lines 93-5; Thomas Dekker, The
Wonder of a Kingdome (1636), Act I, Sc. i; Works of Nashe, I. (It goes without saying that
The Family of Love is not really aimed at the sect of that name but at 'mainstream' puritans.)
Many similar references can be pursued through the pages of William P. Holden, AntiPuritan Satire 1572-1642 (New Haven, 1954), a valuable resource if somewhat limited in its
perceptions.
169
assassination was contained in his commentary on the Marprelate business,

Pierces Supererogation.81 Ai:d with the early Juvenalists, Marston, Heywood
and Dekker, shrill complaints against puritans were de rigueur, establishing
an anti-puritan tone in this genre which persisted until Hudibras and
beyond. 'Thou rank Puritan', wrote John Marston in The Scourge of
Villanie (1599), T l make an Ape as good a Christian. / I'l force him to
chatter, turning up his eye / Looke sad, goe grave .. ,' 82
Dekker in his Iests to Make You Merie (1607) has a couple of actors
comparing their respective talents. 'Marry', says one, CI have so naturally
played the Puritaine that many tooke me to be one.' 83 How would an
audience know a puritan, and how to distinguish between a real one and a
counterfeit one? Maria, Sir Toby and Sir Andrew had the same problem, on
stage. When the allegedly devil-possessed Mrs Drake of Esher in Surrey
was visited in his professional capacity by that grave divine and physician of
the soul John Dod she fell about laughing because he was the perfect double
of the Ananias whom she had seen at the theatre in Blackfriars. 84 Gabriel
Harvey said that anti-puritan literature was 'as true peradventure as
Lucians true narrations; or the heroicall historye of Rabelais'. 85 My argument has been either that audiences and readers learned what a puritan was
from the torrent of fictions released by Martin Marprelate; or that these
fictions helped them to identify, label and hate the puritan who had been all
the time in their midst. Dr Lake would prefer the second of these formulations. We are in what he calls 'the half-lit distorted world of individual and
collective consciousness and identity formation'. But in that crepuscular
world paradigms used to structure and manipulate reality, such as puritanism, soon became part of the reality they structured and used.
But either way anti-puritan paradigms had only a tenuous connection
with the late-Elizabethan church, the ostensible subject of this chapter. (So
you may demand your money back.) Hooker's great book was almost
81
82
83
84
85
Patrick Collinson, 'Andrew P e m e and his T i m e s ' , in Andrew Perne: Quater centenary
Studies, Cambridge Bibliographical Society M o n o g r a p h no. 11 (1991), p p . 2 0 - 5 .
John Marston, The Scourge of Villanie, ed. G . B . Harrison, Elizabethan a n d Jacobean
Quartos (Edinburgh, 1966), p . 98. Cf. John Marston, Satires (1598-9), Satire I I , lines
55-75, The Works of John Marston, ed. A. H . Bullen ( L o n d o n , 1887), I I I , p p . 271-2;
Thomas Heywood, Troia Britanica: Or, Great Britaines Troy. A Poem (1609), Canto 4,
Stanzas 49-54; John Dekker, The Seven Deadly Sinnes of London: The Non-Dramatic Works
of Thomas Dekker, ed. A. B. Grosart (London, 1885), I I . ' R . C wrote in Satira I of The
Times* Whistle (lines 21316): 'You hypocriticall precisians,/ By vulgar phrase entituled
Puritanes,/ W h i c h mak of superficiall sanctitie/ A cloke to hide your inbred villanie.' It must
be admitted that the satirists also made it their business to denounce papists, so serving in
their own way to define (a possibly no more than fictional) 'Anglicanism', avant la lettre.
Thomas Dekker, Iests to Make You Merie, Non-Dramatic Works of Dekker, II, p. 282.
Jasper Heartwell, Trodden Down Strength (1647). O n the Drake case, see G. H . Williams in
Harvard Library Bulletin, 16 (1968), 111-28.
Pierces Supererogation, p. 135.
170
Patrick Collinson
iinpublishable because, said the book trade, people are no longer interested
in debates about church polity, what 'puritanism' was really and originally
about.86 But they were fascinated by 'puritans'. Richard Bancroft exposed
the wicked conspiracy of real puritans without ever, almost, calling them
puritans. And yet it was Bancroft who made the connection between Martinist fiction and ecclesiastical fact, writing Daungerous Positions and lawyers'
briefs with one hand while he paid John Lyly with the other.
One might have expected the sequel to the nasty nineties, the decade
when Bancroft was archbishop (1604-10), to witness the final showdown
between that partly fictional confection puritanism and the established
church. Why no such showdown happened under Bancroft and why it was
precipitated by his next successor but one, William Laud, when, thoroughly
to mix our metaphors, the ecclesiastical vitriol bottled in the 1590s finally
came home to roost: these are questions which lie beyond that decade and
the scope of this inquiry.
86
C. J. Sisson, The Judicious Marriage of Mr. Hooker and the Birth of the Laws of Ecclesiastical
Polity (Cambridge, 1940).
Ecclesiastical vitriol: the kirk, the puritans and

the future king of England
Jenny Wormald
Elizabeth's last great effort at self-glorification was to hang on to life

relentlessly and infuriatingly until 1603. But in the latter part of her reign
she might have died at any moment, and her worried subjects, as well as the
cheerfully expectant Scots north of the border, did not have our advantage
of hindsight. To the English in the confusing and often demoralizing decade
of the 1590s was therefore added one miserable certainty: the moment of her
death would usher in radical change. Whoever her successor was, he (or just
possibly she) was likely to be a foreigner. The best to be hoped for was
James VI, king of Scotland, experienced politician and notable amateur
theologian, head, in his own view, and mere member according to prominent Scottish divines, of a kirk whose purity and godliness - at least in its
own confident eyes - left that of England far behind. So a critical aspect of
the last decade of Elizabeth's rule was that Scotland was more relevant than
ever before to English perceptions and anticipations. English politics,
English patronage, the English economy, would all be deeply affected by
King James VI and I. But even before 1603, the state of the Scottish church
was a matter of considerable concern. Thus the kirk forms a fitting postscript to Professor Collinson's chapter.1 That brings out compellingly the
nastiness of the 1590s. When one adds in the dimension of anticipation and fear - of the future, then one comes up against not just nastiness, but a
fundamental clash of interests and ideologies which were to create the
misunderstandings and tensions of the early years of the Jacobean English
church. It was the very different nature and aspirations of the Scottish kirk
which evoked fearful English interest; and it brings us into the presence of
the 'real' puritans of early modern Britain, and of the king who shared none
1
P. Collinson, Ecclesiastical Vitriol: Religious Satire in the 1590s and the Invention of
Puritanism*, chap. 7 above. My knowledge of English puritanism of course is drawn from
Professor Collinson's works: The Elizabethan Puritan Movement (London, 1967), Archbishop
Grindal, 1519-1583: The Struggle for a Reformed Church (London, 1979), Godly People
(London, 1983), and The Birthpangs of Protestant England: Religious and Cultural Change in
the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries (London, 1988). Also P. Lake, Moderate Puritans and
the Elizabethan Church (Cambridge, 1982) and Anglicans and Puritans? Presbyterian and
English Conformist Thought from Whitgift to Hooker (London, 1988).
171
172
Jenny Wormald
of the doubts of modern historians about how to define them and whether
'puritanism' had a content.
What the kirk has to offer is plenty of nastiness, but none of the hilarity
which in England leavened that nastiness. I was all too forcibly reminded by
Professor Collinson's chapter that those of us in Scotland who have
lamented the fact that John Knox failed to live out his reforming life in
England deserve a lot of sympathy.2 The kirk in Scotland was certainly
harsher and in many ways more determined and single-minded than the
Anglican church. By the 1580s, it had emerged as a strange beast, with a
compromise polity which contained both the Calvinist hierarchy of church
courts, from the kirk session at parish level to the General Assembly at the
top, and also bishops, with less power than their English counterparts but a
diocesan responsibility carried out under the auspices of the General
Assembly. By the 1590s, there were no bishops; helped on by a crashing
mistake by James VI in 1587, when chronic shortage of money prompted
him to annex for the crown the temporalities of the Scottish benefices, the
extreme presbyterians in the kirk, led by Andrew Melville, had succeeded
by 1592 in establishing presbyteries by law, and de facto eradicating the
whole episcopal order. One of James VFs most strenuously pursued policies
of the later 1590s was the restoration of bishops. By 1600 he had intruded
three parliamentary bishops into the kirk, and by 1610 was well on the way
to the restoration of diocesan episcopacy.3
2
The point was recognized at the time, by a polemicist who produced a scathing satire on the
Reformed kirk (written from a Catholic standpoint), *Ane Admonition to the Antichristian
Ministers in the Deformit Kirk of Scotland', attacking by name the prominent ministers of
the kirk:
For sen the time that fals Apostat preist
Ennemie to Christ and mannis salvation
Your maister Knox, that vicked, venemous beist
Vas chaissit from the Inglish nation
And come to you to preiche abhomination
In Scotland, sumtyme Realme of renoun
Extreme hes bene that desolation
Ye have sustenit in citie, tour, and toun.
Satirical Poems at the Time of the Reformation, ed. J. Cranston (2 vols., Scottish Text Society,
Edinburgh, 1889-93), I, p. 334, II, pp. 17-24.
There is a wealth of writing on the late-sixteenth-century reformed kirk. See in particular
G. Donaldson, The Scottish Reformation (Cambridge, 1960) and Scottish Church History
(Edinburgh, 1985); I. B. Cowan, The Scottish Reformation (London, 1982); J. Kirk, Patterns
of Reform (Edinburgh, 1989) and (ed.) The Second Book of Discipline (Edinburgh, 1980);
M. Lee, Jr, John Maitland of Thirlestane and the Foundation of the Stewart Despotism in
Scotland (Princeton, NJ, 1959), Great Britain's Solomon: James VI and I in his Three
Kingdoms (Urbana, 111., 1990) and 'James v i and the Revival of Episcopacy in Scotland,
1596-1600', Church History, 43 (1974), 50-64; D. Shaw, The General Assemblies of the
Church of Scotland, 1560-1600 (Edinburgh, 1964); W. R. Foster, The Church before the
Covenants: The Church of Scotland, 1596-1638 (Edinburgh, 1975); D. G. Mullan, Episcopacy
in Scotland: The History of an Idea, 1560-1638 (Edinburgh, 1986). There are also two very
The kirk, the puritans and the future king
173
But his bishops were never seen, nor did they regard themselves, as
bishops on the English model. They were drawn from among the moderates
in the General Assembly; they remained answerable to the Assembly, and
they worked in careful conjunction with the local courts, synod and presbytery. Perhaps the incident which best reveals what the Scottish bishop was
like, and how he saw his role, was King James' funeral in 1625, when the
archbishop of St Andrews, John Spottiswoode, refused pointblank to walk
in the funeral procession of the king he loved if it meant wearing English
episcopal dress rather than the simple black gown of the Scottish bishop. In
The Elizabethan Puritan Movement (p. 130) Patrick Collinson has recounted
the unpleasant story of the puritan Giles Wigginton refusing to take the
hand of Godfrey Goldsborough 'as if he had been a serpent'. The unfortunate Adam Bellenden, bishop of Dunblane, had the same experience when
he met his former fellow-student John Row in an Edinburgh street; when
Bellenden offered his hand it was rejected, and Row, 'folding his airms and
putting his hands under his airme holls', launched into a diatribe on his
iniquity with a peroration invoking God's curse on the bishop. But John
Row was a minister of the kirk, and the bishop was a man in plain black,
playing down any visible symbols of hierarchical power. Would many of
those in England labelled puritan have so reacted to a Scottish-style bishop?
Scottish nastiness was peculiarly vitriolic. And reading the same John
Row's enthusiastic and godly response to the death of Spottiswoode's
predecessor at St Andrews, George Gledstanes - 'he lived a filthie belliegod; he died of a filthie and loathsome disease .. .That he was a vyld filthie
bellie-god beast is notoure to all . . . Let that perjured apostat's filthie
memorie stink, rot, perish' - is a graphic reminder that Scottish ecclesiastical invective was of the purely bludgeoning variety, singularly lacking in
style or wit.4 It terrified Archbishop Whitgift; even more, it terrified
Richard Bancroft.
But for English clerics, such terror was a form of macabre indulgence. For
King James, English episcopacy might offer something preferable to Scottish presbyterianism, but English bishops were singularly lacking in style
and wit also. His view was first conditioned by events in the 1580s. The
rising threat of presbyterianism in Scotland had sent Patrick Adamson,
important recent articles: M. Lynch, 'Preaching to the Converted? Perspectives on the

Scottish Reformation', in A. A. MacDonald, M. Lynch and I. B. Cowan (eds.), The Renaissance in Scotland: Studies in Literature, Religion, History and Culture offered to John Durkan
(Brill, 1994), and R. A. Mason, 'A King by Right Divine?: George Buchanan, James VI and
the Presbyterians', in Mason (ed.)s Scots and Britons (Cambridge, 1994).
Collinson, Puritan Movement, p. 130; John Row, The History of the Kirk of Scotland
(Wodrow Society, Edinburgh, 1842), pp. 326-7 (Bellenden) and p. 303 (Gledstanes);
Jenny Wormald, 'No Bishop, No King: The Scottish Jacobean Episcopate, 1600-1625',
Bibliotheque de la Revue d'Histoire Ecclesiastique: Miscellanea Historiae Ecclesiasticae, 8
(1987), 259-67.
174
Jenny Wormald
archbishop of St Andrews, down to England in November 1583, seeking a

meeting with Archbishop Whitgift. He cut a poor figure. He and his retinue
arrived on unimpressive and shambling horses which he gave away, leaving
him without return transport so that he was forced to beg a horse from
Whitgift; and he had to borrow money from John Aylmer, bishop of
London, which he did not repay. But more to the point, he got little in the
way of ecclesiastical solidarity from Whitgift; he appears to have upset
Elizabeth by being too enthusiastic about James; and he managed to give
the impression of Roman tendencies. 5 It was a sterile business, and an
unfortunate prelude to the huge row which broke out when the thunderbolt
burst on the struggling Scottish king in the astonishing series of attacks on
his mighty ecclesiastical opponents launched by the English divine Richard
Bancroft, future bishop of London, and, under James VI and I, archbishop
of Canterbury.
The first was the notorious Paul's Cross sermon in February 1589;
preaching on the text I John, iv, 1: 'Beloved, believe not every spirit, but try
the spirits whether they are of God: because many false prophets are gone
out into the world', Bancroft set out a sturdy defence of episcopacy and a
comprehensive attack on those proud, ambitious, self-loving and covetous
puritans, descendants of the heretics and schismatics of the early church,
who challenged and threatened it. The impassioned and vitriolic nature of
the sermon is itself evidence of the extraordinary fear which assailed the
minds of the queen and the leading churchmen; one might almost suggest
that diatribes such as this had far more to do with the creation of a puritan
problem in England than the English puritans themselves. But Bancroft
went further. Apart from a passing snarl at John Knox - who, seventeen
years after his death, still seems to have haunted his nightmares - he
launched into a savage attack on the Scottish presbyterians who were not
only corrupting the English, but were a profound threat to the security of
the body politic; and he blew the gaff on James by announcing the king's
intention to strengthen episcopacy in Scotland. Paradoxically, Bancroft
devoted only nine pages of his 106 page text to the Melvillians, by far the
greater threat to a moderate episcopal church than any but a handful of their
English counterparts. But nine pages were enough to create an international
incident, and lay the foundations for problems which lay fourteen years
ahead.6
Bancroft was entirely right to see the Scottish presbyterians as a direct
5
6
This episode is discussed in detail by Donaldson, 'The Attitude of Whitgift and Bancroft to
the Scottish Church', in Scottish Church History, pp. 164-77.
R. Bancroft, A Sermon Preached at Paule's Cross the 9 of Februarie . . . Anno 1588 [recte 1589]
(London, 1589); the reference to Knox is on pp. 55-6, and the attack on the Scottish puritans
on pp. 72-80. The Scottish section is printed in Miscellany of the Wodrow Society, I
(Wodrow Society, Edinburgh, 1844), pp. 483-9.
175
threat to the kind of church controlled by monarch and hierarchy, which he

naturally found acceptable. But it went beyond the specific question of
presbyterianism. From its inception in 1559-60, the Scottish church had
developed an extremely radical stance in its attitude to any kind of state
control, a position which it could of course all too easily take because of the
vacuum which passed for the monarchy; Mary, Queen of Scots was not even
in Scotland in 1560, and when she did return, her religious disposition can
best be described as a woolly haze. Her son was therefore in a position
unique to European monarchs; at the time when Bancroft produced his
disastrously inflammatory sermon, he was desperately trying to make up for
almost thirty years when the radicals in the kirk had had their head. The
most notorious expression of that dominant voice came in 1596, in Andrew
Melville's famous outburst when he grasped the king's sleeve, calling him
'God's sillie vassall', and told him that 'there are two kings and two
kingdomes in Scotland: there is Christ Jesus, and his kingdome the kirk,
whose subject King James the Sixt is, and of whose kingdome not a king,
nor a head, nor a lord, but a member'. In fact, it was a voice shrill with the
beginnings of despair. By that time, the balance of power between king and
kirk extremists was visibly beginning to alter; David Black, for example,
that trouble-maker of Professor Collinson's chapter, was being so successfully hounded by the king that the godly 'brethren' were driven to supplicate Queen Anne - having publicly criticized her from the pulpit - in a
frantic effort to force the king to take a more conciliatory stance. 7
But this was a changing world; the position had been very different in
1589-90. And if it was different for King James, seeking to establish his
authority over the church in Scotland, it clearly drove Bancroft into an
excess of panic. There is no doubt of the intensity of his fears of a church
where, as Robert Browne had said, there was 'instead of one pope a
thousand, and instead of some lord bishops in name a thousand lordly
tyrants in deed'. 8 And Bancroft did not stop with his sermon. His preparations for Christmas 1589 included a letter of 23 December to Robert
Naunton, diplomat in Edinburgh, saying, in effect, we have never met, but I
need to know about the miserable state of the church in Scotland, 'least we
should fall into the same desolation', and here is a list of questions I want
answered. This was a man in the grip of an obsession. And Bancroft's
twenty-three questions show the same thing; they hammer away on the issue
of control. Who has authority? The king? Individual presbyteries? Does the
7
David Calderwood, The True History of the Church of Scotland (8 vols., Wodrow Society,
Edinburgh, 1842-9), V, p. 440 (Melville's speech) and pp. 453-535 (on Black and, generally,
the mounting crisis between king and Melvillians, leading to the Edinburgh riot and king's
successful threat to move his capital from Edinburgh; the appeal to Anne is on p. 491).
Cited in Bancroft's sermon: Wodrow Miscellany, I, p. 485.
176
Jenny Wor maid
king even have the right of veto? Is there any distinction between civil and
ecclesiastical matters? What place do the ministers have in Parliament? And,
horrific thought, do the presbyterians approve of that noted exponent of the
theory of contractual kingship, George Buchanan? In another context, Bancroft was to speak of the writings of John Knox and George Buchanan as 'the
trumpets of rebellion'; their theories, with those of the Huguenot writers,
were naturally peculiarly obnoxious to Bancroft and Whitgift. 'We are
pressed with examples of other churches', Bancroft said to Naunton.9 That
'other church' under attack naturally took a very different view of the issue.
The Melvillian guns opened fire on 29 April 1589, when the Edinburgh
presbytery declared that Robert Pont, Robert Bruce and John Davidson
should write an answer to Bancroft's 'sclanderous Sermon', something they
had drafted by 10 June to be presented to the next General Assembly. On 9
December the presbytery went further, directing another group of ministers
to draw up a supplication to Elizabeth; and the self-styled 'Ministrie of
God's word in Scotland, presentlie assembled in Edinburgh' duly composed
not so much a supplication but an all too typical harangue. The English
queen was instructed in a number of points, beginning with the demand that
she silence Bancroft, and ending with the advice that she should 'after the
example of goode Josaphat [Jehoshaphat]... proclaime a publict fast universallie outthrough your realme, with preaching and supplicationes', as a
prelude to the reform of the abuses in the English church which she and her
councillors must undertake.10 It is a revealing comment on the Melvillians,
however, that they had the sense not to send the letter, surprising though it
may be to find Bancroft's loathed opponents of royal authority being, as far
as foreign royalty was concerned, a good deal more circumspect than Bancroft himself. It was left to the king to protest, to little effect other than angry
representations belatedly made by Burghley to Bancroft,11 and these did
nothing to mar the upward progress in the church of this provocative divine.
But Bancroft was right about their dealings with royalty at home; and
Elizabeth's brother in Scotland was in no position to ignore the presbyterian
reaction. One member of the Edinburgh presbytery, John Davidson, produced a book entitled Bancroft's Rashness in Ray ling against the Church of
Scotland, which James disliked but could not suppress.12 At the General
9
10
11
12
J. Bain et al. (eds.), Calendar of State Papers, Scotland (13 vols., Edinburgh, 1898-1969), X,
pp. 225-7; Calderwood, History, V, pp. 77-81.
Wodrow Miscellany, I, pp. 470, 489-96; for another version of the letter, Calderwood,
History, V, pp. 73-7.
CSPS, X, pp. 420,428, 432, 448. O. Chadwick, 'Richard Bancroft's Submission', Journal of
Ecclesiastical History, 3 (1952), 58-73, which prints the text of the submission.
Wodrow Miscellany, I, pp. 503-20; pp. 497-502 prints the section about Scotland in John
P e n r y ' s A Briefe Discovery
of the Untruthes
and Slanders
Contained
in a Sermon
...by
D. Bancroft (London, 1590). Calderwood, History, V, p. 112, where he slips in an unfavourable contrast between James' dislike of Davidson's work and his favour to the Jesuits.
177
Assembly of August 1590, the king had to tolerate a sermon by Andrew

Melville's nephew James, which asked
Are we the true kirk? . . . have we the authoritie and power of Christ's sceptre? . . .
have we that sharpe two-edged sword? or is it sharpe onlie against the poore and
meaner sort, and not potent in God for overthrowing of holds, for working vengeance upon whole natiouns, chastising of people, binding of kings in chains, and the
most honourable princes in fetters of yron?
And Melville launched into an attack on the unfortunate Adamson, and his
Kings Maiesties Declaration . . . concerning the Late Acts of Parliament - the
'Black Acts' of 1584 which restored episcopacy and denounced the first
group of presbyteries, set up in 1581; for the Declaration was a major source
for Bancroft. He pronounced the Assembly's sympathy with its zealous and
suffering brethren of England. And he damned 'these Amaziahs, the belliegod bishops in England, [who] by all moyen and money were seeking
conformitie of our kirk with theirs, as did Achaz and Urias with the altar of
Damascus'. 13 Melville and Row suggest that Scottish puritans, for all their
toughness, and for all the extremity of their vision, were somewhat limited
in their vocabulary. In 1589-90, at the moment of Bancroft's first intervention, there was nothing limited about their power.
None of that part of the Assembly's proceedings was in fact particularly
surprising; corruption, sin and damnation were the stuff of the Assemblies
of the 1580s and 1590s. But the king was there, to hear about the true kirk's
power to bind kings in chains - a theme of the Scottish reformers going back
to the summer of 1560, when Knox had preached on Haggai, the prophet of
the shaking of the nations and the overthrowing of kingdoms; and this time
his response was unusual. For
in the end, to please the Assembly, he fell furth in praising God, that he was borne in
suche a tyme as the tyme of the light of the Gospell, to suche a place as to be king in
suche a kirk, the sincerest kirk in the world. 'The kirk of Geneva,' said he, 'keepeth
Pasche and Yuile; what have they for them? they have no institutioun. As for our
neighbour kirk in England, it is an evill said masse in English, wanting nothing but
the liftings. I charge you, my good people . . . to stand to your puritie, and to exhort
the people to do the same; and I, forsuith, as long as I bruike my life and crowne, sail
manteane the same ...' The Assemblie so rejoiced, that there was nothing but loud
praising of God, and praying for the king for quarter of an houre.14
13
14
Calderwood, History, V, pp. 102, 100-1; Melville's own account includes the information
that when he asserted 'without the right and perfyt discipline, na right and perfyt Kirk', the
English ambassador 'sturred' and conferred with him afterwards, 'whom I satisfeit': The
Autobiography and Diary of James Melville (Wodrow Society, Edinburgh, 1842), pp. 280-1.
Patrick Adamson, A Declaration of the Kings Maiesties Intentioun and Meaning toward the
Lait Actis of Parliament (Edinburgh, 1585); Acts of the Parliaments of Scotland, ed.
T. Thomson and C. Innes (12 vols., Edinburgh, 1844-75), III, pp. 292-4, 303 (the 'Black
Acts').
Calderwood, History, V, p. 106.
178
Jenny Wormaid
In the following year, the wretched Archbishop Adamson, discredited,

disgraced and excommunicated, renounced his Declaration and made his
peace with the triumphant Melvillians before he died. And in 1592, the
nadir, from King James' point of view, was reached when 'The Ratification
of the Libertie of the True Kirk' - the so-called Golden Acts - was passed,
once again making presbyteries legal.15 It is a measure of the power of the
late-sixteenth-century Scottish presbyterians that in Scottish historiography two of the most crucial acts concerning the church are remembered
according to the Melvillian view of what was golden - and what was black.
Bancroft had a lot to answer for. His outburst was in fact remarkable, and
in both the circumstances of 1589 and the likely future, almost inexplicable.
For he knew very well that the situation prevailing in Scotland was not what
the king of Scots wanted. He said so quite explicitly in his sermon, citing the
Declaration and the cBlack Acts', because, he claimed, James knew that 'he
must either discharge himselfe of the crowne, or the ministrie of that forme
of government'; and he denied the claim that the king had now changed his
mind: Tor the King, he is not altred: Iscus piscator sapit. His crowne and
their soveraigntie will not agree together.'16 A moment's thought might
have reminded him that James' struggle with the Melvillians could only be
aggravated by a public intervention from a noted English opponent of
English presbyterians. That thought was never given. Indeed, when he was
eventually summoned by Burghley in October 1590, and wrote a defence of
himself, he seems rather to have been perplexed by the king's reaction.
Your L: I trust did never esteeme me as a madde man; and surely I have been litle
better (considering the inviolable league of perfect love and amitye betwixt the
Quenes Maiestie our dread soveraigne Lady and his highnes) if I shold wittingly
have spoke any thing that might have turned to his dishonor.17
But 'madde' is surely the most likely explanation: mad with fear for his own
church, mad with fear about the effect of the powerful Melvillian party,
endlessly telling their oppressed brethren of England about their godly care
and concern. For Bancroft had indeed spoken those things which turned to
James' dishonour; he had publicly preached about a divinely ordained
monarch's inability to rule his kingdom, and about the humiliations
imposed on him by the Scottish godly.
'Madde' certainly seems to fit with what happened three years later. Even
in his defence to Burghley, he reiterated his point, dragging in the shameful
resolutions forced on the king in 1585 by the presbyterians and their public
15
16
Ibid., V, pp. 118-27; Melville, Diary, pp. 288-94. Calderwood's account shows that even
when the archbishop was in this sorry state, Bancroft was still meddling; letters from him to
Adamson, exhorting him to praise the English church above all others, and to make another
visit to England, were intercepted. APS, III, pp. 541-8.
17
Wodrow Miscellany, I, p. 485.
Chadwick, 'Bancroft's Submission', p. 65.
179
criticisms from the pulpit, and plunging into a diatribe about Knox and
Buchanan. This was hardly the way to persuade James, although Bancroft
believed that a king who gave 'such strange examples of his princely
clemencye towards his owne subjects so notoriously offending him' would
surely 'accept my offer of satisfaction'. His denial that his sermon had in any
way 'towched his princely reputation' rang pretty hollow in 1589, and a
good deal more hollow in 1593.18 For off he went again, this time wielding
what, had he been a Scot, could be called a claymore, in two further
diatribes, A Survay of the Pretended Holy Discipline and Daungerous Positions and Proceedings.19 In the second, brevity was wholly lacking in his
attack on the Scottish presbyterians. Book I is a wearisome, blow-by-blow
account of the dire and dreadful doings of these men against their king: the
Ruthven Raid of 1582, subsequent treasonable attacks in 1583, the hostile
sermons of Davidson and other ministers in London, and of James Gibson,
who threatened James with being the last of his race. Once again, Bancroft's
expressed sympathy with the king only served to highlight his weakness.
Thus he recounted James' request to the ministers to subscribe to articles
which asked them to give obedience to him, not to interfere in state affairs,
and not to claim the inspiration of the holy spirit in such doings (mentioning
in a rubric that a copy of these embarrassing articles had been 'delivered
abroad' by some of the English Privy Council).
It is great pitty, that so worthy a Christian King, should be driven to require such a
subscription to his owne Kingdome, especially of those men, that should be lights to
the rest, and the chiefe examples of all duetyfull obedience; it is more to be pittied,
that (for ought I can learne) his Maiesty cannot as yet obteine so much at their
handes. But most of all it is to be lamented, that no man can gesse (for ought I know)
how far this Gangrene will spread itself.20
The flow of the narrative was interrupted by two chapters listing the
intolerable theorizing of Knox and Buchanan. That was no doubt
inevitable. More surprisingly the death of David Beaton, Cardinal of St
Andrews and notorious Catholic, at the hands of a group of protestant lairds
in 1545 was described as 'cruell murthering'; and those even more notorious
Catholics the Regent Mary of Guise and Mary, Queen of Scots herself were
given more sympathy than the protestants who opposed them.21 Loyal
Bancroft! His own divinely ordained queen had aided the Scottish protestant rebels in 1560 against the Regent and her daughter, and executed that
daughter, focal point for Catholic plots, only six years before; for her
choleric divine, that apparently mattered less than the anathema of dis18
19
20
Ibid., pp. 65-8.

R. Bancroft, A Survay of the Pretended Holy Discipline... (London, 1593) and Daungerous
Positions and Proceedings, published and practised with this Hand of Brytain (London, 1593).
2l
Daungerous Positions, pp. 22-9.
Ibid., pp. 10-18.
180
Jenny Wor maid
obedience to authority, even Catholic authority. And no one was more

disobedient than the Scottish 'consistorians', threatening the authority of
their king and the peace and stability of the English church. Even the page
headings show the passionate hatred: * Scottish Genevating for Reformation; English Scottizing for Discipline by Rayling; English Scottizing, for
Discipline by threatnings', and so on.
Bancroft was certainly well informed about the Scottish presbyterians
and their bullying of their king. He provided a list of horror stories about
their repeated challenges to his authority which included the occasion in
1583 when the king, on a Saturday, ordered a banquet to be held in
Edinburgh on Monday to feast the French ambassador before his departure.
The Edinburgh presbytery promptly met on Sunday and declared Monday
to be a day of fast; only the most strenuous efforts by the king prevented
them from excommunicating those who attended the banquet. His version
of the story followed Adamson's, who roundly denounced the presbyterians
as having joined with the king's rebels. The Edinburgh presbytery was
indeed being deeply provocative; here was a clear case of ministers who
asserted the separation of kirk and state and denied James authority in the
kirk while unwarrantably intervening in the state. That Bancroft saw.22
He did not see the other side of the story: a touchy and deeply worried
presbytery reacting out of a profound fear about the threats to a kirk
dedicated to the establishing of God's truth. For 1583 seemed to be a time
when God was beginning to test them. There might be some reassurance in
the fact that the king was still in the hands of the Ruthven Raiders who had
seized control of him in 1582, and was thus under the influence of the godly
among the nobility and removed from the pernicious impact of Esme Stuart,
duke of Lennox, pro-French and suspected Catholic. Yet nothing, it
appeared, could make him a fully godly king. The French ambassadors
turned up with an agenda which included their master's approval for the
return of Mary, Queen of Scots, as joint ruler with James. The very fact of
French amity was itself a threat. And if de la Motte, the recipient of the
banquet, behaved circumspectly, his colleague Manningville, noted antiHuguenot, did not; he demanded the mass and, on Maundy Thursday 1583,
washed the feet of thirteen people 'according to the Popish manner'. The
ministers had tried to dictate the nature of the king's dealings with the
French in an interview in which they got little joy; and there was no joy at all
for John Davidson, who 'stayed a space after and privatlie admonished the
king to forbeare his often swearing and taking of the name of God in vaine.
"I thank you", said the king, with a little laughter.' James, unlike either
Bancroft or the Scottish godly, had the blessed gift of laughter - sometimes
22
Wodrow Miscellany > I, p. 484; Adamson, Declaration, sig. Bv-Biir; also Ciiiv.
181
sardonic laughter. It made him, even at his weakest moments, a very

slippery customer. And he rapidly became less weak. In the same month as
the affair of the ambassador (February 1583), Calderwood describes a bond
of the nobility made to assert their loyalty to a king 'now comming to the
state of man-head'. He escaped from the Ruthven Raiders; Patrick
Adamson recovered from his 'lang seiknes' and found the strength to preach
as well as assert his archiepiscopal authority. And in 1584 came the Parliament which passed the 'Black Acts'. The point entirely missed by the
outraged Bancroft was all too well taken by James Melville, who recorded in
his diary that these things, and the deaths of 'thrie grait lights' among the
ministers made this 'a dark and heavie wintar to the Kirk of Scotland'.23
Bancroft's tunnel vision extended beyond his inability to understand that
his version of events in Scotland was disastrously flawed because it was
simplistic. The fury with which in 1589-90 both crown and Melvillians
rushed to deny the tactless sympathy with a hen-pecked king, expressed in
the initial sermon, might have given him pause. He did not understand the
passage in the letter to Elizabeth which said that 'our kingis Majestie
himself wes so offended when he red that part of that invective which is
against us, that . . . he bursted foorth into great choler against the author
therof. He missed the significance of the fact that John Davidson, in his
Bancroft's Rashness, could cite James' furious marginal note to Bancroft's
claim 'For the King, he is not altred...'. 'My speaking, writing and actions,
were and are ever one, without dissembling, or bearing up at any time,
whatever I thought', wrote the king; it was not a wholly convincing claim,
although it was a self-portrait which James liked to draw, and in this case it
suited the ministers to believe it. 'It had', commented Davidson, 'become
his (Bancroft's) person and place to have spoken and written, at the least,
more reverently of his Majestie, how uncharitablie so ever hee had judged of
his in his mind . . . But let not his Majestie nor any prince, looke for any
better dealing at the handes of any of his coat.. ,'24 Suddenly the ministers
were remarkably anxious to demonstrate their good will and obedience to
the 'Lord's lieutenant' of Davidson's account.
There was, inevitably, an element of propaganda and political expediency
in this shared reaction. The king would naturally deny lack of authority, the
ministers lack of loyalty and a taste for rebellious practices. And Bancroft's
23
24
Calderwood, History, III, pp. 694-703; Melville, Diary, pp. 138-64.

Wodrow Miscellany, I, pp. 495, 508-9. T h e claim that he was not a dissembler was made
again by the king in the conclusion to his speech to his first English Parliament in 1604:
C. H. Mcllwain, The Political Works of James I (repr., N e w York, 1965), p. 280. James
Melville, in his sermon to the 1590 Assembly, acknowledged the damage done by Bancroft
not only to the ministers, but also to the king 'who is neere als farre hurt in this mater as the
kirk is': Calderwood, History, V, p. 101.
182
Jenny Wormald
onslaught certainly had the effect of making James temporarily more cooperative with a kirk strenuously seeking to fit him into the existing ecclesiastical structure as a godly prince according to their particular view of the
matter. To that extent, Bancroft, perhaps seeing the response as predictable
rather than believable, no doubt felt entitled to stick to what he had
convinced himself was the truth of the matter. It was a great mistake.
It may not be surprising that an English cleric, used to a church which
had lurched from one religious position to another according to the disposition of the ruler of the day, would find events in Scotland, particularly
during the Melvillian ascendancy of the period of his three outbursts,
utterly abhorrent. No doubt he assumed that James' ambition was simply to
be another Elizabeth, presiding over a Scottish version of the Elizabethan
church. He was fundamentally wrong. These hallmarks of his church, the
royal supremacy and an episcopate always different from the Scottish
episcopate and never more so than now, when it was beginning to make;wre
divino claims, had no place in Scottish thinking; nor as yet was divine right
monarchy a central issue. In the 1580s and 1590s, the struggle between
James and the presbyterian party in the kirk was not between a weak and
browbeaten monarch and rebellious and revolutionary spirits, and it certainly did not turn on Anglican supreme headship. Rather, it was a shared
problem between king and kirk, arising directly out of the political circumstances of the previous half-century: the recognition by both James and the
Melvillians that the presence of an active, adult and highly able king - a
phenomenon not experienced since 1542 - had somehow to be accommodated by a church which from the beginning had been relatively free from
the shackles of royal will.
Thus, in the manner very similar to modern employers and trade unions,
extreme positions - head or mere member of the kirk - were taken up by
both sides, and within these parameters hard bargaining and jostling for
position went on for two decades, with one or other side gaining the
advantage. The kirk wanted a godly prince, not as supreme head in the
English sense but as 'supreme governour of this realme, als weill in things
temporall as in the conservatioun and purgatioun of the religioun', according
to the formula devised for the oath for benefice-holders in 1572; in this, as in
other things, they were far more in line with European thinking than
English, although Bancroft may not have appreciated the point.25 The kirk
could therefore regard itself not only as entitled but positively obliged to
train a young king up in his role. As Davidson told him in 1583, 'your
Grace's governement hath beene a great blessing of God, which maketh us,
indeid, to be mervellous carefull of your Grace's weelefare, and speciallie
25
Kirk, Patterns of Reform^ chap. 6, especially pp. 251-5.
183
now, when we see evil companie drawin about you in your young yeeres'. He
then ruined the effect of this by wanning too much to his theme and telling
James 'nather ought your Grace to mak light accompt of our threatnings; for
there was never one yitt in this realme, in cheef authoritie, that ever
prospered after the ministers began to threaten him'. Here was the Bancroftian monster in action - except that James did not react like Bancroft; once
again, infuriatingly, 'the king smiled'.26
Indeed, one gets a far better sense of the dealings between James and the
Melvillians from the account of the bitter and frustrated Calderwood and
James Melville than from any of Bancroft's diatribes. Hostility, violent
exchanges there were; but it was never true that the king was only at the
receiving end of the abuse which Bancroft found obscene. He would later
discover for himself, to something of his own cost, James' delight in debate a debate which was not necessarily conducted according to the Queensberry
rules in the presence of royal or ecclesiastical authority. Nor was the king
always weak. When Bancroft described how Davidson 'so rayled' against the
king of Scots in the Old Jury pulpit in London that the Scottish ambassador
complained and the bishop of London silenced all Scottish ministers in
London, it did not occur to him that they were there because the king of
Scots was at least temporarily so powerful that they found it prudent to
flee.27 And he failed to realize that Adamson, source for his own view, did
not entirely reflect James'. The ascription of the authorship of his Declaration to the king was an embarrassment, the furious row between archbishop
and presbyterians in 1586, with both sides hurling insults and excommunications, an irritation and distraction for a king seeking and in large measure
moving towards accommodation with all but the extremists in the kirk.
What James thought of the matter comes out in one of the many, many
Jacobean hunting stories; returning from the hunt, James toasted his dogs,
and 'above the rest, to o n e . . . called Tell-True, saying, "Tell-True, I drinke
to thee above all the rest of my hounds; for I will give thee more credence
nor either the bishop or Craig'". Archbishop or even relatively moderate
presbyterian: both were thorns. 28
Powerful the Melvillians were - far more powerful than their English
counterparts. But the story of the struggle between them and James was not
Bancroft's story. It was the struggle between rival views of what 'supreme
governour . . . in the conservatioun and purgatioun of the religioun' meant;
and in the end, for all the noise and trumpeting, royal skill and moderate
opinion would defeat the Melvillian extremism which reasserted the
position so long fought for by pope against emperor. If Melville, ironically,
represented the pope, denying James any role in the kirk other than a godly
26
28
27
Calderwood, History, III, p. 718.
Bancroft, Daungerous Positions, pp. 256.
Calderwood, History, IV, pp. 495-547; IV, p. 351.
184
Jenny Wormald
magistrate obedient to the ministry, James as emperor was much less

extreme in his demands, despite the new example provided by contemporary English monarchs. For there is equally a certain irony in the fact that by
far the most accomplished royal theologian of his age did not claim greater
supremacy over the doctrine of the kirk.
Only once did he go beyond the formula of 1572, moved by the issue
which repeatedly did touch a royal nerve: when the Melvillians moved out
of their debates and harangues in the king's cabinet into the public forum of
the pulpit. It was this which ultimately led to the dramatic showdown in
1596, when James checkmated the Edinburgh ministers by threatening to
remove his capital from Edinburgh. Sometimes he could brush it off; James
Gibson, who naturally features as another Bancroftian monster because of
his sermon in 1585 which likened James, the persecuting king, to Jeroboam,
was told by that king, in one of his less stylish phrases, 'I will not give a turd
for thy preaching', and packed off to Edinburgh castle, which no doubt
reinforced his view.29 But a year earlier, Andrew Melville's response to a
summons by the Privy Council for a seditious sermon was to deny the
Council the right to try him, claiming that it was the General Assembly who
had the right to judge his action. Here was the separation of the two swords
with a vengeance. Melville was imprisoned, escaped and fled to England.
James, perhaps contemplating the fact that his sister in England, violently
resistant to her own 'puritans', seemed remarkably willing to protect his,
responded quickly and dramatically. One of the 'Black Acts', condemning
those who made 'contumelious spechis' and then denied the judgement of
king and Council, 'ratefies and apprevis and perpetuallie confirmis the
royall power and auctoritie over all statis alsweill spirituall as temporall';
another asserted the supremacy of king and Parliament over all subjects in
judgements and jurisdiction in both spiritual and temporal causes. For
James Melville, this meant that Parliament had set up a new pope and had
'sa becum trators to Chryst'; indeed worse than the pope, who allowed
appeals to councils of the church. For James Stewart, it meant the king
asserting his right to govern his subjects and punish sedition. If this was
'royal supremacy', it was a very limited model. 30 And although the time
29
30
Bancroft, Daungerous Positions, pp. 27-8; Calderwood, History, IV, pp. 484-8, describes
the debate between James and Gibson; the quote is on p. 487.
Calderwood, History, IV, pp. 3-14. APS, III, pp. 2 9 2 - 3 , cc. 2, 4. Melville, Diary, p. 208.
T h e issue of control of his subjects was absolutely central to the Black Acts; and the king was
very careful to emphasize that it was for sedition, not religion, that dissident ministers were
warded, as the proclamations in the Melville and Gibson cases stressed: Calderwood,
History, IV, p. 16 (Melville); Register of the Privy Council of Scotland, ed. J. H . Burton et al.
(Edinburgh, 1877-), IV, p. 4 0 (Gibson). On the king's attitude, there is a revealing passage
in his Meditation upon the xxv, xxvi, xxviii and xxix Verses of the xv Chap, of the First Booke
of the Chronicles of the Kings, written in 1589; describing those who took part with David in
bringing the Ark of the Covenant to Mount Sion, James discussed the Elders, the Captains,
185
came in 1612 when James proclaimed that 'James the sext by grace of god
king of Scotland, England, franee and ireland, defender of the faith etc Is
the onely lauchfull supreme governoure of the realme, Alsweill in maters
spirituall and ecclesiasticall as in thingis temporall' against any foreign
jurisdiction or power, the very wording of the act suggests that it can better
be explained in terms of John Morrill's analysis of his desire to find
congruity between the churches of Scotland and England after 1603 than
the realization of a frustrated dream before. 31
It is equally questionable whether, at the time of Bancroft's writings,
James was thinking in terms of the divine right kingship with which he came
to be so closely associated, or - following on from that - jure divino
episcopacy. T o the end of his life James was practising politician first,
theorist second; and the theory was developed and advanced to underpin a
political point. Thus in the late 1590s the earliest of his major political
works, Basilikon Doron and The Trew Law of Free Monarchies, did indeed
assert divine right kingship. In 1598-9, an ascendant king could make the
claims he did as a weapon to be used in the continuing conflict with his
Melvillian opponents; that, and the chance finally to deny the contractual
theories of his tutor George Buchanan, produced the political writings. But
it is worth emphasizing that the king chose to bring out a double account of
monarchy; the theory predominates in the Trew Law, but Basilikon Doron
analyses the exercise of kingship in practice, stressing the mix of firmness
and flexibility which was the basis of successful rule - and it was Basilikon
Doron which was the king's favourite book.32 A few years earlier, neither his
thinking nor his position showed any signs of the future theory. As his
speech in 1591 to the jurors charged with wilful error after their acquittal of
the notorious North Berwick witch Barbara Napier amply demonstrates, his
attitude was much more traditional; a divine right monarch would not
'submit myselfe to the accusacions of you my subjects in this behalfe'.
31
32
and the Priests and Levites. Of the third, he said, 'this is to be marked well of Princes, and of
all those of any high calling or degree that hath to do in God's cause. David doth nothing in
matters appertaining to God without the presence and speciall concurrence of Gods
ministers, appointed to be spiritual rulers in his Church', The Workes of the Most High and
Mightie Prince James ... (London, 1616), p. 84. James did not write his meditations simply
to please the Melvillians.
APS, IV, p. 470. The comparatively non-threatening nature of the new oath may almost be
assumed from Calderwood, who was always fervent in his condemnation of James' actions;
he passed over this surprisingly briefly, in a general diatribe about the new bishops: History,
VII, p. 173. J. Morrill, 'The National Covenant in its British Context', in J. Morrill (ed.),
The Scottish National Covenant in its British Context, 1638-51 (Edinburgh, 1990), pp. IS.
Basilikon Doron of King James VI, ed. J. Craigie (2 vols., Scottish T e x t Society, E d i n b u r g h ,
1944-50); The Trew Law of Free Monarchies is in Minor Prose Works of King James VI and /,
ed. J. Craigie and A. Law (Scottish Text Society, Edinburgh, 1982). On the motivation
suggested here, J. Brown (now Wormald), 'Scottish Politics, 1567-1625', in A. G. R. Smith
(ed.), The Reign of James VI and I (London, 1973), pp. 24-5.
186
Jenny Wormaid
Bancroft, subject of a divine right queen, wholly failed to understand the

very different approach of the Scottish king.33
Nor was there any echo in Scotland, in the king's mind, or perhaps even
in Patrick Adamson's, of English claims of jure divino episcopacy.34 In the
later 1590s, the main concern for James was the cautious move towards the
restoration of a clerical estate in Parliament, the essential prerequisite for
greater crown control over the church. This was part of a wider problem,
control of Parliament. Since 1560, when over a hundred lairds had turned
up to swamp the Reformation Parliament, claiming their right to attend on
the grounds of the wholly ineffective shire election act of 1428, the composition of Parliament, and the dangers of royal control slipping away, had
become a political issue which was resolved in terms of the laity by the shire
election act of 1587.35 The absence of a clerical estate, however, left a void
which might threaten not only the king, but also the kirk. Both saw an
advantage in representation, and the kirk itself petitioned for it in 1597. The
problem, as the Melvillians saw all too well, was what the king might make
of this; Davidson's response to the act of 1597 which enabled him to appoint
parliamentary ministers was 'We see him weill eneugh; we see the homes of
his mytre', and the three parliamentary bishops of 1600 were to prove him
correct.36 Contemporary presbyterian writers and the later history of the
kirk have created the impression that this was a matter of 'no king, no
bishop'. Bishops - any bishops - were anathema to the Melvillians. But
James got his parliamentary and subsequently his diocesan bishops because
there were many moderates who did not agree with them, and saw no
objection to an episcopate under the control of the crown and working with,
not above, the courts of the church.
Indeed, the king who fought continual battles with the Melvillians in the
Assembly never actually challenged a polity modelled on Geneva, in which
authority lay with a network of courts, from local to national. He did oppose
those who wanted only these courts; he did, unsuccessfully, oppose the
addition of a fourth court - the presbytery - to the existing three after the
presbyterian success in imposing its programme from 1578; and he did want
bishops, not only in the interests of his own authority, but as a return to the
recognition of the earliest generation of reformers that if there was no place
33
34
35
36
CSPS, X , p. 524.
On the English version. Lake, Anglicans and Puritans, pp. 88-97; J. Guy, 'The Elizabethan
Establishment and the Ecclesiastical Polity', supra, pp. \26-A9. W. D . J. Cargill Thompson,
'A Reconsideration of Richard Bancroft's Paul's Cross Sermon of 9 February 1588/9',
Journal of Ecclesiastical History, 20 (1969), 253-66, arguing against the sermon as the initial
statement of the theory. On Adamson, Kirk, Second Book of Discipline, pp. 137-42; Patterns
of Reform, pp. 365-7; and Mullan, Episcopacy in Scotland, chap. 4.
APS, III, pp. 509-10.
Calderwood, History, V, p. 681. Lee, 'Revival of Episcopacy', pp. 50-64.
187
for the overweening bishops of the Catholic church, there was a need, in a
kingdom unlike a city state, for diocesan supervisors, be they called superintendents or bishops. But they were not the Whitgifts or the Bancrofts of
the English church, just as later, for all the opprobrium which Charles I's
very different approach heaped on him, Archbishop Spottiswoode was not
Laud. Bancroft's assumption of James* ambition on English lines was
therefore all the more dangerous because it was profoundly wrong, and it is
thus the less surprising that James was at one, however briefly, with the
Melvillians.
The fact that Bancroft got so much so wrong does not, of course, mean
that there was not a genuine battle between James and his highly critical,
outspoken and sometimes dangerous presbyterians. In ecclesiastical
matters, the 1580s and 1590s in Scotland made events south of the border
look positively anodyne, whatever the queen, Whitgift or Bancroft thought.
And it is therefore understandable that if one is pursuing that most elusive
thing, the definition of a puritan, one can turn to James' writings and find
his lineaments clearly sketched out. As he told his son Henry in Basilikon
Dororiy
In your prayer bee neither over strange with God, like the ignorant common sort,
that prayeth nothing but out of bookes, nor yet over homely with him, like some of
the vaine Pharisaicall puritanes, that thinke they rule him upon their fingers: The
former way will breede an uncouth coldnesse in you towards him, the other will
breede in you a contempt of him ... And what is betwixt the pride of a glorious
Nebuchadnezzar, and the preposterous humilitie of one of the proud Puritanes,
claiming to their Paritie, and crying, Wee are all but vile wormes, and yet will iudge
and give Law to their King, but will be iudged nor controlled by none? Surely there
is more pride under such a ones blacke bonnet, then under Alexander the great his
Diademe .. .37
A biassed account, to be sure; 'puritan' used, as it always was, as a term of
abuse. But one might also say that he had cause to know. Moreover, that
characterization of the Scottish puritan, written in 1598, almost reads as an
expanded commentary on a poem written by the poet-politician Richard
Maitland of Lethington, who died at the age of ninety in 1586. It is a sad and
moving poem, beginning 'Quhair is the blyithnes that hes beine . . . now I
wait not quhat thay meine, all merines is worne away.' No yule, no pasch, no
hospitality and kindness. Instead, 'I saw na gysaris all this zeir, Bot kirkmen
cled lyik men of weir . . . ' There it is again, in that graphic little phrase: the
godly killjoy.38
Oddly enough, however, this prominent, highly influential and impress37
38
Basilikon Doron, ed. Craigie, I, pp. 39, 141-3.

The Maitland Quarto Manuscript containing Poems by Sir Richard Maitland, Arbuthnot, and
Others, ed. W. A. Craigie (Scottish Text Society, Edinburgh, 1920), p. 15.
188
Jenny Wormald
ive, if unattractive group do not form a subject for the literature of the day.
At most, there is only one very distant equivalent to Professor Collinson's
beautifully crafted argument that the Marprelate Tracts and antiMartinism derive from ballad and popular theatre: the way in which the
'ballads' of the sixteenth-century Scottish court were used as the form for
The Gude and Godlie Ballads, that mid-sixteenth-century compilation
which gave Scotland a corpus of 'spirituall sangis'. But the richness of the
new genre, the Scottish psalm, is very far removed from the wit, the hilarity,
the flyting, of Martin and Anti-Martin. Scottish flyting had a brilliant
tradition, going back to the Court of James IV. But it was not invoked in the
ecclesiastical arena. Yet religious satire was not wholly lacking in the
Scotland of the 1590s. One brilliant piece of religious satire was made
available in print: Sir David Lindsay's Satire of the Thrie Estaitis, that
biting and hilarious attack on the pre-Reformation church, written during
the reign of James V. The printing of this and other plays may well mark
James' stand against the increasing clamp-down by the kirk on the theatre;
if so, that, along with the king's welcoming of English actors in a series of
visits from 1589 onwards, which produced in 1599 a ferocious reaction from
the ministers, begins to offset the picture of Scotland in the 1590s as witchand puritan-ridden, bleak and grey.39 But when Scotsmen allowed smiles to
cross their faces in the 1590s, they were not, it seems, smiling at the godly except, in the end, for one man. Even at moments of greatest affliction by
the godly, the king could retain the wit and style so sadly lacking in his
presbyterian opponents, and the embarrassing English divine. It was in the
dark year of 1590 that James VI made his most successful and tail-twisting
response to Bancroft: he gave the prestigious job of royal printer to Robert
Waldegrave, thrown out of England for his part in printing the Marprelate
Tracts. 40
39
40
A Compendious Book of Godly and Spiritual Songs: 'The Gude and Godlie Ballatis\ ed. A. F.
Mitchell (Scottish Text Society, Edinburgh, 1897). In Satirical Poems at the Time of the
Reformation^ pp. 346-92, there are two savage attacks on Adamson, as well as the antiprotestant poem cited above, n.2; but none of these is equivalent to Martin and Anti-Martin.
On Lindsay, Marie Axton, 'Ane Satyre of the Thrie Estaitis: T h e First Edition and its
Reception', in Alisoun Gardner-Medwin and Janet Hadley Williams (eds.)> A Day Estivall:
Essays in Honour of Helena Mennie Shire (Aberdeen, 1990), pp. 21-34. On the actors, A. M.
Clark, Murder Under Trust: The Topical Macbeth (Edinburgh, 1981), pp. 127-77. It could
be added that the kirk did have the distinction of contributing to that work of genius, the
'Scottish Play'; the witches in Macbeth may have appeared as a compliment to the noted
royal daemonologist, but it was almost certainly a minister who began the chain of events
which led to the North Berwick case of 1590-1, which directly involved the king, and the
kirk's relentless seeking out of Satan which kept up the momentum thereafter.
Admittedly this had a certain sting in the tail for James; it was Waldegrave who printed
Davidson's Bancroft's rashness. Presumably, however, the point being made to Bancroft
outweighed this; and Waldegrave certainly did well as king's printer - not least because of
the amount the king himself wrote.
189
Moreover, Bancroft's one-sided view blinded him to the common ground

which lay beneath the battle for control, a common ground which would
shock him after 1603. For James and even the extremists in the kirk agreed
passionately on two things, however difficult to achieve: reasonable stipends
for the clergy, and an adequate education. In their efforts to achieve both,
they were undoubtedly in advance of the English church. Bancroft himself
had asked anxiously, in 1589, how much Scottish ministers were paid; and
as late as 1628, Sir Benjamin Rudyerd MP complained that they were better
off than their English counterparts.41 And Whitgift and Bancroft were to
recoil in some horror from the new king of England who demanded that the
colleges of Oxford and Cambridge should plough back the impropriated
tithes into the church, to create a better educated English clergy, even if on
that occasion English vested interests triumphed over the 'puritan' attitudes
asserted by a Scottish king.42 Out of that initial period, however, came one
resounding success. James brought south with him his desire for a new
translation of the Bible and a revision of the metrical Psalms, proposed in
the General Assembly of 1601. It had not happened; 'yet did not the King
let this his intention fall to the ground, but after his happy coming to the
Crown of England set the most learned Divines of that Church a work for
the translation of the Bible'. The Psalms he had already begun to undertake
himself in the 1580s, and he was to continue his work in England. 43
In the end, Bancroft's account of Scottish puritanism tells us far more
about English fears than Scottish reality. Scottish puritans were indeed
infinitely more dangerous, in numbers, attitudes and influence, than their
English counterparts. With far less to complain about, in terms of doctrine,
liturgy and polity, they complained far more. Yet King James was never so
frantic about them, so afraid of direct confrontation and debate, as Whitgift
and Bancroft, or Elizabeth. But Bancroft did teach him something: that the
leading English ecclesiastics, as much as the English puritans as they
described them, were creatures to be viewed with suspicion and concern.
For the Scottish king, the 1580s and 1590s had been complicated and
41
42
CSPS, X , p. 227. Foster, Church before the Covenants, chap. 8; Rudyerd is quoted on p. 164.
S. B. Babbage, Puritanism and Richard Bancroft (London, 1962), pp. 55-6. Of course the
contrast is not absolute; the number of graduates in the ministry was rising before 1603:
Rosemary O'Day, The English Clergy:
43
The Emergence and Consolidation of a Profession,
1558-1642 (Leicester, 1979), chap. 4. But the link between stipends and learning was
crucial, as James and the puritans on both sides of the border realized; and here, there was
far less will shown by the English queen than the Scottish king: C. Hill, Economic Problems
of the Church from Archbishop Whitgift to the Long Parliament (Oxford, 1956), pp. 200-11.
John Spottiswoode, History of the Church of Scotland .. .to the End of the Reign of James VI
(3 vols., Spottiswoode Society, Edinburgh, 1847-51), III, pp. 98-9. It is interesting to note
that Calderwood's hostility to the king was such that although he described the proposal, he
did not mention James, but credited 'sindrie of the brethrein' with the initiative: History,
VI, p. 124. For the Psalms, The Poems of James VI of Scotland, ed. J. Craigie (2 vols.,
Scottish Text Society, Edinburgh, 1955-8), II, pp. xi-xxii and 2-50.
190
Jenny Wor maid
disturbed by an England which contained both a queen who offered a haven

to extremist Scottish puritans 44 and a divine who thundered against them.
Elizabeth was mercifully dead. But Bancroft remained; and Whitgift's
disobliging death in 1604 meant that James had to accept Bancroft as his
successor in Canterbury, for the king was only beginning to establish his
own control.45 In time, religious tensions gave way to the calmer state of a
church presided over by a king far less obsessed about conformity, far less
afraid of differing theological opinions, than his predecessor and her
bishops. But the early years owed much to Elizabethan policy and in
particular the astounding folly of one of these bishops. It was not only in the
difficult circumstances of 1590 that James had attacked the English church.
In the days of his increasing power, in 1598, he made another sideswipe;
arguing for clerical representation in Parliament in the General Assembly,
he told his opponents that 'I minde n o t . . . to bring in Papisticall or Anglican
bishopping.'46 It was an open warning, as the English future came steadily
nearer.
But I must surely end with Hampton Court. There James had his famous
burst of fury against the presbyterians: 'no bishop, no king'. It was a final
comment not on the English puritans, but on the long struggle with the
Scottish ones, a sudden last injection of the adrenalin which had flowed in
Scotland in the 1590s. For James was making a remarkable discovery. The
English puritans were not the terrifying creatures of the fevered imaginings
of the English ecclesiastical establishment.47 Most people - other than a few
extremists, and two alarmed and worried Elizabethan bishops - could now
44
45
46
47
Donaldson, 'Scottish Presbyterian Exiles in England', in Scottish
pp. 178-m
Church
History,
K. Fincham, Prelate as Pastor: The Episcopate of James I (Oxford, 1990), p. 27; James, as
Fincham says, did indeed 'select' Bancroft, but it is questionable how far he had entire
freedom of choice. And his treatment of Bancroft at the Hampton Court Conference, where
he openly disagreed with him on three occasions, hardly suggests a meeting of minds.
Nevertheless, he worked with Bancroft - as he had to - and managed to persuade his
archbishop to conform to his distinction between moderate and radical puritans:
K. Fincham and P. Lake, 'The Ecclesiastical Policy of James I', JBS, 24 (1985), 173 and
177-8. By contrast, in the north, the impotent radical Calderwood never abated his loathing
for Bancroft; he described with considerable satisfaction the miserable death in 1610 of 'one
of the cheefe instruments of the overthrow of the discipline of the Kirk of Scotland', and
enthusiastically quoted the epitaph written by one of his 'malcontent' servants:
Heere lyeth Die ecclesiae, suspected a Papist,
Who lived a Matchiavell, and died ane Atheist.
(Calderwood, History, VII, pp. 151-2.)
Calderwood, History, V, p. 694.
T h e discovery was not, of course, total and complete at Hampton Court, as the deprivation
of the clergy in 1605 shows. But that episode in effect completed the process begun at
Hampton Court, as the king came to discover how comparatively small was the body of
genuinely radical puritans in England: B. W. Quintrell, 'The Royal Hunt and the Puritans,
1604-1605', Journal of Ecclesiastical History, 31 (1980), 41-58; Lake and Fincham,
'Ecclesiastical Policy', pp. 171-82.
191
calm down. To that extent, the vitality and humour brought out in Professor
Collinson's chapter is an invaluable reminder that there was less grimness
and danger in late-Elizabethan 'puritanism' than the late-Elizabethan
authorities believed. The grimness and danger of that powerful and threatening group to the north only underlines this fact, and raises the question
why the English were so worried about their puritans. Bancroft's fear of the
kirk, and his questions about it, suggest one answer: it was a problem not so
much of religious dissent, but of a fearful English state, deeply troubled
about present control and future uncertainty. In the 1590s, while the king of
Scotland coped with a real problem, the English ecclesiastical establishment
looked to Scotland to reinforce their belief in an invented one. The lateTudor state was showing all the paranoia of profound insecurity.
Social strain and social dislocation, 1585-1603

Jim Sharpe
I
On 25 September 1596 Edward Hext, a justice of the peace in Somerset,
wrote to Lord Burghley about the imminent breakdown of social stability in
that county. Hext's letter was a litany of complaints about the threats to law
and order. At the base of the problem, of the 'rapynes and thefts' which
'multiplye daylye', lay a body of 'wycked and desparate' persons, idle ne'er
do wells who 'beinge putt to any hard labor, will greve them above measure,
so as they will rather hazard their lives than work'. To the vagrants, rogues
and sturdy beggars who were the standard target of adverse comment in the
late-Elizabethan period were added 'wandring souldiers and other stout
roages', of whom, according to Hext, there were three or four hundred in
every county. These were so well organized and well informed ('nothing is
spoken, donne, or intended to be donne but they knowe it') that it was very
difficult to apprehend them. In an early suggestion that it might be desirable
to gather national figures on crime and punishment, Hext advised Burghley
'for the good of your cuntry to comaund a view of the callenders of all the
gayles of England', within which documents there would be found 'a
lamentable estate'.
The problems were worsened by deficiencies in the current system of law
enforcement. Despite his assertion that crime in the county contributed to
the 'impoverishinge of all the poore husboundmen that beareth the greatest
burthern of all services', Hext noted that the victims of crime were often
unwilling to bear the bother and expense of prosecuting an offence at the
assizes. Many, moreover, were loth 'to procure a man's death for all the
goods yn the world', or, upon promise to have stolen goods returned to
them, would 'gyve faynt evidens yf they be not strictly loked ynto by the
Justice'. Often offenders escaped through the negligence of constables or
tythingmen, or because they were examined by a justice of the peace 'that
eyther wanteth experyence to examyn a cunnynge thief, or will not take the
paynes that ought to be taken in siftyng him uppon every circumstance and
presumpsyon'. Even those thieves brought to court often escaped owing to
192
193
insufficient care being taken with their prosecution. Hext recommended as a

remedy for all this that local government should be tightened up, and that
there should be quarterly meetings of justices in their divisions to make a
diligent search for rogues and suspicious persons, to keep a watch on
alehouses, and to ensure greater efficiency among parish constables and
other inferior officers.
T o this intensification of the normal problems of vagrancy and crime was
added the spectre of riot. 'Others there be', Hext informed Burghley, 'that
stick not to say boldlye they must not starve, they will not starve.' He
recorded how a mob of eighty such people had already intercepted a cart
laden with cheese heading for a fair, and distributed its load among themselves. Despite the punishment that these miscreants had received, there
were others in the area, 'especyally in this time of dearthe' who were
encouraging their fellows 'to all contempte bothe of noble men and
gentlemen, contynially bussynge into there eares that the ritche men have
gotten all into their hands and will starve the poore'. Hext fell back on the
conventional rhetoric of the time to explain all this. T h e dearth (in fact
England was experiencing the second of four consecutive harvests that
varied from the bad to the disastrous) was mainly caused by idle people and
robbers, 'for thowghe they labor not, and yet they spend dobly as myche as
the laborer do the', much of this spending being done in what lateElizabethan officialdom was coming to regard as the nursery of all wickedness, the alehouse. Hext was clearly a worried man, anxious to inform
central authority of the danger to his 'dread and most deare soveraygnes
most peaceable government'. 1
Hext's letter, although by no means the only document of the late 1590s to
voice concern over threats to social order, is remarkable in the stridency
with which that concern was voiced and its precise focus on a range of
interconnected issues. As historians laboriously piece together the fortunes
of the lower orders in the late sixteenth century, and continue their painstaking research into local law enforcement, it becomes evident that the
situation which Hext described was not an imaginary one. English society,
despite an infinite variety of local or regional experiences, had, over the
second half of the sixteenth century, experienced a number of strains. T h e
exact nature and causes of those strains are complex, but most historians
would agree that at their root lay the consequences of demographic expansion. Estimating the size of national populations in the sixteenth century is
at best an imperfect science, but it seems likely that the population of
England expanded from about 2.3 million in 1524 to perhaps 5.6 million in
Hext's letter is reprinted in Tudor Economic Documents, ed. R. H. Tawney and Eileen Power
(3 vols., London, 1924), II, pp. 339-46.
194
Jim Sharpe
2
1656. Producing exact totals for Elizabeth's reign is difficult, but there
were about 4.15 million people in England in 1603, probably a 35 per cent
increase on the total for 1558, while it seems that there was an especially
rapid increase, of more than 1 per cent per annum, in the period 1576-86.3
Both the total population in 1603 and the rate of population growth might
seem low by some modern standards, yet the implications for Elizabethan
society were serious enough.
Over the long term, this population growth lay at the basis of a number
of social and economic phenomena. Perhaps the most relevant for our
immediate purposes was an intensification of the gap between rich and
poor. England at the beginning of the sixteenth century was already an
economically and socially stratified society, but over the following 150
years this stratification became more marked: in short, the rich grew richer
and the poor got poorer. The agricultural base of the economy experienced
increasing difficulty in feeding the growing population, while both the
agricultural and industrial sectors offered diminishing employment opportunities.4 Thus the price of grain, and hence of the staple of the poor's diet,
bread, increased sixfold between 1500 and 1640.5 Real wages fell, so that by
the second decade of the seventeenth century a day's work for a labourer or
semi-skilled artisan might purchase only between a third and a half of what
a day's labour would have gained in 1500,6 while the chances of even
getting a day's work lessened as the pool of labour expanded. More people
found themselves, either temporarily or permanently, in poverty, and it
was against this background that the Tudor poor law developed. Both local
(and especially urban) governors and national legislators in Parliament
realized, often slowly and grudgingly, that traditional assumptions about
poverty, and traditional methods of dealing with it, were increasingly redundant in the new conditions. Some urban authorities took a census of the
local poor, and the results of such operations help give us an impression of
what might be described as the structural poverty of the age. Hence in
Ipswich in 1597 such a census revealed 410 poor people grouped in 120
households, constituting 13 per cent of the population of the parts of the
2
3
4
5
6
E. A. Wrigley and R. S. Schofield, The Population History of England 1541-1871: A

Reconstruction (London, 1981), pp. 208-9, 212, 568.
D. M. Palliser, The Age of Elizabeth: England under the Later Tudors 1547-1603 (London,
1983), p. 35. Professor Palliser's book is by far the best guide to the social and economic
history of England during the second half of the sixteenth century.
These developments are discussed succinctly in Keith Wrightson and David Levine, Poverty
and Piety in an English Village: Terling 1525-1700 (New York, 1979), pp. 1-10.
W. G. Hoskins, 'Harvest Fluctuations in English Economic History, 1480-1619', AgHR, 12
(1964), 28-46.
For a detailed examination of the history of real wages in one trade see E. H. Phelps Brown
and Sheila V. Hopkins, 'Seven Centuries of Building Wages', in E. M. Cams Wilson (ed.),
Essays in Economic History (2 vols., London, 1962), II, pp. 168-78.
195
Abundant
Good
-J
Average
Bad
Pill
1602
1603
1601
1600
1599
1598
1595
1593
1594
1592
1591
1590
1589
1587
1588
1585
1586
1596
1597
Dearth
Fig. 1 Quality of harvests in England, 1585-1603 (Source: W. G. Hoskins,

'Harvest Fluctuations in English Economic History, 1480-1619', AgHR,
12 (1964), 28-46).
city surveyed.7 Poverty, as defined by local officials, was evidently something which a large proportion of the population might expect to confront at
some point in their lives.
Against these long-term trends, and this structural poverty, must be set
those short-term problems which might push people just above the poverty
line violently below it. Some of these affected individual families: the loss of
a breadwinner through disease or accident, for example, or the total loss of
property consequent on a house fire. Others were collective problems: those
caused by a stop of trade, for example, or those created by the mortality and
disruption of economic life caused by an outbreak of plague. 8 Most commented on by contemporaries, however, and most studied by historians,
were harvest failures. As we have noted, the long-term trend saw a steady
increase in the price of grain as the demand of a growing population pushed
constantly against the capacity of agriculture to produce enough bread to
feed it. There were also the short-term trends created on an annual basis by
the harvest: in years of bad harvest, dearth followed. Figure 1 sets out the
record of the harvest years for our period, and highlights two periods of
7
8
Ipswich's problems along with those of other towns are described in Paul Slack, Poverty and
Policy in Tudor and Stuart England (London, 1988), pp. 73-80.
For an outline of the difficulties facing English trade in this period, see Palliser, Age of
Elizabeth, pp. 291-8. The problems caused by the plague are discussed comprehensively in
Paul Slack, The Impact of Plague in Tudor and Stuart England (Oxford, 1985).
196
Jim Sharpe
dearth, one in 1586 and the other in 1596-7. In both these periods a
substantial increase over the normal level of burials occurred in a wide
geographical spread of parishes, with especially severe mortality in parts of
the north and west where the normal mechanisms of poor relief seem to
have simply broken down under the scale of the problem. 9 Some of the
poor, mainly the old, the very young, and marginal people like vagrants and
migrant workers, died of starvation. Many others died from famineinduced disease as already enfeebled bodies succumbed to the normal
illnesses of the period or to the effects of eating of inferior or half-rotten
food. Many, both of those who died and of those who survived, went on the
road in search of work or charity, intensifying the normal fears of vagrancy
and putting a heavy pressure on those towns where they sought relief.
Others, as Edward Hext reminded Lord Burghley, stole or rioted as
alternatives to starvation. Late-Elizabethan England was a society with a
few problems.
These problems were further compounded by the implications of the
country's continual involvement in warfare after the beginning of active
English support for the Dutch Revolt in 1585. To this constant commitment
in the Low Countries were added military expeditions to Brittany and
Normandy, naval warfare on the high seas, and, most expensively, campaigns in Ireland. This commitment to war was increasingly costly, increasingly disruptive, and, for the most part, increasingly unsuccessful. The
impact at local level could be severe. Peter Clark's study of the war effort in
Kent in the 1590s reveals 'a sense of the monotonous, relentless regularity of
the demands imposed on the county in this period'. 10 Some 6,000 men were
impressed from the county (whose population at that point was about
130,000) in the period 1591-1602, and sent to the Continent or Ireland.
Troops were also regularly embarked for Continental service from Kent,
and hence the county was plagued by the disruptions caused by troop
movements and the associated problems of billeting troops and dealing with
frequently criminally inclined deserters. Returning demobilized troops,
conversely, added to the county's vagrant problem. Normal economic life
was further troubled when, in times of crisis, the county's trained bands
were called out. Over the last ten years of the reign the county was also
paying on average 4,000 in parliamentary subsidies, over 2,000 in purveyance, with other taxes and imposts totalling 107,000 over the period
1589-1604.n
On a national level, it has been calculated that the Armada campaign cost
9
10
11
Slack, Poverty and Policy, p. 49.

Peter Clark, English Provincial Society from the Reformation to the Revolution: Religion,
Politics and Society in Kent 1500-1640 (Hassocks, 1977), p. 24.
Ibid., pp. 226-8.
197
161,000, that between 1585 and 1603 575,000 was spent on naval warfare,
1,420,000 on warfare in the Low Countries and 424,000 on military
expeditions to France, and that campaigning in Ireland cost 1,924,000
over the period 1593-1603.12 As we have suggested, the problems involved
in raising, transporting and demobilizing troops could be considerable.
Sometimes there were full-scale mutinies. Troops caused considerable
problems in London in 1589 and 1598, while there were serious disturbances at Chester (one of the main points through which troops were moved
to and from Ireland) in 1594, 1595 and 1596. There were further mutinies
involving troops awaiting embarkation for Ireland in 1600 at Chester and
Bristol, with further problems at Bristol in 1602.13 And, again, as we have
suggested, to these full-scale mutinies or riots was added the constant
irritant of the petty crimes and minor disruptions caused by deserting or
returning soldiers. Typical of these, if we may return to Kent, was
Humphrey Winbridge, a Lincolnshire man who, after service near Boulogne, was demobilized and landed back at Dover in 1598. Winbridge
teamed up with two other discharged soldiers, who, since they had only 7
shillings between them, turned to thieving. Winbridge was apprehended
after the trio had burgled the church at Charing, he and associates departing
with a Bible and other books when they found that their original hopes 'to
fynde somm plate and other good things theare' proved unfounded.14
Late-sixteenth-century England, unlike France and the Low Countries,
never experienced the horrors of warfare on her soil: even so, the costs of
warfare went beyond the purely financial, although these were substantial
enough.
II
The varied strains on English society manifested themselves in a number of
ways. Perhaps the most dramatic of these was that great legacy of the Tudor
period to later centuries, the grain riot. The creation, in the south at least, of
something like a rural proletariat of agricultural labourers and poor rural
industrial workers and their families meant that there existed a substantial
body of poor people who faced hunger and worsening of their already
12
13
14
These figures are given by R. B. Outhwaite, 'Dearth, the English Crown, and the Crisis of
the 1590V, in Peter Clark (ed.), The European Crisis of the 1590s: Essays in Comparative
History (London, 1985), p. 25. For a general discussion of the military effort in this period,
with some interesting asides on its social impact, see C. G. Cruickshank, Elizabeth's Army
(2ndedn, Oxford, 1966).
Peter Clark, 'A Crisis Contained: The Condition of English Towns in the 1590s', in Clark,
The European Crisis of the 1590s, p. 55.
Kentish Sources: VI, Crime and Punishment, ed. Elizabeth Melling (Maidstone, 1969),
pp. 38-9.
198
Jim Sharpe
precarious way of life when the harvest failed. Not all of these people faced
escalating bread prices with fatalism. Once again, Peter Clark's work on
Kent has demonstrated the nature of the resultant popular disturbances in
the context of local society.15 Clark discovered eleven riots connected with
the price or transport of grain in the county between 1585 and 1603, a
number of them being grouped in the years 1595-6. Two of the betterdocumented risings, at St Dunstan's, Canterbury, and Hernhill, both in
early 1596, demonstrated how the shortage of grain at a reasonable price,
and the transport of grain out of an area experiencing dearth (a large amount
of Kentish grain was sent to London), would rouse the poor. Yet both of
these agitations involved only a small number of people, and their aims were
limited: their main ambitions were to prevent the movement of corn out of
the county, and to achieve some sort of price fixing - what the French were
to come to know as a taxation populaire. Even disturbances on this scale,
however, were enough to worry the authorities, while on occasion those
involved in these riots or in projected disturbances were recorded as having
expressed some fairly robust social comment. Thomas Bird, a weaver from
Sandwich who was arrested in 1586 after loose talk about a planned rising
involving 800-900 men, had declared the intention 'to hang up the rich
farmers that had corn at their own doors'. 16
The limited potential for successful large-scale risings, their capacity to
create official fears, and the poor's capacity for pointed comment about their
betters were all demonstrated by an abortive rebellion, the Oxfordshire
rising of 1596.17 Without doubt, the background to this rising was bad
harvests: dearth, although in this case compounded by disquiet over enclosures, had become central to the poor's consciousness and to their conversation. Their initial response to distress, as so often, was to petition
officialdom: the grievances of the poor were set before the lord lieutenant of
the county, although even at this stage the petitioners threatened 'that yf
they could not have remedie, they would seek remedie themselves, and cast
down hedges and ditches, and knocke down gentlemen', The petition seems
to have provoked little by way of response, and a number of the county's
poor fell to plotting revolt. One of them, James Bradshaw, asked the brother
of a fellow conspirator 'whether there were not certaine good fellowes in
Witney that wold ryse & knock down the gentlemen & riche men that take in
the commons, and made corne so deare'. Apparently such 'good fellowes'
were not forthcoming from Witney or anywhere else, and when the four
15
16
17
Peter Clark, 'Popular Protest and Disturbance in Kent, 1558-1640', EcHR, 2nd series, 29
(1976), 365-31.
Ibid., p. 367.
This rising is discussed in John Walter, 'A "Rising of the People"? The Oxfordshire Rising
of 1596', Past and Present, 107 (1985), 90-143,
199
men at the centre of the conspiracy came together on Enslow Hill on 17

November 1596 in expectation of initiating a popular uprising nobody
joined them. They were arrested a few hours later, and two of them were
hanged, drawn and quartered eight months later at the place where they had
hoped to start their rising. The misery and suffering caused by dearth were
evidently insufficient, in the absence of other factors, to create a mass revolt.
Nevertheless, conditions over the last fifteen years or so of Elizabeth's
reign were bad enough to create a continual undercurrent of adverse
comment among the lower orders, and what they had to say, as recorded in
the criminal charges levelled against them, makes interesting reading. The
Tudor period was one in which the treason laws were constantly elaborated,
one step in this process being the statute of 1581 against seditious words.
This legislation, which, inter alia, prescribed that first offenders unable to
pay a 200 fine should be stood on the pillory and have their ears cut off,
was fairly comprehensive. As one historian has put it,
the law of sedition in Elizabethan England provided that anyone who criticized the
government, reported others' criticisms, or even speculated about when the government would change or when the queen died, was subject to crushing fines, cruel
corporal punishment, and even death itself.18
Surviving documentation from the Home Circuit of the assizes (which

covered the counties of Essex, Hertfordshire, Kent, Surrey and Sussex)
reveals a steady trickle of indictments under this legislation in the lateElizabethan period.
The nature of the seditious words alleged varied enormously, but they
demonstrated that at least some of the queen's subjects were given to
criticizing either their monarch or the social hierarchy in which they lived.
A number of lowly placed persons voiced the opinion that Philip II was the
rightful king of England. George Binkes from Essex was indicted in 1592 for
stating that if he were pressed for military service against the Spaniards he
'wold goe agaynst his conscience', adding that 'capteyne Drake and his
souldiers when they have gone forth into the prince's service do robbe and
spoyle the kinge of Spayne his goods, which is the right king of Ingland'. 19
In 1585 a former soldier, now described as a Smithfield weaver, was indicted
for seditious words in Essex. 'Kinge Philipp', he allegedly informed his
listeners, 'was a father to Ingland and did better love an Inglishe man than
the quenes majestie did, for he would give them meete, drinke, and clothes.'
18
19
Joel Samaha, 'Gleanings from Local Criminal Court Records: Sedition amongst the
"Inarticulate" in Elizabethan England', Journal of Social History, 8 (Summer 1975), 65.
Samaha's discussion is still the most important treatment of this important topic, although
Essex cases are gathered and discussed in F. G. Emmison, Elizabethan Life: Disorder
(Chelmsford, 1970), chap. 3, 'Sedition'.
PRO, Clerks of Assize Records, Home Circuit Indictments, ASSI 35/34/2/43.
200
Jim Sharpe
He added, 'he was pressed to serve as a souldyer in Flanders by commyssyon

and had not those thinges which he was promysed, and that yf her majestie
were quene, she had villeynes under her'. 20 Henry Danyell of Ash in Kent,
indicted in 1598 for a lengthy statement envisaging a rising of the poor,
commented that 'the Spaniards were better than the people of this land and
therefore had rather that they were here than the rich men of this
countrie'. 21
The price of corn, as might be expected, was another constant theme of
plebeian comment. 'Come wilbe dear', said an Essex labourer in 1594, 'and
there is one in the Tower that doth prophecy that wheat wilbe at sixteene
shillings a bushell shortly. And I know where there are fower shipps in the
water laden with corne to carry yt to the enemy.' He continued 'I wilbe one
of them that shall ryse and gather a company of eight or nine skore together
and will go to fetch yt out . . . and yf we were such a company gathered
together, who can withstand us?' 22 As the hard times continued, such
sentiments acquired a tinge of something approaching class consciousness.
'What a world is this', asked a Kentish man earlier in the reign, 'that pore
men be troubled for such tryfling things?', and envisaged a future where one
'shall not see a gent in England but shalbe kylled and spoyld'. 23 In 1598, in
the same county, a labourer said 'he hoped to see such warre in this realme
to afflicte the rich men of this countrye to requite their hardnes of heart
towards the poore'. 24 A few years earlier an Essex labourer had complained
about high grain prices, and declared that rather than starve he would form
a company, 'and fetch yt owt where it is to be had'. Being asked 'what can
poore men do against riche men?', he answered 'what can riche men do
against poore men yf poore men rise and hold together?' 25 At least some of
Elizabeth's poorer subjects were capable of envisaging a social hierarchy
different from that in which they found themselves.
However alarming such utterances were to contemporary authority, and
however interesting they are to later historians, massive problems remain
with interpreting their exact significance and representativeness. Less
equivocal, if more prosaic, was the steady increase in the indictment of
crime in the second half of the 1590s. Our main source for reconstructing
the relevant figures, the indictment files of the Home Circuit of the assizes,
is imperfect, and the many gaps in them prevent too precise a reconstruction of patterns of indicted crime. 26 Nevertheless, such figures as can be
20
24
26
21
22
23
Ibid., 121121 AT.
Ibid.,/40/4/47.
Ibid., /36/2/39.
Ibid., /10/5/12.
25
Ibid., /40/4/47.
Ibid., /36/2/40.
These indictments have formed the basis of a number of studies of crime in early modern
England. The two most relevant here are: Joel Samaha, Law and Order in Historical
Perspective: The Case of Elizabethan Essex (New York and London, 1974); and J. S.
Cockburn, 'The Nature and Incidence of Crime in England 1559-1625: A Preliminary
Survey', in Cockburn (ed.), Crime in England 1550-1800 (London, 1977), pp. 49-71. The
201
400
350
300
:
250
200
150
100
1603
1602
1601
1600
1599
1598
1597
1596
1595
1594
1593
1592
1591
1590
1589
1588
1587
1586
1585
50
Fig. 2 Annual totals of persons accused of felony, Home Circuit, 1585-1603

(Source: Calendar of Assize Records: Home Circuit Indictments Elizabeth I
and James I, ed. J. S. Cockburn (11 vols., London, 1975-850), XI, Introduction, pp. 175-97).
derived from these sources, as shown in Figure 2, do demonstrate a gradual
upward trend which can be connected with economic problems, especially
bad harvests. Hence the dearth of 1586 was followed by high levels of
indictment in 1587, when the gaols were cleared of malefactors imprisoned
in the previous year. The 1590s also witnessed increases in the levels of
those indicted, notably in 1596-8, years of recurrent bad harvests. Detailed
work on the experience of individual counties within the Home Circuit is
clearly needed, but early work on Essex is suggestive. There the link
between high grain prices and high levels of indicted crime was uncertain
before 1591, but became much closer over the later 1590s.27 The Essex
27
background to the history of crime in this period is provided by J. A. Sharpe, Crime in Early
Modern England 1550-1750 (London, 1984).
Samaha, Law and Order in Historical Perspective, pp. 168-9. For a fuller discussion of the
connection between levels of crime and dearth in this period, see Peter Lawson, 'Property
Crime and Hard Times in England, 1559-1624', Law and History Review, 4 (1986), 95-128.
202
Jim Sharpe
40
35
.
30
,
'>
25
.3 20
Ou,
15
10
Fig. 3 Proportion of persons accused of felony capitally convicted on the

Home Circuit, by year, 1585-1603 (Source: as Fig. 2).
figures also demonstrate clearly that the surge in indicted crime in the 1590s
was accounted for largely by a rise in property offences: larceny, burglary,
robbery.
If the later 1590s experienced rising levels of crime, and if this development can be linked to the dislocation caused by dearth, so these years saw an
intensification of the use of the death penalty which suggests that the assize
judges knew that they were confronting a potential social crisis and were
anxious to make examples. Again, the records are incomplete, but suggestive. Fifty people are known to have been sentenced to death on the Home
Circuit in 1595, sixty-four in 1596, eighty in 1597, 125 in 1598.28 A number
of these would have escaped hanging through pardon or reprieve, but there
is little doubt that absolute levels of execution were high while, as Figure 3
demonstrates, the proportion of those indicted who were capitally convicted
28
These figures are based on data given in Calendar of Assize Records: Home Circuit
Indictments Elizabeth I and James /, ed. J. S. Cockburn (11 vols., London, 1975-85), XI,
Introduction, pp. 182-97.
203
was very high at some points in the 1590s. Evidence from other counties
suggests that the problem was not restricted to the south-east. In Cheshire,
a county with excellent criminal records, there was a tendency towards
higher levels of indictment and capital convictions in the 1590s. 29 In Devon,
seventy-eight persons were sentenced to death in 1598, over half of them
after conviction at the county quarter sessions. 30 The overwhelming majority of those executed suffered death for crimes against property. And, by a
sad irony, the bad conditions over the last years of Elizabeth's reign meant
an increase in deaths of prisoners awaiting trial from plague, gaol fever or
starvation.31
Ill
Confronted by these symptoms of social dislocation and pressure from
below, the occasional riots, the trickle of cases of seditious words, the
manifest law and order problem of the 1590s, Hext's panic-stricken tones
become all the more explicable. But it must be reiterated that his view of the
situation was not unique. At the other end of southern England from
Somerset, the Kentish justice of the peace and legal writer William Lambarde delivered charges to juries throughout the 1580s and 1590s which
stressed humankind's sinfulness, the imminence of social breakdown, the
threat from internal and external enemies, and the need for constant care in
ensuring the vigilance and efficiency of the inferior officers of law enforcement. 32 Such was probably the standard rhetoric of the articulate and
educated members of the magistracy, yet it was not an empty rhetoric.
It reflected a widely held fear that the strains confronted by the lateElizabethan regime might well prove insurmountable. And, as part of the
general fear of social breakdown and disorder, the nagging fear of the lower
orders continued to surface among the elite. In October 1596, a month after
Hext wrote from Somerset, the earl of Bath wrote to the Privy Council from
the neighbouring county of Devon, urging that gentry resident in Exeter
should return to their estates 'to be at hand to stay the fury of the inferior
multitude, if they should happen to break out in sudden outcry for want of
relief, as without good circumspection they may and will do'. 33
29
30
31
32
33
PRO, Palatinate of Chester Crown Books, C H E S 21/1, fos. 188-98v. For a preliminary
survey of the trends in crime and punishment which can be discerned in these sources see
Sharpe, Crime in Early Modern England, pp. 57-65.
A. H . A. Hamilton, Quarter Sessions from Queen Elizabeth to Queen Anne: Illustrations of
Local Government and History drawn from Original Records (London, 1878), pp. 3 0 - 1 .
Calendar of Assize Records, ed. Cockburn, X I , pp. 145-71.
William Lambarde and Local Government: His (Ephemerisy and Twenty-Nine Charges to
Juries and Commissions, ed. Conyers Read (Ithaca, N Y , 1962), pp. 67-189.
H M C , Fifteenth Report, Part VII, The Manuscripts of the Duke of Somerset, The Marquis of
Ailesbury, and the Rev. Sir T. H. G. Puleston, Bart (London, 1898), p. 20.
204
Jim Sharpe
We shall return to this notion of 'good circumspection' at a later point.

For the moment, let us simply note that the problem of order, and more
especially of social order, was a major concern of central and local government in the early modern period. The topic still awaits detailed investigation, but, as the earl of Bath's letter reminds us, fear of the 'inferior
multitude', of the 'many headed monster' of the poor, was an important
element in this wider concern. The history of attitudes to the social hierarchy is another topic which awaits detailed investigation. But it is becoming apparent that those historians who have downgraded the importance of
'class' as a tool for analysing Tudor and Stuart England, and who have
preferred to portray that society as some sort of 'society of orders', in which
social solidarity was natural, and reinforced by deference on the part of the
poor and paternalism on the part of the rich, have taken a somewhat
optimistic view.34 As we have seen, at least some of the poor, the group
whose opinions are least likely to enter the historical record, could be found
making pointed and rather undeferential statements about the rich. Similarly, some of the rich, whose opinions have been recorded in profusion, can
be found uttering some disobliging and rather unpaternalistic statements
about the poor.35 Measuring such things from isolated comment is, of
course, difficult, but it does seem that as the sixteenth century progressed
elite commentators became ever more prone to present the lower orders as
feckless, idle, unstable and dangerous. As a member of parliament observed
in 1597, during a debate on enclosures, if 'the ruder sort' were 'privy to their
own strength and the liberty allowed them by the law', they would be 'as
unbridled and untamed beasts'.36
This notion of the threat from below was part of a more general mood
of pessimism which formed an important strand in the late-Elizabethan
mentality. Traditional historiography, especially that rooted in nineteenthcentury nationalism, has tended to portray the Elizabethan period as a
self-confident and expansionary one. There is, however, another interpretation, which would rather present the contemporary image of England as that
34
35
36
T h e classic argument for the existence of a society of orders in the early modern period is
Roland Mousnier, Social Hierarchies: 1450 to the Present (London, 1973) For an alternative
England
view, see Christopher Hill, Change and Continuity in Seventeenth-Century
(London, 1974), chap. 9, 'A One Class Society?' For a more recent discussion of how the
social structures of early modern England might be understood, see Keith Wrightson, 'The
Social Order of Early Modern England: Three Approaches', in Lloyd Bonfield, Richard
M. Smith and Keith Wrightson (eds.), The World We Have Gained: Histories of Population
and Social Structure (Oxford, 1986).
This theme has so far been little studied. For an important preliminary essay, see
Christopher Hill, 'The Many Headed Monster in Late Tudor and Early Stuart Political
Thinking', in C. H . Carter (ed.), From the Renaissance to the Counter Reformation: Essays in
Honour of Garrett Mattingley (New York, 1965), pp. 296-324.
A. E. Bland, P. A. Brown, and R. H . Tawney (eds.), English Economic History: Select
Documents (London, 1914), p. 271.
205
of the 'Beleagured Isle', a small and worried nation on the fringe of Europe,
nervously calculating the chances of its regime's survival in the face of
internal and external enemies. Those protestants who gave God the credit
for the defeat of the Armada in 1588 were all too aware that this divine
intervention might not be forthcoming a second time. The law enforcing
activities of the more godly justices of the peace were given an additional
edge by their conviction that if the sinful nature of the English were not
curbed, the Almighty might either withdraw his support in the next time of
crisis, or even send Philip IPs tercios to chasten an unworthy nation. Many
thinking protestants believed that they were living in the final phase of
human history, the 'last days', a period of chaos which would precede the
dissolution of human society and the Second Coming. Their protestantism
did not inspire confidence about human nature: it stressed rather the
tendency of people to chose evil rather than good. The Augustinian emphasis on the utter depravity of humankind after the Fall, and of humankind's
total dependence on the grace of God, were key elements in English
protestant thinking. This abstract notion of the corruptibility of human
beings interacted in the elite consciousness with the concrete realities of
vagrancy, grain riots and rising levels of crime. As a faltering war effort
restricted the opportunities for optimism yet further, national and local
governments' assumptions about human nature and awareness of the real
problems they faced gave little cause for complacency about the state of the
home front.37
Yet both local and central governments were alert to these problems, and
were active in the face of them. At the centre, the Privy Council was
continually vigilant, and showed considerable flexibility and effectiveness in
the face of crisis, constantly deploying what, as we have seen, one contemporary referred to as 'good circumspection'. Consider, for example, the
bad harvest of 1586. Confronted by early warnings of this crisis (and, it
must be admitted, aided by the fact that the strains of warfare were far less
acute than they were to become a decade later) the Privy Council reacted
along standard lines. Order had to be maintained, but it was recognized that
a major part of this process lay in intervening in the workings of the grain
market in order to lessen the chances of popular revolt. From the spring of
1586 onwards county justices and urban governors alike certified to the
Privy Council that they had implemented instructions to regulate the local
grain trade, or informed the Privy Council about local conditions in hopes of
further instructions or assistance about such matters: Plymouth and
Gloucestershire in April, Sussex, Lincolnshire, Surrey, Berkshire, Exeter
37
These themes are explored in Carol Z. Weiner, 'The Beleagured Isle: A Study of Elizabethan and Early Jacobean Anti-Catholicism', Past and Present, 51 (1971), 27-62, an essay
which raises issues far wider than those implicit in its title.
206
Jim Sharpe
and Devon in May, Monmouthshire, Nottinghamshire, Norfolk, the Isle of

Ely and Shropshire in June, Herefordshire, Bedfordshire, Wiltshire,
Carmarthenshire, Huntingdonshire and Lancashire in July.38 The problems of maintaining grain supplies in time of dearth were massive, and
involved the balancing of a number of interests: but both the size of the
problem and the care of the response support the contention that the state of
the harvest was the economic issue which created the greatest worry for
central government.39
In general the authorities, both local and national, showed a surprising
flexibility in the face of disorder. As we have seen, when the poor of
Oxfordshire confronted the probability of a bad harvest in 1596, their first
reaction was to petition the county's lord lieutenant. County justices, urban
oligarchs and the Privy Council alike were all used to this tactic on the part
of the poor, while throughout the early modern period much of what
historians have categorized as popular disturbances could, in fact, be more
plausibly represented as what modern terminology would call demonstrations: initially, at least, statements of grievances to be redressed rather
than a threat to the social order. Both sides, in a sense, knew the rules: and if
the authorities played their part by fixing prices or stopping the export of
grain, so the poor would play theirs and return to exhibiting a suitably
deferential exterior.40 This interpretation, as occasional comments about
knocking the rich on the head suggest, may be a little too cosy: but a sense of
responsibility on the part of local and central authority, an awareness of the
limitations of what could be done by sheer repression, does help explain
why the strains of 1585-1603 were contained, why the actual or projected
risings of the period never reached critical mass. (It is sometimes possible to
trace a very direct response: thus the Oxfordshire rebellion of 1596 resulted
not only in the execution of two of the rebels, but also in renewed legislation
against enclosure, one of the major grievances in the Oxfordshire countryside, in 1597).41 The Privy Council and Parliament both knew that maintaining the sometimes fragile relationship between rulers and ruled required
more than simply an iron fist.
Local authorities likewise reacted to the problems of the period with a
mixture of repressive or disciplinary measures and others which were
38
39
40
41
CSPD, 1581-1590, pp. 317, 320, 328-31, 336-8. In general, CSPD for the late-Elizabethan
period are an excellent, and still underused, source for understanding the governmental
preoccupations of the time.
T h e validity of this assertion is discussed in Penry Williams, The Tudor Regime (Oxford,
1979), pp. 185-95.
This 'standard interpretation' of English popular disturbances is set out in John Walter and
Keith Wrightson, 'Dearth and the Social Order in Early Modern England', Past and
Present, 71 (1976), 22-42. For a brief discussion of popular disturbances specifically in the
Elizabethan period, see Palliser, Age of Elizabeth, pp. 309-12.
Walter, '"Rising of the People'", pp. 95, 137.
207
designed to alleviate suffering. Special difficulties were experienced in

London, whose steady population growth, fuelled mainly by the immigration of poor people from other parts of the country, created unique
problems of control. Many of the newly arrived Londoners were young and
poor, living outside the normal controls of family and household. They
formed an important element in the capital's vast army of casual labour,
many of whose members turned to begging if there was no work, or to theft
or prostitution if work and begging failed. Official anxieties and literary
evidence probably overstate the extent of the organized criminal underworld in Elizabethan London, yet there is considerable evidence of
organized crime and prostitution, while casual crime was an endemic
problem. Feeding the capital's population in time of dearth was an important official priority, while the organization of poor relief was a continual
concern of City, parish and ward authorities. In June 1595 street disturbances led the City authorities to implement a more effective policing policy,
which included the appointment of a Provost Marshal with extensive rights
of summary punishment. Despite occasional periods of extreme tension, the
government of London, on all levels, proved strong enough to contain the
challenges of the period.42
The policies followed in London were also present in England's provincial towns. Many corporations, large and small alike, organized corn stocks
from which grain, flour and bread were sold in times of dearth at below the
market price. Such policies had been followed intermittently from the early
sixteenth century, but in the face of the crises of the 1590s they became a
regular part of urban life. Some notion of the effort demanded by such
policies can be gained from Coventry, where the city corn stock supplied
600 people a week in the spring of 1597, rising to 725 in 1598.43 There were
also spasmodic local law and order initiatives in towns, although these
tended to follow the standard lines of a crackdown on alehouses and search
for vagrants and undesirable strangers. And if assize records suggest that
serious crime was becoming more of a problem in the 1590s, it seems likely
that the trial of petty offences at local urban courts was also increasing. The
subject has so far received little attention, but work on the courts of Rye, a
small, declining port on the Sussex coast, is suggestive, with intensification
of prosecutions in 1586 and 1597-8. And even on this very local level,
property offences in the latter period rose with grain prices. 44
42
43
44
Conditions in London are described in M . J. Power, 'London and the Control of the
"Crisis" of the 1590s', History, 70 (1985), 371-85. A more general impression of the
problems of governing the capital is provided by Ian W. Archer, The Pursuit of Stability:
Social Relations in Elizabethan London (Cambridge, 1991).
Urban initiatives in this period, including those at Coventry, are described in Clark,
'Condition of English Towns in the 1590s', pp. 56-61.
Graham Mayhew, Tudor Rye (Falmer, 1987), chap. 6, 'Crime and Social Order'.
208
Jim Sharpe
Perhaps the most remarkable official response to the harvest failures and
related problems of the 1590s, however, was the group of Acts which
constituted the poor law legislation of 1598. This legislation summed up
three quarters of a century of local initiatives and national policy making. It
placed responsibility for the poor firmly on the churchwardens, overseers of
the poor, and ratepayers of every parish. The costs of providing for the poor
were normally to be met by a parish rate, and begging was prohibited, unless
licensed by the parish. The other aspect of Tudor poor law policy was
demonstrated by an Act 'for the punishment of rogues, vagabonds, and
sturdy beggars'. This accepted reality by rejecting some of the unenforceably harsh aspects of earlier legislation: vagrants, on afirstoffence, were now
to be whipped and returned to their place of residence, with the punishment
to be carried out by local constables or other officers on their own initiative.
Other related Acts dealt with maimed, idle and disorderly soldiers and
sailors returning from the wars, and with endowed charities.45 The legislation, codified and confirmed by further Acts in 1601, provided the framework for the relief of the poor, increasingly a fact of life in England, until the
arrival of the new poor law in 1834. As such, the legislation of 1598-1601
was one of the lasting achievements of the Elizabethan regime.
So far we have treated the emergence of the poor, essentially the outcome
of broader demographic and socio-economic changes, as a major factor in
the problems which the late-Elizabethan regime had to face. Yet these
changes, while disadvantaging many members of the population, were
beneficial to others. High agricultural prices meant deteriorating conditions
for the poor, but they were the precondition for the growing prosperity of
other social strata. The emergence of a more affluent and more selfconfident gentry has long been a familiar theme of Tudor and Stuart
historiography, but more recently attention has focussed on the stratum
immediately below the gentry, the yeomanry and other lesser property
owners. The process was very regionalized, and perhaps at its most marked
in the south-east, but recent research is demonstrating how, at least in many
arable areas, this group was becoming richer, more market oriented, and
more literate and outward looking. There is also a strong suggestion that
this social group, along with other comparable lesser property owners, were
becoming increasingly integrated into the cultural values of the elite. 46 The
45
46
For the background to the poor law legislation of 1598 and 1601 see Slack, Poverty and
Policy, pp. 126-9.
These trends, which, it should be stressed, were far from complete by 1603 and were very
localized, are described forcefully in Wrightson and Levine, Poverty and Piety. A more
recent discussion of them, again within the context of the local community, is provided by
Marjorie Keniston Mclntosh, A Community Transformed: The Manor and Liberty of
Havering, 1500-1620 (Cambridge, 1991). For a general discussion of the implications of the
209
implications of this process were massively important. It was such men, the
natural leaders of village society, whose support and leadership were vital if
a large-scale rebellion like, say, those of 1549 were to get off the ground.47
But if they were increasingly regarding themselves as having a stake in the
status quo, and if they were increasingly willing to differentiate themselves
culturally from the poor, such support and leadership was less likely to be
forthcoming. Moreover, the smooth running of local administration, one of
the ultimate tests of governmental efficiency, depended upon men from this
social level. As constables, churchwardens and overseers of the poor they
found, like the gentry from whom justices of the peace were recruited, that
holding local office demanded an ever growing burden of administrative
duties in response to the needs of the Tudor state. The importance of the
justices of the peace has long been acknowledged: the contribution of these
inferior officers is only just beginning to be recognized.48 It is evident,
however, that the increasing integration into the late-Tudor regime of the
social groups from which these officers were drawn was an important
element in helping to preserve its efficient running.
IV
There can thus be little doubt that English society experienced a number of
strains and dislocations between 1585 and 1603: demographic pressures,
poverty, bad harvests, plague, the burdens of warfare, all of these contributed to the problems faced by government and the governed alike. But the
question remains, as has been suggested at various points in this chapter, of
establishing exactly how dangerous these strains and dislocations were.
From a distance of four hundred years it is obvious that they did not
constitute quite so serious a threat as some contemporaries feared. At the
time of the queen's death Elizabethan governmental structures, at all levels,
were beginning to look strained, if not a little battered. Yet the transition
to the reign of James I was achieved: the Cecil interest ensured the defeat of
Essex and helped engineer the smooth accession of the Scottish monarch;
the faltering war effort was kept going until the new king could negotiate a
much needed peace with Spain; the new poor laws at least established the
47
48
increased social stratification of the late-Elizabethan and Stuart periods, see Keith
Wrightson, English Society 1580-1680 (London, 1982), p p . 17-38, 222-8.
T h e risings of 1549 still await comprehensive treatment by a modern historian. F o r an
important and suggestive article, however, which addresses a n u m b e r of themes relevant to
our discussion at this point, see Diarmaid MacCulloch, 'Kett's Rebellion in Context', Past
and Present, 84 (1979), 36-59.
F o r a good discussion of at least one of the 'inferior officers' of the period see Joan R. Kent,
The English Village Constable 1580-1642: A Social and Administrative Study (Oxford,
1986).
210
Jim Sharpe
framework, both conceptual and administrative, for containing poverty; and

the end of a series of bad harvests helped relieve the pressure at the base of
society. We may therefore permit the writers of textbooks to return to their
celebration of Queen Elizabeth and her regime.
Elizabeth I has received a very good press from historians and has passed
into the popular imagination as a strong and effective monarch. The reasons
for these processes are complex, and need not detain us here, while this is
also not the place to attempt a critique of the monarch and her reign. What
needs to be stressed is that the strength of tradition about the reign of
Elizabeth, and the way in which the history of that reign is usually presented, make it difficult to break through accumulated historical folklore
and attempt to assess the reality of what was often a fairly shoddy period.
Moreover, even recent scholarship has tended to take an optimistic view of
the reign. Thus Christopher Haigh, admittedly in a somewhat ironic mode,
has commented that
cataclysmic interpretations of economic history have been denounced: all was for the
best in the England of Elizabeth. Population pressures stimulated economic growth,
poverty was contained by economic expansion and charitable provision, agricultural
improvements increased the food supply, industry and trade advanced with new
techniques and new markets, trade was in balance or even surplus, a benign regime
preserved social order and enlightened councillors pursued helpful policies of
industrial diversification and import substitution - or so it has been forcefully and
skilfully argued.49
And so, indeed, it has been forcefully and skilfully argued. But even those
accepting such a line of argument should not do so uncritically: confronted
by stories of progress, as Bertolt Brecht reminded us in the 1930s, we
should always ask that most basic of questions, who paid the price?50 And
when we confront that question, we rapidly make the acquaintance of the
seventy-eight people who were sentenced to death in Devon in 1598, the 725
people buying cheap bread in Coventry in the same year, the men who
plotted rebellion in Oxfordshire in 1596, the men and women who were
indicted for seditious words in the south-east in the last two decades of the
reign, the troops who mutinied as they awaited being sent to Ireland in
1600, the thousands who died in the wake of bad harvests, the hundreds of
thousands who had no choice but to accept deteriorating working conditions
and worsening real wages in their efforts to feed themselves and their
children.
Which is to say that the Elizabethan regime looks very successful if the
49
50
Christopher Haigh, 'Introduction', in Haigh (ed.), The Reign of Elizabeth I (London, 1984),
p. 22.
Bertolt Brecht, Poems 1913-1956 (London, 1976), pp. 252-3, 'Questions From a Worker
Who Reads'.
211
historians describing it so construct their agenda as to exclude an investigation of those areas of historical enquiry wherein symptoms of a lack of
success might lurk. Or, to put it more neutrally, Tudor political history has
normally been written with a very narrow notion of what politics may have
been about. 'It is the essence of the poor', wrote G. R. Elton in a textbook
first published in 1955 but still widely read, 'that they do not appear in
history.' 51 As this chapter has suggested, the poor make fairly frequent
appearances in history if historians take the trouble to look for them, while
Professor Elton's observation would have caused real surprise to Edward
Hext, William Lambarde, the assize judges who confronted a steadily rising
tide of property crime in the 1590s, Sir Edward Coke as he presided over the
interrogation and torturing of the Oxfordshire rebels in the early months of
1597, or to the worried parliamentarians who, a little later, put together
the 1598 Poor Law. We have become far too accustomed in our view of
Elizabethan history to divide our perceptions of that section of the past into
hermetically sealed compartments labelled 'political history', 'social history'
or 'economic history'. The outcome has been the emergence of a number of
separate historiographies, contact between which is all too rare. The result,
in the writing of Tudor history, has been a tendency to describe the political
history of the period in the light of the preconceptions of the modern
historian rather than in terms of the preoccupations of contemporaries.
For as the records of both central and local government for the period
1585-1603 show, keeping the war effort going and maintaining law and
order in the face of dearth and social distress were hampered by an untidy
tendency of the political, the social and the economic to run into each other.
Historians of the period would do well to keep this point in mind.
51
G. R. Elton, England Under the Tudors (London, 1955), p. 259.
10
Lord of Liberty: Francis Davison and the cult

of Elizabeth
Richard C. McCoy
The cult of Elizabeth has traditionally been seen as a propaganda triumph

for Tudor despotism, flourishing paradoxically in the final decade of her
reign when the queen's difficulties and decline had to be concealed beneath
what Roy Strong calls 'the mask of youth'. 1 In his influential study of her
cult and the artwork and pageantry that it inspired, Strong argues that 'the
mask of youth' worked as long as her courtiers 'could yet join in paeans to
the Divine One who alone seemed capable of holding together the world
they knew'.2 The fair complexion and the blush of youth were, of course, a
facade sustained by make-up and make-believe, but still the tributes continued to her virtue and her beauty. Midway through her reign, in the
'AprilF eclogue of The Shepheardes Calendar (1579), Edmund Spenser had
blended the tropes of Petrarchan compliment with the heraldic devices of
the Tudor dynasty in his portrait of Elizabeth:
Tell me, have ye seene her angelick face.
Like Phoebe fayre?
Her heavenly haveour, her princely grace
Can you well compare?
The Redde rose medled with the White yfere,
In either cheeke depeincten lively chere.3
Twenty years later those roses still flourished in both the paintings and
poetry of her last decade. Sir John Davies dedicates his most ambitious
work, Nosce Teipsum (1599) to Elizabeth:
2
3
4
Faire Soule> since to the fairest bodie knit,

You give such lively life, such quickning power,
Such sweete, celestiall influence to it,
As keepes it still in youths immortall flower,4
Roy Strong, Nicholas Hilliard (London, 1975), pp. 14-19 and 21-6, and Artists of the Tudor
Court: The Portrait Miniature Rediscovered, 1520-1620 (London, 1983), pp. 9-13 and
126-32.
Roy Strong, The Cult of Elizabeth (Berkeley, Calif., 1977), p. 55.
The Poetical Works of Edmund Spenser, ed. J. C. Smith and E. de Selincourt (London, 1912;
repr. 1965), p. 432.
The Poems of Sir John Davies, ed. Robert Krueger (Oxford, 1975)5 p. 5.
212
Francis Davison and the cult of Elizabeth
213
In the traditional view, the cult of Elizabeth persisted in its flattering

effusions despite the evidence of physical decline because of what Frances
Yates perceives as a deep 'need for order' pervading sixteenth-century
Europe. 5 Responding to this need, the queen was able to use courtly
spectacle and verse 'to focus fervent religious loyalty on the national
monarch'. 6 Similarly, E. C. Wilson argues that a
critic who dismisses the poet's celebration of Queen Elizabeth as flattery for
advancement, or as exacted by a woman's vanity, has failed to grasp its true rationale
and its poetic significance . . . idealization of Elizabeth expressed the imaginative life
of her age, which made of her a complete symbol for the good and beautiful in
sovereignty and womanhood.7
More recent accounts of the cult of Elizabeth, particularly those
associated with New Historicism, stand this idealizing view of monarchy on
its head. Michel Foucault's essentially paranoid conception of power has
been immensely influential, and variations on the harrowing scenes of
surveillance, torture and execution in Foucault's Discipline and Punish
feature prominently in the work of Stephen Greenblatt, Leonard Tennenhouse, Jonathan Goldberg, Stephen Mullaney and others. 8 The result is a
kind of film noir version of the Elizabethan world picture, starring the queen
as supreme dominatrix in a courtly theatre of cruelty. While less enraptured
than older views of sovereignty, these newer versions sometimes reinforce a
fundamentally hegemonic and conservative idea of Court politics. In an
essay reviewing the work of New Historicism, Walter Cohen notes what he
calls 'the triumph of containment' and attributes it to a conception of 'royal
absolutism, whose power is wrongly understood to be absolute'. 9
Two decades ago, G. R. Elton set out to demolish the assumptions behind
such exalted and conservative views of the cult of Elizabeth. In an address to
the Royal Historical Society on the Court as a point of contact in Tudor
government, he attacked absolutist fantasies of 'monarch-worshipping
dread' for preventing us from seeing the Court as a site of serious power
5
6
8
Frances Yates, Astraea: The Imperial Theme in the Sixteenth Century (London, 1975), p. 27.
7
Ibid., p. 108.
E. C. Wilson, England's Eliza (Cambridge, Mass., 1939), pp. 394.
Michel Foucault, Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison, trans. Alan Sheridan (New
York, 1977), pp. 49-57 and passim. See Jonathan Goldberg, James I and the Politics of
Literature (Baltimore, Md., 1983), pp. 1-12, and Leonard Tennenhouse, Power on Display:
The Politics of Shakespeare's Genres (New York, 1986), p. 121 and passim. Stephen Mullaney
offers accounts of executions (pp. 88-91 and 116-17) but contends that aspirations to royal
omniscience and omnipotence ultimately fail; The Place of the Stage: License, Play, and
Power in Renaissance England (Chicago, 1988), pp. 130-4. Stephen Greenblatt also describes
the monarchy's efforts to strike terror in its subjects (p. 136) but rejects any presumption of
totalitarian control, contending that power circulates; Shakespearean Negotiations: The
Circulation of Social Energy in Renaissance England (Berkeley, Calif., 1988), pp. 2-3.
Walter Cohen, Tolitical Criticism of Shakespeare', in Jean E. Howard and Marion
F. O'Connor (eds.), Shakespeare Reproduced: The Text in History and Ideology (New York,
1987), p. 35.
214
Richard C. McCoy
struggles.10 Far from being above the fray, the monarch is, according to
Elton, merely one of the more powerful contestants. She usually won, but if
hindsight makes us see her victories as preordained, then it seriously
distorts our understanding of events. In Elton's view, as long as we remain
dazzled by mystical visions of Gloriana or Astraea or Elizabetha
Triumphans, we will never 'really get to the roots of political life in her
reign'. He also argues that as long as we continue to regard 'the Court of
Elizabeth as mainly a cultural centre (with Sir Philip Sidney our paradigmatic courtier)' we will never understand it at all, Court culture effectively
precluding a comprehension of Court politics. Elton concluded with a sly
swipe at Yates and Strong by asking historians to indulge in 'no more
reveries on accession tilts and symbolism, no more pretty pictures of
gallants and galliards'. 11
Elton's critique is a valuable corrective, restoring a sense of the dynamic
energies of Court politics, but I want to argue against the separation of
Court politics from Court culture. As I have tried to show in my earlier
work, the writings of Sir Philip Sidney and the chivalric pageantry of the
Accession Day tilts as well as other productions of Court culture can
illuminate rather than obscure conflicts within the ruling class since they
often implicitly confront them. 12 We can see how this confrontation works
in the opening scenes of Shakespeare's Richard II', the play restaged on the
eve of the Essex revolt. Henry Bolinbroke, duke of Hereford, accuses his
adversary of treason and challenges him to single combat, vowing
By that, and all the rites of knighthood else,
Will I make good against thee, arm to arm
What I have spoke or thou canst worst devise.13
In taking this typical Shakespearean pun as my title for The Rites of
Knighthood, I argue that the chivalric 'rites' of judicial combat are employed
in the opening scenes to vindicate the 'customary rights' of an aggrieved
aristocracy.14 Essex and his noble co-conspirators were probably stirred by
the play's opening actions even more than its frequently noted deposition
scene. For the same reasons, they were drawn to the 'rites' of the tiltyard
during the 1590s, when the earl and his cohort came to dominate the
10
11
12
13
14
G. R. Elton, 'Tudor Government: The Points of Contact; The Court', TRHS, series 5, 26
(1976), 219.
Ibid., p. 225.
See Richard McCoy, Sir Philip Sidney: Rebellion in Arcadia (New Brunswick, NJ, 1979)
and The Rites of Knighthood: The Literature and Politics of Elizabethan Chivalry (Berkeley,
Calif., 1989).
William Shakespeare, Richard II, I.i.75, in The Riverside Shakespeare, ed. G. Blakemore
Evans (Boston, Mass., 1974), p. 806. All citations of Shakespeare, hereafter cited in the text
are from this edition.
See McCoy, Rites of Knighthood, pp. 1-8.
215
Accession Day tilts, overshadowing the queen's nominal champion, the earl
of Cumberland.15 Self-aggrandizement outweighed celebration of the queen
as a motive for these spectacles, prompting Sir Henry Wotton to criticize
Essex in later years for 'committing himself in his recreations . . . to the
publique view of so many thousand Citizens which usually flocked to see
him, and made within the reach of his own ears large reclamations in his
praise'. 16
Overbearing aristocrats were not the only ones to lay claim to the rites
- and rights - of knighthood. Other well-born but less eminent subjects
of the queen staged their own chivalric festivals with the dual aim of
glorifying Gloriana and themselves. One of the grandest of Elizabeth's last
decade was the Gesta Grayorum, revels staged at Gray's Inn during the
winter of 1594-5. The privileged participant in these rites saw himself less
as an abject devotee of a cult of Elizabeth than as a man of worth and honour
- a 'Lord of Liberty' in Ben Jonson's terms. When Jonson dedicated Every
Man out of His Humour to the members of the Inns of Court in 1599, the
terms of address were ambiguous. His reference to the time 'when the gown
and cap is off, and the Lord of Liberty reigns' specifically denotes the rule of
the revels prince and the licence associated with these feasts of student
misrule, but his fulsome dedication 'To the Noblest Nurseries of Humanity
and Liberty in the Kingdom: The Inns of Court' implies a much broader
and loftier conception of liberty.17 As Philip Finkelpearl explains in his
discussion of this dedication, both implications are pertinent. 18 Gentlemen
of the Inns of Court, like their aristocratic superiors, were inclined to unruly
exhibitionism and physical violence, as we can see in the flamboyant poses
of John Donne in his portraits and poetry and the challenges and quarrels of
Sir John Davies.19 However, as Wilfred Prest and other historians of the
Inns of Court have shown, festive misrule also provided opportunities for
serious political opposition, linking licence with graver notions of liberty.
While sceptical of facile links between lawyers and Parliament, Prest still
discerns a high level of political consciousness in the festivities of the Inns of
Court during the reigns of Elizabeth and James. 20
In this essay, I want to consider the political implications of the Gesta
Grayorum, focussing on the contribution of one participant, Francis
15
17
18
19
20
16
Ibid., pp. 81-2.
Ibid., p. 82.
The Complete Plays of Ben Jonson, ed. G. A. Wilkes (4 vols., Oxford, 1981), I, p. 279.
Philip Finkelpearl, John Marston of the Middle Temple (Cambridge, Mass., 1969), pp. 78-80.
See the chapter on 'Donne as an Inns of Court Author', in Arthur Marotti, John Donne,
Coterie Poet (Madison, Wis., 1986), pp. 25-95, and Hans Pawlisch's discussion of the
'flamboyant and tempestuous personality' of Davies and the 'ritualized fraternal chaos' of
the revels in Sir John Davies and the Conquest of Ireland (Cambridge, 1985), pp. 17-20.
See the chapters on 'Discipline and Disorder' and 'The Inns of Court and the English
Revolution' in Wilfred R. Prest, The Inns of Court under Elizabeth I and the Early Stuarts,
1590-1640 (London, 1972), especially pp. 99-101 and 221-2.
216
Richard C. McCoy
Davison, a protege of the earl of Essex and the author of the revels' climactic
performance, The Masque of Proteus. This minor masque is in many ways a
typical creation of the cult of Elizabeth, and it shows how courtly spectacle
dramatizes political conflicts in the hope of reconciling them. Davison's
subsequent activities prove equally revealing, for they demonstrate the
intransigence of those political conflicts. When the earl of Essex falls and his
own ambitions are thwarted, Davison reproaches the queen in a volume of
poetry whose defiant audacity is surprising. His Poetical Rhapsody,
published in the final year of Elizabeth's reign, illuminates some of the
sources of tension in Elizabeth's final decade. Moreover, several of the lyrics
included in this influential collection seem designed to undermine rather
than support the cult of Elizabeth at a point when its pretensions were
increasingly doubtful.
The winter revels at Gray's Inn in 1594-5 were especially elaborate,
lasting from 20 December to Shrovetide. Many prominent figures in Elizabeth's government were members of Gray's Inn (Walsingham, Burghley,
Bacon, among others), and the connections to the Court were strong.21 The
highlights evidently included a performance of Shakespeare's Comedy of
Errors, a royal progress by the Prince of Purpoole through the city on
horseback and another by the same revels prince in barges on the Thames,
the first so convincingly magnificent that Londoners thought he was 'some
great Prince, in very deed, passing through the City'.22 These events were
followed by a banquet at the Lord Mayor's house, songs by Thomas
Campion, speeches by Francis Bacon before an assembly of Court dignitaries, and finally a performance before the queen at Whitehall of Francis
Davison's masque, concluded by tilting at the barriers.
Francis Davison was a new member of Gray's Inn and the oldest son of
William Davison, the principal secretary to Sir Francis Walsingham.
William Davison delivered the signed warrant ordering the execution of
Mary, Queen of Scots in 1587, and he became the official scapegoat for
Elizabeth's wrath, guilt and ambivalence, his career apparently ruined. He
was charged with misprision and contempt, lost his office and was sent to
the Tower for a year and a half. By 1595, however, William Davison's
prospects had improved considerably. In fact, his disgrace was never as
complete as it seemed - or as he made out in his pathetic letters complaining
that 'my poor estate [is] utterly ruined'.23 The fine imposed by Star
Chamber was evidently never paid, and Davison continued to collect his
21
22
23
Prest, The Inns of Court, p. 38.

Gesta Grayorum or the History of the High and Mighty Prince Henry Prince of Purpoole, ed.
Desmond Bland (Liverpool, 1968), p. 57; all citations are from this edition, hereafter cited
in the text.
In a letter written to Queen Elizabeth in December 1590. Nicholas Harris Nicolas, The Life
of William Davison (London, 1823), p. 190.
217
salary until his death several years into the next reign. King James, Mary
Stuart's son, even confirmed him as Clerk of the King's Bench the year
before his death, a sinecure he had held for some time. 24 He even retained
the title of Secretary of State and collected the emoluments of office as long
as the post remained vacant following the death of Walsingham in 1590.
Shortly after Walsingham's death, Davison and his son were taken up by
the earl of Essex, and the earl campaigned vigorously to have the older man
appointed to the post against insurmountable odds. He did so for two
reasons. First, Davison had supported the hawkish policies of Walsingham
and was closely aligned with the Leicester-Sidney faction that Essex now
headed; among his papers in the Harleian manuscripts are letters written to
both Elizabeth and Essex outlining arguments against peace with Spain.25
Indeed, Davison would be linked with this faction for years afterwards, and
his principles of political science were published together with moral precepts of Essex and Sidney in 1633.26 Secondly, the other candidate for
Secretary of State was Robert Cecil, the son of Lord Burghley, and by 1595
a rivalry was developing between the Cecils and Essex for control of the
Privy Council. Elizabeth finally could not and would not appoint Davison
Secretary of State, but characteristically she left the post vacant for more
than five years, waiting until 1596 to appoint Robert Cecil.27
Throughout the final decade of Elizabeth's rule, the earl of Essex was
increasingly determined to gain ascendancy at Court by placing his own
candidates in office. The earl had also been pushing hard to appoint Francis
Bacon Attorney-General and then Solicitor-General, but both posts were
denied him in 1594, the latter only a month before the Gesta Grayorum.
Bacon is thought to be the author of the six speeches advising the Prince of
Purpoole on an appropriate course of action, and war, philosophy, building,
wealth, virtue are each considered only to be rejected in favour of play. This
ponderously facetious exercise resembles an even less successful masque
Bacon wrote for the earl of Essex later that year for the 1595 Accession Day
tilt. In the later pageant, Bacon tried more seriously to effect a ceremonial
compromise between the promptings of Philautia or Self-Love and devotion
24
25
26
27
See B. M . Ward, 'Queen Elizabeth and William Davison', EHR, 44 (1929), 104-6 and R. B.
Wernham, 'The Disgrace of William Davison', EHR, 46 (1931), 632-6.
See his letter to Elizabeth of 1587, BL, Harleian M S 168, fo. 149 and his abstract written for
Essex, B L , Harleian M S 295, fo. 209.
Profitable Instructions; describing what speciall Observations are to be taken by Travellers
. . . by . . . Robert, late Earle of Essex, Sir Philip Sidney and Secretary Davison (London,
1633).
Paul E. J. Hammer contends that Essex and the Cecils cooperated effectively until 1595, but
that the earl's advocacy of Davison and the eventual appointment of Robert Cecil as
Secretary of State severely strained their relationship, in ' " T h e Bright Shining Sparke":
T h e Political Career of Robert Devereux, second earl of Essex C.1585-C.1597', unpublished
Cambridge Ph.D. dissertation (1991), pp. 43-55.
218
Richard C. McCoy
to the queen. He hoped he could reconcile the conflicting interests of his

patron and his sovereign by urging what I have called a 'chivalric compromise' satisfying to both. Unfortunately, the queen refused to play along and
abruptly walked out; it was a characteristic gesture, indicative of the tensions beneath the blandishments of the cult of Elizabeth. 28
Francis Davison wrote his Masque of Proteus at a time when both his
career and his father's career hung in the balance, and, like Bacon, he
attempted to achieve a 'chivalric compromise' between competing interests.
The plot is a simple one without much drama. On his way home from
Russia, the Prince of Purpoole captures Proteus and manages to hold him
fast despite the demi-god's rapid and unsettling transformations. The
victorious revels prince makes Proteus promise to hand over 'the Adamantine rock, the Sea's true star' which assures its possessor control of the
'wide Empire of the Ocean' (GG, p. 82). This theme probably reflects yet
another ambition of the earl of Essex who began promoting a more
aggressive naval policy against Spain at this time and would subsequently
lead a huge expedition against Cadiz in 1596 and the Azores in 1597. His
protege's nautical masque may have been intended to influence what
Wallace MacCaffrey calls 'the shifting currents' behind a change of policy
in 1595.29 The queen's backing was needed for such a change, and Davison's
masque couches its appeal in conventional romantic compliment. Proteus
agrees to hand over the rock assuring control over the seas on one condition:
That first the Prince should bring him to a power,
Which in attractive virtue should surpass
The wondrous force of his Ir'ne drawing rock.
(GG, p. 82)
Purpoole responds by making the contest even harder for himself, confining
himself and seven of his knights as hostages within the rock until this
superior power releases them.
There is never much suspense about how this will all turn out. As
Stephen Orgel says in The Jonsonian Masque, The Masque of Proteus
unfolds in a 'world purged of drama, of conflict'.30 By delivering the rock to
Whitehall, the masquers assure themselves that a solution is ready to hand,
for all Purpoole's squire needs to do is point to Elizabeth who sits watching
the masque, that 'excellent Queene, trew adamant of hartes' (GG, p. 83).
The love she inspires is a force which surpasses the rock's magnetism. The
resolution involves the defeat of a stage-play world of illusions - a pasteboard rock and a thespian Proteus - by the encroachment of the actual
sovereign and her Court:
28
29
30
See my discussion of Bacon's masque and the chivalric compromise in McCoy, Rites of
Knighthood, pp. 84-6; see also pp. 17-20.
Wallace MacCaffrey, Elizabeth I: War and Politics (Princeton, NJ, 1992), p. 109.
Stephen Orgel, The Jonsonian Masque (1965; repr. N e w York, 1981), p. 17.

Shadowes before the shining sunne do vanish.
The iron forcing adamant doth resigne
His vertues where the Daimond doth shine,
Pure holines doth all enchantment banish,
And cullors of false Principallity
Do fade in presence of true majesty.
219
(GG, p. 86)
The Prince of Purpoole and his fellow masquers make the same point about
themselves as they declare that their revels now are ended: 'But now our
Principality is determined; which, although it shined very bright in ours,
and other Darkness; yet, at the Royal Presence of Her majesty, it appeared
as an obscured shadow' (GG, pp. 88-9). As Orgel explains, the masque ends
by moving beyond its own illusions.31
There are intriguing thematic parallels with another of the Gesta
Grayorums* dramatic performances, one whose fame outlived all the rest:
Shakespeare's Comedy of Errors. This play was supposedly inserted into the
programme on Innocents' Day when the 'disordered Tumult and Crowd
upon the Stage' prevented offering 'any thing of account'. 32 Shakespeare's
heroes also undergo a series of Protean metamorphoses and 'wander in
illusions [until]/ Some blessed power deliver us from hence' (IV.iii.445).
In both the play and the masque, the blessed power turns out to be a good
woman. Indeed Antipholus of Syracuse is thought to be complimenting
Elizabeth, 'our earth's wonder' (III.ii.32), when addressing his beloved
Luciana. However, the good women in Shakespeare's play continually
acknowledge that 'Man is master of his liberty' (II.i.7) and 'Lord of the
wide world and watery seas' (II.i.21).
Davison's heroes do not insist upon their own virile liberty with the same
urgency, nor do they hesitate to lose themselves in service to another as the
Syracusan Antipholus does in one of the play's most famous speeches:
I to the world am like a drop of water
That in the ocean seeks another drop,
Who, falling there to find his fellow forth
(Unseen, inquisitive), confounds himself.
So I, to find a mother and a brother,
In quest of them, (unhappy), ah, lose myself.
(I.ii.35-40)
In contrast to Shakespeare's heroes, the Prince of Purpoole and his knights

are happy to immolate themselves in a larger maternal and royal power,
comparing themselves to 'the great Rivers, that triumph in the Multitude of
their Waters, until they come unto the Sea' and declaring 'Sic vinci, sic mori
31
32
Orgel, Jonsonian Masque, p. 13.

Leslie Hotson argues that the disorder was deliberate and the apology for the inadequacy of
this substitution in the description was ironic in Mr. W. H. ( N e w York, 1964), p. 50.
Desmond Bland disputes this in his edition of the Gesta Grayorum, p. xiii.
220
Richard C. McCoy
pulchrum'; Thus to be conquered, thus to die is beautiful (GG, p. 89). This

certainly sounds like abject surrender to what Samuel Daniel calls 'th'Ocean
of all-drowning Sov'raintie'. 33 Thus The Masque of Proteus and the Gesta
Grayorum apparently reach the same conclusion that all masques do according to Orgel: 'the prince always wins'. 34 If so, we end up with yet another
obsequious celebration of 'Elizabetha Triumphans', one that blinds us to
the hard edges of courtly conflicts, specifically the conflict simmering
between the queen on one side and Essex and the Davisons on the other.
In fact, the revels do not end with this declaration, nor does the masque
end with the usual galliard. Instead, it concludes with a display of chivalric
devices and 'fighting at Barriers' starring those two familiar tiltyard adversaries, the earl of Essex leading the challengers and the earl of Cumberland,
the queen's champion, leading the defenders (GG, p. 88). This ending
subtly qualifies the queen's triumph, reminding us as the verses already
have that the force actually opposing Proteus' adamantine rock is finally not
the queen herself but 'armes of men [that] from hartes of men doo move'
(GG, p. 84). The sentiments are conventionally Petrarchan, but they convey
the need for reciprocity between subject and sovereign. The chivalric
display emphasizes the contestants' virile prowess as the force on which the
queen depends, and that force in turn depends on the love they feel for her.
At the end of The Masque of Proteus, the Prince of Purpoole and his knights
do not set their heroic roles completely aside but join instead in 'the rites of
knighthood', and Purpoole wins the prize for his valour in combat at the
barriers. The ending is thus a form of chivalric compromise, in which
courtly pageantry simultaneously glorifies the exalted status and martial
honour of these 'lords of liberty' while paying tribute to the queen.
Several other Inns of Court revels tried to achieve the same chivalric
compromise, implying mutual dependence between sovereign and subject.
As Marie Axton has shown, plays at the Inns of Court from the beginning of
the Tudor regime combined flattery and advice, political speculation and
guarded protest. In performances such as The Masque of Pallaphilos in
1561-2, the members of the Inner Temple promoted their own political
agenda as well as the interests of their patron, the earl of Leicester, by
urging Elizabeth to marry, and they followed up this message in Gorboduc
by showing her the need for a settled succession.35 In another drama at
33
34
35
Samuel Daniel, The Civil Wars, ed. Laurence Michel ( N e w Haven, Conn., 1958), p . 240;
see m y discussion of this image a n d its political implications in Rites of Knighthood,
pp. 117-18.
Orgel, Jonsonian Masque, p. 19.
See Marie Axton's discussion of the admonitory function of these plays and others in The
Queen's Two Bodies: Drama and the Elizabethan Succession (London: Royal Historical
Society, 1977), pp. ix-x, 2, and passim and 'Robert Dudley and the Inner Temple Revels',
HJ, 13 (1970), 368-73.
221
Gray's Inn called the Misfortunes of Arthur, staged in 1588, the tyrannical
Mordred tries to dethrone his father, King Arthur, and aspires to bring the
kingdom to:
. . . a wished stage
When whatsoeuer the Soueraigne wills, or nilles,
Men be compelde as well to praise, as beare,
And Subiects wills inforced against their wills.36
He is warned by a wise councillor that loyalty cannot be forced but must
come from the heart, and, choosing to ignore this sage advice, he perishes in
battle. As in The Comedy of Errors, where bondage is a constant if largely
farcical threat, love proves more powerful than domination, and love
depends on mutual esteem. This reciprocity is the basis of the chivalric
compromise.
It was nevertheless, a precarious compromise, in which the conflicting
interests, designs and egos of the participants often overwhelmed the stylized 'rites of knighthood' designed to express and contain them. Some of
these tensions are discernible in the final moments of the Gesta Grayorum,
despite ellipses in the narrative record. When the queen awards the prize to
the Prince of Purpoole, she disparages its value, 'telling him, that it was not
her Gift; for if it had been, it should have been better' (GG, p. 88). She
directs a comparably invidious snub at the courtiers who dance immediately
after the masque, asking 'What Shall we have Bread and Cheese after a
banquet?' (GG, p. 88). Her characteristically tart response to her own courtiers' show hints at the competitive tensions at work in these spectacles
where she plays off one group against another and frequently tries to have
the last word. 'This is all against me', she tells the Spanish ambassador after
seeing a drama staged by the earl of Leicester in 1565 'on the question of
marriage, discussed between Juno and Diana' with Jupiter pronouncing in
favour of matrimony. When the Lady of the Lake offered the queen 'her
Lake and power therin' upon the queen's arrival at Kenilworth in 1575, the
queen replied, 'We had thought indeed the Lake had been ours and do you
call it yours now?' Later, in 1595, she walked out on Bacon's Accession Day
masque of Philautia, snapping that had she known so much would be said of
her, she would never have come. 37
In 1595, the tensions implicit in the Gesta Grayorum were muted because
36
37
Thomas Hughes et ai, Misfortunes of Arthur (II.ii.78-80), in Early English Classical

Tragedies, ed. John W. Cunliffe (Oxford, 1912), pp. 245-6.
Calendar of State Papers Spanish, Elizabeth (1558-1567),
ed. Martin A. S. H u m e (London,
1892), I, p. 404; Robert Langham, A Letter (1575), ed. R. J. P. Kuin (Leiden, 1983),
pp. 4 0 - 1 ; Rowland Whyte to Robert Sydney, Letters and Memorials of State, ed. Arthur
Collins (London, 1746), I, p. 362. For discussion of each of these incidents see my Rites of
Knighthood, pp. 4 2 - 3 and 86.
222
Richard C. McCoy
the conflicting interests of the queen and the participants still hung in the
balance. While his father was still a candidate for rehabilitation, Francis
Davison paid court to Elizabeth, hoping perhaps that in the words of The
Comedy of Errors the 'sweet breath of flattery conquers strife' (III.ii.28), but
strife was not so easily subdued. In the summer of 1596, when Essex was out
of the country on the expedition to Cadiz, Robert Cecil was appointed
Secretary of State, and William Davison finally lost both the job and the
title. Davison was himself out of the country when he heard the news, and
his bitterness spills out in a letter to his father from Florence written in
November 1596. Without daring to name his enemies in writing, he alludes
to the infirmities of both Cecils wishing that their patron, the earl of Essex,
would 'break their necks as nature hath broke their backs'. 38
Francis Davison subsequently placed all his hopes on the earl of Essex,
who provided support for his next undertaking. With the earl's backing,
Davison embarked on a grand tour of Europe in the spring of 1595 and
travelled until some time in 1597. Davison aspired to become part of the
network of intelligence agents working for Essex on the Continent, and he
undertook a systematic study of international politics. 39 A series of memoranda in the British Library includes 'A Note of all the Relations Which I
Carried into France' consisting of treatises by himself and others on French
and Italian government. 40 He also asked his father to arrange for letters of
introduction to the French and Imperial Courts, the dukes of Saxony,
Wirtemberg and Strasburg, the Count Palatine, and others (Nicolas,
p. xxiv). He reported news and rumours picked up during his travels in
letters to his father, and in 1596 he pulled his observations together into a
formal 'relation of Saxony' and sent it to Anthony Bacon, the earl's principal
secretary. This earned him Bacon's praise for showing 'no less diligence in
observing and collecting, than judgement in orderly disposing the same'
(Nicolas, p. xiii), but Bacon subsequently lost the report and, for a long
time, Davison heard nothing from Essex. Discouraged by the news of his
father's setback, Davison worried that his efforts were leading nowhere, and
he wrote to his father in November that 'I have gathered and observed
divers particulars, both of Tuscany and some other places, which I forbear
to reduce into an absolute discourse before I hear how my Lord accepted of
my other' (Nicolas, p. xxxii). In January of 1597, he finally received a letter
from the earl himself (Nicolas, p. xxxii), but its courtesies were vague
38
39
40
The Poetical Rhapsody, ed. Nicholas Harris Nicolas (London, 1826), p . xxii.
For an account of this semi-official diplomatic network see H a m m e r , ' " T h e Bright Shining
S p a r k e " ' , p p . 123-33 and Gustav Ungerer, A Spaniard in Elizabethan England: The
Correspondence of Antonio Perez's Exile (London, 1974-6), I I , p p . 168-84. Davison's
correspondence is reprinted in Nicolas* edition of the Poetical Rhapsody. H a m m e r says that
Essex secured a licence to travel abroad and provided funds for Davison (p. 132).
BL, Harleian M S 298, fo. 154, reprinted in Nicolas, Poetical Rhapsody, p p . xli-xlii.
223
and generalized, offering no specific rewards or encouragement. There is

no record of any further reports, and later that year Davison returned to
England.
Davison's career as a foreign intelligence agent was finally a failure.
Despite his excellent contacts, extensive travels and vast reading lists, he
only managed to produce a single formal report which was lost almost
immediately. His prospects for official employment may have been undercut by Henry Hawkins, the earl's representative to the Venetian republic
who openly disparaged him to other visiting Englishmen. 41 Davison never
completely abandoned his interest in matters of state. His papers include
memoranda and proposals for such ambitious projects as a 'relation of
England' drawn up after 1605 (Nicolas, pp. xlix-li), but none of these
undertakings led to a successful political or diplomatic career. The continued derailment of his father's career and the subsequent fall of the earl of
Essex in 1601 seem to have left him adrift. After returning to England from
the Continent, he worked as secretary to Sir Thomas Parry, but when that
dignitary was appointed ambassador to France, he dismissed Francis
Davison from his service in June 1602.
This last setback was a turning point in Davison's career, for it was
followed by a shift from politics to literature. John Chamberlain reported on
Davison's new career move in his correspondence: 'It seemes younge
Davison meanes to take another course, and turne poet, for he hath lately set
out certain sonnets and epigrams.' 42 Davison had been writing and collecting verses for years, and his decision to publish an anthology of poetry in the
last year of Elizabeth's reign had a greater impact than anything else he had
done, gaining him lasting recognition. A Poetical Rhapsody was quite
popular, going through four editions in the seventeenth century, the last one
published posthumously with the title Davison's Poems.43 Until recently, it
has been seen as one of the most influential and valuable Elizabethan
miscellanies, the last of its kind. In his edition of the collection, Hyder
Rollins confidently predicts that '[n]o one, surely will challenge the value
time has placed on the collection as a whole', but Emrys Jones does just that
in his introduction to The New Oxford Book of Sixteenth Century Verse,
calling A Poetical Rhapsody 'second-rate'. 44 Jones' contempt is based in
part on his reaction against the preference given by the nineteenth- and
twentieth-century predecessors to the lyric. Jones regards the lyric as less
41
42
43
44
Nicolas, Poetical Rhapsody, p. ix and lingerer, Spaniard in Elizabethan England, p. 173.

Letters of John Chamberlain, ed. Sarah Williams (London, 1861), p. 146.
Francis Davison, A Poetical Rhapsody, 1602-1621, ed. Hyder Edward Rollins (2 vols.,
Cambridge, Mass., 1932); all references to this edition of the poetry hereafter cited in the
text. For the history of seventeenth-century editions, see Rollins, I, p. 46.
Rollins, A Poetical Rhapsody, II, p. 88, and Emrys Jones, The New Oxford Book of Sixteenth
Century Verse (Oxford, 1991), p. xxvi.
224
Richard C. McCoy
'historically circumstantiated' than satirical or didactic verse and claims

that 'the preference for lyrical modes goes with a distaste for history'. 45 This
is, I think, a misreading of both lyric in general and A Poetical Rhapsody in
particular. Jones can dismiss what he calls' "dainty" pastorals and . . . pretty
love songs' as vacuously transcendent only by ignoring both the tensions at
work in most professions of love and the specific historical allusions in
several poems in this collection.46
A Poetical Rhapsody is, in fact, marked by its political allegiances. It bids
a kind of lyric farewell to one era while seeking to preserve its ideals for the
next. In its partly elegiac perspective, it resembles The Phoenix Nest
published in 1593. Both were the only Tudor miscellanies to be collected
and published under 'the supervision of a gentleman instead of a printer', as
Hyder Rollins notes in his edition of the earlier one, both gentlemen being
members of Inns of Court as well.47 Moreover, both collections are marked
by their factional loyalty to the chivalric heroes of protestant militarism.
The earlier collection begins with a prose tribute to the maligned earl of
Leicester and three elegies to Sir Philip Sidney, the latter reappearing in
Astrophel, a memorial collection of 1595. Davison's Poetical Rhapsody pays
tribute to Sidney and Essex, two more recently fallen heroes, and, however
muted and discreet, its publication a year after the revolt of the earl of Essex
is politically provocative. The work is dedicated to William Herbert, earl of
Pembroke, the son of a 'peerelesse MOTHER', the countess of Pembroke,
and nephew to Sir Philip, and the first poems in the collection include three
works by the Sidney family.
Both of Sidney's poems contrast the genuine feeling of true friendship
with the specious flattery of the 'servile court', especially the poem entitled
'Disprayse of a Courtly life'. The speaker of the latter poem describes his
escape from the oppressive heat of the sun into a pleasant pastoral landscape; Elizabeth was routinely identified with the sun, but here the speaker
is 'opprest' by the blazing heat and light of life at Court (PR, p. 9). In the
first poem, the true friendship of Sidney with Sir Fulke Greville and
Edward Dyer is contrasted with the love designed 'to cloake Disdaine' in the
second (PR, p. 11). Here as elsewhere in Sidney's verse, pastoral complaint
is used to 'disburden a passion . . . by the helpe of an outcrye:/ Not limited to
a whispringe note, the Lament of Courtier'. 48 This is a voice from beyond
the grave, and the publication of these poems for the first time gives their
reproaches added force. The pastoral written by the countess of Pembroke,
45
47
48
Jones, Sixteenth Century Verse, p. xxviii.

** Ibid., p. xxvi.
Hyder Rollins (ed.), The Phoenix Nest (Cambridge, Mass., 1929), p . xvi. R. S., the compiler
of The Phoenix Nest is identified as a m e m b e r of the Inner T e m p l e , a n d the title page
stresses the gentility of its contributors consisting of 'Noble m e n , worthy Knights, gallant
Gentlemen, Masters of Arts, and braue Schollers'.
The Poems of Sir Philip Sidney, ed. William A. Ringler, J r (Oxford, 1962), p . 35.
225
'A Dialogue between two Shepheards, Thenot and Piers, in praise of Astrea',
was composed for a visit by Elizabeth to Wilton, and she apparently planned
to present it along with her translations of the Psalms and verses in praise of
her brother, but the visit never transpired. While the dialogue certainly
compliments the queen, it also strikes a decidedly anti-courtly posture. The
puritanically named Piers displays a cantankerous iconoclasm, and he pours
scorn on the effusions of Thenot more typical of the cult of Elizabeth, as
Gary Waller notes, and Margaret Hannay discerns a muted criticism of the
queen, who may not live up to the ideal implied by the poem. 49
Poems by Francis Davison and his brother follow, including an imitation
of Arcadian dialogue by Walter Davison, but these apparently derivative
and 'dainty' pastorals register subtle but explosive tensions. The first echoes
the opening scene of Sidney's New Arcadia with a song by Strephon and
Klaius in praise of Urania, but here the sparkling light of her eyes 'present,
& absent burne me' (PR, p. 18). The next two poems by Francis Davison
describe a falling out between Urania and her devoted servant Strephon
'upon some unkindenes' which leads to her banishing him from her presence. Rollins sees in the reference to banishment a covert allusion to
Elizabeth and Essex, one which acquires a rueful significance a year after his
execution. In the first, entitled 'Strephon's Palinode', the speaker pleads for
forgiveness, declaring penitently that 'no Tyrants minde/ Paine can find,/
Like my hearts selfe-guiltie terror' (PR, p. 21). If this penance is insufficient,
'Yet let me full pardon craue,/ When I haue,/ With soone death my fault
amended' (PR, p. 22). 'Vraniaes Answer' (PR, p. 24) in the next poem
wistfully imagines a happy ending in which all is forgiven:
Let my woes be past expressing,
When to you
I cease to be kind and true.
Thus are both our States amended,
For you haue
Fuller pardon then you craue,
And my feare is quite suspended,
Since mine ire
Wrought th'effect I most desire.
Davison's poignant vision of a reconciliation between his patron and sovereign, their 'States amended' by mutual affection, stands in sharp contrast to
the actual events of the previous year. The earl's execution fulfilled the grim
prophecy of 'Strephon's Palinode' in which his fault is 'amended' only by
49
See Gary Waller (ed.), The Triumph of Death and Other Unpublished and Uncollected Poems
By Mary Sidney, Countess of Pembroke (1561-1621) (Salzburg: Salzburg Studies in English
Literature 65, 1977), pp. 61-2. Margaret P. Hannay, Philip's Phoenix: Mary Sidney, Countess of Pembroke (New York and Oxford, 1990), pp. 164-6.
226
Richard C. McCoy
his death. By choosing to publish these poems in 1602, Davison makes the
curse that Urania calls down on herself in her reply stand as a bitter
reproach: 'Let my woes be past expressing.' Davison's anger becomes even
fiercer and more transparent in the next poem, a pastoral complaint about
Astraea's cruel mistreatment of Eubulus, the generic name for a good
councillor given to a similar figure in Gorboduc. Eubulus is a thinly veiled
surrogate for his father, and he laments that 'all my seruice, faith, and
patient minde' yield only 'a crop of scorne, and of contempt' (PR, p. 29).
Eubulus dates the beginnings of his difficulties exactly by saying that
'Tirant-like' night has darkened his fortunes for fifteen years, making the
allusion to William Davison's downfall in 1587 obvious (PR, p. 30).
The remainder of the poems in the Poetical Rhapsody by Davison,
Campion, Constable, Davies, Ralegh, Spenser and others are less provocative, but they still shed light on the political tensions of the period. There
are numerous tributes to cneuer-enough praised Sir Phillip Sidney' (PR,
p. 190). There is a sonnet dedicated 'To a worthy Lord (now dead) vpon
presenting him for a New-yeers-gift, with Caesars Commentaries and
Cornelius Tacitus'. This is undoubtedly the earl of Essex, an enthusiastic
patron of Tacitean history, and the verse declares that the subject's 'Acts
perform'd in forrein States' should be commemorated by a writer with
'deepe wit. . ./ Of matchles Tacitus' (PR, p. 95). 50 Davison includes some
verses in honour of the queen taken from the courtly spectacles of the
previous decade including an Ode to Cynthia 'sung before hyer sacred
Maiestie at a shew on horseback' presented by her champion, the earl of
Cumberland on May day of the previous year, assuring her of her ageing
lovers' devotion (PR, p. 236). Yet, when he includes a sonnet composed to
accompany the presentation of his own 'speech of Grayes-Inn Maske at the
court 1594', he dedicates this material not to the queen but to another lady
whose 'conqu'ring eyes' are as strong as adamantine rocks, suggesting that
his loyalties lie elsewhere and her hold on him has weakened (PR, p. 60):
Who in these lines may better claime a parte,
That sing the praises of the Britton Queene,
Than you, faire sweet, that only Soueraign beene,
Of the poore Kingdome of my faithful Heart?
The odes that follow insist on reciprocal sexual politics, maintaining that 'I
love you most, because you please to loue mee' (PR, p. 67) and asking that
she 'Make mee, the matter of your Clemencie,/ And not, the subiect of
your Tyrannie' (PR, p. 75). This particular sequence ends on a note of
50
See F. J. Levy in 'Hayward, Daniel and the Beginnings of Political History', HLQ, 50
(1987), 1-34 and J. H. M. Salmon, 'Stoicism and Roman Example: Seneca and Tacitus in
Jacobean England', JHI, 50 (1989), 199-225.
227
disappointment in 'His Farewell to his Vnkind and Vnconstant Mistresse'

(PR, p. 81), suggesting that the sovereign of his heart was no kinder than
his queen, but Davison's farewell to love is a form of closure common to
Tudor lyric sequences.
Many of the other poems in the Poetical Rhapsody are similarly conventional, but the collection as a whole reflects a potentially radical if familiar
impulse at work in the lyric poetry of the period, one which seeks its
liberties within. Having failed to advance himself through his courtly
connections and foreign travels, Davison withdraws into what he calls 'the
poor Kingdome of my faithful Heart'. He does so through reading, writing,
and collecting verse, staking out what Paul Alpers calls the 'poetic
domain'.51 As Alpers points out, this is a domain most resonantly claimed
by the first line of Sir Edward Dyer's famous poem, 'My mind to me a
kingdom is', and Davison's phrase echoes Dyer's. This kingdom of the mind
and heart allows these lords of liberty full sway. The Poetical Rhapsody
begins with Sidney's pastoral tribute to 'his two worthy Friends and fellowPoets, Sir Edward Dier, and Maister Fulke GreuilP (PR, p. 7), and their
friendship and their poetry present the only alternative to a 'seruile Court'
(PR, p. 9), one which Davison embraces.
This profoundly humanistic ideal, whose political implications are no less
important than its literary aspects, is still difficult to attain. The aspiration
to intellectual autonomy easily dissipates its more radical energies in escapist fantasies and ineffectual resentments. The rest of Dyer's poem 'does
not quite live up to its opening lines', as C. S. Lewis noted long ago.52
Similarly, Davison never realized the political potential of his ambitions or
his anger and estrangement, his career lapsing into an almost 'impenetrable'
obscurity (Nicolas, p. iii). He apparently continued editing and adding to
two additional editions of A Poetical Rhapsody, but there is little evidence of
any further serious literary activity. There is one obscure poem which does
not appear in any published collection but is included instead in an early
seventeenth-century commonplace book belonging to Sir Stephen Powle
now in the Bodleian. Dated '30 Ap: 1615', a few years before Davison's
death, this epigram 'On Painted Ladys' is addressed 'to bashfull yonge
gentlemen' in the form of 'prosopopoeia':
Wee Maddames which drie Fucus use
Will dare Beeinge rype fructe yowe greatly muse
doo not plucke us:
Since characters red and white
51
52
Paul Alpers, 'Pastoral and the Domain of Lyric in Spenser's Shepheardes Calender',
sentations, 12(1985), 94.
C. S. Lewis, English Literature in the Sixteenth Century (Oxford, 1954), p. 468.
Repre-
228
Richard C. McCoy
Plainly write
On our shameless faces Fuc us.53
Davison's bawdy Jacobean satire ridicules the conventions of Petrarchan

compliment and the cult of Elizabeth, 'The Redde rose medled with the
White yfere', debasing them long after their artifice has been exposed and
their charms expired. Near the end of his career, the lord of liberty lapses
into libertine mockery. But even if his verse never achieves any loftier
perspective on the struggles of his age, Davison's courtly poetry exposes the
tensions and resentments behind the smooth facade of the cult of Elizabeth.
53
Bodleian Library, Tanner MS 169, fo. 68v. Fucus is a term for rouge.
11
The complaint of poetry for the death of

liberality: the decline of literary patronage in
the 1590s
Alistair Fox
The issue of literary patronage is important for all students of the reign of
Elizabeth I to address, as patronage is the site where the mechanisms of
literature's role in the ordering of society can be observed. Literature is
potentially a very powerful tool in the political process, for it can imaginatively articulate prevailing cultural, ideological and social values in such a
way as either to elicit assent to them, or else to serve as a focus for
questioning, dissent and resistance. The earlier Tudor monarchs seem fully
to have appreciated this, as both Henry VII and Henry VIII took pains to
harness the political potentiality of writers. Henry VII imported Continental poets such as Bernard Andre and Pietro Carmigliano to embellish his
exploits with complimentary verses and humanist historians such as Tito
Livio da Forli and Polydore Vergil to amplify his magnificence by writing
accounts of his life and reign for a Continental audience. Similarly, Henry
VIII hired John Skelton as orator regius to mark significant state occasions
(such as royal victories in battle, births, and deaths) with appropriate verses,
and sponsored a variety of prose propagandists from Thomas More to
Thomas Starkey and Richard Morrison to present the stance of his administration on issues relating to the Reformation. 1 Given the assiduous attention that the first two Tudors devoted to literary patronage as a means of
magnifying their dynasty, it is all the more startling that Elizabeth I became
progressively less inclined to dispense it, so that by the final decade of her
reign very few writers were attaining the rewards they thought they
deserved, whether financial or otherwise.
Full appreciation of the magnitude of the decline that literary patronage
suffered in the 1590s has been slow to develop, largely because contemporary scholarship has been bedevilled by two contradictory views on the
matter. On one hand, some scholars, impressed by the great numbers of
surviving dedications to printed books from the period, have assumed that
1
See Alistair Fox, Politics and Literature in the Reigns of Henry VII and Henry VIII (Oxford,
1989), chap. 1.
229
230
Alistair Fox
the Elizabethan age must have been a great age of patronage, with Elizabeth
being a notable patron of learning and an encourager of poetry.2 On the
other hand, there are scholars (usually those who have looked at particular
cases) who assert that the longer the queen's reign progressed, the more
parsimonious she and her officials became.3 Whereas proponents of the first
view argue that poetry was a means of gaining preferment and other rewards
of patronage (such as monetary gifts and political protection),4 advocates of
the second argue that far from being the key to preferment, poetry was
undervalued to the point where a courtier's literary activity could never
improve his fortunes, nor repair a social fault.5 Similarly, while some
scholars engaged in gender studies have argued that aristocratic women
(such as Mary Herbert, countess of Pembroke, Alice Stanley, countess of
Derby, or Lucy Russell, duchess of Bedford) played a significant role as
patrons, fostering the arts by obtaining suitable jobs for literary retainers
through the agency of their husbands, 6 others conclude that the influence of
women patrons has been grossly exaggerated, and that even when the system
of patronage did function it usually produced literature of low quality.7
Neither view is entirely groundless, but to resolve the apparent contradictions between them, one must piece together a comprehensive explanation that takes account of the specific evidence upon which each one is
based. That evidence consists of dedications, records of payments received
and preferments gained, and comments by the writers themselves. I shall
now deal with each of these in turn.
II
The number and range of dedications is extraordinary, with literally hundreds of books dedicated to a plethora of patrons in the 1590s.8 Leading the
2
3
4
7
8
See, for example, Felix Schelling, English Drama (London and New York, 1914), p. 39.
A fact noted by B. B. Gamzue, 'Elizabeth and Literary Patronage', Publications of the Modern
Language Association, 49 (1934), 1041-8.
Daniel Javitch, 'Poetry and Preferment at Elizabeth's Court: Some Preliminary Observations', in Europdische Hofkultur im 16. und 17. Jahrhundert, ed. August Buck et al. (3 vols.,
Hamburg, 1981), I, pp. 163-70.
Leonard Tennenhouse, 'Sir Walter Ralegh and the Literature of Clientage', in Guy Fitch
Lytle and Stephen Orgel (eds.), Patronage in the Renaissance (Princeton, NJ, 1981),
pp. 235-58.
See Margaret P. Hannay, Philip's Phoenix: Mary Sidney, Countess of Pembroke (New York
and Oxford, 1990), esp. p. 106, and French R. Fogle and Louis A. Knafla, Patronage in Late
Renaissance England (Los Angeles, Calif., 1983). For a sceptical view of the countess of
Pembroke's influence, see Michael Brennan, Literary Patronage in the English Renaissance:
The Pembroke Family (London and New York, 1988), pp. 78-81.
See Mary Ellen Lamb, 'The Countess of Pembroke's Patronage', English Literary Renaissance, 12(2) (1982), 162-79.
See Franklin B. Williams, An Index of Dedications and Commendatory Verses in English Books
before 1641 (London, 1962).
The decline of literary patronage in the 1590s
231
field as the most frequently addressed dedicatee is, significantly, not the
queen, but Robert Devereux, earl of Essex, who received sixty-six dedications between 1590 and 1600. Throughout the decade he received
between five and seven dedications per year, ranging from chivalric
treatises, through humanist translations and musical compilations, to works
of religious devotion and controversy (see Appendix, p. 245). The number
of works dedicated to Essex clearly attests to his position at Court as the
queen's favourite, and to a perception that he was a likely source of
preferment, protection or financial reward. Next in the stakes comes Queen
Elizabeth, with fifty-six dedications for the same period, covering a similar
range of topics, and a further nineteen in the years between Essex's execution and the end of her reign. After Essex and the queen, there is a big drop
to a second echelon of dedicatees, consisting of William Cecil, Lord
Burghley, Elizabeth's chief minister, who received twenty-one dedications
between 1590 and his death in 1598, and Thomas Egerton, Viscount
Brackley, Keeper of the Great Seal, who received fifteen dedications between
1590 and 1600, and sixteen further dedications in the rest of Elizabeth's
reign. In both cases, the works concerned are predominantly religious
treatises or devotional writings with a strongly protestant bias, which
suggests that in dedicating them to Burghley and Egerton, the writers were
primarily concerned to influence religious policy. Lower still in the order is a
third group of significant dedicatees, consisting of Robert Cecil, earl of
Salisbury (ten dedications to 1600, and a further ten to 1603), Sir Christopher
Hatton, Lord Chancellor (twelve dedications between 1590 and his death in
1591), Mary Herbert (nee Sidney), countess of Pembroke (fourteen dedications to 1600, and a further two to 1603), Sir Walter Ralegh (seven dedications to 1600, and a further five to 1603), and Henry Wriothesley, earl of
Southampton (eight dedications to 1600, and five further to 1603). The
relative distribution of these dedications indicates clearly that writers
directed their works to those they believed were best placed to further their
interests, and that the most likely sources of patronage were the queen, her
chief favourite and her chief ministers.
If one were to form conclusions on the basis of the dedications alone, one
might have the great age of patronage of conventional myth. The evidence
of the dedications taken by itself, however, cannot be trusted. Without
corroborating evidence of benefits actually received by clients, there is no
proof that a dedication ever secured for an author the desired reward, or
even the benevolence of the patron to whom the work was addressed. Even
the wording of dedications cannot be trusted, as they are constructed from
topoi invariably couched in a language codified in courtesy theory, and as
such need to be decoded. Decorum dictated that a suitor engage in a fulsome
type of flattery that is itself part of the process of indirect negotiation
232
Alistair Fox
between client and patron. Suitors characteristically extolled a patron's

virtue, noble lineage or achievements in such a way as to display their own
fealty and worthiness of patronage. Simultaneously, they would engage in
exaggerated self-deprecation, which served to remind the patron of his or
her superior rank, and of the reciprocal social obligations that should go
with it.9 Dedications were thus a ritual means of constructing potential roles
for both patron and suitor, according to desires that the aspiring client
hoped would be fulfilled. No client, however, could be certain that these
roles would actually be fulfilled, and often they were not.
One can see this rhetorical strategy at work in any number of the dedications of the period, as, for example, in Thomas Churchyard's Handeful of
Gladsome Verses, which he dedicated to Queen Elizabeth in 1592. Churchyard begins by hinting at the fact that he is hoping for some reward, while
intimating that he is potentially discouraged by being merely one among a
horde of poet-suitors who are similarly seeking signs of favour:
Most gratious and sacred Soueraigne, if hope of your princely favour did not carry
me beyond the compasse of myn ordinary iudgement, I had long a goe surceased the
common course of writing in verse to your Maiestie.
He then professes his obsequious loyalty in the exaggerated language of
personal service, while reminding her that others, as well as himself, have
been rewarded in the past for doing the same:
But a sweete and comfortable conceite of your gracious goodnes towards me, euer
and at all times commanded my muse, my pen, and vttermost power, to goe about no
other earthly felicity then the seruing and pleasing of the onely Phoenix of this
world, my betters farre haue beene fill of that fortunate humor, and thriuen well
thereby, & my selfe desires neuer to be discharged of that sweet seruitude, pleasant
to the mind, profitable to the body, and a safety for the soule.10
Decoded, Churchyard's dedication is calculated to make the queen single
him out from among the host of his competitors for the purpose of gaining
the kind of monetary reward he had enjoyed in the past. In Churchyard's
case, we know that the queen responded favourably even though (as will be
discussed below) it took a long time before he received the payment she
awarded him.
In actually gaining some monetary reward (irrespective of how long it
took for him to extract it), Churchyard was comparatively unusual in the
1590s. More often than not, flattering comments on a patron's bounty were
an indirect signal of the reward sought, rather than a testimony to actual
9
10
See Frank Whigham, 'The Rhetoric of Elizabethan Suitors' Letters', PMLA, 96(5) (1981),
864-32.
Thomas Churchyard, A Handeful of Gladsome Verses, Giuen to the Queenes Maiesty at
Woodstocke this Prograce, 1592 (Oxford, 1592), sig. A2-A2v.
233
bounty. This can be seen very clearly in Richard Barnfield's dedication of

The Complaint of Poetrie, for the Death of Liberalitie (1598) to Edward
Leigh:
Image of that, whose losse is here lamented;
(In whom, so many vertues are contained)
Daine to accept, what I haue now presented.
Though Bounties death, herein be not fained,
In your mind, she not reuiue (with speed)
Then will I sweare, that shee is dead indeed.11
In this instance, the dedication invites Leigh to demonstrate his implied
'worth' (in both senses), by proving that bounty is not dead, and thus to
disprove the poet's cynical fear that it may indeed be dead. Barnfield's
attempt at moral blackmail is not unusual during this period; it is merely
more naked than most.
Ill
To gain a true picture of patronage in the 1590s, then, we are forced to seek
corroborating evidence in the form of records of actual payments and
preferments secured through literary clientage, and in this respect the
surviving evidence is very slim. Nearly eighty years ago Nichol Smith found
only one Elizabethan document that gives a direct statement of literary
earnings - Richard Robinson's Eupolemia of 160312 - and no further evidence has been discovered that substantially changes the picture it reveals.
The Eupolemia contains a record of all Robinson's printed works from
1576 until 1599, together with an account of the reception that greeted
them. The work reveals a distinct pattern which turns out to be symptomatic of the conditions affecting patronage in the world at large.
The pattern itself can be traced in Robinson's account of the reception
accorded the successive instalments of his translation of the Psalms, A
Proceeding in the Harmony of King David's Harp. In 1590, Robinson dedicated his first instalment to Sir Christopher Hatton, the Lord Chancellor,
and received six angels - 3 - for it (i.e. 60 shillings), which was, for the
time, an extremely handsome reward. In 1592, he dedicated the second
instalment to Sir John Puckering, Keeper of the Great Seal, from whom he
received two angels - 20 shillings - also receiving 6s 8d from his lady.13 In
11
12
13
Richard Barnfield, The Complaint of Poetrie, for the Death of Liberalise, in The Poems of
Richard Barnfield (London, n.d.), p. 105.
D. Nichol Smith, 'Authors and Patrons in Shakespeare's England', cited in George McGill
Vogt, 'Richard Robinson's Eupolemia (1603)', Studies in Philology, 21 (1924), 629-48.
The fact that Robinson feels the need to specify the value of his coins in pounds attests to the
progressive enhancement of the angel in the sixteenth century (see C. E. Challis, The Tudor
Coinage (Manchester, 1978), pp. 166-7). Whereas it was worth 6s 8d in 1485, by 1551 it had
234
Alistair Fox
1595, however, when he dedicated his third instalment to Queen Elizabeth

at Richmond, Robinson met with a sharp rebuff:
I pore man expected Comfort for the same deservingly . . . I making my humble suite
vnto youre moste gracyus Highnes for some releef in money, . . . M. Doctor Caesar
then Master of the Requestes returned mee answer, youre Highnes was glad yow had
a Subiect coulde do so well, and that I deserued commendacions. But for any
gratification for any suche laboures youre Maiesty was not in mynde as then to
bestow any suche relief vppon mee: for youre Highnes (as hee sayde) had care of the
chargeable Voyage [i.e. the naval expedition against the Spanish in Cadiz, led by
Essex and Ralegh in 1595], of releving youre Needy soldyers and requyting of theyre
paynes, fynally youre Highnes sett me not on worck, and therefore yow were not to
pay me any wages. Herewith I departed from youre Highnes Court at Richmond,
paciently as a pore man before, but now (by this meanes) become a Porer.14
In 1596, he got no more joy when he dedicated his Fourth Instalment to Sir
Thomas Egerton, upon the latter's appointment as Lord Keeper of the
Great Seal:
. . . when I presented my sayde Booke in ye presence of the 6 Clerckes in the Chancery;
His Lordship grutching to receyve my Booke, or to rende mee any rewarde, his
eloquent tongue tripped mee in my suite saying, Whate have we here? Literae
petaces? I shewyng his Lordship, yt was a pore mans honest In devoure whiche would
gladly live in the feare of God, and deserve well of all good men what I coulde; He
answered me (fingens causas ne det sedulo) I should have made him privy to yt, before
I had dedicated yt vnto him, I replyed, Bothe his R. Honorable Antecessors in office
not onely receyved my good will & good workes with lyke good will, but all so
worthely rewarded me for the same... He turned mee away bycause of my poverty.15
Egerton's response here represents a significant alteration in the way such
matters had been conventionally ordered. It is hard to imagine any of his
predecessors insisting that they be made privy to the intent to dedicate it to
them before the dedication were actually printed, and Egerton's irritation
attests to a desire to be free from the obligation to reciprocate with a
monetary reward, rather than any genuine indignation at an unwonted
liberty taken.
Throughout the decade, in fact, Robinson found that he was the victim of
diminishing returns, and his case is by no means an isolated one. Patrons
simply ceased to be as munificent as they once had been, largely because the
nation's finances were depleted. In the 1570s and 1580s, Robinson had been
quite handsomely rewarded, especially by Sir Philip Sidney, by Sir Henry
14
increased to 10s. By specifying that his 6 angels were worth 3, Robinson was ensuring that
the reader realized that he had been rewarded with coins at the higher rate, which amplifies
both the value and the honour of the reward. I am indebted to Dr David Sacks for drawing
this matter to my attention. Lady Puckering presumably gave Robinson an old (i.e.
unenhanced) angel.
15
Vogt, 'Richard Robinson's Eupolemia\ esp. pp. 637-8.
Ibid., p. 644.
235
Sidney (his father), and by Edward earl of Rutland who, in 1580, had given
him six angels - 3 - for his translation of a work by Melanchthon. By the
mid-1590s, however, the whole situation had changed. Not only were the
coffers bare, but a new breed of hard-headed administrators had replaced
the former courtly patrons. Moreover, the explosion in the number of
literary works and printed books meant that there were simply too many
suitors for noble patrons to be able to satisfy them all. As Thomas Evans was
to write a few years later in 1605, in the dedication to his poem, Oedipus: 'the
multitude of writers in our age hath begotten a scarcitie of patrons'.16 Also,
Elizabeth's chief administrators, like Burghley and Egerton, did not rate
literary talent highly as a commendation for preferment or reward.
IV
That the disappointments encountered by Robinson were not an isolated
instance in the 1590s, but endemic, is illustrated most strikingly by the
career of Edmund Spenser, regarded by many sixteenth-century contemporaries as the greatest poet of the decade. The whole of Spenser's literary
career, in fact, can be construed as a concerted effort to gain, not simply
monetary reward, but preferment at Court. After having graduated MA
from Pembroke College, Cambridge, in 1576, and having spent a period as
secretary to the bishop of Rochester, Spenser wrote to inform Gabriel
Harvey in October 1579 that he had succeeded in attracting the favourable
attention of prominent courtiers, through whose offices he expected to gain
preferment.17 This breakthrough was likely to have been secured by The
Shepheardes Calendar (1579), dedicated to Sir Philip Sidney, which probably helped to gain Spenser the patronage of Sidney's own uncle and
mentor, Robert Dudley, the earl of Leicester, and hence his entree to Court.
But even in The Shepheardes Calendar, Spenser has Cuddy complain of the
lack of regard in which poetry is held at Court:
CUDDYE
Piers, I haue pyped erst so long with payne,

That all mine Oten reedes bene rent and wore:
And my poore Muse hath spent her spared store,
Yet little good hath got, and much lesse gayne.
16
17
18
(October, lines 7-10)18
F. P. Wilson, 'Some Notes on Authors and Patrons in Tudor and Stuart Times', in James
G. McManaway et al. (eds.), Joseph Quincy Adams Memorial Studies (Washington, DC,
1948), pp. 553-61, esp. p. 553.
See Alexander C. Judson, 'The Life of Edmund Spenser', in Edwin Greenlaw, Charles
Gosvenor Osgood, Frederick Morgan Padelford and Ray Heffner (eds.), The Works of
Edmund Spenser (Baltimore, Md., 1945), p. 61.
Edmund Spenser, Poetical Works, ed. J. C. Smith and E. de Selincourt (London, 1912; repr.
London, 1970), p. 456.
236
Alistair Fox
To which Piers replies that Cuddy should consider lifting himself 'oute of
the lowly dust' and write an epic if he wants advancement (lines 38-9). This,
of course, is precisely what Spenser did with The Faerie Queene in two
successive bids for patronage.
Spenser's first bid for patronage gained him little, and certainly not the
preferment at Court that he desired, 19 for he found himself shunted off to
Ireland as Lord Grey's secretary in 1580. Throughout his sojourn in
Ireland, his advancement owed nothing to poetry, and was painfully slow. 20
His second bid came in 1590 when, on the advice of of Sir Walter Ralegh,
Spenser returned to England to oversee the publication of the first three
books of The Faerie Queene.21
Spenser's epic poem was a stupendous achievement - a client's flattery of
the queen to excel all flatteries. Moreover, his determination to procure
patronage was on a scale to match, as is reflected in the list of dedicatory
sonnets that accompany the work, which reads like a Who's Who of lateElizabethan patrons: Sir Christopher Hatton, the earls of Essex, Oxford,
Northumberland and Ormonde, Lord Charles Howard, Lord Grey, Sir
Walter Ralegh, Elizabeth Carey, and the ladies of the Court. At some later
point, probably during binding, he added further sonnets to Burghley,
Walsingham, Lord Buckhurst, the earl of Cumberland, Lord Hunsdon, Sir
John Norris and the countess of Pembroke. His purpose is summed up in his
sonnet to Walsingham:
This lowly Muse, that learns like steps to trace [i.e. to those of Virgil],
Flies for like aide vnto your Patronage;
That are the great Mecenas of this age,
As wel to al that ciuil artes professe
As those that are inspird with Martial rage.22
Being one devoted to the 'civil arts' rather than martial bellicosity, Spenser
naturally believed that his display of learning and expressive skill in The
Faerie Queene qualified him for office of some sort within Queen Elizabeth's
administration.
19
See The Shepheardes Calendar, in Spenser, Poetical Works, ed. Smith and de Selincourt,
p. 457:
PIERS
O pierlesse Poesye, where is then thy place?
If nor in Princes pallace thou doe sitt:
(And yet is Princes pallace the most fitt).
20
21
22
(October, lines 79-81)

See Judson, 'Life of Edmund Spenser', p p . 71-126.
See Colin Clouts Come Home Againe, lines 180-95, in Poetical Works, ed. Smith and de
Selincourt, p. 538; also Judson, 'Life of Edmund Spenser', p p . 135-41; and Jean R. Brink,
'Who Fashioned E d m u n d Spenser?', Studies in Philology, 88(2) (1991), 153-68, for a
revisionist assessment of the evidence upon which Judson bases his reconstruction.
Spenser, Poetical Works, ed. Smith and de Selincourt, p. 412.
237
If anything could have gained Spenser preferment, this spectacular effort

should have done so, but it did not, at least not in the first instance. Spenser
lingered on around Court for about a year, but still preferment did not
come. Eventually, in February 1591, he was granted a pension of 5 0 for
life, but this monetary reward was far less than he had hoped for. Later, in
the Prothalamion (1596), he refers to the discontent he still felt concerning
my long fruitlesse stay
In Princes Court, and expectation vayne
Of idle hopes, which still doe fly away,
Like empy shadowes . . .23
In almost everything else he wrote, Spenser reiterated his sense of grievance. In Colin Clouts Come Home Againe (1591, published 1595) he laments
the lack of estimation at Court accorded to educated men:
Arts of schoole haue there small countenance,
Counted but toyes to busie ydle braines,
And there professours find small maintenance,
But to be instruments of others gaines.
Ne is there place for any gentle wit,
Vnlesse to please, it selfe it can applie:
But shouldred is, or out of doore quiete shit,
As base, or blunt, vnmeet for melodic 24
Similarly, in The Teares of the Muses, he laments that 'the rich fee which
Poets wont diuide, / Now Parasites and Sycophants doo share', 25 and in
Mother Hubbard's Tale (1579, published 1591), puts a lot of the blame at the
feet of Burghley (alias the Fox) himself:
For men of learning little he esteemed;
His wisedome he aboue their learning deemed.
Yet none durst speake, ne none durst of him plaine;
So great he was in grace, and rich through gaine,
Ne would he anie let to haue accesse
Vnto the Prince, but by his owne addresse.26
Burghley, Spenser felt, was like one who was 'now broad spreading like an
aged tree', not letting any other men shoot up 'that nigh him planted bee'. 27
Spenser made one further attempt to gain preferment at Court in the
23
24
25
26
27
Ibid., p. 601, lines 5-9.

Colin Clouts Come Home Againe, in Poetical Works, ed. Smith and de Selincourt, p. 543,
lines 703-10.
Spenser, Poetical Works, ed. Smith and de Selincourt, p. 485, lines 471-2.
Ibid., p. 506, lines 1191-202.
The Ruines of Time (1591), in Spenser, Poetical Works, ed. Smith and de Selincourt, p. 476,
lines 44&-55.
238
Alistair Fox
winter of 1595-6, with the second instalment (Books IV-VI) of The Faerie
Queene, likewise dedicated to Queen Elizabeth as 'the most high, mightie
and magnificent empresse renowned for pietie, vertue, and all gratious
government5. At the same time he sought to enlist the support of Essex,
whom he praises in the Prothalamion as someone who was about to take over
Leicester's role as a great patron. As if to leave nothing to chance, he simultaneously cultivated the two noble Russell sisters, Margaret, countess of
Cumberland, and Anne, countess of Warwick, to whom he dedicated Fowre
Hymnes. Something did come of this later attempt, even if it were not the
Court preferment Spenser desired, for he was made Sheriff of Cork in 1598,
at the urging of the Privy Council to the lords justice. 28 This modest success
may have owed something to the good offices of Essex, or of Ralegh, who had
been restored to favour, or to the fact that Burghley, who had died in 1598,
was no longer an impediment. Regardless of how he managed to achieve this
preferment, Spenser can hardly have been satisfied that the reward was commensurate with the effort and achievement that had gone into procuring it.
It is likely that some of Spenser's lack of advancement was owing to the
offence he had caused Burghley with Mother Hubbard's Tale, in which
Burghley is depicted satirically. In any case, as Spenser himself admits in the
Proem to Book IV of The Faerie Queene, Burghley was unimpressed by his
poetic efforts, particularly the Amoretti and Epithalamion, which he
regarded as trivial. It would be a mistake, though, to conclude that the great
statesman's lack of warmth towards Spenser was an isolated instance, or that
it sprang simply from a personal antagonism; rather, it was typical.
The case of Thomas Churchyard demonstrates this. In the early 1590s he
made a concerted effort to gain the patronage of Queen Elizabeth by dedicating to her A Handful of Gladsome Verses, which he presented to her at
Woodstock in 1592, and A Pleasant Conceite Penned in Verse, which he presented to her on New Year's Day at Hampton Court in 1593. In return,
Churchyard received a pension from the queen, but failed to receive
payment of it until 1597, when it was officially granted and received. Again,
it appears to have been Burghley, the Lord Treasurer, who dragged his feet
over paying the poet what the queen had granted him. 29
This decline in the munificence of patrons towards authors was not simply
confined to the queen and her ministers; it extended also to the nobles and
their ladies. Here is Richard Barnfield's summary of the plight of literary
suitors, as expressed in the poem from which this chapter takes its title: The
Complaint of Poetrie, for the Death of Liberalitie (1598):
28
29
See Judson, 'The Life of Edmund Spenser', p. 200.

See B. B. Gamzue, 'Elizabeth and Literary Patronage', PMLA, 49 (1934), 1041-8; and
Roger A. Geimer, 'Spenser's Rhyme or Churchyard's Reason: Evidence on Churchyard's
First Pension', Review of English Studies, n.s., 20 (1969), 306-9.
239
Bounty is dead, the cause of my annoy;

Bounty is dead, and with her dide my ioy.
This state of affairs, Barnfield avers, contrasts sharply with the situation he
had enjoyed a few years earlier:
I neuer then, did write one verse in vaine;
Nor euer went my Poems vnregarded:
Then did each Noble breast, me intertaine,
And for my Labours I was well rewarded:
But now Good Wordes, are stept in Bounties place,
Thinking thereby, her glorie to disgrace.30
Wherever one looks during this period, Barnfield's complaint is reinforced.
Giles Fletcher met with nothing but rebuffs from the Cecils, which forced
him to turn to Essex, who possessed a great fund of good will towards
writers, but who, being blocked by the Cecils, largely lacked the financial
means to translate desires into deeds.31 In 1590, John Lyly addressed a bitter
petition to the queen, in which he complains of his long, unrewarded service:
Thirteene years your hignes seruant but yet nothing ... A thowsand hopes but all
nothing, a hundred promises but yet nothing. Thus casting vpp the inventary of my
freinds, hopes, promises, and tymes, the summa totalis amounteth to iust nothing.32
It can hardly be doubted, then, that writers in the 1590s had come to
mistrust the willingness or ability of the governing classes to fulfil the
obligations of the supportive social mechanisms upon which they once could
have relied.
The picture I am painting, if grim, can be lightened slightly by reference
to the coterie attached to Mary Herbert, countess of Pembroke, who, in her
time, accrued a reputation as a notable patron of poets. In the 1590s, she
received dedications from Nicholas Breton, Samuel Daniel, Abraham
Fraunce, Thomas Moffett, Thomas Morley and Thomas Watson. Some of
them may indeed have been rewarded with offices procured for them by
Pembroke, as has been recently claimed,33 but this group is a tiny drop in
the bucket of all those suitors seeking preferment through literature in the
1590s. We should also be cautious in evaluating the actual benefits to these
30
31
32
33
The Poems of Richard Barnfield) ed. Montague Summers (London, n.d.), p. 106, lines 5-6,
13-18.
See Lloyd E. Berry, 'Giles Fletcher, the Elder, and the earl of Essex', Notes and Queries
(Feb. 1960), 42-6. Essex may, however, have helped to procure Fletcher's preferment to the
position of Treasurer of St Paul's. For further comment on Essex as a patron, see Michael
Brennan, Literary Patronage in the English Renaissance: The Pembroke Family (London and
N e w York, 1988), pp. 86-7.
Euphues, English Reprints, ed. Edward Arber [no. 9] (1869), Intro., pp. - 1 0 .
See Margaret Hannay, Philip's Phoenix: Mary Sidney, Countess of Pembroke ( N e w York and
Oxford, 1990).
240
Alistair Fox
authors of the countess' patronage. Samuel Daniel, for example, even

though he was an assiduous client of the countess of Pembroke, serving at
Wilton as tutor to her children, and dedicating Delia and Cleopatra to her,
did not obtain a position at Court until the reign of James I, when he was
made a groom of Queen Anne's chamber, and that office was obtained for
him through Lucy Russell, countess of Bedford, in the radically different
circumstances of the new reign. As one commentator has recently warned, it
is wrong to look for circles of writers around the countess of Pembroke, for
apart from a number of close friends and employees, they did not exist.
Rather, many writers addressed their works to her on a purely speculative
basis, and more often than not were disappointed.34
The truth of the matter is probably best summed up by Thomas Nashe,
who, in Christs Teares over Jerusalem (1593), delivers a tirade against female
patrons who promise more than they can deliver:
I hate those female braggarts that contend to haue all the Muses beg at .their doores,
and, with Denies, delight euermore to looke themselues in the glasse of vaine-glorie;
yet by their sides weare continually Barbarie purses, which never ope to any but
pedanticall Parasites.35
So much for the likes of Fraunce, Breton and Watson, and others like them
who aspired to cultivate artistically pretentious noblewomen - at least as far
as the disappointed Nashe was concerned!
While some writers fared quite well in the earlier decades of Elizabeth's
reign, particularly those who courted prominent courtiers such as the earl of
Leicester, and the two Sidneys (Sir Henry the father, and Sir Philip the
son),36 it appears that by the 1590s very few were getting the rewards from
patronage that they thought they deserved, and once would have had a right
to expect.
From the beginning of her reign, Elizabeth I seems to have broken with
the practice by which her predecessors not only fostered their own magnificence by hiring writers to blazon their virtues and achievements, but also
performed a central role in the stimulus of culture by rewarding literary
merit with preferments and financial gifts. In the first place, she was too
important to the interests of the protestant nobles who formed the dominant
34
35
36
Brennan, Literary Patronage in the English Renaissance, pp. 8 0 - 1 .

Thomas Nashe, Christs Teares over Ierusalem (1593), in The Works of Thomas Nashe, ed.
Ronald B. McKerrow, II (London, 1909), pp. 10-11.
Such as Fulke Greville, who was rewarded for editing the revised Arcadia of Sir Philip
Sidney by being appointed to a string of important positions by the earl of Pembroke (see
Brennan, Literary Patronage in the English Renaissance, p. 56).
241
power groups for it to be necessary on her own initiative and, consequently,

wealthy aristocrats such as the earl of Leicester and the Sidneys took it upon
themselves to assume responsibility for patronizing those who could disseminate the myth with which they wished to surround her. Second, loyalist
poets were willing to amplify her qualities without needing to be hired for
the purpose. Whether this arose out of devotional fervour because she was a
national protestant icon, or whether it sprang from a desire to attract the
attention of those aristocrats who controlled access to the queen's bounty,
needs still to be determined. Significantly, however, by the 1590s both the
willingness of the aristocrats to offer financial reward for the literary celebration of the queen and her regime, and also the willingness of the poets to
seek it fruitlessly, had ceased. In short, the 1590s bear witness to a social
contract that, while it had worked well at the beginning of the sixteenth
century, was in an advanced stage of breaking down.
Were one to speculate, one might conclude that the decline of literary
patronage in the 1590s was, in itself, the sign of a regime in trouble.
Sponsorship of the arts often thrives when a nation, society or government
is invigorated and conscious of striding forth self-confidently in a direction
that it can identify and understand. Conversely, financial support almost
invariably wanes when a society lacks the self-confidence to wish to have its
values and aspirations imaginatively represented for the sake of being
understood. The dearth of literary patronage that occurred in the 1590s
argues that English society in the final decade of Elizabeth's reign suffered a
major crisis of confidence, perhaps best represented by Spenser in the
fragmentary last book of his great epic in the violent attempts of Mutability
to pluck Cynthia off her throne, which exemplifies the anxiety felt by
Englishmen as a result of their awareness that age would soon deprive them
of the queen, with the possibility that they would then be plunged into an
uncertain future.37 Of course, the speculations outlined here do not accord
with the fact that a very great literature was produced in England during the
final decade of Queen Elizabeth's reign, but that merely serves to prove that
the muses, however much they may value his beneficence, are not, ultimately, dependent upon Maecenas.
APPENDIX: notable dedicatees
The following appendix consists of printed books dedicated to two categories of patrons: (1) those to whom works were most frequently addressed
in the period 1590-1603, and (2) those whom, like the countess of Pembroke
or the earl of Southampton, one might have expected to play a significant
37
'Two Cantos of Mutabilitie', in Poetical Works, ed. Smith and de Selincourt, p. 395, canto
VI, stanza 12.
242
Alistair Fox
role in late-Elizabethan literary patronage. Items are arranged by date, and

alphabetically within date ranges.
CAREY, Elizabeth (nee Spencer)
Spenser, Edmund, The Faerie Queene. 1590. Some copies STC2 23080.
, Complaints, Containing Sundrie Small Poemes of the Worlds Vanitie.
1591. STC2 23078.
Churchyard, Thomas, Churchyards Challenge. 1593. STC2 5220.
Nashe, Thomas, Christs Teares over Ierusalem. 1593. STC2 18366.
Playfere, Thomas, A Most Excellent and Heavenly Sermon . . . The Meane in
Mourninge. 1596. STC2 20015.
Lok, Henry, Ecclesiastes, Otherwise Called the Preacher. Abridged and
Dilated in English Poesie. Whereunto are Annexed Sundrie Sonets. 1597.
STC2 16696 (epistle).
CAREY, George, 2nd Lord Hunsdon
Hester, John, The Pearle of Practise, or Practisers Pearle, for Phisicke and
Chirurgerie. 1594. STC2 13253 (by editor).
Churchyard, Thomas, A Pleasaunte Discourse of Court and Wars: with a
Replication to them Both. 1596. STC2 5249.
La Vardin, Jacques de, The Historie of George Castriot, Surnamed Scanderbeg, King of Albanie. Trans. J. de Lavardin, [from the Latin of M.
Barlezio.] Newly trans, out of French by Z. Jones, Gentleman. 1596.
STC2 15318.
Playfere, Thomas, The Pathway to Perfection. A Sermon. 1596. STC2 20020.
Warner, William, Albions England. Or Historicall Map of the Same Island.
Now Reuised, and Newly Inlarged. 1596. STC2 25082.
Anon., The Policy of the Turkish Empire. The First Booke. [On religion].
1597. STC2 24335.
Bales, Peter, The Arte of Brachygraphie. With Sundry New Additions ... the
Order of Orthographie ...the Key ofKalygraphie. 1597. STC2 1311.
Dowland, John, The First Booke of Songes or Ayres of Fowre Panes with
Tableture. 1597. STC2 7091.
Morley, Thomas, Canzonets or Litle Short Aers to Fiue and Sixe Voices.
1597. STC2 18126.
L'Obel, Mattias de, Balsami, opobalsami, carpobalsami, & xylobalsami, cum
suo cortice explanatio. 1598. STC2 16649.
Ortiz, Antonio, A Relation of the Solemnitie wherewith the Catholike Princes
were Receyued in the Inglish Colledge of Valladolik. 1601. STC2 18858.
243
D., F., Anagrammata in nomina illustrissimorum heroum T. Egertoni,

C. Howardi (and 11 others). 1603. STC2 6165.
CECIL, Robert, 1st earl of Salisbury
Sansovino, Francesco, The Quintesence of Wit, being a Corrant Comfort of
Conceites. Tr. out of Italian by R. Hitchcock. 1590. STC2 21744.
Stepney, William, The Spanish Schoole-master. Containing Seven Dialogues.
1591. STC2 23256.
Calvin, Jean, Sermons . ..on the Histoire of Melchisedech. Tr. out of French
b y T . Stocker. 1592. 5 TC2 4440.

Willet, Andrew, Synopsis Papismi, that is, a Generall Viewe of Papistry.
1592. STC2 25696.
Churchyard, Thomas, The Mirror of Man, and Manners of Men. 1594.
STC2 5242.
Morley, Henry, Of Thomas Morely the First Booke of Balletts to Five Voyces.
1595. STC2 18116.
, Di Tomaso Morlei ilprimo libro delle ballette a cinque voci. 1595. STC2
18118.
Ralegh, Sir Walter, The Discouerie of the Large, Rich and Bewtiful Empire of
Guiana. 1595. STC2 20634.
Hakluyt, Richard, The Principall Navigations, Voiages and Discoueries of the
English Nation. Deuidedinto Three Seuerall Volumes. 1596. STC212626.
Chaucer, Geoffrey, The Workes of our Antient and Lerned English Poet,
G. Chaucer ... [ed. T. Speght]. 1598. STC2 5077 (by editor).
Fumee, Martin, The Historie of the Troubles of Hungarie. Tr. out of French
by R. Churche. 1600. STC2 11487.
Leo, John, Africanus. A Geographical Historie of Africa, Written in Arabicke
and Italian. Tr. J. Pory. 1600. STC2 15481.
Pallavicio, Sir Horatio, Album, seu nigrum amicorum. Author in libri nomen.
Ed. T. Field. 1600. STC2 19154 (by editor).
Willet, Andrew, Synopsis Papismi ... Now this Third Time Published and
Augmented with a Fifth Hundred of Errors. 1600. STC2 25698.
Galvam or Balvano, Antonio, The Discoveries of the World from their
First Originall unto the Yeere 1555 ... Now Published in English by
R. Hakluyt. 1601. STC2 11543.
Malynes, Gerard de, A Treatise of the Canker of Englands Common Wealth.
1601. STC2 17227.
Plinius Secundus, Caius, The [Xylographic] Historie of the World. Tr.
P. Holland. 1601. STC2 20029.
244
Alistair Fox
Wheeler, John, A Treatise of Commerce, Wherin are Shewed the Commodies

[sic] Arising by a Wei Ordered, and Ruled Trade, Such as That of the
Societie of Merchantes Adventurers. 1601. STC2 25330.
Lloyd, Lodowick, The Strategems of Jerusalem: with the Martiall Lawes.
1602. STC2 16630.
Sutcliffe, Matthew, A Challenge Concerning the Romish Church, Now Againe
Reuiewed, Enlarged, and Fortified. 1602. STC2 23454.
CECIL, William, Lord Burghley
Beatniffe, John, A Sermon Preached at Torceter, in Northampton. 1590.
STC2 1662.
Gifford, George, A Plaine Declaration that Our Brownists be full Donatists.
1590. S TC2 11862.
, A Short Treatise Against the Donatists of England, Whome We Call
Brownists. 1590. STC2 11869.
Saravia, Hadrianus, De diuersus ministrorum euangelii gradibus . . . de honore
qui debetur pastoribus ... de sacrilegijs. 1590. STC2 21746.
Spenser, Edmund, The Faerie Queene. [Bks I-III] 1590. STC2 23080.
Willet, Andrew, De vniversali et nouissima Judaeorum vocatione ... Vbi
demonstratur, quern in modum illiusgentis convertsio expectanda sit. 1590.
STC2 25675.
Barrow, Henry, A Plaine Refutation of M. G. Giffardes Booke [STC2
11869]. Here is Furder Annexed a Briefe Refutation of M. Giff. Consimilituda Betwext the Donatists and vs. 1591. STC2 1523.
Broughton, Hugh, A Treatise of Melchisedek, Proving him to be Sem. 1591.
STC2 3890. (3887)
Damon, William, Cantus. The Former Booke of the Musicke ... Conteining
all the Tunes of Dauids Psalmes ... 1591. STC2 6220.
Saravia, Hadrianus, D. Saravia. 1. Of the diuerse degrees of the ministers of
thegospelL 2. Of the honor due vnto priests. 3. Of Sacrilege. 1591. STC2
21749.
Smith, Henry, A Preparatiue to Mariage ... Whereunto is Annexed a
Treatise of the Lords Supper, and Another of Vsurie. 1591. STC2
22685.
Bravonius, Florentius, Chronicon ex chronicis, ab initio mundi usque ad 1118
[ed. Gulielmus Howardus]. 1592. STC2 3593 (by editor).
Pernius, Joannes, Exemplar literarum, missarum, e Germania, ad G. Cecilium
[by J. Creswell]. 1592. STC2 19767.
Smith, Henry, Thirteene Sermons vpon Seuerall Textes of Scripture. 1592.
STC2 22717 (by bookseller).
Guicciardini, Ludovico, The Description of the Low Countreys Gathered into
an Epitome [by] (T. Danett). 1593. STC2 12463.
245
Norden, John, Speculum Britanniae. The First Parte an Historicall Description of Middlesex. 1593. STC2 18635.
Broughton, Hugh, Sundry Workes Defending the Certayntie of the Holy
Chronicle. 1594? STC2 3887 (a reissue of STC2 3890).
Comines, Philippe de, The Historie of Philip de Commines. [Tr. from French
by] (T. Danett). 1596. STC2 5602.
Gerard, John, Catalogus arborum, fruticum ac plantarum in horto J. Gerardi
nascentium. 1596 (later to Ralegh). STC2 11748.
Norden, John, Nor dens Preparatiue to his Speculum Britanniae. 1596. STC2
18638.
Gerard, John, The Herball or Generall Historie of Plantes. 1597. STC2
11750.
DEVEREUX (nee Walsingham), Frances = Robert, 2nd earl of

Essex
Watson, Thomas, [A trans.] An Eglogue Upon the Death of Sir F. Walsingham. 1590. STC2 25121.
Lok, Henry, Sundry Christian Passions Contained in Two Hundred Sonnets.
1593. STC2 11697 (epistle).
Spenser, Edmund, Colin Clouts Come Home Againe. 1595. STC2 23077.
Forde, Emanuel, Parismus, the Renoumed Prince of Bohemia. 1598. STC2
11171.
Davies, John, Microcosmos. The Discovery of the Little World, with the
Government Thereof. 1603. STC2 6333 (epistle).
DEVEREUX, Robert, 2nd earl of Essex
Du Chesne, Joseph, The Sclopotarie of Josephus Quercetanus. Or His Booke
Containing the Cure of Wounds Received by Shot of Gunne. Pubd. into
Eng. by J. Hester. 1590. STC2 7277.
Gentilis, Albericus, ... de iniustitia bellica Romanorum actio. 1590. STC2
11734.
Harvey, Richard, A Theological Discourse of the Lamb of God and His

Enemies. 1590. STC2 12915.
Holland, Henry, A Treatise Against Witchcraft. 1590. STC2 13590.
Spenser, Edmund, The Faerie Queene. 1590. STC2 23080 (epistle).
Stockwood, John, Progymnasma scholasticum. Hoc est, epigrammatum
Graecorumy ex anthologia selectorum ab H. Stephano. 1590. STC2 23281.
Watson, Thomas, Superius. The First Sett, of Italian Madrigalls,
Englished... 1590. STC2 25119.
246
Alistair Fox
Williams, Roger, A Briefe Discourse of Warre. 1590. STC2 25732.

Bradshaw, Thomas, The Shepherds Starr e, Now of Late Seene. 1591. STC2
3508.
Garrard, William, The Arte of Warre. 1591. STC2 1162 (by editor).
Loque, Bertrand de, Discourses of Warre and Single Combat. 1591. STC2
16810.
Percyvall, Richard, Bibliotheca Hispanica. Containing a Grammar, with a
Dictionarie in Spanish, English, and Latine. 1591. STC2 19619.
Tacitus, Publius Cornelius, The End of Nero and Beginning of Galba...
1591. STC2 23642.
Broughton, Hugh, Moses* Sights on Mount Sanai. Engr. text w. emblematic
figures. 1592. STC2 3873.
Colonna, Francesco, Hypnerotomachia. The Strife of Love in a Dreame.
[Anon. tr. by Sir R. Dallington.] 1592. STC2 5577.
Gager, William, Meleager Tragoedia noua. Bis publice acta. (Panniculus
Hippolyto Senecae tragoediae assutus.). 1592. STC2 11515.
Masterton, T h o m a s , . . . His First Booke of Arithmetike. 1592. STC2 17648.
Sutcliffe, Matthew, Matthaei Sutliuii De Catholica, orthodoxa, et vera
Christi ecclesia. 1592. 5TC2 23455.
Willet, Andrew, Sacrorum emblematum centuria vina. 1592. STC2 25695.
, Synopsis papismi. 1592. STC2 25696.
Barnes, Barnabe, Parthenophil and Parthenophe, Sonnettes, Madrigals,
Elegies and Odes. 1593. STC2 1469 (epistle).
Harvey, Richard, Philadelphus, or a Defence of Brutus, and the Brutans
History. 1593. STC2 12913.
Kellwaye, Simon, A Defensatiue Againste the Plague. 1593. STC2 14917.
Lysias, Eratosthenes, hoc est, breuis et luculenta defensio Lysiae, praelectionibus illustrata A Dunaei. [Gr. a Lat.]. 1593. STC2 17121.
Sutcliffe, Matthew, The Practice, Proceedings, and Lawes of Armes. 1593.
STC2 23468.
B., O., Questions of Profitable and Pleasant Concernings ... Called the
Display of Vaine Life. 1594. STC2 1054.
Brooke, Ralph, A Discouerie of Certaine Errours Published in the Much
Commended Britannia. 1594. STC2 3834.
Burton, William, An Exposition of the Lords Prayer... 1594. STC2 4174.
Gifford, George, A Treatise of True Fortitude. 1594. STC2 11870.
Hume, Alexander, A Reioynder to Doctor Hil Concerning the Descense of
Christ into Hell. 1594. STC2 13948.
Mundy, John, Songs and Psalmes. 1594. STC2 18284.
Parsons, Robert, A Conference About the Next Succession to the Crowne of
Ingland. Where vnto is Added a Genealogie. Pubd. by R. Doleman
[Pseudo.] 1594. STC2 19398.
247
Platt,Hugh, The Jewell House of Art and Nature. 1594. STC2 19991.
Powell, Griffinus, Analysis Analyticorum Posteriorum sive Librorum Aristotelis de Demonstraione. 1594. STC2 756 = 20157.
Bownd, Nicholas, The Doctrine of the Sabbath. 1595. STC2 3436.
Campion, Thomas, Tomae Campiani poemata . . . 1595. STC2 4554
(epistle).
Churchyard, Thomas, A Musicall Consort of Heavenly Harmonie Called
Churchyards Charitie. 1595. STC2 5245.
Co veil, William, Polimanteia, or the Meanes Lawfull and Vnlawfull, to Judge
of the Fall of a Common-wealth. Whereunto is Added a Letter from
England to Her Three Daughters, Cambridge, Oxford, Innes of Courte,
[etc.]. 1595. STC2 5883.
Hubbocke, William, An Apologie of Infants in a Sermon, Prouing, that
Children Preuented by Death of Their Baptisme, May be Saued. 1595.
STC2 13898.
Linaker, Robert, A Comfortable Treatise for Such as Are Afflicted in Conscience. 1595. STC2 15638 only.
Maunsell, Andrew, The First Part of the Catalogue of English Printed
Bookes: Which Concerneth Diuinitie. 1595. STC2 17669.
Nenna, Giovanni Battista, Nennio, or a Treatise of Nobility. Tr. [Sir]
W. Jones. 1595. STC2 18428.
Saviolo, Vicentio, Vicentio Saviolo His Practise. In Two Books. The First
Intreating of the Use of the Rapier and Dagger. The Second of Honor and
Honorable Quarrels. 1595. [Tr. D. G. Musio's II Duello]. STC2 21788.
Gifford, George, Sermons vpon the Whole Booke of the Reuelation. 1596.
STC2 11866.
Lowe, Peter, An Easie, Certaine, and Perfect Method, to Cure Spanish
Sicknes. 1596. STC2 16872.
Nichols, Josias, Abrahams Faith: That is, the Olde Religion. 1596. STC2
18540.
Rainolds, John, Johannis Rainoldi, de romance ecclesiae idolatria in cultu
sanctorum, reliquarum . . . 1596. STC2 20606.
Barlow, William, The Nauigators Supply. Conteining Many Things Belonging to Nauigation. 1597. STC2 1445.
L., T., Babylon is Fallen. [Anon.] 1597. STC2 15111.
Lok, Henry, Ecclesiastes ... Otherwise Called the Preacher. Abridged and
STC2 16696.
Middleton, Thomas, The Wisdome of Solomon Paraphrased. 1597. STC2
17906.
Norden, John, The Mirror of Honor: Wherein Euerie Professor of Armes,
May See the Necessitie of the Feare of God. 1597. STC2 18614.
248
Alistair Fox
Gifford, George, Fifteene Sermons, vpon the Song of Salomon. 1598. STC2
1854.
Homer, Seaven Bookes of the Iliades. Tr. by G. Chapman. 1598. STC2
13632 (later to Henry).
, Achilles Shield. Tr . . . out of the Eighteenth Book of Iliades. By
G. Chapman. 1598. STC2 13635 only.
Morton, Thomas, Prioris Coneithiacae epistolae expositio quaedam. 1598.
STC2 18192.
Powel, Griffinus, Analysis lib. Aristotelis de Sophisticus elenchis. 1598. STC2
20158.
Racster, John, A Book of the Seven Planets, or Seuen Wandring Motiues, of
W. Alablasters [i.e. Alabaster's] Wit, Retrograded or Remoued. 1598.
STC2 20601.
Saluste du Bartas, Guillaume de, The Second Weeke or Childhood of the
World. Tr. J. Syluester. 1598. STC2 21661.
Tacitus, Publius Cornelius, The Annales of Cornelius Tacitus. The Description ofGermanie. Tr. R. Grenewey. 1598. STC2 23644.
Vaughan, William, Poematum libellus continens 1. Encomium . . . Roberti
Comitis Essexii. 2. De sphaerarium ordine tractatiunculam. 3. Palaemonis
amore philisophicos. [And more]. 1598. STC2 24620.
Compton, Richard, The Mansion of Magnanimitie. Wherein is Shewed the
Acts of Sundrie English Kings, Princes, Dukes, [etc.] in Defence of their
Princes and Countrie. 1599. STC2 6054.
Du Laurens, Andre, Andreae Laurentii ... de morbis melancholiis. 1599.
STC2 7303.
Gibson, John, The Sacred Shield of al True Christian Souldieers. 1599.
STC2 11834.
Hayward, John, The First Part of the Life and Raigne of King Henrie the
IIII. 1599. STC2 12995.
Mornay, Philippe de, Meditations vpon Psal. 101. Tr. [from Fr.] by T. Wilcocks. 1599. STC2 18146.
Silver, George, Paradoxes of Defence, Wherein is Proued the True Grounds of
Fight to be in the Short Auncient Weapons. 1599. STC2 22554.
Whitaker, Tobias, Praelectiones doctissimi viri Guihelmi Whitakeri ... In
quibus tractatur controuersia de ecclesia. 1599. STC2 25368 (by editor).
EGERTON, Thomas, Lord Keeper
Bell, Thomas, The Speculation of Vsurie. 1596. STC2 1828.
, The Suruey of Popery. 1596. STC2 1829.
Churchyard, Thomas, The Honor of the Lawe. 1596. STC2 5238.
Strigelius, Victorinus, A Fourth Proceeding. [Psalms 62-72]. Tr. R. Robinson. 1596. STC2 23362.
249
Agatharchides, Agatharchidis et Memnonis historicorum, quae supersunt,

omnia, traductaper R. Brettum. 1597. STC2 196.
Dove, John, A Sermon Preached at Paules Crosse, the Sixt of February, 1596.
1597. STC2 7087.
King, John, Lectures vpon Jonas, Deliuered at Yorke in the Yeare of our Lorde
1594. 1597. STC2 14976.
Lok, Henry, Ecclesiastes, Otherwise Called the Preacher. 1597. STC2 16696
(epistle).
Brucioli, Antonio, A Commentary vpon the Canticle of Canticles Written in
Italian and Now tr. by T. James. 1598. STC2 3928.
Butler, Charles, Rhetoricae libri duo. Quorum prior de tropis & figuris,
posterior de voce & gestu praecipit. In vsum scholarum accuratius editi.
1598. STC2 4197.
Kimedoncius, Jacobus, Of the Redemption of Mankind. 1598. STC2 14960.
Luis [de Granada], The Sinners Guyde.. .Wherein Sinners are Reclaimed
from the By-path of Vice. Digested into English by F. Meres. 1598. STC2
16918.
Voyon, Simon de, A Discourse vpon the Catalogue of Doctors of Gods Church,
Together with the Continuall Succession of the True Church vntill 1565.
1598. STC2 24890.
Case, John, Lapis philisophicus seu commentarius. 1599. STC2 4756.
Darrell, John, A Brief Apology Proving the Possession of W. Sommers ...
1599. STC2 6282 (by editor).
Willet, Andrew, Tetrastylon papismi... 1599. STC2 25703.
Downame, John, Spiritual Physicke to Cure the Diseases of the Soule, Arising
from Superfluitie of Choller. 1600. STC2 7147.
Floyd, Thomas, The Picture of Perfit Common Wealth. Gathered Forth of
Many Authors. 1600. STC2 11119.
Gardiner, Samuel, A Pearle of Price ... for Which the Spirituall Mar chant
Jeweller Selleth all His Temporalls. 1600. STC2 11578.
Powell, Gabriel, The Resolved Christian, Exhorting to Resolution. 1600.
STC2 20150.
Roberts, Hugh, The Day of Hearing: or Six Lectures upon Part of the Thirde
Chapter of the Epistle to the Hebrewes ... 1600. STC2 21089
Thomas, Lewis, Demegoriai. Certaine Lectures upon Sundry Portions of
Scripture. 1600. STC2 24002.
Valera, Cipriano de, (A trans.) Two Treatises: the First of the Lives of the
Popes. The Second, of the Masse. Also a Swarme of False Miracles. 1600,
5 TC2 24581.
Willet, Andrew, Synopsis Papismi .. .Now, this Third Time Published and
Augmented with a Fifth Hundred of Errors. 1600. STC2 25698.
Chamber, John, A Treatise Against Judicial Astrologie. 1601. S TC2 4941.
250
Alistair Fox
Deacon, John, and John Walker, Dialogicall Discourses of Spirits and Divels.
Declaring their Proper Essence Natures, (etc.). 1601. STC2 6439.
Malynes, Gerard de, Saint George for England, Allegorically Described.
1601. STC2 17226a.
Bulkeley, Edward, An Apologie for Religion, or an Answere to an Unlearned
Pamphlet Intituled: Certaine Articles, or Forcible Reasons. 1602. STC2
4025.
Shelford, Robert, Lectures or Readings vpon the 6. Verse of the 22. Chapter of
the Prouerbs . . . 1602. STC2 22401.
Vigor, Simon, Acts of the Dispute and Conference Holden at Paris 1566. 1602.
STC2 24727.
D., F., Anagrammata in nomina illustrissimorum heroum T. Egertoni,
C. Howardi (and 11 others). 1603. STC2 see 6165.
Sutcliffe, Matthew, Matthaei Sutliuii De missa papistica ... aduersus
R. Ballarminum, libri quinque. 1603. STC2 23456.
ELIZABETH I, Queen
Broughton, Hugh, A Concert of Scripture. 1590. STC2 3850.
Daunce, Edward, A Brief Discourse of the Spanish State, with a Dialogue
Intituled Philobasilus. 1590. STC2 6291.
Dering, Edward, Maister Derings Workes. 1590. STC2 6671, sometimes
6676.
, Two Goodlie Sermons. 1590. STC2 6632.

Gibbon, Charles, Not so New as True. Being a Caueatfor All Christians ...
1590. STC2 see 11816.
Marten, Anthony, A Reconciliation of All the Pastors and Cleargy of this
Church of England. 1590. STC2 17490.
Spenser, Edmund, The Faerie Queene. 1590. STC2 23081.
Webbe, Edward, The Rare and Most Wonderfull Things Which E. Webbe
Hath Seen in the Lands of Jewrie, Egypt, Grecia, Russia and Prester
John. 1590. STC2 2515.5.
Ariosto, Ludovico, Orlando Furioso in English Heroical Verse by J. Harington. 1591. STC2146.
Barrow, Henry, A Petition Directed to Her Most Excellent Majestie, Wherein
is Delivered a Meane Howe to Compound the Ciuill Dissention in the
Church ofEnglande. 1591. STC2 see 1521.
B., G., A Fig for the Spaniard, or Spanish Spirits. 1591. STC2 1026.
Clayton, Giles, The Approoued Order of Martiall Discipline . . . 1591. STC2
5376.
Fletcher, Giles, Of the Russe Common Wealth. Or the Maner of Governement
by the Russe Emperour, with the Manners, of the People. 1591. STC2
11056.
251
Hortop, Job, The Trauailes of an English Man. 1591. STC2 13828.

Lloyd, Ludowick, The Triplicitie of Triumphes. Containing the Order,
Solempnitie and Pompe of the Feastes, [etc.], 1591. STC2 16632 only.
Ripley, George, The Compound of Alchymy. Or the Ancient Hidden Art.
1591. STC2 21057.
Saluste du Bartas, Guillaume de, Guilielmi Salustii Bartassii Hebdomas a

G. Lermaeo latinitate donata. 1591. STC2 21656.
Tacitus, Publius Cornelius, The End of Nero and Beginning of Galba . . .
1591. STC2 23642.
Ubaldini, Petruccio, Le vite delle donne illustri, del regno d'lnghilterra, & del
regno di Scotia. 1591. STC2 24488.
Churchyard, Thomas, A Handful of Gladsome Verses, Given to the Queenes
Maiesty at Woodstocke. 1592. STC2 5237.
Gager, William, Meleager. Tragoedia noua. Bis publice acta. 1592. STC2
11515 (epistle).
Tanner, Robert, Anno Domini, 1592. A Brief Treatise for the Ready Vse of
the Sphere. 1592. STC2 23671.
Willet, Andrew, Synopsis Papismi, that is, a Generall Viewe of Papistry ...
1592. STC2 25696.
Beacon, Richard, Solon His Follie, or a Politique Discourse, Touching the
Reformation of Common-weales. 1594. STC2 1653.
Churchyard, Thomas, A Pleasant Conceite Penned in Verse. Presented on
New-yeares Day Last to the Queenes Maiestie. 1593. STC2 5248.
Fregeville, Jean de, Palma Christiana, seu, speculum veri status ecclesiastici...
1593. STC2 U311.
Lok, Henry, Sundry Christian Passions Contained in Two Hundred Sonnets.
1593. STC2 16697.
Norden, John, Speculum Britanniae. The First Parte an Historicall Description of Middlesex. 1593. STC2 18635.
Broughton, Hugh, [Letters to Queen Elizabeth and others.] 1594. STC2
3871=3861.
, Sundry Workes Defending the Certayntie of the Holy Chronicle. (1594?)
STC2 3887.
Willet, Andrew, Synopsis Papismi, that is, a Generall Viewe of Papistry ...
Now a Second Time Published. 1594. STC2 25697.
Campion, Thomas, Tomae Campiani Poemata. 1595. STC2 4544 (epistle).

Johnson, Edward, Hymnus comitialis, in honorem ... Elisabethae. [1595?]
STC2 14657.
Maunsell, Andrew, The First Part of the Catalogue of English Printed Books
which Concerneth Diuinitie. 1595. STC2 17669.
Southwell, Robert, An Humble Supplication to Her Maiestie. 1595. STC2
7586 = 22040.5.
252
Alistair Fox
Strigelius, Victorinus, A Third Proceedinge [Psalms 45-61] 1595. STC2

23361.
G., C , A Watch-worde for Warre . . . Published by Reason of the Suspected
Comming of the Spanyard. 1596. STC2 see 11492.
Lok, Henry, Ecclesiastes, Otherwise called the Preacher. Abridged and Dilated
in English Poesie. Whereunto are Annexed Sundrie Sonets. 1596. STC2
(16696).
Morton, Thomas, Salomon, or a Treatise Declaring the State of the Kingdome
of Israel. 1596. STC2 18194.
Nor den, John, A Christian Familiar Comfort and Incouragement not to
Dismaie at the Spanish Threats. 1596. STC2 18604.
, A Progress of Pietie, Or the Harbour of Heauenly Harts Ease. 1596.
STC2 18633.
Savile, Henry, Rerum Anglicorum scriptores post Bedam praecipui... 1596.
STC2 21783.
Ubaldini, Petruccio, Rime de Petruccio Vbaldino. 1596. STC2 24483.
Bales, Peter, The Arte of Brachygraphie. With Sundrey New Additions ...
1597. STC2 see 1311.
Guillemeau, Jacques, The French Chirurgerye ... with Sundry Figures. 1597.
STC2 12498 (by editor).
Ive, Paul, The Practice of Fortification. 1597. STC2 14290.
STC2 16696 = 2765.
More, George, A Demonstration of God in his Workes. 1597. STC2 18071.
Tooker, William, Charisma siue donum sanationis. Seu explicatio... 1597.
STC2 24117 = 24118.
Barcklay, Richard, A Discourse of the Felicitie of Man: or his Summum
Bonum. 1598. STC2 1381.
Broughton, Hugh, An Epistle of an Ebrew Willinge to Learne Christianity:
with Some Further Spech upon It. 1598. STC2 3860.
Smyth, William, Ad lector em. Gemma Fabri: qua sacri Bibij margaritae, fere
omnes continentur. 1598. STC2 22882.
Wateson, George, The Cures of the Diseased, in Remote Regions. 1598. STC2
25106.
Wentworth, Peter, A Pit hie Exhortation to Her Majestiefor Establishing Her
Successor. 1598. STC2 25245.
Davies, John, Hymnes of Astraea, in Acrosticke Verse. 1599. STC2 6351.
, Nosce Teipsum. This Oracle Propounded in Two Elegies. 1599. STC2
6355.
Gaebelkhover, Oswald, The Boock of Physicke . . . Tr. out of High-Duche by
C. Battus. And Now Nuelye tr. out of Low-Duche by A.M. 1599. STC2
11513 by printer.
253
Henry VII, The First Booke of the Preseruation of King Henry vij ... 1599.
STC2 13076.
Camden, William, Britannia sineflorentissimorumregnorum, Angliae Scotiae,
Hiberniae chorographica descripto, Nunc postremo recognita & adaucta.
1600. STC2 4507.
Chambers, Robert, Palestina. 1600. STC2 4954.
Leius, Matthias, Certamen elegiacum novem musarwn, Apolline duce, contra
Barbariem susceptum. 1600. STC2 15437.
Livius, Titus, The Romane Historie ... Also, the Breviaries of L. Florus.
1600. STC2 16613.
Lloyd, Lodowick, Regum gemma e sacris bibliis desumpta. 1600? STC2
16628.
Norden, John, The Pensiue Mans Practise: The Second (Third) Part. 1600.
STC2 18618= 18626a.4.
Tasso, Torquato, Godfrey of Bulloigne . . . [Anon], Done in English Verse by
E. Fairfax. 1600. STC2 23698.
Bradshaw, William, Humble Motives for Association to Maintaine Religion
Established. Published as an Antidote Against the Pestilent Treatises of
Secular Priestes. 1601. 5 TC2 see 3518 = 6873.
Daniel, Samuel, The Works of Samuel Daniel Newly Augmented. 1601.
STC2 6236.
Holland, Thomas,... D Elizabethae . . . Angliae ... Franciae, & Hiberniae
reginae. A Sermon; 1599. 1601. STC2 13597.
Nesbit, E., Caesars Dialogue or a Familiar Communication Containing the
First Institution of a Subject. 1601. STC2 see 18432.
Rowlands or Vestegan, Richard, Englandsjoy. 1601? STC2 21358.
Vennard, Richard, The Right Way to Heaven: and the True Testimonie of a
Loyall Ssubject. 1601. STC2 24637.
Weever, John, An Agnus Dei. 1601. STC2 25220.
Lloyd, Ludowick, A Briefe Conference of Divers Laws. 1602. STC2 16616.
Oratio, Oratio hominis Belgae de virtute ac laudibus Britannorum in
defendenda aliorum contra potentiores dynastas salute . . . 1602. STC2
18835.
Plutarch, The Lives of Epaminondas, of Philip of Macedon. Tr. Sir T. North.
1602. STC2 20071.
Segar, William, Honor Military, and Civill, Contained in Foure Bookes.
1602. 5TC2 22164.
Plutarch, The Lives of Epaminondas ... 1603. STC2 20068.
HATTON, Sir Christopher, Lord Chancellor

Bacon, Roger, Libellus Rogerii Baconi ... De retardandis senectutis accidentibus. Emendatus opera J. Williams Oxoniensis ... 1590. STC2 1181 (by
editor).
254
Alistair Fox
Bales, Peter, The Writing Schoolemaster: Conteining Three Bookes in One . . .

[1590]. STC2 1312.
Beatniffe, John, A Sermon Preached at Torceter, in Northampton. 1590.
1662.
Digby, Everard, Euerard Digbie his Dissuasiue. From Taking Away the
Lyuings and Goods of the Church . . . [1590]. STC2 6842.
James, William, A Sermon Preached at Paules Crosse ... 1590. STC2 14464.
John, Chrysostom, D. Ioannis Chrysostomi . . . homiliae ad populum Antiochenum ... Opera J. Barman. 1590. STC2 14636 (by editor).
Saravia, Hadrianus, De diuersis ministrorum euangelii gradibus ... liber unus:
cui duo alij additi, alter de honoure qui debetut pastoribus, alter de
sacrilegijs. 1590. STC2 21746.
Segar, William, The Booke of Honor and Armes. 1590. STC2 22163 (by
bookseller).
Windsor, Miles, Academiarum quae aliquando fuere et hodie sunt in Europa.
1590. STC2 25841.
Saravia, Hadrianus, D. Saravia. 1. Of the Diuerse Degrees of the Ministers of
the Gospell. 2. Of the Honor Due vnto Priestes. 3. Of Sacrilege. 1591.
STC2 21749.
Strigelius, Victorinus, A Proceeding in the Harmonie of King Dauids Harpe.
Tr. R. Robinson. 1591. STC2 23359.
HERBERT (Sidney), Mary = Henry, 2nd earl of Pembroke
Sidney, Philip, The Countesse of Pembrokes Arcadia. 1590. STC2 22539.
Fraunce, Abraham, The Countesse of Pembrokes Emanuel Conteining the
Natiuity, Passion ... of Christ: with Certaine Psalmes of Dauid. 1591.
STC2 11338.5.
, (A variant w. imprint) 1591. STC2 11339.
, The Countesse of Pembrokes Yuychurch. Conteining the Life and Death
ofPhillis andAmyntas ... 1591. STC2 11340.
Spenser, Edmund, Complaints. Containing Sundrie Small Poemes of the
Worlds Vanitie. 1591 (1590). STC2 23078.
Breton, Nicholas, The Pilgrimage to Paradise, Ioyned with the Countesse of
Penbrookes Loue. 1592. STC2 3683.
Daniel, Samuel, Delia, Contayning Certayne Sonnets: with the Complaint of
Rosamond. 1592. STC2 6253 and (1594) 6254.
Fraunce, Abraham. The Third Part of the Countesse of Pembrokes Yuychurch. Entituled Amintas Dale. 1592. STC2 11341.
Gager, William, Vlysses redux tragoedia noua . . . 1592. STC2 11516.
Watson, Thomas, Amintae gaudia authore Thorn. Watsono. 1592. STC2
25117 (by editor).
255
Morley, Thomas, Canzonets. Or Little Short Songs to Three Voyces. 1593.

STC2 18121.
Breton, Nicholas, Auspicante Jehoua. Maries Exercise. 1597. STC2 3632.
Daniel, Samuel, The Poeticall Essayes of Sam. Danyel. 1599. STC2 6261.
Moffett, Thomas, The Silkewormes, and Their Flies. 1599. STC2 17994.
Breton, Nicholas, A Divine Poeme, Divided into Two Panes: the Ravisht
Soule, and the Blessed Weeper. 1601. STC2 3648.
Daniel, Samuel, The Works of Samuel Daniel Newly Augmented. 1601.
STC2 6236.
RALEGH, Sir Walter
Hariot, Thomas, A Briefe and True Report of the New Found Land of
Virginia. (The True Pictures ... of the People in Virginia). Tr. out of
Latin by R. Hackluit. 1590. STC2 12786 (by editor).
Hues, Robert, Tractatus deglobis et eorum vsu. 1594. STC2 13906.
Spenser, Edmund, Colin Clouts Come Home Againe, 1595. STC2 23077.
Keymis, Lawrence, A Relation of the Second Voyage to Guiana. 1596. STC2
14947.
STC2 16696.
Gerard, John, Catalogus arborum, fruticum acplantarum in horto. G. Gerardi
nascentium. 1599. STC2 11749.
Devon, The Laws and Statutes of the Stannarie of Devon. 1600. STC2 6798.
Brereton, John, A Briefe and True Relation of the Discoverie of the North
Part of Virginia. 1602. STC2 3610.
Carew, Richard, The Survey of Cornwall. 1602. STC2 4615.
Ortelius, Abraham, Abraham Ortelius, his Epitome of the Theater of the
Worlde Nowe Latlye Renewed and Augmented by M. Coignet. 1603.
STC2 18856 by bookseller.
Saluste du Bartas, Guillaume de, The Second Day of the First Week. Done out
of French into English Heroical Verse by T. Winter. 1603. STC2 21659.
RUSSELL (Harington), Lucy = Edward, 3rd earl of Bedford
Drayton, Michael, Matilde. The Faire and Chaste Daughter of the Lord
Robert Fitzwater. 1594. STC2 7205.
, Endimion and Phoebe. Ideas Latmus. 1595. STC2 7192.
Montaigne, Michel de, The Essayes or Moral, Politike and Millitarie Discourses. Trans. J. Florio. 1595. STC2 18041.
Perkins, William, A Salue for a Sicke Man, or, the Right Manner of Dying
Well. 1595. STC2 19742.
256
Alistair Fox
Drayton, Michael, Mortimeriados. The Lamentable Ciuell Warres of Edward

the Second and the Barrons. 1596. STC2 7207.
, The Tragicall Legend of Robert, Duke of Normandy. With Legend of
Matilda the Chast. And the Legend of Piers Gaueston. The Latter Two
Newly Corrected and Augmented. 1596. STC2 7232.
, Englands Heroicall Epistles. 1597. STC2 7193.
Florio, John, A Worlde of Wordes, or Most Copious, Dictionarie in Italian
and English. 1598. STC2 11098.
Dowland, John, The Second Booke of Songs or Ayres, of 2. 4. and 5. Parts:
with Tableture. 1600. STC2 7095.
Perkins, William, A Golden Chaine: or, the Description of Theologie. 1600.
STC2 19646.
Jonson, Benjamin, The Fountaine of Selfe-love. Or Cynthias Revells. 1601.
STC2 U113 (presentation).

Drayton, Michael, The Barrons Wars in the Raigne of Edward the Second.
With Englands Heroicall Epistle. 1603. STC2 7189.
STANLEY (Spencer), Alice = Ferdinando, 5th earl of Derby

Spenser, Edmund, Complaints. Containing Sundrie Small Poemes of the
Worlds Vanitie. 1591. STC2 23078.
Barnes, Barnabe, Parthenophil and Parthenophe. Sonnettes, Madrigals,
Elegies and Odes. [1593]. STC2 1469 (epistle).
Newton, Thomas, Atropoion Delion. 1603 STC2 18511 = 18513.5.
WRIOTHESLEY, Henry, 3rd earl of Southampton

Clapham, John, Narcissus. Siue amoris iuuenilis et praecipue philautiae breuis
atque moralis descriptio. 1591. STC2 5349.
Barnes, Barnabe, Parthenophil and Parthenophe. Sonnettes, Madrigals,
Elegies and Odes. [1593]. STC2 1469 (epistle).
Shakespeare, William, Venus and Adonis. 1593. STC2 22354.
Nashe, Thomas, The Vnfortunate Traueller. Or, the Life of Iacke Wilton.
1594. STC2 18380.
Shakespeare, William, Rape of Lucrece. 1594. STC2 22345.
Markham, Gervase, The Most Honorable Tragedie of Sir R. Grinuile,
Knight. 1595. STC2 17385.
STC2 16696.
Florio, John, A Worlde of Wordes, or Most Copious, Dictionarie in Italian

and English. 1598. STC2 11098.
Conestaggio, Girolamo Franchi di, The Historie of the Uniting of Portugall
to the Crowne of Castill. (Anon, tr.) 1600. STC2 5624.
257
D.,F., Anagrammata in nomina illustrissimorum her own, T. Egertoni,

C. Howardi (and 11 others). 1603. STC2 6165 (epistle).
Daniel, Samuel, A Panegyrike Congratulatorie to the Kings Maiestie. Also
Certaine Epistles. [1603]. STC2 6258.
Davies, John, Microcosmos. The Discovery of the Little World, with the
Government Thereof. 1603. STC2 6333.
Powell, Thomas, A Welch Bayte to Spare Prouender. Or, a Looking Backe
upon the Times Past. 1603. STC2 20170.
12
Summer's Last Will and Testament:

revels' end
Marie Axton
Revels at Tudor schools and universities, and at the Inns of Court,

belonged to Christmas. Their raison d'etre sprang from the festive calendar; their literary, social and historical significance remained closely tied to
those holidays. The fear of revels' end swept down 'out of the nippe of the
north' during the final decade of Elizabeth's reign. My subject is this
Elizabethan fear rather than the end occasioned by the execution of
Charles I and Commonwealth revision of the festive calendar. 1 The
customs themselves are well documented. 2 I shall look at the transmutation of fin de siecle fears about revels' end in Thomas Nashe's Summer's
Last Will and Testament, a play printed in 1600 and probably written and
performed in 1592.
The impact of the Reformation on the seasonal customs of England was
not immediate but by the 1590s its direction was clear. Patrick Collinson
reminds us how fundamental the change would be when the protestant
working season finally swallowed the winter months of 'holy play':
These seasonal rituals were almost all contained in that half of the year which runs
from Christmas to Midsummer, and which can be considered a distinctive and
extended festive season, set against the relatively industrious second half of the year
with its uninterrupted work discipline. Calendarwise the Reformation amounted to
the intrusion of the working season into the months traditionally associated with a
kind of holy play, in Phythian-Adam's words, 'a triumph of the secular half over its
ritualistic counterpart'.3
1
2
The curtailment is usually attributed to the removal of the king whose Court had been a
source of the students' mimesis.
C. R. Baskervill, 'Dramatic Aspects of Medieval Folk Festivals in England', Studies in
Philology, 17 (1920), 1987; C. L. Barber, Shakespeare's Festive Comedy (Princeton, NJ,
1959); M. Axton, The Queen's Two Bodies: Drama and the Elizabethan Succession (London,
1977); R. Axton, 'Festive Culture in Country and Town', in Boris Ford (ed.), Medieval
Britain, II (Cambridge, 1988, repr. 1990), chap. 4; S. Billington, A Social History of the Fool
(Brighton, 1984); Billington, Mock Kings in Medieval Society and Renaissance Drama
(Oxford, 1991); Richard McCoy, Rites of Knighthood: The Literature and Politics of Elizabethan Chivalry (Berkeley, Calif., 1989).
Birthpangs of Protestant England (London, 1988), p. 54. See also Axton, 'Festive Culture',
pp.152-3.
258
Summer's Last Will and Testament: revels' end
259
In 1598 the antiquary John Stowe wrote in the past tense of Christmas
lords of misrule or masters of merry disports in the houses of every nobleman
'were he spiritual or temporal':
These Lordes beginning their rule on Alhollon Eve, continued the same till the
morrow after the Feast of the Purification, commonly called Candlemas Day. In all
which space there were fine and subtile disguisinges, Maskes and Mummeries . . .
more for pastime than for gaine.4
At this season institutional revels took precedence for students. They were
expected to 'keep Christmas' (to be in residence in the Christmas vacation)
at their college or Inn of Court as an essential part of their education. 5 Wit
and invention might flag in the plays and masks written for these occasions,
as they did at St John's College, Oxford in 1608, but the 'shows' - council
debates, trials, creation of knights, challenges, armed combats and stately
processions - aimed to approximate the precision and panache of the real
thing. The observable 'structure' of these performances came not from
literary genre but from social rites. In surviving revels texts such rituals are
recorded with the scrupulous detail of a herald. 6
The toune expected a perfect and absolute play so that all things mett to make us
unhappy that night . . . they would never have indured us without hissing, howsoeuer in the end they gaue us two or three cold plaudites though they departed no
way satisfyed, unlesse it were in the shew about the quadrangle wherein the prince
was carryed to his chamber in the same state that he came from thence in the
beginning . . . the whole company of actors beeing added to his traine who immediatly followed him before the guard in this order.7
Attendance during three successive Christmas vacations had been the sole
requirement for membership of an Inn of Court in the fifteenth century;
that is, residing during the period when the law courts at Westminster were
not sitting. 8 Recent evidence from the thirteenth century indicates that
traditional methods of training common lawyers predate their attested
residence at London Inns by more than a century. 9 In the sixteenth century
4
5
8
9
A Survey of London (London, 1598, 2nd edn, 1603), sig. F4v.

Sandra Billington suggests that these are humanistically Reformed* revels and sees Stowe's
'master of merry disports' as marshal of a sixteenth-century refinement of more boisterous
popular king games; Billington, Mock Kings, p. 36.
Lois Potter has shown how persistently such rites and ritual sustained men during the
Commonwealth in the vacuum left after the collapse of the monarchy in 1649; Secret Rites
and Secret Writing (Cambridge, 1989), pp. 137-9.
There follows a list of the names, offices and order of the participants in this procession; The
Christmas Prince, ed. F. Boas, Malone Society Reprints (Oxford, 1923), pp. 130-1. The
'noble' titles are given in full on pp. 31-46 with heraldic blazons.
'Initiation was what mattered.' See E. W. Ives, Common Lawyers in Pre-Reformation
England: Thomas Kebell, a Case Study (Cambridge, 1983), p. 40.
J. H. Baker has shown that common-law training by moot and readings existed from 1250.
Students were itinerant, gaining their skills as they followed the judges in their circuits round
260
Marie Axton
the common lawyers' Christmas customs were portable, and may well have a
pedigree as old as that of their thirteenth-century moots. The idea of
students adapting their revels, in the manner of itinerant players, to available halls and hospices as they followed the king's peripatetic Courts, is
both plausible and attractive. Sixteenth-century Inns of Court men could
count upon the season to guarantee a royal audience for their revels;
Christmas paved their way to Court. This privileged access was shared, but
with less certain expectation, by the London-based schoolboys of St Paul's
and Westminster.
Deliberate reversal of ceremonial order and decorum in seasonal shows
was unusual. Richard McCoy in Rites of Knighthood and in chapter 9 of this
volume finds an irreconciled strain of violence in the ceremonial combat
performed in 1594 by the young bucks of Gray's Inn, who went to Court,
danced a mask, and followed it with armed combat. Henry VIII's martial
jousts and masks were preserved in Halle's Chronicle and were paradigms
for jousting, sword-fighting Christmas lords; at Henry's Court armed
combat had been followed by masking. Despite the strong attractions of the
martial and malcontent mimes of Robert Devereux, second earl of Essex,
Henrician order re-emerged at the next Grand Christmas, the Middle
Temple revels of 1597/8. On 6 January ('Twelfth day at night'), the Prince
d'Amour and his knights rode to Court, fought all comers, 'broke every man
a lance and 2 swords' after which 'nine Maskers like Passions issued out of a
Heart'.10 These revels' kingdoms were not endangered by their affinity with
the unruly favourite, but by their season. In Scotland the Kirk had quite
simply abolished Christmas.11
Archbishop Whitgift was an unlikely champion for a lord of misrule.
Adversity strengthens old bonds. Scotland's young king, Elizabeth's likeliest heir, had learned to survive in the political power vacuum into which he
10
11
the country. Once the king's courts of law were fixed in London at Westminster Hall in 1339
collegiate associations grew up, such as the 'Temple* where Chaucer's Manciple was in
service. Baker draws attention to a recently discovered contract of 1323 which assured a
young man four years support among the apprentices 'at our lord the king's court of
Common Bench, wherever the said Bench should be in England'. He concludes that the
existence of a school of law is proved by moot exercises in or before the time of Edward I. But
we cannot at this early period give to the process of legal education or Christmas revels a local
habitation and a name. See his introduction to Readings and Moots at the Inns of Court in the
15th Century, ed. S. E. Thome and J. H. Baker, Selden Society 105 (London, 1990), pt 2,
p. xxvi; and J. H. Baker, 'The Education of Common Lawyers, 1250-1650', in Vortrdge
zur Justizforschung, 1 Sonderdruck (Frankfurt am Main, 1992), pp. 1-17. The first hard
evidence for festivities, however, begins in 1422 with the Black Books of Lincoln's Inn.
Le Prince d'Amour or the Prince of Love printed for William Leake ([London], 1660),
sig. G3v.
'The Court of Session to have vacation at time of sowing and shearing rather than at the
vacancies appointed in time of superstition for feasting; therefore to sit daily (Sunday
excepted) from 1 November until 1 March.' 1585.4, c. 25, Acts of the Parliament of Scotland,
2nd revised edition (London, 1966), III, pp. 376, 477.

had been born by accommodating his powerful kirk and keeping his own
counsel on matters of doctrine and church government. As Jenny Wormald
has shown, the years of James' Scottish rule are too often assessed with
comfortable hindsight provided by his Hampton Court affirmation 'no
bishop, no king'. Before the death of Elizabeth, few besides James Stuart
knew whether the kirk expressed the king's views on holy days or not. By
annexing his bishops' temporalities in 1587 to secure revenue James VI
virtually deprived himself of an episcopate. In August 1590 he publicly
declared his kirk to be 'purer than Geneva which keepeth Pasche and
Yuile'.12
Scots presbyterianism was resilient; it regained ground quickly after its
temporary setback in 1584 when the 'Black Acts' halted implementation of
its new discipline. Reforms which resumed in 1585 had by 1592 proclaimed
a new shape to the legal year. The Court of Session was to be closed from the
beginning of harvest (end of July) until the second week of November.
Instead, the court would sit without intermission from November until
1 March - a schedule which ignored the customary Christmas closure
'appointed in time of superstition'. Such a calendar, if imposed upon the
southern kingdom, would strike directly at the revels' prime position in the
English year. Abolition of these particular holy days would in England
destroy the alternation of law terms, and the timing of professional education. In 1592 the Scottish Parliament went on to repeal even an act which
had allowed the court to give a special licence to hold Yule. 13 This Parliament ratified by its 'Golden Acts' a presbyterian government for the kirk.14
As Jenny Wormald has argued, England's fears for its future succession
transformed every bush into a northern bear. This climate of paranoia, as
well as the deaths of the earl of Leicester and Sir Francis Walsingham,
strengthened the influence of Archbishop Whitgift, who had been elected to
the Privy Council in 1585. This unlikely bearward, with his firm line on the
Anglican settlement, stood between England and the loss of, what we might
for brevity call, its festive year.15 Whitgift's via media could be conservative,
in the best sense. When the Marprelate tracts cast Anglican bishops as the
comic successors to Bale's Roman Idolatria and Pseudodoctrina - poets and
players were encouraged to combat Martin on their stages.16
12
14
15
16
l3
See pp. 171-91.
APS, III, p. 542 b III.
Ibid., Ill, pp. 541-2. See Gordon Donaldson, Scottish Historical Documents (Edinburgh,
1970), pp. 160-1.
Patrick Collinson points out that 'rightly or wrongly, the task of restoring a presbyterian
polity to the Scottish Church and of thwarting Whitgift's designs for the Church of England
were identified in many minds as one and the same cause* (The Elizabethan Puritan
Movement (London, 1967), p. 76).
See p. 188; Leland H. Carleton, Martin Marprelate, Gentleman (San Marino, Calif., 1981),
pp.53-74.
261
262
Marie Axton
The scanty evidence suggests that Whitgift was closer to Wolsey in his
attitude to plays than to his immediate predecessors. There is little evidence
after Cardinals Morton and Wolsey for performances of plays in the household of England's archbishops, although their libraries inevitably housed
some of the classical play texts which were a staple of school and university
drama. William Warham had received the dedication of Erasmus' Latin
translations of Euripides' Hecuba and Iphigenia. Cardinal Pole owned the
works of Seneca, and Aristophanes in Greek. Between 1545-9 Cranmer
requested John Heywood to write a play on the Government of Reason of
which fourteen lines of verse survive transcribed by Heywood's amanuensis
and pupil, Thomas Whythorne, in avant-garde phonetic script. Will disputes with Reason for the supreme government in man; Reason responds
'man obeing mee shynth in exsellensy, / and disobeing mee, shewth mans
insolensy'. Whythorne describes the text as both a 'comedy' and 'a sertayn
enterlude or play the which waz devyzed upon the parts of Man at the end
wherof hee lykneth and applieth the sirkumstans therof to the uniuersall
estat of Chrystes church'. Whythorne copied the play before it was
'published' - by this he probably means printed; it has not survived. I do
not know where, or if, it was performed. 17 Although Matthew Parker
collected the plays of Euripides, and feasted and entertained Queen Elizabeth upon a number of occasions, I have not yet found records of vernacular
performances in his household. 18
Edmund Grindal, as bishop of London, was in the audience in September
1567 at Putney for a play by the children of the Westminster grammar
school.19 The play is not named but payments for frankincense, trumpets,
17
18
19
The Autobiography of Thomas Whythorne, ed. J. M. Osborn (Oxford, 1961), pp. 13-14, 74.
'Government of Reason' is discussed in the introduction to The Plays of John Heywood, ed.
R. Axton and P. Happe (Woodbridge, 1991), p. 8.
Parker's Euripides is Corpus Christi College MS 403. As Vice-Chancel lor of Cambridge
University, Parker pacified the wrath of Chancellor Stephen Gardiner after the Christmas
performance of Kirchmeyer's 'pestiferous' Pammachius by Christ's College in 15445; the
play mocked not only the Bishop of Rome but 'Lent fastinges', ceremonies and sacraments.
See Records of Early English Drama [hereafter REED] Cambridge, ed. Alan Nelson (Toronto,
1989), I, pp. 133-11.
Westminster Abbey Muniments MS 38543: 'Mr. Brownes bill for/charges of the playe at
putney: Thexpenses of A plaie sett forthe att Putnie before my L. of London and other by
the children of the grammer school. September 4 1567'. Thomas Browne, headmaster of the
school refounded by Queen Elizabeth, continued with enthusiasm the tradition of the Latin
play begun by Alexander Nowell, the first headmaster after the closure of the Abbey. Full
records of these plays remain for the first decade of Elizabeth's reign, and for the first decade
of James I. The Westminster boys performed Sapientia Solomonis before Queen Elizabeth
and her guest Princess Cecilia of Sweden and the Council; the accounts are dated 17 January
1565/6; in the same season they set forth Plautus' Menaechmi to entertain the queen's
Council (WAM MS 54000); the latter account is dated 8 February 1565/6. Plautus' Rudens
was performed for the Council the next year (WAM MS 38544). This account is dated
6 February 1566/7. Grindal held the bishopric of London from 21 December 1559 to 1570,
when he was translated to York.
263
whistles and a bagpipe player, and for the sewing of ivy leaves on the children's surplices, suggest an entertainment set forth with some care. The
costumes were sent by boat from the Queen's Master of the Revels. In
1575, as Archbishop of York, however, Grindal called in for correction, but
never returned, the three playbooks of the York Paternoster play.20 In conjunction with Parker at Canterbury, Grindal instructed ministers and
churchwardens not to
suffer anye lordes of misrule or sommer Lordes or ladyes or anye disguised persons
or others in christmasse or at may gammes or anye minstrels morrie [sic] dauncers
or others at Ryshebearinges or at any other tymes to come unreverentlye into anye
churche or chappell or churchyeard and there daunce or playe anye unseemelye
partes with scoffes jeastes wanton gestures or rybaulde talke namelye in the tyme of
divine service or of anye sermon.21
He ended the Riding of Yule and Yule's wife and children which customarily took place in the streets of York on 21 December.22 Bishop John Bale's
enthusiastic writing, acting and directing were quite exceptional in the
post-Reformation episcopacy.
On her progresses Elizabeth sometimes stayed with her prelates. Her
pleasure in Whitgift's hospitality is shown by repeated visits. During his
tenure of Canterbury, 1583-1604, she used his palace to attend the
Croydon horse races on May day 1585, 1587 and 1588.23
Whitgift, who was upon occasion a decisive censor of the public theatres,
could nevertheless as a patron of private plays have deserved Nashe's
praise. Whitgift was not an outspoken opponent of playing. Grindal had
not only denounced plays as occasions for transmission of the first Elizabethan plague, suppressing for a year all such 'plays and lewd interludes';
he had added, 'and if it were for ever it were not amiss'. 24 Sir John Harington, who compared the two primates, makes clear Queen Elizabeth's, and
20
21
22
23
24
Alexandra F. Johnston, 'The Plays of the Religious Guilds of York: T h e Creed and the
Pater Noster Play', Speculum, 50 (1975), 55-90.
Cited from Archbishop Grindal's Register BI: Reg. 30 fo. 130v in REED, York, ed. A. F.
Johnston and M. Rogerson (Manchester, 1979), p. 358.
See STC 26098.5, Yule in Yorke [London, c. 1570]. T h e prohibition of 1572 is given in
REED, York, p. 369.
Queen Elizabeth was the guest of Nicholas Bullingham, bishop of Worcester from 12 to 20
August 1575, and of Edmund Freke, bishop of Norwich from 16 to 22 August 1577; see
E. K. Chambers, The Elizabethan Stage (4 vols., Oxford, 1923), IV, pp. 92, 95. The queen is
known to have made three further visits to the archbishop's house in Croydon: from 17 to 21
April 1592, 2 to 17 May 1593, 14 August 1600; I have not ascertained whether Whitgift was
in residence on all of these occasions. See Marion Colthorpe, 'Queen Elizabeth I and the
Croydon Horse Race, with a Check-List of the Queen's Visits to Croydon', Surrey Archaeological Collections, 11 (1986), 181-6. I am grateful to Miss Colthorpe for communicating
information from her forthcoming Elizabethan Court Calendar.
Patrick Collinson, Archbishop Grindal (London, 1979), p. 165.
264
Marie Axton
his own, preference for Whitgift's style, a firm but hospitable stewardship. 25
While he was bishop of Worcester, though the Revenew of it bee not verie great, yet
his custom was to come to the Parliament, very well attended, which was a fashion
the Queen liked exceeding well. Yt happend one day, Bishop Elmer of London
meeting this Bishop, with such an orderly troope of Tawny coats, demaunded of him
how he could keepe so many men, he answeared, yt was by reason he kept so few
women.
It is ironic that when Harington's frank and lively additions, updating
Francis Godwin's Catalogue of the Bishops of England (1601) for Prince
Henry (in 1608), were finally printed in 1653, they were read as an antiepiscopal tract. 26 Though Harington freely criticized incumbents, his
support for episcopacy and its lord bishops is explicit:
If the word Lord soe offend you is it the Englishe or the Latine dominus that carries
too Lordlye a title? ... for the English name it is largelie taken but meanlye a
Landlorde sometimes temporarie, as the Judges Itinerantes goeinge their circuites,
somtymes by office, without Baronyes annexed as the Lorde Cheife justices ... in
which reverend degre of A Judge mee thinkes a Bishop doth sort very Fitley to be
called a lorde: But the true Etimoligie of the word ... is of Loafe forde ... signifinge
the Custome of great persons that had good meanes, and Large rentes to distribute
store of bread, to the poore ... Hee cannott bee a Right Bishop that is not hospitabilis
that is a good howskeeper, a loafe giver, and consequentlie a Lorde ... I dare
confidentlye affirme, that noe inheritance whatsoever, is helde by more sure lawes,
by trewe Justice and equitie, by longe prescription and Custome, by Charter, even
the great Charter, by parliament, by aecumenicall counsells then is the inheritance of
a Bishop to him and his successors beinge once trewlye invested in it.27
Harington warned Prince Henry not to heed puritan expectations built
upon his name, which were set abroad in the slogan:
Henry the 8. pulld down Abbeys and Cells
But Henry the 9. shall pull down Bishops and bells.28
25
26
27
28
A Supplie or Addicion to the Catalogue of Bishops to t h e Year 1608: B L , M S Royal 17 B

X X I I . T h e Supplie has been edited by R. H . Miller in t h e series Studia
Humanitatis
(Potomac, M d . , 1979). M y quotations are from this edition, p p . 38-9. Whitgift's library
gives some indication of the range of his wide interests; see D a v i d Pearson, ' T h e Libraries of
English Bishops 1600-40', The Library, ser. 6: 14.3 (September 1992), 221-57. 'By the
time of his death in 1604, Whitgift had amassed the largest private library of his generation,
comprising about six thousand volumes, his library catalogue, begun c. 1588, is now in
Trinity College, Dublin and was for many years wrongly thought to be a catalogue of
Usher's library . . . about a third of it [Whitgift's library] passed to Bancroft, whence it
became absorbed in his foundation collection of Lambeth Palace Library', p. 256.
A Briefe View of the State of the Church of England (London, 1653); Wing H770.
'The occasion why the former worke was taken in hand'; BL, Harleian M S 1220, fos. 245-8,
fo. 248. This introduction in the Harley manuscript is unique; it is discussed and transcribed by R. H . Miller in his 'Sir John Harington's "A Supplie or Addicion to the
Catalogue of Bishops ...": Composition and Text', Studies in Bibliography, 30 (1977), 161.
Harington, Supplie, ed. Miller, p. 191.
265
In Summer's Last Will and Testament some of these fears and great
expectations emerge. The text is an evening's entertainment set in Croydon,
some weeks after plague had broken out in London.29 Edmund Tylney,
Master of the Queen's Revels, describes the place:
Croyden, a Market Towne . . . where also the sommer Assizes are most helde for
Surrey . . . Within this Towne is an auncient Pallace, appertayninge vnto the Sea of
Canterburie, where the Archbishoppes haue much used to recide, and were a great
mainetenaunce unto the Towne.30
The likeliest date for afirstperformance is St Michael's day 1592, or shortly

thereafter. The patron of the play is addressed both as My Lord and Your
Grace. The epithets and location point to Whitgift, who on 23 September
1583 had become archbishop. As a Cambridge graduate Nashe had reason to
be grateful to this former vice-chancellor whose palace at Croydon provided
a double shield: for poet and players, immediate harbour from plaguestricken London; for England, protection against the sneaping winds
blowing from the north, where plays were effectively prohibited and none
had been printed.31
Summer was performed by boys - there is no indication which. St Paul's
cathedral school and Whitgift's own household have been suggested.32
Westminster grammar school is a possibility.33 Entertainments during the
queen's summer progress were expected. However, Queen Elizabeth was
not in Croydon that autumn.34 The title page to the only edition of the
entertainment calls it a 'Pleasant Comedie called Summers last will and
Testament by Thomas Nash imprinted at London by Simon Stafford for
29
30
31
32
33
34
Paul Slack, The Impact of Plague in Tudor and Stuart England (Oxford, 1985; revised edn
1990).
Edmond Tyllney ...a descriptive index to his diplomatic manual on Europe, ed. W. R.
Streitberger (New York, 1986), p. 53.
By 1589 prohibition of plays in Scotland was almost complete and its medieval dramatic
tradition effectively repressed; I. B. Cowan, The Scottish Reformation (London, 1982),
p. 188. T h e first extant play printed in Scotland is Sir David Lindsay's Satyre of the Thrie
Estaitis printed in Edinburgh by Robert Charteris in 1601. For further details see
M. Axton, 'Ane Satyre of the Thrie Estaitis: T h e First Edition and Its Reception', in A.
Gardner-Medwin and J. H. Williams (eds.), A Day Estivall: Essays in Honour of Helena
Shire (Aberdeen, 1990), pp. 21-33.
Reavlye Gair, The Children of Paul's (Cambridge, 1982), p. 113. See also Michael Shapiro,
The Children of the Revels (New York, 1977), pp. 75-6 and 146.
The boys had performed in Putney in September 1567.
See above, n. 23; Colthorpe, 'Croydon Horse Race', p. 185. Elizabeth Cook, citing McKerrow, assumes the queen's presence from Summer's last speech in 'Death Proves T h e m All
But Toyes: Nashe's Unidealising Show', in David Lindley (ed.), The Court Masque (Manchester, 1984), p. 31 n. 11. McKerrow postulates a text written in 1592, but he finds no
evidence of direct address to the queen in the surviving text. H i s suggestion, that a few
speeches might have been added for a royal performance in 1600, but not incorporated in
the printed text, is made with circumspection. The Works of Thomas Nashe, ed. R. B.
McKerrow, rev. F. P. Wilson (London, 1966), IV, p. 419.
266
Marie Axton
Walter Burre'. It was entered in the Stationers Register on 28 October and

printed in 1600. Nashe was dead in 1601. We do not know if he saw it
through the press. The term 'comedy' is not used in the text itself and there
is no formal division into five acts. It is probable, therefore, that the term
'comedy' is the printer's addition. A 'show' would have been more appropriate for the season and auspice. Sir John Harington in his playlist calls it
simply 'Wil somers will'.35 The prologue invokes no classical authority or
genre. This is simply a 'shew'. Songs and musical entries predominate,
linked by dialogue exchanged in either blank verse or prose. The ghost of
the fool, Will Sommers (spelled 'Summers' in the text), who speaks the
prologue emphatically defines it as a 'show':
Why, he hath made a Prologue longer then his Play: nay 'tis no Play neyther, but a
shewe lie be sworne, the Jigge of Rowlands God-sonne is a Gyant in comparison of
it. What can be made of Summers last will and Testament? Such another thing as
Gyllian of Braynfords will, where shee bequeathed a score of farts amongst her
friends, (lines 74-80)36
As to its significance, he is enigmatic.
Sickness and death were in the late summer air of 1592. On 8 August
plague broke out in London; it was eventually to claim 10,675 lives.37 This
historical calamity is announced in the prologue and gives the action its
initial impulse and ostensible cause: 'Because the plague raignes in most
places in this latter end of summer, Summer must come in sicke: he must
call his officers to account yeeld his throne to Autumne, make Winter his
Executor' (80-3).
This synopsis is connective and prescriptive ('because', 'must'); it asks its
audience to look outside the play for the motor or 'vice' (in Tudor parlance)
of the action.
Irreverent invitations to an historical allegory of the seasons are offered
by the prologue and choruses, spoken by the ghost of Will Summers, who
after each pageant entry plays upon his audience's sense of expectation and
decorum. Will is not a generalized figure of 'folly' but a particular Court
fool: he came to the Court of Henry VIII in 1525 and survived the deaths of
Henry, Edward VI and Mary. He died probably in 1560. You might say he
had been a ghost for nearly as long as Elizabeth I had reigned. But ghosts are
prologues for tragedies. Andrea in the Spanish Tragedy is one such who
lingers on as 'chorus' for revenge; the conventions are satirized in the
introduction to A Warning for Faire Women:
35
36
37
Harington's copy is listed as bound up in Volume 4' with twelve other plays between 'Queen
Elisabeth hobs tawnycoat' and 'Loves labor lost', B L , M S Add. 27632 fo. 43r.
Quotations are from R. B. McKerrow (ed.), The Works, III.
P. Slack, Plague, p. 151.
267
How some damnd tyrant, to obtaine a crowne

Stabs, hangs, impoysons, smothers, cutteth throats,
And then a Chorus too comes howling in,
And tels us of the worrying of a cat:
Then of a filthy whining ghost
Lapt in some fowle sheete, or a leather pelch
Comes skreaming like a pigge halfe-stickt
And cries Vindicta! - revenge, revenge!38
Will Summers' ghost with his cries of 'Revenge' raises expectations of
tragedy only to allay them. Here's no foul sheet; the actor Toy enters
donning Will's motley. The long coat guarded with yellow is worn in
Samuel Rowley's play of Henry VIII, When You See Me You Know Me; its
wearer, Will, was subsequently mocked by Shakespeare in the prologue to
his own Henry VIII.

Only they
That come to hear a merry, bawdy play,
A noise of targets, or to see a fellow
In a long motley coat guarded with yellow,
Will be deceived.39
Will claims that his choric quips and carping upon each pageant are
extempore 'revenge' on the poet who has marginalized him with only an
old-fashioned prologue to speak. Despite the aptness of his name, Summers
has been 'denied' the principal role in a fictional audit and trial whose
boundaries are roughly those of the Tudor reformation (thus far): 1525-92.
The play's hero is ostensibly the season: Summer. Over-arching the
fiction is change of season - not a tragic action since seasons return, even if a
particular year does not. Summer enters as a crowned monarch and all the
seasons acknowledge his sovereignty. Sandra Billington in her discussion of
the play describes the kinds of satire created by conflating the authority of
both Summer and Winter king. 40
And so it can be seen that two kinds of satire resulted from the crowning of a
midsummer mock king. One was the scorning of the rest of humanity by the
successful contestant and, the other, the point of view of a man at the opposite
extreme and experiencing Fortune's buffets. The latter perspective could be
extended to include real kings seen in relation to the perfection and power of the king
of heaven.
Summer's initial authority over all the seasons is a premiss of the play but he
looks sadly and critically forward to the dark months from Advent to Lent,
which were the traditional season for plays, shows and entertainments. The
38
39
40
Printed in London 1599; J. S. Farmer (ed.), Tudor Facsimile Texts (London, 1912), sig. A2v.
Riverside Shakespeare, ed. G. Blakemore Evans (Boston, Mass., 1974), Prologue lines
13-17.
Mock Kings, pp. 74, 255.
268
Marie Axton
context of seasonal celebrations holds out comic reassurance. Death is only a

metaphor for change of season. But the premiss of the play is not an old king
{pace Lear). Time is not the enemy. Summer is a 'sick king'. Sickness lies
outside in London. Sickness challenges the celebratory pageant mode and
poses the first question about causality. What is the cause of plague? A
question worthy of Oedipus.
Enter the sick king in the time of harvest. The dramatized metaphor is a
Michaelmas audit, rendering accounts, a time for paying labour and renewing tenures of work and for land. The fruits of the past season are assessed in
a trial of Summer's courtiers and subjects. Each officer is called to give an
account of his stewardship so that the king may know what goods and
treasure he has to bequeath with his crown. Suspense is not about the
outcome - Summer must give his crown to Autumn - but about the fruits.
These are presented in the danced and sung entries and evaluated both by
Summer and, from the margin, by Will Summers.
Personification in action creates the narrative and invites allegorical
interpretation. Summer 'represents' a season, but he 'enacts' or imitates a
dying monarch. For most of the show, Summer is busy acting the sick
monarch, so that the seasonal aspects of his persona are represented by the
officers he calls to account. As each officer enters with a new pageant,
Summer confronts a former self. A contemporary owner of the first edition
of the play reinforces this reading by noting in the margin of his book
beside the accusations against Harvest: 'This alleaged / against Summer.'41
Each festive entry mimes an occupation or role: Ver with his Train, Solstitium with Shepherds is a good steward, Sol with a noise of musicians is the
poet's god, Orion with huntsmen, Harvest with reapers claims to be charity,
Bacchus, with his cups and cans, knights the fool Summers as Sir Robert
Tosspot, in the manner of a Christmas prince. The pageants can be viewed
as mythologized occupations of the months or as pageants of the seven
deadly sins. Ver is a prodigal who brings nothing to the audit; Sol is both
pride and lust; Orion brings the plague of August; Harvest is accused of
gluttony and Bacchus of sloth. The audience is alternately entertained into
forgetfulness and recalled to the necessity of a moral judgement.42 The
punishments given by King Summer to his 'bad' servants, Ver, Sol and
Orion, are meteorological 'just so stories'. Spring is punished by being
41
42
Pepys Library: 1103 sig. E3r; lines 828-9 in McKerrow's edition: 'Summer: Since thou art
so perverse in answering, Harvest, heare what complaints are brought to me.' The secretary
hand is late sixteenth-century. I am grateful to Ben Griffin of Magdalene College for
drawing my attention to these annotations.
Lorna Hutson in her analysis of the play gives a perceptive account of the conflict between
the hospitality of the traditional household dependent upon the seasons and that of the
individual as an economic unit with anxieties about insolvency: Thomas Nashe in Context
(Oxford, 1989), pp. 88-93.
269
yoked to Lent; Sol is to suffer eclipse; Orion is banished for twelve months
and a day. We know that these amoral forces will return in full strength
when the year returns to its beginning. As Summer hears his audit and
judges his faulty servants we discover the causes of his sickness and of the
'plague' which threatens both state and stage. But there is worse to come
when Christmas, Winter and Backwinter come in for inspection. Their sins
of avarice and envy are not extenuated by any poetry or music. The
following diagram may clarify my analysis.
Prologue:
Entry:
Will Summers
Summer, Autumn, Winter Vertumnus
call officers to account:
song
Entry:
Ver with his train

Unthrift
song
Entry:
Solstitium and shepherds

as hermit and good steward
recorders
Entry:
Sol
as Pride; eclipse of moon
musicians
Entry:
Orion and hunters

dog days and plague: bark at moon
Entry:
Harvest and reapers

engrossing: cleared of charge
song
Entry:
Bacchus, ass and companions

gluttony:
Will Summers knighted
song
horns
song
'Autumn be thou successor of my seat'

Winter's objections: diatribe against poetry
Winter made overseer
Entry:
song
Christmas and Backwinter (sons of winter)
Summer's Will
Exit:
Death of Summer
Epilogue 1
Will Summers
song
Epilogue 2
Summer finds only adoptive heirs, and as the play nears its end he reveals
the cause of his grief, 'Had I some issue to sit on my throne, / My grief
would die, death should not hear mee grone' (1235). Bitterly he adds with a
testiness worthy of the ailing Henry IV,
Autumn, be thou successor of my seat
Hold, take my crown: look how he grasps for it!
Thou shalt not have it yet. (1240-2)
270
Marie Axton
When King Summer banishes Sol and Orion for crimes against the Moon
he speaks the iconography of Lyly's Endimion or The Woman in the Moon.
Sol attempts to 'eclipse' the female moon; Orion's dogs bark against her. Sol
and Orion are challenging the authority of the Virgin Queen. And so
Whitgift's audience are encouraged to see a political and ecclesiastical
allegory of Henry VIII's troubled succession and ecclesiastical settlement,
erupting in these treasons against Cynthia. Summer embodies an elastic
fiction of kingship, itself created and in part maintained by the art of Tudor
poets and playwrights.
The fears expressed by King Summer are seasonal and dynastic but they
are also quite explicitly about art. Counterpointing Summer's laments are
the exquisite songs providing vivid evidence against Winter's attack on art
and learning. In playing time the 'evidence' of these songs and danced
entries takes more than half the evening, weighing more powerfully in
performance against art's critics than it does on the page.
Metaphysical explanation for 'plague' is confined largely to the fool Will's
interjections and to the songs. The seasons are resonant as both the climate
in which art may flourish (or be nipped), and as embodied patrons of art.
The entries and dances are proof of the kind of encouragement 'my Lord'
has provided; they are the 'fruits' of that season.
Must fruitful Autumn, Summer's adopted heir, in turn give way to art's
enemy Winter and his grim sons Christmas and Backwinter (Avarice and
Envy), the only characters who enter without song or music? Christmas
should be the god of hospitality, a 'jolly old man' as in the riding of Yule.
Summer denounces his unseasonal chill in a speech which touches each
layer of the allegory.
Christmas, I tell thee plaine, thou art a snudge,
And wert not that we loue thy father well,
Thou shouldst haue felt what longs to Auarice.
It is the honor of Nobility
To keepe high dayes and solemne festiuals:
Then, to set their magnificence to view
To frolick open with their favorites.
And vse their neighbours with all curtesie
When thou in huggar mugger spend'st thy wealth.
Amend thy maners, breathe thy rusty gold:
Bounty will win thee loue, when thou art old. (1722-32)
He banishes the envious Backwinter, but the churl is irrepressible:
I will peepe foorth, thy kingdome to supplant:
My father I will quickly freeze to death,
And then sole Monarch will I sit, and thinke
How I may banish thee, as thou doost me. (1798-1801)
271
Is everything to pass to miser Christmas and to art's traditional enemy,

Envy (Backwinter)? Nashe hands responsibility for the future 'seasons' to
his audience. In the Epilogue his metaphors of 'plague' (which has closed
the theatres), 'fruits', 'audit', 'season' are placed in the hands of Archbishop
Whitgift and his noble audience. 'Your Grace' has power to determine the
nature of Christmas: a power which extends to censorship and which might
decide the fate of next winter's plays and shows, a present power which will
be exercised immediately in a 'plaudite', or in rejection of the privileged
entertainment which is ending.
The Romanes dedicated a Temple to the feuer quartane, thinking it some great God,
because it shooke them so: and another to 111 fortune . . . that it should not plague
them at Cardes and Dice. Your Graces frownes are to them [the actors] shaking
feuers, your least disfauours the greatest ill fortune that may betide them. They can
builde no Temples but themselues and their best indeuours, with all prostrate
reuerence, they here dedicate and offer vp wholy to your seruice . . . To make you
merry, that are the Gods of Art and guides vnto heauen, a number of rude Vulcans,
vnweldy speakers, hammer-headed clownes . . . haue set their deformities to view, as
it were a daunce here before you. Beare with their wants, lull melancholie asleepe
with their absurdities, and expect hereafter better fruites of their Industrie.
(1921^40)
Spenser makes explicit in his ruminations on art and immortality in
The Ruines of Time what Nashe's songs and characters enact. 43
For how can mortall immortalitie giue?
. . . But fame with golden wings aloft doth flie,
Aboue the reach of ruinous decay,
And with braue plumes doth beate the azure skie,
Admir'd of base-borne men from farre away:
Then who so will with vertuous deeds assay
To mount to heauen, on Pegasus must ride,
And with sweete Poets verse be glorifide.
It suited James VI to keep the English guessing. He showed an increasing
interest in plays, inviting English actors to Edinburgh, but continued to
make riddling statements linking plays and Catholic customs. 44
I cannot see what greater superstition can be in making playes and lawfull games in
May and good cheere at Christmasse, then in eating fish in Lent . . . the Papists as
well using the one as the other.
The king and his Council on 27 November 1596 deferred until 12 January
a meeting with English Border Commissioners in acknowledgement of 'the
great solemnities which are commonly used and observed within the realm
43
44
Edmund Spenser, 'The Ruines of Time', in Complaints (London, 1591), lines 413-27.
Billington, Mock Kings, p. 84. M y quotation is from Basilihon Doron (London, 1603),
sig. F3r.
272
Marie Axton
of England during the time of the Nativity of our saviour Christ called
Yule [Zwle] or Christmas'.45 On the other hand in 1598 Secretary Cecil
was informed that, when Queen Anne was delivered of a daughter on
24 December, King James observed Christmas Day with feasting and
merriment.46
James kept his festive calendar close to his chest until the Hampton Court
Conference in 1604. The English puritan faction clearly had been encouraged to hope and were represented there by four delegates who demanded
the abolition of holy days (including Christmas).47
Ben Jonson's Christmas Masque, presented at Court in 1616, gives a
humorous retrospect on this tradition of Christmas as scapegoat: Elizabethan fears of revels' end. Christmas leads in a group of London mummers
who would have dispersed John Stowe's melancholy. But nobody at Court
recognizes Old Christmas; he has to fight his way into the palace, chased by
'two or three of the Guard':
Why, Gentlemen, doe you know what you doe? ha! would you ha' kept me out?
Christmas, old Christmas? Christmas of London, and Captaine Christmas? Pray you
let me be brought before my Lord Chamberlaine, Tie not be answer'd else: 'tis
merrie in hall when beards wag all: I ha' seene the time you ha' wish'd for me, for a
merry Christmas; and now you ha' me, they would not let me in: I must come
another time! a good jeast, as if I could come more then once a yeare; why I am no
dangerous person, and so I told my friends o' the Guard. I am old Gregorie
Christmas still, and though I come out of Popes-head-alley, as good a Protestant, as
any i' my Parish. The troth is, I ha' brought a Masque here, out o' the Citie, o' my
owne making, and doe present it by a sett of my Sonnes, that come out of the Lanes
of London, good dancing boyes all:
It was intended, I confesse, for Curryers Hall, but because the weather has beene
open, and the Livory were not at leisure to see it till a frost come that they cannot
work, I thought it convenient, with some little alterations, and the Groome of the
Revells hand to't, to fit it for a higher place, which I have done; and though I say it,
another manner of devise then your Newyeares night. Bones o' bread, the King!
Sonne Rowland, Son Clem, be ready there in a trice; quicke Boyes.48
45
46
47
48
J. Bain et al. (eds.), Calendar of State Papers, Scotland (13 vols., Edinburgh, 1898-1969),
X I I , p. 373.
'This day [25 D e c ] the King feasted His Council in honour of the day and was very merry
and said he would still do so so long as he lived.' CSPS, X I I I , Pt I, p. 363.
Patrick Collinson, The Elizabethan Puritan Movement (London, 1967), p. 457.
Christmas, His Masque: as it was presented at Court: 1616, in Benjonson, ed. C. H . Herford
and Percy and Evelyn Simpson (11 vols., Oxford, 1925-52), VII [1941], lines 6-29. This
trope of embattled Christmas figures is in a Twelfth Night masque performed by the
Stanley household at Knowsley House, Lancashire, in 1640, when Christmas fell on a
Friday: Christmas Gambols are defeated in a matachan and carried out on the backs of Fast
Days, after which Christmas is taken ill. See Aberystwyth National Library of Wales M S
5390D and its transcription in 'The Masque at Knowsley House' in REED, Lancashire, ed.
David George (Toronto, 1991), Appendix 4, pp. 252-66.
273
And yet those late-Elizabethan fears were proleptic. It was in conservative

Canterbury that in 1647 a riot in support of Christmas helped to usher in the
second Civil War. 49
49
Alan Everitt, The Community of Kent and the Great Rebellion 1640-60 (Leicester, 1966; repr.
1973), pp. 231-4.
13
The theatre and the Court in the 1590s

Fritz Levy
Looking back at his career as a dramatist, Ben Jonson concluded that CI have
considered, our whole life is like a Play: wherein every man, forgetful of
himself, is in travaile with expression of another.'1 Thus Jonson neatly
encapsulated a view shared by many of his contemporaries. The metaphor
whereby the actions of men and women are seen as theatre, and the world
wherein such actions occur as a stage, recurs constantly: Francis Bacon used
it in his legal pleadings; the historian, John Hayward, saw the past in terms
of the acts of a play; the diplomat, Sir Thomas Lake, described events in
France the same way. Sir Walter Ralegh wittily extended the metaphor to
the drama of salvation itself, a comedy where
Heaven the judicious sharp spectator is,
That sits and marks still who doth act amiss.2
Yet, as Ralegh well knew, God was not the only audience for the human
comedy, and many below the eminence of the deity comfortably passed
judgement on the way in which the men and women of the Court played
their parts.3
Role-playing indeed was of the essence of being a courtier, and many a
reader, then and now, of Castiglione's handbook has wondered whether
there was any substance at all beneath the fine display and elegant acting.4
For the satirist, John Marston, 'Castilio' was a fop, a talker, a writer of
sugared sonnets not entirely his own, that is, one who projected an image far
1
2
3
4
Ben Jonson, ed. C. H. Herford and P. and E. Simpson (11 vols., Oxford, 1925-52), VIII,
p. 597. Spelling in quotations has been modernised unless otherwise stated.
The Poems of Sir Walter Ralegh, ed. Agnes M. C. Latham (Cambridge, Mass., 1951), p. 51;
for Bacon, Brian Vickers, 'Bacon's Use of Theatrical Imagery', Studies in the Literary
Imagination, 4 (1971), 189-226; Sir John Hayward, The Life and Raigne of King Edward the
Sixt (London, 1630), pp. 129, 134; on Lake, Letters and Memorials of State, ed. Arthur
Collins (2 vols., London, 1746), II, pp. 102-3.
Stephen Greenblatt, Sir Walter Ralegh: The Renaissance Man and His Roles (New Haven,
Conn., 1973), especially chap. 2.
See especially the articles in Castiglione: The Ideal and the Real in Renaissance Culture, ed.
Robert W. Hanning and David Rosand (New Haven, Conn., 1983).
274
275
beyond any hope of realization. John Donne, whose satires indicate that he
took up the courtier's part without ever fitting it, was equally bitter.
Nevertheless, escape was impossible. Court convention throughout sixteenth-century Europe called for the courtier role, and the queen (for
reasons having much to do with her estimation of how a female monarch
might dominate a largely male Court) insisted on entering the game on her
own terms, often forcing her courtiers into roles of her devising, whether or
not they approved. Once termed the Queen's Ape, the French Ambassador,
Simier, had no choice but to play up. Indeed, every aspirant to a place at the
queen's Court faced the problem of what role to adopt, with the wrong
choice severely limiting the heights to which one might rise. Sir John
Harington, the queen's godson, put on - all too effectively - the mask of a
wit, and was kept at Court, quite without influence, to amuse the ladies.
Francis Bacon, son of the queen's principal law officer, tried to parlay his
childhood role of her 'little Lord Keeper' into that position in good earnest,
and might have succeeded had he not angered his mistress with an illadvised parliamentary speech. As a result, he threatened constantly to
abandon his inherited position in life, leave the Court, and put on the gown
of a scholar, so trading one over-inflated role for another. Some few of the
royal favourites suffered from a superfluity of options. The earl of Essex, as
we shall see, alternated between the parts of grave councillor and military
commander, incompatible because the serving soldier had perforce to be
absent from the Council board - and from the queen's view. Essex indeed is
the most notable casualty of the system, whose constant failure to find just
the right role led him eventually to the block. Nor is it, I think, surprising
that he was, of all the queen's courtiers, the most theatrical, and that he was
himself an enthusiastic play-goer.
Theatre-goers, like courtiers, were inveterate and expert judges of acting,
and were accustomed not only to searching for the reality beneath a mask,
but also to the idea that any man or woman might wear more than one - or
that one mask might be used by several persons. Such a view of the world,
combined with an habit of analogical thinking, itself often fed by fear of
censorship, led to the result that a play's resonances might be heard act by
act or even scene by scene. Chapman's Biron did not have to resemble the
earl of Essex in every particular for an audience to note that Essex's
execution might be seen in the portrayal of Biron's. Jonson's Sejanus need
not have any character clearly identifiable as Essex for the play to be seen as
commenting on the favourite-ridden politics of the 1590s. In such ways (and
others) did theatre imitate Court life. The reverse was true as well, and the
great courtiers often resembled actors on a stage. In what follows, I propose
5
John Marston, The Metamorphosis of Pigmalions Image (London, 1598), in The Poems of John
Marston, ed. Arnold Davenport (Liverpool, 1961), pp. 29-30.
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first to look at Ben Jonson's Sejanus> using it as an entryway into an

exploration of the connections between Court politics and drama, Then I
shall examine in some detail the earl of Essex's last and greatest performance, in an effort to discover, among other things, how and by whom it was
stage-managed. In my conclusion, I will return to the theatre, to the plays
that re-enacted and thus judged Essex's end.
I
Early in the reign of King James, Ben Jonson stood before the Privy Council
to face charges concerning his recently acted play, Sejanus. The sole surviving account of the episode derives ultimately from Jonson himself, but as
mediated by his friend William Drummond of Hawthornden; official
records are notably absent. The result unfortunately is a narrative full of
ambiguities: 'Northampton was his mortall enimie for brauling on a St
Georges day one of his attenders, he was called befor ye Councell for his
Sejanus & accused both of popperie and treason by him.' 6 There is no way
of deciding whether this account refers to one incident or two, that is,
whether the brawling had any direct connection with the play; or whether
Northampton, incensed by the brawl, then used the play as an excuse for
harassing Jonson; or, again, whether perhaps something in the play occasioned the summons before the Council, whereupon Northampton,
reminded of his grudge, took advantage of the situation to give Jonson a bad
half-hour. And of course the possibility remains that Jonson, eager to
persuade Drummond of his importance, exaggerated the whole business.
Some of what is known about the texts of Sejanus supports Jonson's
account of a serious confrontation, but again the case is by no means clear.7
The Quarto text of 1605 must have appeared quite soon after the play's first
performance - indeed, the chronology is such that the Quarto may well have
appeared after only a single Court performance and before any public
performances at all. Moreover, the text as published differed from the
performance version. Between performance and publication, Jonson tells
us, he deleted the contribution of an unnamed collaborator. Whether that
excision was made because Jonson wished to 'purify' his text, or because his
co-author wished suddenly to put some distance between himself and
danger, we have no way of knowing; what is certain, however, is that no
surviving version of the text is identical to the one set forth at Court. Some
6
Ben Jonson, ed. Herford and Simpson, I, p. 141 (original spelling). The passage is analysed in
Ben Jonson, Sejanus His Fall, ed. Philip J. Ayres, The Revels Plays (Manchester, 1990),
pp. 16-22, in Annabel Patterson, Censorship and Interpretation (Madison, Wis., 1984),
pp. 50-8, and now in Richard Dutton, Mastering the Revels: The Regulation and Censorship of
English Renaissance Drama (Iowa City, la., 1991), pp. 10-14.
For a discussion of the texts, Sejanus, ed. Ayres, pp. 1-22.
277
of the prefatory poems - the large number of which is already enough to

make us suspicious - insist on the difficulties and perils of reading too much
into the text, with Jonson's friend, Hugh Holland, the recusant poet,
especially attacking those who try to show off their own cleverness by
over-interpreting the author:
Nor make yourselves less honest than you are,
To make our author wiser than he is.. .8
In addition, Jonson's efforts to allay doubts only served to increase them.
The Quarto text came equipped with an Argument, setting out a synopsis of
the Roman history; the footnotes, too, came near to overwhelming Jonson's
own text, all this to bolster his claim to 'integrity in the story'. 9 The reader,
buffeted by an insistence on historical accuracy unique in the annals of
English Renaissance drama, might well be forgiven for wondering what
deeper truths were hidden behind the facade of an apparently accurate
portrayal of an episode in the annals of imperial Rome.
Perhaps the text might offer a solution, even despite the fact that what we
have before us is not what was seen by the play's first audience. It is, I think,
reasonable to suppose that Jonson did not alter his text in order to increase
suspicion - not least because he spent much of the year during which the
revisions would have been made in gaol for his part in writing Eastward Ho!,
an experience unlikely to have encouraged him to thumb his nose at the
authorities immediately upon his release. Our text is the one Jonson thought
safe - safer, presumably, than the one that brought him before the Council.
Nevertheless, it still calls for interpretation, though Jonson's alterations
have made interpretation more difficult, more hazardous for us if not for
him. Some clues remain. One is embedded in Jonson's revisions, in the
notes drawing attention to his debt to Tacitus and to Tacitus' explicator, the
Flemish scholar Justus Lipsius. 10 In the 1590s, Tacitism had been closely
connected with the earl of Essex and his circle, so closely that we may
assume that many viewers (and readers) of the play would assume that it was
necessary to see it on two levels.
To comprehend the implications of this, we must remember that, for the
members of the Essex circle, Tacitus offered guidance for understanding
8
9
10
Ibid., p. 63; on Holland, Mark Eccles, 'Brief Lives: Tudor and Stuart Authors', SP, 79
(1982), Texts and Studies, 67-73.
Joseph A. Bryant, Jr, 'The Significance of Ben Jonson's First Requirement for Tragedy:
"Truth of Argument'", SP, 49 (1952), 195-213; A. R. Dutton, 'The Sources, Text, and
Readers of Sejanus: Jonson's "Integrity in the Story'", SP, 75 (1978), 181-98. On the
appearance of the text, John Jowett, '"Fall before this Booke": The 1605 Quarto of Sejanus',
Text: Transactions for the Society for Textual Scholarship, 4 (1988), 279-95; and the same
author's 'Jonson's Authorization of Type in Sejanus and Other Early Quartos', SB, 44
(1991), 254-65.
Daniel Boughner, 'Jonson's Use of Lipsius in Sejanus', MLN, 73 (1958), 247-55.
278
Fritz Levy
tyranny, and for survival under a tyrant - and it is plain that the group
around Essex, on some occasions, was convinced that Queen Elizabeth fell
into that category.11 These men did not accuse the queen of tyranny by
usurpation (that argument would be left to Catholics), but they were
prepared to argue that the queen's capriciousness, most especially in the
matter of favourites, was the mark of a tyrant. Essex not only saw himself as
engaged in a factional struggle with his rival, Sir Robert Cecil, but also
realized that he was losing the battle. From Essex's perspective, that meant
Elizabeth had chosen a 'favourite', that is, someone whose qualities did not
justify his position. Evil consequences were bound to follow, just as they
had when Tiberius abdicated his responsibilities by choosing the unworthy
- and very ambitious - Sejanus. Jonson's play revived all the old feelings,
and this at a time when King James was rehabilitating the remnants of the
Essex faction while simultaneously keeping Cecil in power. Northampton,
once a friend of Essex, now Jonson's persecutor, had sinuously made the
transfer to Cecil's camp; presumably, neither man cared for public commentary, however covert, on the events of Elizabeth's last decade.
Sejanus raised the issue of favourites, and of the kinds of monarchial
actions that put them in power and kept them there. This was not, in itself,
especially new: Marlowe's Edward II and Shakespeare's Richard II had done
as much. But Jonson, like Tacitus, his mentor and source, was also interested in the way power, and the corruption it brought in its train, spread
through society. In Jonson's Rome, the spy and the mole burrow through
the action, whispering in corners, listening whilst hid in false ceilings; and if
honest spying did not succeed, then entrapment must serve in its stead.
The most active opposition was stilled by death; worse, such repression
stifled any other complaint, however low-key, until the illusion of unanimity
was created. Nor were the members of the Senate above the general depravity. Indeed, many of them pursued their own goals and ambitions to such a
degree that the Senate, as an institution, might easily be blamed for cooperating in its own destruction. A rare, honest man, like Lepidus, held his
peace, his only acts those of Stoic silence,
the plain and passive fortitude
To suffer, and be silent; never stretch
These arms against the torrent; live at home.
With my own thoughts, and innocence about me,
Not tempting the wolves' jaws .. .12
11
12
On Tacitus, see Levy, 'Hayward, Daniel, and the Beginnings of Politic History in England',
HLQ, 50 (1987), 1-34, and J. H. M. Salmon, 'Stoicism and Roman Example: Seneca and
Tacitus in Jacobean England', JHI, 50 (1989), 19^-225.
Sejanus, ed. Ayres, p. 194.
279
Nor was condign punishment limited to those directly criticizing the

current regime. Act III, the fulcrum of the play, juxtaposes two judicial
prosecutions, the first concluding with the suicide of Caius Silius within the
Senate chamber itself, the second comprising the interrogation of the
historian, Cremutius Cordus, for being
a man factious and dangerous,
A sower of sedition in the state,
A turbulent and discontented spirit.13
The evidence for so serious an accusation was to be found in Cremutius'
statement that Cassius was the last of the Romans, a sentiment seen as
devaluing everything in the present, and Tiberius most of all. Cremutius
did not deny that this might be read as criticism: he implicitly agreed with
the comment of Sejanus' creatures that the times of Caesar and Pompey
were 'somewhat queasy to be touched'. 14 The only defence Cremutius was
able to muster was that Tiberius' predecessors, Augustus and Caesar,
allowed criticism, and even offered patronage to their critics. Those rulers
at least recognized that attacks, if ignored, disappeared, and that an attempt
to suppress them by force amounted to a confession to the charge. However,
in the poisonous atmosphere of the Senate of Tiberius' and Sejanus' day,
such arguments only gained Cremutius further obloquy, and a sentence of
imprisonment until further notice; the offending books were to be burned at
once. The whole episode is redolent of the very recent case of John
Hayward, himself a Tacitean, sent to the Tower (and nearly executed) by an
angry queen for dedicating his book on Henry I V's deposition of Richard II
to the earl of Essex. The appeal to history, whether by Cremutius Cordus or
Hayward - or Ben Jonson - was neither innocent nor neutral.
Jonson's Sejanus connected the worlds of the Roman Empire and the
late-Elizabethan age, not least in seeing both eras in theatrical terms. 15 In a
play whose pretensions to accuracy verged on the pathological, Jonson
nevertheless elaborated and exaggerated the trial and death of Caius Silius
beyond anything in his sources. Silius, whose main crime seems to have
been doing Tiberius a favour too great to repay, thereby establishing an
obligation greater than an emperor should have to bear, was indeed condemned, and did commit suicide, but there is no evidence at all that he
stabbed himself before the horrified eyes of the senators, nor that Tiberius
sanctimoniously blamed Silius for forestalling the emperor's pardon. Similarly, Jonson (this time with better justification in his sources) took full
advantage of the dramatic possibilities inherent in depicting a meeting of
13
15
14
Ibid., p. 160.
Ibid., p. 83.
On Jonson's use of the theatrical metaphor within the play, Jongsook Lee, Ben Jonson's
Poesis (Charlottesville, Va., 1989), pp. 19ff.
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Fritz Levy
the Senate in which was read, slowly and openly, the letter by which
Tiberius gradually dissociated himself from his favourite, while the senators, who only moments before had fought for a place near Sejanus, now slid
down the benches away from him, leaving him friendless and alone to face
the revenge of the mob. 16
Jonson's portrait of a society torn by faction, ruled by a prince of great
power, but a power exercised erratically and whimsically, while it fitted
early imperial Rome well enough, might seem at best a caricature when
applied to the England of Queen Elizabeth. Yet one of the queen's
favourites too was suddenly removed from the stage; Elizabeth's dilatoriness, her reluctance to heed the advice of her Council, could look very like
the actions of the imperial Tiberius; and the factions of the last decade of the
old queen's reign bore more than a passing resemblance to their Roman
counterparts. Even the general atmosphere of suspicion and fear so lovingly
delineated by Jonson had its counterpart in the 1590s. The actual scenes
surviving - by way of the records - from the 1590s are not perhaps quite so
dramatic as Jonson's; nonetheless, as Rowland Whyte wrote to his patron,
Sir Robert Sidney:
If you were here, shold you see the 2 factions florish, and who are of the faction.
Yesterday Mr. Secretary went to dinner, accompanied with the Earles of Shrosbery
and Nottingham, the Lordes Tho. Howard and Cobham, the Lord Gray and Sir
Walter Rawleigh and Sir George Carew. And these accompany the Earle [of Essex];
the Earle of Worcester, Rutland, Montjoy, Rich; Lord Harry, but he is held a
newter, and I pray you take heed of hym.. .17
Whyte's picture of the great ones, grimfacedly dividing into competing
groups of diners, has its own kind of memorableness. So too does Robert
Markham's letter to his kinsman Sir John Harington, off to Ireland with the
earl of Essex,
Be heedful of your bearinges; speake not your minde to all you meete ... I say, do
you not meddle in any sorte, nor give your jesting too freely among those you know
not: obey the Lord Deputy in all thinges, but give not your opinion; it may be heard
in England ... I know there are overlookers set on you all, so God direct your
discretion ... The hart of man lieth close hid oft time; men do not carrye it in their
hand, nor should they do so that wish to thrive in these times and in these
places .. ,18
16
17
18
For Jonson's use of Roman history, Ben Jonson, Sejanus, ed. Jonas Barish (New Haven,
Conn., 1965), pp. 7ff and Sejanus, ed. Ayres, pp. 28-37 (original spelling)
Rowland Whyte to Sir Robert Sydney, Strand, 30 Sept, 1599. HMC, De Lisle & Dudley, II,
p. 397 (original spelling).
Mr Robert Markham to John Harington, Esq. 1598-9. Nugae antiquae, ed. T. Park (2 vols,
London, 1804), I, pp. 241-3 (original spelling).
281
In this world, the spies are fully as palpable as any in Sejanus.

There need not be any doubt that late-Elizabethan politics had crystallized into a publicly visible factional struggle. Contemporaries, to be sure,
usually analysed this in terms of 'favourites', and for them the word
commonly carried with it the barely suppressed adjective 'unworthy'.
Where modern scholars find four Elizabethan favourites - the two major
figures, Leicester and Essex, and two comparatively minor ones, Hatton and
Ralegh, leaving Lord Burghley and his son, Sir Robert Cecil, to fill the role
of statesmen - the earl of Essex and his adherents took a different line. As far
as Essex was concerned, the Cecils - jumped-up bookmen, bureaucrats
without military experience - were unfit servants to a great monarch, and
were kept in power only by Elizabeth's favour. Essex, on the contrary, had
grown up a successful soldier during the years when Anglo-Spanish sparring turned to open warfare, and was convinced that his experience fitted
him for membership in the highest councils. From his point of view, only
'favouritism', the queen's support of the entrenched Cecils, prevented his
rise and the concomitant triumph of his aggressive military policy, whereby
English forces would be united with those of protestant powers across the
Channel in a victory against Spain and Catholicism. Thus ideology and
personal ambition fused, and the relatively genteel squabbles of the first
two-thirds of the reign were replaced by the increasingly vicious infighting
between Essex and Cecil of which the constant, fierce suspicion noted by
Markham was one characteristic. Inevitably this political situation also
raised questions about the queen's ability to control her favourites, for while
she remained the principal fount of patronage, her exercise of power was
increasingly constrained by the pressures exerted by the contestants, and
she was all too often forced to take refuge in postponement and delay.
My reading of Jonson's Sejanus gives some indication of how the intensity
of the political confrontations of the late-Elizabethan period might spill over
into drama. Nor, given the increasing amount of dramatic activity centring
on the queen's Court, is it surprising that this should be so. Exactly how the
plays reflected Court concerns is more problematic. Samuel Daniel pointed
out that historical stories
in all ages beare the same resemblances, and are measured by one and the same foote
of vnderstanding. No tyme but brought forth the like concurrentcies, the like
interstriuing for place and dignitie, the like supplantations, rysings & overthrowes,
so yt there is nothing new vnder the Sunne, nothing in theas tymes yt is not in
bookes, nor in bookes that is not in theas tymes.19
It being granted that the Elizabethans thought in this way, the tendency has
19
H. Sellers, 'A Bibliography of the Works of Samuel Daniel, 1585-1623', Oxford Biblio-
graphical Society Proceedings and Papers, 2 (1927-30), 51 (original spelling).
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been to seek out - and find - specific incidents or events hidden beneath the
surface. How plausible such interpretations may be can only be decided on a
case-by-case basis. The realization that connections might be made fleetingly, in only one or two scenes, rather than in the entire play, and that such
evanescent features as gesture, tone-of-voice and, especially, costume may
have contributed heavily to the audience's ability to see connections only
adds to our frustrations. In addition, plays might well investigate problems
of the Court in a more general manner - this is especially true of the history
plays, which explore such themes as 'the education of a Christian prince',
the duties of a ruler or the nature of tyranny. Establishing the existence of
such themes is usually easy; establishing their applicability to a particular
political situation is commonly of extraordinary difficulty. And establishing
detailed linkages between an event at Court (such as the fall of the earl of
Essex) and an act, or even a scene, of a play may be more difficult still.20
One reason why this is so concerns that most intractable problem, the
nature of the Elizabethan audience. It is fairly easy to guess what sorts of
people might attend a Court performance of a play by Shakespeare or
Dekker or Jonson. Were a play written only for that audience, we might
assume a certain degree of sophistication about, say, events in France or
Italy a decade or two before. If the same play were then performed at the
Globe, before a very different sort of audience consisting - we are now told of a mixture of gentlemen and merchants, a few of their womenfolk, and a
larger group of artisans, it would be wise to assume rather less knowledge.
In short, while I am prepared to believe that the members of an Elizabethan
or Jacobean audience were in the position of being able to find out the
details of politics in ducal Vienna if they so desired, I am much less certain
that very many of them had done so.21 In the absence of specific reasons,
information spread rather slowly. A play which absolutely depended on
such previous knowledge among its spectators would almost certainly fail in
the amphitheatres, and most likely in the small indoor theatres as well.
Similarly, the details of Court intrigues were, I suspect, known to relatively
few, and a play depending on such knowledge would restrict its potential
audience below the limits of economic viability. Any topical interpretation
of a play must take account of these (rather obvious) points or risk a rapid
descent into preciosity.
A play like Love's Labour's Lost illustrates what I mean. The play clamours
for topical interpretation - it is Shakespeare's gift to cryptographers, lovers
20
21
O n drama and contemporary events, David Bevington, Tudor Drama and Politics (Cambridge, Mass., 1968) and Jerzy L i m o n , Dangerous Matter (Cambridge, 1986).
See now Andrew G u r r , Play going in Shakespeare's London (London, 1987). T h e argument
about ducal Vienna comes in Leah S. Marcus, Puzzling Shakespeare: Local Reading and Its
Discontents (Berkeley, Calif., 1988), pp. 162ff.
283
of crossword puzzles and mystagogues. The characters bear 'real' names King of Navarre, Princess of France, Biron, Mayenne - and scholarly
ingenuity has demonstrated that Henry of Navarre did on one occasion
retreat from the Court into the countryside, and was there visited by the
Queen Mother and the ladies of her Court. No doubt some few members of
the audience thrilled to the frisson of recognition. Alas, those who knew
their French history well enough for that probably also recollected that
Henry and these 'friends' were not of the same age, that Navarre's and
Mayenne's political interests rarely coincided, and so on. The sheer multiplicity of interpretations suggests this is a false trail. Alternatively, one
might argue that the form of behaviour being skewered by Shakespeare had
a number of practitioners, and was indeed something of a commonplace.
Modern audiences are likely to find faintly ridiculous the withdrawal - for
three years! - of Navarre and his councillors into an Arcadia so intellectual
that it closely resembled a monastery. Shakespeare's contemporaries might
have found such behaviour negligent as well. Like Sidney's Basilius in his
Arcadia, Navarre was abandoning the first duty of a king - to rule. Navarre
was fortunate in being recalled to his senses - and his responsibility - by the
Princess of France and her entourage; Sidney's Basilius, less fortunate, had
to face both revolution and invasion before being restored to the power he
had so lightly abandoned. All this may thus be seen as Shakespeare's
amused look at an ancient controversy, the battle between otium and
negotium, between the pursuit of that personal 'fame, that all hunt after in
their lives' {LLL^ I.i.l) and the recognition that all members of the common
weal owe it service. More particularly, he was mocking the pretensions of
those courtiers who constantly threatened to withdraw from Court into the
countryside - a literary topos, certainly, but one capable of realization.
Sidney's withdrawal, voluntary or forced, to Wilton or Penshurst was
merely one example. Francis Bacon's remark, cThe monuments of wit
survive the monuments of power', uttered when he threatened to turn to the
life of scholarship if he did not receive preferment, placed him in Navarre's
camp as well.22 The earl of Essex, too, thwarted in his plans for the Cadiz
voyage, insisted that 'of a general [I will] become a monk upon an hour's
warning'; a year later, frustrated yet again, he was reported by his secretary
as one who 'is wearied, and scorneth the practices and dissembling courses
of this place, and therefore desireth to solace himself, and by degrees to
discontinue, and so to retire from among them'.23 Such issues were of
22
23
James Spedding, The Letters and the Life of Francis Bacon (7 vols., London, 1861-74), I,
p. 379.
Thomas Birch, Memoirs of the Reign of Queen Elizabeth (2 vols., London, 1754), I, p. 483; II,
pp. 28^-90. As Essex plainly wished the queen to dissuade him from his course, we need not
take this altogether seriously. Another Essex secretary, Sir Henry Wotton, did however
report that Essex told him 'hee had taken such a taste of the Rurall . . . and not upon any
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greatest and most immediate interest to the courtiers who, at some time in
the mid-1590s, watched the Court performance of Love's Labour's Lost.
This audience in particular would have savoured the irony of stage courtiers
whose language, filled with the metaphors of war, was mobilized only in
Arcadia, and most particularly against the great enemy, women, and who
had, in the end, to be recalled to their duties by a wise princess-turnedqueen.
It is thus possible to argue that the Princess of France may have been seen
as representing aspects of Queen Elizabeth, not only in her wisdom but
perhaps also in her ability to postpone marriage. In this instance, Elizabeth
would have had the pleasure of observing herself, since it may be assumed
that she was present at the Court performance. Her role here was that of a
member of the audience, though we may agree with the observation that the
sovereign's presence inherently turned any play into a dialogue, and attracted political applications of the sort in which I have been indulging.
Moreover, the monarch's presence automatically altered the audience's
vision from monocular to binocular - and Elizabeth, as much the focus
of attention as the play she attended, could by displays of pleasure or
displeasure put on a show of her own. 24 She was not above remarking, at
the end of an Accession Day entertainment put on by Essex, that 'if she
had thought there had been so much said of her, she would not have been
there that night', though it is worth noting that she did not actually say so
till near the end. Again, contemporaries rushed to interpret these events:
'The world makes many untrue constructions of these speeches', wrote
Rowland Whyte, passing on the false rumour without troubling to correct
it.25
Such proceedings were appropriate for an entertainment, a skit staged
only once; the author wrote expecting the queen's attendance. For dramatists who anticipated that their plays would be staged both at Court and in
the popular theatre, and who yet wished to acknowledge the queen's
physical presence, something of a challenge arose. Thomas Dekker simply
added a Prologue to Old Fortunatus, apparently an ancient play newly
refurbished, and then altered the conclusion: where Virtue and Vice had
previously judged the characters, Virtue now abdicates her role to the queen
- after all, only she can bring virtue to life. Such an effort to give the queen a
role despite herself could easily verge on Use majeste; Dekker avoided the
problem by having an actor look soulfully at the monarch and say,
24
25
flashes or fumes of Melancholy, or traverses of his discontent, but in a serene and quiet
mood, that he could well have bent his mind to a retyred course' (Reliquiae
Wottoniae
(London, 1651), p. 2; original spelling).
Martin Butler, 'Private and Occasional Drama', in A. R. Braunmuller and Michael
Hattaway (eds.), The Cambridge Companion to English Renaissance Drama (Cambridge,
1990), pp. 127-60, at pp. 128-9.
E. K. Chambers, The Elizabethan Stage (4 vols., Oxford, 1923), III, p. 212.
285
I read a verdict in your Sun-like eyes,

And this it is .. .26
Virtue is victor, the queen is victor, all without her Majesty speaking a
word. But what happened when the play returned to repertory? Did Dekker
go back to the old ending? Did he unveil a portrait of the queen and have his
actors address it? Or did he, like Ben Jonson, go further? In Jonson's Every
Man Out of His Humoury Asper/Macilente was a character so deeply mired
in his satiric humour that only Queen Elizabeth was able, as a deus ex
machina, to reform him; in the Court performance, the queen might do so
directly, but on the public stage Jonson resorted to dressing up an actor in
regal costume, and then setting this simulacrum of royalty in motion. It
turned out, however, that 'many seem'd not to relish' this device, and
though Jonson argued that there was precedent, he was nevertheless forced
to alter it.27 Nothing daunted, in his new play for the following Christmas
season, Cynthia's Revels, he gave Cynthia a speaking part. Perhaps the fact
that the play was performed only at the Blackfriars and not in the great
public amphitheatres saved Jonson from harm; or perhaps the play's very
unpopularity was sufficient.
'Staging' the queen was always a risky business since she and her officers
were as aware as modern scholars that the process, done too often or too
badly, could easily derogate from royal authority. There were also strict
prohibitions against putting upper-class contemporaries on the stage,
though there is some evidence that these were occasionally breached.
Rowland Whyte informed his master, Sir Robert Sidney, that
Two daies agoe, the overthrow of Turnholt was acted upon a Stage, and all your
names used that were at yt; especially Sir Fra. Veres, and he that plaid that Part gott
a Beard resembling his . . . You was also introduced, killing, slaying, and overthrowing the Spaniards .. .28
Perhaps depicting Englishmen in heroic postures constituted an exception
to the rule; perhaps the Master of the Revels merely turned a blind eye; we
do not know, for the play is lost. A year later, Sidney's own patron, the earl
of Essex, in disgrace after his failure in Ireland, feared that the penalty
would be public ignominy:
I am gnawed on and torn by the vilest and basest creatures upon earth. The prating
tavern haunter speaks of me what he lists; the frantic libeller writes of me what he
lists; already they print me and make me speak to the world, and shortly they will
play me in what forms they list upon the stage.29
26
27
28
29
The Dramatic Works of Thomas Dekker, ed. Fredson Bowers (4 vols., Cambridge, 1953-61),
I, p. 340.
Ben Jonson, ed. Herford and Simpson, III, p. 602.
Andrew Gurr, Playgoing in Shakespeare's London (Cambridge, 1987), p. 145 (original
spelling).
Walter Bourchier Devereux, Lives and Letters of the Devereux, Earls of Essex (2 vols.,
London, 1853), II, p. 99.
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This is perhaps a little overwrought: if we may judge by what happened to

the Play of Sir Thomas More, it is reasonably certain that fear of public
disturbance would have kept the censor from allowing such a play on the
boards.
It is the existence of censorship, together with the absence of any clearcut idea of what was permitted and what was not, that has bedevilled
modern attempts to link the Elizabethan stage to the Elizabethan Court. 30
Censorship and rhetorical tradition together forced the playwrights to work
by indirection, by substituting one action for another. It may well be true
that history plays should always be considered political, but that does not go
far towards helping us decode them. Equally, the knowledge that many
Elizabethan dramatists conceived of tragedy as pre-eminently a political
genre, concerned as it traditionally had been with the interaction of the
private and the public, is not enough to penetrate their mysteries.
Moreover, the search for a single, definitive interpretation may itself be a
mistake.31 Fulke Greville, writing of his own plays, said
He that will behold these acts upon their true stage, let him look on that stage
whereon himself is an actor, even the state he lives in, and for every part he may
perchancefinda player, and for every line (it may be) an instance of life .. .32
For Greville, readings - viewings - are personal, a function of one's own
experience; and though he leaves it unclear whether the 'state' wherein such
experience occurs is personal or political, his surviving plays (as well his life
of Sidney) suggest strongly that politics was uppermost in his mind. Sir
Henry Wotton, writing about Essex and Greville and others of the inhabitants of Essex House, made much the same point:
In reading of history.. .a politique [politician] should find the characters of personages and apply them to some of the Court he lives in, which will likewise confirm his
memory and give scope and matter for conjecture and invention.
A friend to confer readings together most necessary.33
This exactly parallels the act of interpreting a history play.
Inevitably, the dramatists feared being misconstrued. Nor were their
fears unjustified, as such misconstructions might have severe consequences.
Jonson, as we have seen, was called before the Privy Council to explain his
Sejanus; so too was Chapman for his Biron plays, and Daniel for his
Philotas. All three authors edged too close to staging the troubles of the earl
30
31
32
33
Patterson, Censorship and Interpretation; and Richard Dutton, Mastering the Revels.
On this, see John M . Wallace, '"Examples Are Best Precepts*': Readers and Meanings in
Seventeenth-Century Poetry', Critical Inquiry, 1 (1974), 273-90.
A Dedication to Sir Philip Sidney in Prose Works, ed. John Gouws (Oxford, 1986), p. 135;
my emphasis.
Logan Pearsall Smith, The Life and Letters of Sir Henry Wotton (2 vols., Oxford, 1907),
II, p. 494.
287
of Essex, and the beneficiaries of Essex's fall, Robert Cecil and Northampton, had no desire to have old wounds scrutinized in public. Whether or
not their troubles were the result of 'mis'-construction is, of course, another
matter. But Essex's career anyway provided fertile ground for speculation,
and was itself so dramatic that it is no wonder that the playwrights succumbed to the temptation to 'stage' it - though they waited for the next reign to
do so.
II
The precise manner of Essex's death provides a useful example both of the
theatricality of the Elizabethan Court and of the ways in which this theatricality might be transferred onto the stage. As with so many of Essex's
actions, much mystery surrounds his execution, not least in the motives
underlying his extraordinary performance. These questions, of course,
offered scope to the playwrights of which - despite the dangers - they were
not slow to avail themselves.
Early in the morning of 25 February - Ash Wednesday - of the year 1601,
the earl of Essex emerged from the Tower and strode towards the scaffold
set up in the midst of the courtyard. His clothes - a gown of wrought velvet,
a satin suit, a felt hat - were all of sombre black, relieved only by the
startling white of the collar and small ruff around his neck. He was accompanied by three ministers, Abdias Ashton, his own chaplain, and
Drs Mountford and Barlow, appointed by the crown. Also in the party were
Sir John Peyton, Lieutenant of the Tower, and sixteen guardsmen. The
witnesses consisted of a hundred knights, gentlemen and aldermen, there to
judge the earl's demeanour and to authenticate the news of his death. On a
bench placed near the scaffold sat six lords, representatives of the peers who
had condemned him, who might engage the earl in conversation and debate
even during hisfinalmoments on earth, and who somewhat resembled those
gallants who sat on the stage of the popular playhouses and occasionally
interrupted the play. On his way across the court, Essex called out to God to
give him the strength and patience and humility he needed for the coming
ordeal, and entreated those around him to pray for him. Then he mounted
the scaffold, still accompanied by the three clerics whose business it was
both to comfort him and keep his mind fixed on heavenly things, prayed
briefly with them, and turned to the lords sitting by. With a courtly gesture,
he doffed his hat, bowed, lifted his eyes to Heaven, and began his farewell
speech.34
34
There are a number of contemporary accounts of Essex's execution. Two are printed in
Ballads from Manuscripts, ed. W. R. Morfill, The Ballad Society (Hertford, 1873), II,
pp. 20&-13. Others may be found in the CSPD, 1598-1601, pp. 592-^1, 595-6. That of the
288
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Because Abdy Ashton had succeeded in persuading Essex to bear his end
with patience and few words, the earl was allowed to make his public
confession without the intervention of his audience. In the accustomed
manner, he admitted that he had been a sinner, and prayed for God's
forgiveness; then he confessed his crime (with the reservation that he had
never intended any harm to the queen's person), stated that his trial had
been fair and honourable, and asked the forgiveness of the queen and her
ministers as well. Turning next to the matter of his religion, Essex rejected
the common rumour that he was either papist or atheist, and insisted instead
that he died a true protestant. With that, he turned from public speeches to
private prayer, adding however 'for that I beseech you all to join with me, I
will speak that you may hear'.35 At last, one of the divines reminded him to
repeat the creed; that completed, he took off his doublet, revealing a scarlet
waistcoat, kneeled in the straw before the block for his final prayers, fitted
his head on the block, and began to recite the fifty-first Psalm. In the midst
of it, the axe fell.
The earl's behaviour on the scaffold, submissive in the extreme, presented a total contrast to the highly combative attitude he had adopted
during his trial only a few days before. There he and his co-defendant, the
earl of Southampton, had laughed and winked at the indictment, determined apparently to let all the world see that they considered the trial yet
another episode in the long-running battle between them and their political
opponents, Sir Robert Cecil and his faction. These men, the earl believed,
had tried to block the anti-Spanish policy he deemed necessary to protect
European protestantism, had prevented him from getting the supplies
required to win the war in Ireland, had poisoned the queen's mind against
him, and had then stood between him and his monarch to make certain that
he could never explain his conduct and thus regain favour. Policy was only
part of the difference between them; there was as well the matter of what
might be called 'courtly style'. For despite his constant efforts to enter and
remain within the charmed circle of the Privy Council, and to influence
policy while there, despite too his establishment of a secretariat within his
own household, Essex never consistently saw himself as a clerk in the style
of the Cecils. As he himself often pointed out, his gentility, his lineage
exceeded theirs. Saying so was not enough; actions, such as the pursuit of
35
historian, William Camden, is in his History of... Queen Elizabeth (London, 1675), p. 621.
Essex's trial and execution have been put in context by L. B. Smith, 'English Treason
Trials and Confessions in the Sixteenth Century', JHI, 15 (Oct. 1954), 471-98; John
Bellamy, The Tudor Law of Treason (London, 1979); and most recently J. A. Sharpe, * "Last
Dying Speeches": Religion, Ideology and Public Execution in Seventeenth-Century
England', Past and Present, 107 (May 1985), 144-67.
'Account of the Death of Essex', in Ballads from Manuscripts, p. 209.
289
precedence at Court, and of the title of Earl Marshal, and most especially
the assumption of military command, were intended to make the same
point. These actions suggest that Essex had cast himself in the role of noble
courtier, a role that had by this time become somewhat old-fashioned in its
attempt to add bureaucratic duties to a basic substratum of military prowess
and, in its resemblance to the over-mighty subject of a century before,
rather dangerous to those who took it up. This desire to flaunt his nobility
may also help to explain his tendency to play to the gallery, exemplified, for
instance, by his challenging the governor of Rouen to decide the town's fate
by single combat; his behaviour at his trial and execution did not break the
pattern.
At any execution, the victim came as the principal actor, and the
audience, though it came to see justice done, came as well to evaluate the
performance. Sir Gilly Meyrick, Essex's factotum, who suffered a few days
after his lord for his part in the same rebellion, remarked that
I know the humor of Manie Gallants that will be there, to behold my End, & to hear
my sayings, that my carriage, & my Words, shall be much noted; and it is of them
noted, but to give every man his censure, and to make a little Table talk.36
Similarly, Sir Robert Cecil noted approvingly that the earl died
with very great patience and humility, only, notwithstanding his resolution that he
must die, the conflict betweenfleshand the soul did appear only thus far, that in his
prayers he was fain to be helped, it proceeding out of the weakness of the flesh at the
instant, for otherwise no man living could die more Christianly than he did.37
Others, such as the historian William Camden, merely reported that the earl
had died most piously. For Essex had chosen to die as a humble Christian,
who confessed all his sins and justified none of them, and who threw himself
on the infinite mercy of God. With the possible exception of that moment of
weakness noted by Cecil, the earl had carried off his part brilliantly.
Yet, despite all this, there were critics, not of the acting but the role.
Camden reported that 'Marshal Biron of France and other profane persons
derided this his Piety as rather becoming some silly Minister than a stout
Soldier', and added, a little defensively, 'as if the Fear of Hell were not a
Christian man's Fortitude'. 38 Biron would have had Essex act the classic
hero, defying his accusers until the end - as Biron was himself to do within
the year when, by a grim coincidence, he was found guilty of similar
charges. Certainly Biron's own death was not, to all appearances, pious: he
36
37
38
Folger Shakespeare Library M S G.b.4, fo. 67r (original spelling).

Letters from Sir Robert Cecil to Sir George Carew, ed. John Maclean, Camden Society
(Westminster, 1864), p. 72.
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displayed no patience and vigorously rejected the consolation of religion.

The result, however, was that the English ambassador, far from being
impressed by such heroics, described Biron's actions on the scaffold as
rodomontades.39 Essex's death, on the contrary, was not only that of a
religious man, but of a gentleman, an honourable man. As Robert Ashley
put it in a manuscript written at just this time, 'men of great minds are much
moved with honor', while 'the abject and baser sort be nothing affected
therewith because the sense and feeling thereof is given only to those that
are of high spirit'.40 Thus submissiveness on the scaffold was an appropriate
display of the virtue underlying honour. By contrast, Essex's secretary, the
former Oxford scholar and professor of Greek, Henry Cuffe, fought all
through the trial and continued to justify himself on the very cart from
which he was to be hanged. Unlike his master, Cuffe had to suffer numerous
interruptions. One bystander accused him of declining from the good
example of his lord. Another told him that this was no time for logic, adding
'I am sorry that those good parts which God hath bestowed upon you, and
by your own industry you have attained unto, should be thus abused in
justifying yourself.'41 For these onlookers, the moral was clear: a gentleman
submitted to his fate gracefully and religiously, while the self-made man
continued in vain efforts to excuse himself.
Yet Essex's demeanour at his trial had been of a very different order from
that at his execution.42 Far from admitting any wrong-doing, let alone
confessing to treason, he had insisted that his actions could be excused as a
defence of himself against his murderous enemies, Cobham and Ralegh,
against the Cecils and all their adherents. John Chamberlain remarked of
the earl's performance that 'I never saw any go through with such boldness,
and show of resolution, and contempt of death'. Still, Chamberlain's praise
was two-edged, for he noted that the earl's response to the charge had been
'delivered with such bravery and so many words, that a man might easily
perceive that as he had ever lived popularly, so his chief care was to leaVe a
good opinion in the people's minds now at parting.' In short, Chamberlain
believed that Essex, knowing he would be convicted, directed his actions to
the gallery, and to the audience outside, rather than to the judges. That
39
40
41
42
Memorials of Affairs of State... [papers of Sir Ralph Winwood], ed. Edmund Sawyer
(3 vols., London, 1725), I, p. 427.
Of Honour, ed. Virgil B. Heltzel (San Marino, Ca., 1947), p. 40; on Ashley and ideas of
honour more generally, Norman Council, When Honour's at the Stake (London, 1973),
chap. 1. M e r v y n James, English Politics and the Concept of Honour 1485-1642, Past and
Present, Supplement 3 (1978) is good on the subject of the 'community of honour' at Court.
CSPD, 1601-3, pp. 14-15.
Accounts of the trial may be found in Criminal Trials, ed. David Jardine, T h e Library of
Entertaining Knowledge (2 vols., London, 1832), I, pp. 310-66, and in A Complete Collection of State Trials, ed. W . Cobbett, T . B. Howell et al. (33 vols., London, 1809-26),
I, pp. 1334-60.
291
might, perhaps, have been excusable in a man who knew himself to be

innocent, but seemed arrogant in one proven guilty by the confessions of his
associates.43
At the time of his own arraignment and trial, however, Essex did not yet
know that his chief confederates had admitted to anything other than
bearing arms in their own defence. When he found out that they had
confessed to meetings at Drury House to concert a plot to seize the Court at
Whitehall and to hold the Tower in order to overawe London, his temper
appeared to crack. Now Essex too began to confess, and in doing so
impeached others not yet within the net of the authorities. Contemporaries
found the proceedings of these bold revolutionaries most puzzling. 'They
seemed to strive who should draw one another in deepest', said George
Carleton in a letter to his brother, 'in which the Earl himself exceeded all
other, to all men's wonder.'44 Nor did he stop with those who had joined
him on that fateful march to rouse London. At the end, he accused even his
own sister of inciting him, to the astonishment of the earl of Nottingham
who asked his correspondent, 'Would your Lordship have thought this
weakness and this unnaturalness in this man?' 45 Secretary Cecil at least took
a fairly cynical view of Essex's change of heart, attributing it to a search for
revenge against those whose confessions had implicated him. 46
Revenge against his former adherents, however, seems an inadequate
motive to explain Essex's changed bearing in the days following his conviction. Rather, the earl seems to have exchanged one script for another. The
first of these called for him to deny any treason and to insist that all was done
in self-defence. His mien before the court had been one of challenge,
intended to remind the lords that before them stood a military hero facing
death once more. If a verdict of guilty followed, as it was almost certain to
do, then Essex meant to die in such a way as to create the maximum
embarrassment for his enemies in government: witness his request at the
end of the trial to have the Lieutenant and the Constable of the Tower pray
with him, so that they might be witnesses. This scenario also called for a
refusal to beg for pardon and for as public an execution as possible. Thus
Essex would leave the world piously, but politically unrepentant: unable to
discredit his enemies whilst he lived, he might do so by his death.
Instead, as we have seen, Essex abandoned this script for another, that of
the pious death. Here his role was in part written for him by the constraints
of religion. To assure himself of salvation, Essex had to confess everything.
43
44
45
The Letters of John Chamberlain, ed. N . E. McClure (2 vols., Philadelphia, Pa., 1939),
I, p. 120.
Correspondence of King James VI of Scotland with Sir Robert Cecil and others in England, ed.
John Bruce, Camden Society (Westminster, 1861), pp. xix-xx.
Spedding, Letters and Life of Bacon, II, p. 237n.
** Letters from Cecil to Carew, p. 69.
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In order to beg God's forgiveness, he had to put the worst possible construction on all his past actions. Indeed, the government had ultimately to
suppress parts of his confession because the ramifications were too wide for
political comfort. This remarkable change of plan was the work of the earl's
chaplain, Abdias Ashton. As Beach Langston showed in a classic article,
Ashton only followed the instructions of a score of handbooks, first casting
Essex down with the fear of hell, then raising him up again with the hope of
salvation.47 Most contemporaries approved of what Ashton had done but,
surprisingly, a few did not. As we have seen, some - like George Carleton,
himself a cleric - were simply puzzled by the sudden confessions and
accusations. An anonymous letter-writer insisted that Ashton had been
suborned to undermine his master's spirit and extort the public confession
that the government wanted. And Ashton himself had the bitter experience
of being turned away from the house of a friend who believed the * uncharitable and false suspicions partly of folly & partly of malice creeping
abroad'.48
Two documents in the Folger Library- both contemporary transcripts of
writings by Abdias Ashton himself- throw considerable light on the way by
which the government secured the public display commonly thought to be
required by the occasion.49 In the first, Ashton reported (in a question-andanswer format) what had transpired when he came before the Privy Council
the afternoon of Essex's death. The councillors began by pressing him to
preach the official Paul's Cross sermon that Sunday, a public event sure to
be thronged with the curious. On his knees, Ashton begged to be let off, and
that necessary piece of government propaganda had to be supplied by
another of the chaplains attendant at the execution, the much more ambitious William Barlow. Next, the councillors asked Ashton to sign a series of
articles whose purpose was to bolster their claim that Essex's confession to
treason had been voluntary, that he had requested private execution, and
that he had at the end 'aggravated' his offence by thanking God that the
world had spewed him out for 'his great, his bloody, his crying, his infectious sins'. The truth of the matter was somewhat different. Essex had
indeed confessed to treason. He had expressed a desire to die in the Tower,
though he meant by that a natural death, not execution. However, Ashton
went on, when Essex was told he would be executed in Tower Yard, he
approved of it readily enough. As for the harsh words Essex used of himself,
these were no more than the harsh words any penitent soul used in his
repentance, and should not be stretched to any specific meaning. Yet
Ashton could not deny that Essex had used such words. So, under pressure
47
48
49
'Essex and the Art of Dying', HLQ, 13 (Feb. 1950), 109-29.

Folger Shakespeare Library M S V.b.214, fo. 270.
Ibid., fos. 266^8, 270-1.
293
from the lords of the Council, Ashton agreed that the articles were correct,
and signed them. Thereafter, official statements repeatedly emphasized
that Essex had begged to die privately - though even King Henry IV, in
Paris, had heard differently - and Barlow, in his Paul's Cross sermon, made
much of those great, bloody, crying and infectious sins. 50
There is nothing in this to warrant the charge that Ashton was 'base,
fearful and mercenary', least of all in the way he procured the confession. 51
Nor is it true that Ashton had somehow been foisted on Essex. Quite the
contrary; Ashton had lived in Essex House before the revolt, and one of the
conditions of the earl's surrender had been that he would be permitted to
keep Ashton as his chaplain. Neither can it be shown that Ashton had been
corrupted or had profited from his submission to the Council. In the second
document, a letter to the friend who had rejected him, he denied it utterly:
'No counsellor or any from them or any other who might move this unto me
did speak one word unto me tending that way.' Nor did Ashton receive preferment. At the end of the whole episode, he retired to his native north to
serve a country parish found for him by his cousin, to whom, many years
later, he willed his best jewel, a pocket clock given him by Essex on the
morning of the execution.52 The conclusion to be drawn from this is that
the government indeed pushed its advantage very hard, but it had got that
advantage in the first place because Ashton had persuaded Essex to confess.
Again, there was a suspicion that Ashton had somehow been corrupted.
Such corruption would have been unnecessary. As a minister with a soul in
his charge, Ashton knew his duty. Before Essex could receive absolution, he
must first be made to confess his guilt. The problem was how to achieve
this.
Because Ashton knew his man, he succeeded. To plough up the soul of a
man who believed he had done nothing wrong verged on the impossible.
Ashton had to convince Essex that what he had persuaded himself was a
pre-emptive strike against powerful enemies was instead no more than selfseeking, and thus sinful. He reminded the earl that many of his followers
had been Catholics, and that his association with them in any sort of
disturbance raised grave doubts about Essex's own religion: 'Clear your
own honour, as much as you may with truth, let the danger fall where it is
deserved . . . for now they call your Lordship Archtraitor, Archrebel
50
51
52
William Barlow, A Sermon preached at Paules Crosse . . . Martij 1. 1600 (London, 1601); and
Camden's account. Barlow ultimately became a bishop.
The phrase is used by the anonymous author of 'A Letter to Mr. A. Bacon concerning the
earl of Essex', in William Camden, Annales, ed. Thomas Heame (3 vols., London, 1717),
III, p. 957.
O n Ashton, The Journal of Nicholas Assheton, ed. Rev. F . R. Raines, C h e t h a m Society, 14
(1848), 103-^ln; The Autobiography of Mr. Langley of Prestwich, ed. Rev. F. R. Raines,
Chetham Society, 103 (1878), pp. 14-16; Folger Shakespeare Library MS v.b. 214, fo. 270 v.
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Dissembler under a colour of Religion.'53 He ended by telling the earl that the
common view was that he had gathered assistance to get a private revenge on
his enemies, and that some believed he was seeking the crown. Essex at once
realized two things: the audience before whom he had always played failed
altogether to understand either his actions or his motives; and his honour,
especially in matters of religion, had been touched. To clear his honour, he
now told Ashton everything; and Ashton, quite rightly, said these things
had to be reported to the authorities. Essex agreed, called in the councillors,
and confessed. Ashton had 'plowed up' the earl's honour as much as his
soul, and that had the desired effect. Thereafter, the councillors worked to
keep the advantage. The night before the execution, the officials in charge of
the Tower received instructions to limit the earl's speeches to a confession
of his great treason and his general repentance and to prevent him from
embarking on details and justifications.54 All this was intended only to keep
the earl on the new course on which his honour - and his confessor - had set
him. Essex had found his new role of penitent and intended to stick to it.
So, at his death, Essex vacillated between a number of possible roles, and
thus continued the inconsistency that had marked his entire Court career.
Sometimes he played the role of military hero, and did it as if he were a
chivalric champion reborn.55 When that behaviour failed to bring the Court
advancement he sought, he retired Achilles-like to the country to sulk.
There he turned hermit - all the while writing letters to the queen - until
finally her Majesty begged him once more to grace the Court and (at last)
the Council board. Once there, the earl suddenly adopted the bearing of a
serious councillor and man of business, surrounded by secretaries, buried in
dispatches. Then, equally suddenly, he departed for still another military
adventure, in the process giving up his hard-won gains at Court. Even the
contemplation of death offered no relief. As we have seen, the role of
humble penitent, confessing all, and praying before the scaffold seemed - to
Essex and to many of his contemporaries - both normal and appropriate.
Nevertheless, there was no unanimity about it. Essex himself had earlier
begun to seek a very different, less pious and more blatantly 'heroic' death,
and there is much evidence that his doing so would also have been
applauded, if perhaps by a smaller audience. Yet, as we have seen, there was
ambiguity even in his relation to the crowd. Sometimes he seemed avidly to
court the common sort, smiling and vailing his bonnet to them in the
manner of Shakespeare's Bolingbroke. At other times, he dreaded that he
would be pilloried by the ballad-monger and the popular playwright,
53
55
M
Folger Shakespeare Library MS V.b.214, fo. 270v.
CSPD, 1598-1601, pp. 591-2.
Richard C. McCoy, '"A Dangerous Image**: The Earl of Essex and Elizabethan Chivalry',
Journal of Medieval and Renaissance Studies, 13 (1983), 313-29, esp. 315-16.
295
opened up to the judgement of those whom he had called 'the basest

creatures upon earth'. 56
Ill
Where it is possible for us to reconstruct the pressures applied to Essex, and
thus to explain in some way why he faced death as he did, contemporaries
were forced to speculate. For reasons of safety (and censorship) most of that
speculation occurred in the next reign, and commonly took the form of
historical analogy. During his heyday, of course, the references to Essex had
been laudatory, and the commonalty, far from mocking the earl, applauded
him. Shakespeare gave him a passing mention in Henry F, in which he made
much of the accolades of the London crowd, and compared the earl's
predicted defeat of the Irish with both the achievements of Caesar and the
victory of Agincourt. Years later, the memory of that lost promise flickered,
first in the figure of Coriolanus, then in that of the doomed duke of
Buckingham in Henry VIII. Coriolanus too had been a great military hero,
utterly convinced of his indispensability and so enamoured of his birth and
honour that he refused to follow the dictates of his government and ultimately fell into treason. Only at the end did the claims of family and state
outweigh those of personal honour. There is enough here to remind one of
Essex's story and - presciently - the earl's accusers at his examination at
York House in 1600 explicitly made the connection to Coriolanus. The
resemblance to Buckingham was still closer, for he - like Essex - had been
much loved by the London crowd, who called him 'The mirrour of all
courtesie'. Like Essex too, he had been brought down by the machinations
of a political enemy, the upstart Cardinal Wolsey; he had fought his accusers
long and bitterly at the trial, and had then accepted his fate calmly, refusing
to beg for the life unjustly taken from him:
For further life in this world I ne'er hope,
Nor will I sue . . .57
Shakespeare indeed found Buckingham's story in Holinshed complete in
detail (and sometimes even in language), but its placement and emphasis
within the small world of Henry VIII owe little to the chronicler.
George Chapman, perhaps more even than Shakespeare, had once moved
on the outer fringes of Essex's literary circle, and had praised his heroism to
the skies. When, later, the opportunity offered, he seized upon the subject
56
57
See above; the passage is discussed in Curtis Brown Watson, Shakespeare and the Renaissance Concept of Honor (Princeton, NJ, 1960), p. 157. Chamberlain, however, felt that Essex
'had ever lived popularly'.
Shakespeare, Henry VIII, II.i.53, 69-70.
296
Fritz Levy
of the execution of Marshal Biron and made of it a pair of plays, the first an
investigation of the human motives for treason, the second an account of
Biron's trial, and of his refusal to accept death on any terms but his own.
The Biron story had the advantage moreover of a direct connection with the
death of Essex, for Biron had been sent by his master, King Henry IV, to
England shortly after the earl's execution, ostensibly to learn a better mode
of behaviour at a Court
Where lips are spiced with free and loyal counsels,
Where policies are not ruinous, but saving .. .^
Such an England was by then illusory. Instead, Biron's visit to the queen
sent her into a tirade, in which she 'sharply accused Essex of Ingratitude,
rash Counsells, and obstinate disdaining to ask Pardon', and then went on to
recommend to Henry IV that he execute forthwith those treacherous and
disloyal persons 'who sought nothing but Innovations, and the Disturbance
of the public Quiet and Tranquillity'. 59 Biron might have been expected to
apply the warning to himself. Instead, he returned home, and continued his
plotting until it brought him to the scaffold. Lest anyone miss the connection, Chapman (unlike most Jacobean dramatists) made the link between his
subject and its analogue overt, for Biron is heard to speak of
The matchless Earl of Essex, who some make ...
A parallel with me in life and fortune .. *
The parallelism once stated, Chapman could then go on to depict a Biron
who resembled, in crucial essentials, his English counterpart. Like Essex,
Biron pretended to great rationality, clear in his own mind of his power over
himself:
There is no danger to a man that knows
What life and death is; there's not any law
Exceeds his knowledge, neither is it lawful
That he should stoop to any other law.
He goes before them and commands them all,
That to himself is a law rational.61
Events, however, made it difficult to keep up the facade. Once his conspiracy had been discovered, Biron (again like Essex) defended himself furiously at his trial. However, as the time for his execution came ever closer,
58
59
60
George Chapman, The Conspiracy and Tragedy of Byron, ed. John Margeson, T h e Revels
Plays (Manchester, 1988), p. 103. I am much indebted to A. R. Braunmuller, Natural
Fictions: George Chapman's Major Tragedies (Newark, NJ, 1992), chaps. 2-3.
Chapman includes the scene in indirect discourse. William Camden, Annals (London,
1688), p. 635; Camden is using, and commenting on, contemporary French sources. John
Chamberlain made the connection between Biron and Essex in a letter to Dudley Carleton:
Letters of John Chamberlain, I, p. 168.
61
Chapman, Conspiracy and Tragedy of Byron, p. 215.
Ibid., pp. 136-7.
297
Biron began to waver. For a time, he laughed at death as something to be

feared only by the docile, by such as had never faced the enemy in battle:
Let tame nobility and numbed fools
That apprehend not what they undergo
Be such exemplary and formal sheep.62
But all the while he hoped for pardon. He mocked his judges and, in the
words of one observer, 'alters every minute'. 63 Brought to the scaffold, he
insisted that he would die like a soldier, not a clergyman and, far from
accepting the solace of religion, railed at his enemies. For a moment, indeed,
it looked as if Biron would altogether refuse to cooperate in the ceremony of
his own death but would, instead, assault the executioner. Only at the very
last did Biron accept his death calmly. It is difficult not to read Chapman's
lines as oblique commentary on Essex's demeanour. There was in Biron
none of the abject confession (nor wild attacks on his confederates) that had
marked Essex's last days. On the other hand, Chapman's Biron came to
accept his fate only moments before the axe fell, and his 'rodomontades'
seemed poor stuff when measured by the Roman Stoics the playwright so
much admired. The Biron story, as Chapman told it, was largely true to the
available facts; but, as with so many of the Elizabethans' true stories, it may
also be read analogically.
In the course of telling his version of the Biron story, Chapman adverted
to yet another analogue, Alexander the Great's execution of his generals,
Parmenio and Philotas. In doing so, Chapman referred to Samuel Daniel's
recent play on the subject. Philotas, too, had landed its author before the
Privy Council, and Daniel's varied and tortuous defences provide us with
rather more information than usual. 64 Daniel's connection to the Essex
group had been much closer than Chapman's. Unlike Chapman, however,
Daniel was not a professional playwright, and so was unused to the hurlyburly of London's dramatic world. Thus when, in 1605, Daniel had become
Licenser of the Children of the Queen's Revels and, in that capacity,
suddenly needed a new play, he staged his own Philotas, hurriedly completed for the occasion. Daniel drew his subject from a paragraph in
Plutarch's Lives and from the more generous treatment in Quintus Curtius'
History of the Deeds of Alexander the Great, In Daniel's retelling, Philotas,
Alexander's boon companion, son of a powerful general and himself a
military man of note, begins to have doubts about his old friend and
master's pretensions of grandeur, most particularly his claim to be a son of
Jupiter, and - presuming on the years of love and fidelity binding them 62
64
63
Ibid., p. 267.
Ibid., p. 256.
The Tragedy of Philotas By Samuel Daniel, ed. Laurence Michel, Yale Studies in English
110 (New Haven, Conn., 1949), pp.
298
Fritz Levy
tell him so. Despite the king's initial protestation, the two men start to
draw apart, and other courtiers are not slow to take advantage of the rift.
Philotas soon gives them their chance. Refusing to report a conspiracy he
can not take seriously, Philotas finds himself charged as a co-conspirator,
indeed as the ringleader of a supposed concerted effort to replace
Alexander. The charge is brought by Craterus - in the sources, another
general, but in Daniel simply a manipulative bureaucrat eager to aggrandize
his own power. Craterus not only terrorizes witnesses into compliance with
his wishes but also drives Alexander to reject his erstwhile companion once
and for all. Philotas is sent to the torture - and, surprisingly, confesses all.
To Daniel's contemporaries, the application of all this to the death of
Essex was only too clear. Essex too had given unwanted counsel, he too had
been a general entrapped by the machinations of fearful bureaucrats. More
startling still, the two men were alike in at first refusing to confess, then
being driven to it, by the threat of physical torture in the case of the Greek,
by the threat of damnation in that of the Christian. The value of the
confession, the reality of the plot, remained in each case doubtful, and the
doubts persisted long after the deaths of the protagonists. If Philotas stood
for Essex, did the odious Craterus stand for Robert Cecil? And who might
be identified as Ephestion, Craterus' henchman? The Blackfriars audience
no doubt enjoyed speculating on these matters, but the Privy Council took a
harsher line. Daniel had suddenly to satisfy Cecil and Northampton to their
faces - and apparently did so, mainly by arguing the commonplace position
that the behaviour of political men repeated itself from age to age. He also
told the Council that he had written the first three acts the Christmas before
the Essex rebellion, and had even read parts aloud to Lord Mount joy - who,
as a former friend of Essex, was not grateful for being dragged into the case.
While these arguments were enough to enable him to escape the worst
punishments, Daniel was removed from his post with the Queen's Revels,
and his offer to withdraw from Court was accepted. Nevertheless the play
was published the same year.
This was not yet the end of the story. In an apology appended to a
posthumous edition of his works, though probably written in the immediate
wake of the controversy, Daniel elaborated his testimony. The idea for
Philotas had come to him, he said, a year before he began to write, and he
had early discussed the project with Mountjoy's chaplain who, it appeared,
had himself written a Philotas play for production at Oxford. Furthermore,
Daniel now claimed that his original intention had been to write for a group
of amateurs, gentlemen's sons who would have staged the play some months
before Essex rose in revolt.
How much of all this one believes depends on one's estimate of Daniel's
political naivete. However, let me first add one additional bit of evidence,
299
commonly omitted from the narrative. In a letter dated 1597, the learned
Lord Henry Howard, the future Northampton, wrote to his friend the earl
of Essex, quoting (in Latin) from Philotas' last speech, in which the general
laments that the dangerous freedom of true counsel, which love and fidelity
had persuaded him to offer Alexander, now has betrayed him. 65 That same
speech, elaborated from Quintus Curtius, became the central set piece of
Daniel's play. What is clear from this is that the Philotas story, like the
political reading of Tacitus, was going the rounds of the Essex faction in
1597, and that Daniel most likely came upon it in that context. Daniel's
connections with Essex's friends Mountjoy and Greville meant that he
would have understood the story's political import; and, indeed, Essex's
worsening political situation may explain why he abandoned his text after
three acts. It is true that the story of a military favourite done to death by a
conniving bureaucrat was something of an exaggeration as applied to Essex
in 1597, but no more so than the equation of late-Elizabethan England with
Tacitus' nightmare visions of imperial Rome. Then events turned the play
into prophecy, and not until four years after the earl's death did Daniel
think it safe to revise his play by adding to it two acts which he, at least,
considered more orthodox, the acts wherein Philotas both confessed the
existence of a conspiracy and his own part in it. The confession perhaps
justified Craterus in his motives - as Essex's confession justified Robert
Cecil - but men could still question the degree to which his motives were
honest or self-seeking. In Daniel's play, neither Philotas nor Craterus is
exculpated or justified, and moral ambivalence remains pervasive. That
Cecil and Northampton would take umbrage at the play is hardly surprising, all the more so as it originated in Court circles and was put on by a royal
official.
Any discussion of the relationship of theatre and Court during the lateElizabethan age must be rooted in an acknowledgement of the intense
theatricality of the queen and the courtiers who surrounded her. The
flamboyant earls of Leicester and Essex, the only slightly more restrained
Sir Philip Sidney, even the sober Lord Burghley and his son, Sir Robert
Cecil, were all drawn into the stage world ruled by Queen Elizabeth. In this,
they re-enacted the kind of Court society portrayed by Castiglione, in which
bright glitter and high seriousness commingled. As Castiglione made clear,
role-playing was the way to gain a prince's attention; at Elizabeth's Court, it
was also the way to keep the queen interested. To see the Court only as a
costume party would, however, be a mistake. Leicester, Sidney and Essex
had a serious programme, involving commitment to an expensive war in
65
Birch, Memoirs of... Elizabeth, II, pp. 359-60.
300
Fritz Levy
defence of European protestantism; their opponents, looking to the precarious state of Elizabethan finances, were no less serious. It was the queen's
doing that such struggles over policy spilled over from the Council board
into 'theatrical' productions, open to the inquiring eyes of her Court and its
adherents. Once that happened, it is hardly a matter for surprise that the
playwrights then staged the resulting drama in their own ways.
The ease with which the Court and its inhabitants might be 'staged' was a
result of the age's habit of analogical thinking. Samuel Daniel's conviction
that there was nothing in these times that was not in books, nor in books that
was not in these times, was shared universally. Historical analogy was the
preferred mode of understanding, as well as the way the theatricality of
Court intrigue might be placed on the London stage. A discussion of royal
favourites might bring up the names of Tiberius and Sejanus, Richard II
and his minions, or perhaps Edward II and Gaveston. An effort to understand how a great lord (like Essex) might try to augment his power by
appeals to popular support brought references to Bolingbroke or the duke of
Guise each vailing his cap to the commoners. Examples helped understanding; they might also help fix praise or blame. The search for popularity
might be excused if it led to the overthrow of a tyrant, as happened with
Bolingbroke and Richard II; it might be condemned, if it led to the murder
of an anointed king, as happened with Guise and Henry III. Historical
examples thus became part of the system of judgement through which
Elizabethan society maintained itself.
As we have noted, the judgement of roles and performances extended
throughout the system. Essex's political career may be analysed in terms of
his choices of parts to play, and the analysis may be extended to his trial and
execution. Contemporaries certainly saw his last days in precisely this way,
and all were ready to note, and to judge, what they saw. Essex had to gauge
his performance accordingly and - helped by his chaplain - ultimately did
so. The judgements did not end in 1601. Once the new reign allowed a little
more freedom to comment, the playwrights opened the discussion anew,
and did so in precisely the same theatrical terms. Alexander's courtiers
reflected on the death of Philotas, Henry IV's on that of Biron, much as
Elizabeth's had on the end of Essex. And Ben Jonson, using the Tacitean
terminology of the old queen's reign, spoke once more of the evils of tyranny
and factionalism, and of the censorship that had at once delayed analysis,
and forced it into the mode of historical exemplarity.
Index
A Warning for Faire Women 266

Abergavenny peerage case 101
Accession Day 7, 15, 79, 92, 214, 215, 217,
221, 284
Act for the Submission of the Clergy
(1534) 11, 136, 144-6
Act of Appeals (1533) 11,133
Act of Supremacy (1559) 146
Act of Uniformity (1559) 131, 134, 139,
144, 146, 147
Adams, Simon 66, 67, 73
Adamson, John 98, 99, 101, 102, 104, 105
Adamson, Patrick (abp. of St Andrews) 173,
177, 178, 181, 186
Kings Maiesties Declaration 177
admiralty law 148
Admonition Controversy 12, 127, 128
Agatharchides 249
Agincourt, France 295
alehouse 160, 193
Aleyn, Sir Francis 71
Alleyn, Edward 69
Alpers, Paul 227
Anderson, Sir Edmund 123, 134, 135
Andre, Bernard 229
Andrewes, Lancelot 138
Anne of Denmark (queen of Scotland and
England) 175,272
annuities 25,31,34,35
anti-Martinism 154, 156, 157, 159, 164,
168, 188
Antiquaries, Society of 101-3, 105
Antonio, Dom (claimant to Portuguese
throne) 123
Ariosto, Ludovico 250
Aristophanes 262
Aristotle 127
Armada, Spanish 18, 80, 89, 91, 92, 110,
196,205
Ash, Kent 200
Ashley, Robert 290
Ashton, Abdias 287, 288, 292^1
Ashton, Robert 40
Atlantic 1, 7
Augmentations, Court of 30, 35
Axton, Marie 220
Aylmer, John (bp. of London) 130, 131,
133, 134, 139, 164, 174, 264
Azores 82-4,218
Bacon, Anthony 54, 56, 70, 71, 79, 83, 222
Bacon, Sir Francis 3, 50, 51, 53, 62, 71, 72,
76, 77, 216, 217, 218, 221, 274, 283
Bacon, Lady 54
Bacon, Sir Nicholas (lord keeper) 36
Bacon, Roger 253
Bacon Papers 47
Bagenal, Sir Henry 125
Bagenal, Sir Nicholas 110
Bagot, Richard 121
Bale, John 261,263
Bales, Peter 242, 252, 254
Ball, John 119
ballads 160, 164, 166
Baltinglass, Viscount 117
Bancroft, Richard 12, 18, 61, 62, 134, 137,
148, 153, 154, 156, 164-6, 170, 173-91
A Survay of the Pretended Holy
Discipline 153, 179
Daungerous Positions 18, 153, 170, 179
Barcklay, Richard 252
Barlow, William 247, 287, 292, 293
Barnes, Barnabe 246, 256
Barnfield, Richard: The Complaint of
Poetrie, for the Death of Liberalitie 233,
238
baronial tradition 99-102, 105, 108
Barrow, Henry 244, 250
Basyll, Simon 62
Beacon, Richard 251
Beale, Robert 14, 37, 136-8, 143, 144
Beatniffe, John 244, 254
Beaton, David (cardinal and abp. of St
Andrews) 179
Bedfordshire, county of 206
Bell, Thomas 248
301
302
Index
Bellarmine, St Robert (1542-1621) 13

Bellenden, Adam (bp. of Dunblane) 173
Berkeley, Mary 109
Berkshire, county of 89, 205
Bertie, Peregrine, Lord Willoughby de
Eresby 60, 82
Berwick, Northumb. 9, 35, 185
billeting 196
Billington, Sandra 267
Bilson, Thomas 12
Bingham, Sir Richard 53, 118-20
Binkes, George 199
Bird, Henry 111, 117, 125
Bird, Thomas 198
Black, David 163, 175
Blackfriars, London 285
Blount, Charles, Lord Mountjoy, later earl
of Devonshire (d. 1606) 49,280,298,
299
Blount, Sir Christopher 49, 61
Boleyn, Sir Thomas, Viscount Rochford, 1st
earl of Wiltshire (d. 1539) 27
Bossy, John 109
Bouillon, duke of 81
Boulogne, France 33, 35, 197
Bourchier, William, 3rd earl of Bath
(d. 1623) 89,203
Bownd, Nicholas 152,247
Boyle, Richard 124
Bradshaw, Thomas 246
Bradshaw, William 253
Brandon, Charles, 1st duke of Suffolk
(d. 1545) 27
Bravonius, Florentius 244
Brecht, Bertolt 210
Breconshire, county of 89
Brereton, John 255
Brereton, William 32
Breton, Nicholas 239, 254, 255
Bridges, John 12
Bristol 197
Brittany, France 77, 79, 196
Brooke, Elizabeth 48, 82
Brooke, Henry, Lord Cobham (d. 1619) 44,
58, 82-4, 90, 280, 290
Brooke, Ralph 246
Brooke, William, Lord Cobham
(d. 1597) 47,69,82,91, 129
Broughton, Hugh 244^*6,250-2
Broughton, Richard 121
Browne, Sir Anthony, Viscount
Montague 27, 28
Browne, Robert 175
Bruce, Robert 176
Brucioli, Antonio 249
Buchanan, George 176, 179, 185
Buckinghamshire, county of 93
Bulkeley, Edward 250
Burgh, Thomas, Lord Burgh (lord deputy of
Ireland) 58
Burton, William 246
Butler, Charles 249
Butler, Samuel: Hudibras 164, 167
Butler, Thomas, 4th earl of Ormonde
(d. 1614) 236
Byford,Mark 164
Byng, Thomas 147, 148
Byron, Sir John 59
Cade, Jack 11
Cadiz, Spain 20, 30, 54-6, 80-5, 218, 222,
234, 283
Caesar, Sir Julius 234
Calvin, Jean 243
Cambridge, University of 128, 147
Camden, William 47, 61, 65, 101, 125, 253,
289
Campion, Thomas 216, 226, 247, 251
canon law 11, 131, 132, 139, 140, 142, 143,
146-8
Canterbury, Kent 90, 273
Cardiganshire, county of 89
Carew, George, 1st earl of Totnes
(d. 1629) 104, 105
Carew, Sir George 56, 59, 83, 112, 280
Carew, Richard 255
Carew Castle 123
Carey, Elizabeth 236, 242
Carey, George, 2nd Lord Hunsdon
(d. 1603) 242
Carey, Henry, 1st Lord Hunsdon
(d. 1596) 28, 35, 82, 89, 93, 103, 113,
115,236
Carey, Sir John 9
Carey, Sir Robert 43
Carleton, George 158,291,292
Carlson, Leland 157
Carmarthenshire, county of 89, 206
Carmigliano, Pietro 229
Carpenter, Christine 23
Cartwright, Thomas 6, 12, 63, 127, 128,
130, 132, 135, 137, 138,147
Case, John 249
Castiglione, Baldassare 274, 299
Castle Chamber, Court of 111
Cavendish, William, 1st duke of Newcastle
(d. 1676)88,94, 100
Cawdrey, Robert 11, 12, 130-9, 141, 142,
146, 164
Cecil, Sir Robert, later Viscount Cranborne,
earl of Salisbury (d. 1612) 5-9, 16, 17,
20, 24, 29, 37, 38, 41, 46, 47-64, 69,
303
Index
71-4, 77-9, 81-4, 86, 87, 90, 93, 97, 98,
105, 107, 152, 217, 222, 231, 243, 272,
278, 280, 281, 287-9, 291, 298, 299
Cecil, Thomas, later 2nd Lord Burghley 94,
110
Cecil, Sir William, later Lord Burghley
(d. 1598) 2-6, 8, 9, 13, 14, 21, 22, 29,
30, 37-42, 46-53, 56-9, 62, 63, 68, 69,
71-80, 82, 83, 85, 86, 88, 92, 97, 103,
110, 112, 113-20, 122, 124, 125, 129,
130, 132, 134, 135, 136-8, 146, 176,
178,192,193,196,216,217,231,
235-8, 244, 281, 299
Cecil Papers 48
Cecilian interest 6, 20, 46, 47, 49, 52, 55,
56, 62, 72, 82, 209
Certaine Observations (1642) 102
Chaloner, Sir Thomas 41
Chamber, John 249
Chamberlain, John 92, 223, 290
Chambers, Robert 253
Chancery, Court of 138
Chapman, George 286, 295, 296
The Conspiraciet and Tragedie of Charles
duke of Byron 275, 296, 297
Chard, Somerset 162
charivari 119
Charles I (king of England 1625-49) 93,
105, 187
Charles II (king of England 1660-85) 88
Chaucer, Geoffrey 243
Cheapside, London 161
Cheshire, county of 203
Chester 115,116,197
Cheyney,E. P. 18
Cheyney, Sir Henry, Lord Cheyney of
Toddington 29
Chivalry, Court of 106
Churchyard, Thomas 232, 238, 242, 243,
247,248, 251
A Handful of Gladsome Verses 232, 238

A Pleasant Conceite Penned in Verse 238
The Fortunate Farewell 60
Cinque Ports 44, 83
Clapham, John 256
Clark, Peter 196, 198
Clarus, Julius: Practica criminalis 140
Clayton, Giles 250
Clifford, Francis, 4th earl of Cumberland
(d. 1641) 97
Clifford, George, 3rd earl of Cumberland
(d. 1605) 90, 96, 215, 220, 226, 236
Clifford, Henry, 1st earl of Cumberland
(d. 1542) 27
Clifford, Margaret (nee Russell), countess of
Cumberland 238
Clinton, Edward, Lord Clinton, 1st earl of

Lincoln (d. 1585) 29
Cohen, Walter 213
Coke, Sir Edward 51, 61, 99, 100, 211
Colchester, Essex 161
Collier, John Payne 166
Collinson, Patrick 173, 258
Colonna, Francesco 246
Comines, Philippe de 245
common law 11, 13, 50, 105, 132, 136, 137,
148
Compton, Sir Henry, 1st Lord Compton
(d. 1589) 29
Compton, Richard 248
Compton, Sir William 32, 33
Compton, William, 2nd Lord Compton
(d. 1630) 90
compurgation 140
concessionary interest 40, 44
Conestaggio, Girolamo Franchi di 256
Connaught, Ireland 53, 109, 117, 118, 120,
124,125
consistory court 130
conspiracy 11, 14, 16, 19, 59, 70, 81, 111,
112, 122, 124, 129, 137, 170, 199, 296,
298,299
Convocation 145
Cooke, Mildred 124
Cooper, Thomas (bp. of Lincoln) 130
Cope, Anthony 130
Cope, Walter 62
Coriolanus 295
Cork, Ireland 238
Cornwall, county of 79, 89, 162, 163
Cornwallis, William 69
corruption 15, 16, 110, 124, 177, 278, 293
Cosin, Richard 18, 137-43, 147, 148
Anapologie 138, 141, 148
Answer to . . . an abstract of certeine acts of
Parliament (1584) 137
Conspiracie, for pretended reformation 18,
137
Ecclesiae Anglicanae politeia in tabulas

digesta 138
Cotton, Sir Robert 102, 104, 105
Counter-Reformation 1
Court, royal 1-4, 6, 8, 16, 20-4, 32, 38,
40-2, 44, 48, 50, 55, 56, 58, 60, 62,
66-70, 72-4, 77, 80-4, 86, 88, 92, 96-8,

100, 137, 213, 214, 216, 217, 218, 224,
226, 227, 231, 234-7, 240, 260,272,
274-6, 281, 282, 284-7, 289, 291, 298,

299,300
of Henry VIII 29,260,266
of Scotland 188
Covell, William 247
304
Index
Coventry, War. 207,210

Cranmer, Thomas (abp. of Canterbury) 262
Reformatio legum ecclesiasticarum 146
crime 8-11, 119, 120, 140, 141, 148, 192,
193,200-2, 205, 207, 211, 279, 288
Croft, Sir James 43
Cromwell, Thomas, Lord Cromwell, 1st earl
of Essex (d. 1540) 34,37
Crown lands 5, 26, 31-3, 35, 38-40, 71
Croydon, Surrey 263, 265
Cuffe, Henry, secretary of the 2nd earl of
Essex 55, 290
cult of Elizabeth I 15, 92, 212, 213, 215,
216,218,225,228
customs 5, 34, 35, 38-40, 132, 145, 146,
258,260, 271
Dalton, James 136
Damon, William 244
Daniel, Samuel 239, 253-5, 257, 281, 297,
298, 300
Cleopatra 240
Delia 240
Philotas 286, 297, 299
Danyell, Henry 200
Darcy, Sir Thomas, 1st Lord Darcy
(d. 1558) 28
Darcy, Sir Thomas, 2nd Lord Darcy
(d. 1581) 30
Darcy, Thomas, 3rd Lord Darcy
(d. 1640) 89
Darrell, John 249
Daunce, Edward 250
Davidson, John 176, 179-83, 186
Bancroft's rashness in ray ling against the
Church of Scotland 176,181
Davies, John 215, 226, 245, 252, 257
Nosce Teipsum 212
Davison, Francis 216, 222, 223, 225-8
Masque of Proteus 216, 218, 220
Poetical Rhapsody 216, 223,224, 226, 227
Davison, Walter 225
Davison, William 75, 134, 216, 217, 222
de Vere, Edward, 17th earl of Oxford
(d. 1604) 236
Deacon, John 250
Dekker, Thomas 282
Iests to Make You Merie 169
Old Fortunatus 284
The Wonder of a Kingdom 168
Derbyshire, county of 96
Dering, Edward 250
Dethick, Sir William 95, 104
Devereux, Robert, 2nd earl of Essex
(d. 1601) 1, 3, 4, 6, 7, 14, 16, 17, 20,
30, 40, 43, 44, 46-64, 68-87, 89, 91,
92-4, 96-101, 103, 104, 106, 107, 113,

115, 122, 123, 129, 152, 209, 214-18,
220, 222-6, 231, 234, 236, 238, 239,
245, 248, 260, 275, 276-300
Devereux, Robert, 3rd earl of Essex
(d. 1646) 99, 102, 104
Devereux, Walter, 1st Viscount Hereford
(d. 1558) 28
Devereux, Walter, Viscount Hereford, 1st
earl of Essex (d. 1576) 29
Devon, county of 89, 163, 203, 206, 210
stannary of 255
Digby, Everard 254
Dod,John 169
Dodderidge, John 105
Doncaster, Yorks. 95
Donne, John 215,275
Dorset, county of 89, 90
Dove, John 249
Dover, Kent 197
Dowland, John 242, 256
Downame, John 249
Drake, Sir Francis 52, 80, 199
Drayton, Michael 255, 256
Dromahair, Ireland 119
Drummond of Hawthornden, William 276
Du Chesne, Joseph 245
Du Laurens, Andre 248
Dublin 110, 112, 114, 115, 117-20, 122, 125
Dudley, Sir Ambrose, 1st earl of Warwick
(d. 1590) 2,29
Dudley, Anne (nee Russell), countess of
Warwick 69, 238
Dudley, John, 1st earl of Warwick, 1st duke
of Northumberland (d. 1553) 28
Dudley, Lord Robert, earl of Leicester
(d. 1588) 2, 3, 5-7, 11, 15, 29, 30, 38,
40-2, 47, 53, 62, 65, 66, 73, 91, 113,
129, 139, 217, 220, 221, 224, 235, 238,
240,241,261,281,299
duelling 7, 105, 247
Dyer, Edward 82, 224, 227
Dyer, Sir Edward 104
Earl Marshal, Court of 99, 104-6
Edinburgh 163, 173, 175, 176, 180, 184, 271
Edward II (king of England 1307-27) 102
Edward IV (king of England 1461-9;
1471-83) 26, 31, 33
Edward VI (king of England 1547-53) 27,
41, 43, 266
Egerton, Sir Ralph 32
Egerton, Sir Thomas 49-51, 59, 60, 93, 107,
231,234,235,248
Elizabeth I (queen of England 1558-1603)
and marriage 39, 221
Index
and religious settlement (1559) 13,133,
146,261
and sovereignty 12, 13, 213

and the succession 7,13-15, 17, 88, 98,
107, 220, 261
as Astraea 2, 214,225, 226

as Cynthia 226,241,270,285
as Elizabetha Triumphans 214, 220
as Gloriana 214
as Phoebe 212
as Virgin Queen 2, 4, 18, 255, 270
books dedicated to 231, 232, 234, 238,
250
character 3,4, 77, 80, 86, 95, 97, 213, 275
her'Mask of Youth' 212
her political thought 13
posthumous reputation 65
reputation for parsimony 26, 37, 87, 88,
230
other refs. 16, 38, 39, 65, 74, 76, 77, 81,
84^-7, 90, 91, 94, 98, 103, 113, 118, 119,
121, 133, 137, 146, 174, 189, 210, 212,
217, 221, 225, 229, 232, 240, 262, 263,
266, 278, 280, 284, 285, 296, 299
see also Court royal; cult of Elizabeth I;
faction; favourites; nobility; patronage;
progresses of Elizabeth I; supremacy,
royal
Elton, G. R. 152, 211, 213, 214
embezzlement 8
enclosures 198,204
Enslow Hill, Oxon. 199
Erasmus of Rotterdam 262
Esher, Surrey 169
Essex, county of 89, 164, 199-201
Essexian interest 44, 47,49, 51, 55, 58, 59,
63, 81, 82, 299
Essex's revolt (1601) 4, 6, 61, 91-4, 97, 98,
100, 103, 106, 214
Euripides 262
Hecuba 262
Iphigenia 262
Evans, Thomas: Oedipus 235

ex officio procedure 11,131-3,135-7,
139-48
exchequer 5, 8, 35, 37, 38, 71, 79, 85, 134
Exeter, Devon 203, 205
extortion 8
faction 20, 21, 24, 45, 46, 48, 49, 55, 58,
59, 63, 65-8, 71, 72, 77, 78, 152, 217,
272,278, 280, 288, 299
Faunt, Nicholas 37
favourites 2,16, 275, 278, 280, 281, 300
Fenton, Sir Geoffrey 110,112,121
feudal tenure 26
305
Finkelpearl, Philip 215
Fisher of Warwick, Thomas 41
Fitzgerald, Walter Reagh 112
Fitzwilliam, John 111,113
Fitzwilliam, Sir William 38, 110-14,
118-22, 124, 125
Fitzwilliam, William 38
flattery 15, 213, 220, 222, 224, 231, 236
Fleetwood, William 102
Fletcher, Giles 239, 250
Florence, Italy 222
Florio, John 255, 256
Floyd, Thomas 249
Folger Shakespeare Library, Washington
DC 292
food supplies 5,210
Forde, Emanuel 245
foreign policy 1, 3, 21, 53, 63, 65, 66
Fortescue, Sir John (d. 1476) 31,42
Fortescue, Sir John (d. 1607) 6, 61, 110,
134, 137
Foucault, Michel 213
Fox, Edward: De vera differentia 133
France 1,18, 26, 29, 36, 56, 61, 72-7,
79-81, 84, 86, 185, 197, 222, 223, 274,
282^*, 289
Fraunce, Abraham 239, 254
Fregeville, Jean de 251
French Catholic League 1
Froude,J. A. 21
Fumee, Martin 243
Gaebelkhover, Oswald 252
Gager, William 246, 251, 254
Galle, Francis 68, 69
Galvam or Balvano, Antonio 243
Gardiner, Samuel 249
Gardiner, Stephen: De vera obedientia 12,
133
Garland, John 122
Garrard, William 246
garter, knights of the 94-6, 104
Gaveston, Piers 300
genealogy 97, 106
General Assembly, of Scotland 172,173,
176, 184, 189, 190
General Surveyors 35
Gentilis, Albericus 245
Gerard, John 245, 255
Gerard, Sir Thomas 70
Gesta Grayorum 215, 217, 219-21
Gibbon, Charles 250
Gibson, James 179, 184
Gibson, John 248
Gifford, George 244, 246-8
Glamorganshire, county of 89
306
Index
Gledstanes, George (abp. of St

Andrews) 173
Globe Theatre 282
Gloucester, Glos. 90
Gloucestershire, county of 205
Godwin, Francis: Catalogue of the Bishops of
England 264
Goldberg, Jonathan 213
Goldsborough, Godfrey 173
Goodman, Godfrey (bp. of Gloucester) 17
Gorboduc 220, 226
Gosson, Stephen 166
grants 4, 5, 8, 32-4, 37, 39-41, 89, 90
Gray's Inn 215, 216, 220, 260
Greenblatt, Stephen 213
Greenham, Richard 152
Greenwich 2
Gregorian Decretals 140, 146
Grenville, Sir Richard 162
Greville, Sir Fulke 224, 227, 286, 299
Grey, Arthur, Lord Grey of Wilton
(d. 1593) 93,236
Grey, Henry, 3rd marquis of Dorset, 1st
duke of Suffolk (d. 1554) 28
Grey, Lady Jane 130
Grey, Reynold, 4th earl of Kent (rest. 1571,
d. 1573) 29
Grey, Thomas, Lord Grey of Wilton
(d. 1614) 58,84,280
Grindal, Edmund (abp. of Canterbury) 139,
262,263
Gude and Godlie Ballatis 188

Guicciardini, Francesco 15
Guicciardini, Ludovico 244
Guillemeau, Jacques 252
Gunpowder Plot (1605) 108,151
Guy, John 33
Hacket, William 138, 161
Haigh, Christopher 23, 97, 210
Hakluyt, Richard 243
Hall, Joseph 159
Halle, Edward: Chronicle 260
Haller, William 152
Hampshire, county of 163
Hampton Court 238
Hampton Court Conference 148, 150, 190,
261,272
Hannay, Margaret 225
Harington, Sir John 263, 264, 266, 275, 280
Harington of Stepney, John 41
Hariot, Thomas 255
Harrington, Sir Henry 112
harvest 9,195, 196,198, 205, 206, 208, 261,
268,269
Harvey, Gabriel 166, 169, 235
Pierces Supererogation 169

Harvey, Richard 245, 246
Hassell Smith, A. 93
Hastings, Catherine, countess of
Huntingdon 38
Hastings, Sir Francis 162
Hastings, George, Lord Hastings, 1st earl of
Huntingdon (d. 1544) 27
Hastings, Henry, 3rd earl of Huntingdon
(d. 1595) 65
Hattaway, Michael 155
Hatton, Sir Christopher 3, 6, 12, 40, 47, 53,
62, 73, 113, 125, 129, 130, 231, 233,
236, 253, 281
Hatton, Elizabeth 113
Haverfordwest, Pembrokeshire 110
Hawkins, Henry 223
Hawkins, Sir John 52, 80
Hayward, John 248, 274, 279
The First Part of the Life and Raigne of
Henry llll 60, 100, 279
Heneage, Sir Thomas 9, 49, 82
Henry IV (king of England 1399-1413) 26
Henry IV (king of France 1589-1610; king
of Navarre) 49, 58, 73-6, 79, 81, 86,
293, 296
Henry VI (king of England 1422-61;
1470-1) 26
Henry VII (king of England 1485-1509) 26,
31, 33, 91, 229, 253
Henry VIII (king of England 1509-47) 7,
11-13, 25, 27-9, 31-3, 37, 40, 99, 109,
123, 133, 137, 143, 146, 229, 260, 266,
267, 270
Henry, Prince of Wales (d. 1612) 264

Henslowe, Philip 69
heraldry 101, 103-6
heralds, petition of 103, 104
Herbert, Mary (nee Sidney), countess of
Pembroke 224, 230, 231, 236, 239,
254
Herbert, Sir William, 1st earl of Pembroke
(d. 1570) 28
Herbert, William, 3rd earl of Pembroke
(d. 1630) 224
Herefordshire, county of 206
Heresy Act (1534) 144
Hernhill, Kent 198
Hertfordshire, county of 73, 89, 199
Hester, John 242
Hext, Edward 192, 193, 196, 203, 211
Heywood, John 262
Hickes, Sir Michael 22, 57
High Commission 6, 11, 129-37, 139, 141,
143, 146, 147
Hill, Christopher 101,152
307
Index
History of the Deeds of Alexander the
Great 297
Holinshed, Raphael 295
Holland, Henry 245
Holland, Hugh 277
Holland, Thomas 253
Homer 248
honour 2,4, 7, 50, 54, 57, 70, 82, 87, 95, 98,
103,215,220, 226, 290, 294, 295
Hooker, Richard 136,153, 164, 169
Of the Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity 148,
153
Hortop, Job 251

Houghton, Roger 62
Howard, Sir George 41
Howard, Henry, Lord Howard, 1st earl of
Northampton (d. 1614) 49, 71, 98, 101,
104, 105, 276, 278, 287, 298, 299
Howard, Philip, 13th earl of Arundel
(d. 1595) 96
Howard, Sir Thomas, 1st Viscount Howard
ofBindon(d. 1582) 28
Howard, Thomas, 14th earl of Arundel
(d. 1646) 106
Howard, Thomas, 3rd Viscount Howard of
Bindon(d. 1611) 90
Howard, Thomas, 4th duke of Norfolk
(d. 1572) 96,99,101,104
Howard, Thomas, Lord Howard de Walden,
1st earl of Suffolk (d. 1626) 29, 108,
280
Howard of Effingham, Charles, 2nd Lord,
1st earl of Nottingham (d. 1624) 6, 29,
48, 49, 54, 58, 59, 73, 80, 82, 83, 84, 89,
91, 96, 98, 103, 113, 236, 280, 291
Howard of Effingham, William, 1st Lord
(d. 1572) 29, 96
Howland, Richard (bp. of
Peterborough) 164
Hubbocke, William 247
Hues, Robert 255
Hume, Alexander 246
Huntingdonshire, county of 206
influenza 1, 10
Inner Temple 220
Inns of Court 2, 215, 220, 224, 258-60
Ireland 1, 3, 4, 7, 26, 38, 54, 58-61, 78, 79,
84,86,92, 109, 110, 111, 113, 115,
120-5, 185, 196, 197, 210, 236,280,
285, 288
Irish Council 110, 112, 124, 125
Ive, Paul 252
Ives, E. W. 24
James, Mervyn E. 98
James, William 254

James IV (king of Scotland 1488-1513) 188
James V (king of Scotland 1513-42) 188
James VI and I
king of England (1603-25) 4, 10, 24, 37,
71, 85, 101, 105, 107, 188, 190, 209,
217,240,261
king of Scotland (1567-1625) 12,13,15,
17, 87, 94, 98, 106, 107, 120, 148, 171,
172, 174, 180, 185, 186, 188-90, 261,
271
Basilikon Doron 185, 187
Trew Law of Free Monarchies 185
Jehoshaphat (king of Israel) 176
Jesuits 126, 129
Jewel, John (bp. of Salisbury): An Apology
of the Church of England 147
jigs 165, 166
Johnson, Edward 251
Jones, Emrys 223
Jonson, Ben 16, 17, 159, 167, 215, 218, 256,
274-82, 285, 286, 300
Bartholomew Fair 159,167
Christmas Masque 272
Cynthia's Revels 285
Eastward Ho! 277
Every Man Out of His Humour 215, 285
Sejanus 16, 17, 275, 276, 278-31, 286
The Alchemist 167
Juvenal 153, 168
Kellwaye, Simon 246
Kenilworth Castle, War. 221
Kent, county of 196-9
Kett, Robert 11
Keymis, Lawrence 255
Kilkhampton, Cornwall 162
Killigrew, Sir Henry 43
Kimedoncius, Jacobus 249
King, John 249
king-in-parliament 12
kirk 171-3, 175, 177, 178, 180-4, 186, 188,
189, 191, 260, 261
Knee, Elizabeth 115,116
Knollys, Sir Francis 6, 48, 115, 136, 137,
144
Knollys, Sir William 49, 59, 61, 84
Knox, John 172, 174, 176, 177, 179
Kyd, Thomas: Spanish Tragedy 266
L'Obel, Mattias de 242
La Vardin, Jacques de 242
Lake, Peter 153, 155, 169
Lake, Sir Thomas 50, 52, 55, 59, 62, 274
Lambarde, William 103, 203, 211
Lambeth articles 6
308
Index
Lancashire, county of 206

land revenue 33, 34, 36, 38, 90
Langston, Beach 292
Latimer, Hugh 126
Laud, William (abp. of Canterbury) 148,
170, 187
Laudianism 148
law and order 5, 192, 203, 207, 211
leases 5, 31, 32, 35, 37, 39
Lee, Thomas 124
Legge, Robert 124
Leicester's Commonwealth 65
Leigh, Edward 233
Leitrim, county of 118
Leius, Matthias 253
Leo, John 243
Leonard, Margaret 111, 116
lese-majeste 4, 119, 128,284
Lewin, Dr William 136
Lewis, C S. 157, 227
libels 59-61, 159, 161, 163, 166, 168
Linaker, Robert 247
Lincolnshire, county of 39, 197, 205
Lindley, Sir Henry 57
Lindsay, Sir David: Satire of the Thrie
Estaitis 188
Lipsius, Justus 277
Lismore, Ireland 117
Lives and Letters of the Devereux, Earls of
Essex 47
Livio da Forli, Tito 229
Livy 253
Lloyd, Lodowick 244,251,253
localities 92, 93, 99
Loftus, Adam (abp. of Dublin) 109, 112,
114,121,122
Lok, Henry 242, 243, 245, 247, 249, 251,
252, 255, 256
London 2, 10, 40, 59, 61, 62, 79, 100, 103,
107, 110-17, 124, 125, 130, 156, 160,
162, 164, 165, 174, 179, 183, 197, 198,
207, 259, 260, 262, 264, 265, 266, 268,
272,291,295,297,300
Long Parliament 106, 148
Lopez, Dr Roderigo 51-3, 62, 76, 77
Loque, Bertrand de 246
Lord High Steward, tracts on 102, 105
lords lieutenant 61, 90-5, 198, 206
Lowe, Peter 247
Lucius I (mythical king of Britain) 133
Lumley, John, Lord Lumley (d. 1609) 90
Lyly, John 165, 166, 170, 239
Endimion 270
The Woman in the Moon 270
Lyndwode, William 142-4
Lysias 246
MacCaffrey, Wallace T. 18, 48, 66, 97, 218

McCoy, Richard 98, 100, 260
Magna Carta 132, 136, 147, 148
Magrath, Miler (abp. of Cashel) 111, 122
Main Plot (1603) 16,91
Maitland of Lethington, Richard 187
Malynes, Gerard de 243, 250
Manners, Edward, 3rd earl of Rutland
(d. 1587) 235
Manners, John, 4th earl of Rutland
(d. 1588) 95
Manners, Roger, 5th earl of Rutland
(d. 1612) 79, 280
Manners, Thomas, Lord Roos, 1 st earl of
Rutland (d. 1543) 27
Manwood, Sir Roger 134, 135
Maplesden, John 111,125
Markham, Gervase 256
Markham, Robert 280
Marlowe, Christopher: Edward II 278
Marprelate tracts 157-9, 162, 163, 188, 261
Marston, John 274
The Scourge of Villanie 169
Marten, Anthony 250
Martial 153
martial law 50, 148
Martin, Philip 162,163
Martin Marprelate 129, 137, 154, 156-9,
161,163-5, 168, 169
Mary (queen of Scotland 1542-67, also
known as Mary Stuart) 1, 4, 13, 14, 75,
77, 95, 134, 137, 175, 179, 180, 216, 217
Mary I (queen of England 1553-8) 10, 28,
35, 36, 41, 126, 130, 146, 148, 266
Mary of Guise 179
Masque of Pallaphilos 220
Masterton, Thomas 246
Matthew, Tobie 151
Maunsell, Andrew 247, 251
Melville, Andrew 172, 175, 184
Melville, James 177, 181, 183, 184
Meredith, Richard (bp. of Leighlin) 114,
115,124
Meyrick, Sir Gelly 84, 289
Middle Temple 260
Middlesex 89, 245, 251
Middleton, Thomas 247
The Family of Love 167,168
Mildmay, Sir Anthony 57
Mildmay, Sir Walter 2, 38, 62, 129
militia rates 5
Miller, Helen 32
Misfortunes of Arthur 221
mixed polity 12-14, 100, 101, 105, 127, 128,
148
Modus Tenendi Parliamentum 99
Index
Moffett, Thomas 239, 255
monastic lands 34, 39, 129
Monmouthshire, county of 90, 206
monopolies 5, 8, 39, 40, 96, 107
Montaigne, Michel de 255
Montgomeryshire, county of 89
Moore, Sir Edward 114
More, George 252
More, Sir Thomas 15, 143, 229
History of Richard III 16
Play of Sir Thomas More 286
Morice, James 11, 130,132, 134-8, 143,
148
A briefe treatise of oathes 138
Morley, Henry 243
Morley, Thomas 239, 242, 255
Mornay, Philippe de 248
Morrill,John 185
Morris, William 152
Morrison, Richard 229
mortality 4, 10, 53, 94, 195, 196
Morton, John (cardinal and abp. of
Canterbury) 262
Morton, Thomas 248,252
Mucedorus 167
Mullaney, Stephen 213
Mundy, John 246
Munster, Ireland 117, 124
Musgrave, Simon 41
musters 5, 93
mutinies 197
Namier, Sir Lewis 21
Napier, Barbara 185
Nashe, Thomas 165,242,256,263,271
Christs Teares over lerusalem 240
Summer's Last Will and Testament 258,
265
Unfortunate Traveller 168
Naunton, Sir Robert 22, 65, 77, 175, 176
Fragmenta regalia 22, 43
Neale, Sir John 21-3, 46-S, 63, 65-7, 152
Nebuchadnezzar 187
Needham, Francis 95
Neile, Richard 151
Nenna, Giovanni Battista 247
Nesbit, E. 253
Netherlands 1, 9, 21, 35, 42, 47, 61, 92, 106,
111,129,130,138,196,197
Neville, Charles, 6th earl of Westmorland
(d. 1601) 96
New Historicism 213
New Ross, Ireland 111
Newton, Thomas 256
Nicholls, Charles 109
Nichols, Josias 247
309
nobility 1, 2, 4, 5, 7, 18, 23, 26, 27, 29-31,
48, 50, 55, 64, 87-92, 94, 95, 97-101,
103, 105, 107, 108, 110, 111, 180, 181,
214, 215, 238, 240, 247, 270, 289, 297
nonconformity 1, 3, 11
Nonesuch 90
Norden,John 245,247,251-3
Norfolk, county of 49, 93, 206
Normandy, France 74, 75, 196, 256
Norris, Henry, Lord Norris of Rycote 29
Norris, Sir John 236
North, Roger, Lord North (d. 1600) 49
Northamptonshire, county of 162
Norwich, Norfolk 160
Nottingham, Notts. 164
Nottinghamshire, county of 95, 96, 206
O'Brien, Donough, 4th earl of Thomond
(d. 1624) 118
O'Clery, Conn 118
O'Donnell, Hugh 125
O'Mollony, Malachy 116
O'Neill, Hugh, 2nd earl of Tyrone
(d. 1616) 125
O'Roughan, Sir Dennis 110-17,120,122
O'Rourke, Brian 118-22,124
6 Treabhair, Cairbre 120
offices 2, 4, 8, 9, 11, 17, 20, 22, 25, 28-42,
48, 51, 59, 62, 67-9, 73, 75-7, 80, 82,
83, 87, 88, 90-2, 95-108, 113, 114, 131,
154, 193, 203, 208, 209, 216,217,
234-*, 238-40, 264, 266, 268, 269, 275,
285
Orgel, Stephen: The Jonsonian Masque 218
Ortelius, Abraham 255
Ortiz, Antonio 242
Oxford, University of 50, 82, 120, 129, 162,
189,259
Oxfordshire, county of 167, 206
Oxfordshire Rising (1596) 11, 198, 206, 210,
211
pageant 217,266-8
Paget, Eusebius 152, 162, 163
Paget, Sir William, Lord Paget 28
Pallavicio, Sir Horatio 243
Panama, expedition to 52, 80
Parker, Matthew (abp. of Canterbury) 139,
262, 263
Parliament 4, 8, 12-14, 21, 32, 33, 36, 51,
53, 103, 106, 110, 123, 126-8, 130, 133,
136, 137, 146, 148, 152, 157, 158, 163,
176, 177, 181, 184, 186, 190, 194, 204,
206,215,261,264
Parr, William, 1st earl of Essex, 1st marquis
of Northampton (d. 1571) 28
310
Index
Parry, Sir Thomas 223

Parsons, Robert 13, 246
Pasquill of England 165
patent rolls 33, 89, 90
patronage 1, 5-7, 18, 20-6, 3CM5, 48, 50,
56, 59, 65-71, 8^-8, 91, 95, 100, 138,
152, 171, 229, 230, 231-3, 235, 236,
238,240-2,279,281
Paulet, Sir William, 1st earl of Wiltshire, 1st
marquis of Winchester (d. 1572) 28,
35-9
Paul's Cross 61, 62, 174, 292, 293
Peck, Linda Levy 23, 71
Pembroke College, Cambridge 235
Pembrokeshire, county of 89
Penshurst, Kent 283
Penzance, Cornwall 53
Percy, Algernon 98
Percy, Henry, 9th earl of Northumberland
(d. 1632) 87, 98, 106, 107, 108, 236
Percy, Thomas 108
Percy, Thomas, 7th earl of Northumberland
(d. 1572) 42, 96
Percyvall, Richard 246
Perez, Antonio 72,81
Perkins, William 255, 256
Perne, Andrew 168
Pernius, Joannes 244
Perrot, Sir John 3, 41, 109-25
Perrot, Thomas 109, 113, 116, 121, 123
Petition of Right (1628) 148
Peyton, Sir John 287
Philip II (king of Spain 1556-98; king of
England as Philip I 1554-8) 7, 72, 110,
123,199, 205
Phoenix Nest 224
Pickering, Maurice 115
Pilgrimage to Parnassus 167
plague 1, 10, 195, 203, 209, 246, 263, 265,
266,26&-71
Platt, Hugh 247
Playfere, Thomas 242
Pliny 243
Plutarch 253, 297
Lives of the Noble Grecians and
Romans 297
Plymouth, Devon 89,205
poenae 142-4, 148
Pole, Reginald (cardinal and abp. of
Canterbury) 126,262
Polonius 3
Polybius 127
Ponet, John 100
Pont, Robert 176
Pontefract Castle 95
poor law legislation 194, 208, 211
poor relief 10, 196,207

'popularity' 1, 54, 55, 60, 63, 128, 300
population 10, 23, 110, 193-6, 207, 208, 210
poverty 1, 8, 11, 194, 195, 209, 210, 234
Powell, Gabriel 249
Powell, Griffinus 247, 248
Powell, Thomas 257
Powle, Sir Stephen 227
Poynings, Sir Thomas 25
prerogative 8, 12, 13, 102, 105, 130-3, 145,
146, 149, 155
presbyterianism 6, 11, 12, 127-9, 131, 132,
137, 172, 173, 174-6, 178-80, 182, 183,
186-8, 190, 261
Prest, Wilfred 215
prices 1, 9, 10, 198, 200, 201, 206-8
privateering 96
privy chamber 3, 6, 33, 37
Privy Council 2, 4-7, 11, 13-17, 21, 32, 35,
37, 41, 47, 49, 51, 54, 55, 58, 60, 63, 65,
66, 71, 73-5, 77, 81, 86, 89, 90, 92-4,
96, 97, 107, 110, 113-15, 129, 130, 135,
137, 179, 184, 203, 205, 206, 217, 238,
261, 276, 286, 288, 292, 297, 298
privy signet bills 90
progresses of Elizabeth I 2, 263, 265
Puckering, Sir John 129, 130, 233
Puritaine or the Widdow of
Wattling-streete 167
Puritanism 3, 6, 11, 12, 18, 67, 68, 126, 128,
129, 131, 132, 134, 137, 138, 148, 150,
152-5, 157, 158, 160, 161-74, 177, 184,
187-91,225,264,272
purveyance 8, 196
Putney, Middx. 262
Queen's Bench 11, 105, 122, 131, 132, 134,
135, 138, 217
Racster, John 248
Radcliffe, Robert, Viscount Fitzwalter, 1st
earl of Sussex (d. 1542) 27
Radnorshire, county of 89
Rainolds, John 247
Ralegh, Sir Walter 3, 16, 17, 56, 58, 82-4,
97, 226, 231, 234, 236, 238, 243, 245,
255,274,280,281,290
Ramus, Peter 168
Read, Conyers 21, 22, 65, 66
recusancy 5, 93, 111
regnum Cedlianum 6, 14, 41,46, 48, 59,
63
Requests, masters of 37, 234
revels 2, 215, 216, 218-20, 258-61, 263,
265, 272, 285, 297, 298
Revolution of 1688-9 15
Index
Reynoldes, Edward, secretary of the 2nd
earl of Essex 54,57,82,84
rhymes 118, 153, 159, 160, 164, 166
Rich, Sir Richard, later Lord Rich 28
Rich, Robert, Lord Rich, later earl of
Warwick (d. 1619) 280
Richard II (king of England 1377-99) 26,
103, 279, 300
Richard III (king of England 1483-5) 7, 33
riots 197, 198, 203, 205
Ripley, George 251
Roberts, Hugh 249
Robinson, Richard 234,235
A Proceeding in the Harmony of King
David's Harp 233
Eupolemia 233
Fourth Instalment 234
Rollins, Hyder 223-5
Rouen, France 73-5, 289
Row, John 173, 177
Rowlands or Vestegan, Richard 253
Rowley, Samuel: When You See Me You
Know Me 267
Rudyerd, Sir Benjamin 189
Russell, Lady Elizabeth 83
Russell, John, Lord Russell, 1st earl of
Bedford (d. 1555) 28
Russell, Lucy (nee Harington), countess of
Bedford 230, 240, 255
RuthvenRaid 179, 181
Rye, Sussex 207
Sabbatarianism 152
Sackville, Sir Richard 29
Sackville, Sir Thomas, Lord Buckhurst, 1st
earl of Dorset (d. 1608) 1, 3, 6, 8, 29,
30, 37, 39, 47-9, 58, 60, 61, 82, 98, 103,
110,113,129,236
Sadler, Sir Ralph 42
St Dunstan's, Canterbury 198
St George, Richard 105
St German, Christopher 12, 13, 143
St John, Captain 49
St John, Oliver, Lord St John of Bletso 28
St John Chrysostom 254
Saluste du Bartas, Guillaume de 248, 251,
255
Sandwich, Kent 56, 198
sanitation 2
Sansovino, Francesco 243
Saravia, Hadrian 12,244,254
Savile, Sir Henry 80, 252
Saviolo, Vicentio 247
Scipio, Publius Cornelius 60
Scotland 12, 61, 87, 120, 171-6, 178, 181,
182, 185-8, 190, 191, 260
311
Seagar, Stephen 110, 115, 122
sedition 6, 184, 199, 279
Segar, William 253, 254
self-incrimination 136, 140, 144
Seneca 262
Session, Court of 261
Seymour, Edward, 1st earl of Hertford
(d. 1621) 28, 90
Seymour, Sir Edward, 1st duke of Somerset
(d. 1552) 27,28
Seymour, Thomas, Lord Seymour of
Sudeley 28
Shakespeare, William 100, 122, 154, 160,
166, 214, 216, 219, 256, 267, 282, 283,
294, 295
Comedy of Errors 216,219,221,
222
Hamlet 156, 159
Henry IV Part 2 160
Henry V 295
Henry VIII 267, 295
Love's Labour's Lost 282, 284
Measure for Measure 161
Richard II 100,214,278
Twelfth Night 154, 166, 169
Sheffield, Edmund, Lord Sheffield 28
Sheffield Castle 95
Shelford, Robert 250
ship money 93
Shirley, Sir Thomas 9
Shropshire, county of 89, 206
Sidney, Sir Henry 29, 43, 235, 240
Sidney, Lady 62
Sidney, Sir Philip 7, 15, 79, 214, 224-7,
234, 235, 240, 254, 283, 286, 299
Arcadia 225, 254, 283, 284
Sidney, Sir Robert 20, 30, 44, 49, 52, 53,
55-7, 91, 104, 280, 285
Sidney Papers 20, 47
Silver, George 248
Sisson, C. J. 158, 166
Skelton, John 229
skimmington 160
Smith, Henry 244
Smith, Nichol 233
Smyth, William 252
Somerset, Edward, 4th earl of Worcester
(d. 1628) 4, 82, 90, 93, 97, 103, 280
Somersetshire, county of 39, 89, 90, 192,
203
South Luffenham, Rutland 131,132
Southwell, Elizabeth 78
Southwell, Robert 251
Spain 1, 5, 7, 10, 18, 22, 43, 54, 73, 79-S1,
84,86, 110,111, 112,116, 117, 120,
209,217,218,281
312
Index
spectacle 213, 216

Spenser, Edmund 8, 46, 226, 235-S, 241,
242, 244, 245, 250, 254-6, 271
Colin Clouts Come Home Againe 237
Fowre Hyrnnes 238
Mother Hubbard's Tale 237, 238
Prothalamion 237, 238
Ruines of Time 271
The Faerie Queene 236, 238, 242, 244,
245, 250, 254, 255
The Shepheardes Calendar 212, 235
The Teares of the Muses 237
Spottiswoode, John (abp. of St
Andrews) 173, 187
Staffordshire, county of 89, 96
Stage Puritan 154,166,167
Standen, Sir Anthony 51, 69, 71, 76
Stanhope, Sir John 49, 95, 97
Stanley, Alice (nee Spencer), countess of
Derby 230, 256
Stanley, Edward, 3rd earl of Derby
(d. 1572) 95
Stanley, Ferdinando, 5th earl of Derby
(d. 1594) 97,256
Stanley, Sir William 111,117
Stanley, William, 6th earl of Derby
(d. 1642) 94
Star Chamber, Court of 6, 10, 60, 61, 97,
105, 111, 124, 130, 134,135, 136, 137,
156,216
Starkey, David 33, 98, 99
Starkey, Thomas 100,229
starvation 10, 196, 203
Stepney, William 243
stewardships 31, 32
Stockwood, John 245
Stone, Lawrence 23, 98
Stowe, John 259, 272
Strasburg 130
Stratford-upon-Avon, War. 160, 161
Strickland, William 146
Strigelius, Victorinus 248, 252, 254
Strong, Roy 98, 212, 214
Strype, John 46
Stuart, Esme, duke of Lennox 180
Stubbs,John 134
The discoverie of a gaping gulf 134
Subscription, campaign for clerical 11, 131,
135,136, 138
Supplication against the Ordinaries
(1532) 144
supremacy, royal 11, 12, 127, 133,182,
184
Surrey, county of 59, 89, 199, 205

Sussex, county of 199, 205
Sutcliffe, Matthew 244, 246, 250
Tacitus 15-17,226,246,248,251,277-9,
299,300
Talbot, George, 6th earl of Shrewsbury
(d. 1590) 73,88,94,95, 103
Talbot, Gilbert, 7th earl of Shrewsbury
(d. 1616) 4, 93, 95, 96, 97, 280
Tanner, Robert 251
Tarleton 159, 160, 164-6
Tasso, Torquato 253
taxation 8, 40, 60, 151, 198
Tennenhouse, Leonard 213
Theobalds 50, 53, 97
Thomas, David 39
Thomas, Lewis 249
Thomas, Reece 122
Throkmorton, Job 157
Thynne, Francis 90
Tiberius 16,278-80,300
Tighe, William J. 38
tilts 7,15,92,214,215
tithes 129, 143, 189
Tooker, William 252
Townshend, Hayward 102
trained bands 196
Trinity College, Cambridge 127,128, 138
Trott, Nicholas 70
Tuscany 222
Two Wise Men and All the Rest
Fooles 168
Tyacke, Nicholas 153
Tyburn, gallows at 123
Tylney, Edmund 265
tyranny 16,61,278,282,300
Ubaldini, Petruccio 251,252
Udall,John 129
unemployment 8, 11
Unton, Sir Henry 95
vagrancy 9, 11, 59, 192, 193, 196, 205, 207,
208
Valera, Cipriano de 249
Vaughan, William 248
venality 8
Vennard, Richard 253
Vere, Sir Francis 20, 44, 285
Vergil, Polydore 229
Vigor, Simon 250
Virginia 255
Voyon, Simon de 249
wages 10, 25, 62, 194, 210, 234
Waldegrave, Robert 157, 188
Wales 49,96,110,113
Walker, John 250
Waller, Gary 225
313
Index
Walsingham, Frances, widow of Sir Philip
Sidney 245
Walsingham, Sir Francis 2, 11, 21, 37, 40,
42, 43, 47, 53, 68, 73, 75, 113, 124, 125,
129,139,216,217,236,245,261
war
against Spain 1, 5, 10, 18, 22,43, 79, 197
in France 18,75,197
Wards, Court of 8, 22, 73, 85
Warham, William (abp. of Canterbury) 262
Warner, William 242
warrants for payment 14
warrants for the great seal 90
Warwickshire, county of 89, 96, 157
Waterhouse, Sir Edward 111
Wateson, George 252
Watson, Thomas 239,245, 254
Weakley, John 97
Webbe, Edward 250
Weber, Max 153
Weever, John 253
Wentworth, Peter 252
Wernham, R. B. 18
West, William, Lord De La Warre 29
Wheeler, John 244
Whitaker, Tobias 248
White, Edward 118
White, Sir Nicholas 114,115,124
Whitehall 2,6,216,218,291
Whitelocke, James 105
Whitgift, John (abp. of Canterbury) 3, 6,
11, 12, 14, 47, 55, 63, 126-31, 133-9,
147, 148, 150, 162-4, 173, 174,176,
187, 189, 190, 260-5, 270, 271
Whitney, Oxon. 167
Whyte, Rowland 47, 50, 53, 55, 56, 59, 62,
280, 284, 285
Whythorne, Thomas 262
Wigginton, Giles 173
Wilkes, Sir Thomas 43, 74

Willet, Andrew 243, 244, 246, 249, 251
Williams, Lord Williams of Thame 29
Williams, Philip 111,121,122
Williams, Sir Roger 72, 79, 246
Wilson, E. C. 213
Wilton 225,240, 256, 283
Wiltshire, county of 90, 164, 206
Winbridge, Humphrey 197
Windebank, Thomas 68
Windsor 2, 254
Windsor, Miles 254
Witney,Oxon. 198
Wolley, Sir John 134,136
Wolsey, Thomas (cardinal and abp. of York,
legate a latere) 33, 262, 295
Woodhouse, Captain 118
Woodstock, Oxon. 238
Woolton, John (bp. of Exter) 162, 163
Worcester, diocese of 138
Wormald, Jenny 261
Wotton, Sir Henry 215, 286
Wray, Sir Christopher 134
Wright, Pam 24
Wriothesley, Henry, 3rd earl of
Southampton (d. 1624) 231,256,288
Wriothesley, Sir Thomas, 1st earl of
Southampton (d. 1550) 28
Wyndham, Katherine 39
Yates, Frances 98, 213, 214
Yellow Ford 60
Yetsweirt, Charles 68
Yetsweirt, Jane 69
Yetsweirt, Nicasius 68
York Paternoster play 263
Young, Richard 52
Zurich 130

The Reign of Elizabeth I

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The Reign of Elizabeth I

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This book is about the politics and political culture of the 'last decade' of

The reign of Elizabeth I

The reign of Elizabeth I

Published in association with the

PUBLISHED BY THE PRESS SYNDICATE OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CAMBRIDGE

The Pitt Building, Trumpington Street, Cambridge, United Kingdom

The Edinburgh Building, Cambridge CB2 2RU, UK

Introduction The 1590s: the second reign of Elizabeth I?

1 The patronage of the crown in Elizabethan politics: the 1590s

2 Regnum Cecilianum} A Cecilian perspective of the Court

3 Patronage at Court, faction and the earl of Essex

4 Peers, patronage and the politics of history

LINDA LEVY PECK

5 The fall of Sir John Perrot

6 The Elizabethan establishment and the ecclesiastical polity

7 Ecclesiastical vitriol: religious satire in the 1590s and the

9 Social strain and social dislocation, 1585-1603

10 Lord of Liberty: Francis Davison and the cult of Elizabeth

11 The complaint of poetry for the death of liberality: the decline

12 Summer's Last Will and Testament: revels' end

13 The theatre and the Court in the 1590s

1 Quality of harvests in England, 1585-1603

2 Annual totals of persons accused of felony, Home Circuit,

3 Proportion of persons accused of felony capitally convicted on

Agricultural History Review

Short-Title Catalogue of Books Printed in England, Scotland, and

or so lived or worked 'below stairs', performing duties in the royal palaces or

The 1590s: the second reign of Elizabeth I?

Leicester's death created a double vacuum. His voice in support of the

See below, pp. 109-25.

See below, pp. 92-3.

The 1590s: the second reign of Elizabeth I?

the purpose of rewarding courtiers, thereby shifting the costs of such

See below, pp. 46-64, 65-86.

The 1590s: the second reign of Elizabeth I?

CSPD, Addenda, 1580-1625, p. 320.

apprehension, expectation, insecurity, authoritarianism, self-interrogation.

The 1590s: the second reign of Elizabeth I?

The 1590s: the second reign of Elizabeth I?

The 1590s: the second reign of Elizabeth I?

The 1590s: the second reign of Elizabeth I?

complex and recalcitrant to be reduced to straightforward moral lessons.

The 1590s: the second reign of Elizabeth I?

The 1590s: the second reign of Elizabeth I?

The patronage of the crown in Elizabethan

The patronage of the crown in Elizabethan politics

relationship between the patronage of the crown and Elizabethan Court

The relationship between factions of this type and Read's 'ideologically

The patronage of the crown in Elizabethan politics

rence Stone advanced a similar thesis. While he accepted Neale's general

The patronage of the crown in Elizabethan politics

K. B. McFarlane, 'Bastard Feudalism', in England in the Fifteenth Century: Collected Essays

The patronage of the crown in Elizabethan politics

T h e limited expansion of the Edwardian peerage is noted in M . A. R. Graves, The House of

The patronage of the crown in Elizabethan politics

T h e complexities of the Dudley restoration are discussed in S. Adams, 'The Dudley

The patronage of the crown in Elizabethan politics

The patronage of the crown in Elizabethan politics

The patronage of the crown in Elizabethan politics

standing forces as Elizabeth consented to maintain were considerable. The

Richardson, Augmentations, pp. 207, 220-6, 246-7. T h e importance of the Augmentations

The patronage of the crown in Elizabethan politics

the Lord Treasurers after 1554 it is tempting to see policy as demarcated by

W. J. Tighe, 'The Gentlemen Pensioners in Elizabethan Politics and Government',