Elizabeth I
Page 10
For an evocative portrait of Elizabeth and of the reign as a whole, I still return to Neville Williams’s Elizabeth I, Queen of England (London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1967). For robust insights in a series of thematic essays, Christopher Haigh’s Elizabeth I (Harlow: Longman, revised edition, 2001) is invaluable, and for a detailed overview David Loades’s Elizabeth I (London: Hambledon and London, 2003). The best study of Elizabeth’s early life is David Starkey’s Elizabeth: Apprenticeship (London: Chatto & Windus, 2000). Her later years are given forensic attention in John Guy’s Elizabeth: The Forgotten Years (London: Viking, 2016), while his My Heart is my Own: The Life of Mary, Queen of Scots (London: Fourth Estate, 2004) is also essential reading for the relationship between the cousins and kingdoms. Susan Doran’s Monarchy and Matrimony: The Courtships of Elizabeth I (London and New York: Routledge, 1996) and Elizabeth I and Her Circle (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015) examine Elizabeth’s relationships with and attitudes to the men, and in some cases women, around her, while Anna Whitelock’s Elizabeth’s Bedfellows: An Intimate History of the Queen’s Court (London: Bloomsbury, 2013) takes Elizabeth’s female establishment as the starting point for a narrative of the reign that is both revealing and perceptive. The lavish catalogue of Elizabeth: The Exhibition at the National Maritime Museum (London: Chatto & Windus in association with the NMM, 2003), edited by Susan Doran with an Introduction by David Starkey, is a breathtaking glimpse into the material world of Elizabeth’s England.
For Elizabeth’s mother, see Eric Ives, The Life and Death of Anne Boleyn (Oxford: Blackwell, 2004). For her father, another vast literature, but starting points are John Guy’s Tudor England (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1988), Susan Brigden’s New Worlds, Lost Worlds (London: Allen Lane, 2000), David Starkey’s Henry: Virtuous Prince (London: Harper Press, 2008) and Henry VIII: Man and Monarch, edited by Susan Doran (London: The British Library, 2009). For her brother and sister and then the crisis of 1553, see John Guy’s The Children of Henry VIII (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013) and Eric Ives, Lady Jane Grey: A Tudor Mystery (Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell, 2009); for Mary’s reign, Anna Whitelock’s Mary Tudor: England’s First Queen (London: Bloomsbury, 2009) and John Edwards, Mary I: England’s Catholic Queen (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2011). Superb explorations of the religious revolutions of the decades before Elizabeth’s accession can be found in Eamon Duffy’s The Stripping of the Altars: Traditional Religion in England, 1400–1580 (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2nd edition, 2005) and Fires of Faith: Catholic England under Mary Tudor (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2009), as well as Diarmaid MacCulloch’s Tudor Church Militant: Edward VI and the Protestant Reformation (London: Allen Lane, 1999). For Elizabeth’s religious settlement in 1559, see N. L. Jones, Faith by Statute: Parliament and the Settlement of Religion, 1559 (London: Royal Historical Society, 1982).
There have been a number of illuminating, scholarly and accessible books in recent years on key figures in Elizabeth’s court and government, as well as the interrelated worlds of Elizabethan espionage and Elizabethan Catholicism: see Stephen Alford, Burghley: William Cecil at the Court of Elizabeth I (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2008) and The Watchers: A Secret History of the Reign of Elizabeth I (London: Bloomsbury, 2012); John Cooper, The Queen’s Agent: Francis Walsingham at the Court of Elizabeth I (London: Faber & Faber, 2011); and Jessie Childs, God’s Traitors: Terror and Faith in Elizabethan England (London: The Bodley Head, 2014). From the extensive and growing literature on the politics of gender in Elizabeth’s reign, I have found no better introduction than Carole Levin’s ‘The Heart and Stomach of a King’: Elizabeth I and the Politics of Sex and Power (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1994). Above all, there are Elizabeth’s own remarkable words – her letters, speeches, poems and prayers – edited by Leah Marcus, Janel Mueller and Mary Beth Rose in Elizabeth I: Collected Works (Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press, 2000).
Picture Credits
1. Portrait of Elizabeth, probably painted by the Dutch artist William Scrots for Henry VIII c.1546 (Royal Collection Trust © Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II, 2017/Bridgeman Images)
2. Mother-of-pearl locket ring owned by Elizabeth as queen, c.1575 (by kind permission of the Chequers Trust/Photo © Mark Fiennes/Bridgeman Images)
3. Thomas Seymour (© National Portrait Gallery, London)
4. Detail from a letter written by Elizabeth on 17 March 1554 begging for an audience with her sister, Queen Mary (The National Archives, ref. EXT11/25)
5. William Cecil, 1560s (National Portrait Gallery, London/Bridgeman Images)
6. Late-sixteenth-century copy of Elizabeth’s coronation portrait (National Portrait Gallery, London/Bridgeman Images)
7. Mary, Queen of Scots during her long imprisonment in England (National Portrait Gallery, London/De Agostini Picture Library/Bridgeman Images)
8. Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester, c.1575 (National Portrait Gallery, London/Photo © Stefano Baldini/Bridgeman Images)
9. Francis Walsingham, who succeeded William Cecil as the queen’s Principal Secretary in 1573 (© National Portrait Gallery, London)
10. The ‘Rainbow Portrait’, painted when Elizabeth was in her late sixties (Hatfield House, Hertfordshire /Bridgeman Images)
Acknowledgements
This has not been an easy book to write. I suspect Elizabeth has never been easy, in life or history; but she arrived at a challenging time in mine, and for a while I wasn’t sure I would find a way to tell my version of her story. But gradually she became a sustaining presence, as well as a fascinating one, and her company has been a privilege as well as a test. I am grateful to Tom Penn, an ideal editor as well as a brilliant historian, for attaching my name to hers to begin with and then refusing to let go; and to him and my wonderful agent, Patrick Walsh, for believing in a short manuscript that took a long time to arrive.
It will be apparent what a debt I owe to many generations of historians, past and present, whose work has illuminated Elizabeth and her world. My thanks to all of them, and especially to Jessie Childs, who read the whole manuscript and, with characteristic generosity, allowed me to lean on her perception and learning. I would also like to thank Barney Ronay and Stanley Cavell, whose insights on Eric Dier and King Lear provided key moments of inspiration and understanding.
I can only hope that all my family and friends know how much difference they make, because I can never thank them enough. Without Arabella Weir and Jo Marsh I can’t imagine the shape of the last two years. Gwyneth and Grahame Castor have shown themselves yet again to be the most perceptive of readers as well as the most extraordinary parents. I couldn’t be more proud of my son, Luca Ferraro. And Ken Babstock made the writing of this book – and so much else – possible.
Helen Castor
London
July 2017
THE BEGINNING
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First published 2018
Copyright © Helen Castor, 2018
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ISBN: 978-0-141-98089-8