ELIZABETH

The Virgin Queen and the men who wrote her story

The many faces of Elizabeth

WOMAN LED BY HER COUNCIL

Calculating And Shrewd negotiator

Queen Pressured By puritans

ELIZABETH

Gloriana

Indecisive On marriage

Naive But lucky

Seductress In court

What are the Debates

Constructions of Elizabeths identities and gender;
Neale, Elton, Haigh, Bassnett

Political and Administrative Leadership;

Camden, Neale, Elton, Bassnett

Religious beliefs and policies;

Camden, Lingard, Neale, Haigh Carole Levin

CONTEMPORARY SOURCES
Elizabeth herself, letters, diaries and speeches Spencers Fairie Queen Court Gossip Parliamentary papers John Foxe Book of Martyrs

 William Camden- a golden queen tending her people in a golden age. Her second care was to hold an even course in her whole life and all her actions; whereupon she took for her motto SEMPER AEDUM that is always the same Oxford Scholar, who in 1575 appointed Master of Westminster school. He entered the influential sphere of William Cecil, Lord Burghley. Used his vacations to travel the English counties doing Antiquarian research

Proto Whig

 In 1586 published his first book, Britannia. Camdens aim in writing the Britannia was to illustrate this Ie of BRITAINEthat I would restore antiquity to Britaine, and Britain to his antiquity In writing the biography of Elizabeth, Lord Burghley made all state papers ( surviving?) available to Camden He wrote in the style of the Tacitean Annals and it remained the definitive template for over 100 years

Renowned Queen & Incomparable Princess

Camdens Annals was a filtered biography with Gloriana as its focus. The narrative did not seek to assess or explain events within her reign Loyalist in religion and politics Camden dedicated his Annals not to Elizabeths memory but to his country and posterity at the altar of truth Camden first wrote the Chronicle in 1559 but it was not published until 1615. The second volume was published in 1617

 Camden obvious praise of Elizabeths reign must be seen in the light of its position, lying between the chaos of Mary 1 and the disappointment of James 1. Haigh describes the Annales as commentary on the rule of James 1 in the guise of a history of the rule of Elizabeth. Camdens history was a civil history and he deliberately distances himself from Ecclesiastical history, such as the writings of John Foxe ( Book of Martyrs)

Revisionist/Catholic
Father John Lingard 1830 My object is truth and in the pursuit of truth I have made it a religious duty to consult the original historians. Lingards aim was to produce a history that protestants would read. Once you removed a readers prejudice and presented them with the truth, the groundwork of conversion was laid. Papal Cardinal ordered that he have access to the Vatican manuscripts

Whig Historians/Nationalistic Sir John Neale

J E Neale honest and considered judgments based upon careful study of the original authorities. This biography has been written for a particular occasion and a particular public. ( 4th centenary of Queen Elizabeths birth) 1933 Protestant Writing his book The Reign of Elizabeth 1 during the 1930s when world threats from a militant Germany required a nationalistic response.Parallels can be drawn WITH England under threat from Spain in Elizabeths time

Neales Thesis The Puritan Choir.

The book was later republished in 1952 for the coronation of Elizabeth 11. So far as the main narrative is concerned, continuous study of books and documents, since it was written has not suggested the need for change.the accession of a second Queen Elizabeth will surely stimulate interest.

Objectivist/Revisionist view
Geoffrey Elton- What really matters, of course, is Elizabeths ability in politics, her standing as a queen rather than her pretty obvious failings as a woman. Patriarchal viewpoint that women were inferior Eltons parents escaped Poland and Jewish persecution in World War 11 Admired English democratic institutions and sought to retrace the birth of this democracy

 Author of the Tudor Constitution and England Under the Tudors Eltons grand thesis saw Elizabeths reign as a continuation of the Cromwell revolution which saw the establishment of a bureaucratic Parliament able to function efficiently irrespective of the rulers capabilities

Christopher Haigh. Revisionist. This is my view of Elizabeth 1984

Oxford University
The monarchy of Elizabeth I was founded on illusion She was bossy, she was something of a fishwife Elizabeth I was a bully.. Elizabeth was a show-off and she dressed to kill..

Haigh context
Christopher Haigh in the post war, secular society, was also writing during Margaret Thatchers iron fist in a velvet glove rule. It was first written under the shadow of Margaret Thatcher when government by tantrum was the order of the day; it has been revised in the time of Tony Blair when government by bluff is the style, Elizabeth was there first; she also ranted and she also could spin. Haigh

Elizabeth 1 a feminist perspective 1988

Susan Bassnett- It is quite likely that even without a kingdom Elizabeth would still have been a woman of striking achievement. Long before I knew why , I supported Elizabeth. It was not only that she seemed to be a winner, whereas Mary was the feminine victim incarnate, but because every account I read, in whatever form, gave me an image of a woman who was determined to live according to some private inner pattern. She was in short, a model of an independent woman for a girl growing up in the 1950s, long before the Womens movement had announced itself

 There are countless stories of Elizabeths abrupt changes of heart, which have sometimes been perceived as an example of feminine capriciousness..It would be patronizing and unjust to continue to dismiss such behavior simply as evidence of a womens instability Historians writing about her have been male while most novelists have been female and this has also contributed to the process of constructing a written portrait of Elizabeth, just as the political position of the writer and his or her religious standpoint have also been significant.

Post Modernist-Representations of Elizabeth in Portraiture

Roy Strong Gloriana The Ditchley Portrait 1592

IMAGE AND REPRESENTATION

Relativist- Dissing Elizabeth; Negative Representations of Gloriana

Julia Walker 1998 American

What we seek to illuminate, however, is another, darker discourse, the less famous discourse of disrespect and dissent which also existed from Elizabeth's troubled days as a princess and into the decades after her death. Elizabeth's perennial popularity--due in part to her undoubted accomplishments and virtues and also growing from her status as a cultural anomaly--has always cast her in an unrealistically golden light While few writers have gone so far as to present a perfect queen, there has always been the assumption that criticism of her was somehow particularly mean-spirited -- too simply the product of medieval misogyny or blind religious prejudice.

 What we are doing, however, is to challenge the perception of these moments of opposition as isolated among Protestants or limited to Catholics, and to present them in the dark side of the Cult of Elizabeth, a minority discourse which, al- though its sources shift continually, was a constant element of the life, reign, and memory of this powerful, successful, and generally popular monarch. The essays in this collection open discussion on neglected texts, lost cultural artifacts, overlooked patterns of discourse, and buried facts

Post Modernist
All that separates this volume from other historicist studies of the age of Elizabeth is that we have focused on the body of material critical of the queen before, during, and after her reign. Ranging over foreign and domestic political issues, religious factionalism, the conflict between free speech and treason, gossip, sermons, art history, architecture, and the literary modes of epic, drama, and lyric, the topics of these essays offer a rich variety of scholarly discussion

Populism-History for the Masses

a racy read and a first rate history David Starkey poor Quaker family ( extreme Protestant) but claims to be a radical atheist Poor background with distant, emotionless father and dominating mother Gained a scholarship and became a pupil of Geoffrey Elton with whom he clashed often Elizabeth is extraordinary. She looks extraordinary. She behaves in an extraordinary way. And as a woman moving so effortlessly in a mans world, she is doubly extraordinary.

 I try as far as possible to suspend hindsight, and to tell things as they happened with cliffhangers and narrow escapes. If the results read like a historical thriller, I shall be well pleased. Elizabeth is extraordinary. She looks extraordinary. She behaves in an extraordinary way. And as a woman moving so effortlessly in a mans world, she is doubly extraordinary. I try as far as possible to suspend hindsight, and to tell things as they happened with cliffhangers and narrow escapes. If the results read like a historical thriller, I shall be well pleased.

Shekhar Kapur Elizabeth and The Golden Age

Film is a meeting place between The world that it depicts , and the worlds Of both composer and responder

Films often tell Us more about the Period in which They were made Than the period They depict

Film Tags ? What do they suggest about the directors purpose and our world? Absolute power demands absolute loyalty

Woman Warrior Queen