Preface
Editorial Principles
Texts
Part One: The Princess Elizabeth (1533-1558)
Historical Background
Parentage and Infancy
JOHN FOXE
From Acts and Monuments (1583)
Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn
The Birth and Baptism of Elizabeth
The Death of the Lady Katherine and of Queen Anne
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE and JOHN FLETCHER
From Henry VIII (1613)
Cranmer Prophesies the Glories of Elizabeth's Reign
Princess and Prodigy
PRINCESS ELIZABETH
Letter of Dedication to Katherine Parr (1544)
Verse Translation of the 13th Psalm of David (1548)
CHURCH OF ENGLAND
Psalm 13 from the Great Bible (1540)
JOHN BALE
From the Preface to A Godly Meditation of the Christian Soul (1548)
Threats and Imprisonment
PRINCESS ELIZABETH
Letter to Edward Seymour (1549)
Letter to Mary Tudor (1554)
"Oh Fortune, thy wresting wavering state" (1554-55?)
"'Twas Christ the Word" (1554-55?)
"No Crooked Leg" (ca. 1558)
Prayers (1554)
JOHN FOXE
From Acts and Monuments
"The Life, State, and Story of Thomas Cranmer" (1583)
"The Miraculous Preservation of the Lady Elizabeth" (1563)
Retrospectives on Mary and Elizabeth
THOMAS HEYWOOD
From If You Know Not Me, You Know No Body; Or, The troubles of Queen Elizabeth, Part One (1605)
EDMUND SPENSER
From The Faerie Queene (1590)
Arthur Defeats Orgoglio, Duessa, and the Beast
Part Two: Coronation and the Problems of Legitimacy, Religion, and Succession (1559-1566)
Historical Background
The New Queen's First Words
QUEEN ELIZABETH
Words Spoken by Her Majesty to Master Cecil" (1558)
"Words Spoken by the Queen to the Lords" (1558)
Questions Concerning the Legitimacy of Female Rule
JOHN KNOX
From The First Blast of the Trumpet (1558)
JOHN AYLMER
From An Harbor for Subjects (1559)
The Coronation Pageants
RICHARD MULCASTER
From The Passage of our Most Dread Sovereign Lady (1559)
Prayers and Exhortations
CHURCH OF ENGLAND
"A Prayer for the Queen's Majesty (1559)
From "A Form of Prayer to be used in Private Houses Every Morning and Evening" (1562)
From "An Exhortation Concerning Good Order and Obedience" (1559)
WILLIAM WHITTINGHAM
From the Dedicatory Epistle to the Geneva Bible (1560)
ANNE LOCK
From Sermons of John Calvin upon the Song that Hezekiah Made (1560)
Dedicatory Epistle
"A Meditation of a Penitent Sinner: Written in Manner of a Paraphrase upon the 51st Psalm of David"
QUEEN ELIZABETH
Prayers from Precationes Privatae (1563)
Questions at Home and Wars Abroad
QUEEN ELIZABETH
First Speech before Parliament (1559)
Answer to the Commons' Petition That She Marry (1563)
Proclamation on the Return of Soldiers from Newhaven (1563)
Elizabeth among Her People
QUEEN ELIZABETH
Latin Oration at Cambridge (1564)
WILLIAM BIRCH
"A Song between the Queen's Majesty and England" (1564)
Part Three: Mary Stuart, the Northern Rebellion, and Protestant Discontent (1567-1571)
Historical Background
The Matter of Mary Stuart
QUEEN ELIZABETH
Letters to Mary Stuart (1567)
JOHN LESLEY
From A Defense of the Honor of the Princess Mary, Queen of Scotland (1569)
The Rebellion of the Northern Earls
QUEEN ELIZABETH
Proclamation against the Earl of Northumberland (1569)
Letter to Mary Stuart (1570)
POPE PIUS V
The Bull Excommunicating Elizabeth (1570)
THOMAS NORTON
From A Disclosing of the Great Bull (1570)
Protestant Protests and Prayers
EDWARD DERING
From the "Unruly Heifer" Sermon (1570)
JOHN CONWAY
From Meditations and Prayers (1571)
ANONYMOUS
"A Prayer for Wisdom to Govern the Realm" (1569)
Mary Stuart and the Ridolfi Plot
QUEEN ELIZABETH
Letter to Thomas Smith, Authorizing the Torture of Two Prisoners (1571)
"The Doubt of Future Foes" (1570?)
EDMUND SPENSER
Britomart's Dream at Isis Church and the Defeat of Radigund
From The Faerie Queene (1596)
Part Four: Changing Alliances (1572-1577)
Historical Background
Prospects of Marriage and Trouble in France
QUEEN ELIZABETH
Letters to Sir Francis Walsingham (1572)
CHURCH OF ENGLAND
A Thanksgiving and Prayer (1572)
Elizabeth on Summer Progress
ANONYMOUS
"The First Anointed Queen I Am" (1573?)
GEORGE GASCOIGNE
The Princely Pleasures at the Court at Kenilworth (1575)
ROBERT LANEHAM (pseud.)
From A Letter on the Entertainments at Kenilworth (1575)
Prayers, Advice, and Praise for the Queen
ELIZABETH TYRWHIT
From Morning and Evening Prayers (1574)
EDWARD HAKE
From A Commemoration of the Most Prosperous Reign of Our Sovereign Elizabeth (1575)
JAMES SANFORD
From the Preface to Hours of Recreation, or Afterdinners (1576)
NICHOLAS HILLIARD
From The Art of Limning (1570s?)
EDWARD DE VERE
"What Cunning Can Express" (1576)
Part Five: The French Marriage Negotiations (1578-1582)
Historical Background
The Queen, the French Ambassadors, and the Visit to Norwich
BERNARD GARTER and WILLIAM GOLDINGHAM
The Joyful Receiving of the Queen's Most Excellent Majesty into Her Highness's City of Norwich (1578)
Elizabeth, Anjou, and the Debate at Court
QUEEN ELIZABETH
Letters to the Duke of Anjou and Catharine de Medici (1579-82)
WLLIAM CECIL, LORD BURGHLEY
"To the Queen's Majesty. Advice about Her Match" (1579)
SIR PHILIP SIDNEY
From "A Discourse . . . to Queen's Majesty, Touching Her Marriage with Monsieur" (1579)
The Widening Controversy
WILLLIAM ELDERTON
"A New Ballad, Declaring the Dangerous Shooting of the Gun at the Court" (1579)
JOHN STUBBS
From A Gaping Gulf (1579)
SIR PHILIP SIDNEY
From the Old Arcadia (ca. 1579-80)
"As I my Little Flock on Ister Bank"
GEORGE PUTTENHAM
From Partheniads (1579)
"A Very Strange and Rueful Vision"
"Another Vision"
JOHN LYLY
From Euphues and His England (1580)
THOMAS BLENERHASSET
From A Revelation of the True Minerva (1582)
CHRISTOPHER mARLOWE
From Dido, Queen of Carthage (ca. 1581-86)
Anjou's Departure and the Queen's Grief
QUEEN ELIZABETH
"I Grieve and Dare Not Show My Discontent" (1582)
Part Six: Favorites, Assassins, and the Death of Mary Stuart (1582-1587)
Historical Background
Cupid at Court
QUEEN ELIZABETH
"When I was Fair and Young" (ca. 1580s)
"Now Leave Me and Let Me Rest" (ca. 1580s)
SIR WALTER RALEGH
"Sweet Are the Thoughts" (ca. 1582-87)
"Calling to Mind Mine Eye Long Went About" (ca. 1582-87)
Verse Exchange with Elizabeth (1587)
"Like Truthless Dreams, So Are My Joys Expired" (1589?)
ROBERT DEVEREAUX, EARL OF ESSEX
"It Was a Time When Silly Bees Could Speak" (ca. 1587-89)
Accession Day Celebrations
THOMAS BENTLEY
From The Monument of Matrons (1582)
SIR PHILIP SIDNEY
From the New Arcadia
The Joust between Philisides and Lelius (ca. 1584-85)
GEORGE PEELE
From The Arraignment of Paris (1584)
Attacks and Assassination Attempts
WILLIAM ALLEN
From A True, Sincere and Modest Defense of English Catholics (1584)
THOMAS HEYWOOD
From If You Know Not Me, You Know Nobody, Part II (1585)
The Assassination Attempt of William Parry
CHURCH OF ENGLAND
"Prayer and Thanksgiving for the Preservation of the Queen's Majesty's Life and Safety" (1585)
The Execution of Mary Stuart
QUEEN ELIZABETH
Speech at the Closing of Parliament (1585)
Replies to Parliament on the matter of Mary Stuart (1586)
MARY STUART
Letter to Henry III (1587)
ROBERT WYNGFIELD
From A Circumstantial Account of the Execution of Mary, Queen of Scots (1587)
ADAM BLACKWOOD
From The History of Mary, Queen of Scots
Richard Fletcher
Sermon after the Execution (1587)
QUEEN ELIZABETH
Letter to James VI on the Execution of His Mother (1587)
JAMES VI
Reply to Elizabeth (1587)
Part Seven: The Spanish Armada and Its aftermath (1588-1592)
Historical Background
Prophecies and Provocations
CYPRIAN VON LEOWITZ
From Of the End of This World (1564)
RICHARD HARVEY
From An Astrological Discourse (1582)
CARDINAL WILLIAM ALLEN
"Declaration of the Sentence and Deposition of Elizabeth" (1588)
The Destruction of the Armada
JAMES ASKEE
From Elizabetha Triumphans (1588)
The Defeat of the Armada
THOMAS HEYWOOD
From If You Know Not Me, You Know Nobody, Part II (1606)
The Destruction of the Armada
The Queen at Tilbury
QUEEN ELIZABETH
Verse Exchange with Philip (1588)
Speech to the Troops at Tilbury (1588)
THOMAS DELONEY
"The Queen's Visiting of the Camp at Tilbury" (1588)
JAMES ASKEE
From Elizabetha Triumphans (1588)
The Queen at Tilbury
Victory Celebrations
QUEEN ELIZABETH
Prayer on the Defeat of the Armada (1588)
Song on the Armada Victory (1588)
Letter to James VI on the Fate of the Armada (1593)
CHURCH OF ENGLAND
From the Armada Liturgy (1588)
DAVID GWYN
"In Commemoration of Sir Francis Drake" (1588)
GEORGE PUTTENHAM
From The Art of English Poesy (1589)
"Her Majesty Resembled to the Crowned Pillar"
The Wit and Wisdom of the Queen
JANE SEAGER
From The Divine Prophecies of the Ten Sibyls (1589)
ANONYMOUS
"A Peddler's Tale" (1591)
A Return to Summer Progresses
ANONYMOUS
The Entertainment at Elvetham (1591)
QUEEN ELIZABETH
Latin Oration at Oxford (1592)
Part Eight: A Changing Court and Aging Queen (1592-1597)
Historical Background
Breaking with Old Favorites and Friends
SIR WALTER RALEGH
Poems from Prison (1592)
"If Cynthia Be a Queen"
"My Body in Walls Captived"
From The Twenty-First and Last Book of the Ocean to Cynthia
QUEEN ELIZABETH
Letter to Henry IV (1593)
From her translation of Boethius's Consolation of Philosophy (1593)
New Faces on Accession Day
SIR WILLIAM SEGAR
From "Jousts at the Tiltyard" (1590)
The Retirement of Sir Henry Lee
GEORGE PEELE
From Anglorum Feriae, England's Holidays (1595)
ROBERT DEVEREUX, EARL OF ESSEX
Device for the Accession Day Tilts (1595)
SIR FRANCIS BACON
Essex's entertainment, Of Love and Self-Love (1595)
The Woman behind the Mask
SIR JOHN HARINGTON
From Epigrams (1616, 1618)
"To the Queen's Majesty, When She Found Fault with Some Particular Matters in Misacmos"
"To the Ladies of the Queen's Privy Chamber, at the Making of their Perfumed Privy at Richmond"
"Against Lynus, a Writer, That Found Fault with the Metamorphosis"
"Of Soothsaying, to the Queen of England"
"Against Pius Quintus, that Excommunicated Queen Elizabeth"
HENRY LOK
A Square in Verse (1593)
JOHN LYLY
"Prologus" from The Woman in the Moon (1597)
ANDRÉ HURAULT
A private audience with Elizabeth (1597)
Part Nine: Ireland, Rebellion, and the Passing of the Queen (1598-1603)
Historical Background
Tyrone's Rebellion and the Fall of Essex
QUEEN ELIZABETH
On Sending the Army into Ireland (1599)
Letter to Essex in Ireland (1599)
SIR JOHN HARINGTON
Letters on the Irish Campaign and the Fall of Essex (1599-1601)
From Epigrams (1616, 1618)
"Of the Earl of Essex"
"Of Misacmos's Success in a Suit"
"To the Queen's Majesty, in Praise of Her Reading"
QUEEN ELIZABETH
Proclamation on the Seizure of Essex (1601)
The Queen in Her Final Glory
QUEEN ELIZABETH
The Golden Speech (1600)
MARY SIDNEY HERBERT, COUNTESS OF PEMBROKE
From the Sidney Psalms (ca. 1599)
Dedicatory Poem "To Queen Elizabeth"
Psalm 72 (1593-1600)
ANONYMOUS
Psalm 72 from the Geneva Bible (1560)
SIR FRANCIS BACON
Three New Year's Letters (ca. 1600)
ANONYMOUS
"Ode of Cynthia" (1602)
SIR JOHN DAVIES
"Verses of the Queen" (1603)
Elizabeth's Decline and Death
SIR JOHN HARINGTON
From a Letter to Lady Mary Harington, on the Queen's Decline (1602)
HENRY, EARL OF NORTHUMBERLAND
From a letter to James VI on the Queen's decline (1603)
ROBERT CAREY
"The Queen's Last Sickness and Death" (1603)
ELIZABETH SOUTHWELL
"A True Relation of What Succeeded at the Sickness and Death of Queen Elizabeth" (1607)
England in Mourning
THOMAS DEKKER
From The Wonderful Year (1603)
"The Sickness and Death of Queen Elizabeth"
THOMAS NEWTON
From "The Death of Delia" (1603)
ANONYMOUS
"A Mournful Ditty" (1603)
HENRY PETOWE
From Eliza's Funeral (1603)
From "A Few April Drops Showered on the Hearse of Dead Eliza"
Eulogies and the End of an Age
LADY DIANA PRIMROSE
A Chain of Pearl (1603)
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE
From Sonnets (1609)
Sonnet 107
MICHAEL DRAYTON
From Idea (1605)
Sonnet 51
From The Muses' Elizium (1630)
ANONYMOUS LADY IN WAITING
"Gone is Elizabeth" (1612)
Part Ten: Lingering Images of the Queen
A Queen of Many Guises
THOMAS DEKKER
Prologue to Old Fortunatus (1600)
SIR WALTER RALEIGH
"Now We Have Present Made" (ca. 1582-87)
Elizabeth as Shepherdess
EDMUND SPENSER
From The Shepherd's Calendar (1579)
"April"
MICHAEL DRAYTON
"Rowland's Song in Praise of Beta" (1593?)
MARY SIDNEY
"A Dialogue Between Two Shepherds" (c. 1599)
Elizabeth as Petrarchan Mistress
GEORGE PUTTENHAM
From Partheniads (1579)
"A Riddle of the Princess Paragon"
HENRY CONSTABLE
"To the Queen" (1594)
JOHN LYLY
"A Ditty" from an Entertainment at Cowdray (1591)
Elizabeth as Goddess of the Moon
SIR WALTER RALEGH
"Praised be Diana's Fair and Harmless Light" (ca. 1580s?)
EDMUND SPENSER
From The Faerie Queene, Book II (1590)
Braggadoccio and Trompart encounter Belphoebe
GEORGE CHAPMAN
From "Hymnus in Cynthiam" (1594?)
RICHARD BARNFIELD
Cynthia (1595)
ANONYMOUS
"To Cynthia" (1600)
BEN JONSON
"Hymn to Cynthia" (1600)
Elizabeth as Fairy Queen
SIR WALTER RALEGH (1590)
"A Vision upon This Conceit of the Fairy Queen"
EDMUND SPENSER
From The Faerie Queene, Book I (1590)
Arthur's vision of the Fairy Queen
The Red Cross Knight's vision of Gloriana's city of Cleopolis
From Amoretti (1595)
Sonnets 74 and 80
Elizabeth as Goddess of Justice
GEORGE PEELE
From Descensus Astraeae (1591)
EDMUND SPENSER
From The Faerie Queene, Book V (1596)
Astraea instructs Artegall in justice and abandons the earth
SIR JOHN DAVIES
From Hymnes of Astraea (1599)
Elizabeth as the Ever-Virgin Queen
GEORGE PUTTENHAM
From Partheniads (1579)
"She Has a Serpent's Head and Angel's Face"
SIR PHILIP SIDNEY
From the Old Arcadia (ca. 1579-80)
"Now Was Our Heav'nly Vault"
FULKE GREVILLE, BARON BROOKE
From Caelica (1594)
Sonnet 81
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE
From A Midsummer Night's Dream (1595)
Oberon tells Puck of a virgin enthroned in the west
EDMUND SPENSER
From The Faerie Queene (1596)
Prince Arthur and Artegall behold Mercilla
Commentary and Criticism
Early Accounts of the Queen
Raphael Holinshed, From The Third volume of Chronicles (London: John Harison, et al. 1586).
Sir John Harington, Reminiscences from a Letter to Markham (1606).
Sir Francis Bacon, From The Felicity of Queen Elizabeth and Her Times (London: George Latham, 1651), 23-31, 36-41.
William Camden, From The History of the Life and Reign of Elizabeth, late Queen of England (London: Benjamin Fisher, 1630), selected pages.
Sir Robert Naunton, From Fragmenta Regalia or Observations on the Late Queen Elizabeth (London: s.n., 1641), 4-9.
Sir John Hayward, From The Beginning of the Reign of Queen Elizabeth (London: John Partridge, 1636), 448-54.
George Ballard, Memoirs of Several Ladies of Great Britain (Oxford: W. Jackson, 1752), selected pages.
Agnes Strickland, Lives of the Queens of England, volume 3 (Philadelphia: Blanchard and Lea, 1866), selected pages.
Elizabeth's Strategies for Rule
J.E. Neale, "The Affability of their Prince," in Queen Elizabeth I (London: Jonathan Cape, 1934; rpt. Garden City, NY: Anchor/Doubleday, 1957), 212-19.
David Loades, Chapter 13: "The Great Queen," in Elizabeth I (London and New York: Humbledon and London, 2003), 303-19.
Natalie Mears, Queenship and Political Discourse in the Elizabethan Realms (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005), assorted pages.
The Virgin Monarch
Susan Doran: "Why Did Elizabeth Not Marry?" in Dissing Elizabeth: Negative Representations of Gloriana, edited by Julia Walker (Durham and London: Duke University Press, 1998), 30-59.
The Queen's Religious Position
Patrick Collinson, "Windows in a Woman's Soul: Questions about the Religion of Queen Elizabeth I," in Elizabethan Essays, by Patrick Colinson (London: Hambledon Press, 2003), 87-118.
The Poems and Speeches of Elizabeth
Ilona Bell, "Elizabeth I: Poet," Explorations in Renaissance Culture 30.1 (Summer 2004): 1-22.
George P. Rice, Jr. "The Speaker and the Speeches", in The Public Speaking of Queen Elizabeth: Selections from Her Official Addresses (New York: Columbia University Press, 1951), 43-59
The Progresses and Entertainments
J.E. Neale, "The Affability of Their Prince," in Queen Elizabeth I (London: Jonathan Cape, 1934; rpt. Garden City, NY: Anchor/Doubleday, 1957), 212-19.
Mary Hill Cole, Introduction, in The Portable Queen: Elizabeth I and the Politics of Ceremony Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 1999), 1-5.
Zillah Dovey, Introduction to An Elizabethan Progress: The Queen's Journey into East Anglia, 1578 (Phoenix Mill: Sutton, 1996), 1-6.
The Queen's Portraits
Sir Roy Strong, from Chapter 1: Introduction to Gloriana (London: Thames and Hudson, 1987), 10-44.
Elizabeth in Literature
John N. King, "Queen Elizabeth I: Representations of the Virgin Queen," Renaissance Quarterly 43.1 (Spring 1990): 30-75.
Jeffrey Knapp, Introduction to The Empire Nowhere: England, America, and Literature from "Utopia" to the "Tempest" (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1992), 1-7, 12-17.
Frances Yates, from Part II, Chapter 1: "Queen Elizabeth I as Astraea," in Astraea: The Imperial Theme in the Sixteenth Century (London and Boston: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1975), 59-74, 76-87.
Criticizing Elizabeth
Carole Levin, "Wanton and Whore," in The Heart and Stomach of a King: Elizabeth I and the Politics of Sex and Power (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1994), 67-90.
Donald Stump, "Abandoning the Old Testament: Shifting Paradigms for Elizabeth, 1578-82," Explorations in Renaissance Culture 30.1 (Summer 2004): 89-110.
The Queen on Film
Thomas Betteridge, "A Queen for All Seasons," in The Myth of Elizabeth, edited by Susan Doran and Thomas S. Freeman (Houndmills, Basingstoke, and New York: Palgrave/Macmillan, 2003), 243-59.
Selected Bibliography
Glossary
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