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Bad Queen Bess?

Libels, Secret Histories, and the Politics of Publicity in the Reign of Queen Elizabeth I

Peter Lake (University Distinguished Professor of History, University Distinguished Professor of History, Vanderbilt University)

$131.95

Hardback

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English
Oxford University Press
03 December 2015
Bad Queen Bess? analyses the back and forth between the Elizabethan regime and various Catholic critics, who, from the early 1570s to the early 1590s, sought to characterize that regime as a conspiracy of evil counsel.

Through a genre novel - the libellous secret history - to English political discourse, various (usually anonymous) Catholic authors claimed to reveal to the public what was "really happening" behind the curtain of official lies and disinformation with which the clique of evil counsellors at the heart of the Elizabethan state habitually cloaked their sinister maneuvers. Elements within the regime, centred on William Cecil and his circle, replied to these assaults with their own species of plot talk and libellous secret history, specializing in conspiracy-driven accounts of the Catholic, Marian, and then, latterly, Spanish threats.

Peter Lake presents a series of (mutually constitutive) moves and counter moves, in the course of which the regime's claims to represent a form of public political virtue, to speak for the commonweal and true religion, elicited from certain Catholic critics a simply inverted rhetoric of private political vice, persecution, and tyranny.

The resulting exchanges are read not only as a species of "political thought," but as a way of thinking about politics as process and of distinguishing between "politics" and "religion." They are also analyzed as modes of political communication and pitch-making - involving print, circulating manuscripts, performance, and rumor - and thus as constitutive of an emergent mode of "public politics" and perhaps of a "post reformation public sphere."

While the focus is primarily English, the origins and imbrication of these texts within, and their direct address to, wider European events and audiences is always present. The aim is thus to contribute simultaneously to the political, cultural, intellectual, and religious histories of the period.

By:  
Imprint:   Oxford University Press
Country of Publication:   United Kingdom
Dimensions:   Height: 237mm,  Width: 162mm,  Spine: 33mm
Weight:   1g
ISBN:   9780198753995
ISBN 10:   0198753993
Pages:   512
Publication Date:  
Audience:   College/higher education ,  A / AS level ,  Further / Higher Education
Format:   Hardback
Publisher's Status:   Active
PART I: THE MARIAN MOMENT ; PART II: THE CATHOLIC LOYALIST MOMENT ; PART III: BURGHLEY'S COMMONWEALTH ; PART IV: ROGUE STATES AND UNIVERSAL MONARCHS ; PART V: THE REGICIDAL MOMENT ; PART VI: RESISTANCE AND COMPROMISE? ; PART VII: RIPOSTES AND REPLIES

Peter Lake completed his undergraduate degree and PhD at Cambridge University and taught subsequently at Bedford College, Royal Holloway, Bedford New College, London, Cornell, and Princeton. He moved to Vanderbilt University in 2008. When in London he is an habitual attender of seminars at the Institute of Historical Research, and has been the grateful beneficiary of extended stints at both the Folger Shakespeare and Huntington Libraries.

Reviews for Bad Queen Bess?: Libels, Secret Histories, and the Politics of Publicity in the Reign of Queen Elizabeth I

Lake takes into account print, gossip and news, and so gives subtlety and depth to his reconstruction of political debate and discussion in the otherwise highly controlled conditions of suppression and censorship under Elizabeth Stephen Alford, London Review of Books a fresh and arresting perspective ... Stephen Alford, London Review of Books a fascinating and enlightening read, from which many general lessons about human behaviour can be derived Peter Costello, Irish Catholic This is a valuable account of how political debate acquired new levels of venom, with searching analysis of the printed books, manuscript treatises, plays and rumours in which these secret histories were deployed. Lucy Wooding, Times Higher Education


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