The Political Use of the Spanish Language in Elizabethan England: 1580-1596

This electronic thesis or dissertation has been downloaded from the King’s Research Portal at https://kclpure.kcl.ac.uk/portal/ The Political Use of the Spanish Language in Elizabethan England: 1580-1596 Crummé, Hannah Leah Awarding institution: King's College London The copyright of this thesis rests with the author and no quotation from it or information derived from it may be published without proper acknowledgement. END USER LICENCE AGREEMENT Unless another licence is stated on the immediately following page this work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International licence. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/ You are free to copy, distribute and transmit the work Under the following conditions: Attribution: You must attribute the work in the manner specified by the author (but not in any way that suggests that they endorse you or your use of the work). Non Commercial: You may not use this work for commercial purposes. No Derivative Works - You may not alter, transform, or build upon this work. Any of these conditions can be waived if you receive permission from the author. Your fair dealings and other rights are in no way affected by the above. Take down policy If you believe that this document breaches copyright please contact [email protected] providing details, and we will remove access to the work immediately and investigate your claim. Download date: 25. Sep. 2021 The Political Use of the Spanish Language in Elizabethan England: 1580-1596 Thesis submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Hannah Leah Crummé King’s College London 2015 Abstract My doctoral research demonstrates the co-dependency of Anglo-Spanish literary and political cultures and their effect on Elizabethan nation-building at the end of the sixteenth century. The fraught political situation between England and Spain endowed the Spanish language with significant power, increasing its importance at court and its prominence as a literary model. By scrutinizing the relationship with Spain posited by sixteenth century authors, scholars, and patrons, I suggest that English identity developed in relief against the idea of Spain and Spaniards. Individual chapters consider the work of Sir Philip Sidney (1554-1586), Abraham Fraunce (1559?–1592/3?), Gabriel Harvey (1552/3–1631), the Earl of Leicester (1532/3–1588), and the Earl of Essex (1565–1601) and the impact of events including the attack of the Spanish Armada in 1588 and the 1596 invasion of Cadiz. The first half of my dissertation examines how two scholars imagined the political potential of their rhetoric. I use Fraunce’s Arcadian rhetorike (1588) to demonstrate that the Armada prompted English interest in the potential patriotism of the vernacular and conclude that the rhetorical guide responds to the threat of Spain by considering the poet’s role commemorating heroes. Harvey applied his logical studies of classical and contemporary poetic and martial theories to the crisis in Elizabethan foreign policy and so counterintuitively characterized his rhetorical achievements as preparation for a diplomatic career. The second half of my dissertation examines how prominent courtiers promoted themselves as mediators of Elizabeth’s foreign policy and considers how contemporary literary works contributed to this type of fashioning. A patron of lexicons and language learning manuals, the Earl of Leicester facilitated the production of Antonio del Corro’s Reglas Gramaticales (1586), and so initiated a trend in which language guides imagined possible relationships between England and Spain. Propaganda produced by various authors depicts Essex as a protector and leader of Englishmen by invoking or fabricating Spanish witnesses to the beneficence of the Earl and the cruelty of Philip. Although each of the authors, scholars, and patrons considered in this project had different and constantly changing sentiments regarding Spain, they are unified by the importance they place on the Spanish language as a tool with which to understand, and at times imagine, English foreign policy. How did Elizabethans’ invocation of the Spanish language shape the English understanding of Spain? How did exposure to the Spanish vernacular affect English poetic and rhetorical expression? Ultimately, how did these authors, patrons, and scholars reflect upon Elizabeth’s war with England’s greatest rival? These are some of the questions my dissertation seeks to address. 1 Acknowledgements I am deeply thankful to my supervisors. Hannah Crawforth energetically read and re-read drafts, helped me polish my critical rhetoric and in so doing honed my understanding of early modern poetic thought. Alexander Samson critiqued and so refined my critical understanding of Anglo-Spanish relations. Both have given me more time and support than I could have expected and I am grateful to work under their guidance. I am very thankful to my examiners, Warren Boutcher and Alan Stewart, whose detailed feedback on the original version of my dissertation helped me to produce a more rigorous thesis. This project is very much possible because of two important interventions. I am grateful to H.R. Woudhuysen for his suggestion of this topic. Predictably, it proved as fruitful as he suggested it might. His feedback in the early days of my research has been invaluable. Sonia Massai was instrumental in securing the funding that allowed me to pursue a doctorate; her reputation as the paragon of combined administrative competency and academic rigour is well deserved. I could not have pursued my studies without the grants made available by King’s College London, Pomona College, the Catholic Records Society, and the Higher Education Academy. The academic communities at King’s College and University College, London, have been very supportive and I am grateful for having had the opportunity to pursue my research surrounded by scholars at the forefront of their fields. I would like to thank Gordon McMullan, Chris Laoutaris, Helen Hackett, Rivkah Zim, Rosemary Dixon, and Sarah Lewis for their advice and feedback over the past several years. I would particularly like to thank Alison Shell for her enthusiasm and support of my inquiry into Jane Dormer and my research in general; her confidence in my work has always surprised me but has been very helpful. I am thankful for the help of Alexander Samson and Mercedes Aguirre Alastuey with Spanish translations. I am very much indebted to Kate Maltby, who translated all Latin passages included in this project. I am deeply indebted to the dynamic graduate student community in London, which has left me habitually dependent on both tea and conversation. I have enjoyed the process of research immensely, likely as much for the society in the British Library as for the books. Fariha Shaikh has been an essential conversationalist, Mercedes Aguirre Alastuey a model of dependency and enthusiasm and Ellie Bass the personification of compassion and adventure. It would not have been nearly as pleasant without any of them. By the same token, Philip Aherne, Camilla Dubini, Lucy Powell, Philippe Roesle, Philip Goldfarb, Michael Gilmont, Roberta Klimt, Jaap Geraerts, Hazel Wilkinson and Will Bowers have all been indispensable for their chat and academic rigour. My family, my parents and sister, and the animals that come with them, have always been deeply supportive. The most recurring compliment I have received in the last year has been that I am calm. If this is true, it is entirely due to the support of my husband David Hirsch, who makes sure everything is fine. 2 Table of Contents Abstract 1 Acknowledgements 2 Note on Text 3 Introduction: ‘English before any Vulgare langauge’ 4 I. Spanish Sources in Abraham Fraunce’s Arcadian rhetorike and the Summer of 1588 25 II. Gabriel Harvey’s Studies of Precedents for the English Vernacular and Military Strategy 57 III. The Earl of Leicester and the Politics of English-Spanish Language Guides 91 IV: Imagining the Earl of Essex’s Past and Future Roles in Elizabeth’s War with Spain 124 V: Conclusion 159 Manuscript Bibliography 163 Printed Primary Source Bibliography 164 Secondary Source Bibliography 173 Note on Texts In this thesis I use original editions. I retain original spelling and punctuation when quoting from 16th and 17th century sources, both in the body of the text, in the footnotes and in the bibliography. However, I silently replace the long ‘s’, j/i, w/uu, w/vv, u/v, v/u, th/y, õ/on and ñ/nn in English. In the body of the thesis, I use abbreviated versions of the full titles but retain the original spelling. For modern editions and secondary sources, I use the title capitalisation according to the Modern Humanities Research Association guidelines where possible. For early modern editions I provide titles and dates of publications as listed in the Short Title Catalogue. Individuals’ biographical dates are given when they are known and relevant to the chapter. These dates are based on information given in the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography where possible. Spelling of proper nouns in the body of the text also conforms to the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, although authors of early modern texts are given in footnotes following the ESTC. 3 Introduction: ‘English before any Vulgare language’1 The Anglo-Spanish conflict that characterised the latter half of Elizabeth’s (1533-1603) reign prompted early modern English reflections on the political implications of vernacular language and its role in national identity formation. This thesis studies the evocation of the Spanish vernacular by English authors, scholars, diplomats and courtiers as they reacted to the galvanising conflict. The English imitated, appropriated and translated the Spanish language, sometimes while simultaneously satirising Spaniards, and so defined themselves through these different forms of comparison. Fear and resentment of the Spanish empire went hand-in-hand with an awareness of Spain’s imperial and cultural success.

Load more