University of Warwick Institutional Repository
Total Page：16
File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb
University of Warwick institutional repository: http://go.warwick.ac.uk/wrap A Thesis Submitted for the Degree of PhD at the University of Warwick http://go.warwick.ac.uk/wrap/4519 This thesis is made available online and is protected by original copyright. Please scroll down to view the document itself. Please refer to the repository record for this item for information to help you to cite it. Our policy information is available from the repository home page. An Audience with the Queen: Subversion, Submission and Survival in Three Late Elizabethan Progress Entertainments By Birgit Oehle,MA PhD in RenaissanceStudies The University of Warwick The Centrefor the Study of the Renaissance July 1999 TABLE OF CONTENTS Acknowledgements Declaration Summary List of Abbreviations INTRODUCTION 1-10 I. The Elizabethan Progress 11-23 I. I The 1591 Progress 23-27 1.2 The 1602Progress 27-29 II. The Historical-Political Context H. 1 The Two Reigns of Elizabeth 30-40 11.2 The Year 1591 40-44 III. Viscount Montague, the Sussex Community and Catholicism 45-71 IV. The Cowdray Entertainmentof 1591 IV. 1 Cowdray Park 72-80 80-83 N. 2 The Background to the Entertainment - Deja vu? IV. 3 The Cowdray Entertainment as an Event 84-85 IV. 3.1 The Loyalty Reading 86-88 N. 3.2 Other Readings 88-112 V. The Aftermath of the Cowdray Entertainment 113-122 VI. The Earl of Hertford and the Succession Debate 123-146 VII. The Elvetham Entertainment of September 1591 VII. 1 The Entertainment Text 147-151 VII. 2 An Introduction to the Entertainment 151-156 VII. 3 The Entertainment as an Event 157-159 VIII. 3. I The Hertford Family -- Suitable Candidates for the Succession 159-178 VHI. 3.2 The Iconographyand SexualPolitics of the Elvetham Entertainment 179-197 VIII. The Aftermath of the Elvetham Entertainment 198-208 IX. The Harefield Entertainment of July 1602 209 IX. 1 Sir Thomas Egerton -- Career Politician 210-216 IX. 2 Harefield Place 217 IX. 3 The Entertainment Text(s) 217-221 IX. 4 An Introduction to the Entertainment 222-226 X. The Harefield Entertainment-A Transcription of the Text 227-243 XI. The Entertainment as an Event 244-260 CONCLUSION 261-262 APPENDIX I 263-271 APPENDIX II 272 BIBLIOGRAPHY 273-291 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS All illustrations can be found in Appendix H. The Progress of 1591 Illustration 1: Cowdray Park 2 Illustrations and 3: Cowdray - The Courtyard Illustration 4: Cowdray -- The Buck Hall The Hertfords and the Succession Illustration 5: Elvetham -- The Crescent-Shaped Lake Illustration 6: The Hertford Coat of Arms Illustration 7: The Rainbow Portrait For Brian, with love Thoughfor myself alone I would not be ambitious in my wish To wish myself much better, yet for you I would be trebled twenty times myself. (TheMerchant of Venice,111.2.150-53) ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS This thesis has taken somewhat longer to complete than anticipated, and I must thank my friends and family who have never lost faith in me. I sincerely hope they will not be disappointed. Amongst the people who have helped me in their professional capacity, my thanks are due first and foremost to Professor Ronnie Mulryne. He was never an intrusive supervisor and left me to my own devices much of the time. However, he did impart enthusisam and encouragement in generous measure, reading drafts and redrafts, and always criticized my efforts constructively. Our meetings invariably gave me the reassurance for which I was looking, and any doubts -voiced and unvoiced- were usually swiftly dispelled. My thanks also go to Dr Peter Marshall from the Department of History at the University of Warwick, who very kindly agreed to read the first draft of the chapter on Catholicism, and who made some very helpful suggestions for further reading. I am grateful to Mr Timothy McCann of West Sussex County Record Office, who pointed me in the right direction where Viscount Montague and Elizabethan Sussex were concerned, and the staff at Warwick County Record Office who were most helpful and friendly. A big thank you goesto SamPimlott for her friendship and tremendoussupport over the years. Surprisingly, she never gets tired of listening to me go on about Queen Elizabeth, and she invariably asksall the right questions.Most importantly, Sam can always be relied upon to `put the world to rights' over a glass of cider, whatever happens. Last, but certainly not least, I would like to express my deepest gratitude to Alice, who has kept me sane (I think), and to Brian Ody. He has been, and I hope will continue to be, my harshest critic and my greatest fan. He decided long ago that he would become the spur to prick the side of mine intent, if he felt that a spur was what was required. Needless to say, we do not always agree on this point. He has listened patiently over a long time, first to vague ideas, then to drafts. More than once he has thrown up his hands in horror when I unearthed yet another piece of information that I felt just had to be included in a chapter that was supposedly long completed. For his support and encouragement over the years I am intensely grateful. Brian asked specifically not to be mentioned in the Acknowledgements, but since I never do as he tells me (as he keeps complaining), I shall say thank you anyway. Warwick, July 1999 DECLARATION All the material submitted in this thesis is new and has not been used before. However, Chapter H is based on work completed for an MA dissertation written in 1992. Although a substantial part of the research carried out for this thesis builds on previous work, the eleven chapters, or parts thereof, submitted here have not appearedin print before. SUMMARY Three late Elizabethan progress entertainments are being discussed: Cowdray (August 1591), Elvetham (September 1591), and Harefield (July 1602). The Elvetham entertainmenthas received some critical attention and is comparatively well known due to the extraordinarypreparations undertaken for the royal visit, and the fact that a woodcut of an artificial crescent-shaped,lake especially dug for the occasion, has survived. The other two entertainments have been somewhat neglected, and Harefield survives only in fragmentaryform. To my knowledge, its text has never been printed in toto, and the thesis will include a transcript of the original manuscripthoused in Warwickshire County Record Office. The traditional view that progress entertainments were pastoral tales whose main purpose was to consolidate and confirm existing class structures is challenged. Entertainments are rather complex fictions that serve not merely to establish and preservethe `beautiful relation' between Queen and her subjects,highborn as well as lowly. Theseoccasions were also very much sites for the exerciseof power, by monarch and hosts alike. When examining these festivities in their historical and political contextsand illuminating their hosts' backgrounds,significant new interpretations,or at least possible alternative readings,may be found. Most importantly, the entertainments have to be viewed holistically, as eventsrather than as the texts that have come down to us. The hosts of the first two entertainments were powerful peers who were politically suspect from the regime's point of view. Both these lords, on the other hand, had little reason to love the regime because they had been harassed. Despite this state of affairs, traditional interpretations still maintain that both entertainments were submissive in tenor; that their hosts regarded the royal visit as an honour, and tried to (re)gain the Queen's favour through the spectacles that they were putting on. I would claim that these pageants are far more complex affairs and have to be read on different levels of signification. Far from being submissive, these fetes can be interpreted as challenging the existing order, if not indeed actively trying to subvert it. Having said that, there are country welcomes that seem to conform to the more traditional view of progress entertainments. The third pageant at Harefield was offered by a top-ranking Elizabethan official whose relationship with the Queen was presumably more amicable. Her visit to him was probably intended as a sign of favour, and his motivation in hosting the entertainment may well have been the consolidation of his own position within her close circle of councillors. He would have aimed at maintaining the existing order rather than challenge it; at establishing a `beautiful relation' between all classes. These conclusions can only be drawn, however, once the event as a whole has been studied as well as the surviving fragments of text. List of Abbreviations Add. Addenda (to Calendar of State Papers) AHR American Historical Review APC Acts of the Privy Council BIHR Bulletin of the Institute of Historical Research BL British Library CJH Canadian Journal of History CQ Critical Quarterly CSPD Calendarof StatePapers Domestic CSP Span. Calendarof StatePapers, Spanish DNB Dictionary of National Biography EHR English Historical Review ELH English Literary History ELR English Literary Renaissance HJ Historical Journal HLQ Huntington Library Quarterly HLRO House of Lords Record Office HMC Historical Manuscripts Commission HT History Today JEH Journal of EcclesiasticalHistory JHI Journal of the History of Ideas JMRS Journal of Medieval and RenaissanceStudies L&A List and Analysis of StatePapers, Foreign, Elizabeth MP Modern Philology N&Q Notes and Queries OED Oxford English Dictionary P&P Past and Present PMLA Publicationsof the Modern LanguageAssociation PRO Public Record Office RecH Recusant History RenD Renaissance Drama Rep. Representations RES Review of English Studies RORD Research Opportunities in Renaissance Drama RQ Renaissance Quarterly SAQ South Atlantic Quarterly SCJ Sixteenth Century Journal SEL Studies in English Literature ShQ ShakespeareQuarterly SP StatePapers, Domestic, Elizabeth (in the Public Record Office) Suss.Arch.