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Fall 1990

Review of Philippa Berry, Of Chastity and Power: Elizabethan Literature and the Unmarried Queen

Carole Levin University of Nebraska - Lincoln, [email protected]

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Levin, Carole, "Review of Philippa Berry, Of Chastity and Power: Elizabethan Literature and the Unmarried Queen" (1990). Faculty Publications, Department of History. 75. https://digitalcommons.unl.edu/historyfacpub/75

This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the History, Department of at DigitalCommons@University of Nebraska - Lincoln. It has been accepted for inclusion in Faculty Publications, Department of History by an authorized administrator of DigitalCommons@University of Nebraska - Lincoln. Published in ALBION: A QUARTERLY JOURNAL CONCERNED WITH BRITISH STUDIES, Vol. 22, No. 3 (Autumn, 1990), pp. 474-476. Copyright © 1990 Appalachian State University, published by University of Chicago Press. Used by permission.

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contentmentwith the forms of worship prevailingbefore 1547. Therewas no questioning of the royal supremacy. Dr. Whitingfinds it much more difficultto uncoverevidence for the spreadof Protestan- tism thanto documentthe suddendecline of traditionalCatholicism. Laymen were increas- ingly reluctantto acceptthe office of churchwardenand congregations bought the minimum amountof Protestantbooks andchurch furniture required by law. In one parisha bareplank was consideredto be adequateprovision for a communiontable. The severe shortageof parishclergy duringthe reformationdecades replacedan abundanceof candidatesfor the priesthoodin the two decadespreceding the reformation.Whiting attributes this to a decline in respect for the clergy, but neglects to investigatehow the closing of monastic almonry schools disruptedthe traditionalsupply of ordinandsduring the mid-Tudorperiod. When Elizabethcame to the throne,few parishpriests were licensed to preach- only twenty-eight spreadthroughout 600 parishesin 1561 - andmost of these were concentratedin the towns. Ninety-five per cent of the parishesin the diocese still lacked Protestantpreachers and only 20% of the clergy were universitygraduates in 1561. Dr. Whitingconcludes thatthere was less preachingin the 1560s thanthere had been in the 1520s. AlthoughDr. Whitingdoes providea few graphs,he misses a numberof opportunitiesto quantifyhis data and instead supplies anecdotaland impressionisticevidence. He recites case aftercase of gentlemenleading or supportingthe assaultupon traditional religion. Here, surely, the documentationwas complete enough to place at least the office-holdinggentry into categoriesaccording to theirreligious views. Moreover,except for a very short perspectiveat the end of the book, readersare left to make their own comparisonsconcerning the impact of the Tudor reformationsin other counties and dioceses. This is frustrating,because therewas such diversityamong county and regionalcommunities that practically every diocese was unique.Enough local studies have been publishedin the last twenty-five years that one might have expected more of a synthesis in orderto have placed this valuablestudy in a largercontext extendingbeyond the Southwest. The author'sconclusion that the ProtestantReformation had not happenedin the Southw- est by 1570 is, in a sense, a most unsatisfactoryone, and we can only hope thatDr. Whiting will follow up this study with anothervolume on the spreadof popularProtestantism. In the meantime, historiansexamining the impact of the Tudor reformationsin other parts of Englandwill need to revise the questionsthey ask.

ClevelandState University ROGER B. MANNING

PhilippaBerry. Of Chastityand Power: ElizabethanLiterature and the UnmarriedQueen. New York:Routledge, Chapman & Hall. 1989. Pp. xii, 193. $35.00.

Phillippa Berry has written a solidly researchedand ambitious study of the impact of ElizabethI and the cult of the VirginQueen on Elizabethanliterature. Berry's stated goal is to clarify contradictoryrelations of gender in the discoursesof idealizedlove of Petrarchan love poetryand Neoplatonicphilosophy, which so much influencedRenaissance literature. Berry wishes to explore the interrelationshipbetween the love discourses and the cult of Elizabeth.As her title suggest, Berryis concernedto examinea numberof literarytexts that Review of Books 475

intertwineissues of sexual and politicalpower. She arguesthat in sixteenth-centuryFrance as well as Englandthe ideology of absolutismappropriated idealized attitudes toward love. These concerns, Berry believes, helped to shape the way monarchy was represented aesthetically. Berry presentsa new view of the cult of Elizabeththat challenges the standardwork of FrancesYates. Berryargues that Yates' accountof the cult did not considerthe contest for sexual andpolitical authority that motivated the initialformulation by Elizabethancourtiers. Berrysees Yates' thesis as flawed in several importantrespects. One is thatYates saw the cult as essentially unified, when, says Berry,it was in fact comprisedof a numberof loose collections of discourses which changed over the course of the reign. More importantly, Yates did not take the issue of genderseriously enough, and describedElizabeth as unique. Berryargues that Yates had a "deleteriousinfluence on the views of the unmarriedqueen" (p. 61). Berrybelieves Yates was blind to the ideologicaland politicalproblems inherent in the rule of an unmarriedfemale. Berry's own interestis primarilyin the problematicstatus of Elizabethas a Renaissance womanruler who was both headof stateand "supreme governor" of the Church.Berry states she is reading representationsof Elizabeth from a feminist perspective. Her work is influencedand informed, she claims, by feministpsychoanalytic theory, especially the work of Luce Irigarayand Julia Kristeva.She also acknowledgesher debt to JacquesLacan. Berrybegins her study by tracingthe historyof the contradictorynature of the image of the chastefemale beloved (bothnature and spirit) within early Western culture and describes its evolution in the later Middle Ages and Renaissance.Berry is well versed in medieval literatureas well as mythology, and used this knowledge to challenge Yates' assertionthat Astraeawas the classical figureassociated with Renaissanceabsolutism in literatureand art. Instead,Berry makes a strongcase for the position accordedto the Romangoddess Diana, whose chastitywas the symbol for the inviolablesanctity of the state.Berry argues that Diana ratherthan Astraea "affords a betterinsight into the curiousconception of genderroles which underpinnedthis strandof absolutistideology" (p. 41). In re-examiningthe work of Yates and otherscholars such as Roy Strong,Berry initiates fascinatingways to understandthe questionof complex powerrelations when an unmarried women ruled as monarch.Berry argues that Elizabethhas to be understoodin connection with her gender, and places herself in oppositionnot only to the perspectivesof Yates but also morerecent scholars such as Louis Montrose,who also stressesElizabeth's uniqueness, her difference from other women. Though Berry's point is significant, she does not sufficiently credit the importanceof Montrose's own examinationof gender and power relations in Elizabethanliterature and culture. Elizabeth was both woman and "king." Despite this reservation,one of Berry's most useful insights is examining Elizabethin the context of her relationswith otherwomen, includingher own mother,Anne Boleyn. In her discussionof the cult of Elizabeth,Berry examines at some length the Kenilworth entertainmentof 1575, the Woodstockentertainment of 1575, the Wansteadentertainment of 1579, the FourForster Children of Desire (1581), the Ditchleyentertainment of 1582, and the Elvethamentertainment of 1591. Berryalso closely analysesthe courtplays of JohnLily and the poetryof GeorgeChapman and Walter Raleigh. She concludeswith an examination of Spenser's Fairy Queen and Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night 's Dream. Berry'swork is thoroughlyresearched but she does makesome occasionallyquestionable statements.One is the implicationthat Elizabeth did notcomplete Henry VIIi's tombbecause 476 Albion

of her feelings toward her father. An equally probablemotive would have been lack of financialresources for such as project.Also, referringto "Puritan"and "Puritan anxiety" (p. 60) when discussing such texts as John Knox's First Blast of the Trumpet(1558) and John Aylmer'sAn Harborrowefor Faithfulland TreweSubjects (1559) may be placing Puritan- ism much too early in the reign. Whatis most problematicabout Berry's work is her highly specializedlanguage and difficult prose style, which will limit the accessibilityof herwork and make the audiencefor this study a narrowone. This is a pity, since Berry's insights are fresh, provocative,and well worthconsidering.

SUNYCollege at New Paltz CAROLELEVIN

John N. King. TudorRoyal kconography:Literature and Art in an Age of Religious Crisis. Princeton,N.J.: PrincetonUniversity Press. 1989. Pp. xx, 286. $36.00.

ElizabethW. Pomeroy.Reading the Portraitsof QueenElizabeth . Hamden,Conn.: Archon Books. 1989. Pp. xiv, 98. $25.00.

At one time scholars liked to note that the Tudors rarely spoke of the divinity of their kingship-they took it too much for granted-and wisely left any full-dress, scholarly exposition on the subject to their pedanticsuccessor, James I. John King and Elizabeth Pomeroywould arguethat the historianshave been looking in the wrong place. The Tudors, far from downplayingthe godliness of theirrule, trumpetedtheir alliance with the deity at every occasion, but they did so visually throughpagentry, painting, and book illustrations. The trick, the authorsmaintain, is to know what to look for and how to translatewhat you see. Of the two books, Kings' TudorRoyal Iconographyis the most ambitiousand useful to the historian.He insists on continuityas well as change in the symbols and images thatthe Tudors used in theirwell-staged propagandacampaign to sear the legitimacy of their rule on theirsubjects' heartsand to proclaimtheir special statusas the recipientsand dissemina- torsof God's wordrevealed in Scripture.With the partialexception of official royalportraits designedto be copied and hungin the long galleriesof noble andgentry houses, the imagery and symbolic motifs used were neitherclassical nor ItalianRenaissance but Biblical, late medieval,Protestant and solidly Englishin origins.King arguesthat the historianmust think in terms of the cult of the entire Tudor dynasty, stemming initially from Henry VII, exaggeratedand transformed as a consequenceof the Reformationunder Henry VIII, further expanded by both Edwardand Mary, and attainingits ultimateliterary and visual forms underElizabeth. Hans Holbein's renderingof the title page of the CoverdaleBible in 1535, which displays HenryVIII as the godly ruler,set the standardfor all futurerepresentations of Edwardand Elizabethas theocraticsovereigns. Henry sits enthroned,supported by the figuresof David andMoses, who denotethe Biblicalideal of divinelyordained monarchy. He holdsthe sword of majesty and the book of God in his hands as he administersdivine truthto churchand state.King assertsthat Holbein used a farolder traditionof dynasticself-praise than Henry's newly acquiredtitle of SupremeHead of the Church;he drew particularlyon HenryVII's