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INFORMATION TO USERS This manuscript has been reproduced from the microfilm master. UMI films the text directly from the original or copy submitted. Thus, some thesis and dissertation copies are in typewriter face, while others may be from any type of computer printer. The quality of this reproduction is dependent upon the quaiity of the copy subm itted. Broken or indistinct print, colored or poor quality illustrations and photographs, print bleedthrough, substandard margins, and improper alignment can adversely affect reproduction. In the unlikely event that the author did not send UMI a complete manuscript and there are missing pages, these will be noted. Also, if unauthorized copyright material had to be removed, a note will indicate the deletion. Oversize materials (e.g., maps, drawings, charts) are reproduced by sectioning the original, beginning at the upper left-hand comer and continuing from left to right in equal sections with small overlaps. Each original is also photographed in one exposure and is included in reduced form at the back of the book. Photographs included in the original manuscript have been reproduced xerographically in this copy. Higher quality 6" x 9” black and white photographic prints are available for any photographs or illustrations appearing in this copy for an additional charge. Contact UMI directly to order. u m T Bell & Howell Information and Leaming 300 North Zeeb Road, Ann Arbor, Ml 48106-1346 USA 800-521-0600 UNIVERSITY OF OKLAHOMA GRADUATE COLLEGE ‘DAUGHTER OF ZION’: ELIZABETH I AND THE RELATIONSHIP OF VIRGINITY TO MONARCHICAL POWER A Dissertation SUBMITTED TO THE GRADUATE FACULTY in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy By D. SUSAN KENDRICK Norman, Oklahoma 2000 UMI Number. 9961561 UMI UMI Microform9961561 Copyright 2000 by Bell & Howell Information and Leaming Company. All rights reserved. This microform edition is protected against unauthorized copying under Title 17, United States Code. Bell & Howell Information and Leaming Company 300 North Zeeb Road P.O. Box 1346 Ann Artor, Ml 48106-1346 ‘DAUGHTER OF ZION’: ELIZABETH I AND THE RELATIONSHIP OF VIRGINITY TO MONARCHICAL POWER A Dissertation APPROVED FOR THE DEPARTMENT OF ENGLISH BY ©Copyright by DENA SUSAN KENDRICK 2000 All Rights Reserved. Acknowledgments I always thought that when I finished my dissertation, it would be the culmination of my interest in Queen Elizabeth I. That is not the case: as with any figure whose biography has been subsumed by mythology, interest can only increase, so I imagine that I will have to continue my research on the Queen in the future — once my exhaustion from this project wears off. Without the help and guidance of my committee members, this dissertation would not have been possible. I would like to thank Professors Hunter Cadzow and James Hart Jr. for their assistance in the areas of Renaissance literature and Tudor/Stuart history. Professor Susan Havens Caldwell provided extensive suggestions for revision and crucial insights in the areas of medieval Catholicism and the spiritual image of the Queen. Professor George Economou was invaluable in the development of Chapter One, as his direction led me to the medieval works on virginity that lent so much to my reading of Elizabethan and Jacobean texts. I would like to express my gratitude particularly toward my dissertation director. Professor Gwenn Davis, for her exemplary professionalism, scholarship, guidance, and infinite patience. As a student in Professor Davis’ sixteenth-century literature courses (Sidney and Spenser; Sixteenth-Century Non-Dramatic Literature), I was introduced to new insights and the extensive historical and literary contexts which eventually led to this dissertation. I am grateful to Professor Davis for the endless numbers of hours that she devoted to meetings, reading drafts, and offering suggestions for iv revision, and especially for her encouragement when the project seemed too daunting a task. I consider myself very fortunate to know Professor Davis and to have worked with her on this project. I thank the British Library for allowing me access to their collections, and Professor Marilyn Ogilvie for access to the University of Oklahoma's sixteenth-century collection. I am also grateful for the network of friends and colleagues who participated in many discussions and offered suggestions and sympathetic ears. Thanks to Professor Regina J. Bennett for her sound advice and support, and to Professor Susan Kates who suggested a dissertation discussion group, thereby saving four people from despair. To the members of that dissertation group - I could not have done it without you. Thank you, friends: Amie Doughty for the twentieth-century perspective and all your help with formatting and the job search; Whitley Cooke, for including me in your trip to London and the British Library (it was sheer heaven); and Susan G. Cosby, for everything. 1 knew 1 had an extensive support network when even my eight-year-old niece and sixteen-year-old nephew asked, “So how’s your dissertation coming along?” Thanks to my parents, Jim and Phyllis Kendrick; my sister Kathie Kendrick Morrison; my nephew Matthew Holcomb and niece Mallory Holcomb for your encouragement. TABLE OF CONTENTS Introduction.......................................................................................................................1 Chapter One; Precedents: The Idealization of Virginity...................................................................10 Chapter Two: The Canonization of Virtue, 1582-1590.....................................................................55 Chapter Three: “Mirrors More than One: The Elevation of the Elizabethan Image, 1590-1603 .....................................................................................................................113 Chapter Four: Posthumous Panegyric: The Deceased Monarch and the Re-Creation of Imagery........................................................................................ 167 Conclusion................................................................................................................... 242 VI Abstract The argument of the dissertation involves the meanings of virginity and the representations of Elizabeth I during her reign and in the century after her death. Elizabeth has long been associated with the term “Virgin Queen,” and her virginity has been the subject of discussion in recent novels and film. The current definition ovirginity f refers only to sexual abstinence and the Queen-as-virgin images focus on deprivation and childlessness. The pattern established during the Restoration lost the original meanings ofvirginity and its association with strength, sanctity, ability, and worth. Chapter One discusses the images of the Queen as a virtuous, marriageable woman and covers the years 1558-1581, when marriage negotiations were part of her foreign policy. Chapter Two analyzes important changes in imagery and representation during the period of 1582-1590, when Elizabeth’s last courtship ended and it became obvious that she would never marry. Chapter Three discusses representations of Elizabeth 1 during the most problematic period of her reign - 1590-1603, when the Queen’s policies were criticized, Essex rebelled and was executed, and many people looked forward to a male successor. Simultaneously, the most well-known literary representations of her were being created, namely Spenser’sThe Faerie Qneene, a combination of Greco-Roman mythologies, English legends and history, and Elizabethan political propaganda. Chapter Four discusses the elegies and the revival of her images, the perpetuation of which has lasted throughout the twentieth century. vii Introduction Queen Elizabeth I has long been an object of fascination for historians and literary scholars, and contemporary writers and filmmakers are no exception. Elizabeth I is the subject of many twentieth-century films, including:Fire Over England (1937), The Lion Has Wings (1939), The Private Lives o f Elizabeth and £j5er (1939), The Sea //awÆ(1940), The Virgin Queen (1955), Elizabeth R (1971), Elizabeth ( 1998)', and a variety of novels, includingUnicorn’s Blood, by British novelist Patricia Finney. Several of these representations, particularly Elizabeth and Essex, The Virgin Queen, Elizabeth, andUnicorn’s Blood focus primarily on a single aspect of the complexity of Elizabeth’s character: her virginity. Whether these representations discuss the Queen as a lovelorn, fngid spinster or a sexually experienced woman who used her ‘virginity’ as a political construct, the contemporary emphasis has been on the physical aspects of virginity. These representations, however, perceive the Queen’s virginity from a highly reductive viewpoint, having either overlooked or ignored what virginity meant to Elizabeth’s sixteenth-century subjects. The argument of the dissertation involves the meanings of virginity and the representations of Elizabeth I during her reign and in the century after her death. Elizabeth I has long been associated with the term “Virgin Queen,” and her virginity has been the subject of discussion in recent novels and film. The twentieth-century definitionvirginity of refers only ' Die Internet Movie Database <http://www.imdb.com> 1 2 to sexual abstinence and the Queen-as-virgin images focus on deprivation and childlessness, as in the 1998 filmElizabeth, which depicted Elizabeth’s Virgin Queen image as a (false) role she adopted to gain national approval. Visually arresting