Copyright by Daniel Edward Seward 2008 The Dissertation Committee for Daniel Edward Seward certifies that this is the approved version of the following dissertation: Civic Voice in Elizabethan Parliamentary Oratory: The Rhetoric and Composition of Speeches Delivered at Westminster in 1566 Committee: Linda Ferreira-Buckley, Co-Supervisor Marjorie Woods, Co-Supervisor Brian Levack John Rumrich John Ruszkiewicz Civic Voice in Elizabethan Parliamentary Oratory: The Rhetoric and Composition of Speeches Delivered at Westminster in 1566 by Daniel Edward Seward, B.A; B.B.A; M.A Dissertation Presented to the Faculty of the Graduate School of the University of Texas at Austin in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy The University of Texas at Austin May 2008 Acknowledgements My debts to individuals at the University of Texas are unusually numerous, given that I earned my B.B.A., B.A., M. A., and Ph.D. there, all while on-again-off-again resident of Austin and student at the University. Though such a long-standing affiliation with one school is often looked down upon in academia, I feel justified in maintaining this close connection to one institution, for the reason that I always felt challenged and enriched by the intellectual community that I encountered there. In fact, my scholarly and personal ties to UT repeatedly called me back, though I wandered off more than once for personal and professional reasons. Indeed, not a small number of my debts are due to the flexibility and congeniality shown to me by various members of the Department of English and the newly formed Department of Rhetoric and Writing, who gladly accommodated my itinerant propensities and unorthodox routes towards finishing my degrees. Although the enriching time spent in classes taught by English and rhetoric instructors might alone account for a sizable amount of indebtedness, I must rather emphasize the distance traveled (from Freshman Composition to doctorate) and pay particular thanks to individuals along the way who proved pivotal in directing me towards advanced studies in the history of rhetoric. First, I am grateful to the graduate student who taught me sophomore literature, though her name escapes me. A narrow Management Information Systems major before taking her course, without it, I would probably not have chosen to double-major in English. Though many English faculty members helped foster my intellectual development while an undergraduate, one stands out for pointing me towards rhetoric. The first course iv I took on the subject was John Ruszkiewicz’s Rhetorical Traditions. John would later become a good friend and traveling companion. While I owe John many thanks for his great generosity outside my educational experiences, here it makes the most sense to thank him for encouraging me to pursue graduate studies, and for making sure I made the most of my early years in UT’s graduate program. Along those lines, he must be thanked for advising me to take a course (while still possible) with the late James Kinneavy. He also introduced me to the late Maxine Hairston, who did me the honor of allowing me to work on various textbooks with her and John. Other graduate faculty helped me transition from a computer programmer fascinated by the poetry of natural language to a proper scholar of rhetorical theory and practice. John Slatin’s and Peg Syverson’s courses, first of all, provided an important bridge for making that transition. John’s and Peg’s laboratory-classrooms helped connect the oblique trajectories of unorthodox students like myself with more traditional disciplinary modes. Without those courses, moreover, I doubt that I would have found a way to my current interests in the epistemological implications of liberal arts education. Besides John and Peg, I would like to thank Davida Charney for demystifying scholarly writing. And I thank John Rumrich (who supervised my M.A. thesis on Milton’s Areopagicita) for legitimating my intellectual curiosity in the early modern period, even though the initial scholarly work I submitted to him (while I was a first-year graduate student in his Milton seminar) probably seemed relatively inauspicious. Many other faculty members in UT’s English Department contributed other important pieces to my education; I hope my omission of their names will not be interpreted as lacking gratitude. Two more names, however, must be mentioned: co-supervisors Linda Ferreira- v Buckley and Marjorie Woods. Besides their indefatigable efforts in helping me focus my subject and rein in my errant (and sometimes experimental) prose, their influence on my general scholarly pursuits cannot go unnoticed. Linda’s and Jorie’s graduate courses helped me realize that my key interests in studying the history of rhetoric concern the classroom (at all levels of instruction), including the texts and exercises used in formal education, and, most importantly, the minds shaped by it. Finally, I must thank my wife, Jill Galvan, who has made me a much more conscientious and well-rounded person, two qualities that are invaluable for anyone who studies how other people’s minds work. Most of all, however, I thank her for her companionship and conversation throughout my education at the University of Texas. vi Civic Voice in Elizabethan Parliamentary Oratory: The Rhetoric and Composition of Speeches Delivered at Westminster in 1566 Publication No. ______ Daniel Edward Seward, Ph.D. The University of Texas at Austin, 2008 Supervisors: Linda Ferreira-Buckley and Marjorie Woods The revival of classical rhetoric has come to be seen as a defining feature of the Renaissance, one manifest in a vast body of educational literature and cultural commentary. This discourse borrows and reshapes principles of Greek and Roman rhetoricians for contemporary social purposes. Much of the early scholarship on this cultural trend emphasizes the connection between the revived classical rhetoric and the self-conscious civic humanism apparent in school curricula and learned culture. The figure of the orator played an especially important role in this movement. Scholars have pointed out that the orator was presented by many educators and social critics as a noble vir civilis, one learned in literature, articulate in speech, and active in civil society. While Renaissance reformulations of classical oratory and emphases on the figure of the orator have been studied quite extensively as they appear in written works of the period, much less attention has been given to civic orations actually delivered. This study attempts to redress that gap in our understanding of early modern civic discourse, especially by investigating the triangulated relationship between humanist rhetorical education, vii Renaissance concepts of the power of eloquence, and civic speech as an institutionalized rhetorical practice. Parliament, often compared by Tudor writers to the Greek Areopagus and Roman Senate, provides an ideal locus of investigation, since the speeches delivered there were categorically civic in nature and regularly addressed the traditional subjects of classical deliberative oratory. Yet close analyses of speeches from Elizabeth I's 1566 session reveal that the common Renaissance images of the orator are unsuitable for characterizing the expressions of civic voice exhibited in actual public speaking, just as the classical codification of civic speech provides an insufficient hermeneutic tool for understanding the rhetorical purposes of orations delivered in Tudor institutions. Parliamentary orators did not see the revived classical rhetoric as the only, or even the primary, tool for composing orations in civic venues, but rather drew significantly upon institutional customs, procedural gestures, and alternative language arts, such as dialectic and sermonic prophesying, in order to establish finely nuanced stances within the rhetorical situation. viii Table of Contents Notes on Citation x List of Tables and Diagrams xi Introduction: The Civic Orator in the Age of Eloquence 1 1. Training the Elizabethan Parliamentary Orator 28 I) Beyond Rhetoric: The Many Expressions of Civic Voice in Early Modern Education 35 II) The Classical Tradition of Deliberative Oratory and Early Modern Genres of Counsel 71 III) Cultural Contexts of the Council of Parliament: Political versus Royal Institutions 88 IV) “Great Matters” of 1566: An Elizabetae Virus Ducendus Sit? 97 2. A Civil Exchange in the English Areopagus: Onslow’s Ceremonial Speech 100 I) Advice on a Decision: Richard Onslow’s Counsel for the Queen 106 II) Civic Voice in the Set Speech? An Early Modern Perspective 112 III) Preambles to Parliaments: Ceremonial Oratory as Constitutional Speech-Act 126 IV) The Rhetoric of Set Speeches: Onslow’s Orations Reconsidered 139 V) Custom and the Classical Canons in Analyzing Oratorical Practice 153 3. A Privy Councilor in the Commons: Sadler’s Duplex Oratory 157 I) The Customary Role of Privy Councilors in the Deliberations of the Commons 163 II) Classical Rhetoric for the Queen’s Cause: Sadler’s Textbook Deliberative Oration 181 III) Managerial Rhetoric and the Negotiation of Silence: Sadler’s Successive Speech 216 4. A Citizen’s Duty to Debate: Lambert’s Looking Glass for All Estates 229 I) The Rhetorical Situation: Directing England’s Feet Down an Over Worn Path 233 II) A Preamble of a Sort: Tully’s License and God’s Sufferance 240 III) Ars Dialectica: Dissecting (God’s) Constitutional Monarchy 245 IV) Ars Praedicandi: Prophesying and Praying before the Polis 285 V) A Peroration and a Point of Procedure: Love and Subsidies for Elizabeth 330 Epilogue: The Queen’s Own Eloquence 335 Bibliography 343 Vita 365 ix Notes on Citation Citation conventions: 1) Full bibliographic information appears at the end of the study in the "Bibliography." References in parenthetical citations follow MLA guidelines: author, title (for authors having multiple texts), and reference to specific pages or other sectional divisions. Footnotes list other relevant sources by name, title, and year of publication, to provide fuller information in the course of reading.