“Turks” and the Making of Early Modern England
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“A Mirror to Turke”: “Turks” and the Making of Early Modern England By Laura Perille B.A., Colby College, 2008 A.M., Brown University, 2010 Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the Department of History at Brown University Providence, Rhode Island May 2015 © Copyright 2015 by Laura Ann Perille This dissertation by Laura Ann Perille is accepted in its present form by the Department of History as satisfying the dissertation requirement for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. Date_______________ ___________________________________ Tim Harris, Advisor Recommended to the Graduate Council Date_______________ ___________________________________ Tara Nummedal, Reader Date_______________ ___________________________________ Palmira Brummett, Reader Approved by the Graduate Council Date_______________ ___________________________________ Peter Weber, Dean of the Graduate School iii VITA Laura Perille was born in Denver, Colorado, on March 13, 1986. In 2008 she graduated summa cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa from Colby College in Waterville, Maine, with a double major in English and History, receiving Honors in the latter for her senior thesis, “Fashioning an Ideal: Constructions of Honor Leading Up to the English Civil Wars.” In May 2010 she received her A.M. from Brown University. During her graduate work at Brown, Laura has participated in scholarly programs through the Folger Shakespeare Library and the National Endowment for the Humanities. She received a grant from the Institute of Turkish Studies at Georgetown University to complete an immersion Turkish language program in Istanbul, Turkey, in the summer of 2011, and she completed an immersion language program in Persian at Georgetown the following summer. Brown’s Department of History selected her as a Peter Green Doctoral Scholar for the 2012-13 academic year. She is currently serving as a Brown-Wheaton Faculty Fellow, teaching an original seminar at Wheaton College on cross-cultural interactions in the early modern world. iv ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS In many ways, I view this dissertation as the product of the encouragement and direction provided by a number of wonderful individuals, who have each nurtured and left an important mark on my personal, academic, and professional development. My high school teacher Beth Montgomery and my Colby College professors Larissa Taylor and Laurie Osborne truly sparked my interest in European history and English literature, making the subject matter come alive for me and inspiring me to pursue further study and graduate school. They are proof of the great influence that one teacher can have on a student’s life. I am indebted to Tim Harris for his mentorship as both a teacher and an advisor. Over the years, our thought-provoking discussions as well as his invaluable feedback have made this dissertation possible. He is one of the most generous scholars and critical minds whom I have known, and it has been an absolute privilege to be one of his graduate students. Tara Nummedal and Palmira Brummett have each provided me with helpful guidance and encouragement, allowing me to fine tune and frame my ideas in more compelling ways. As my current DGS, Tara has done a tremendous job of making me as well as my fellow graduate students feel supported. Robert Self and Joan Richards, who both served as DGS previously, have my sincerest thanks in that regard as well. I would also like to thank Hal Cook for his intellectual generosity. I am grateful to NACBS, NECBS, and FEEGI conference participants as well as members of Brown’s MEMHS for their comments and feedback on various sections of this dissertation. Conversations with my fellow participants in the Folger Shakespeare Library seminar “The Voice of Conscience” and the National Endowment for the v Humanities Institute “Empires and Interactions” inspired me to approach or think about my research in new ways. In addition, time spent with my graduate friends provided me not only with countless hours of stimulating conversations but also, most importantly, with a fun and supportive community that ensured that graduate school was never isolating. My family remained a constant source of love and support throughout this process. They kept me grounded, reminded me never to sweat the small things, and made sure that I retained my sense of humor. My parents, Tom and Ann, have given me so many opportunities in life, and I know that what I have achieved is due to their unwavering support and encouragement. I would not be where I am today without them, and for that I will never be able to express my gratitude fully. As my sisters and best friends, Elizabeth and Maria have continued to inspire and motivate me, always keeping things fun and lively. I would also like to dedicate this dissertation to my grandparents, Jim and Eileen Perille and Sam and Aroxie Feldman. In particular I want to acknowledge Sam, who is no longer with us but who served as a tremendous inspiration to me. Driven by an insatiable curiosity and the simple love of learning, Sam audited university courses in literature, history, and art into his mid-90s. Our chats over bacon and eggs ranging from Shakespeare to Incan art are conversations that I will cherish forever. Sam eagerly read chapters of – and conference papers derived from – this dissertation, and I wish that he could have read the whole thing. vi TABLE OF CONTENTS Introduction 1 Chapter 1 – “Calling Down the Turke”: Elizabeth I and the Ottoman Alliance Against Spain 32 Chapter 2 – “Send us such commanders as in Elizabeth’s reign and then wee need not feare the Turke”: Charles I, the Duke of Buckingham, and the “Turkish” Pirate Raids 83 Chapter 3 – The “Turk” and the Direct Road to Liberty 142 Chapter 4 – Instruments of Providence: “Turkish” Converts and the Contest of Godliness 175 Chapter 5 – Anti-Court Coalitions, “Turks,” and the Molding of Public Opinion 235 Chapter 6 – Exposing “The Greatest Imposter”: The Tory Reaction and the Fight Against the True Protestant “Turks” 281 Conclusion 326 Bibliography 334 vii INTRODUCTION It was a wonder of wonders, that a Mayden Queene should at one time be both a staffe to Flanders, and a stay to France, a terror to Pope, a mirror to Turke, feared abroad, loved at home, Mistresse of the Sea, wonder of the world.1 We have some Reason to mistrust, that these Men are ready to Exchange (I will not say Christianity for Turcism, but) a Christian Monarch for an Infidel… they are willing to admit of a Mahumetan Habit rather than a Christian Ceremony… and a True-Protestant Grand Seignior rather than a Christian Prince.2 These two excerpts are taken from sermons delivered exactly 70 years apart, revealing shifts in how early modern Englishmen and women invoked the “Turk” not only to speak to political and religious anxieties but also to construct and reconstruct a national identity as they negotiated a period of great change. The first excerpt comes from a sermon that John Boys delivered at Paul’s Cross on the anniversary of the Gunpowder Plot in 1613. In the sermon, Boys nostalgically remembered Queen Elizabeth I (r. 1558-1603) as a mirror to the Turk, perpetuating Elizabeth’s careful self-presentation of herself as equal or superior to the Ottomans. Such self-presentation served as a means by which Elizabeth garnered legitimacy for her diplomatic policies on a European stage in the late 1580s and early 1590s. As Boys’s printed sermons were quite popular and enjoyed great sales, his ideas would have further solidified such an Elizabethan legacy for a wider audience.3 1 John Boys, An exposition of the last psalme delivered in a sermon preached at Pauls Crosse the fifth of November, 1613 (London: Imprinted by Felix Kyngston, for William Aspley, 1613), 17-18. 2 Edward Pelling, A sermon preached before the Lord Mayor and Court of Aldermen, at St. Mary le Bow, on Nov. 5, 1683 being the commemoration-day of our deliverance from a popish conspiracy (London: Printed for Will. Abington next the Wonder Tavern in Ludgate-Street, 1683), 20-21. 3 “Boys, John (bap. 1571, d. 1625),” William Richardson in Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, online ed., ed. Lawrence Goldman, Oxford: OUP, http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/3144 (accessed January 28, 2015). 1 The second excerpt was part of a sermon that Edward Pelling, the chaplain to the Duke of Somerset, delivered in November 1683 before the Lord Mayor and Court of Aldermen at St. Mary le Bow. At a moment marked by political fragmentation into Tory and Whig parties, Pelling condemned the duplicity of Whigs and nonconformists and preached passive obedience. His statements reflect the arguments made by Tory party propagandists, who sought to hold up a mirror to the Whig party and underscore that the latter's sympathy for the Ottoman Turks was misplaced and made them supposedly just as delusional and hypocritical as the Turks themselves. Perceptions of Whig sympathy for the Turks arose from the fact that certain prominent Whigs had expressed support for the Hungarian-Ottoman alliance against the Austrian Habsburgs. In linking their political principles to this other imperial struggle, the Whigs appeared – to their enemies – on the verge of trading Christianity for “Turcism” and preferring the rule of a “True-Protestant Grand Seignior” rather than a Christian Prince. Tory propagandists suggested that the Whigs and nonconformists had in fact become “Turks” themselves. These excerpts thus speak to different conceptualizations of the “Turk” in relation to the domestic religio- political landscape. From the reign of Queen Elizabeth I to the Exclusion Crisis under King Charles II (r. 1660-1685), the “Turk” evolved not only from serving as a means of self-promotion and legitimization to a satirical weapon but also from being one whom contemporaries hoped to equal or rival to something that contemporaries could actually embody.