N OTES 1 Introduction 1 . W i l l i a m W h a t e l y , A Bride-bush, or a Wedding Sermon (London: William Iaggard for Nicholas Bourne, 1617), pp. 18, 36. 2 . J o h n A y r e ( e d . ) , The Sermons of Edwin Sandys, Parker Society (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1842), pp. 324–5. 3 . J o h n A y r e ( e d . ) , The Catechism of Thomas Becon, Parker Society (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1844), p. 345. 4 . M a r t i n I n g r a m , Church Courts, Sex, and Marriage in England, 1570–1640 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987), p. 11. 5 . M a r t i n I n g r a m , “ ‘ S c o l d i n g W o m e n C u c k e d o r W a s h e d ? ’ A C r i s i s i n Gender Relations in Early Modern England,” Women, Crime, and the Courts in Early Modern England , ed. Jenny Kermode and Garthine Walker (London: UCL Press, 1994), pp. 49, 65–6. 6 . R . H . H e l m h o l z ( e d . ) , Select Cases on Defamation to 1600 , vol. 101 (London: Selden Society, 1985), p. 26. 7 . Ingram, “Scolding,” pp. 58–60; Alison Wall, Power and Protest in England, 1525–1640 (London: Arnold, 2000), pp. 148–9. 8 . M a r g a r e t S o m m e r v i l l e , Sex and Subjection: Attitudes to Women in Early Modern Society (London: Arnold, 1995), pp. 90–2. 9 . A d a m F o x , Oral and Literate Culture in England, 1500–1700 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 2000), pp. 335–58, 404–9. 1 0 . A l a s t a i r B e l l a n y , The Politics of Court Scandal in Early Modern England: News Culture and the Overbury Affair, 1603–1660 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002), p. 83. 1 1 . F o x , Culture, pp. 342–51. 1 2 . D e s i d e r i u s E r a s m u s , The Praise of Folly , ed. Clarence Miller, second ed. (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2003), p. 22. 1 3 . S i r J o h n H a y w a r d , Annals of the First Four Years of the Reign of Queen Elizabeth , ed. John Bruce, vol. 7 (London: Camden Society, 1840), p. 1. 1 4 . B e r n a r d C a p p , When Gossips Meet: Women, Family and Neighborhood in Early Modern England (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003), pp. 273–5. 15 . Laura Gowing, “Language, Power, and the Law: Slander Litigation in Early Modern England,” Women, Crime, and the Courts, ed. J. Kermode and G. Walker (London: UCL Press, 1994), pp. 26–47. 1 6 . J . A . S h a r p e , “ ‘ S u c h D i s a g r e e m e n t B e t w y x N e i g h b o u r s ’ : L i t i g a t i o n a n d Human Relations in Early Modern England,” Disputes and Settlements: Laws and Human Relations in the West , ed. John Bossy (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983), pp. 171–8. See also Laura Gowing, Domestic Dangers: Women, Words, and Sex in Early Modern London (Oxford: Clarendon, 1996), pp. 30–2. 192 Notes 1 7 . E l i z a b e t h F o y s t e r , Manhood in Early Modern England: Honour, Sex, and Marriage (London: Longman, 1999), pp. 149, 156. 1 8 . M a r v i n L o w e n t h a l ( e d . ) , The Autobiography of Michel de Montaigne: Comprising the Life of the Wisest Man of his Times (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1935), p. 88. 1 9 . S h a r o n J a n s e n ( t r a n s . ) , Anne of France: Lessons For My Daughter (Woodbridge: Brewer, 2004), pp. 34–5; William Vaughan, The Golden- Grove Moralized in Three Books , second ed. (London: Simon Stafford, 1600), sig. L8–9. 20 . Robert Shephard, “Sexual Rumours in English Politics: The Cases of Elizabeth I and James I,” Desire and Discipline in the Premodern West , ed. Jacqueline Murray and Konrad Eisenbichler (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1996), p. 102. 2 1 . S a r a M e n d e l s o n a n d P a t r i c i a C r a w f o r d , Women in Early Modern England, 1550–1720 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1998), pp. 34–9; Tim Stretton, Women Waging Law in Elizabethan England (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998), pp. 34–9. 2 2 . S o m m e r v i l l e , Sex , pp. 10–19. 2 3 . M e n d e l s o n a n d C r a w f o r d , Women , pp. 21–30; Marilyn Boxer and Joan Scot, “Overview,” Connecting Spheres: Women in the Western World, 1500 to the Present, ed. M. Boxer and Jean Quataert (New York: Oxford University Press, 1987), pp. 24–5. 2 4 . S o m m e r v i l l e , Sex , pp. 23–4, 85. 2 5 . C a p p , Gossips , pp. 10–14, 25; Sommerville, Sex, pp. 79–83, 88. 26 . Vivienne Larminie, “Marriage and the Family: The Example of the Seventeenth-Century Newdigates,” Midland History, 9(1984), 18. 27 . Alison Wall, “Elizabethan Precept and Feminine Practice: The Thynne Family of Longleat,” History, 75(1990), 30–8; Robert Cleaver , A Godly Form of Household Governmente for the Ordering of Private Families . (London: Thomas Creede for Thomas Man, 1598), sig. F8; Matthew Griffith, Bethel: Or, a Form for Families (London: Richard Badger for Jacob Bloome, 1633), p. 316. 2 8 . S i r J o h n H a r i n g t o n , Nugae Antiquae: Being a Miscellaneous Collection of Original Papers in Prose and Verse , ed. Henry Harington and Thomas Park, 2 vols. (New York: AMS Press Reprint, 1966), I, 28–9. 2 9 . M a r t i n A . S . H u m e ( e d . ) , Calendar of Letters and State Papers Relating to English Affairs Preserved Principally in the Archives of Simancas : Elizabeth I , 4 vols. (Nedeln/Liechtenstein: Kraus Reprint, 1971), I, 63, 101, 244; (Hereafter CSP Span/Eliz ); P. Yorke, Earl of Hardwicke (ed.), Miscellaneous State Papers from 1501 to 1726, 2 vols. (London: Strahan and Cadell, 1728), I, 167, Eighteenth Century Collections Online, http://galenet.galegroup (accessed August 5, 2011). 3 0 . W a l l , “ P r e c e p t , ” 2 9 . 3 1 . J a n s e n , Lessons , pp. 38, 44. 3 2 . G . B . H a r r i s o n a n d R . A . J o n e s ( e d s . ) , De Maisse: A Journal of All That Was Accomplished by Monsieur de Maisse Ambassador in England from King Henry IV to Queen Elizabeth Anno Domini 1597 (Bloomsbury, UK: Nonesuch Press, 1931), p. 110, 3 3 . R e t h a W a r n i c k e , “ D i p l o m a t i c R u m o r - M o n g e r i n g : A n A n a l y s i s o f Mendoza’s Report on Elizabeth’s Audience with Scottish Ambassadors Notes 193 in 1583,” Sovereignty and the Law in the Middle Ages , ed. Robert Sturges (Turnhout: Brepols, 2011), pp. 111–27. 3 4 . D o n a l d Q u e l l e r , The Office of Ambassador in the Middle Ages (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1967), pp. 84–140; J. Bain, W. Meikle, M. Giuseppi, and J. Mackie(eds.), Calendar of Documents Relating to Scotland and Mary Queen of Scots, 13 vols. (Edinburgh: H. M. General Register Office, 1898–1969), VIII, 247 (Hereafter CSP Scots ). 3 5 . CSP Span/Eliz., I, 192–3, 220. 36 . J. S. Brewer, J. Gairdner, and R. H. Brodie (eds.), Letters and Papers, Foreign and Domestic, of the Reign of Henry VIII , 21 vols. in 35 (London: HMSO, 1862–1932), XIV–1, no. 449; Henry Wotton, Reliquiae Wottononiae (London: Thomas Maxey for R. Marriot, G. Bedet, and T. Garthwait, 1654), sig. C6. 3 7 . W i l l i a m M u r d i n ( e d . ) , A Collection of State Papers Relating to Affairs in the Reign of Queen Elizabeth from the Year 1571 to 1596 . Left by William Cecil , Lord Burghley (London: Eighteenth Century Collections Online, 1759), http://galenet.galegroup (accessed August, 5, 2011), p. 410. 3 8 . L e o n a r d H o w a r d ( e d . ) , A Collection of Letters from the Original Manuscripts of Many Princes, Personages, and Statesmen (London: Eighteenth Century Collections Online, 1753), http://galenet.galegroup, p. 307 (accessed August, 5, 2011). 3 9 . D u d l e y D i g g e s , The Complete Ambassador (London: Thomas Newcomb, 1655), p. 196 (reported by the other resident, Sir Thomas Smith). 4 0 . F o y s t e r , Manhood , pp. 13–14. 41 . Desiderius Erasmus, “On the Writing of Letters” (De Conscribendis Epistolis) , trans. Charles Fantazzi, ed. J.