Carole Levin Carney, Debra Barrett-Graves, Jo Eldridge, eds.. "High and Mighty Queens" of Early Modern England: Realities and Representations. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2003. xii + 271 pp. $65.00, cloth, ISBN 978-1-4039-6088-7. Susan Doran. Queen Elizabeth I. New York: New York University Press, 2003. 144 pp. $21.95, cloth, ISBN 978-0-8147-1957-2. Clark Hulse. Elizabeth I: Ruler and Legend. Urbana and Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 2003. vii + 158 pp. $25.00, paper, ISBN 978-0-252-07161-4. Felix Pryor. Elizabeth I: Her Life in Letters. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2003. 144 pp. $34.95, cloth, ISBN 978-0-520-24106-0. Reviewed by Claire Schen Published on H-Albion (October, 2005) H-Net Reviews Kirilka Stavreva, one of the contributors to changing experiences did not signify transforma‐ "High and Mighty Queens", edited by Carole tion of their status. Although Catherine of Aragon Levin, Debra Barrett-Graves, and Jo Eldridge Car‐ supported humanism and the humanist education ney, observes that "witches and royalty were a of Mary, the purpose of that education was prepa‐ sure thrill for the theater-going crowds of Ja‐ ration for marriage, not the rule of England. Juan cobean London" (p. 151). Exhibitions, flms, schol‐ Luis Vives, "a man of his season" (p. 23), offered a arship, undergraduate classes, kitsch like "reinforcement of patriarchy" (p. 22). Judith Churchill's candy tins adorned by Elizabeth, and Richards recaps the negative historiography on the peculiar fascination of many in the United Mary Tudor before reappraising her role as a Re‐ States with the monarchy suggests that the thrill naissance queen and the accomplishments of her is not gone. When I began my teaching career I mother. The hallmark of Mary's reign, and the was reluctant to focus on Elizabeth I, a reflection legacy of her humanist education, was that she in‐ of my training as a social historian and my troduced humanist Catholic reform, "not simply predilection to show students something "new." conservative" Catholicism (p. 39). Louis Roper Within a few years, however, particularly as the identifies how Anna of Denmark became an "au‐ film Elizabeth (Shekhar Kapur, 1998) took dramat‐ tonomous political fgure" (p. 47), especially ic license, I revisited this decision. As these books through support of George Villiers and for the col‐ demonstrate, one can teach what is familiar about onization of Virginia. Karen Nelson calls Elizabeth Elizabeth I to many an educated reader and cine‐ of Bohemia and Henrietta-Maria "successful ma-goer, yet still add to the understanding of and politicians" (p. 73) who relied on family alliances the scholarship about the queen and her time. Al‐ and experienced difficulties because of their reli‐ though the books are different in their scope and gious difference, although Henrietta-Maria ig‐ aims--with a set of scholarly essays, an exhibition nored local custom and provoked the expulsion of catalog, a well-illustrated and selective collection her priests and much of her household. of letters, and a biography--they share a concern Part 2 considers living queens, but branches with balancing the "real" queen and her legend, further into literary images of ruling or at least and assessing her impact on her own society and ennobled women. Matthew Hansen analyzes the on successive rulers and generations. As Dror comparisons made between Catherine of Aragon Wahrman has recently shown, her example res‐ and the famously patient Griselda. By contrast, onated in gender and politics long after her death. Susan Dunn-Hensley concentrates on the preoccu‐ [1] pation with unruly women noted by social histori‐ "High and Mighty Queens", unlike the other ans, with the sexually transgressive Mary Stuart books here under review, is a scholarly, special‐ as historical example and Shakespeare's Gertrude ized collection of essays by established and new and Cymbeline's queen as literary ones. James's scholars that goes beyond the subject of Queen ascension paralleled the death of literary queens Elizabeth I. In the introduction, the editors set out and the restoration of proper patriarchal order. themes that are echoed not only in the essays, but Carney and Sid Ray each take up the problem of in the books that follow. They label the sixteenth female authority. Carney notes that Amazons century the "fault line" (p. 1) between the me‐ might be portrayed positively by dramatists, but dieval and the modern and highlight sixteenth- were more often treated as a "violation of the nat‐ century debate over the legitimacy of female rule ural order" (p. 117). Ray, on the other hand, noted and the nature of womankind. Part 1 covers the Shakespeare's "subtle undermining" (p. 134) of nature of Renaissance queens. Timothy Elston early modern political and social orthodoxy in tests Judith Bennett's argument that women's portrayals of Desdemona (Othello) and Miranda 2 H-Net Reviews (The Tempest). Stavreva suggests that foreign shared by other authors (p. 223). Retha Warnicke queens in drama before the 1590s tended to break plots the transformation of portrayals of Anne Bo‐ apart society, while the Jacobean ones used witch- leyn: from "politically innocent" in nineteenth- speak to hold it together. century plays to "ambitious plotter" in twentieth- The last part, "Cultural Anxieties and Histori‐ century drama. cal Echoes of Renaissance Queens," is the most The primary audience for the remaining closely linked to the other books. These essayists books is not a specialist one. Felix Pryor's Eliza‐ most skillfully and fruitfully bridge literary and beth I: Her Life in Letters can accompany Susan historical studies, a noticeable divide earlier in Doran's biography. His collection is "an exercise in the collection. These essays expand on key prob‐ kleptomania," a "treasure-cabinet," or a "market lems of the nature of women and female rule and stall" (p. 6). Out of the queen's "two selves, the the "afterlife" of historical fgures in the nine‐ public self and the private" came manuscripts in teenth and twentieth centuries. her hand and written by others that she signed; These writers also appeal to an audience he includes examples of each (p. 7). The treasure- broader than the one that attends a tightly fo‐ cabinet is arranged so that the left page shows a cused conference panel and do not assume highly photographic copy of each letter and the right of‐ specialized knowledge of the texts and authors fers an analysis of the content and the letter's con‐ under discussion, a problem in some of the earlier text, with transcriptions of excerpts of the texts. essays. Levin's contribution compares Katherine The "Notes and References" at the end of the book Parr and the "shrew," arguing that Katherine's provide the sources of translations and additional strong will and sense of religious independence readings or sources. In the "Further Reading" sec‐ was "tamed" by an orchestrated threat of arrest. tion it is surprising not to see works by Levin, Do‐ The threat of force plays in the comedy of the ran (besides the exhibition catalog listed), or Su‐ taming of Kate, but Levin emphasizes the un-com‐ san Frye. His lively description of writing utensils, ic history of wife-beating gleaned from prescrip‐ paper production, and handwriting inspires a tive sources. The remaining essays move between fresh appreciation for our archival sources. He re‐ contemporary events and persons and their later produces a series of her signatures across her imagining in modern literature and flm. Joy Cur‐ reign, one of which adorns his cover and that of rie highlights the self-portrayal of Mary Queen of Doran's biography. As both authors make clear, Scots as a pious and legitimate monarch, before the stock of images of Elizabeth include the signs turning to Wordsworth's fascination with the out‐ of her private and public selves, like that iconic cast, tragic fgure. Georgianna Ziegler studies Vic‐ "Elizabeth R." toria and Lord Melbourne's exchanges about Susan Doran renders Elizabeth's life and rule Catherine of Aragon, whom Victoria considered in vivid hues. Queen Elizabeth I, as part of the "'ill-used'" by Henry (p. 203). While Victorians British Library Historic Lives series, keeps compa‐ looked back to Elizabeth, Ziegler argues, Victoria ny with political (Winston Churchill, Oliver herself became Catherine and thereby ruled Cromwell), naval (Horatio Lord Nelson), and pi‐ "without compromising what were considered the ratical (Francis Drake) subjects. Beautifully repro‐ traits of her sex" (p. 206). Elaine Kruse notes that duced portraits, maps, engravings, and manu‐ the Black Legend of Catherine de Medici, "evil in‐ script sources are integrated into her text, ar‐ carnate," was regurgitated whenever a woman ranged in chronological chapters. The later ques‐ was in power. Her interest in the "gender codes of tions about women's rule are predated by ques‐ the period in which the myth is revived" is one tions about Elizabeth's very legitimacy. Doran de‐ 3 H-Net Reviews scribes Elizabeth's personal relationships without Dee's service in choosing a propitious coronation succumbing to twentieth-century pop psychology, date and on Elizabeth's clearing out of past coun‐ for instance noting that Elizabeth was not yet cilors and members of household. The pageants of three when her mother died and her nurse re‐ 1559 "implicitly represented the refutation of the mained the same. In adulthood Elizabeth rarely view recently expressed by the Scottish Calvinist mentioned her mother, perhaps being relatively John Knox that women had no right to rule, and unaffected by her death, although she adopted explicitly coupled the queen 'with the Gospel and her mother's motto for her own. Pryor includes verity of God's holy word', in other words the Elizabeth's frst surviving letter, written to her Protestant religion" (p.