Elizabeth I and the Old Testament: Biblical Analogies and Providential Rule 9781641893817, 9781802700770

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ELIZABETH I AND THE OLD TESTAMENT

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GENDER AND POWER IN THE PREMODERN WORLD Further Information and Publications www.arc-​hum​anit​ies.org/​sea​rch-​resu​lts-​list/​?ser​ies=​gen​der-​and-​power-​in-​the-​ premod​ern-​world

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ELIZABETH I AND THE OLD TESTAMENT BIBLICAL ANALOGIES AND PROVIDENTIAL RULE AIDAN NORRIE

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British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. © 2023, Arc Humanities Press, Leeds

The author asserts their moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

Permission to use brief excerpts from this work in scholarly and educational works is hereby granted provided that the source is acknowledged. Any use of material in this work that is an exception or limitation covered by Article 5 of the European Union’s Copyright Directive (2001/​29/​EC) or would be determined to be “fair use” under Section 107 of the U.S. Copyright Act September 2010 Page 2 or that satisfies the conditions specified in Section 108 of the U.S. Copyright Act (17 USC §108, as revised by P.L. 94–​553) does not require the Publisher’s permission. ISBN (HB): 9781641893817 eISBN (PDF): 9781802700770

www.arc-​hum​anit​ies.org Printed and bound in the UK (by CPI Group [UK] Ltd), USA (by Bookmasters), and elsewhere using print-​on-​demand technology.

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For Joseph, and John and Nurhaida

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CONTENTS

List of Figures. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ix

Acknowledgements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xi

Abbreviations and Textual Conventions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xiii Dramatis Personae . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xv

Introduction: Elizabeth I and the Old Testament. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1

Chapter 1. Elizabeth I’s Use of the Old Testament. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15

Chapter 2. 1558–​1569: Legitimizing the Regime . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35 Chapter 3. 1570–​1584: Popery, Plots, Progresses—​and Excommunication. . . . . . . . 69

Chapter 4. 1585–​1590: Biblical Typology and the Catholic Threat. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 113 Chapter 5. 1591–​1602: The Twilight Years and the Catholic Threat Redux. . . . . . . . 153

Conclusion: Biblical Analogy and Providential Rule. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 183

Select Bibliography. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 187 Index. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 195

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LIST OF FIGURES

Figure 2.1. “Deborah and Barak leading the attack on the Canaanites,” in The Crusader Bible (ca. 1240s). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47

Figure 2.2. “Judges 4,” in Saint Louis’s Psalter (ca. 1260s) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 48 Figure 3.1. “The Judgement of Solomon,” with Elizabeth as Solomon . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 70

Figure 4.1. Playing card featuring Elizabeth I (1590). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 148

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

This book has

been many years in the making, and its existence is a testament to the advice and support I have received from a range of scholars and friends, as well as multiple institutions across four different countries. I am delighted to have the opportunity to publicly acknowledge these debts. Research for this book has been supported by a number of fellowships. The earliest parts were begun at the Newberry Library, Chicago, and I am grateful to the Newberry, and the Humanities Research Centre and the Centre for the Study of the Renaissance at the University of Warwick, for funding my fellowship. Special thanks to Lia Markey and Suzanne Karr Schmidt at the Newberry for making me feel so welcome during my stay—​and since. I acknowledge the Dr. Greg Wells Research Award and the Centre for the Study of the Renaissance for funding a visit to the Cambridge University Library. I am also grateful for the Early Career Fellowship awarded to me by the Institute of Advanced Study at Warwick, which helped me to continue working on the book in the awkward post-​PhD doldrums. Parts of Chapters 2 and 3 were originally published in “Biblical Typology and Royal Power in Elizabethan Civic Entertainments,” Royal Studies Journal 8, no. 1 (2021): 54–​78. My article, “Elizabeth I as Judith: Reassessing the Apocryphal Widow’s Appearance in Elizabethan Royal Iconography,” Renaissance Studies 31, no. 5 (November 2017): 707–​ 22, appears in a revised form throughout. In addition, a shorter version of Chapter 4 was presented at the 2018 Society for Renaissance Studies Conference, and an early draft of the Introduction was presented at the “Sex and Gender Politics: Medieval and Early Modern Studies Symposium” at Northumbria University in October 2019, and I am grateful for the fruitful discussions at these events. I thank the team at Arc Humanities Press, especially Erika Gaffney, who originally commissioned the book, and Danna R. Messer, who oversaw the book from delivery to publication. Danna and Erika are the best commissioning editors anyone could work with, and I am grateful for all the help and advice they have offered to me over the years. During the book’s long gestation, I have accumulated a great number of debts: these range from conversations about aspects of my argument to friends who offered encouraging words and saved me from myself by taking me for coffee and/​or cake. It thus gives me great pleasure to thank and acknowledge: Karra Adam, Jo Adamson, Marina Gerzic, Mitchell Gould, Tess Grant, Natalie Hanley-​Smith, Chris Hay, Lisa Hopkins, Marnie Hughes-​Warrington, Carole Levin, Liam Lewis, Dolly MacKinnon, Peter Marshall, Sarah Pinto, Peter Sherlock, Sophie Shorland, Liam Sims, Adrian Streete, Jayne Sweet, Heather Thaxter, Kat Waters, Micheline White, Rachel Willie, and Elena Woodacre, as well as the team at Coffee#1 in Stafford and all my students who have accepted my

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xii Acknowledgements obsession with Elizabeth—or bae, as they know her—with varying levels of patience and bemused exasperation over the years. In addition to the wonderful people mentioned above, I have to single out a few individuals for special thanks. My research assistant, Luke Holloway, is possibly the only person on the planet who cares about referencing more than me: I am very fortunate that he was able to save me from a variety of blunders, and grateful for his incisive comments and general good humour. Cristina Harrison, curator of the Much Hadham Forge Museum, was an incredible source of knowledge about the museum’s wall paintings, and freely shared her vast expertise with me. Nick Thursfield went above and beyond to take photos of the diptych at St. Faith’s, Gaywood, which meant I could have the perfect cover image. Kasia Kosior talked me through a thorny, last minute methodological issue, and I am extremely grateful for her help and support, both in that particular hour of need, and more generally. Esther van Raamsdonk and Mike Rose have been steadfast companions: I am grateful for their sage advice and friendship, and their patience with all things Elizabeth related. Nikki Clark is a constant source of inspiration and delight, and I am extremely lucky to have her in my life: lava. The triple dedication of this book acknowledges three people without whom I would not be here to write this. John and Nurhaida provided much needed love, support, and encouragement from afar, and helped to keep me grounded. And finally, Joseph: thank you for always being there, for listening to me, talking through ideas with me, supporting me no matter what, feeding me, and sharing your life with me. I couldn’t have done this without you.

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ABBREVIATIONS AND TEXTUAL CONVENTIONS

BL Collected Works

The British Library, London Elizabeth I. Elizabeth I: Collected Works. Edited by Leah S. Marcus, Janel Mueller, and Mary Beth Rose. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2000 CP The Cecil Papers, Hatfield House Archives ESTC English Short Title Catalogue, http://​estc.bl.uk/​ ODNB Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, online edition OED Oxford English Dictionary, online edition SP State Papers STC A Short-​Title Catalogue of Books Printed in England, Scotland, and Ireland and of English Books Printed Abroad, 1475–​1640. Edited by A. W. Pollard and G. R. Redgrave, revised by W. A. Jackson, F. S. Ferguson, and K. F. Pantzer. London: Bibliographic Society, 1976–​1991 TNA The National Archives, Kew Wing Short-​Title Catalogue of Books Printed in England, Scotland, Ireland, Wales and British America and of English Books Printed in Other Countries, 1641–​ 1700. Compiled by Donald Wing, revised and edited by John J. Morrison, Carolyn W. Nelson, and Matthew Seccombe. New York: Modern Language Association of America, 1994 In my transcriptions, modern lettering has been applied, and abbreviations and contractions have been silently expanded. Unless otherwise noted, translations are my own. All scriptural references are from the Authorized Version (the King James Version). Dates have been reproduced as they are given in the source, but with the year taken to start on January 1, not March 25. Subsequent references to primary sources are generally given parenthetically in-text.

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DRAMATIS PERSONAE

This list contains brief biographies of the significant biblical figures discussed in this book. The biographies mainly focus on the details relevant to this book, and, where applicable, recount the figure’s life as it was understood in the early modern period. For more comprehensive biographies, see A Dictionary of the Bible, ed. W. R. F. Browning, 2nd ed. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009); and/​or The Oxford Dictionary of the Jewish Religion, ed. Adele Berlin, 2nd ed. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011). Aaron:

Prophet, the first High Priest of the Hebrews, and brother to Moses and Miriam. Abraham: Patriarch of the Abrahamic religions (Judaism, Christianity, and Islam), Abraham was chosen by God and promised to be the father of a great nation. He is generally considered the first Hebrew, with all Jews descending from him. Absalom: Son of David who rebelled against his father and was killed during the Battle of the Wood of Ephraim. Barak: The commander of Israel’s army during Deborah’s judgeship who led the army to victory over the Canaanites. Daniel: A prophet who was taken to serve successive kings during the Babylonian captivity, he was spared by God after being sentenced to death in a lions’ den for not adhering to a law that required only the king be worshipped. David: The second king of the united monarchy of Israel and Judah (after Saul), David defeated the Philistine giant Goliath while still a boy, and was chosen by God to succeed Saul. David conquered Jerusalem, establishing it as Israel’s capital, bringing the Ark of the Covenant into the city to give it a permanent home. He planned to build a new temple to God, but due to the wars he had fought he was not allowed to construct it. He chose his son Solomon to succeed him, rather than his eldest surviving son Adonijah, which led to a short-​lived rebellion. Deborah: The only female judge of pre-​monarchical Israel, Deborah was both a prophet and judge who God raised up to deliver the Hebrews from the Canaanites. The Song of Deborah (Judges 5) claims that the land had rest for forty years, which was often linked with Deborah’s tenure as judge. Elisha: Hebrew prophet who succeeded Elijah, Elisha was known for the many miracles he performed.

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Dramatis Personae

Esther:

Gideon: Hezekiah:

Jacob:

Jael:

Jehoash:

Jehoshaphat:

Jezebel:

A Jewish woman who was queen consort to the Persian king Ahasuerus. Esther’s cousin Mordecai offended Ahasuerus’s grand vizier, Haman, who then received permission from the King to have all the Jews in the kingdom killed. Esther discovered Haman’s plan, and interceded on behalf of her people to the King. Ahasuerus agreed to instead allow the Jews to kill their enemies, and they did so, which is the basis for the annual feat of Purim. The successor of Deborah as judge, Gideon was chosen by God to deliver the Israelites from the Midianites. The thirteenth king of Judah, Hezekiah introduced sweeping religious reforms during his reign. He was largely responsible for the Israelites’ shift to monotheism, as he prohibited the worship of any other gods in the Temple in Jerusalem. He is also remembered for his crackdown on idolatry—​in particular, he destroyed the bronze serpent of Moses. He also restored the Temple, and with God’s helped defeated an Assyrian invasion. The son of Isaac and Rebecca, Jacob is regarded as one of the three Patriarchs of the Israelites. His twelve sons (including Judah and Joseph) became the founders of the Twelve Tribes of Israel. A Kenite who felt sorry for the oppression the Israelites suffered at the hand of the Canaanites. During the battle against the Canaanites under Deborah and Barak, the Canaanite commander Sisera sought refuge with her family. Jael invited Sisera into her tent. Once he was asleep, Jael took a mallet and drove a tent peg through Sisera’s head and into the ground, killing him instantly. As Deborah had prophesied, Barak lost the honour of defeating the Canaanites to a woman. The eighth king of Judah, he succumbed to idolatry in his later life, and was assassinated. His ignominious ending is sometimes offered as an explanation as to why he is omitted from the genealogy of Jesus recounted in the Gospel of Matthew. The fourth king of Judah, he was a destroyer of idols, and he sent priests to teach the law of God to his people. According to 2 Chronicles 17:3: “the Lord was with Jehoshaphat, because he walked in the first ways of his father David, and sought not unto Baalim.” A Phoenician princess, Jezebel was the queen consort of the Northern Kingdom of Israel as the wife of King Ahab. Along with her husband, she instituted the worship of Baal and Asherah, and violently purged the prophets of God from Israel. After Ahab’s death, and the death of her son who succeeded Ahab, she was defenestrated, and her corpse was eaten by stray dogs in fulfilment of Elijah’s prophecy.

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Joseph:

Dramatis Personae

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The favourite son of Jacob, he was sold into slavery by his jealous brothers, but through God’s intervention he became the pharaoh’s vizier and saved Egypt from famine. Joshua: The successor to Moses, Joshua led the Israelites to defeat the Canaanites and into the Promised Land. Josiah: The sixteenth king of Judah, Josiah succeeded to the throne when he was eight. In the twelfth year of his reign, he began a program of destroying Baalist altars and images throughout Jerusalem and Judah. During renovations to the Temple, the Book of the Law was rediscovered, which caused Josiah to enter into a new covenant with God. Judah: The fourth son of Jacob, Judah was the founder of the eponymous Tribe of Israel. The Tribe of Judah remained loyal to the House of David during the rebellion in Rehoboam’s reign that saw the united monarchy end, which means Judah is the ancestor of Jesus. Judith: A godly widow whose story is found in the eponymous book of the Apocrypha. When the Assyrian general Holofernes besieged her city of Bethulia, she charmed her way into Holofernes’s tent and was given strength by God to decapitate him. Without their general, the Assyrians disperse, and the Israelites are saved. Moses: Leader of the Israelites and lawgiver, authorship of the first five books of the Bible is attributed to him. With his brother Aaron, he led the Israelites out of bondage in Egypt, famously parting the Red Sea so that the Hebrews could cross, and received both the law and the Ten Commandments from God. He led the Israelites as they wandered the desert for forty years en route to the Promised Land, but was punished by God for his disobedience and was not allowed to enter the Promised Land. Noah: Chosen by God to build an ark, Noah and his family were spared when God flooded the whole world. God made a covenant with Noah and promised never again to flood the Earth. Through his children, Ham, Shem, and Japheth, Noah was viewed as the father of all nations. Queen of Sheba: Ruler (probably regnant) of Sheba who visited Solomon to see if the rumours about his wisdom were true. She found that Solomon’s reputation was not exaggerated, and after exchanging gifts, she returned home. She is not named in the Bible, although this has not stopped people erroneously referring to her as “Sheba.” Samson: The last judge of the Hebrews, Samson was granted immense strength by God. He was betrayed by Delilah, his Philistine lover, and his hair—​ which was the source of his strength—​was cut, resulting in his capture. When the Philistines took Samson into their temple of Dagon, Samson prayed to God and miraculously recovered his strength, allowing him to bring down the columns he was resting against, collapsing the temple, and killing himself as well as all the Philistines.

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xviii Samuel:

Dramatis Personae

A prophet, Samuel played an important role during the transition of Israel from the rule of the judges to a monarchy. He led the Israelites to victory over the Philistines, and later anointed both Saul and David king. Shadrach, Meshach, Three Hebrew men who were thrown into a fiery furnace by and Abednego: Nebuchadnezzar, King of Babylon, for refusing to bow down to his image. God preserved the three from harm, and the King sees four men walking in the flames, “the form of the fourth is like the Son of God” (Daniel 3:25). Sisera: Commander of the Canaanite army under King Jabin, he led the battle against Barak and the Hebrews. He was defeated and, after taking refuge in the tent of Jael the Kenite, was killed by her. Solomon: Successor to his father David as king of the united monarchy of Israel, Solomon was incredibly wealthy, and was granted exceptional wisdom by God (much of this is recorded in Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, and the Song of Solomon, which are all attributed to him). During his reign, the First Temple was built in Jerusalem, and he expanded Israel’s military might and trading relationships. Susannah: A married Hebrew woman, two elders spied on her while she was bathing in her garden. The elders sought to blackmail Susannah into having sex with them; when she refused, they claimed to have witnessed her committing adultery. Before she can be executed, Daniel intervened, and had the two elders interrogated separately. The men did not agree on the tree that Susannah was waiting for her lover under, and their lies were discovered. They were then executed, and Susannah was vindicated.

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INTRODUCTION: ELIZABETH I AND THE OLD TESTAMENT

Some years ago, during the obligatory academic wine and nibbles after a departmental research seminar, a senior academic who I barely knew asked me what I was working on. When I told him it was Elizabeth I of England’s biblical analogies, and that I was particularly excited to have found an interesting source earlier that day, his response was a mix of condescension and incredulity: “surely,” he said, “there is nothing more to be said about this. Everyone knows that Elizabeth was often compared to Deborah.” This was, of course, not an encouraging endorsement. Nevertheless, he was right—​partially. There is a plethora of scholarship on Elizabeth’s biblical analogies, with different figures receiving varying amounts of scholarly attention.1 These studies, however, invariably focus on a particular biblical figure (such as Deborah, Judith, or Solomon), or a specific period (such as the years around Elizabeth’s accession in 1558, or the aftermath of her excommunication in 1570). These various emphases mean that no single book has taken as its focus the uses 1 See, for instance: Donald Stump, Spenser’s Heavenly Elizabeth: Providential History in “The Faerie Queene” (Cham: Palgrave Macmillan, 2019); Aidan Norrie, “Elizabeth I as Judith: Reassessing the Apocryphal Widow’s Appearance in Elizabethan Royal Iconography,” Renaissance Studies 31, no. 5 (2017): 707–22; Susan Doran, “Elizabeth I: An Old Testament King,” in Tudor Queenship: The Reigns of Mary and Elizabeth, ed. Alice Hunt and Anna Whitelock (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2010), 95–​110; Michele Osherow, Biblical Women’s Voices in Early Modern England (Farnham: Ashgate, 2009); Linda S. Shenk, “Queen Solomon: An International Elizabeth I in 1569,” in Queens and Power in Medieval and Early Modern England, ed. Carole Levin and Robert Bucholz (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2009), 98–​125; Michele Osherow, “Crafting Queens: Early Modern Readings of Esther,” in Queens and Power in Medieval and Early Modern England, ed. Carole Levin and Robert Bucholz (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2009), 141–​57; Carol Blessing, “Elizabeth I as Deborah the Judge: Exceptional Women of Power,” in Goddesses and Queens: The Iconography of Elizabeth I, ed. Annaliese Connolly and Lisa Hopkins (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2007), 19–​33; Saralyn Ellen Summer, “‘Like Another Esther’: Literary Representations of Queen Esther in Early Modern England” (PhD thesis, Georgia State University, 2005); Alexandra Walsham, “‘A Very Deborah?’ The Myth of Elizabeth I as a Providential Monarch,” in The Myth of Elizabeth, ed. Susan Doran and Thomas S. Freeman (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2003), 143–​68; Anne McLaren, “Elizabeth I as Deborah: Biblical Typology, Prophecy and Political Power,” in Gender, Power, and Privilege in Early Modern Europe, ed. Jessica Munns and Penny Richards (London: Pearson Longman, 2003), 90–​107; Helen Hackett, Virgin Mother, Maiden Queen: Elizabeth I and the Cult of the Virgin Mary (Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1995); and Elkin Calhoun Wilson, England’s Eliza (1939; New York: Octagon, 1966).

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2 Introduction of the Old Testament by both Elizabeth and her supporters across her entire reign. It is this curious lacuna that Elizabeth I and the Old Testament seeks to address.

*** The Bible was the paramount text in early modern England.2 As the word of God, it was believed to be prefigurative of the present. To understand how the events of the ancient past of the Old Testament could be applicable to the present, figures and events were read typologically: that is, an event in the Bible was said to reverberate down the centuries, with contemporary situations linked to a biblical event in order to understand what God had in store for His people, or to conceptualize how a situation should be handled.3 Thus, Edward VI supported the Reformation in England like the reforming Hebrew boy-​king, Josiah;4 Mary I, despite being in her late thirties and early forties, would be blessed to give birth to an heir like the Old Testament matriarchs Sarah and Hannah;5 and parliamentarians in the Civil War of the 1640s and 1650s constantly turned to the Exodus as “the only parallel” for their situation.6 These typologies, however, all rely on the doctrine of providence, which held that God was not an “idle, inactive spectator upon the mechanical workings of the created world, but an assiduous, energetic deity who constantly intervened in human affairs.”7 It was this belief in providence that meant Mary I’s supporters genuinely believed that God would intervene and allow Mary to give birth to an heir who would secure the Catholic succession in England. Typologies and analogies, however, require human interpretation. Thus, while Mary’s supporters might believe she would be granted a child like Sarah or Hannah, Mary’s adversaries believed that the Queen’s childlessness was a punishment from God for her Catholicism. The precise interpretation of a particular typology, however, proved to be a powerful didactic tool, and a variety of early modern commentators and polemicists used the precedents of the Bible to comment on the present. It is for this reason that biblical typologies were often offered to monarchs, or why monarchs were frequently paralleled or conflated with their biblical antecedents. Thus, a biblical analogy could be 2 Victoria Brownlee, Biblical Readings and Literary Writings in Early Modern England, 1558–​1625 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2018), 2. See also Christopher Hill, The English Bible and the Seventeenth-​Century Revolution (London: Allen Lane, 1993). 3 Kevin Killeen, The Political Bible in Early Modern England (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2017), 35. See also Richard A. McCabe, The Pillars of Eternity: Time and Providence in “The Faerie Queene” (Blackrock: Irish Academic Press, 1989), 119–​20.

4 See Christopher Bradshaw, “David or Josiah? Old Testament Kings as Exemplars in Edwardian Religious Polemic,” in Protestant History and Identity in Sixteenth-​Century Europe: The Later Reformation, ed. Bruce Gordon (Aldershot: Ashgate, 1996), 76–​90. 5 See Aidan Norrie, “What Mary Did First: Re-​Assessing the Biblical Analogies of England’s First Female King,” in Mary I in Writing: Letters, Literature, and Representations, ed. Valerie Schutte and Jessica S. Hower (Cham: Palgrave Macmillan, 2022), 111–​33. 6 The Writings and Speeches of Oliver Cromwell, Volume 3: The Protectorate, 1653–​1655, ed. Wilbur Cortez Abbott (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1945), 434–​35.

7 Alexandra Walsham, Providence in Early Modern England (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001), 2.

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Introduction

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employed to exhort a monarch to emulate Solomon’s wisdom, to defend their people from invasion like Judith, or to ensure that God was properly worshipped like in the days of Hezekiah (for instance). By offering counsel or critique through a biblical example, commentators were able to suggest that their advice actually came from God, and that they were merely reminding the monarch of their duty to Him. Biblical typologies could, therefore, be a powerful way of legitimizing a monarch and their decisions, but they were also a potent medium of counsel that could not be lightly ignored. One of the more innovative aspects of this book is its focus on the biblical types themselves. People in early modern England had an incredibly thorough knowledge of the Bible. As Beatrice Groves points out, even “a brief allusion to a biblical story could open up a fund of associations, ambiguities, and analogues.”8 Anglophone society no longer maintains this “biblical literacy,” for lack of a better phrase, which means that the various nuances and connotations of biblical types are often missed today. In providing close readings of the various typologies, this book reveals the theological heft that was behind the content of these often-​overlooked pamphlets. Elizabeth I and the Old Testament has three broad aims. The first is to provide an analysis of the way that Elizabeth herself and her supporters used biblical analogies to make sense of the contemporary religio-​political situation. As will become clear, a biblical precedent could be found for virtually any contemporary issue, and commentators, polemicists, and writers continued to turn to the Old Testament as a lens through which to understand the present. The second aim is to bring to light a range of sources that have been previously neglected, and to emphasize the incredible range of biblical figures with which Elizabeth was paralleled. While Elizabeth was most frequently compared to Deborah throughout her reign, this book reveals that the last Tudor monarch was compared to more than thirty biblical figures across the entirety of her reign: some are more familiar, such as Solomon and Judith, but others are more obscure, such as Jehoshaphat and Abigail. By analyzing these numerous examples, this book emphasizes the variety of types that were at the disposal of early modern commentators and argues that their various (and sometimes ambiguous) meanings were a vital part of the practice’s potency. As this book shows, biblical analogies drew on the dual potency that came from privileging the historical past, and the acknowledgement that the biblical past represented God’s will, thereby allowing serious theological understandings of the Bible to be offered in service of practical politics. 8 Beatrice Groves, Texts and Traditions: Religion in Shakespeare, 1592–​1604 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 2007), 25. See also Thomas Fulton, The Book of Books: Biblical Interpretations, Literary Culture, and the Political Imagination from Erasmus to Milton (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2021); Hannibal Hamlin, The Bible in Shakespeare (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013); Naomi Tadmor, The Social Universe of the English Bible: Scripture, Society, and Culture in Early Modern England (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010); and Deborah K. Shuger, The Renaissance Bible: Scholarship, Sacrifice, and Subjectivity (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1994).

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4 Introduction Finally, this book argues that biblical analogies were a key way of perpetuating the belief that England was the new Israel, with the English God’s new chosen people. This belief, which had its roots in the rhetoric of the Hundred Years’ War, was predicated on the claim that by repudiating Christ, the Jews had renounced their position as God’s chosen people and was stoked by centuries of antisemitic thought. In a marginal note in his An Harborowe for Faithfull and Trewe Subjects, John Aylmer simply declared “God is English,” and by the seventeenth century, the belief had largely reached the level of orthodoxy.9 Many of the examples in this book conflate the English with the Hebrews, showing that the precedent of the Old Testament past was relevant to the present. In a way, this book provides a history of Elizabeth’s reign through the lens of biblical analogy, using the various types as a way to understand how contemporaries viewed the present. Of course, the distribution of surviving material is uneven, and the more nationally significant the event, the more comment it attracted. It is therefore essential to not draw conclusions based on the apparent survival of texts. While the research for this book has been thorough, no single book can discuss all the surviving examples. Many commentators used biblical analogies to claim an explicit relevance to contemporary religio-​political debates or concerns. Certainly, almost every use of a biblical typology served some kind of didactic function, but some writers were much more explicit than others in both their desire to make a didactic point through an analogy, as well as their claim to immediate relevancy. The examples analyzed here are largely those that seem to serve an overt political purpose, both in terms of the didactic nature of the analogy, and their use of the biblical past to counsel, rebuke, or warn.

Gender and Female Kingship

Elizabeth’s biblical analogies cannot be properly understood until our conception of female kingship is addressed. Indeed, despite the advent of feminism, and the publication of many excellent revisionist, gender-​conscious histories of Elizabeth I, female kingship in the premodern period is still considered an aberration, a virtually insurmountable problem that had to be confronted on an almost daily basis. Instead, it is a central contention of this book that Elizabeth did not experience the undue hardship, overt sexism, or anti-​female polemic that scholars and the general public alike believe that she did. While critics of female kingship did exist, they were in the minority; their existence 9 John Aylmer, An Harborowe for Faithfull and Trewe Subjects, agaynst the late blowne Blaste, concerninge the Government of Wemen (London, 1559; STC 1005), sig. P4v. See John W. McKenna, “How God became an Englishman,” in Tudor Rule and Revolution: Essays for G. R. Elton from his American Friends, ed. DeLloyd J. Guth and John W. McKenna (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1982), 25–​43; Michael McGiffert, “God’s Controversy with Jacobean England,” American Historical Review 88, no. 5 (1983): 1152–​53; Patrick Collinson, The Birthpangs of Protestant England: Religious and Cultural Change in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries (Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1988), 1–​7, 20–​27; Walsham, Providence in Early Modern England, 325; and Kevin Chovanec, Pan-​Protestantism Heroism in Early Modern Europe (Cham: Palgrave Macmillan, 2020), 25–​28. This argument was first made in: William Haller, Foxe’s “Book of Martyrs” and the Elect Nation (London: Jonathan Cape, 1963).

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Introduction

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only amplified because of the publication of a few, (in)famous diatribes—​John Knox’s The First Blast of the Trumpet being the most relevant and obvious example—​that are disproportionally represented in the scholarship. This is not to deny that some people in sixteenth-​century Europe did say awful things about Elizabeth based on her gender. John Stubbs’s A Discovery of a Gaping Gulf (1579), which used misogynistic and patriarchal language to dissuade Elizabeth from marrying François, Duke of Anjou and Alençon, is a classic example. Tracts such as Stubbs’s, however, do not suggest that Elizabeth should not be England’s sovereign. Instead, it seems that scholars tend to equate what are essentially standard misogynistic and patriarchal tropes for criticizing women with criticisms of Elizabeth’s right to rule.10 If we exclude Knox’s diatribe—​as we should, not only because it was published before Elizabeth succeeded to the throne and was not directed at her, but also because he made clear (whether genuinely or not) that his tract did not apply to Elizabeth11—​there were no tracts published during Elizabeth’s reign by an English person that argued against her right to rule based on her gender. Tracts that might be relevant, such as Cardinal William Allen’s An Admonition to the Nobility and People of England and Ireland (1588), are more akin to Stubbs than Knox, in that they focus on Elizabeth’s religion and her descent from Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn, rather than actively commenting on the acceptability of female kingship. After all, the tract was written because Elizabeth was a Protestant, not because she was a woman. To put it another way, I suggest that broadly speaking, Elizabeth’s rule is analogous to the premierships of Margaret Thatcher and Theresa May. Almost no one actually questioned these women’s ability to do the job because of their gender. However, this did not stop people from reverting to (negative) gendered tropes when they wanted to criticize a decision or action. The same thing was

10 As Victoria Smith has noted, “it was easy to resort to gendered slander in order to voice disapproval … of a queen’s rule or behaviour.” Likewise, as Mary Beth Rose has observed: “Existing scholarship has demonstrated the seemingly (but not actually) obvious fact that Elizabeth’s gender was a problem.” Victoria Smith, “For Ye, Young Men, Show a Womanish Soul, Yon Maiden a Man’s’: Perspectives on Female Monarchy in Elizabeth’s First Decade,” in Gender and Political Culture in Early Modern Europe, 1400–​1800, ed. James Daybell and Svante Norrhem (London:  Routledge, 2017), 153; Mary Beth Rose, Gender and Heroism in Early Modern English Literature (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2002), 30. For examples that rely on Knox, or conflate criticisms of Elizabeth with criticisms of female kingship, see Constance Jordan, “Woman’s Rule in SixteenthCentury British Political Thought,” Renaissance Quarterly 40, no. 3 (Autumn 1987): 421–51; A. N. McLaren, “Delineating the Elizabethan Body Politic: Knox, Aylmer and the Definition of Counsel, 1558–​88,” History of Political Thought 17, no. 2 (Summer 1996): 224–​52; and Ilona Bell, Elizabeth I: The Voice of a Monarch (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2010), 49, 60, 95–96, 123. 11 Knox wrote to Elizabeth on July 20, 1559, assuring her that “my book tucheht [sic] not your graces person,” before explaining that “it hath pleased Him of His eternall goodnes to exalt your head (which tymes wes in Daunger) to the manifestation of his glorie and extirpation of Idolatrie.” TNA SP 52/​1, fol. 123r.

6

6 Introduction the case with Elizabeth: accepting the right of a woman to rule was not incompatible with misogynistic pronouncements.12 The almost exclusive focus on the terms “king” and “queen” has reinforced a gendered view of monarchical power that was not so overtly demarcated in early modern England: after all, “monarch” and “sovereign” are not gendered (that is, they have no separate masculine and feminine form), and were applied to kings both male and female.13 Both Elizabeth and James VI & I were hailed as the “dread sovereign” of England from the very beginning of their reigns (even in the same publication);14 and more importantly, in the so-​called Golden Speech of 1601, Elizabeth referred to herself variously as king, prince, and queen—​switching between roles and genders with ease.15 This is why, for instance, Nicholas Heath, the Archbishop of York, was able to describe Elizabeth in parliament in 1559 as “our soveraigne Lord and Ladye, our King and Queen, our Emperor and Emperesse.”16 The biblical analogies analyzed in this book demonstrate that sex and gender were secondary concerns when it came to counselling and critiquing a monarch. As such, I build on Susan Doran’s cogent argument that Elizabeth’s gender did not really matter to the people of Elizabethan England. Doran, however, qualifies her statement that Elizabeth’s gender did not really matter by arguing “Elizabeth’s gender affected the style rather the substance of late sixteenth-​century monarchical rule and that in practice sixteenth-​century queenship differed little from kingship.”17 While this may be true, style was very much an important part of a monarch’s reign: indeed, it could be argued that all monarchs ruled in a different style, to say nothing of the various 12 My emphasis on the intersection of gender, class, religion, and status is informed by fourth-​ wave feminism. For an excellent study of the shifts in understanding gender and power between earlier waves and fourth-​wave feminism, see Miranda Corcoran, “The Monstrous Girl: Teen Witches, Power and Fourth-​Wave Feminism,” in Women and the Abuse of Power: Interdisciplinary Perspectives, ed. Helen Gavin (Bingley: Emerald, 2022), 61–​78. 13 See Mortimer Levine, “The Place of Women in Tudor Government,” in Tudor Rule and Revolution: Essays for G. R. Elton from his American Friends, ed. Delloyd J. Guth and John W. McKenna (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1982), 109–​23.

14 The Passage of Our Most Drad Soveraigne Lady Quene Elyzabeth through the citie of London to Westminster the daye before her Coronacion Anno 1558 (London, 1559; STC 7590). Henry Chettle spoke of Elizabeth as “our late dread Soveraigne worthy all memory,” and James as “our dread Soveraigne Lord and King.” [Henry Chettle], Englands Mourning Garment worne heere by plaine shepheards, in memorie of their sacred mistresse, Elizabeth; queene of vertue while she lived, and theame of sorrow being dead (London, 1603; STC 5122), sigs. A4r–​A4v, E2r. 15 Carole Levin, The Heart and Stomach of a King: Elizabeth I and the Politics of Sex and Power, 2nd ed. (Philadelphia: University of Philadelphia Press, 2013), 121–​22. For the Golden Speech, see Collected Works, 335–​44.

16 T. E. Hartley, Proceedings in the Parliaments of Elizabeth I, Volume I: 1558–​1581 (London: Leicester University Press, 1981), 12. It is worth noting that later in the same speech, Heath expressed his hope that MPs would “move our Queene’s Highnes to … followe th’example of good King David” (15). 17 Susan Doran, “Did Elizabeth’s Gender Really Matter?,” in Queens Matter in Early Modern Studies, ed. Anna Riehl Bertolet (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2018), 33.

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personalities of Elizabeth’s predecessors—​style was certainly the cause of both Edward II’s and Richard II’s depositions. Nevertheless, Doran notes the similarities between the Queen’s predecessors and successors: “Elizabeth was similar to all early modern British monarchs in consulting male advisers but taking the final decision on all state matters,” and argues that “the presence of a ruling queen introduced no significant changes to the institutions of the monarchy.”18 This book shares these conclusions, and argues that biblical analogies were a key part of royal iconography for all premodern monarchs, and their continued appearance and use under monarchs male and female, young and old, Catholic and Protestant, demonstrates the need to focus on their intended outcome and the typologies drawn on, rather than the gender or sex of the monarch in question. In addition, typologies were not constrained by a need to match genders. There are, after all, no biblical types for female kingship by hereditary succession: Deborah was not a monarch, Esther was a queen consort, Judith was not royal, and Athaliah was a usurper. While male monarchs were primarily equated with men (Henry VIII with David, Edward VI with Josiah), and female monarchs with women (Mary I with Judith, Elizabeth I with Deborah), the types themselves were not entirely gender-​specific: Solomon’s wisdom was an attribute that could be used for both male and female kings. One of this book’s central contentions, therefore, is that gender was largely immaterial to the exercise of monarchical authority, and that the realities of monarchy in the premodern world meant that the focus was on the position, rather than the incumbent. This of course speaks to the concept of the king’s two bodies, as it was popularized by Ernst Kantorowicz. While much ink has been spilled debating the various nuances of Kantorowicz’s argument, I do think that by the sixteenth century, there was an understood separation between the office of the king and the person of the king in the minds of the English people.19 It is for this reason, I suggest, that commentators 18 Doran, “Did Elizabeth’s Gender Really Matter?,” 48, 52.

19 For the works that have informed my own thinking, see David Norbrook, “The Emperor’s New Body? Richard II, Ernst Kantorowicz, and the Politics of Shakespeare Criticism,” Textual Practice 10, no. 2 (1996): 329–​57; Cynthia Herrup, “The King’s Two Genders,” Journal of British Studies 45, no. 3 (July 2006): 493–​510; and Rayne Allinson, “The Queen’s Three Bodies: Gender, Criminality, and Sovereignty in the Execution of Mary, Queen of Scots,” in Practices of Gender in Late Medieval and Early Modern Europe, ed. Megan Cassidy-​Welch and Peter Sherlock (Turnhout: Brepols, 2008), 99–​116. It is also worth mentioning Marie Axton’s The Queen’s Two Bodies: Drama and the Elizabethan Succession, which focuses on the dramatic manifestations of the concept of the king’s two bodies, specifically in law, politics, poetry, and of course, drama—​outlets that all allowed for creative interpretation to provide pointed counsel and commentary, often with religious and political undertones. More recent work by Susan Doran, Paulina Kewes, and Lisa Hopkins, however, has convincingly demonstrated the oversimplification of Axton’s conclusions in relation to the succession. Marie Axton, The Queen’s Two Bodies: Drama and the Elizabethan Succession (London: Royal Historical Society, 1977), 17; Susan Doran, “Three Late-​Elizabethan Succession Tracts,” in The Struggle for the Succession in Late Elizabethan England, ed. Jean-​ Christophe Mayer (Montpellier: Institut de Recherche sur la Renaissance, 2004), 91–​117; Susan Doran and Paulina Kewes, “The Earlier Elizabethan Succession Question Revisited,” in Doubtful and Dangerous: The Question of Succession in Late Elizabethan England, ed. Susan Doran and Paulina

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8 Introduction were able to claim that Elizabeth defended England like Deborah and Judith, reformed the Church like Josiah and Hezekiah, and was protected by God like Daniel and David without cognitive dissonance.

Biblical Analogy: A Contextual History

Biblical analogies were of course not a uniquely Elizabethan device, or even an English one. In fact, it is hardly an exaggeration to claim that virtually every monarch in western Europe, from the mid-​sixth century until the late seventeenth century, was almost certainly compared to a biblical figure sometime during their reign. Space does not allow discussion of what would surely be a multi-volume work, and instead specific and relevant examples have been included here to give a sense of the wider context within which these biblical analogies were drawn for Elizabeth. As Laura Fábián has shown, as far back as the Merovingian kings of France (mid-​fifth century to 751), monarchs were regularly compared to Solomon, with successive popes even endorsing the comparison.20 For instance, in 816, Pope Stephen IV visited Louis the Pious, King of the Franks (r. 814–​840). He compared the visit to that of the Queen of Sheba to the court of Solomon, claiming “What once brought the Queen of Sheba—​the love of wisdom—​through various lands [and] across seas … is what has brought me to you,” before concluding, “But you are more capable, [and] you are stronger at heart, than Solomon.”21 In addition, Saint Louis IX of France (r. 1226–​1270) was associated with Solomon both in life and during the period leading up to his canonization in 1297. Jean de Joinville’s Life of Saint Louis asserts that the King’s royal justice was as great as Solomon’s, and Gauthier Cornut, Archbishop of Sens, is recorded as describing Louis as “the True Solomon, the peaceful.”22 Robert the Wise, King of Naples (r. 1309–​1343), sought to make clear the links between his own kingly wisdom, and that which was granted to Solomon; as a lay preacher, he wrote several sermons that sought to link the peace and wisdom of his policies with those of Solomon.23 This ideal was taken up by his supporters: for instance, Kewes (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2014), 20–​44; and Lisa Hopkins, Drama and the Succession to the Crown, 1561–​1633 (Farnham: Ashgate, 2011), 6–​8.

20 Laura Fábián, “The Biblical King Solomon in Representations of Western European Medieval Royalty,” in The Routledge History of Monarchy, ed. Elena Woodacre, Lucinda H. S. Dean, Chris Jones, Russell E. Martin, and Zita Eva Rohr (New York: Routledge, 2019), 55–​56.

21 Ermoldus Nigellus, In Honor of Louis, in Charlemagne and Louis the Pious: The Lives by Einhard, Notker, Ermoldus, Thegan, and the Astronomer, ed. and trans. Thomas F. X. Noble (University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2009), 148. 22 Exuviae sacrae Constantinopolitanae, Volume I: Documenta hagiographica, ed. Paul Riant (Geneva, 1876), 47. Original Latin: “verus Salomon, id est pacificus, secundum originem carnis processit.”

23 Samantha Kelly, The New Solomon: Robert of Naples (1309–​1343) and Fourteenth-​Century Kingship (Leiden: Brill, 2003), 222; and Darleen N. Pryds, The King Embodies the World: Robert d’Anjou and the Politics of Preaching (Leiden: Brill, 2000), 57.

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shortly after his coronation, the jurist and nobleman Bartolomeo da Capua equated the new king with his biblical antecedent, writing, “King Solomon, that is, the king of Sicily, who can be called a Solomon by participation on account of his wisdom.”24 Charlemagne was explicitly depicted as a David in a letter from Alcuin, written in late 799: “I pray … that your piety’s coming may be a comfort to all and abundant blessing … [as] it was through the holiness of one man, him of the same name as yourself, David, a king most beloved of God.”25 In addition, as would be the case in early modern England, the succession between David and Solomon was used to bolster the reign of Charlemagne’s son and successor, with the peaceful reign of Louis the Pious compared to Solomon’s.26 There is evidence that most of Elizabeth’s monarchical predecessors were compared to a biblical figure at some point during their reign. In Asser’s Life of King Alfred (893), the King of the Anglo-​Saxons is praised for “emulating the pious, the wise, and wealthy Solomon, king of the Hebrews, who at first, despising all present glory and riches, asked wisdom of God, and found both, namely, wisdom and worldly glory.”27 Edward the Confessor was paralleled with both David and Solomon at his coronation when Eadsige, Archbishop of Canterbury, preached: “May God make you victorious and a conqueror over your enemies, both visible and invisible; may he grant you peace in your days … May God bless this our chosen king that he may rule like David … govern with the mildness of Solomon, and enjoy a peaceable kingdom.”28 William of Newburgh, in his Historia rerum Anglicarum (History of English Affairs, ca. 1198), compared Henry II to Solomon to contrast Henry’s reign with that of his son, Richard I, whom William depicted as a Rehoboam.29 In his Mirour de l’Omme (The Mirror of Mankind, ca. 1370), John Gower (negatively) compared Edward III to David, depicting the King’s mistress, Alice Perrers, as a contemporary Bathsheba, claiming that like David, Edward had been led astray by his carnal lust.30 In 1392, after the City of London had incurred Richard 24 Jean-​Paul Boyer, “Parler du Roi et Pour le Roi: Deux « Sermons » de Barthélemy de Capoue, Logothète du Royaume de Sicile,” Revue des Sciences philosophiques et théologiques 79, no. 2 (1995): 242. Original Latin: “Regem Salomonem, id est predictum regem Sicilie qui per quandam participationem potest dici Salomon ratione sue sapientiem, ut supra tactum est.” 25 “Alcuin to Charles: 799, after 10 July,” in Charlemagne: Translated Sources, ed. and trans. P. D. King (Lambrigg: P. D. King, 1987), 322–​23. 26 Paul Kershaw, Peaceful Kings: Peace, Power, and the Early Medieval Political Imagination (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011), 174–​77, 181–​82.

27 Asser’s Life of Alfred, trans. Henry Petrie, in Six Old English Chronicles, ed. J. A. Giles (London, 1848), 69. 28 Frank Barlow, Edward the Confessor (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1984), 64.

29 The History of William of Newburgh, in The Church Historians of England, Volume IV, Part II ed. and trans. Joseph Stevenson (London, 1856), 553. 30 John Gower, Mirour de l’Omme (The Mirror of Mankind), trans. William Burton Wilson, rev. Nancy Wilson Van Baak (East Lansing, MI: Colleagues Press, 1992), 298–​99.

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10 Introduction II’s rage by refusing to grant him a loan, the reconciliation pageants compared the King to Solomon, claiming Richard “knows how, just like Salomon, to rule his realm,” with the Queen, Anne of Bohemia, recognized as “a Hesther for the realm” for intervening and sparing the English from Richard’s vengeful wrath.31 In 1415, Henry V was depicted as a Solomon succeeding the Davidic Henry IV. During the founding of Syon Abbey, a monk from Vadstena, Sweden (who was to be brought over to establish the Abbey for the Bridgettine Order), wrote to Henry V, claiming: Even as Solomon magnificently consummated the temple which David his father planned to build, so also may the merciful integrity of your majesty bring to due fulfillment [sic] a monastery of this kind, which the devout intention of your generous father, hindered by death, could not achieve.32

At his entry into London in 1432, Henry VI was greeted with pageants that compared him to Euclid and Pythagoras, as well as Enoch, Elijah, David, and Solomon.33 Similarly, in pageants presented by the City of Worcester in the aftermath of the Stafford and Lovell rebellion, Henry VII was presented as the embodiment of multiple Old Testament figures: Welcome Abraham, which went from his Kynndrede, Of al this Lande to take Possession. Welcome Ysaac, that sumtyme shulde have be dedde, And now is Heire to his Fader by Succession. Welcome Jacob, opteynyng the Beneson, Which many Yeres dwelled with his Ungle [sic] true, Fleyng his Countrey from Drede of Esau. Welcome Joseph, that was to Egipte sold. Frely welcome oute of depe Cesterne. Welcome David, the myghty Lion bolde, Chosen of God, this Realme to rule and governe.34

These verses highlighted the providential favour that had allowed Henry to win the crown, and emphasize the way the present was read through the lens of the past. Henry VIII was most commonly associated with David. As Pamela Tudor-​Craig and John N. King, among others, have shown, the typology of David, who overthrew an oppressive ruler and had to bring together a divided kingdom, was a key component of

31 Richard Maidstone, Concordia (The Reconciliation of Richard II with London), ed. David R. Carlson, trans. A. G. Rigg (Kalamazoo: Medieval Institute Publications, 2003), 53, 73. 32 Nancy Bradley Warren, “Kings, Saints, and Nuns: Gender, Religion, and Authority in the Reign of Henry V,” Viator 30 (1999): 318.

33 John Lydgate, “Henry VI’s Triumphal Entry into London,” in Mummings and Entertainments, ed. Claire Sponsler (Kalamazoo: Medieval Institute Publications, 2010), 29, 35, 38; Richard H. Osberg, “The Lambeth Palace Library Manuscript Account of Henry VI’s 1432 London Entry,” Mediaeval Studies 52 (1990): 255–​67.

34 Joannis Lelandi, Antiquarii De Rebus Britannicis Collectanea, Volume 4, ed. Thomas Hearne (London, 1770), 195.

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Henry’s new, post-​Reformation royal iconography.35 Comparisons with David not only bolstered Henry’s claims to religio-​political supremacy over the pope, but also allowed Henry’s actions to be depicted as the fulfilment of Old Testament prophecies. For instance, Leonard Cox’s translation of Erasmus’s commentary on the Epistle of St. Paul to Titus, published in 1534, used the example of David in support of the royal supremacy. According to Cox, God “made kynge David keper of his herd of Israell … even so he hath by the voice of his people chosen our most noble and vertuous kynge Henry to be hed of his Englishe flocke, as well in spirituall governaunce as in erthly domynyon.”36 As mentioned above, Edward VI was routinely depicted as a Josiah. For instance, Thomas Becon lamented the death of “oure most godly Prince and Christien kyng Edwarde the VI, that true Josias that earnest destroyer of false religion.”37 Commentators most frequently compared Mary I to Judith. John Angel, a royal chaplain, claimed that God had sent England “a newe Judith, by whose godlines the trewe light and knowledge of Goddes worde is now by her brought agayne … This noble Judith is oure moost [sic] soveraygne Ladye Quene Mary, … the perfecte mirroure, and pearle of al Christen Princesse.”38 This long list of monarchs and their biblical analogies is intended to emphasize how deeply engrained the practice of turning to the example of the (biblical) past to make sense of contemporary situations was, and again reinforces the serious theological purpose that lay behind invoking biblical types. The recourse to biblical typology was particularly important for monarchs with a religious reform agenda. These monarchs were able to use these Old Testament examples to legitimize their rule, and to offer a precedent for their supremacy in religious matters. For instance, David had been an important royal type for centuries, but the typology was used more deliberately and urgently for Henry VIII after England’s split from Rome. Gustav Vasa’s election as the hereditary monarch of a newly independent Sweden in 1523 was often read through the lens of the biblical past. Gustav, who converted the Church of Sweden to Lutheranism, was depicted as Sweden’s liberator through 35 See Pamela Tudor-​Craig, “Henry VIII and King David,” in Early Tudor England: Proceedings of the 1987 Harlaxton Symposium, ed. Daniel Williams (Woodbridge: Boydell, 1989), 183–​205; John N. King, Tudor Royal Iconography: Literature and Art in an Age of Crisis (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1989), esp. 54–​90; John N. King, “Henry VIII as David: The King’s Image and Reformation Politics,” in Rethinking the Henrician Era: Essays on Early Tudor Texts and Contents, ed. Peter C. Herman (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1994), 78–​92; and John N. King, “Henry VIII as David: The King’s Image and Reformation Politics,” in Henry VIII and His Afterlives: Literature, Politics, and Art, ed. Mark Rankin, Christopher Highley, and John N. King (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009), 34–​52.

36 Erasmus of Rotterdam, The Paraphrase of Erasm[us] Roterdame upon [the] epistle of sai[n]‌t Paule unto his discyple Titus, lately translated into englysshe and fyrste a goodly prologue, trans. Leonard Cox (London, 1534; STC 10503), sig. A6v. 37 Thomas Becon, A Comfortable Epistle, too Goddes faythfull people in England (Strasbourg, 1554; STC 1716), sig. A3v. 38 John Angel, The Agrement of the Holye Fathers, and Doctors of the Churche, upon the cheifest articles of Christian religion (London, 1555; STC 634), sig. A3r.

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12 Introduction comparisons with Joseph, Moses, and Joshua.39 A particularly potent example of the use of biblical types can be found in a speech given at the opening of Sweden’s parliament in January 1544. In addition to depicting Christian II of Denmark as a contemporary Pharaoh, the speech claimed that Gustav “is like the examples of the pious and holy kings and princes of the Old Testament, namely, Abraham, Joseph, Moses, Gideon, David, Jehoshaphat, Hezekiah, Cyrus, and other holy godly rulers and chiefs.”40 In Denmark, Christian IV (r. 1588–​1648) was repeatedly depicted as a contemporary Solomon. Even before his accession, his father, Frederik II, had used the image of Solomon succeeding David to make clear his plan that Christian should (or would) succeed through hereditary right, rather than election.41 As the grandson of Christian III, who had converted Denmark to Lutheranism, Christian IV was often presented as the king who preserved the Danish people and encouraged the true worship of God, just as Joshua, David, Solomon, Hezekiah, and Jehoshaphat had in their day.42 While biblical analogy had, by the seventeenth century, become associated with Protestantism, it continued to be employed by Catholic writers. In particular, writers described the Solomonic Philip II succeeding the Davidic Charles V. For instance, in a speech delivered to English MPs, Cardinal Reginald Pole spoke about the reformation he hoped his tenure as papal legate would precipitate in England: “I can wel compare hym [Charles V] to David, whiche thoughe he were a manne electe of God: yet for that he was contaminate with bloode and war, coulde not builde the temple of Jerusalem, but lefte the finishynge therof to Salomon,” meaning that the task of reformation was “not appoynted to this Emperour but rather to his sonne, who shal perfourme the buildyng that his father hath begun.”43

39 See Martin Berntson, “‘Our Swedish Moses and Saviour’: The Use of Biblical Leaders as Power Legitimization in Reformation Sweden,” in Tracing the Jerusalem Code, Volume 2: The Chosen People Christian Cultures in Early Modern Scandinavia (1536–​ca. 1750), ed. Eivor Andersen Oftestad and Joar Haga (Berlin: De Gruyter, 2021), 147–​67; and Joseph Gonzalez, “Rewriting History: Humanist Oration at the Funeral of Gustav Vasa, 1560,” Scandinavian Studies 78, no. 1 (2006): 21–​42.

40 Svenska Riksdagsakter Jämte andra handlingar som höra till statsförfattningens historia under tidehvarfvet, 1521–​1718, ed. Emil Hildebrand and Oscar Alin (Stockholm, 1887), 344. Original Swedish: “såsom alle exemple af the fromme och helife konungar och furster uti thet gamble testament, nämbligen Abrahams, Josephs, Moises, Gedeons, Davidz, Josaphatz, Esechias, Cyrus, och månge andre helige gudfrucktige regenter och hufvudh [sic].” 41 See Juliette Roding, “King Solomon and the Imperial Paradigm of Christian IV (1588–​1648),” in Reframing the Danish Renaissance: Problems and Prospects in a European Perspective, ed. Michael Andersen, Birgitte Bøggild Johannsen, and Hugo Johannsen (Copenhagen: The National Museum of Denmark, 2011), 235–​42.

42 Paul Douglas Lockhart, “Political Language and Wartime Propaganda in Denmark, 1625–​1629,” European History Quarterly 31, no. 1 (2001): 25–​28. 43 John Elder, The Copie of a letter sent in to Scotlande, of the arivall and landynge, and moste noble marryage of the moste Illustre Prynce Philippe, Prynce of Spaine, to the most excellente Princes Marye Quene of England (London, 1555; STC 7552), sigs. D7v–​D8r.

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The comparison was also drawn posthumously. In 1619, during the Counter-​ Reformation, the Benedictine monk Juan de Salazar described the “almost complete similarity” between the Hebrews and the Spanish. For Salazar, Charles V had been a new David, and Philip II was “rightly said” to be a new Solomon.44 Salazar wanted his readers to be in no doubt that godly kings were responsible for the country’s providential favour, and its various economic and militaristic successes.

Book Overview

The book largely takes a chronological approach to Elizabeth’s reign, focusing on the context within which the biblical analogies discussed were invoked.45 The key exception to this diachronic analysis is Chapter 1, which offers the first scholarly analysis of Elizabeth’s own use of biblical analogies across her reign. In public and in devotional texts, Elizabeth compared herself to a range of Old Testament figures to thank God for the favour He had shown her, and to make sense of the unique position she occupied as England’s sovereign. Analyzing the way that the various types were deployed, this chapter shows that Elizabeth understood the potency of biblical analogy and sought to engage with it for her own legitimizing purposes. In effect, Elizabeth used these analogies to show her subjects that just as they could offer the example of the Old Testament, she too could claim to be following the example of her biblical antecedents. Chapter 2 covers the first decade of Elizabeth’s reign, from her accession in November 1558 to the Northern Rebellion of November 1569. Unsurprisingly, the texts analyzed in this chapter were largely focused on legitimizing Elizabeth’s accession and her religious settlement. Nevertheless, the workings of providence were a recurring theme throughout these attempts at legitimization, and this chapter in particular emphasizes the way that biblical analogies were a prime vehicle for demonstrating God’s favour to the English. The period between Elizabeth’s excommunication in Regnans in Excelsis in 1570 and the execution of the Throckmorton Plot’s conspirators in 1584 is the subject of Chapter 3. This period saw multiple attempts on Elizabeth’s life by Catholics, and Elizabeth’s seemingly miraculous deliverances were constantly used as proof of God’s favour. Throughout this period, commentators and polemicists read the present through the lens of the Old Testament and argued that just as God defended the Israelites during the time of Deborah, Judith, and Solomon, so would He defend His new chosen people from the evil Catholics. Chapter 4 covers a much shorter period, 1585–​1590, to show the link between biblical analogies and moments of extreme religio-​political concern. During this six-​year 44 Juan de Salazar, Politica Española (Logroño, 1619), 95–​96.

45 I have opted to analyze the various analogies included here with the assumption that readers will be familiar with the stories and main events from the lives of the relevant figures. Short summaries of the lives of all the important biblical figures in the book have been provided in a dramatis personae at the start of this book.

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14 Introduction period, which saw Mary, Queen of Scots, executed for her role in the Babington Plot, and England’s victory over the Spanish Armada, the Catholic threat remained at alarming levels. To reassure the English that God would continue to protect them, and that Elizabeth had been blessed because of her Protestantism, the Queen was compared to a vast array of biblical figures, and England’s status as the new Israel was constantly asserted. As this chapter shows, the sense of comfort that the invoking of these figures was intended to have is still palpable—​more than four hundred years later. Elizabeth’s final years are analyzed in Chapter 5, showing that while the Catholic threat had abated, the regime remained highly concerned about the situation in Ireland, as well as the threats posed by puritan agitators. Scholars have claimed that in the latter decades of Elizabeth’s reign, biblical analogies were largely supplanted by classical ones. As the numerous examples analyzed show, commentators and polemicists continued to see value in, and take comfort from, depicting their aging Queen as England’s Deborah.

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Chapter 1

ELIZABETH I’S USE OF THE OLD TESTAMENT

Elizabeth I is the only Tudor monarch—​and likely the only English monarch—​to

invoke a biblical analogy in her own words.1 Scholars, however, have failed to lend this significant fact the attention it deserves, and this chapter seeks to redress this oversight. Analyzing how Elizabeth’s supporters and apologists used biblical analogies is of course vital to understanding the religio-​political function that they served in early modern England. Nevertheless, the way that Elizabeth herself used the device is essential to understanding its shifting use and impact throughout the course of her reign. This chapter is concerned with the ways that Elizabeth publicly linked herself—​here defined by the analogy’s attribution to the Queen and its textual survival—​to her biblical antecedents to draw religio-​political support. In doing so, I am primarily interested in the way that Elizabeth used these biblical analogies to portray herself as England’s providential (Protestant) monarch, and indeed to demonstrate, either implicitly or explicitly, the role of a female king in national debates over religion. The main focus of the chapter is the two prayer books that Elizabeth wrote prayers for and compiled: Precationes Privatae (1563), and Christian Prayers and Meditations (1569). Both books contain examples of Elizabeth engaging with the people and events of the Old Testament in an attempt to link herself to these biblical antecedents, and to also demonstrate her providential favour (while also praying that it would continue). In addition to these two important publications, however, Elizabeth’s other, public engagements with the Old Testament will be used to bookend and contextualize the content of the two prayer books. The first analogy Elizabeth invoked during her reign was at her coronation procession in January 1559, which pre-​empted the appearance of another analogy to Deborah in the procession (which is discussed in Chapter 2). Likewise, the example of Solomon, and the wisdom he received from God by asking for it, provided a useful precedent for Elizabeth’s non-​decision in dealing with Mary, Queen of Scots, in the aftermath of the Babington Plot. The Old Testament, and the way Elizabeth linked herself to it, was thus central to Elizabeth’s iconography from the very beginning of her reign.

1 Henry VIII is depicted as David in several illustrations in his Psalter (ca. 1540) (BL Royal MS 2 A XVI). While this invites a conflation between the two figures, Henry was not directly responsible for this depiction, nor does it explicitly link David and Henry as Elizabeth would link herself to Daniel (for instance). See Pamela Tudor-​Craig, “Henry VIII and King David,” in Early Tudor England: Proceedings of the 1987 Harlaxton Symposium, ed. Daniel Williams (Woodbridge: Boydell, 1989), 183–​205; and John N. King, Tudor Royal Iconography: Literature and Art in an Age of Crisis (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1989), 54–​90.

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16 Elizabeth I’s Use of the Old Testament

The Coronation Procession The first biblical analogy that Elizabeth invoked during her reign was at the start of her coronation procession, on January 14, 1559. After emerging from the royal apartments in the Tower of London, where she had stayed the previous night, Elizabeth thanked God in a public prayer that He had preserved her to celebrate this day, in the same way that He had preserved Daniel from the lions. Elizabeth was only England’s second female king: she succeeded to the throne on the death of her childless half-​sister, Mary I. Mary had not been a particularly popular queen—​ an unpopularity that was not merely the traditional image of the “Bloody Mary” that lingers in the popular conscious.2 Mary’s style of rule tended towards the autocratic, like her father, Henry VIII. This autocratic style, coupled with the turbulent start to her reign, meant that she did not engage with the public aspects of monarchical authority that typically underscored a successful reign.3 In contrast, Elizabeth and her councillors seem to have recognized the root cause of Mary’s unpopularity, and from the outset, Elizabeth publicly embraced what Kristin Bezio describes as “the performative elements of the monarchy as the cornerstone of her authority.”4 The coronation eve procession was steeped in history: entertainments can be traced as far back as Richard II’s coronation in 1377.5 These ceremonies were originally devised

2 I refer here to the anachronistic view of Mary as a bloodthirsty Catholic zealot who took delight in ordering the executions of Protestants by being burned at the stake. See Thomas S. Freeman, “Inventing Bloody Mary: Perceptions of Mary Tudor from the Restoration to the Twentieth Century,” in Mary Tudor: Old and New Perspectives, ed. Susan Doran and Thomas S. Freeman (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2011), 78–​100; and David Loades, “The Reign of Mary Tudor: Historiography and Research,” Albion 21, no. 4 (1989): 547–​58.

3 While Mary’s reign has (deservedly) been revised in recent decades, there can be no doubt that Mary eschewed the performative aspects of monarchy and failed to heed both popular and councillor counsel—​whether or not this would have changed had she lived longer, or given birth to an heir, is pure speculation. Mary’s marriage to Philip II was, by any measure, unpopular (generally on the grounds of English xenophobia, or Hispanophobia) and provided England few real benefits; her dogged determination that she was pregnant, despite all evidence to the contrary, engendered various levels of public ridicule; she did not progress around England to tie her royal authority to her physical presence as Elizabeth would so successfully do; and her comparatively short parliaments that only allowed time for regime business, show less of an engagement with the important, public aspects of monarchy. See Robert Tittler and Judith Richard, The Reign of Mary I, 3rd ed. (London: Routledge, 2014), 85–​89; Mary Hill Cole, The Portable Queen: Elizabeth I and the Politics of Ceremony (Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 1999), 14, 18; Anna Whitelock, Mary Tudor: England’s First Queen (London: Bloomsbury, 2009), 257–​61; and Sarah Duncan, Mary I: Gender, Power, and Ceremony in the Reign of England’s First Queen (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2012), 43. 4 Kristin M. S. Bezio, Staging Power in Tudor and Stuart English History Plays: History, Political Thought, and the Redefinition of Sovereignty (Farnham: Ashgate, 2015), 36. 5 Cole, Portable Queen, 17.

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and produced by the City of London alone, but by the time of Henry VIII’s procession, the event was a fusion of counsel for the new monarch by the citizenry, an engagement with political theatre on the monarch’s behalf, and a public (albeit symbolic) reaffirming of the mutual dependence that existed between the monarch and their people.6 In effect, the coronation procession brought to the new monarch’s subjects the religio-​ political purpose of the act of coronation, while also allowing them to have a stake in the ceremony that was undoubtedly one of the most significant in a monarch’s reign.7 The performative aspect of monarchy—​that is, the engagement in political theatre—​ is of course a dialogue, rather than a monologue. While Elizabeth and her councillors used civic entertainments both to assert her authority through her literal and visible presence, and to demonstrate favour and disfavour, the Queen’s subjects also engaged in their own form of political theatre. The procession, in harking back to the precedent of her predecessors, and by utilizing the power that came from so ancient a ritual, presented Elizabeth with pageants filled with religio-​political advice. The unique nature of this two-​way political theatre has ensured that Elizabeth’s coronation procession has been the subject of sustained scholarly focus unlike any other royal procession or pageant.8 Not only is Elizabeth’s the first English coronation procession of which a full descriptive account survives, but it has also been used by scholars of history, religion, and literature to illustrate the political climate of Elizabeth’s accession. The account of Elizabeth’s coronation eve procession is contained within a pamphlet entitled The Quenes Majesities Passage through the citie of London to Westminster the daye before her Coronacion. The account was published anonymously just nine days after the procession—​on January 23—​by the printer Richard Tottel.9 Despite the anonymous publication, its authorship is generally attributed to Richard Mulcaster. While I remain unconvinced of the unqualified attribution to Mulcaster, due to his widespread association with the text, he will be referred to as the pageants’ deviser here.10 Nevertheless, it is important to bear in mind that his authorship is not definitive, nor is his role in devising all of the pageants certain. The account of the procession proved to be very popular: a second edition appeared soon afterwards, retitled as The 6 Cole, Portable Queen, 17.

7 Alice Hunt, The Drama of Coronation: Medieval Ceremony in Early Modern England (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008), 3.

8 Roy Strong, Coronation: A History of Kingship and the British Monarchy (London: HarperCollins, 2005), 222. 9 Hunt, Drama of Coronation, 159.

10 Mulcaster himself places doubt on this attributed authorship. In his 1581 school manual, Positions, Mulcaster describes the booklet as “my first travell, that ever durst venture upon the print.” Mulcaster does fit the part of pageant deviser (he served in Elizabeth’s first parliament as one of the members for Carlisle; his education, first at Cambridge, then at Oxford, gave him a solid humanist foundation, and he was a noted scholar of Latin and Greek, and he served as headmaster, first at the Merchant Taylors’ School and then of St. Paul’s), so it seems likely that Mulcaster was part of a group of devisers who produced the entertainment, and was later chosen to produce

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18 Elizabeth I’s Use of the Old Testament Passage of our most drad Soveraigne Lady Quene Elyzabeth through the citie of London to Westminster the day before her coronacion and featured a more elaborate title page. Two further editions were produced in 1604, likely to capitalize on the commercial benefit of James VI & I’s coronation procession. Elizabeth’s prayer at the commencement of the procession was evidently intended to have as great a performative impact as possible. Mulcaster recounts “her grace before she entered her chariot, lifted up her eyes to heaven and sayd [the prayer].”11 All eyes would have been on the Queen as she emerged from the Tower of London, and by stopping before she climbed onto her chariot, she was able to command the complete attention of the audience. She had deliberately disrupted the order of the procession: it is not hard to imagine the unsure expressions of her attendants. In a clearly polished piece of oratory, Elizabeth invoked what is probably the first analogy of her reign: O Lord, almighty and everlasting God, I geve thee most hearty thanks, that thou hast beene so mercifull unto me, as to spare me to behold this joyful day. And I acknowledge, that thou hast dealt as wonderfully, and as mercifully with me, as thou didst with thy true and faythful servant Daniel thy Prophet, who thou deliveredst out of the denne from the cruelty of the greedy and raging Lyons: even so was I overwhelmed, and onely [sic] by thee delivered.12

The public prayer, and its invocation of Daniel, served a dual purpose. The Tower of London had been a central location in Elizabeth’s life: only five years earlier, in 1554, she had been imprisoned there due to her suspected involvement in the Wyatt Rebellion against Mary I. Although Elizabeth was interrogated regarding her alleged complicity in the plot, no charge was brought against her. Now, she emerged from the royal apartments as England’s new monarch. Her providential favour was indisputable; God had chosen her to be His monarch in England, and He was going to continue to protect her. Given the many plots that Elizabeth would survive or thwart, it is unsurprising that this motif reappeared throughout her reign—​and indeed in the decades after her death. There is one final point to make about the invocation of Daniel that is generally not considered in the scholarship of the procession. In a similar way to how the published version (or even the surviving manuscript copies) of a speech by Elizabeth are unlikely to have been exactly what was delivered, accounts of entertainments performed for the Queen are not live reconstructions of how the entertainment was actually performed, an account of the procession for the Queen. Richard Mulcaster, Positions wherin those primitive circumstances be examined, which are necessarie for the training up of children, either for skill in their booke, or health in their bodie (London, 1581; STC 18253), sig. *2v; William Barker, “Mulcaster, Richard (1531/​2–​1611),” ODNB, doi:10.1093/​ref:odnb/​19509. 11 [Richard Mulcaster], The Quenes Majesties Passage through the citie of London to Westminster the daye before her Coronacion (London, 1559; STC 7589.5), sig. E4r. 12 [Mulcaster], Quenes Majesties Passage, sigs. E4r–​E4v.

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but rather, the script of what should have been performed.13 Indeed, it is not uncommon for entertainment accounts to include details of pageants that were not performed. For instance, Thomas Churchyard’s 1574 entertainment for Elizabeth’s progress to Bristol records the speech of the boy actor playing “Obedient Good Will,” even though he “could not speak [because] time was so spent.”14 However, Elizabeth’s speech at the Tower, given at the start of the procession, is included at the end of the published account. It seems likely, then, that the account’s author had produced a script of the entertainment but decided that Elizabeth’s spontaneous engagements with political theatre needed to be recorded. Indeed, that the speech at the Tower is included in a section entitled “Certain notes of the quenes majesties great mercie, clemencie, and wisdom used in this passage” points to it being a record of what was actually said (or very close to it).15 So while the prayer may not be Elizabeth’s exact words, the ubiquity of the Daniel and the lions’ den story in early modern England, coupled with the likelihood that the last section of the pamphlet was a stop-​press addition, means Elizabeth almost certainly made the invocation, with the direct implication that she declared herself to be England’s providential monarch.16 Regardless, the inclusion of the prayer in the pamphlet had the effect of ensuring that people believed Elizabeth compared herself to Daniel, and multiple writers throughout the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries referred to, and reproduced, the prayer.17 13 See Leah S. Marcus, “Collaboration in the Parliamentary Speeches of Queen Elizabeth I,” in Gender, Authorship, and Early Modern Women’s Collaboration, ed. Patricia Pender (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2017), 47–​69; and Frances Teague, “Queen Elizabeth in Her Speeches,” in Gloriana’s Face: Women, Public and Private, in the Renaissance, ed. S. P. Cerasano and Marion Wynne-​Davies (New York: Harvester Wheatsheaf, 1992), 63–​78. 14 Thomas Churchyard, The Firste parte of Churchyardes Chippes, contayning twelve severall Labours (London, 1575; STC 5232), sig. N6v. 15 [Mulcaster], Quenes Majesties Passage, sig. E3r.

16 The first two editions of the account include a blank page at the end. Given the speed with which the account was published after the procession, it is likely that the account was already laid out ready for printing, and that the “Certain notes” were added last minute, resulting in a less-​than-​ ideal distribution of the text across the paper. This distribution was corrected in the 1604 editions. 17 The prayer is reproduced in both the 1577 and 1587 editions of Holinshed’s Chronicles. It was also reproduced on numerous occasions in the seventeenth century: it was reprinted in Thomas Heywood’s England’s Elizabeth from 1631; in 1650, Samuel Clarke included the prayer in his biography of Elizabeth, writing how that at the start of her coronation procession “shee made a solemne thankesgiving to God, who had delivered her no lesse mercifully, and mightily, from her imprisonment in that place, then Daniel from the Lions Den”; and in 1660, Peter Heylyn reproduced the prayer with the caveat “But first before she takes her Chariot, she is said to have lifted up her eyes to heaven, and to have used some words to this or the like effect,” reinforcing the emphasis on the fact that she was believed to have invoked the analogy. Thomas Heywood, Englands Elizabeth, Her Life and Troubles, During Her Minoritie, from the Cradle to the Crowne (London, 1631; STC 13313), 226; Samuel Clarke, The Second Part of the Marrow of Ecclesiastical Historie (London, 1650; Wing C4556), 191; and Peter Heylyn, Ecclesia Restaurata, or, The History of the Reformation of the Church of England (London, 1660; Wing H1701), 106. See also Matthew J. Smith, Performance and Religion

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20 Elizabeth I’s Use of the Old Testament Elizabeth’s use of the Daniel analogy at the start of her coronation procession seemingly offered a tacit endorsement of the trope of comparing events of the present or recent past with the ancient past of the Old Testament. Elizabeth was thus participating in the same religio-​political milieu as her subjects, which is emphasized by the fact that the fifth pageant in the procession featured a depiction of Deborah the Judge—​a depiction that is discussed in Chapter 2. Precationes Privatae

In 1563, a book of Latin prayers was (likely) published by Thomas Purfoot and circulated around Elizabeth’s court. This book of “Private Prayers” appeared shortly after Elizabeth’s recovery from a near-​fatal bout of smallpox, and contained seven prayers in Latin (mostly of thanksgiving and for the Queen’s duties);18 four groups of prayers that each contained a short verse (“Versiculi”) and a collect;19 and, as Susan Doran notes, a further “seventy-​four pages contain[ing] 259 sententiae in Latin on the responsibilities of sovereign rule.”20 The fears caused by the Queen’s illness cannot be overstated: without a clear successor, England would probably have descended into civil war, with the Catholic Mary, Queen of Scots, the likely victor. The booklet does not explicitly name its author, either on the title page or anywhere inside. That the pamphlet is published with “Regiae E.R.” on the title page, however, is to me conclusive evidence of Elizabeth’s authorship of the prayers (and the collects). I find it unlikely that such an overtly monarchical construction would appear on the title page if they were not the Queen’s own creation, and the personal nature of the publication—​ Elizabeth’s godliness is well known, and her relief at surviving the bout of smallpox in Early Modern England: Stage, Cathedral, Wagon, Street (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 2019), 18.

18 The seven prayers are: “Preperationes ad preces” (“Prayer of Preparation”), sig. A2r; “Pro peccatorum venia” (“[Prayer for] the Forgiveness of Sins”), sig. A7v; “Gratiarum actiones” (“[Prayer of] Thanksgiving”), sig. B5v; “Precationes pro Regno” (“Prayer for the Kingdom”), sig. C3r; “Gratiarum actione pro sanitate recuperata” (“Thanksgiving for Recuperated Health”), sig. D3v; “Gratiarum actio pro beneficiis collatis” (“Thanksgiving for the Favour Bestowed”), sig. E2r; and “Precatio pro sapientia, ad Regni administrationem” (“Prayer for Wisdom in the Administration of the Kingdom”), sig. E6r. 19 The four pairs are interspersed among the prayers: After the “Prayer of Preparation” (Versiculi, sig. A5r; Collecta, sig. A5v); after the “Prayer for the Forgiveness of Sins” (Versiculi, sig. B2v; Collecta, sig. B3r); after the “Prayer of Thanksgiving” (Versiculi, sig. B8v; Collecta, sig. C1r); and after the “Prayer for the Kingdom” (Versiculi, sig. C6r; Collecta, sig. C7r).

20 Susan Doran, “Elizabeth I and Counsel,” in The Politics of Counsel in England and Scotland, 1286–​1707, ed. Jacqueline Rose (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2017), 153. For an overview of the sententiae, and a study of the way Elizabeth’s translations are adapted “to express her own perspectives” (as well as translations of the them), see Janel Mueller and Joshua Scodel, eds., Elizabeth I: Translation, 1544–​1589 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2009), 331–​94. For the insight these sententiae give to Elizabeth’s views on counsel, see Doran, “Elizabeth I and Counsel,” 153–​55.

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would have been genuine—​further adds credence to this conclusion.21 Nevertheless, for my purposes, I contend that even if the Queen did not write the prayers, they were published in such a way as to ensure readers thought Elizabeth was the author. As Donatella Montini claims, “in so far as they appeared to be authored by her, they de facto produced the effect of Elizabeth as author.”22 Likewise, Micheline White argues that early modern people read devotional texts “in multiple registers simultaneously: the devotional ‘I’ was understood to be that of the individual, the community, and even the current monarch.” This means that while readers “would have applied the text’s devotional ‘I’ to themselves, they would also have understood it as a projection of the voice of their monarch.”23 Thus, whether Elizabeth actually wrote any or all of Precationes Privatae and/​or Christian Prayer and Meditations (discussed below) is actually only a secondary concern. While I am convinced that she did indeed write the prayers, the fact that her readers thought she wrote them and read them in the monarch’s voice has the effect of turning the biblical analogies contained within the prayers into a direct comparison between Elizabeth and the Old Testament figure who was invoked. In the final of the seven prayers of Precationes Privatae, entitled “Prayer for Wisdom in the Administration of the Kingdom,”24 Elizabeth invoked the example of the Old Testament king, Solomon. In a similar way to the prayer uttered at the coronation procession, the analogy served as a public declaration of Elizabeth’s belief in her status as a providential monarch: Almighty God … when the most prudent of kings who administered a kingdom, Solomon, frankly confessed that he was not capable enough [to rule] unless Thou broughtst him power and help, how much less am I … able to bear the immense magnitude of such a burden … Instruct me from heaven, and give help so that I reign by Thy grace, without which even the wisest among the sons of men can think nothing rightly.25

21 For instance, her distress upon hearing the news that Henri IV of France had converted to Catholicism is recounted by William Camden: “Shee being full of sorrow, and much disquieted in minde, suddenly tooke her penne, and soone after … [sent a] letter unto him. … In this her griefe shee sought comfort out of the holy Scriptures, the writings of the holy fathers, and frequent conferences with the Archbishop, and whether out of the Phylosophers also I now not.” William Camden, The Historie of the Life and Reigne of the Most Renowmed and Victorious Princesse Elizabeth, Late Queene of England, trans. Robert Norton (London, 1630; STC 4500), bk. 4, 50–​51 (sigs. Ggg1v–​Ggg2r). 22 Donatella Montini, “‘Beholde Me Thy Handmaiden’: The Pragmatics and Politics of Queen Elizabeth’s Prayers,” in Elizabeth I in Writing: Language, Power and Representation in Early Modern England, ed. Donatella Montini and Ilonda Plescia (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2018), 90. See also Ceri Sullivan, Shakespeare and the Play Scripts of Private Prayer (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2020), 151–​52.

23 Micheline White, “The Psalms, War, and Royal Iconography: Katherine Parr’s Psalms or Prayers (1544) and Henry VIII as David,” Renaissance Studies 29, no. 4 (2015): 562. See also Hannibal Hamlin, “My Tongue Shall Speak: The Voices of The Psalms,” Renaissance Studies 29, no. 4 (2015): 509–​30. 24 Original Latin: “Precatio Pro Sapientia, ad Regni Administrationem” (sig. E6r).

25 E[lizabeth]. R[egina]., Precationes Private Regiae ([London], 1563; STC 7576.7), sigs. E6r–​E7r. The original Latin: “Omnipotens Deus … quū regū prudentifsimus Solomō iugenue fateatur, fe

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22 Elizabeth I’s Use of the Old Testament Invoking Solomon here served a dual purpose. As Solomon was chosen by God to be David’s successor, he was divinely favoured; Elizabeth, likewise, was implicitly seeking to link her own preservation under Mary to God’s favour. Similarly, that Solomon was cited in the prayer for wisdom is unsurprising: he is described in the Bible as being “wiser than all men.”26 More importantly, however, God granted this wisdom to Solomon after he prayed for “an understanding heart to judge thy people, that I may discern between good and bad.”27 Thus, Elizabeth was emulating Solomon by asking God for her own “instruct[ion] from heaven,” and by association, God would grant Elizabeth the same wisdom as Solomon. By focusing on Solomon’s request for wisdom (it was not spontaneously granted by God), Elizabeth was following a biblical precedent for receiving blessings. This analogy, in Elizabeth’s own words, thus served as a religio-​ political tool that also had the benefit of asserting Elizabeth’s monarchical authority, irrespective of her gender. If God could make Solomon’s wisdom famous “in all the nations round about,” he could also make his favoured monarch in England “wiser than all men.”28 Christian Prayers and Meditations

In 1569, the Protestant polemicist and apologist John Day published Christian Prayers and Meditations in English, French, Italian, Spanish, Greeke, and Latine. The first section of the booklet contains various prayers in English. Some were drawn from the Book of Common Prayer, but the section is largely comprised, with minor modifications, of prayers from Christian Prayers and Holy Meditations compiled by Henry Bull in the 1568 version of John Bradford’s Private Prayers and Meditations. The final section of the book includes seventeen non-​English prayers: five in French, three in Italian, three in Spanish, three in Latin, and three in Greek. The prayer book, however, does not bear the name of its author. Nevertheless, the evidence overwhelmingly points to Elizabeth as the book’s complier, and the author of the foreign-​language prayers. In their edition of Elizabeth’s works, editors Leah Marcus, Janel Mueller, and Mary Beth Rose argue that the Queen’s authorship of the foreign-​language prayers is indicated “by a variety of strong evidence,” including linguistic analysis of the prayers that points to Elizabeth as the author: “within the volume, gendered self-​references are feminine throughout, and the frequent anglicisms [sic] are characteristic of Elizabeth’s habitual practice.”29 The book’s printing also links Elizabeth to its composition, for the images of royal authority could not have been included without the Queen’s explicit approval: the parū idoneū fuiffe qui regnu adminifi tu illi opem atque auxilium ferres … aut tāti oneris immēfā magnitudinē fuftinere queā … ita regnantē tua gratia, (fine qua vel fapi etiffimus inter filios hominum nihil recte cogitare poteft) diuinitus imbuas, atque adiuues.” 26 1 Kings 4:31. 27 1 Kings 3:9.

28 1 Kings 4:31.

29 Collected Works, 143n1.

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frontispiece is an image of Elizabeth at prayer, with the title “Elizabeth Regina,” and a caption (in Latin) from 2 Chronicles 6:14 (“O Lord God of Israel, there is no God like thee in heaven, nor in the earth; which keepest covenant, and shewest mercy unto thy servants, that walk before thee with all their hearts”); the Queen’s coat of arms appears inside both covers; and the Lambeth Palace Library holds the presentation copy given to the Queen, which includes illustrations that were coloured by hand.30 As Jennifer Clement argues, this means then, like Precationes Privatae, “whether or not Elizabeth scratched out these prayers with by [sic] her own hand is less important, ultimately, than the fact that they appeared to be authored by her,” making the analogies contained inside an important part of the way Elizabeth fashioned the religio-​political device for her own purposes.31 These prayers, as Donatella Montini summarizes, “operate as a political performance … [that is] shared with Elizabeth’s subjects … and thus are also directed at human beings to shape a public sense of Elizabeth as ruler.”32 In this prayer book, Elizabeth was, as Clement has argued, “actively participating in the religious debates” of her reign—​just as she had (albeit to a lesser extent) in Precationes Privatae.33 I am also largely convinced by the suggestion offered by Marcus, Mueller, and Rose that the very production of the book implies it was meant as a “Protestant substitute” for the lavishly produced Books of Hours, which were central to Catholic piety.34 Elizabeth was thus asserting her role as Supreme Governor of the Church of England, while also participating in the reformed notions of private household prayer that constituted the devotional life of the English nation.35 This is further emphasized by the inclusion of prayers from the Book of Common Prayer. This hybrid mix of “official” and “unofficial” prayers implicitly reminded Elizabeth’s subjects of her divine favour, and reasserted the duty of obedience they owed to their Queen. In the months after the flight of Mary, Queen of Scots, into England in May 1568, and her subsequent house arrest, this assertion took on a renewed focus. It was during this turbulent time that William Cecil, later Lord Burghley, and one of Elizabeth’s closest confidants, conceived of a plan that would culminate in the 1584 Bond of Association.36 Part of the plan was “A necessary consideration of the perilous state of this tyme,” written 30 Lambeth Palace Library, ZZ 1569.6.

31 Jennifer Clement, “The Queen’s Voice: Elizabeth I’s Christian Prayers and Meditations,” Early Modern Literary Studies 13, no. 3 (January 2008): 1. 32 Montini, “‘Beholde Me Thy Handmaiden,’” 92.

33 Clement, “The Queen’s Voice,” 2. 34 Collected Works, 143n1.

35 Linda Shenk, Learned Queen: The Image of Elizabeth I in Politics and Poetry (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2010), 24.

36 For the 1584 Bond of Association, see David Cressy, “Binding the Nation: The Bonds of Association, 1584 and 1696,” in Tudor Rule and Revolution: Essays for G. R. Elton from His American Friends, ed. Delloyd J. Guth and John W. McKenna (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1982), 217–​34.

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24 Elizabeth I’s Use of the Old Testament on June 7, 1569, which was corrected and annotated by Cecil himself.37 It included a reasserting of the paramount importance of protecting Elizabeth, and by extension the entire English nation, from Catholic plots: Wherefore it semeth very necessary for the maytenance of the trew relligion for surety of hir royall person, by whom Almighty God hath so much blessed us, above all hir ancestors and for maytenance of this ancient English Monarchy from alteration of utter desolution, and for the conservation of all maner of subjects of all Estates.38

For Cecil, Elizabeth’s preservation was the only way to protect England, which followed “the trew religion,” from returning to the Catholic fold—​a point not as hyperbolic as it appears on the surface, given that Elizabeth’s most likely heir was the imprisoned (and Catholic) Mary, Queen of Scots. He also emphasized, however, Elizabeth’s apparent providential favour, claiming that the Queen was blessed “above all hir ancestors.” It seems that Christian Prayers and Meditations—​and particularly the foreign language prayers written by Elizabeth herself—​was important for demonstrating not only Elizabeth’s centrality to the English polity, but also the significance of maintaining England’s “trew religion” in the face of Catholic expansionism. The first of the foreign language prayers to include an analogy to a figure from the Old Testament (or indeed any biblical figure) was the second French prayer. Called “Action de Graces”—​“Thanksgiving”—​the prayer sought to highlight Elizabeth’s divine favour, and to further petition that like David, she would be safeguarded. In the prayer, Elizabeth asked God to grant her the same grace David had received: But Lord, give me the grace you once gave to David, a man according to your heart … You have broken me from my shackles, and have preserved me in the midst of mortal danger; you have put me at large and in safety.39

The references to “shackles” and “mortal danger” could have alluded to Elizabeth’s miraculous preservation during Mary I’s reign (the subject of her prayer at the beginning of her coronation procession), which was reminiscent of David’s own protection during Saul’s rule. The reference to David specifically, however, makes it likely that she was also considering her preservation from illness. Early modern thought, following from biblical ideas, held that illness was sent by God as a punishment for sin. In Psalm 38, David claimed “neither is there any rest in my bones because of my sin,”40 and in addition to the various references to David being ill scattered through the Bible, Psalms 6, 32, 38, 37 For the “necessary consideration,” see Stephen Alford, The Early Elizabethan Polity: William Cecil and the British Succession Crisis, 1558–​1569 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998), 194–​98. 38 TNA SP 12/​51, fol. 16v.

39 [Elizabeth I], Christian Prayers and Meditations in English, French, Italian, Spanish, Greeke, and Latine (London, 1569; STC 6428), sigs. Hh4v–​Ii1r. Original French: “Mais Seigneur, fay moy la grace, comme jadis tu as saite à David, homme selon ton cœur. … Tu as rompu mes liens, et m’as preservée au milieu des dangers de mort, tu m’as mis au large et en sauueté.” 40 Psalm 38:3.

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102, and 143 all refer to physical punishments due to sin and pray that they be removed by God. Just like the near-​fatal bout of smallpox that led to Elizabeth penning the prayers in Precationes Privatae, she again fell ill in 1568. According to John Strype, the Queen “was brought even to the very Point of Death,” and she penned a prayer of thanksgiving on her recovery.41 This prayer was never published—​and it may never have been used—​ but the references to God’s “mercy” and “infinite goodness” in preserving Elizabeth from “mortal danger” in the second French prayer certainly echo the unpublished prayer, claiming: O most just God and mercyfull father which of thy justice doest punishe us with sicknes for our synnes, and yet of thy mercy wilest not us to dye for the same, and therefore of thy meer goodnes hast delivered thy servant our most gracious Queen from hir extreme danger of deathe.42

Elizabeth’s miraculous preservation, then, had continued, and encompassed protection from both Catholics and deadly illnesses, further demonstrating her divine favour. The prayer, however, served as a potent religio-​political strategy: one that became increasingly important in the decade after the Northern Rebellion and the issuing of Regnans in Excelsis. While the second French prayer was (ostensibly) for thanksgiving, the third prayer was even more overt in its political purpose. The “Prayer for all the Kingdom and Body of the Church according to their Estates and Members”43 focused on Elizabeth’s desire to rule wisely and justly, with an implicit justification of England’s return to the Protestant faith under Elizabeth. Unsurprisingly, the prayer invoked the example of Solomon: I ask you with all my heart, as much for me as for all others you have established in this same degree of pre-​eminence, to give us that formerly Solomon asked you, a prayer which you approved as having been put in his heart and his mouth by your Holy Spirit, which teaches us to pray for the helping of our infirmities.44

The prayer continued with a request that her councillors be wise, too:

O Lord, good God, you have made me reign in the midst of your people, you will give your maidservant and your manservants an understanding heart to judge your people, and to

41 John Strype, Annals of the Reformation and Establishment of Religion, and other various Occurrences in the Church of England; During the First Twelve Years of Queen Elizabeth’s Happy Reign, 4 vols. (London, 1725), 1:553. 42 BL Lansdowne MS 116, fol. 75r. Curiously, a later hand has made a few slight additions, including “thy servant.” This same hand described the manuscript’s contents as “A Prayer for the Queene being sick” (fol. 76v).

43 Original French: “Oraison pour tout le Royaume et corps de l’Eglise [sic] selon leurs Estas et membres” (sig. Ii1r).

44 [Elizabeth I], Christian Prayers and Meditations, sigs. Ii2r–​Ii2v. Original French: “Ie te requiers de tout mon cœur, tant pour moy, que pour tous autres que tu as conftituez en ce mefme degré de prééminence, de nous donner, ce que iadis t’a demandé vn Salomon, duquel tu as approuué l’Oraison, comme l’ayant mife en fon coeur, & en fa bouche par ton faint Esprit, lequel nous apprend de bien prier aydant noz infirmitez.”

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26 Elizabeth I’s Use of the Old Testament discern good from evil … Give us also prudent, wise, and virtuous counsellors, chasing away from us all ambitious, malignant, cunning, and hypocritical ones.45

Finally, Elizabeth sought to emphasize her centrality to the English polity by visualizing the nation as a chain of obedience, serving to unify and strengthen her people: Also, Lord, make all those with whom you have charged me render me the duty of a just obedience, that there be a good and holy union between the head and the body and that because we all know that the state of the kingdoms and the government of the republics [commonwealths] depend on you alone.46

The prayer therefore highlighted Elizabeth’s status as the religio-​political centre of the English commonwealth. It was an attempt to deflect one of the primary criticisms levelled against the Queen by her opponents in the 1560s and 1570s—​that she was advised by “wicked” men—​as an implicit comment on their Protestantism. This text, then, is an important part of what Doran identifies as an attempt by Elizabeth to “fashion herself as a virtuous and godly prince and thereby challenge the disapproving depictions presented by Roman Catholics on the continent and godly Protestant critics at home.”47 Echoing her first recorded speech after her accession, in which Elizabeth declared “I meane to direct all my acc[ti]ons by good advise and counseill,” the Queen depicted herself as a providentially favoured monarch who was advised by wise councillors.48 It is also worth noting that this text paraphrased Solomon’s own prayer. The new king prayed that God would “give therefore thy servant an understanding heart to judge thy people, that I may discern between good and bad.”49 In drawing on Solomon’s own prayer, Elizabeth was not only linking herself to the Old Testament king, but also replicating a prayer that had already “pleased the Lord” in the hope that God would likewise grant Elizabeth “a wise and an understanding heart.”50 By praying for the same degree of “pre-​ eminence” that God afforded Solomon, Elizabeth was demonstrating her providential favour, and emphasizing the validity of the royal supremacy.

45 [Elizabeth I], Christian Prayers and Meditations, sig. Ii2v. Original French: “O Seigneur bon Die tu m’as fait regner au milieu de ton peuple, tu donneras à ta servante et à tes serviteurs un cœur entendu pour iuger ton peuple, et pour discerner le bien d’entre le mal … Donne nous aussi des Conseillers prudens sages et vertueux, chassant loing de nous, tous ambitieux, malins, cauteleux, et hypocrites.”

46 [Elizabeth I], Christian Prayers and Meditations, sig. Ii3r. Original French: “aussi Seigneur que tous ceux, desquelz tu m’as commis la charge en main, me rendent le devoir d’une juste obeissance, à fin qu’ily ait une bonne et sainte union entre le chef et les membres, et que parce moyen tous cognoissent que de toy seul depend l’Estat des Royaumes et le govvernement des republiques.” 47 Doran, “Elizabeth I and Counsel,” 155. 48 TNA SP 12/​51, fol. 12r.

49 1 Kings 3:9.

50 1 Kings 3:10, 12.

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Elizabeth’s belief in her status as a providential monarch became more explicit in the first of the Spanish prayers.51 Perhaps in a deliberate attempt to directly address the nation that constantly sought to undermine her rule, the Queen invoked a litany of biblical figures who were preserved from harm through God’s direct intervention.52 Some, like Daniel and Susannah, were regularly invoked for Elizabeth; others, such as Lot and Jacob, were rarely cited—​emphasizing the prayer book’s dual purpose of providing Elizabeth with religio-​political legitimacy and educating through prayer. The prayer is headed by Psalm 34:19—​“Many are the afflictions of the righteous: but the Lord delivereth him out of them all”53—​which reinforced its central theme: 51 The inclusion of Spanish prayers is sometimes used as evidence that Elizabeth was not the booklet’s author. For instance, John Guy has claimed, “These [prayers] have repeatedly been shown to be apocryphal and not by Elizabeth. No evidence exists that she had studied Spanish or could write in that language.” I am unaware of any evidence that has proved the prayers to be “apocryphal,” and Guy cites none. Such a claim also ignores the many Elizabethans who claimed in print that their Queen was fluent in Spanish. For instance, according to James Aske, “Her mother toong is not her only speach, /​ For Spanish, Greeke, Italian, and French, /​ With Romans toong, she understands and speakes”; Thomas Holland claimed that “Besides her perfitte redines, in Latine, French, & Spanish, shee readeth heere nowe at Windsore more Greek every day, then some Prebendaries of some churches do read latine in a whol week”; John Eliot wrote that Elizabeth “speaketh eight [languages] at the least: to wit: the Greeke tongue, the Latine, Italian, French, Spanish, Scottish, Flemmish, and English” (Eliot also quotes the verses written by the French court poet Du Bartas, who claimed Elizabeth “can discourse in speeches eight or nine, /​In Latine, Greeke, French, Spanish, Dutch, Scottish, and Florentine”); and writing shortly after Elizabeth’s death, the Venetian ambassador Giovanni Scaramelli, who had met Elizabeth only a month before her death, told the Doge and senate: “she spoke perfectly Latin, French, Spanish, and Italian extremely well.” Hyperbolic and laudatory, these many examples, including one from an ambassador, suggest that the Queen did indeed know Spanish. We know Elizabeth was fluent in French, Latin, and Italian—​so why wouldn’t she also read and write Spanish? John Guy, The Children of Henry VIII (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013), 233n27; James Aske, Elizabetha Triumphans (London, 1588; STC 847), sig. B1r; Thomas Holland, A Sermon Preached at Pauls in London the 17. of November Ann. Dom. 1599 (Oxford, 1601; STC 13597), sig. A4r; John Eliot, Ortho-​epia Gallica: Eliots Fruits for the French (London, 1593; STC 7574), 57, 59; and Horatio F. Brown, ed. and trans., Calendar of State Papers Relating To English Affairs in the Archives of Venice, Volume 9: 1592–​1603 (London, 1897), 565.

52 Clement has noted that the Spanish prayers are unique in the way they “aggressively portray the opponents of reform as godless heathens who have maliciously endangered England’s security.” While the reason Elizabeth chose to write in Spanish is purely a matter of conjecture, it does seem that the Queen was pointedly using the native language of her most powerful enemy to emphasize her providential favour and right to rule. Clement, “The Queen’s Voice,” 16.

53 The original Spanish: “Muchas son las tribulaciones de los justos, pero el Señor los libra de todas ellas” (sig. Mm3r), which can be translated as “Many are the tribulations of the righteous, but the Lord delivers them from all of them.” The subtitle of the Psalm is “A Psalm of David when he pretended madness before Abimelech, who drove him away, and he departed,” which referred to the time when after fleeing from Saul, David when to Achish, king of Gath. He was recognized, and to avoid being arrested, he “feigned himself mad in their hands, and scrabbled on the doors of the gate, and let his spittle fall down upon his beard.” Achish was fooled, and sent David away, where he escaped to the cave of Adullam. See 1 Samuel 21:10–​15, 22:1.

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28 Elizabeth I’s Use of the Old Testament My God and my dearest Father, whose kindness is infinite, whose mercy can never be exhausted, and whose mouth always speaks truth: because you are the same truth that you have promised to those who believe in you, to those who trust in you and place their hope to free you, protect you and be the Father in all your needs, both temporal and spiritual: and this you have fulfilled with the work no more or less than you have promised in word: as many witnesses of your sacred Scripture testify.54

Elizabeth then listed several examples from the Old Testament of when God saved his favoured person from certain death: Like you liberated Noah from the flood, Abraham from the Chaldeans, Lot from Sodom, Jacob from the bloody hands of his own brother Esau, Daniel from the den of Lions, and Susannah from the false testimony from those two cursed old men and wicked judges.55

Then, to ensure that the message was not merely implicit, Elizabeth linked her protection (referring largely to her persecution under Mary I) to these Old Testament figures, and reinforced her Protestantism—​the true gospel—​as the reason for this: O my God, O my Father … I give you infinite thanks … because you have made me one of the number of those that you freed from great afflictions: that you delivered me from the cruel hands of my enemies, those who like hungry wolves tried to suck my blood and swallow me alive. They have such hatred for me because I put in you all my hope, because I am not ashamed of the Gospel of your loving son: rather, they [should] honour me, as one who is certain that they have the Gospel, and to be your power to give salvation to all who believe.56

For Elizabeth, and by extension her readers, these figures all demonstrate the way that God defended his favoured people from adversity. That this protection was offered because the figure was a true believer (especially in the cases of Abraham, Lot, and Daniel), however, reveals an additional link to the policy laid out earlier by “A necessary consideration.” The first Spanish prayer aimed to reinforce the connection between the 54 [Elizabeth I], Christian Prayers and Meditations, sigs. Mm3r–​Mm3v. Original Spanish: “Dios mio y Padre mio dulcísimo, cuya bondad es infinita, cuya misericordia nunca se puede agotar, y cuya boca siempre dize verdad: por que tu eres la mesma [sic] verdad que has prometido a los que en to cree, à los que en ti confian y ponen su esperança libraros, ampararlos y ser les Padre en todas sus necessidades assi temporales como espirituales: y esto lo has cumplido con la obra ni mas ni menos que tu lo has prometido de palabra: como lo testisican muy muchos testimonios de tu sagrada Escriptura.” 55 [Elizabeth I], Christian Prayers and Meditations, sig. Mm3v. Original Spanish: “Asi [printed as Aßi] libraśte à Noe del diluvio, à Abrahan de los Chaldeos, à Lot de Sodoma, à Jacob de las sangrientas manos de su proprio hermano Esau, à Daniel del lago de los Leonies y à Susanna del falso testimonio de aquellos dos malditos viejos y iniquos juezes.”

56 [Elizabeth I], Christian Prayers and Meditations, sigs. Mm3v–​Mm4v. Original Spanish: “O Dios mio, O Padre mio … te doy gracias infinitas … por que me has hecho una del numero de aquellos que to libraste de grandes afliciones: que me libraste de las crueles manos de mis enemigos, los quales como lobros hambrientos me pretendian chupar la sangre y tragar me viva. Tenian me un tal odio, porque yo ponia en ti solo toda mi esperança, por que yo no me avergonçaua del Evangelio de tu amantissimo [sic] Hijo: Mas antes me honran de, como aquella que tiene por cierto el Evangelio ser potentia tuya para dar salud à todos los que creen.”

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Queen and her subjects through the providential favour she had received, but it also insinuated that the providential favour England continued to receive was wholly due to its recent return to Protestantism—​the “trew religion.” In the last of the three Spanish prayers, Elizabeth addressed the perceived frailties of her sex, and asked God to grant her the strength to save her people from their enemies, in the same way that the biblical heroines Deborah, Judith, and Esther had. She began by acknowledging the strength God had already granted her: You have made me so marked and so rare a mercy, that being a woman by my nature feeble, shy and delicate, as all other women are, you have made me robust, courageous, and strong to resist the multitude of Idumeans, Ishmaelites, Moabites, Muslims and other countless people and nations that have joined together, plotted, conspired and made league against you, against your son, and against all those who confess your name and have your holy word as the only rule for salvation.57

Elizabeth seems to have used these figures to accentuate her gender. The Queen revelled in her exceptional status—​she was not “as all other women are”—​and sought to further underscore the biblical basis behind it. Like many of her supporters, Elizabeth believed that any frailties she might have to contend with would be overcome with God’s help. In the context of the “necessary consideration of the perilous state of this tyme,” this assertion served as much of a political purpose as it did an iconographic one. The four groups of people mentioned in the prayer—​Idumeans, Ishmaelites, Moabites, Muslims—​are worth considering. The Idumeans were Jews who broke away from the Israeli Jews; they were culturally Jewish, but practised a different form of Judaism, with pagan elements. This may be a reference to either the Orthodox religions, or even Catholicism itself, as the Idumeans were looked down on by Israeli Jews for not keeping all the Jewish customs. The Moabites were pagans, and were descended from Moab, the son of Lot, born of an incestuous relationship with his oldest daughter.58 The Ishmaelites were the decedents of Ishmael, the son of Abraham and Hagar, one of his wife’s handmaids.59 Premodern thought associated them with the Arab peoples, and Muslims consider him the ancestor of several prominent Arab tribes and the forefather of Muhammad. It is perhaps ironic, then, that England’s trading relations with Muslim countries, including Morocco and the Ottoman Empire, became vital to England’s prosperity in the decades after Elizabeth’s excommunication in 1570. Since the Fourth Lateran Council in 1215, trading with Islamic cultures ​had been discouraged, with the threat of excommunication imposed; so, as Jerry Brotton 57 [Elizabeth I], Christian Prayers and Meditations, sigs. Nn3v–​Nn4r. Original Spanish: “Me has hecho esta tan señalada y tan rara merced, que siendo yo una muger de mi naturaleza flaca, timida y delicada, como lo son todas las demas, me has querido hazer robusta, animosa y fuerte para resistir à tanta mul titud de Iduemos, Ismaelitas, Moabitas, Agarenos y otra infinidad de gentes y naciones que se auian juntado, conjurado, conspirado y hecho liga, contra ti, contra tu hijo y contra todos aquellos que confiesan tu nombre y tienen por única regla de salud a tu sancta palabra.” 58 Genesis 19:37.

59 Genesis 16:1–​15.

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30 Elizabeth I’s Use of the Old Testament observes, “a Protestant nation led by an excommunicated sovereign placed beyond papal sanction … [was] suddenly freer than any other Christian country to trade with the Islamic world.”60 After establishing that God had given her strength, Elizabeth went on to link herself to three of the most famous women from the Old Testament: Oh my God, oh my Father, whose goodness is infinite and whose power is immense, you usually choose the weak things in this world to destroy the strong, Persevere, persevere for the glory of your name, for the honour of your Son, for the rest and quiet of your afflicted church in giving me strength so that I, like another Deborah, like another Judith, like another Esther, may free your people of Israel from the hands of your enemies.61

Elizabeth’s request for strength echoes Judith’s own: Judith 13:7 records that she prayed, “Strengthen me, O Lord God of Israel, this day.” By paraphrasing Judith’s words, Elizabeth claimed to have proof that God can use anyone—​even if they are not the person society expects, even “the weak things in this world”—​to “destroy the strong.” In a period where Catholic expansionism was considered a credible threat to England—​ underscored by the “necessary consideration”—​Elizabeth sought to overcome any anxieties her subjects may have harboured because a female king sat on the English throne. Just as Deborah’s victory over the Assyrians, and Judith’s over the Canaanites, was made possible by God’s intervention, Elizabeth linked herself to these women to demonstrate her providential favour, and to emphasize God’s willingness to endow His chosen people with the strength necessary to carry out His wishes. Christian Prayers and Meditations is key to understanding Elizabeth’s conception of the English polity, especially in the context of the “necessary consideration,” and the incarceration of Mary, Queen of Scots, in England. As her supporters had already done, and to stress her centrality to the English commonwealth, Elizabeth turned to figures from the Old Testament to legitimate both her religious reforms and her reign. For Kevin Sharpe, then, like Precationes Privatae before it, this prayer book “publicized Elizabeth as a pious princess and godly ruler.”62 Readers would have come away with the unambiguous message that Elizabeth was chosen by God to rule England, and that He would ensure she had the means to do so.

60 Jerry Brotton, This Orient Isle: Elizabethan England and the Islamic World (London: Allen Lane, 2016), 67. 61 [Elizabeth I], Christian Prayers and Meditations, sigs. Nn4r–​Nn4v. Original Spanish: “O Dios mio, O Padre mio, cuya bondad es infinita y cuya potencia es immensa, que sueles escoger las cosas flacas deste mundo para cõfúdiry destruir las fuertes, persevera, persevera por la gloria de tu nombre, por la honra de tu Hijo, por el descanso y quietud de tu yglesia afligida en dar me fuerças para que yo como otra Debora, como otra Judith, como otra Esther, libre à tu pueblo de Isreal de las manos de tus enemigos.” 62 Kevin Sharpe, Selling the Tudor Monarchy: Authority and Image in Sixteenth-​Century England (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2009), 330.

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Elizabeth I’s Use of the Old Testament

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The Wisdom of Solomon While the analogies discussed thus far have focused on Elizabeth projecting her providential favour, the Queen also invoked Old Testament figures for a religio-​political purpose that suited her own political needs. In claiming that she was following the precedent established by biblical figures, Elizabeth could avoid, or at least deflect, political damage for certain decisions. The most overt example of this was in the Queen’s delay in ordering the execution of Mary, Queen of Scots. The decision (or lack thereof) was one of the most divisive issues of Elizabeth’s later reign and one for which she was widely criticized. It is thus unsurprising that Elizabeth turned to biblical analogy to defend her inaction. In her second response to a parliamentary petition that she order Mary’s execution, delivered on November 24, 1586, Elizabeth claimed to be emulating Solomon’s prudential government in not signing the death warrant: I [have] sought to lerne what thynges wer most fitte for a kynge to have, and I found theym to bee foure, namely justice, temper[ance], magnamymyte, and judgement. Of the two last, I will saye little, because I will not challenge nor arrogate to my self more than I knowe there is cause. Yet thys maye I saye and trulye, that as Salomon, so I above all thynges have desyred wysdome at the handes of God.63

Solomon’s wisdom was well known, and his judgment was considered virtually faultless. Even more importantly, Solomon received this wisdom from God after asking for it. By invoking Solomon, Elizabeth indicated that because of her providential wisdom, she did not believe that executing Mary was the most prudent course of action available to her at that time. But in wording the speech in this way, Elizabeth was also not ruling out signing the warrant at a later date. This meant that when she eventually did sign the warrant, she had already positioned herself as a Solomon, weighing up the evidence before her. While Solomon was a useful typological tool, it also seems that Elizabeth’s choice was rather deliberate. The Sixth Parliament of Elizabeth’s reign assembled on October 15, 1586, with its first session on October 29, and was primarily concerned with dealing with Mary in the aftermath of the Babington Plot. The conspirators had been executed on September 20 and 21; Mary was tried, and on October 25, she had been found guilty and sentenced to death. Elizabeth prevaricated, unable to bring herself to sign the death warrant. For much of November 1586, parliament debated Mary’s execution, and on several occasions, it even petitioned Elizabeth to sign the warrant—​such as the one mentioned above, to which Elizabeth responded. Several of these petitions invoked biblical examples themselves. On November 3, 1586, Sir Christopher Hatton delivered a speech in favour of Mary’s execution; he concluded the speech by warning “Ne pereat Israel, pereat Absolon”—​“Absalom must perish, lest Israel perish.”64 The analogy was 63 Syndics of Cambridge University Library, MS Gg.III.34, 314.

64 Simonds D’Ewes [and Paul Bowes], The Journals of all the Parliaments during the reign of Queen Elizabeth, both of the House of Lords and House of Commons (London, 1682; Wing D1250), 393.

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32 Elizabeth I’s Use of the Old Testament clear, and the next day, the House of Commons voted to petition the Queen to have Mary executed. Then, on November 12, a petition of both Houses was sent to the Queen. The petition claimed that “Unless Execution of this just Sentence be done,” 1. Your Majesties Person cannot any while be safe. 2. The Religion cannot long continue amongst us. 3. The most flourishing present State of this Realm must shortly receive a woful Fall. 4. And consequently in sparing her your Majesty shall not only give courage and hardiness to the Enemies of God, of your Majesties self, and of your Kingdom.65

In expounding on the fourth reason, the Speaker, Sir John Puckering (who the journals describe as using “many excellent and solid reasons”) turned to the Old Testament. Puckering first warned of the displeasure that Elizabeth risked facing from God: Gods vengeance against Saul for sparing Agag, against Ahab for sparing the life of Benhadad is apparent; for they were both by the just Judgment of God deprived of their Kingdoms for sparing those wicked Princes whom God had delivered into their hands of purpose to be slain to death by them, as by the Ministers of his eternal and divine Justice.66

God commanded Saul to destroy the Amalekites, and their king, Agag, as retaliation for their invasion and pillaging of parts of the southwest of Israel. Despite God’s command that Agag be executed, Saul spared him, and allowed the Israelites to keep some of the spoils of war. Through Samuel, God rejected Saul’s kingship as punishment for his disobedience; shortly after, Saul was killed in battle with the Philistines, and David became king.67 Likewise, Ben-​hadad’s father had conquered parts of the north of Israel, and Ben-​hadad, who is described as the King of Syria, besieged Samaria during the reign of Ahab. God sent a prophet to Ahab, instructing him to fight the Syrians, and telling Ahab that He will grant the Israelites a victory. While the Bible does not specifically record a command from God that Ben-​hadad should be executed, God does send a prophet to tell Ahab that “Because thou hast let go out of thy hand a man whom I appointed to utter destruction, therefore thy life shall go for his life, and thy people for his people.”68 For Puckering, Elizabeth risked divine displeasure for being too merciful: “God had delivered” Mary into Elizabeth’s “hands of purpose to be slain to death,” and as God’s anointed on Earth, Elizabeth had no choice but to administer His “eternal and divine Justice.” Significantly, given Elizabeth’s response, the petition then mentioned how Solomon “wisely proceeded … to punishment in putting to death his own natural and elder

65 D’Ewes [and Bowes], Journals of all the Parliaments, 400. 66 D’Ewes [and Bowes], Journals of all the Parliaments, 401. 67 See 1 Samuel 15. 68 1 Kings 20:42.

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Brother Adonias for the only intention of a marriage, which gave suspicion of Treason!”69 Adonijah had attempted to usurp the throne from Solomon after David’s death. Solomon emerged victorious, and Adonijah was pardoned. Adonijah later made a second attempt to seize the throne, which he hoped to bolster by marrying one of David’s former servants, Abishag (in some cases, having sex with the former king’s concubine was a way to proclaim oneself the new king). Solomon saw the danger of keeping Adonijah alive and had him executed.70 This story had clear resonances for Elizabeth and Mary: Mary had already avoided punishment for her involvement in the Northern Rebellion of 1569, the Ridolfi Plot (1571), and the Throckmorton Plot (1583). For Puckering and the rest of the Commons, Elizabeth should not—​and indeed could not—​continue to spare the Scottish queen, offering the example of Solomon’s treatment of Adonijah as the course of action that the Queen should take.71 While the exact contents of Elizabeth’s speech to parliament on November 24, 1586, will never be known, considering Elizabeth’s Solomon analogy alongside the petitions that the Queen was responding to emphasize a previously overlooked aspect of biblical analogy. Elizabeth’s MPs turned to the Old Testament for precedent for their advice, just as the Queen looked for precedent for her indecision. The examples of Absalom, and of Solomon and Adonijah, were eerily similar to the contemporary religio-​political 69 D’Ewes [and Bowes], Journals of all the Parliaments, 401. This example had already been presented to Elizabeth. On May 28, 1572, in the aftermath of the foiled Ridolfi Plot of 1571, a petition was drawn up urging the execution of Mary “for the better safety and preservation of the Queens Majesties Person” that claimed “Solomon a Wise and godly Prince spared not his own natural, yea and his Elder Brother Adonijah, for suspition and likelihood of Treason, and for a Marriage purposed only, but put him to Death for the same, and that speedily without course of Judgment, lest by delay trouble and danger might have ensued, not only to his own Person being Prince and Chief Minister of God in that Land, but also to that People over which he had charge, and for safety whereof in Conscience he was bound to deal.” D’Ewes [and Bowes], Journals of all the Parliaments, 209. 70 1 Kings 2:13–​25.

71 Elizabeth herself may have come to recognize this fact. In the proclamation published concerning Mary’s execution, and obviously carefully worded to absolve the Queen from as much blame as possible, Elizabeth attempted to rewrite the history of her indecisiveness: “we had overpassed with our over great clemencie, contrary to the many advices and requestes of our Subjects, aswell in Parliament as otherwise: and therefore they also, understanding from our selfe, howe desirous we were to have some other meanes devised by them in their several places of Parliament, to withstand these mischiefes intended both against our selfe, and the publique quiet state of our Realme, & suretie of our good subjects, then by execution of the foresayde sentence, as was required. … Whereupon, being not onely moved to our griefe, but also overcome with the earnest requestes, declarations, and important reasons of all our sayde Subjects, the Nobles and Commons of our Realme, whose judgement, knowledge, and naturall care of us, and the whole Realme, wee knowe doeth farre surmount all others being not so interessed therein, and so justly to bee esteemed: and perceyving also the sayde sentence to have bene honourably, lawfully and justly given … we did yeelde.” A true copie of the proclamation lately published by the Queenes Majestie, under the great seale of England, for the declaring of the sentence, lately given against the Queene of Scottes (London, [1587]; STC 8160), 3.

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34 Elizabeth I’s Use of the Old Testament situation, especially given the widespread belief that biblical typology collapsed the distinction between past and present. But rather than buckle under the weight of the biblical examples she was being confronted with, Elizabeth reasserted herself as a contemporary Solomon, and turned the typology into a useful tool that not only deflected her indecision, but also gave divine sanction for her stance.

“As Solomon, so I above all things have desired wisdom”

The use of biblical analogy by the Tudor monarchs is well established in scholarship, but the invoking of analogies by Elizabeth herself has not been properly considered. This neglect is in spite of the fact that the Queen invoked the example of a multitude of biblical figures throughout her reign, in various forms, to demonstrate both her providential favour and her religio-​political authority. The prayers published as part of her two prayer books are important for understanding both Elizabeth’s conception of herself as a godly ruler, and the way that she fused religion and politics in the minds (and eyes) of her people. Sharpe astutely notes the duality surrounding the publication of the books, and the very real reasons for doing so: “The title and form of volumes of Elizabeth’s prayers … create a sense in the reader of eavesdropping on a pious woman performing her private devotions. But in the case of a monarchy, piety was not (and is not) a private matter but a business of public import.”72 As Cecil’s “necessary consideration of the perilous state of this tyme” demonstrated, Elizabeth was central to (Protestant) England’s survival, and the way that the Queen invoked a variety of Old Testament figures at different times emphasizes the ongoing religio-​political power she drew from these analogies. When taken together, these public uses of biblical analogy demonstrate not only that Elizabeth was aware of the device’s use by her subjects, but also that she endorsed this. The Queen actively engaged with her Old Testament antecedents to indicate the divine favour she received, drawing strength from the various examples of God’s interventionist dealings with humankind that emanate from these biblical figures. Yet, these analogies are not even the most famous of the ones invoked for Elizabeth. While the Queen’s use of the device demonstrates her desire to actively participate in the debates of her reign, it would be her supporters’ use of biblical analogy that made it an integral part of Elizabethan religio-​political discourse, as the following chapters reveal.

72 Sharpe, Selling the Tudor Monarchy, 330.

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Chapter 2

1558–​1569: LEGITIMIZING THE REGIME

When Elizabeth succeeded to the English throne in November 1558, she was

England’s fourth monarch in eleven years (or fifth, if Jane Grey/​Dudley is counted). As would become clear during the early years of her reign, her subjects desperately sought the stability that the accession of a seemingly healthy 25-​year-​old woman heralded.1 Unlike her half-​sister Mary I, Elizabeth faced no opposition to her accession at home, meaning that she and her supporters were able to quickly take over the governance of the nation. This process was not without its bumps: in addition to the influenza pandemic that was raging at her accession (and had potentially claimed the life of her half-​sister), Elizabeth had to grapple with a nation fractured by religious division, especially given that her (assumed) Protestantism stood in stark contrast to the Catholicism of many of the English elite. The problem Elizabeth faced finding a bishop to preside at her coronation in January 1559 encapsulates this fragmentation—​the bishops may have accepted Elizabeth as their queen but endorsing her confessional beliefs through the act of anointing was a step too far. While this problem has certainly been over-exaggerated in the scholarship, it does emphasize that the new regime had to contend with a range of social, religious, and political issues in a short amount of time.2 In the first decade of Elizabeth’s reign, a range of commentators, polemicists, and supporters used biblical analogies to legitimize her accession (both as a female king and as a resolute Protestant) and to offer support for England’s return to Protestantism. Many of these analogies responded to the religio-​political moment—​whether this be the passage of the Acts of Uniformity and Supremacy through parliament, or England’s

1 After recording the unusual announcement to parliament by Nicholas Heath, Archbishop of York and the Lord Chancellor, of Mary’s death and Elizabeth’s accession, the Clerk of the Commons concluded his final entry in the Journal by writing, “I pray God save her Grace, long to reign over us, to the glory of God.” More directly, in their letter to Elizabeth asking for instructions, the English Commissioners in France described the Queen’s accession as being “by the universall agreement and quyet consent of the Realme.” Finally, George Ackworth, theologian and church lawyer, wrote to Elizabeth from Venice to claim that England had “been handed and entrusted to you by God, [and] you will in your life preserve as something retrieved from the waves and the shipwreck and greatly needing your help.” He also told Elizabeth that the people congratulating him and other Englishmen on her accession were previously “not able either to look upon us or to lift their voice without a sigh and grief.” Journal of the House of Commons: Volume 1, 1547–​1629 (London, 1802), 52; TNA SP 70/​1, fol. 25r; L. G. H. Horton-​Smith, “Letter from George Acworth to Queen Elizabeth, written from Venice on the 13th December 1558,” Notes and Queries 195 (June 1950): 268. 2 See Aidan Norrie, “The Bishop and the Queen; Or, Why Did the Bishop of Carlisle Crown Elizabeth I?,” Northern History 56, nos. 1–​2 (2019): 25–​45.

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support of the French Huguenots during the first stages of the French Wars of Religion—​ demonstrating how the scriptures were frequently mined for precedent in the present. This chapter analyzes a variety of analogies contained within a range of texts and mediums. It examines the way that the role of providence during both Elizabeth’s accession and the nation’s return to Protestantism was continually emphasized, the way that typologies vindicated Elizabeth’s gender, as well as how the policies of the new regime were afforded varying levels of support and legitimization.

Elizabeth and/​as Deborah

Elizabeth’s prayer at the commencement of her coronation procession, in which she compared herself to Daniel, was not the only biblical analogy to appear in the procession. That Elizabeth was participating in the same cultural milieu as her subjects was emphasized by the fact that the fifth pageant featured a depiction of Deborah the Judge. The pageant was staged on Fleet Street, near the water-​conduit, and featured a stage on which sat six figures—​two representing the nobility, two the clergy, and two the commons.3 Raised above these figures was a throne, on which sat a “personage richlie apparelled in parliament robes, with a sceptre in her hand, as a Quene.”4 Above this character was a sign that read: “Debora with her estates, consulting for the good government of Israel.” A child actor explicated the meaning of each pageant in the procession, and once Elizabeth’s chariot was brought close enough, the boy actor chosen for this pageant recited: Jaben of Cannan king had long by force of armes Opprest the Isralites, which for gods people went But god minding at last for to redresse their harmes, The worthy Debora as judge among them sent. In war she, through gods aide, did put her foes to flight, And with the dint of sworde the bande of bondage brast. In peace she, through gods aide, did alway mainteine right, And judged Israell till fourty yeres were past. A worthie president, O worthie Queene, thou hast, A worthie woman judge, a woman sent for staie. And that the like to us endure alway thou maist, Thy loving subjectes will with true hearts and tonges praie.5

In addition to conflating Elizabeth and Deborah, the speech linked England and English history to the ancient past of the Old Testament; just as the Canaanites “Opprest the 3 Probably an allusion to Judges 4:4–​5: “Deborah, a prophetess … judged Israel at that time. And she dwelt under the palm tree of Deborah between Ramah and Bethel in mount Ephraim: and the children of Israel came up to her for judgment.” 4 [Richard Mulcaster], The Quenes Majesties Passage through the citie of London to Westminster the daye before her coronacion (London, 1559; STC 7589.5), sigs. D3r–​D3v. 5 [Mulcaster], Quenes Majesties Passage, sig. D3v.

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Isralites,” so too had the Catholics oppressed England’s Protestants during Mary’s reign. God, however, sent the English Deborah to relieve the English Israel from the oppression of the Catholic Canaanites—​a point that drew on the open secret that was Elizabeth’s Protestantism. The recourse here to Deborah brushed aside any potential arguments against female kingship. The speech went to great lengths to emphasize Deborah’s gender, while at the same time repeating her worthiness and the divine support for her rule. Indeed, the pageant even anticipated later uses of the Deborah type, suggesting that like Deborah, Elizabeth would defeat the Catholic-​Canaanites with “gods aide.” In emphasizing that Deborah ruled for forty years, the speech gave voice to what was probably a widespread desire for peace and stability. Nevertheless, various scholars have read the title of the pageant, “Deborah with her estates, consulting for the good government of Israel,” as constituting a coded swipe at Elizabeth’s power. Scholars have claimed that the pageant devisors were suggesting that while Elizabeth was England’s legitimate monarch, her gender meant that she had to listen to the counsel of men. A representative example of this approach is Kevin Sharpe’s assertion that with the pageant, “Elizabeth’s sex was vindicated, her power was exalted by comparison with biblical heroines; but her need to take counsel (and the counsel of the godly) was no less asserted.”6 The idea that Deborah was linked with counsel is only found in the pageant’s title: there is nothing in the boy’s speech that implies Elizabeth is less of a monarch than her male predecessors.7 The text conflates Elizabeth and Deborah, with Elizabeth sent to the English like Deborah was sent to the Hebrews. Indeed, in the Latin text summary of the speech that was displayed next to the pageant, Elizabeth was exhorted to be a Deborah to the English.8 Unlike other female biblical types—​such as Judith, who was raised up to defeat a specific foe—​Deborah continued to rule even after the Canaanites were defeated, and thus served as proof that

6 Kevin Sharpe, Selling the Tudor Monarchy: Authority and Image in Sixteenth-​Century England (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2009), 422. See also Ilona Bell, Elizabeth I: The Voice of a Monarch (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2010), 40; Tim Moylan, “Advising the Queen: Good Governance in Elizabeth I’s Entries into London, Bristol, and Norwich,” in Elizabeth I and the “Sovereign Arts”: Essays in Literature, History, and Culture, ed. Donald Stump, Linda Shenk, and Carole Levin (Tempe: Arizona Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies, 2011), 240–​41; and Alice Hunt, The Drama of Coronation: Medieval Ceremony in Early Modern England (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008), 170–​72.

7 Such an interpretation is discounted by printer and chronicler Richard Grafton, who claimed that the pageant “was made to encourage the Quene not to feare though she were a woman: for women by the spirite and power of Almyghte God, have ruled both honorably and pollitiquely, and that a great tyme, as did Debora, whiche was there sett foorth in Pageant.” Richard Grafton, Graftons Abridgement of the Chronicles of Englande, newly corrected and augmented, to thys present yere of out Lord, 1572 (London, 1572; STC 12152), 194v. 8 “Debora sis Anglis Elizabetha tuis.” [Mulcaster], Quenes Majesties Passage, sig. D4r.

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God approved of female rule.9 The pageant, then, emphasized the way that the present was habitually read through the lens of the Bible. Deborah’s rule served as a precedent for Elizabeth’s reign: this is because, according to early modern understandings of typology, Elizabeth actually was a Deborah. God had not merely sent Deborah to the Israelites in their time of strife, but had sent Deborah for all humanity, with Elizabeth merely being the most contemporary embodiment of the female judge. The boy’s speech reiterated three times how Elizabeth was a judge like Deborah, and given that the judges were understood to be the supreme authority in all matters in pre-​monarchical Israel, the idea that this pageant somehow was intended to limit Elizabeth’s power misunderstands the biblical story of Deborah: a story with which Elizabeth and her contemporaries would have been deeply familiar. It is highly unlikely that Elizabeth knew about the contents of the fifth pageant when she delivered the prayer in which she compared herself to Daniel. These independent uses of the Bible demonstrate how both monarch and subjects turned to the scriptures to conceptualize their present situations. Given the number of analogies made between Elizabeth and Deborah, it is even tempting to view the coronation procession as a precedent-​setting event. After all, Judith had appeared in one of the pageants staged for Mary’s coronation procession, and the Bethulian widow was the most popular typology for Mary.10 Regardless, the Deborah typology proved to be a potent and adaptable tool for legitimizing Elizabeth’s royal power, as well as a key device for counselling the Queen.

Restoring “the light of God’s holy worde” to England

Female biblical figures dominate Elizabeth analogies, especially in the first two decades of the Queen’s reign. As mentioned in the Introduction, this reflects the habitual practice of matching the gender of the typological figure with the contemporary person (hence Henry VIII being most frequently compared to David, and Mary I to Judith). However, this was not a fixed rule, and as will become clear throughout this book, both female and male biblical figures were routinely conflated with Elizabeth to reinforce her monarchical authority. Male biblical figures were employed to counsel Elizabeth almost immediately after her accession—​a decision that can probably be attributed to the absence of any types for female kingship in the Bible. An English translation of Psalms was published in Geneva in early 1559 and was dedicated to Elizabeth. In the lengthy epistle to the Queen, the writer(s) compared Elizabeth not only to the Queen of Sheba, but also to David and Joshua. The preface is dated February 10, 1559, meaning that it was penned after Elizabeth had made clear her intention to restore the Church of England to the 9 Again, this theme was emphasized in the Latin summary, which prayed that Elizabeth would govern her people in war and peace (“Sic, O sic populum belloque et pace guberna”). [Mulcaster], Quenes Majesties Passage, sig. D4r. 10 The Accession, Coronation, and Marriage of Mary Tudor as Related in Four Manuscripts of the Escorial, ed. and trans. C. V. Malfatti (Barcelona: Sociedad Alianza, 1956), 32.

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reformed faith and, coincidentally, the day after the first bill to restore royal supremacy was introduced to the Commons.11 The epistle’s counsel should therefore be understood first and foremost as an attempt to bolster Elizabeth as the legislation required to return England to Protestantism was being debated in parliament. That Elizabeth was compared with David in the dedication of the Book of Psalms, most of which were attributed to David, is not altogether unsurprising. The comparisons to the Queen of Sheba and Joshua are somewhat surprising, which might explain why they seem to be overlooked in the scholarship. Nevertheless, there was no need to dedicate the book to Elizabeth, and the epistle itself arguably reveals why this decision was made. The dedication begins by praising the Queen of Sheba for journeying to the court of Solomon to hear his wisdom. This journey made the Queen of Sheba famous, and the writer hoped that Elizabeth too would become famous: “so, moste gracious Queene, your noble fame shal remayne for ever, not only upon earth in perpetual memorie: but also in the heavens” (*2r). This, at first glance, is an odd way of praising Elizabeth: early modern commentators were much more likely to employ the example of Solomon as a type for divine wisdom. The writer, however, employed Christ as the antitype of Solomon, explaining that Elizabeth had set forthe the heavenlie wisdome of the true Salomon, even Christ Jesus: who openeth & offreth the riche treasures of his Divine wisdome in suche abundance at this present to all nacions, but especially to your noble realme of England … for the deliverance of his servants & the punishment of his ennemies.12

The Reformation sought to bring Christianity back to the purity of Christ’s teaching, and this analogy indicated that those (Protestants) who accepted this “Divine wisdome” would be blessed and protected. Indeed, a marginal note beside that sentence stated “France, Scotland and other realmes thirst and waite for the true reformation of religion in England,” which implies that the writer hoped the Elizabethan Religious Settlement would encourage other countries to adopt the reformed faith. The dedicators made clear that the English translation of the Psalms was intended to combat “the cruel rage & horrible tyrannie of the Papistes,” and to bring to the English “the pure simplicitie and true meaning of the Spirit of God” (*3r). In doing so, they wanted to make clear that God had preserved Elizabeth to become queen, and that this providential favour was akin to that shown to David. The Protestants in Geneva asserted that “the Almightie and moste merciful God has no lesse miraculously preferred you to that excellent dignitie”—​that is, allowed her to succeed to the throne—​and He “preserved you from the furie of suche as soght your blood” (*3r). As both Susan Doran 11 The Boke of Psalmes (Geneva, 1559; STC 2384), sig. *8v; Peter Marshall, Heretics and Believers: A History of the English Reformation (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2017), 426.

12 Boke of Psalmes, *2v. As the marginal reference makes clear, this is a reference to Matthew 12:42: “The queen of the south shall rise up in the judgment with this generation, and shall condemn it: for she came from the uttermost parts of the earth to hear the wisdom of Solomon; and, behold, a greater than Solomon is here.”

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and Valerie Schutte have observed, the comparison was intended to exhort Elizabeth to govern in a godly manner and to ensure that the Reformation was properly implemented in England.13 Yet, the epistle went much further than these more cherry-​picked examples would suggest and, perhaps most importantly, it also de-​emphasized Elizabeth’s gender. While the dedication may have compared Elizabeth and the Queen of Sheba, the epistle ultimately sought to offer the Psalms as an example of godly kingship for the vocation of sovereignty. Elizabeth and David could be linked through the way that God had preserved them both, but they also shared a heavy responsibility: to rule God’s people with wisdom and piety. The epistle recognized the unique position Elizabeth occupied, telling her that she shall “be painted … in the persone of King David, suche things as you have felt and shal continually fele in your selfe” (*3v). This comparison was less about gender, and more about the unique position both Elizabeth and David occupied—​non-​sovereigns could never truly understand what it meant to be a sovereign responsible for God’s people. This comparison was made even more overt a few lines later. The writer reminded Elizabeth how “under the pretence of friendship and the same religion, [they] soght his [David’s] destruction,” which meant that the Queen “shalbe in danger of ennemies, and therfore the best remedy is, only to depend on God” (*4v). These enemies were not the result of Elizabeth’s gender but were instead the consequence of both her Protestantism and the way that “wicked” people would constantly seek to undermine a Protestant England. Nevertheless, God, who had “mercifully preferred you to this high honour,” would protect Elizabeth if she was “careful and diligent to suppresse all papistrie, vice and heresie, and to cause the light of God’s holy worde spedely to shine throughout all your dominions” (*4v–​*5r). As counsel for a monarch, this advice is virtually genderless—​ one could easily imagine it being offered to Henry VIII or James VI & I. The counsel also stressed the benefit that the English would receive through this reformation. The writer(s) told Elizabeth that “if you honour God and advance his kingdome, he wil honour you and make your kingdome stable, he will blesse you with godlie posteritie and mainteine you in perfect peace and quietnes” (*5r). This was advice to both Elizabeth and the English—​after all, Elizabeth’s “peace and quietnes” was England’s as well, and a Godly reformation required both the sovereign and their people to advance “the light of God’s holy worde.” The writer, however, recognized that such a reformation might seem like a daunting task, especially in the early days of the new Queen’s reign. They reiterated the example David served, drawing on 2 Samuel 7:1 to tell Elizabeth that “If the outward ennemie threaten or invade: remembre also how God preserved his servant David and enlarged his kingdome” (*5r). They also offered the example of Joshua to Elizabeth. Expanding on Joshua 1:5, the writer encouraged Elizabeth to, “If you fele weakenes, remembre what 13 Susan Doran, “Elizabeth I: An Old Testament King,” in Tudor Queenship: The Reigns of Mary and Elizabeth, ed. Alice Hunt and Anna Whitelock (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2010), 96; Valerie Schutte, “Perceptions of Sister Queens: A Comparison of Printed Book Dedications to Mary and Elizabeth Tudor,” SEDERI Yearbook 27 (2017): 160.

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promes [sic] the Lord in the persone of Joshua maketh to all them that faithfully execute their vocacion, saying I will not leave thee, nor forsake thee” (*5r). The description of sovereignty as a vocation is rather apt, and emphasizes the genderless thrust behind the epistle’s counsel. Here, Elizabeth was told that God would bless and protect her just as He had David and Joshua. That these two male biblical figures were offered to Elizabeth is often overlooked, even though these examples are central to understanding the counsel contained within this epistle. Consideration of these two overt examples of divine protection highlights the chain of providential favour by which Elizabeth was connected to these Old Testament luminaries. At the end of the paragraph in which these examples were offered, the writer told Elizabeth that she “oght not to feare, because God is on your syde,” and “as he hathe preferred you, so wil he ever preserve you” (*5v). God’s pronouncement in Joshua 1:5 was thus not only meant for Joshua and the Israelites, but also for Elizabeth and the English, acknowledging both the role of providence in Elizabeth’s accession, and the counsel that the writer(s) hoped Elizabeth would take from the translation. Taking the example of David again, the writer(s) informed Elizabeth that she would “here learne to governe your house and subjectes in the feare of God, to chuse you[rself] faithful counsellours, and knowe whome to admit into your friendship” (*6v). The Psalms thus provided a model for godly rule from which any monarch—​not just a woman—​could learn. David had been duped and betrayed by his counsellor Achitophel, and the writer was attempting to prevent Elizabeth from suffering a similar fate. By emphasizing the vocation of sovereignty, the epistle of this translation of the Book of Psalms offered both counsel and support to the new Queen. It depicted Elizabeth as a contemporary Queen of Sheba, David, and Joshua, stressing the belief that as God had blessed these figures, so Elizabeth would receive the same blessings. It also stressed the unique position Elizabeth occupied, offering the Psalms as an example of Godly rule written by Elizabeth’s equal. These various examples may underscore the providential nature of Elizabeth’s rule, but do so without any recourse to Elizabeth’s gender. To the writer’s mind, there was no tension to be found in comparing Elizabeth to the Queen of Sheba alongside David and Joshua. This epistle, penned at the very beginning of Elizabeth’s reign, not only illustrated the genderless way that sovereignty was conceived, but also showcased the vast array of biblical figures who could be drawn upon to support Elizabeth as she restored “the light of God’s holy worde” to England. As scholars have long noted, the passage of the Elizabethan Religious Settlement through parliament was a fraught and difficult process. The consequences of the regime failing to secure the passage of the settlement would have been immense, and some scholars have used the rather protracted passage of the legislation to suggest that Elizabeth’s grip on power was more tenuous than it actually was—​even though the settlement as enacted was probably very close to Elizabeth’s preferred outcome.14 14 The scholarship on the Settlement is large and often contradictory, but the various arguments that claim the Settlement was not Elizabeth’s preferred outcome can be summarized by those presented by J. E. Neale, Christopher Haigh, and Alec Ryrie. Neale argued that Elizabeth sought

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Drawing on John Knox’s diatribe, The First Blast of the Trumpet Against the Monstruous Regiment of Women (1558), scholars have tended to suggest that Elizabeth was in a weaker position because of her gender.15 As outlined in the Introduction, this is despite the fact that Knox was targeting the two Catholic queens in the British Isles—Mary I in England, and Marie of Guise, the regent for Mary, Queen of Scots. The force of Knox’s polemic has caused a number of scholars to overestimate the difficulties Elizabeth had to overcome to be accepted as England’s female king, especially as he sought to undermine the utility of the Deborah typology for female kingship.16 Certainly, Knox argued that neither Mary could be described as Deborahs, but this was because “Debora did usurpe no such power nor authoritie, as our quenes do this day claime.”17 This is why Knox was able, perhaps disingenuously, to argue that his diatribe against female rule did not include Elizabeth, as she had not usurped any power or authority, although he did exhort the Queen to recognize the role of providence in her accession—​a point that did not win him any concessions with the Queen.18 One of the most famous responses to Knox was John Aylmer’s An Harborowe for Faithfull and Trewe Subjectes, agaynst the late blowne Blaste, concerninge the Governme[n]‌t of Wemen. The pamphlet is dated April 26, 1559—​only two days before the Act of Uniformity passed its third reading in the Lords. In this heated moment, a more conservative policy, but was forced to adopt a more radical policy by a so-​called “Puritan choir” in the Commons; Haigh refuted Neale’s argument, and instead claimed that Elizabeth had wanted a more radical policy, but was forced to take a more conservative approach in order to appease the Lords; and Ryrie argued that rather than following her own preferences, “Elizabeth had apparently hoped for an inclusive religious settlement, stretching from the more pragmatic Protestant exiles to genuine traditionalists.” These arguments, as Peter Marshall has observed, have been responsible for perpetuating “the perennial myth that the parliamentary settlement … was a careful ‘via media’ between Rome and Geneva.” Instead, the general historiographical consensus is, as Susan Doran has described, that the Settlement “reflected Elizabeth’s own personal beliefs and ceremonial preferences.” J. E. Neale, Elizabeth I and Her Parliaments (London: Jonathan Cape, 1958), 51–​84; Christopher Haigh, Elizabeth I, 3rd ed. (Harlow: Pearson, 2001), 39–​47; Alec Ryrie, The Age of Reformation: The Tudor and Stewart Realms, 1485–​1603, 2nd ed. (New York: Routledge, 2017), 187; Peter Marshall, “Settlement Patterns: The Church of England, 1553–​1603,” in The Oxford History of Anglicanism, Volume 1: Reformation and Identity, c.1520–​1662, ed. Anthony Milton (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2017), 49; Susan Doran, Queen Elizabeth I (London: British Library, 2003), 63.

15 For instance, scholars tended to interpret Elizabeth’s acceptance of the title Supreme Governor of the Church of England (as opposed to Supreme Head) as being based on the incompatibility of female headship. However, as Susan Doran has noted, not only is the difference semantic, but the title of Supreme Head was also repudiated by more radical Protestants, who instead believed that Christ was the only Supreme Head of the Church. Susan Doran, “Did Elizabeth’s Gender Really Matter?,” in Queens Matter in Early Modern Studies, ed. Anna Riehl Bertolet (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2018), 44. 16 See Doran, “Did Elizabeth’s Gender Really Matter?,” 31–​52.

17 John Knox, The First Blast of the Trumpet Against the Monstruous Regiment of Women (Geneva, 1558; STC 15070), 44v–​45r.

18 See Elizabeth Baldwin, “‘A Purgation Worse Than the First Offense’: An Annotated Version of Knox’s Letter of Apology to Elizabeth I,” Sixteenth Century Journal 51, no. 1 (Spring 2020): 3–​27.

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when England’s Protestant settlement was on the verge of being enacted, Aylmer decided that it was time to “lay before mens eyes the untruth” of Knox’s argument that “the rule of Women is … not … tollerable,” as well as to show “the wekenes of the proufes” of Knox’s “strange” book.19 While Mortimer Levine has suggested that as a “defense of gynecocracy” An Harborowe was not as strong as it has been viewed (which may explain why Aylmer was only made bishop in 1577), the tract used various biblical examples not only to justify Elizabeth’s right to rule, but also to emphasize the role of providence in her accession.20 Aylmer began his argument by listing the many instances where God had helped His chosen one overcome a mightier enemy: He saved his people by the hande of a woman poore Deborah. He advaunced them and overthrewe the enemies by a poore shepherde and his sling. He cut of the head of the proude captayne Olophernes by the hande of a weake woman.21

In addition to Deborah, Aylmer used the example of David and Judith to make his point, with the absence of their names emphasizing the deep familiarity with the Bible Aylmer knew his readers had. Aylmer’s discussion of Deborah’s relevance to contemporary England was the one that most clearly refuted Knox’s arguments. Aylmer prefaced his discussion of Deborah by claiming that rule by women “is not so heinous, and intollerable, or in any wyse evel, as this man maketh it” (D2v). Instead, and following in the steps of the fifth pageant from Elizabeth’s coronation procession, Aylmer highlighted how Deborah was the perfect typology for female kingship: “Deborah shal marche in the first ranke” of examples because of “thantiquite of the tyme, the authoritie of the story, and the happy successe of hir reigne.” Deborah not only “judged the people of Israell,” but also “delyvered them out of thraldome, and set them at libertie.” What is more, Deborah “governed in peace and in war,” meaning that God raised her up and allowed her to rule even after the Canaanites had been defeated, just like “any ruler by civil authorite might, or is wont to do” (D2v). God had sent Elizabeth to the English just as He had Deborah to the Hebrews, and there was no reason to dispute Elizabeth’s authority based on her gender (or sex), or to question the precedent Deborah provided for the present. Knox had not sought to discredit the use of the Judith typology in his work, which is an interesting omission given the frequency with which Mary I was conflated with the Bethulian widow. Nevertheless, and perhaps because of the frequent associations between Mary and Judith, Aylmer used the example of Judith as further proof of the legitimacy of Elizabeth’s rule. The example of Judith focused less on her leadership role, 19 John Aylmer, An Harborowe for Faithfull and Trewe Subjectes, agaynst the late blowne Blaste, concerninge the Governme[n]‌t of Wemen ([London], 1559; STC 1005), sig. B1v.

20 Mortimer Levine, “The Place of Women in Tudor Government,” in Tudor Rule and Revolution: Essays for G. R. Elton from his American Friends, ed. Delloyd J. Guth and John W. McKenna (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1982), 113. 21 Aylmer, An Harborowe, B3v.

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and instead emphasized both her wisdom, and the strength she received from God. Scholars have tended to lump Judith with Deborah and Esther as typological precedents for female kings, despite the fact that Judith was not royal, let alone a ruler.22 Aylmer used Judith to show the historicity of women being consulted in times of trouble, and their offering of sage advice to save the day. In his retelling of Judith’s story, Aylmer described how when the Bethulians “were besieged of Olophernes: [they] wer [all] content … to come to Judithes house, a meane widowe, but a wise, and godly woman, and to heare her, folow her counsel, and obey her” (E3v). Even before Judith announced her plan to save the city, she was known for her wisdom and piety, a glance perhaps at Elizabeth’s renown in the years before her accession for the same attributes. The Bethulians were “at their wits end,” and “ready to geve over the city like milk sops” into “thenemies hands.” While this is a fairly accurate summary of Judith 8, it fails to mention that Judith sent her maid to fetch the city elders, and somehow paints the turn to Judith as a last resort. It is not entirely clear what Aylmer meant here, as keeping the maid’s role in the story would have bolstered Judith’s position (the elders, after all, heeded her summons), but it may reinforce Levine’s observation that the examples often did not go as far as they could have. Nevertheless, Aylmer made clear that turning to Judith was the right decision: imbued with “gods spirit and heavenly wisdom, [she] found the way through wit, praier, and the help of God, not only to deliver them: but to revenge them” (E3v). Aylmer here combined Judith’s “wit” with the strength that God granted to her, and it is possible to compare this combination with Elizabeth: Elizabeth was not only learned, and had many skills that would make her a good ruler, but also strengthened by God, who would answer her prayers and help her defeat England’s enemies. The threat posed by Catholicism and the pope had been a fairly implicit theme throughout the pamphlet, but it was rendered explicit when Aylmer returned to the example of Judith. Warning of the danger posed by the “spirituall and the temporall Antechriste, the Pope and the Turke,” Aylmer exhorted his readers to remember that “God wilbe with us against him: when so ever he shall seeke to wrong us, and I trust … [God will] shewe his myght in cuttynge of this proude Holophernes head, by the hande of our Judith” (Q1r). Unlike the first use of the Judith story, Elizabeth was here explicitly depicted as a Judith. While a 25-​year-​old English queen perhaps has little in common with an elderly Jewish widow, the thrust of the typology is clear. Protestants often used Holofernes as a type for Philip II of Spain—​Elizabeth’s former brother-​in-​law—​which meant his master, the Babylonian king Nebuchadnezzar, served as a type for the pope.23 This association between the Assyrian general and the Spanish king brings a new level to the analogy: like Judith, Elizabeth had to defeat idolaters through action—​and 22 Scholars seem to echo the erroneous claim of John N. King, who asserted that “Deborah and Judith furnish models for a godly kingdom ruled over by a queen” despite Judith’s non-​royal background. John N. King, “The Godly Woman in Elizabethan Iconography,” Renaissance Quarterly 38, no. 1 (1985): 56. 23 For instance, a monument to Elizabeth erected in the Church of All Hallows at the Wall, London, shortly after her death declared, “Against Spain’s Holofernes, Judith she /​ Dauntless gain’d many

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violent action at that—​because this was the will of God. As would be a recurring theme throughout Elizabeth’s reign, Judith was routinely used to exhort Elizabeth to take further, militaristic action against Catholics, with the violence of the Judith story emphasized to remind the Queen that God condoned the killing of His enemies.24 An Harborowe was not solely devoted to rebutting Knox, and Aylmer used his tract to make broader points about both the Queen’s providential favour, and the direction he hoped the new regime would take. As discussed above, Aylmer offered David defeating Goliath as an example of God strengthening his chosen one, but he later returned to the story of the Hebrew king, and in doing so, linked David with Elizabeth much more explicitly. Aylmer reminded his readers that when David “entred into his kingdom,” the Philistines “had made a mervelus slaughter in Israel,” which included killing Saul and his sons. David, however, with God’s help, “recovered the losses, and had the better of al his enemies round about him” (O4r). In linking the recently ascended Elizabeth with David’s early days, Aylmer was probably referencing the devastation caused by the poor harvests of 1555 and 1556 and the influenza epidemic of 1556–1558, as well as the recent and widely lamented loss of Calais.25 Just as David had inherited a troubled kingdom, so had Elizabeth—​but with God’s help, and especially now that England was leaving the Catholic fold and once again embracing Protestantism, England would prosper better than its enemies. To make clear who these enemies were, Aylmer then conflated Elizabeth with both Judith and Deborah. He told his readers that “I doubt not, but God shal send this Judith grace and power, to cut of Holophernes hed, and this Deborah to save her people, and knock out Siceras brains, com he either out of fraunce, or out of scotland” (O4r). These are rather specific examples and represent a shift from Holofernes’s more common association with Philip II or the pope. Aylmer thus seemed to be reacting to the contemporary, international religio-​political situation. He believed Elizabeth would defeat the spurious claims of the Catholic Mary, Queen of Scots (who was also the wife of the Dauphin, the future François II). On Mary I’s death, Henri II of France declared his son and daughter-​in-​law as the king and queen of England, and even after Henri’s death and François’s accession, Mary, possibly pressured by her Guise uncles, claimed she was the rightful queen of England, publicly adopting the English title and arms.26 Aylmer’s comments also seemed to reflect the Elizabethan regime’s concern that France would a glorious Victory.” Thomas De Laune, The Present State of London: Or, Memorials Comprehending A Full and Succinct Account Of the Ancient and Modern State thereof (London, 1681; Wing D894), 30. 24 See Aidan Norrie, “Elizabeth I as Judith: Reassessing the Apocryphal Widow’s Appearance in Elizabethan Royal Iconography,” Renaissance Studies 31, no. 5 (2017): 722.

25 T. A. Morris, Europe and England in the Sixteenth Century (London: Routledge, 1998), 227; Carole Levin, The Reign of Elizabeth I (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2002), 41.

26 Steven Thiry, “‘In Open Shew to the World’: Mary Stuart’s Armorial Claim to the English Throne and Anglo-​French Relations (1559–​1561),” English Historical Review 132, no. 559 (2017): 1418–​ 25, 1427–​29, 1433–​34, 1437; Paul E. J. Hammer, Elizabeth’s Wars: War, Government, and Society in Tudor England, 1544–​1604 (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2003), 57; Calendar of State Papers Foreign, Elizabeth, Volume 1, 1558–​1559, ed. Joseph Stevenson (London, 1863), 84, 86 (no. 221), 156–​57 (no. 373), 175 (no. 419); TNA SP 52/​1, fols. 178r–​178v.

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attempt to invade England through Scotland, especially given the Protestant revolt there against the regent Marie of Guise and the Catholic faction.27 Aylmer here used the example of the Bible to comment on, and indeed make sense of, the contemporary religio-​political situation. The various analogies and typologies Aylmer employed throughout his treatise not only demonstrate their potency in legitimizing England’s fledgling Protestant regime, but also fuse the intervention of providence with Elizabeth’s own worthiness for the crown. According to Aylmer, Elizabeth was both worthy and divinely favoured to be England’s monarch: she was a contemporary Deborah and a contemporary Judith, and the circumstances of her accession were comparable to David’s. This mix of one male and two female biblical figures demonstrates how the typology of a figure was not constrained by their gender, underscoring why both male and female biblical figures provided precedent and support for Elizabeth’s reign. Aylmer was thus in no doubt that Elizabeth was the person God wanted to be sitting on the English throne. At this point, it is worth pausing to unpack the biblical and extra-​biblical ways that the Deborah typology was used in premodern Europe. That Deborah did not lead the Israelite army herself against the Canaanites is made clear in the biblical story from Judges 4, and the role of Barak in the victory was sometimes used to negate the power of the Deborah typology—​as Knox did in his First Blast of the Trumpet. Nevertheless, there seems to be a long tradition in premodern Europe of retelling the story of Deborah to claim, either explicitly or implicitly, that Deborah herself led the Israelite army, fighting against the Canaanites. Indeed, such views can be found in Aylmer’s claims that Deborah “delyvered them out of thraldome, and set them at libertie” (D2v), and that Elizabeth would be a “Deborah to save her people, and knock out Siceras brains” (O4r). These descriptions give Deborah a much more enhanced role during the battle, and I contend that this reading of the Deborah typology—​that God not only raised up Deborah to lead the Israelites, but that He also strengthened her to defeat His enemies with her own hands—​can be found in several examples that employ the Deborah typology. It must therefore be considered as a possible, or even likely, part of an Elizabeth analogy to Deborah. There are two visual depictions of Deborah’s role in the battle that nicely illustrate the expanded scope of the typology. The Morgan Bible (Figure 2.1) and Psalter of Saint Louis (Figure 2.2) both show Deborah actively commanding the battle against the Canaanites. The images possibly share the same (unknown) source, but they are different enough to know that they are not copies of each other. The Morgan Bible is generally dated to between 1240 and 1255; it was potentially produced in Paris, but England, Flanders, and Hainaut have also been suggested.28 As a picture Bible, the images were not captioned, but about 27 Calendar of State Papers Foreign, Elizabeth, Volume 2, 1559–​1560, ed. Joseph Stevenson (London, 1865), 22–​25 (no. 45); Amy Blakeway, “The Anglo-​Scottish War of 1558 and the Scottish Reformation,” History 102, no. 350 (2017): 211–​12, 214, 223; Hammer, Elizabeth’s Wars, 54–​62.

28 Harvey Stahl, Picturing Kingship: History and Painting in the Psalter of Saint Louis (University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2008), 98.

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Figure 2.1. “Deborah and Barak leading the attack on the Canaanites,” in The Crusader Bible (ca. 1240s). New York, The Morgan Library and Museum, MS M.638, fol. 12r. Photograph by The Morgan Library & Museum, New York.

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Figure 2.2. “Judges 4,” in Saint Louis’s Psalter (ca. 1260s). Paris, Bibliothèque nationale de France, Département des Manuscrits, Latin 10525, fol. 47v.

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fifty years later, text was added that described “How Deborah the prophetess who was in those days judging the people with Barak the captain of the army, set out to battle and defeated the captain, the army, and all the chariots of Jabin, the king of Canaan, who had mightily oppressed the people of Israel.”29 Barak may be mentioned, but Deborah is clearly the focal point of the image—​her horse is even trampling a dead Canaanite! Even though the Deborah in Saint Louis’s Psalter is less prominent than her counterpart in the Morgan Bible, she is still present—​sharing a horse with Barak—​and is clearly visible directing the Hebrew soldiers to chase the fleeing Canaanites. Being the only woman in the scene also means she stands out, and the Hebrew men (including Barak) pay close attention to her commands. The Psalter was produced for Louis IX of France in the mid-​1260s (before he left to fight in the Second Crusade), and the French text that accompanies the image reads: “the children of Israel fought against the kings of their enemies by the order of a valiant woman named Deborah and [shows] how they vanquished and killed them and took their chariots and pursued the king.”30 Deborah may not have led the Hebrew troops according to Judges 4, but these artistic depictions of Deborah doing precisely that suggest that Deborah was viewed as (or imagined as) having a much more personal role in the defeat of the Canaanites. This likely explains why traces of the expanded view of the story were contained within analogies between Elizabeth and Deborah. In addition to Richard Curteys’s sermon from 1575, which I discuss in Chapter 3, and Roger Cotton’s pamphlet, which I discuss in Chapter 5, the following examples are illustrative.31 Sometimes, Deborah’s role in the victory over the Canaanites was simply asserted as fact. For instance, in his commentary on the minor prophets, Lambert Daneau emphasized Deborah’s providential favour by asserting the example of “Debora, which in battell overcame Sisara.”32 A more contextualized example can be found in Edward Hake’s celebration of Elizabeth’s reign from 1575. To bolster Elizabeth, Hake (who is discussed further in Chapter 4) included Deborah in a list of Old Testament figures whom God had strengthened to carry out His plan, including: Moyses to lead, and with Jos[h]‌ue to bring [the Israelites] in to the land of promise, with Debora to fight thy battaile, and with Jahel to knock Sisera of Rome in the temples of his

29 “MS M.638, fol. 12r,” trans. Eran Lupu, https://themor​gan.org/​col​lect​ion/​crusa​der-​bible/​23.

30 Joy A. Schroeder, Deborah’s Daughters: Gender, Politics, and Biblical Interpretation (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014), 65.

31 This phenomenon is not restricted to Elizabeth’s reign, either. In a sermon preached in 1642, and published in 1660, Thomas Stephens claimed that “In the day of battle Deborah wins the field.” Similarly, in 1680, Edmund Hickeringill preached a sermon before the Lord Mayor and Aldermen of London in which he spoke of the “wicked Sisera, who with a Mighty Army came to Fight against Deborah the Soveraign of the Israelites.” Thomas Stephens, Logoi Oraioi: Three Seasonable Sermons (London, 1660; ESTC R210165), 76; Edmund Hickeringill, Curse ye Meroz, Or, The Fatal Doom (London, 1680; Wing H1803), 2.

32 Lambert Daneau, A Fruitfull Commentarie upon the twelve Small Prophets (Cambridge, 1594; STC 6227), 44.

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These stories have obviously been adapted to suit the present turmoil (such as the equating of Sisera with the pope), but they all closely follow the biblical story on which they are based—​except in the case of Deborah. Hake has presented Elizabeth as a contemporary Deborah, but in doing so, he emphasized the extra-​biblical belief that Deborah fought in the battle against the Canaanites, rather than merely being an observer. Such a portrayal thus resulted in a typology that combined providential favour, divinely ordained authority, and undisputed military prowess.

The European Protestant Cause

On October 23, 1562, William Cecil wrote to William Whittingham—​chaplain to Ambrose Dudley, Earl of Warwick, in the English garrison at Le Havre, and soon after the Dean of Durham—​to inform him of “the Queen’s danger and delivery.” Cecil claimed that “I scantly have recovered my heart, to take the joy of this mercifull benefit,” before praising God for sparing Elizabeth from the smallpox she had contracted.34 In his reply, Whittingham praised “the unspeakable mercies of our God who by prolonging that liffe, hathe revived all true professors of God’s holy word,” which allowed “the ryght practise of our Christian profession.” Whittingham also summed up why the potentially fatal illness was such a cause for concern when he noted that the continuance “of true religion” and “the whole state thereoff this day dependeth on her Majesty.”35 As the various parliamentary petitions presented to Elizabeth exhorting her to marry and/​or settle the succession attest, the fear that Elizabeth’s death would snuff out the light of the recently re-​established Protestantism in England was palpable. Around this time, commentators—​perhaps rattled by Elizabeth’s recent brush with death and buoyed on by the success of the Reformation in Scotland—​began to advocate for the Queen to adopt a more aggressive role in the expansion of the Protestant cause. Such a theme is visible in Laurence Humphrey’s The Nobles, or of Nobilitye (1563), an English version of his Optimates sive de nobilitate (1560) that contained a lengthy dedication to the Queen. The Nobles was entered incomplete into the Stationers’ Register in the 1562/​ 3 year.36 Given it mentioned the Reformation in Scotland, and perhaps alluded to the Treaty of Hampton Court (signed on September 22, 1562), but does not reference the English defeat at Le Havre in July 1563, the pamphlet was probably published between 33 Edward Hake, A Commemoration of the most prosperous and peaceable Raigne of our gratious and deere Soveraigne Lady Elizabeth (London, 1575; STC 12605), sigs. C4r–​C4v.

34 Mary Anne Everett Green, ed., “The Life and Death of Mr. William Whittingham, Dean of Durham, From a MS in Antony Wood’s Collection, Bodleian Library, Oxford,” in The Camden Miscellany, Volume 6 (London, 1871), 19. 35 TNA SP 70/​44, fol. 75r.

36 SRO326, https://​sta​tion​ersr​egis​ter.onl​ine/​entry/​SRO​326.

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March and June 1563. Humphrey was a Marian exile, but quickly gained favour upon his return to England: he was made Regius Professor of Divinity at Oxford in 1560; he would become Dean of Gloucester in 1571, then Dean of Winchester in 1580, and he served as Vice Chancellor of Oxford between 1571 and 1576.37 A committed puritan, his refusal to wear the surplice and other “popish” vestments brought him into constant conflict with Matthew Parker, Archbishop of Canterbury, throughout the 1560s.38 The work of a serious Protestant theologian, the use of biblical figures in The Nobles emphasized Elizabeth’s providential accession to the throne and reinforced the widespread view that biblical typologies were an important method of understanding the present. Much of the scholarship that has analyzed the dedication to Elizabeth has claimed that Humphrey disapproved of female kingship, or at the very least he only begrudgingly accepted Elizabeth’s reign because she restored the Church of England to Protestantism. Certainly, when read in isolation, passages from the dedication could suggest that Humphrey had an issue with Elizabeth’s gender. He praised “the manhoode, myghte, or governement of a manlye kynge,” “wonder[ed] at your weakenes & infirmitye,” and informed Elizabeth, “Nor is youre wysedome ignoraunt, what you do is Gods worke, not your owne.”39 These passages are the ones most likely to be cherry-​picked to demonstrate Humphrey’s apparent misogyny. Patrick Collinson twice cited Humphrey as an example of people who initially viewed Elizabeth’s gender as an impediment to rule but who “later … knew better.”40 Likewise, Schutte has used the dedication to show that Humphrey believed “Elizabeth lacked the power of a ‘manlye kynge’.”41 These passages, however, need to be read in their full context. The comment about “governement of a manlye kynge” actually references the peaceful way that Elizabeth ascended the throne. Perhaps thinking about the failed revolt of Jane Grey/​Dudley, Humphrey expressed his relief that no “force, nor power” had afflicted England, and this “happed not through the manhoode, myghte, or governement of a manlye kynge: but under the conducte, of a woman queene, without tumult, quietelye, and even by Gods hande” (A2v). Elizabeth may not be “a manlye kynge,” but Humphrey makes clear that this is not necessary for England’s stability. As her peaceful succession showed, Elizabeth was not a weak woman, and her conflict-​free accession was indisputably the will of God.

37 Thomas S. Freeman, “Humphrey, Laurence (1525x7–​1589),” ODNB, doi:10.1093/​ref:odnb/​ 14156. 38 Freeman, “Humphrey, Laurence.”

39 Laurence Humphrey, The Nobles, or of Nobilitye: The Original nature, dutyes, right, and Christian Institucion thereof (London, 1563; STC 13964), sigs. A2v, A8r.

40 Patrick Collinson, “The Monarchical Republic of Queen Elizabeth I,” Bulletin of the John Rylands Library 69, no. 2 (1987): 398; Patrick Collinson, “The Elizabethan Exclusion Crisis and the Elizabethan Polity,” in This England: Essays on the English Nation and Commonwealth in the Sixteenth Century (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2011), 82. 41 Schutte, “Perception of Sister Queens,” 159.

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That Elizabeth’s accession was due to the “bountye & mercy of God” is not a comment on Elizabeth’s gender, either. Both Edward VI42 and James VI & I,43 for instance, were informed that they reigned through the will of God, and considering the theme of providence that runs throughout the dedication and the pamphlet, it seems likely that Humphrey would have made this comment even if the monarch had been a man. Such references to providence were a widely accepted way in which to conceive of sovereignty in premodern England. Instead, Humphrey was celebrating the peaceful re-​establishment of Protestantism in England, a point that was made explicit in the first biblical reference he made. Because of God’s mercy, shown to the English through Elizabeth’s peaceful accession, “that Hymne and tryumphante songe, whych Moses and the children of Israel song in the desert, after the buryal of Pharao in the red sea: in the congregations of the godly, ought alwaye [to] resound” (A2v).44 While Humphrey’s relief was perhaps tempered by his fear that because Elizabeth was a woman, she would have had difficulty securing the throne through military force if necessary—​thinking perhaps of Henri II of France’s belief that his daughter-​in-​law Mary, Queen of Scots, was Mary I’s legitimate successor—​this relief is consistent with premodern, patriarchal views on the role and ability of women. One way that The Nobles has been read as a critique of Elizabeth’s gender relates to the links made between the Queen, Edward VI, and Henry VIII. Tara Wood has claimed 42 For instance, Philip Nicolls told the English that they should “prayse the lord whych of hys tender love lykewyse hath geven us a younge Josias … [to] fynish the building of the holy temple whych his father beganne,” and Richard Argentine, in his English translation of Martin Luther’s sermon on John 20, claimed “It hath pleased almightie god of his great mercy to send unto us a Josias and a Kynge of moost worthye fame … to beate downe the devell and hys derelie beloved antechriste.” The role of providence in placing Edward on the throne was made most explicit, however, in a proclamation issued on July 16, 1549, declaring martial law during Kett’s Rebellion, in which Edward was described “as a Prince reignyng by almightie Goddes providence.” Philip Nicolls, Here begynneth a godly newe story (London, 1548; STC 18576), sig E3r (sig. E2 is mistakenly identified as E3); Martin Luther, A Ryght Notable Sermon … uppon the twenteth Chapter of Johan, trans. Richard Argentine (Ipswich, 1548; STC 16992), sig. a3r; All Such Proclamacions, as have been sette furthe by the Kynges Majestie (London, 1550; STC 7758), fol. 63r.

43 The role of providence was asserted in James’s third proclamation as king (issued on April 8, 1603), in which he claimed to reign by the “providence of God Almighty.” In addition, a variety of commentators asserted that providence had placed James on the throne: Radford Mavericke told the King “that God to us doth send,” and he described James as “speciall providence and appoyntment … King of England, France and Ireland,” and in his account of a terrible storm that struck Olveston, Gloucestershire, which the author claimed was aimed at Catholics in the aftermath of the Gunpowder Plot, “P. S.” thanked God for sending “thy servant King James, whom thou by thy almighty providence hast made thy vicegerent in this mighty empire.” A Proclamation declaring at what values certaine Moneys of Scotland shalbe currant within England (London, 1603; STC 8304), one page; Radford Mavericke, Three Treatises Religiously Handled and named according to the severall subject of each Treatise (London, 1603; STC 17683a.5), sig. A4r, 13v–​14r; P. S., Feareful Newes, Of Thunder and Lightning, with the terrible effects thereof, which Almighty God sent on a place called Olvestone … the 28. of November last (London, 1606; STC 21511), sig. C2r. 44 Referencing the “Song of the Sea,” recounted in Exodus 15:1–​18.

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that the dedication “reinforces Humphrey’s view that female rule may be a fact of life, but as a woman, the Queen should be limited to a woman’s traditional role,” and these associations with her father and brother were intended to place “Elizabeth in the role of caretaker for God, not in the active role of shaper, or nurser of religion.”45 This reading, however, is not supported by the text of the dedication. Certainly, Humphrey linked Elizabeth to her brother and father but, as a variety of commentators would do throughout both her reign and into the seventeenth century, this link was intended to exhort Elizabeth to continue what had already begun.46 Humphrey told the Queen: “what your mightyest father Henrye began, youre godlyest brother furthered … you should finishe and accomplyshe” (A8r). Clearly, there is no comment on Elizabeth’s gender here. In fact, as several scholars have noted, the tract was less about Elizabeth herself, and instead aimed at the English nobility.47 Humphrey employed a more expansive definition of nobility that included not only those in the peerage, but also those in the upper levels of the gentry. He exhorted them to offer wise counsel to the Queen, and to do everything in their power to advance the Reformation. Indeed, Humphrey even hoped “That in a woman Noble men maye find, what to learne, what to folowe, what to wonder” (A7v). Elizabeth was thus an example to be emulated by her own nobles. Humphrey also made clear that Elizabeth was doing a good job as monarch. After telling the Queen, “As you have begonne therefore, so proceede,” he turned to the biblical past to offer example in support of Elizabeth’s reign. He first reminded the Queen that Jesus often sought “to daunt the world”—​that is, overcome or subdue his enemies—​ not with “mennes myght,” but with “enfantes, sucklynges, [and] women” (B1r). While perhaps not the most stirring endorsement of female sovereignty, he expanded on 45 Tara Wood, “‘To the Most Godlye, Virtuos, and Mightye Princes Elizabeth’: Identity and Gender in the Dedications to Elizabeth I” (PhD thesis, Arizona State University, 2008), 94.

46 In 1596, Thomas Bell claimed, “king Henry the eight, and king Edward the sixt of famous memory, & our most gratious soveraigne Elizabeth, restored [us] to the old, christian, catholike, and apostolike religion, and placed againe in our owne churches.” Then, when James VI succeeded Elizabeth on the English throne, Andrew Willet explained his hope for the new King’s reign: “in England Henrie the eight expelled the Pope, and abolished Idolatrie: King Edward proceeded, and abrogated the Masse: Queen Elizabeth went yet further, took order for recusants, seminary seducing Priests, & Judasits: and somewhat it may be is yet remaining, either to be amended or added by your Majestie.” Finally, Edward Leigh reminded his readers at the Restoration that “As he [Henry VIII] cast out the Pope, so did his children Edward the sixth, and Queen Elizabeth cast out Popery out of England, and so freed us from his spiritual bondage.” Thomas Bell, The Survey of Popery (London, 1596; STC 1829), 200; Andrew Willet, An Antilogie or Counterplea to an Apologicall (he should have said) Apologeticall Epistle published by a Favorite of the Romane Separation (London, 1603; STC 25672), sig. *4r; Edward Leigh, Choice Observations of all the Kings of England from the Saxons to the Death of King Charles the First (London, 1661; Wing L987), sig. A7v. 47 John Morgan, Godly Learning: Puritan Attitudes Towards Reason, Learning and Education, 1560–​1640 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988), 278; A. N. McLaren, Political Culture in the Reign of Elizabeth I: Queen and Commonwealth, 1558–​ 1585 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999), 124–​26; Stephen A. Chavura, Tudor Protestant Political Thought, 1547–​1603 (Leiden: Brill, 2011), 74.

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this point by recounting the examples of six biblical figures whose favour served as an example to Elizabeth. The first three figures come as no surprise: “Debbora, brake the Iron Charrettes of Labinus the Cananite. Judith slewe Holofernes. Hester saved the Jewes condemned to dye, from the … yawninge Jawes of death” (B1r). The other three were far more unusual choices: Who seeth Gods campe. As Jacob agaynst Esau.48 Whose mounte is envyroned wyth horse and fierye chares. As against the king of Siria the prophete Elizeus.49 Howe are ye desolate, when god encampeth in the syghte of his servauntes? So as Davyd sole, feared not thousandes of enemyes. For the lord was with him.50 (B1r)

The idea that God had to strengthen Deborah, Judith, and Esther because they were weak women is perhaps understandable, given the prevailing misogyny of the period; the male biblical figures that Humphrey employed, however, demonstrate that gender has virtually nothing to do with the examples. These women saved their people from death; these men were protected by God and saved from death. This actually reverses the normal, gendered view of the world: these women defended their people, and these men needed to be saved. In combining the examples of these six biblical luminaries, Humphrey argued that whatever weaknesses may or may not afflict Elizabeth were irrelevant because God, “the mightiest champion,” would strengthen and protect his chosen one. Throughout the pamphlet, Humphrey continually sought to explain why England’s return to Protestantism was so important for the European Protestant cause. He claimed that both the dedication and the tract itself were meant “to imprynte in all Christendome, deeper memory of Gods providence, Continually to behold his gentlenes towardes the vesselles of his mercye: and just severitye towardes his enemyes,” and to remind Elizabeth that “God fyghteth for you and yours” and that He will help her to “stoutely withstand your foes” (B2r). Again, there is no negative view of Elizabeth’s gender here, and these comments instead emphasize the providential favour England received because of its Protestantism. Like many Marian exiles, Humphrey wanted England to take on a more aggressive role in the expansion of Protestantism. He noted that because of Elizabeth’s help, Scotland was “now in faythe our syster,” and perhaps with the recently signed Treaty of Hampton Court in mind, in which Elizabeth promised to help the Huguenots (see below), Humphrey hoped that England’s “other neyghbour Nacions Fraunce, Spayne, Flaunders, and all realmes and kingdomes maye at lengthe awake from theyr longe slomber, to the lighte of the Gospell” (B2v). 48 Referencing Genesis 32:7–​8, when Jacob split his people into two camps so that if Esau attacked, only one group would be harmed, and the other would be able to flee. God, however, ensured that no one was harmed. 49 See 2 Kings 6:8–​23.

50 Psalm 3, “A Psalm of David, when he fled from Absalom his son”: “Thou, O Lord, art a shield for me; my glory, and the lifter up of mine head. I cried unto the Lord with my voice, and he heard me out of his holy hill. Selah. I laid me down and slept; I awaked; for the Lord sustained me. I will not be afraid of ten thousands of people, that have set themselves against me round about” (Psalm 3:3–​6).

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When considered in context, Humphrey’s pamphlet is not the negative depiction of Elizabeth’s gender that it is generally claimed to be. Humphrey emphasized the role of providence in England’s return to Protestantism, and similar sentiments would most likely have been expressed if Mary I’s Protestant successor had been a man. Buoyed on by the Reformation in Scotland, Humphrey exhorted the Queen and England’s nobility to spread the light of Protestantism throughout all of Europe, claiming that God was on their side. Humphrey clearly understood the perceived issues of Elizabeth’s gender, and it is possible that he shared in some of these views. Nevertheless, critics have been too quick to emphasize his apparent misogyny. The examples Humphrey collated here demonstrate that God had strengthened both women and men to overcome His enemies: Elizabeth would not only be empowered to protect the English like Deborah, Judith, and Esther, but she would also be protected and blessed like Jacob, Elisha, and David. As the contemporary embodiment of all these Old Testament figures, Elizabeth would defend and advance the Protestant cause, and Humphrey hoped that her example would inspire her nobility to partake in the fight too. 1563 was a year of domestic and international pressures for England and Elizabeth. The first war of the French Wars of Religion was brought to an end in March 1563 by the Edict of Amboise, but England’s involvement on behalf of the Huguenots caused hostilities to again break out.51 The Convocation of 1563 also sought to consolidate the Elizabethan Religious Settlement, and although the Thirty-​Nine Articles would only be formally adopted in 1571, this meeting of the English clergy largely established the confessional shape and practice of the Elizabethan Church of England.52 Opinions about England’s Protestantism, and its involvement in the European Protestant cause, thus loomed large in the contemporary religio-​political discourse. Elizabeth also had to contend with more obvious concerns: between June 1563 and January 1564, England was ravaged by the worst plague it would experience in the sixteenth century. Alarmed by the spiralling death toll, Elizabeth retreated to Windsor, and in August ordered her archbishops to distribute a prayer to be read twice a week in churches across the country, as well as ordering a fast for every Wednesday. The preface to the order claimed “God hath been provoked by us to visit us at this present with the plague and other grievous diseases, and partly also with trouble of wars,” and as such, everyone needed “to pray earnestly and heartily to God” to establish “Godly and profitable peace and quietness.” Such a course of action was necessary because of the many and sundry examples of holy Scriptures, that upon occasion of particular punishments, afflictions, and perils, which God of his most just judgment hath sometimes sent … the Godly have been provoked and stirred up to more fervency and diligence in prayer … so to be defended and delivered from all further perils and dangers.53

51 Mack P. Holt, The French Wars of Religion, 1562–​ 1629, 2nd ed. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005), 52–​56. 52 See Marshall, “Settlement Patterns,” 45–​62.

53 William Keatinge Clay, ed., Liturgies and Occasional Forms of Prayer Set Forth in the Reign of Queen Elizabeth (Cambridge, 1847), 479.

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The preface then listed several biblical examples for this observation:

So king David in the time of plague and pestilence … prayed unto God with wonderful fervency, confessing his fault, [and] desiring God to spare the people … The like was done by the virtuous kings, Josaphat and Ezechias, in their distress of wars and foreign invasions. So did Judith and Hester fall to humble prayers in like perils of their people. So did Daniel in his captivity, and many other moe in their troubles.54

The use of these scriptural examples demonstrates not only that people in early modern England believed that the events of the biblical past provided precedent for the present, but also that they were viewed as a legitimate way of understanding the present. Using the example of the Bible was neither a mere rhetorical device nor a tool of flattery: it combined serious theology and practical politics, and tapped into the shared view of the paramountcy of the Bible in early modern culture. While decamped to Windsor, Elizabeth was presented, on September 19, with a decorated and carefully transcribed series of verses in Latin from the scholars of the nearby Eton College.55 The verses, which consist primarily of seventy-​three epigrams of varying styles, were clearly intended to showcase the scholars’ Latin abilities, rather than to be recited.56 Given that the manuscript was first and foremost a Latin school exercise, classical analogies do appear more frequently across the epigrams (especially references to Elizabeth as Pallas Athena), but biblical figures are only marginally outnumbered by their classical counterparts. These verses are particularly worthy of close study: unlike many of the pamphlets discussed in this book, the manuscript was deliberately prepared for the Queen. This means that the various scholars employed a range of biblical analogies to support Elizabeth’s rule, expecting that the Queen would read them. While such a fact does explain the overtly laudatory tone of the verses, the analogies would only have been used if the scholars were sure that they would be received positively. That the scholars were clearly aware of the current religio-​political situation in both England and in Europe more widely is made clear throughout the manuscript, and several of the epigrams—​ especially 57 (discussed below), 59, and 71—​allude to England’s recent, unsuccessful, military actions in France. The most prolific contributor to the verses was Giles Fletcher the Elder—​future MP, Ambassador to Russia, and Master of Requests.57 In Epigram 10, Fletcher created a “Dialogue Between Queen Elizabeth and the English” that presented Elizabeth as the contemporary embodiment of multiple biblical figures. “Elizabeth” began the dialogue, in which she told the English, “I am now a monarch, while I was a little while ago held in 54 Clay, Liturgies, 479.

55 The manuscript is BL Royal MS 12 A XXX. It has been digitized: http://bl.uk/​manu​scri​pts/​Full​ Disp​lay.aspx?ref=​Royal_​MS_​12 ​ _​A_​XXX.

56 For instance, Epigram 14 contains a triple acrostic. See BL Royal MS 12 A XXX, fol. 12r.

57 Lucy Munro, “Fletcher, Giles, the elder (bap. 1546, d. 1611),” ODNB, doi:10.1093/​ref:odnb/​ 9726.

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prison” (325). The English, possibly with Elizabeth’s own prayer at the commencement of her coronation procession in mind, replied: When God sees his children troubled by a beating, he sends a triumphant leader to protect them. So to Israel He sent Moses, thus He sent Aaron, thus He sent David, thus pious Abraham. Thus He sent Judith, thus too He sent Gideon, thus He sent Samson, thus pious Samuel. So He sent you, our most sacred Queen, to us, so that you might be a leader and friendly saviour for us.58

In underscoring Elizabeth’s providential sending to the English, Fletcher highlighted how Elizabeth was the contemporary embodiment of these Old Testament luminaries, and that just like them, Elizabeth would be endowed with the strength to defend the English people. Judith is the only female figure in this list, which again emphasizes how gender was a secondary concern when drawing on typologies. The mix of figures also indicates that Elizabeth would protect England from attack—​like Judith, Samson, and Gideon—​and rule according to God’s commands, like Samuel, Aaron, and Moses. Gender may have been a secondary concern for Fletcher, but in Epigram 11, Alexander Bound linked Elizabeth with female Old Testament figures: Deborah is the most sacred glory of the Jewish land … but we English rejoice in you, as so great a monarch … [and] sacred Esther ever more upright in her life than you. You are a glory for the world, you are a gentle support for the unhappy. (326)

In presenting Elizabeth as the contemporary embodiments of these two Old Testament figures, Bound’s point comes through so clearly that it does not need to be explicitly stated. Like Deborah, Elizabeth ruled her people with God’s help, and like Esther, Elizabeth defended her people from those who would harm them. Unlike Deborah and Esther, however, Elizabeth was sent “for the world,” suggesting that England should lead the charge to defeat Catholics elsewhere. Epigram 14 by John Longe, the future Archbishop of Armagh, highlighted the Queen’s providential favour, as well as the blessings that the English received by having Elizabeth on the throne: [We see] that you are yourself outstanding in your virtue, [and] are ourselves, believe me, helped by heavenly virtue. As golden fame was given to powerful Judith, so may honour be given to you, mighty Elizabeth.59

This same point was reiterated and expanded in Epigram 46 by Robert Dunning, although he used Deborah instead of Judith. England should rejoice because 58 David K. Money, ed. and trans., “Verses Addressed to the Queen at Windsor by Eton Scholars, 19 September 1563,” in John Nichols’s The Progresses and Public Processions of Queen Elizabeth I: A New Edition of the Early Modern Sources, Volume 1: 1533 to 1571, ed. Elizabeth Goldring, Faith Eales, Elizabeth Clarke, and Jayne Elisabeth Archer (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014), 325. 59 Money, “Verses Addressed to the Queen,” 327, 272. My translation of the second sentence. Original Latin: “Et nos Brutigenas temet virtue videntes eximian virtus Cœlica (crede) iuuat. Aurea si Judith Reddatur fama potenti, Elisabetha potents tum tibi detur honor.”

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1558–1569 a Deborah has been sent to you, that her high prudence might keep our people safe in piety, our laws and rituals intact, and the rights of men … you Deborah, were sent as monarch … you defend men’s rights, laws, and rituals with virtue, O monarch most celebrated in the world for your virtue, O ruler most fortunate for your outstanding gifts. (343)

This view of history indicates the way that typologies reverberated throughout time: according to Dunning, Elizabeth secured her people’s rights and defended them because she was the most recent embodiment of Deborah. Unlike some of the other epigrams, however, Dunning stressed the role the English themselves must play in ensuring that they receive the full blessings of the new Deborah. Perhaps with Luke 12:48 in mind, “For unto whomsoever much is given, of him shall be much required,” Dunning claimed that the English must continually pray that the English Deborah be protected, and they must ensure that she is obeyed and supported. The belief that Elizabeth would defend England was asserted in Epigram 57, by Simon Boughan. Boughan employed a litany of biblical figures to highlight the providential protection that the Queen brought to England: Moses led Jehovah’s people out of high Egypt, from the rage of savage Pharaoh. Deborah protected Judah from the rage of Jabin, and … When threatening Holofernes shook the walls, Judith, a strong woman, defeated him: thus you (o Queen) will put warlike enemies to flight—​thus you will defeat your enemies, Elizabeth. Thus, as monarch, you will put all evils to flight from our shores … [and protect] famous Britain. (348–​49)

Boughan was thus in no doubt that Elizabeth had been sent to the English like Moses, Deborah, and Judith were sent to the Hebrews. These analogies, however, emphasized Elizabeth’s Protestantism: the Egyptian pharaoh, Jabin, and Holofernes were all used as types for wicked Catholics by early modern Protestants, and Boughan made clear that Elizabeth would be strengthened to overcome the assaults of these wicked Catholics.60 Of the epigrams that contain biblical analogies, this is the one that seems most explicitly to refer to the events in France. Boughan’s reference to “the walls” is not from the Book of Judith, which suggests he was deliberately associating the biblical past with the present conflict—​especially the siege of Havre de Grace/​Newhaven (modern-​day Le 60 For instance, James Bell decried the “proude Popishe Holofernes, a most notable champion of that Romaine Nabuchadnezer” who made “so prowde a challenge agaynst his poore Cittie Bethulia”; Anthony Anderson looked forward to when the “proud antechristian Pharaoh, & al his popish Egyptians” are “cast into the sea & gulfe of unquenchable fire”; Francis Hastings thanked God that He had preserved Elizabeth to “free us from al the most bitter thraldome of this Romish Pharaoh”; and Miles Moss described Elizabeth as “our Moses, to deliver us out of the bondage and darknesse of the Romish Aegypt,” “Our Debora, that brought downe the Spanish Jabin,” and “Our Sampson, to avenge us againe and againe of the Popish Philistims [sic].” Walter Haddon and John Foxe, Against Jerome Osorius Byshopp of Silvane in Portingall and against his slaunderous invectives, trans. James Bell (London, 1581; STC 12594), sig. *2v; Anthony Anderson, A Sermon of sure Comfort, preached at the Funerall of Master Robert Keylwey (London, 1581; STC 569), 50; Francis Hastings, A Watch-​word to all religious, and true hearted English-​men (London, 1598; STC 12927), 20; Miles Mosse, Scotlands Welcome (London, 1603; STC 18210), 57.

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Havre). In May 1562, during the French Wars of Religion, Huguenots captured the city of Le Havre. Fearing a counter-​attack, and in a relatively weak position, the reformers turned to England for help. Under the terms of the Treaty of Hampton Court, agreed between Elizabeth and the Huguenot leader Louis de Bourbon, Prince of Condé, on September 22, 1562, England would loan the Huguenots 140,000 crowns, send six thousand troops (half for a garrison at Le Havre, and half for Rouen), and aid fortifying Le Havre (which would also be surrendered to her as surety for the loan). Huguenots began losing the various footholds they had gained and in early May 1563, Catherine de’ Medici, regent for Charles IX, sent troops to besiege the city. Poorly resourced and rapidly succumbing to plague, the English were expelled in late July 1563.61 Nevertheless, and despite the loss suffered by England and the Protestants, Boughan emphasized God’s protection of England, perhaps reassured that the defeat was not on “our shores.” England may have been unsuccessful in its attempts to aid French Huguenots, but Boughan was convinced that Elizabeth, like Moses, Deborah, and Judith, would “put all evils”—​that is, Catholicism—​“to flight from our shores.” The final epigram that contained biblical analogies (number 61) was written by Charles Kirkham. Kirkham, however, took a different approach to his fellow Etonians, claiming that Elizabeth was a providential monarch, and a very special monarch at that: O peoples, turn your eyes, hither, hither, direct your steps—​England will provide a spectacle. A new offspring of David shines, here is the very image of Solomon: … O nations, see this woman, this monarch. The wide world sees you, and is stupefied, O monarch, gem of the British people. (356)

Once again demonstrating that gender was not a key consideration when invoking biblical typologies, Kirkham presented Elizabeth as a latter-​day Solomon. Elizabeth was thus linked with the wisest man to have ever lived and presented as an example that other rulers should emulate, with Kirkham hoping that God’s blessing to the English would be shared with the whole world.62 Just as Solomon’s wisdom meant “his fame was in all nations round about,” Kirkham hoped that Elizabeth’s wisdom—​which included her Protestantism—​would become internationally renowned and respected.63 The presentation manuscript concluded with a prayer-​like exposition that implored God to spare Elizabeth from “the contagion of the raging plague.” The prayer is unsigned, but it was likely composed by William Malym, Headmaster of Eton. It is a long piece of prose that invokes several biblical examples to exhort God to “preserve your and our most serene Queen, Elizabeth … entirely safe and unharmed from these present thunder-​strokes of illness” (363). For Malym, the example provided by a range of Old 61 Hammer, Elizabeth’s Wars, 62–​66; Wallace T. MacCaffrey, “The Newhaven Expedition, 1562–​ 1563,” The Historical Journal 40, no. 1 (1997): 9, 16–​19. 62 See Linda S. Shenk, “Queen Solomon: An International Elizabeth I in 1569,” in Queens and Power in Medieval and Early Modern England, ed. Carole Levin and Robert Bucholz (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2009), 98–​125. 63 1 Kings 4:31.

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Testament luminaries reassured both himself and Elizabeth that God would protect the Queen: when you, Judith, most dear to God, were surrounded by enemies on all sides … who would have kept you unharmed for so long a time from the savagery of Holofernes the king of the Assyrians (whom you also later beheaded)? Did not a most similar disaster threaten you also, Susanna, and a more shameful death (had not God averted it), when you were falsely accused by those two shameless elders of unchastity … Who led Daniel unharmed from the lions’ den? Who shut up their mouths when, by the order and instruction of King Darius, Daniel had been thrown into the den? Who preserved those three most holy men, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, untouched by the flame of the fire, when the furious King Nebuchadnezzar had thrown them into the middle of the fiery furnace? … Who, finally, protected the innocent, pious, and chaste Joseph … and released his chains, and set him in the chief place in all Egypt, and ordained for him the closest position to the king’s dignity? (364–​65)

The answer to all these rhetorical questions was, of course, God, and Malym was convinced that Elizabeth would be protected from the plague in the same way that these Old Testament figures were preserved from death. The prayer, however, went beyond desiring the protection of the Queen as a person, and instead sought protection for the religious settlement Elizabeth had enacted. Near the end of the prayer, Malym beseeched God to “keep Elizabeth, our most serene and noble Queen … and only light of this kingdom (in whom rests the sole safety of us all), for as long as possible safe from the present dangers of this disease” (366). This sentence reveals much about Malym’s motives: as I explore in Chapter 3, during Elizabeth’s progress to Norwich, light was a common metaphor for Protestantism in premodern Europe. Like Whittingham, Malym alluded to the contemporary situation in England. Elizabeth remained unmarried and childless, and her heir presumptive according to the normal rules of primogeniture was the Catholic Mary, Queen of Scots. Should Elizabeth die of this plague, Mary would almost certainly become queen, and she would seek to return England to Catholicism. Malym hoped that God would preserve Elizabeth, and thus England’s Protestantism, so that the country was not plunged back into the darkness of Catholicism. This long list of biblical figures, according to Malym, proved that God has “always defended those superior, just men and chaste women from all danger with your shield,” and as such, he believed that God would “guard unharmed this unique, most chaste Queen of ours” (366). This prayer for Elizabeth’s protection from the current plague, coming as it did less than a year after Elizabeth’s near-​fatal bout of smallpox, highlighted the precarity of the Elizabethan regime and its religious settlement. Nevertheless, when taken together, the prayer and the epigrams demonstrate how people in sixteenth-​century England turned to the past to understand the present. Just as God had protected Daniel, Judith, and Joseph from death, so would He protect Elizabeth from the current plague. At the same time, these typologies all, to varying degrees, emphasized that Elizabeth was chosen by God to rule England, and that her returning the Church of England to Protestantism was the will of God. By presenting Elizabeth as the contemporary embodiment of a range of biblical figures, the Eton scholars were acknowledging that God intervened in human

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affairs, as well as taking comfort from the fact that God would strengthen Elizabeth to rule as “a glory for the world.” It remains unclear how many, if any, of the scholars considered Elizabeth’s gender as an impediment to her reign. Nonetheless, the variety of male and female biblical analogies they offered in support of the Queen demonstrates that irrespective of these perceived weaknesses, God made clear that He had chosen Elizabeth to rule and defend England.

When the Swedish Sheba visited the English Solomon

That Elizabeth ruled as “a glory for the world” was underscored by the arrival of the Margrave and Margravine of Baden-​Rodemachern at Dover on September 9, 1565, to visit the court of Elizabeth I.64 This was not just any German princeling: the Margravine was Princess Cecilia of Sweden, daughter of Gustav I, and half-​sister to the then-​king of Sweden, Erik XIV—​himself a former suitor of Elizabeth.65 Cecilia had long been fascinated by the English Queen, and had wanted to visit England and meet Elizabeth for almost a decade. In 1557, Gustav had sent an embassy to Mary I to propose a marriage between his eldest son and heir, Erik, and Elizabeth. Although this mission failed, due in large part to Mary not wanting Elizabeth to marry a Protestant prince, Gustav tried again, sending his second-​eldest son John, Duke of Finland, to England in 1560. John’s first-​hand accounts of Elizabeth and her court entranced Cecilia, and she and the Queen began to correspond. When Cecilia married Christopher II, Margrave of Baden-​Rodemachern, in June 1564, she was promised that the couple would visit England within a year of their marriage. The couple set out from Stockholm on November 12, 1564, but the various alliances between states, and the wars being fought across Europe, necessitated that a rather convoluted route be taken, and it was almost a year later that the couple finally crossed the Channel at Calais and arrived in England. The couple reached London on September 11, and Elizabeth visited her Swedish guest on September 14. Cecilia was very heavily pregnant, and she gave birth to a son the day after Elizabeth’s visit; Elizabeth served as the boy’s godmother, and she named him Edwardus Fortunatus because “God had so graciously assisted his mother in so long and dangerous a journey, and brought her so safe to land in that place which she most desired, and that in so short time before her deliverance.”66 Cecilia remained in England until March 1566, when she was forced to flee the country due to the massive debts she (and her husband) had accumulated, 64 On Cecilia, and her visit to England, see Aidan Norrie, “Cecilia of Sweden: Princess, Margravine, Countess, Regent,” in Women on the Edge in Early Modern Europe, ed. Lisa Hopkins and Aidan Norrie (Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2019), 179–​202; and Nathan Martin, “Princess Cecilia’s Visitation to England, 1565–​1566,” in The Foreign Relations of Elizabeth I, ed. Charles Beem (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2011), 27–​44. 65 On the marriage negotiations, see Susan Doran, Monarchy and Matrimony: The Courtships of Elizabeth I (London: Routledge, 1996), 30–​34.

66 John Stow and Edmund Howes, The Annales, Or Generall Chronicle of England (London, 1615; STC 23338), 658.

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and this rather ignominious departure from the country has—​perhaps unsurprisingly—​ overshadowed the general excitement that greeted her arrival. James Bell, a chaplain and translator, wrote an account of Cecilia’s journey from Stockholm to her lodgings in London, which was presented to Elizabeth shortly after Cecilia’s departure from England. The unpopularity of the Princess at her departure probably explains why the account was never printed in pamphlet form, and why it ends shortly after Cecilia’s arrival. Little is known about Bell, so it is unclear why he produced this account, although he may have attended Cecilia’s arrival in Dover as a chaplain. There are hints throughout the text, however, that suggest he was hoping to convince Elizabeth to forge closer bonds with Protestant Sweden. In three different places in the manuscript, Bell claimed that Cecilia’s visit to Elizabeth was analogous to the visit of the Queen of Sheba to the court of Solomon, and that Elizabeth was herself a contemporary Solomon. In the dedication to Elizabeth, Bell endeavoured to justify the comparison: For yf the Quene of Saba deserved to be Chronycled with praise in [the] sacred Byble, for that (enflamed with Love of wisdome), She travailed in comparisone a shorte journeye to visytte the Courte of Salomon, there to enjoye the presence of so wyse a Kynge; Whie this your Princes (youres I saye synce wholie she yealdeth to be youres) takinge no lesse, yea muche greater enterprise for lyke cause, shoulde not be also Registred in the treasure of memorie, I see nothinge to the contrarie. For as neither your highness in vertue, neither her grace in affeccione, maye seeme in oughte to geave place to those princes Salomon and Saba: So am I sure in estate, Renowme, and in effectuall arte, youe are in all respectes their equall.67

Cecilia may have been a contemporary Queen of Sheba, but this analogy only works if Elizabeth truly was a contemporary Solomon. Like Solomon, Elizabeth was “so wyse a Kynge,” which caused Bell to turn to the biblical past to conceptualize the present. Cecilia and Christopher’s journey from Stockholm was difficult and in parts treacherous, and Bell believed that only a true Solomon would have caused Cecilia to be so determined to visit Elizabeth. Bell then recounted how the embassy of Cecilia’s brother John, Duke of Finland, had instilled in Cecilia a “singular admyracione” of Elizabeth, and Cecilia, “beinge no lesse moved with the Reporte of your noble vertues, then the Quene of Saba was with the fame of Salomones wisedome … conceaved suche greate and fervente thirste to enjoye the presence of your Majestie” (7r, 7v). Again stressing the contemporary parallels with the Old Testament, Bell emphasized Elizabeth’s “noble vertues” and “wisedome” to conflate the Queen with her biblical antecedent. To ensure that the comparison was explicit, Bell concluded his account, somewhat awkwardly, by underscoring Elizabeth’s status as a contemporary Solomon: “yf I shoulde Compare [Cecilia] to the Quene of Saba Salomon muste be the other proofe” (33v). In a manuscript meant for Elizabeth, it is unsurprising that Bell flattered Elizabeth by comparing her to Solomon. These examples go beyond mere flattery, however, 67 BL Royal MS 17 C XXIX, fols. 3r–​3v.

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demonstrating that Bell genuinely conceived of Elizabeth as a contemporary Solomon. Elizabeth could therefore lead the pan-​European Protestant league, and the fact that Cecilia hailed from Protestant Sweden, and was married to a Protestant prince, only helped Bell’s cause. The negative way that Cecilia’s visit ended was almost certainly the reason this laudatory account of the Swedish Princess was not published, but Bell cannot have known this when he began writing. Cecilia might have been a Queen of Sheba, but Bell framed much of his account around why Cecilia would want to visit the English Solomon, focusing on Elizabeth’s virtues and providential favour. Elizabeth, according to Bell, was “in all respectes” Solomon’s equal—​despite their difference in sex. The providential favour England had received because of Elizabeth and the nation’s return to Protestantism is a recurring theme throughout the account, and the fact that Bell was not the only person to compare Cecilia’s visit with the Queen of Sheba’s strongly suggests that the typological parallels were recognized more widely.68 As part of the Christmas and New Years festivities, Elizabeth and Cecilia attended a performance of Sapientia Solomonis (the Wisdom of Solomon) on January 17, 1566. Performed by the Westminster Boys, Sapientia Solomonis—​which was written by German playwright Sixt Birck, and adapted by an unknown English writer—​played up Cecilia’s Queen of Sheba-​like role in visiting Elizabeth. The play also depicted Elizabeth as a contemporary Solomon, conflating godly rule and wisdom. The connection between Elizabeth and her Old Testament antecedent was emphasized in the play’s prologue. The audience was told that they would witness “serious history, drawn from the sacred fount of truth,” and that Blessed Solomon will see presently another ruler greatly blessed … and likewise administering justice and the law to the people whom God gave her to rule over. Not unwillingly like will see like; a queen will see a king, a prudent ruler will see a most prudent. Solomon with his wisdom will be here among us.69

In addition to highlighting the Bible’s status as a historical text, the prologue made the audience consider that the events they were viewing had direct parallels in the present. The audience was being explicitly instructed to interpret the play’s events—​which 68 For instance, in his Annales, Camden said of the visit, “As the Queene of Sheba came to see Salomon, so the rare vertues of Queene Elizabeth, brought Cecilia, Queene [sic] of Sueden, bigge with Childe, from the furthest part of the North, to see so compleat a Majestie,” and in his chronicle, Richard Baker recounted “the Honour done at this time to Queen Elizabeth, not much inferiour to the Honour done to Solomon by the Queen of Saba; for now Cecile, the sister of Errick King of Sweden, and wife of Christopher Marquesse of Baden, being great with childe, came from the farthest part of the North (a long Journey) thorow Germany, of purpose to see her, for the great fame she had heard of her Wisedom.” William Camden, Annales. The True and Royall history of the famous Empresse Elizabeth, Queene of England France and Ireland (London, 1625; STC 4497) sig. b2v; Richard Baker, A Chronicle of the Kings of England (London, 1643; Wing B501), 14 (sig. Aaaa3v). 69 Sixt Birck, Sapientia Solomonis: Acted before the Queen by the Boys of Westminster School January 17, 1566, ed. and trans. Elizabeth Rogers Payne (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1938), 53.

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include the famous Judgment of Solomon, the visit of the Queen of Sheba, and the building of the Temple—​typologically. While the prologue linked Elizabeth and Solomon through their prudence and their wisdom, the play’s epilogue made the comparison overt: A Queen is given to us who is a rival of illustrious King Solomon, thanks be to God on high. Solomon was just, our Queen is unjust to no man. Solomon was merciful; our Queen is mercy itself. The King … gave the living offspring to the true parent … Our Queen restored her sons to the true Church … [from] the blind night of superstition … Solomon built a holy temple to God; our Queen held nothing more important than to renew quickly the ritual of holy worship which had been overthrown.70

These comparisons between Elizabeth and Solomon drew on two different aspects of the biblical story. First, the adapter depicted Elizabeth as providentially blessed like Solomon, meaning the Queen was as wise, merciful, and just as the Old Testament king—​a parallel that elided any tension between the two monarchs’ sex. The other, and arguably more important, use of the typology equated Elizabeth’s restoration of Protestantism in England to Solomon’s long-​awaited construction of the Temple in Jerusalem, which finally provided a permanent home for God among the Jews. Elizabeth had freed the English from the “superstition” of Catholicism and restored the “holy worship which had been overthrown.” This was arguably more impressive than Solomon’s actions: Solomon only began building the Temple in the fourth year of his reign (1 Kings 6:1), while the Elizabethan Religious Settlement was instigated before the first year of the Queen’s rule was complete. Similarly, while Solomon merely continued his father’s religious policies, Elizabeth faced the more difficult task of replacing Catholic “superstition” with Protestantism. The analogy also served to link Elizabeth with her father: just as Solomon completed the Temple, the building of which had been prepared by his father David, Elizabeth completed the Reformation her father began. The adapter may have compared Elizabeth with Solomon, but the epilogue gives the distinct impression that Elizabeth surpassed her Hebrew antecedent. The epilogue concluded by emphasizing Elizabeth’s providential favour: “Let us, therefore, as suppliants, pray to Almighty God in whose hand the safety of all kings abides, that He may preserve our Gracious Ruler, Elizabeth, long unharmed for the English people.”71 As the adapter reminded the audience, God had protected the Queen throughout her pre-​accession years, as well as thus far during her reign—​thinking perhaps of her bout of smallpox only three years earlier. The play may have stressed the connections between Cecilia’s visit and the visit of the Queen of Sheba, but the focus of the play was undoubtedly the Solomonic Elizabeth. Sapientia Solomonis thus provides a fascinating, and significant, insight into the way that the Bible was used both as historical precedent and as a device to conceptualize the present. Like Bell’s account, the play’s English adapter—​who was responsible for the 70 Birck, Sapientia Solomonis, 129.

71 Birck, Sapientia Solomonis, 131.

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prologue and the epilogue—​went to great lengths to depict Elizabeth as a contemporary Solomon, irrespective of Cecilia’s visit. There was no point in depicting Cecilia as a Queen of Sheba if the person she was journeying to visit was not the equal of Solomon, and as the epilogue made clear, Elizabeth was more worthy of fame, and more divinely favoured, than even Solomon himself.

The 1566 Oxford “Visitation”

During the autumn of 1566, Elizabeth made her first visit to the University of Oxford. She had visited the University of Cambridge two years previously, and the Oxford scholars made several references to their delight that this royal favour was now bestowed upon both universities.72 That Elizabeth visited the two universities during the first decade of her reign illustrates just how important they were to the longevity of the Elizabethan church settlement, given both the more radical and puritan sympathies harboured by a number of university fellows, and the number of Catholics at the university who hoped to sway the Queen to allow some form of toleration.73 The university sought to present itself in the best possible light during Elizabeth’s visit—​a fact emphasized by the visits of both Cecil and Leicester (who had been elected chancellor of the university in 1564) in advance of the Queen to ensure that everything was in order. During her visit, which took place from August 31 to September 6, Elizabeth was presented with an array of speeches, verses, and orations. On Thursday, September 5, Elizabeth was entertained by a number of disputations in medicine and divinity. One of the disputations was on the incendiary topic, “A private citizen is not allowed to take up arms against the prince, even if he be unjust.” At the conclusion of this debate, Elizabeth tartly replied in Latin, “I neither approve them [the disputation topics] either under my authority as Queen, nor according to my judgement as a Christian,” although she seemingly forgave the disputants, stating that during her visit “I have been wonderfully pleased.”74 72 On Elizabeth’s university visits, see Siobhan Keenan, “Spectator and Spectacle: Royal Entertainments at the Universities in the 1560s,” in The Progresses, Pageants, and Entertainments of Queen Elizabeth I, ed. Jayne Elisabeth Archer, Elizabeth Goldring, and Sarah Knight (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007), 86–​103; and Paulina Kewes, “‘Plesures in lernyng’ and the Politics of Counsel in Early Elizabethan England: Royal Visits to Cambridge and Oxford,” English Literary Renaissance 46, no. 3 (2016): 333–​75. Concerning the 1566 Oxford visit, Penry Williams has observed that “it almost deserves the name of visitation.” Penry Williams, “Elizabethan Oxford: State, Church and University,” in The History of the University of Oxford, Volume 3: The Collegiate University, ed. James McConica (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1986), 397. 73 See Gerard Kilroy, “The Queen’s Visit to Oxford in 1566: A Fresh Look at Neglected Manuscript Sources,” Recusant History 31, no. 3 (2013): 331–​73.

74 Sarah Knight, ed. and trans., “Queen Elizabeth’s Visit to the University of Oxford, 31 August–​6 September 1566,” in John Nichols’s The Progresses and Public Processions of Queen Elizabeth I: A New Edition of the Early Modern Sources, Volume 1: 1533 to 1571, ed. Elizabeth Goldring, Faith Eales,

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Due to the various manuscript accounts of the Queen’s visit, it is impossible to fully reconstruct what was delivered to Elizabeth: some orations appear in multiple accounts, and others appear in only one. Like the 1563 Eton verses, a selection of verses and orations was compiled into a presentation manuscript that was almost certainly given to the Queen.75 In this manuscript is a description of William Lane’s proposition that “a woman can rule” (595), in which he used what are likely the only extant biblical analogies of the Queen’s visit. Given this is the only account of Lane’s disputation, it is possible that it was not performed; nevertheless, that it was included in a manuscript gifted to the Queen suggests that Lane wanted Elizabeth to read his defence of her rule, and that he thought it was an appropriate use of biblical history. Lane began his proposition by claiming, “It was a debateable question for a long time but now there is no question, Whether a woman can justly rule over men.” Perhaps knowing that this was an even more sensitive topic than the disputation about overthrowing tyrannical rulers, no one argued—​even rhetorically—​against the premise. In addition to praising Elizabeth’s intellect—​“the mind of our Queen is adorned by the Muses”—​Lane claimed that “those things that the examples of our ancestors always prove /​Must be dutifully maintained in our own times” (595). He offered two “testimonies” in support of his argument: “Judith, a most outstanding woman, defeated Holophernes, /​And Deborah was a holy judge of the people” (595–​96). These testimonies meant that “a woman rules justly,” and that Elizabeth, a “most distinguished Queen” and “cultivated woman,” was “an example to us” and was “in charge of [us] uncultivated men” (596). Lane concluded his preposition by telling the “talkative Momus”—​a character in Hesiod’s Theogony who was the proverbial determined-​to-​find-​fault critic, according to Plato—​to “stop pouring forth stupid words” against female sovereignty. To Lane’s mind, Judith and Deborah proved that God sanctioned female sovereignty. The use of Deborah here is to be expected, and follows the examples already outlined in this chapter, whereas the use of Judith is odd, given that she was not royal, nor did she hold any kind of political power. Lane seems, however, to have equated divine favour with divine sanctioning: just as God strengthened Judith to save her people from the Assyrians, Elizabeth had been preserved throughout Mary’s reign to succeed, and had returned England to the light of Protestantism, proving that she was a providential monarch. The typology may also gesture at the Elizabethan Religious Settlement. In the Book of Judith, the Jews were afraid that Holofernes would destroy their temples, as he had done to the nations already conquered, and that this would force them to worship Nebuchadnezzar instead of God (Judith 3:8, 4:1). Then, after Holofernes besieged Bethulia and cut off the city’s water supply, they prepared to surrender the city in five days, even though God “heard their prayers, and looked upon their afflictions” (Judith 4:13). Given the close associations between Holofernes and Catholics in the period, it is Elizabeth Clarke, and Jayne Elisabeth Archer (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014), 484n236, 486–​87.

75 It is BL Royal MS 12 A XLVII, and has been digitized: http://bl.uk/​manu​scri​pts/​Full​Disp​lay. aspx?ref=​Roya​l_​MS​_​12_​A_​XL​VII.

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possible to interpret the typology both as an endorsement of England’s Protestantism and as proof that Elizabeth, a contemporary Judith, would defend England’s church settlement and prevent the reintroduction of the worship of the popish Nebuchadnezzar. Lane’s biblical analogies here are the only recorded examples of scriptural history being offered to the Queen during her visit to Oxford: overwhelmingly, classical figures dominate.76 Like the 1653 Eton verses, this probably reflects the scholarly basis of the Latin verses, with Roman mythology employed to demonstrate the scholar’s mastery of Latin rhetorical practice. Nevertheless, this clear imbalance is further evidence that the prevailing belief among scholars that biblical analogies dominated in the early decades of Elizabeth’s reign, only to be replaced by classical parallels in later decades, is not supported by the evidence. Much of the typological flattery afforded to Elizabeth during her visit came from classical sources, but Lane instead used Judith and Deborah as powerful precedents for female sovereignty. Rather than attempting to offer a grand narrative of the way biblical and classical analogies intersected during Elizabeth’s reign, it is much more useful to emphasize the localized context of an analogy, accentuate the interactions of the various typologies, and acknowledge the way that different kinds of typologies served a diverse range of functions. It makes sense that Lane chose biblical examples to evidence his proposition. The Bible was a historical text as well as the word of God, and it thus provided irrefutable proof that God sanctioned female sovereignty much more powerfully than the invocation of classical figures ever could. As has been a continual thread throughout this chapter, in the first decade of Elizabeth’s reign, when the regime was establishing and asserting itself, commentators turned to the Bible to bolster the Queen’s authority. Lane’s proposition is a neat encapsulation of the power of biblical analogy: combined, Deborah and Judith provided typological evidence that God endorsed female kingship, that Elizabeth had the authority to instigate and defend England’s Protestantism, and that Elizabeth had been blessed and protected by God. The regime could hardly have asked for a better endorsement of Elizabeth’s rule.

Elizabeth’s First Decade

At the end of the first decade of her reign, Elizabeth’s Christian Prayers and Meditations was published. In the text, she compared herself to many of the biblical figures that various commentators and polemicists had previously drawn upon. Just as these writers had used the Old Testament to legitimize their new queen, relating the role of divine intervention to her religio-​political settlement, so Elizabeth herself now openly acknowledged the importance of providence in protecting her and England more widely. 76 On multiple occasions, Elizabeth was compared with classical goddesses, especially Minerva. For instance, Robert Marbeck said of Elizabeth’s response to the disputations, we “have heard not so much a learned prince speaking on earth as Minerva herself thundering from heaven” (610); and one of Henry Bust’s poems in the same manuscript as Lane’s proposition concluded with the line, “you are Juno, Minerva, and Venus” (602).

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In the first of her Spanish prayers, Elizabeth thanked God that He had “delivered me from the cruel hands of my enemies.” This thanksgiving would take on even more significant meaning a few months later. In November 1569, Elizabeth faced the most serious challenge to her reign thus far: the Northern Rebellion. Charles Neville, Earl of Westmorland, and Thomas Percy, Earl of Northumberland, rose up against Elizabeth in the hopes of deposing her, replacing her with Mary, Queen of Scots (who had recently been imprisoned in England), and returning the country to Catholicism. The Earls and their supporters (who eventually numbered about six thousand) seized Durham Cathedral, celebrating a Catholic Mass on November 14. After initially struggling to raise troops, Elizabeth was able to dispatch the Earl of Sussex with a force of around fourteen thousand men to face the rebels.77 The Earls and their forces continued to retreat north, and as their support drained away, they dispersed and fled into Scotland in late December. While the Rebellion was suppressed with limited struggle, the Queen was alarmed by the threat that it represented: she declared martial law and sought to exact revenge on those she believed had supported the Earls “for the terrour of others.”78 The subsequent persecution saw at least six hundred people executed, many of whom were chosen by an almost random quota-​style system.79 The Rebellion may have been easily crushed, but it caused a shift in the regime’s policies. Mary, Queen of Scots, would be a thorn in Elizabeth’s side for the next seventeen years, and the deteriorating situation on the Continent would force Elizabeth to find ways to support her fellow Protestants. Commentators and polemicists were keenly aware of this, and they sought to counsel their Queen as to the policies she should adopt, as well as to exhort her to directly confront expansionist Catholics. Elizabeth no longer needed the legitimization contained within the texts discussed in this chapter. In this more reactionary phase of her reign, deference gave way to critique, with writers becoming increasingly bold in their discussions of what Elizabeth should and should not do.

77 K. J. Kesselring, The Northern Rebellion of 1569: Faith, Politics, and Protest in Elizabethan England (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2010), 79. 78 TNA SP 15/​17, fol. 54r.

79 TNA SP 15/​17, fol. 45r; Kesselring, The Northern Rebellion, 124.

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Chapter 3

1570–​1584: POPERY, PLOTS, PROGRESSES—​AND EXCOMMUNICATION

In around 1576, Clement Newce (or his son William) added several large wall paintings to a room of his house in Much Hadham, Hertfordshire. One painting depicts the Judgment of Solomon, while another includes Elizabeth’s royal arms supported by two yeomen of the guard holding halberds and wearing the royal badge, accompanied by the declaration, “God Save the Queen.”1 The latter scene was clearly intended as a declaration of loyalty to Elizabeth. But Newce goes even further in the depiction of the Judgment: Solomon has been replaced by an unmistakable representation of Elizabeth (Figure 3.1). Relatively few people would have seen these murals (although the Newces may have been anticipating a potential royal visit), yet the statement they made was unambiguous. The Judgment of Solomon was a widely known and referenced story that was regularly used didactically. Newce, by inserting Elizabeth into this scene in the place of Solomon, was making explicit that Elizabeth embodied the divine wisdom with which Solomon was routinely associated. The previous chapter focused on the first decade of Elizabeth’s reign, emphasizing the way that biblical types were used to legitimize and bolster the new Queen through an examination of texts that have been overlooked or misinterpreted by scholars. In contrast, the period covered by this chapter—​that is, between the issuing of Regnans in Excelsis in 1570 and the execution of the Throckmorton Plot’s conspirators in 1584—​ has received more attention from scholars than most other periods in Elizabeth’s reign—​likely due to the regular recourse to the Bible in refutations of Regnans in Excelsis throughout the 1570s.2 Because of this attention, this chapter focuses on fewer 1 Tara Hamling, Decorating the ‘Godly’ Household: Religious Art in Post-​Reformation Britain (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2010), 100–​2.

2 See, for instance: Susan Doran, “Elizabeth I: An Old Testament King,” in Tudor Queenship: The Reigns of Mary and Elizabeth, ed. Alice Hunt and Anna Whitelock (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2010), 95–​110; Alexandra Walsham, “‘A Very Deborah?’ The Myth of Elizabeth I as a Providential Monarch,” in The Myth of Elizabeth, ed. Susan Doran and Thomas S. Freeman (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2003), 143–​68; Carol Blessing, “Elizabeth I as Deborah the Judge: Exceptional Women of Power,” in Goddesses and Queens: The Iconography of Elizabeth I, ed. Annaliese Connolly and Lisa Hopkins (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2007), 19–​33; Michele Osherow, Biblical Women’s Voices in Early Modern England (Farnham: Ashgate, 2009), esp. chapters 3 and 4; Linda Shenk, Learned Queen: The Image of Elizabeth I in Politics and Poetry (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2010), 93–​96; Elkin Calhoun Wilson, England’s Eliza (1939; New York: Octagon, 1966), 15–​34, 73–​86.

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Figure 3.1. “The Judgement of Solomon,” with Elizabeth as Solomon. Much Hadham, Much Hadham Forge Museum, Hertfordshire Building Preservation Trust.

examples and instead draws out the examples’ connections to wider issues, highlighting how biblical analogies were a legitimate device of counsel based on a serious theological understanding of the intersection between the past and the present. This chapter is also more interested in analyzing tracts by authors who appear elsewhere in this book, showing how a commentator could utilize an array of biblical types—​depending on the religio-​political situation on which they were commenting. For this reason, a large part of this chapter is devoted to the analogies employed during Elizabeth’s visit to Norwich in 1578. Elizabeth’s 1578 East Anglian progress might be familiar to scholars, not least because it is probably the first public use of the Virgin Queen iconography, and it may have marked the beginning of the Duke of Anjou’s courting of Elizabeth.3 The various biblical figures and typologies employed during the visit, however, are rarely analyzed. Like Elizabeth’s coronation procession, civic entertainments were intended to reach a relatively wide audience—​one almost certainly larger than the readership of sermons or tracts published by minor clergymen and lawyers. But, these analogies need to be contextualized within the use of typologies in a similar period, and this chapter brings together a range of genres and mediums to demonstrate the potency of biblical analogies as a tool of counsel, exhortation, and legitimization. 3 See Patrick Collinson, “Pulling the Strings: Religion and Politics in the Progress of 1578,” in The Progresses, Pageants, and Entertainments of Queen Elizabeth I, ed. Jayne Elisabeth Archer, Elizabeth Goldring, and Sarah Knight (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007), 138–​40; Matthew Woodcock, “The Fairy Queen Figure in Elizabethan Entertainments,” in Elizabeth I: Always Her Own Free Woman, ed. Carole Levin, Jo Eldridge Carney, and Debra Barrett-​Graves (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2003), 97–​115; and Susan Doran, Monarchy and Matrimony: The Courtships of Elizabeth I (London: Routledge, 1996), 150–​53.

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Queen Excommunicated: Responses and Aftermath The previous chapter concluded with Elizabeth’s victory over the Northern Rebellion. This triumph, however, was short-​lived. Spurred on by the rebellion’s failure, Pope Pius V excommunicated Elizabeth in the infamous papal bull, Regnans in Excelsis, which was issued on February 25, 1570. The bull “absolved” the English from loyalty to their Queen and purported to “deprive … Elizabeth of her pretended title to the crown.”4 The regime quickly responded with a new treason law that, among a number of provisions, made anyone who claimed that Elizabeth was a “Heretick, Schismatick, Tyrant, Infidel, or Usurper of the Crown” or who argued that the Queen “ought not to enjoy the Crown” guilty of treason.5 Despite the delay in the bull’s contents becoming known in England, and the issuing of a proclamation on July 1, 1570, banning publication and dissemination of the bull, its contents became widely known.6 In response, a variety of commentators and apologists endeavoured both to refute the pope’s actions and to legitimize Elizabeth’s Protestant settlement. One of the primary methods Elizabeth’s supporters used to refute Regnans in Excelsis was to contend that it was a country’s monarch, not the pope, who had supreme authority over religious matters. In addition to rehashing arguments made during the Investiture Controversy (an eleventh-​ and twelfth-​century conflict between successive popes and Holy Roman emperors concerning who had the right to install bishops and abbots),7 apologists emphasized the biblical precedent of monarchs reforming religion, which was a stark contrast to the lacking precedent for the office of pope. Such focuses underscore just how important the Bible was for shaping and interpreting the present. Above all, the pamphlets discussed in this section all affirm, either explicitly or implicitly, that Elizabeth’s gender was no barrier to her exercising the royal supremacy, with her actions depicted as God’s actions. On May 15, 1570, Richard Porder preached a sermon “in Paules Churche”—​probably St. Paul’s Cross, rather than inside the Cathedral—​on “gods fearefull threatnings for 4 Pius V, “The Bull of Excommunication against Elizabeth (February 25, 1570),” in Elizabeth I and Her Age: Authoritative Texts, Commentary and Criticism, ed. Donald Stump and Susan M. Felch (New York: W. W. Norton, 2009), 157. 5 Owen Ruffhead, ed., The Statutes at Large, from the First Year of King Edward the Fourth to the End of the Reign of Queen Elizabeth (London, 1770), 583.

6 A Proclamation made agaynst seditious and trayterous Bookes, Billes, and Writinges (London, 1570; STC 8032); Aislinn Muller, “Transmitting and Translating the Excommunication of Elizabeth I,” Studies in Church History 53 (2017): 212–​14.

7 See “Pope Gregory VII and King Henry IV: The Investiture Controversy” and “The Concordat of Worms,” in Readings in Medieval History, ed. Patrick J. Geary, 5th ed. (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2015), 507–​30; Maureen C. Miller, Power and the Holy in the Age of the Investiture Conflict: A Brief History with Documents (New York: St Martin’s, 2005); and Uta-​Renate Blumenthal, The Investiture Controversy: Church and Monarchy from the Ninth to the Twelfth Century (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1988).

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idolatrye mixing of religion, retayning of idolatrous remnaunts, and other wickednesse.”8 Porder was a clergyman, although this seems to be all that is known about him. Scholars generally only discuss this sermon because it touches on the evils of usury, which is sometimes linked to Shakespeare’s Merchant of Venice.9 The one other surviving work of Porder’s is an English translation of works by the early Church Father Athenagoras of Athens, published in 1573. When Porder died in September 1574, he was the “parson” of St. Peter’s, Cornhill.10 The pamphlet is dedicated to the Lord Mayor (although he is unnamed), but its title page states not only that it was “Written and dedicated to the Magistrates and all the Citizens of London,” but also that it is “Seene and allowed according to the Queenes Injunctions.” From the very outset, Porder made clear both that the tract was relevant to everyone in England and that it conformed to the regime’s policies. It is perhaps surprising, then, that Porder takes a different approach in his pamphlet compared to the others discussed here. He depicts Elizabeth as a contemporary Josiah, yet does so to exhort the Queen to take harsher actions against the Catholic-​Baalites. Porder claimed that England has enjoyed a “publike reformation” and that Elizabeth was “a nursing mother to Gods people,” although he warned that by being “so slacke and negligent in the imbracing of such benifytes … it cannot be thought we shall long enjoy them.”11 This negligence is most visible, apparently, in the regime’s relatively lenient treatment of Catholics. Porder prayed that God would make “our Prince and Magistrates” follow Josiah’s example and, “with like severitie,” execute the “Idolatrers and Idolatrous remnants.” Elizabeth should not be afraid of such actions because, as Porder reminded 8 It is often claimed that the English only became aware of the bull when a copy of it was affixed to the gates of the Bishop of London’s palace by John Felton on May 25, 1570. While this might be true about the text of the bull, the fact that Elizabeth had been excommunicated, coupled with an idea of what was in the bull, was almost certainly circulating in England. Pius had ensured that summaries of the bull were circulated in European newsletters/​newsbooks, and he had sent copies to the Duke of Alba to distribute in the Netherlands in late March, especially in the ports frequented by English merchants. Mary, Queen of Scots, would later admit she received a copy of the bull in March 1570. Muller, The Excommunication of Elizabeth I, 46. I have thus treated Porder’s sermon as engaging with Elizabeth’s excommunication, especially given the sermon’s reference to “dispensations and pardons graunted … to Rebels” “here in our Realme” by the pope (29v). 9 Norman L. Jones, “William Cecil and the Making of Economic Policy in the 1560s and early 1570s,” in Political Thought and the Tudor Commonwealth: Deep Structure, Discourse and Disguise, ed. Paul Fideler and T. F. Mayer (London: Routledge, 1992), 178; Lena Cowen Orlin, Locating Privacy in Tudor London (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008), 273–​74; Stephen Alford, London’s Triumph: Merchant Adventurers and the Tudor City (London: Penguin, 2017), 186–​92. 10 A Register of All the Christninges, Burialles and Weddinges Within the Parish of Saint Peeters Upon Cornhill: Beginning at the Raigne of Our Most Soueraigne Ladie Queen Elizabeth, ed. Granville W. G. Leveson Gower (London, 1877), 122.

11 Richard Porder, A Sermon of Gods Fearefull Threatnings for Idolatrye, mixing of religion, retayning of Idolatrous remnaunts, and other wickednesse: with a Treatise against Usurie (London, 1570; STC 20117), 25r.

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his readers, such ruthless behaviour is part of the reason it is said of Josiah that “There was no Kinge lyke unto him, neither before nor after him, that so wholy turned to GOD with all his hart.”12 That Porder was presenting Elizabeth as a contemporary Josiah was made explicit by a marginal note, which claimed that, in 1570, he was discussing both “The twelfth yere of Josias reigne, [and] the .xij. yeare of our Queenes reigne” (E6r). The congruence here was so uncanny that Porder seems to felt he had no choice but to show how the biblical past anticipated the present. According to 2 Chronicles 34, during the twelfth year of his reign, Josiah began to purge Jerusalem and Judah of not just Baalist altars and images but also people. Verse 4 says that Josiah “made dust” of the carved and molten images, which he “strowed … upon the graves of them that had sacrificed unto them,” and verse 5 says he “burnt the bones of the priests upon their altars.” The violence here is palpable, with the almost unmissable implication that Elizabeth should execute Marian Catholic priests. For Porder, Elizabeth had reformed religion according to God’s will just like Josiah, but where she was not emulating Josiah was in his rooting out of the idolatrous Baalite-​Catholics. While Elizabeth’s religious policies are vindicated, there was still work to be done if she truly was to be a contemporary Josiah. Some of the themes Porder discussed also appeared in John Phillip’s pamphlet, A Frendly Larum, or faythfull warnynge to the true harted Subjectes of England, although Phillip used different biblical figures to make his point about Elizabeth’s providential sending and her right to rule. A Frendly Larum was entered into the Stationers’ Register during the year July 22, 1569–​July 22, 1570.13 Phillip was evidently responding to Regnans in Excelsis (on several occasions he puns on the bull of excommunication and the bulls of Bashan mentioned in Psalm 22), but there is nothing to date the tract more specifically than sometime between mid-​May and mid-​July 1570. Phillip wrote a variety of tracts during the Elizabethan period as a pen-​for-​hire (including poems, plays, and epitaphs—​most famously for Philip Sidney and Christopher Hatton), yet his personal godliness is suggested by several of the prose tracts he published, including A Sommon (discussed below) and The Perfect Path to Paradice (1588; discussed in Chapter 4).14 A Frendly Larum is dedicated to Katherine Willoughby/​Brandon, Duchess of Suffolk. A long-​time supporter of the reform movement, Katherine was a generous patron of reformers, especially those with more puritan leanings, and given this history it seems unsurprising that she supported Phillip in writing this tract.15 12 Porder, Sermon of Gods Fearefull Threatnings, sigs. E6r–​E6v. Based on 2 Kings 23:25: “And like unto him was there no king before him, that turned to the LORD with all his heart, and with all his soul, and with all his might, according to all the law of Moses; neither after him arose there any like him.”

13 SRO1235, https://​sta​tion​ersr​egis​ter.onl​ine/​entry/​SRO1​235. The entry is not dated any more specifically. 14 Mike Pincombe, “Phillips, John,” in The Encyclopedia of English Renaissance Literature, ed. Garret A. Sullivan, Jr, and Alan Stewart, 3 vols. (Oxford: Wiley-​Blackwell, 2012), 3:786–​88.

15 Susan Wabuda, “Bertie [née Willoughby; other married name Brandon], Katherine, duchess of Suffolk (1519–​1580),” ODNB, doi:10.1093/​ref:odnb/​2273.

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The epistle to the reader contains several biblical analogies. The first set is used to link the three reforming Tudor monarchs, both with each other and their biblical antecedents. As Elizabeth is the lawfull heire of the famous Prince Kinge Henrie the eight (who was) a suppresser and overthrower of all superstition and Idolatrie, so our Delbora doth not only studie to vanquish and confounde the same: but followeth the trace of hir most excellent Father, a wise and prudent Salomon, as did that yonge and godly Ezechias the sixt Edwarde hir majesties valiant brother, who, as she planted the Lords Vineyarde, and repayred the walles of Sion againe.16

Elizabeth is “our Delbora,” and Phillip clearly expected his readers to comprehend the conflation. The use of these three types is further evidence of the early modern practice of matching a type with the person’s gender, although the use of Deborah is somewhat forced, as she did not reform the Hebrew religion as Solomon and Hezekiah did. The depiction of Henry VIII as Solomon is also unusual: he was more frequently compared to David, but Phillip was probably drawing on the fact that Solomon was the one who built the temple in Jerusalem, which Hezekiah would later reform and repair. Phillip went on to thank God that He had sent the English “a wise and wittie Hester, a godly Judith, a valiant Debora, or rather a chaste Susanna, to rule, to governe, and raygne over us” (A5r). Despite Elizabeth being the contemporary embodiment of these four biblical luminaries, the “verie obstinate and blinde bluddringe Balamits” continue to harass and assail her. Phillip then turned on those who “neglect to execute, and … to condemne the whisperinges of Papistes … as well the obstinate and malicious mindes of the Papist and Rebels here in England” and the pope, “the onely cause of this whurly burlie, and disquietnesse of all Christendome: the verie Antechrist or Babilonicall strompet” (A5r–​A5v). Like Porder, Phillip wants the Catholic-​Baalites to be executed (the dual meaning of “execute” is clear), although he seems to blame magistrates for this leniency, not Elizabeth herself. Rather than seeking to defend the legitimacy of the royal supremacy, Phillip is also much more concerned with demonstrating that God sent Elizabeth to England, and that it was therefore the duty of the English to obey her. Of all the pamphlets discussed in this section, this is the one that most openly engages with Elizabeth’s gender, even if it is the only one to link her to female biblical figures. This is not, however, because Phillip did not think it appropriate to compare Elizabeth to male Old Testament figures: instead, he thought it was unnecessary. As his epistle makes clear, there was no need to cite examples where Old Testament kings had exercised something akin to the royal supremacy; by being sent to the English as a Deborah, Judith, Esther, and Susannah, Elizabeth’s actions are, by extension, divinely ordained. Elizabeth returned the Church of England to Protestantism because this was the will of God. The pope can make as much of a hurly burly as he likes, but in doing so he proves not only his status as the Antichrist, 16 John Phillip, A Frendly Larum, or faythfull warnynge to the true harted Subjectes of England (London, 1570; STC 19870), sig. A4v.

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but also that the various “Rebels” he supports (glancing here at the Northern Rebellion) will never succeed. God, to Phillip’s mind, had irrefutably sent Elizabeth to “raygne over us,” and as such, she would continue to “vanquish and confounde” the Catholic-​Baalites. The second and last example from 1570 is a sermon preached by John Jewel, Bishop of Salisbury. The sermon was originally preached in Salisbury Cathedral in 1570, but was only published in early 1582, over a decade after Jewel’s death in September 1571. As is detailed below, the Catholic threat continued to fester, and it is unsurprising that John Garbrand—​a friend of Jewel’s who was bequeathed all of the Bishop’s papers—​believed early 1582 to be the ideal time to publish Jewel’s sermon.17 Nevertheless, while bearing in mind that the sermon was also viewed as relevant to the religio-​political situation in 1582, it seems most sensible to consider its use of biblical analogies alongside the tracts published at the time the sermon was preached. It is also worth considering because out of all the examples analyzed here, it is the most official, in that it was produced by someone so thoroughly part of the Elizabethan regime. Jewel’s point was summed up by his appeal to the precedent of the Old Testament: “To be short, Queene Elizabeth doth, as … Moses, Jos[h]‌ua, David, Salomon, Josias, [and] Jehosaphat … have done.”18 All of these figures had been responsible for reforming and enforcing the Jewish religion, meaning that they provided irrefutable proof that as England’s monarch, Elizabeth could likewise make the Church of England Protestant. Jewel also cast Elizabeth as a Solomon later in the sermon. During his denouncement of the bull, he claimed that had Pius “bene acquainted with oure happye estate under” Elizabeth, instead of passing a “sentence of deprivation against hir,” he might have “said to hir, Because thy God loveth England, to establish it for ever, therefore hath he made thee Queene over them to execute Judgement and Justice.”19 This is an adaptation of 2 Chronicles 9:8, in which the Queen of Sheba, after learning that Solomon’s wisdom was genuine, declared: “because thy God loved Israel, to establish them for ever, therefore made he thee king over them, to do judgment and justice.” Elizabeth was thus sent to the English just as Solomon had been sent to the Hebrews. It is also worth noting that David is twice described as executing “judgment and justice” to “his people,” so it is quite likely that Jewel intended his listeners (and readers) to associate this adaptation of the story with both Solomon and David.20

17 Muller, The Excommunication of Elizabeth I, 109. The reason for the decade-​long delay, however, will probably never be known.

18 John Jewel, A Viewe of a Seditious Bul sent into Englande, from Pius Quintus Bishop of Rome … by the reverende Father in God, John Jewel, late Bishop of Salisburie … which he delivered in divers Sermons in his Cathedral Church of Salisburie, Anno. 1570 (London, 1582; STC 14614), 51.

19 Jewel, A Viewe of a Seditious Bul sent into Englande, 94.

20 1 Chronicles 18:14: “So David reigned over all Israel, and executed judgment and justice among all his people”; 2 Samuel 8:15: “And David reigned over all Israel; and David executed judgment and justice unto all his people.”

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Such associations would only have served to emphasize Elizabeth’s providential favour.21 This matter-​of-​fact comparison with these six biblical figures drives home a key point of this book. All six figures are men, proving that Elizabeth’s gender was largely irrelevant to the exercise of her authority in matters religious (a point made more explicit by the absence of Deborah from the list). This again underscores the genderless use of biblical typologies, with the type being of primary importance. Elizabeth is a contemporary Josiah and Jehoshaphat (for instance) because, just as they reformed the Jewish religion and clamped down on idolatry, she reformed England’s religion and banished Catholic idolatry. This range of texts—​which invoked both male and female biblical figures to defend Elizabeth’s right to govern the Church of England—​relied on their audience’s deep familiarity with the scriptures. They knew that even the briefest allusion to famed Old Testament kings would make their point evident, and that their audience would be in no doubt as to the relevance of the typologies. There is no equivalent to the pope in the Old Testament (except perhaps Melchizedek), but there are plenty of examples of reforming rulers who were blessed by God. Elizabeth was thus the contemporary embodiment of a range of godly rulers that stretched back to the earliest parts of the Old Testament.

Refuting the Refuters

Refuting Regnans in Excelsis became even more urgent in the aftermath of the Ridolfi Plot. Named for its instigator, the Florentine banker Roberto Ridolfi, the plot sought to assassinate Elizabeth and place Mary, Queen of Scots, on the English throne. If successful, Mary would have married Thomas Howard, Duke of Norfolk, and the country would have returned to the Catholic fold. The plot was foiled in September 1571, before Elizabeth was in any real danger, and Norfolk was executed for his involvement on June 2, 1572.22 The fact that Pius V gave his written approval of the plot, as well as the troops promised by Philip II and the Duke of Alba, hardened English attitudes toward Catholics. Mary’s role was furiously debated and denounced in parliament. Elizabeth increasingly distanced herself from her prisoner, leaving her to languish in the Midlands under house arrest in the custody of George Talbot, Earl of Shrewsbury, and his estranged wife, the indomitable Bess of Hardwick.23 Burghley and Walsingham paid close attention to Mary’s activities, placing spies in her household and intercepting her correspondence. 21 Jewel’s belief in Elizabeth’s providential sending was also made explicit when he claimed “our God, gave us Queene Elizabeth. and with hir gave us Peace, and so long a Peace as Englande hath seldome seene before.” Jewel, A Viewe of a Seditious Bul sent into Englande, 91.

22 Paul E. J. Hammer, “The Catholic Threat and the Military Response,” in The Elizabethan World, ed. Susan Doran and Norman Jones (London: Routledge, 2011), 632. 23 Kristen Post Walton, Catholic Queen, Protestant Patriarchy: Mary, Queen of Scots, and the Politics of Gender and Religion (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2007), 165, 170. For a summary

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One of the more famous responses to Elizabeth’s excommunication is Heinrich Bullinger’s A Confutation of the Popes Bull, published in early 1572.24 Despite the plethora of scholarship on the tract, there is limited acknowledgement that one of the ways that Bullinger sought to refute the bull was to use biblical analogies.25 Bullinger’s pre-​eminence in the European reform movement means his use of the Bible to bolster England’s Protestant Queen is hardly surprising. That he only used male types to do so, however, reinforces the limited impact Elizabeth’s gender had on her rule. One section of the pamphlet was concerned with rebutting claims of the “monstruousnesse” of the royal supremacy. Like Jewel, Bullinger cited a variety of Old Testament kings who were blessed by God for reforming the Jewish religion and purging the land of idolatry. In addition to the examples of Jehoash and Jehoshaphat, Bullinger reminded his readers that “King Ezechias … repayred the temple of the Lord … and sommoned a Counsell of the Priestes, where he made an excellent Oration to them.”26 He then turned to Josiah, recounting how the Jewish King “did set order in the whole Religion accordyng to the rule of Gods law, commaund the Priestes, puttyng some of them out of their office, & placing other in their roomes.” To Bullinger’s mind, these examples proved that “Kynges & Princes among Gods people had sovereintie and authoritie by Gods ordinaunce, over the Priestes, over the hyghest Byshop, and over the whole Clergie” (45r). Bullinger went on to make the relevance explicit: because the scriptures provide the example of “the holy kyngs Ezechias … and of Josias … therfore the Queene of England hath done well in bindyng the Clergy and laitie … to the true Religion agaynst the false” (55r). Elizabeth was acting as a contemporary Hezekiah and Josiah, and her actions were therefore biblically sanctioned. of the parliamentary response, see J. E. Neale, Elizabeth I and Her Parliaments, 1559–​ 1581 (London: Jonathan Cape, 1953), 241–​90.

24 The dedication is dated January 10, 1571, but that this is Lady Day year dating (and thus 1572) is made explicit by the pamphlet’s title, which says the bull was “published more then two yeres agoe.” A Confutation of the Popes Bull is an English translation of Bullinger’s Latin original Bullæ papisticæ ante biennium contra sereniss (London, 1571; STC 4043). The Latin title likewise describes the bull as being published two years prior, suggesting that the English translation was published shortly after the Latin. Given the speed with which the translation appeared, and the fact that the translation was intended to replicate the Latin as close as possible, I am focusing on Bullinger as the author, rather than Arthur Golding, the translator. 25 See, for instance: Torrance Kirby, The Zurich Connection and Tudor Political Theology (Leiden: Brill, 2007), 39–​41; Peter White, Predestination, Policy and Polemic: Conflict and Consensus in the English Church from the Reformation to the Civil War (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992), 80–​81; Constance Jordan, Renaissance Feminism: Literary Texts and Political Models (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1990), 242–​43; Margaret Aston, The King’s Bedpost: Reformation and Iconography in a Tudor Group Portrait (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993), 141–​45. 26 Heinrich Bullinger, A Confutation of the Popes Bull which was published more then two yeres agoe against Elizabeth the most gracious Queene of England, Fraunce, and Ireland … together with a defence of the sayd true Christian Queene, and of the whole Realme of England, trans. Arthur Golding (London, 1572; STC 4044), 45r.

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That the present was being read through the lens of the biblical past was made clear a few pages later, when Bullinger claimed that “the Queene of England hath made reformation in her Realme according to Gods word, and taken away the Idols and Idolatrie of Baal, yea and Baals chappels and temples” (64r). The conflation between Catholics and Baalites was so engrained that Bullinger did not need to explain the parallel, with Elizabeth’s cleansing of England of idolatry merely the most recent example of a God-​approved reformation. In this sense, Elizabeth’s gender impeded neither her rule nor the royal supremacy. Indeed, it is tempting to read Bullinger’s use of “monstruousnesse” as a slight at Knox and Catholic writers who used the term. The pamphlet is by no means the most explicit use of biblical analogies to defend Elizabeth’s reformation, but the fact that a Protestant luminary like Bullinger applied male types to a contemporary queen demonstrates the theological significance of biblical analogy, especially the way that the present and the past where inseparably intertwined. As has already been made clear, the tracts that sought to refute the legitimacy of Regnans in Excelsis highlight the way writers mined the Old Testament for precedent. The bull had caused a flurry of responses, from both Protestants and Catholics, and it continued to be debated in print. Like the examples already discussed, John Bridges’s 1573 treatise used the biblical past to legitimize Elizabeth’s actions. The thrust of his tract is made clear in its title: The Supremacie of Christian Princes, over all persons throughout their dominions, in all causes so wel Ecclesiastical as temporall. Unlike the tracts analyzed previously, however, Bridges also engaged with Catholic defences of the bull. In addition to responding to Thomas Stapleton, whose A Counterblast to M. Hornes Vayne Blaste (1567) was written in response to An Answere … to a Booke … touchinge the Othe of Supremacy (1566) by Robert Horne, Bishop of Winchester, Bridges refuted Nicholas Sander’s De Visibili Monarchia Ecclesiae (On the Visible Monarchy of the [Catholic] Church), which was published in 1571.27 Bridges was a staunch apologist for the Elizabethan church. He preached a thundering sermon at St. Paul’s Cross on June 3, 1571, denouncing Catholicism and defending justification by faith alone, which was published soon after and dedicated to Cecil; he was made Dean of Salisbury in 1578, and in 1604 (under James VI & I) he became Bishop of Oxford.28 The Supremacie of Christian Princes is dedicated to Elizabeth herself, and the Queen’s coat of arms takes up the page beside the dedication. The title Bridges used for the Queen—​“defender of the Faith of Christ, and in earth next under God, of the Church of England and Ireland, in all Ecclesiastical and temporall causes, the supreme Head & Governor”—​suggests he was not merely complimenting his monarch,

27 See Stefania Tutino, Law and Conscience: Catholicism in Early Modern England, 1570–​1625 (2007; London, Routledge, 2016), 21–​25.

28 C. S. Knighton, “Bridges, John (1535/​6–​1618),” ODNB, doi:10.1093/​ref:odnb/​3394. The sermon is: John Bridges, A Sermon, Preached at Paules Crosse on the Monday in Whitson weeke Anno Domini. 1571 (London, [1571]; STC 3736).

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but was also expounding a belief that he genuinely held.29 As will be discussed below, the reference to Elizabeth as both the “Head & Governor” of the Church of England highlights that gender was of limited concern to Bridges’s conception of her monarchical authority, and it is further evidence that gender was not an impediment to Elizabeth’s rule. Bridges’s argument follows those in the aforementioned pamphlets, although he makes clear the importance of these kinds of tracts: while “your Highnesse so nobly maintaines by practise of godlie government … we by the word and argument do defend it.”30 Bridges thus created a space within which supporters and apologists like him could use their extensive learning to legitimize their Queen. His tract, which runs for more than 1,200 pages, is full of biblical references—​some fleeting, others more extensive. The array of biblical figures Bridges employed to defend Elizabeth’s ecclesiastical and temporal supremacy are described fairly early in the tract, when he claimed that the examples of “Moses, Josue, David, Salomon, Josaphat, Ezechias, [and] Josias” “infringeth” on Stapleton’s “pretensed purpose” (C4v). These seven biblical figures are at the core of the examples Bridges uses, although only four—​David, Josiah, Solomon, and Jehoshaphat—​are used explicitly as examples for Elizabeth, meaning they are the focus of this section. The first analogy in the pamphlet appears in the dedication. Paraphrasing Psalms 18, 21, 31, and 54, Bridges claimed: your highnesse may say as king David sayd; he hath delivered you out of your enimies hands, and defeated all their purposes, he hath established you a kingdom here on earth in peace and righteousnesse, and hath prepared in heaven a Kingdom for you in glorie and eternitie … this be so cleere, that even the enimies themselves confesse, God works with you, God fights for you, God hath taken your hart into his handes, that have taken his quarel into yours.31

Just like David, Elizabeth had been chosen by God to lead His people: not only did this mean that He would protect the Queen and her subjects, but it also gave her an even stronger right—​and one that far outstripped that of the pope—​to her supremacy over “Ecclesiastical and temporall causes.” Bridges returned to the Hebrew king later in the pamphlet, as part of his denunciation of the pope’s claim to temporal authority. Rebuking Stapleton, Bridges claimed that “It is your Pope that … stretcheth his claime to do beyonde all Gods forboade, and contrarie to Gods commaundement,” whereas Elizabeth “hath not done, or doth any thing, more than David did, which is … as God hath commaunded hir to do” (228). For Bridges, “There is a difference betweene spirituall government, and government over spirituall & ecclesiasticall matters” (230). David was only concerned with the latter; the former, he (rightly) left “unto the Priests.” Therefore, “The Queenes Majestie, God be highly praysed 29 John Bridges, The Supremacie of Christian Princes, over all persons throughout their dominions, in all causes so wel Ecclesiastical as temporall (London, 1573; STC 3737), sig. ¶2r. 30 Bridges, Supremacie of Christian Princes, sig. ¶2v.

31 Bridges, Supremacie of Christian Princes, sig. ¶3r.

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for hir, as a most godly supreme governour foloweth king Davids ensample [sic]” (240). Elizabeth, like David, has no desire to interfere with the sacramental components of the English church (it is her bishops, for instance, who consecrate new bishops) unlike the  pope who, “contrarie to Gods commaundement,” claims to have both powers. Of all the biblical examples Bridges uses, this is the one that most explicitly seeks to delegitimize the role of the pope, which in turn implies that Regnans in Excelsis was not even worth the paper it was written on. As a contemporary David, Elizabeth was well within her rights to oversee the governance of her godly, Protestant church. One of the more extended analogies that Bridges used and returned to several times was the example of the pious Hebrew king Jehoshaphat. He claimed that, like Elizabeth, Jehoshaphat endeavoured “to reforme religion and to be carefull and diligent about directing ecclesiasticall matters” (259). This is because, from a monarch’s “authoritie, next under God, the order & direction proceeded, though the religion proceeded not from them, but altogither from God,” meaning that as “did Josaphat then, so doth the Queenes Maiestie now” (270). Bridges clearly went to great lengths to present Elizabeth as returning her people to the true worship of God as contained within the scriptures: she is not inventing the religion. Using Jehoshaphat in this way was perhaps a subtle swipe at the lacking biblical precedent for many Catholic teachings. 2 Chronicles 17:3 emphasized that Jehoshaphat did not succumb to the worship of Baal, and Bridges could count on his readers to draw the link here between Catholicism and Baalism. For Bridges, “As Josaphat did in directing ecclesiasticall matters, so doth the Queenes majestie nowe.” This example, however, was relevant to “all godly Princes,” and thus Elizabeth “doth now, as all godly Princes ought to do” (259). As Protestants sought to make clear, their theological beliefs were based on a return to the scriptures that removed the idolatry they believed had been introduced over successive centuries. Jehoshaphat, who is praised in the Bible for “doing that which was right in the sight of the Lord,” proved that monarchs were empowered to reform and oversee religious matters.32 As Bridges’s readers would have recognized, Jehoshaphat’s godly reign coincided with a period of peace and prosperity, implying that England would likewise be blessed because of its monarch and her godly reforms. Bridges’s use of Solomon revolved largely around the King’s deposing of Abiathar, the High Priest. Abiathar had supported Adonijah in the rebellion over David’s successor. While the rebellion fizzled out, and Adonijah received a pardon from Solomon (although he was later executed), Solomon did not forgive the traitorous high priest: Abiathar was “thrust out … from being a priest unto the Lord” and was banished—​the only instance in the Bible of a king deposing a high priest.33 This example, to Bridges’s mind, proved that all bishops—​including the pope—​were under the authority of monarchs, and could 32 2 Chronicles 20:32.

33 1 Kings 1:26–​27; Mayer I. Gruber, “Abiathar,” in The Oxford Dictionary of the Jewish Religion, ed. Adele Berlin, 2nd ed. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011), 3. Solomon’s deprivation of Abiathar, and what his ‘banishment’ actually entailed, was a subject of debate concerning the ejection of the nonjuring bishops in the aftermath of the Glorious Revolution. See Jacqueline Rose, “By Law

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therefore be deposed and replaced by the monarch. After explaining in detail why the pope was an antitype of Abiathar, the section concluded with the pronouncement that “the Queenes Maiestie hath … take[n]‌ [the] ensample of wise king Salomons supreme governement, in deposing this traterous Abiathar” (250). Pius V may have claimed in Regnans in Excelsis that he had the power to depose Elizabeth, but it was Elizabeth—​and other godly rulers—​who had the power to depose meddling and rebellious prelates. Of all the analogies Bridges employed, the example of Josiah was the only one to include more than just Elizabeth. The crux of Bridges’s use of Josiah is that he “pulled down & suppressed al Idolatrie by his kingly authority … [and] set up the true worde and worship of God” (302). This example proved that monarchs could reform and oversee religious matters and be blessed for such actions. Bridges also noted that “Josias not onely pulled downe the Idols, but also the houses … [of] the false Idolatrous priests”—​actions emulated by Elizabeth, who “suppressed the popish Idols … & hath (as did Josias) established the only worship of the living God” (302–​3). Bridges linked these actions with Elizabeth’s predecessors, noting “And thus, as did Josias, hath the Queenes majesties most noble Father & Brother of famous memories done, & hir Highnesse after them (whom God continue & prosper) doth” (303). Such a recourse to the recent past was an attempt to legitimize Elizabeth’s actions, providing both recent and biblical examples, but they seem to also be intended to further embarrass Catholics. Bridges probably sought to remind his readers that it was Pope Leo X who declared Henry VIII “Defender of the Faith,” and that Edward VI had never been excommunicated or declared to be deprived of his throne, even though the Protestantism of the Elizabethan church was more conservative than that of Edward’s. The Josiah example was intended to show that godly monarchs were able to reform the worship of God as they saw fit, while at the same time suggesting that the attacks against Elizabeth were politically motivated, because the actions of her father and half-​brother were not lambasted in the same way. Bridges’s discussion of Josiah also contains an insightful commentary on the nature of Elizabeth’s monarchical power. Regnans in Excelsis itself did not focus on Elizabeth’s gender, even though some Catholic polemicists sought to delegitimize Elizabeth’s actions on account of her gender. Bridges did not give such claims any credence and drove home the applicability of typologies in the present. He insisted her reformation was done by Gods commandement … & under God by hir royall or kingly authoritie … and therfore since she can & ought to do these things (as did Josias) by hir kingly authoritie: it followeth, hir kingly authoritie is a supreme authoritie … in suppressing al false religion, & plucking it downe, in setting up & establishing Gods true religion, and al things ecclesiasticall belonging there unto.34

Elizabeth was irrefutably the equivalent of her kingly predecessors, both in England and in the Old Testament. Established: The Church of England and the Royal Supremacy,” in The Later Stuart Church, 1660–​ 1714, ed. Grant Tapsell (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2017), 31–​32. 34 Bridges, Supremacie of Christian Princes, 303.

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As these various examples attest, the tract largely displays no interest in gendered critiques of Elizabeth’s position: Bridges saw no issue with likening Elizabeth and her actions to four Old Testament kings, with the aside in the comparison to Josiah the most sustained commentary. Bridges does, however, briefly reference the critique when he discusses Old Testament precedents of people who exercised both political and religious authority. In addition to Moses and David, who were prophets as well as political leaders, Bridges asks the rhetorical question of his readers, “Was not Debora a Prophetesse, and yet a Princesse too or Judge over Israel?” (199). In addition to noting that judgeship was the equivalent of kingship, Bridges presented the argument in such a matter-​of-​fact way that he evidently believed these examples rendered such preposterous arguments invalid. The Supremacie of Christian Princes explicitly engaged with the precedent of the Old Testament to justify and legitimize the actions of his queen in the present. Not only was Elizabeth the contemporary embodiment of a range of famous Old Testament kings, but her actions were also all sanctioned according to the Bible. Bridges took Stapleton to task over his misreading or wilful misinterpretation of biblical history, using correct readings to both invalidate the pope’s claim to any temporal authority, and to show that biblical precedent actually supported the reigns of godly Protestants such as Elizabeth, rather than those who allowed themselves to be ruled by the traitorous Abiathar-​ pope. These examples all emphasized that Elizabeth had been protected by God—​ an important point in the aftermath of the Northern Rebellion and the failed Ridolfi Plot—​and that her actions were endorsed by the many examples provided by the Old Testament: irrespective of what the Bishop of Rome might otherwise claim. The final text that used biblical analogies to nullify Regnans in Excelsis that I will discuss is John Studley’s The Pageant of Popes, published in 1574. The tract is an expanded translation of John Bale’s Acta Romanorum Pontificum (1558), and scholars almost universally assign authorship of the work to Bale, despite the fact that Studley edited the text and provided “sondrye additions”—​and that Bale had been dead for almost eleven years by the time it appeared.35 Focusing on the translator, and the period within which it was published, emphasizes how the tract tapped into contemporary religio-​political discourse. In 1573, Studley was investigated for his puritanism at Cambridge, and in response he resigned his fellowship at Trinity College, which consigned him to relative obscurity as rector of Ockham in Surrey.36 The Pageant of Popes, published a year later, and with its emphasis on the royal supremacy, can—​and probably should—​be read as Studley’s attempt to demonstrate his loyalty. The tract is dedicated to Thomas Radclyffe, Earl of Sussex—​Privy Councillor, Lord Chamberlain, and a former Lord Deputy and Lieutenant

35 See Steven W. May and Alan Bryson, Verse Libel in Renaissance England and Scotland (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2016), 12. 36 T. P. J. Edlin, “Studley, John (c. 1545–​1590?),” ODNB, doi:10.1093/​ref:odnb/​26742

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of Ireland. How well acquainted Studley was with Sussex is unclear, but given the Earl’s closeness with the Queen, this was a shrewd move. The Pageant of Popes is limited to Bale’s original scope: when the pamphlet was published in 1558, Paul IV was pope. Studley did not add details about the three succeeding popes, choosing to ignore Elizabeth’s excommunicator. In his discussion of Paul IV, Bale claimed that during Edward VI’s reign, “the voice of the Gospel echoed” (“Evangelica vox resonabat”) in England but thanks to Stephen Gardiner’s “false” episcopacy, the cruellest antichrist of Rome (“crudelissima antichristi Rome”) had been allowed to flourish again.37 Despite not adding the later popes, Studley updated this section of Paul IV’s biography to mention Elizabeth’s accession, as Paul IV was still in office at the time. According to Studley, they that have ben false harted againste our most gracious Queene, wyll consider theyr own folly, theyr owne iniquitie & madnes, in envyinge the good estate of so noble, merciful, godly, & most lawful a prince: whom it hath pleased Jehova to make oure Debora & a most blessed and worthy instrument, to the advauncing of his glory, the comfort of his Churche, [and] the preservation of the happy and quiet estate of all trewe Englishe hartes.38

“Our most gracious Queene” does not have to be named: Elizabeth is not just like Deborah, she is a Deborah. Elizabeth was empowered to ensure that God was properly worshipped, and for their part, the English were obliged to obey her. In addition to the conflation of Elizabeth and Deborah, Studley went out of his way to assert his loyalty to the Queen, and to exhort his compatriots to likewise pray for Elizabeth’s preservation. He prayed that God would grant the English “harts to beware, renounce, and abhorre … all those that seeke to trouble her quiet governement,” before concluding by beseeching God that “England may never hereafter become a neast and filthye cage of those foule byrdes that are bred in the bosome of Rome.”39 It is hard to imagine a more grovelling display of loyalty from someone who was evidently concerned about their future and wanted to secure some form of patronage. Ostensibly a translation of a famous reformer’s text, Studley used this tract to achieve several personal aims. He wanted a public declaration of his loyalty to Elizabeth and her religious settlement, and since the loss of his fellowship at Trinity, he would have been seeking new patrons and hoping to make money by tapping into wider religio-​political concerns. While the pamphlet does not seem to have been reprinted, the number of copies still extant today suggests it reached a not-​insubstantial audience.40 Hoping to gain readers by once again asserting in the aftermath of Regnans in Excelsis that Elizabeth alone controlled the Church of England is one thing: doing so by invoking 37 John Bale, Acta Romanorum Pontificum (Basel, 1558), 432.

38 John Bale, The Pageant of Popes, Contayninge the lyves of all the Bishops of Rome, from the beginninge of them to the yeare of Grace 1555, trans. John Studley (London, 1574; STC 1304), 198r.

39 Bale, Pageant of Popes, 198r–​198v.

40 The ESTC lists thirty-​nine extant copies.

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a biblical analogy is something else. Bale did not use any analogies to discuss Edward VI, so Studley’s conflation of Elizabeth and Deborah was his own invention. There was no need for Studley to invoke the analogy—​he could have made the point about Elizabeth’s providential sending without invoking the typology. What appears to be a somewhat offhand remark instead underscores the way that the present was habitually read through the lens of the past. Just as God had sent Deborah to defeat the Canaanites, so had He sent Elizabeth to defeat the Catholics, and just as the Israelites under Deborah enjoyed peace and prosperity, so would the English under their Deborah. The link can never be proven, but it is worth noting that on May 7, 1580, Studley was granted the vicarage of Westerham, Kent, which was a royal presentation. The presentation seems to have been brought about by Lord Chancellor Sir Thomas Bromley.41 How Studley would have been brought to Bromley’s attention is unclear, but given Bromley and Sussex were both privy councillors, it is possible to draw a connection. Even if this conjecture is wrong, it was nevertheless a remarkable change of fortune: Studley lost his fellowship at Cambridge because of his non-​conformity in late 1573; in 1574, he published The Pageant of Popes, which contained an overt expression of loyalty to Elizabeth and her church settlement; and by May 1580, he had received a royal benefice. England’s Deborah, it seems, had ensured that the “happy and quiet estate of all trewe Englishe hartes” included Studley.

Loyalty and Legitimacy

In about 1575, a single page broadside was published entitled The O[a]‌the of Evrye Free Man. The bulk of the oath was about commerce and trade, but it also provides a useful insight into the mood of the time. Those who swore the oath promised to “be good and true to oure soverain Lady Quene Elizabeth,” and to “kepe the Quenes peace,” knowing “no … conspiracies made againste the Quenes peace.”42 Likely printed by one of Elizabeth’s royal printers (Richard Jugge, Christopher Barker, and John Day have all been suggested), the oath might be an overlooked piece of ephemera today, but its very printing suggests that the events of the early 1570s had shaken the confidence of both the regime and the godly. Loyalty to Elizabeth remained a constant theme in tracts published during her reign that employed biblical analogies. This theme might be more implicit, based on a tacit understanding that Elizabeth was their God-​ordained sovereign and that it was their duty to obey her, or it could be more explicit, with loyalty to Elizabeth linked to England’s peace and prosperity. On March 6, 1575, during Lent, Richard Curteys, Bishop of Chichester, preached a sermon before Elizabeth at Richmond Palace. Delivered by someone so openly involved 41 Mike Pincombe, “The Clerical Career of the Poet and Translator John Studley,” Notes and Queries 67, no. 2 (2020): 208. 42 The Othe of evrye Free man ([London, 1575]; STC 16761.5), sig. A1r.

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in the regime, the sermon was discussed by a number of scholars because of the incredibly exceptionalist narrative of English history it presents. As Peter McCullough observes, “With the ability to serve up such godly nationalistic optimism, it is no surprise that [Archbishop of Canterbury Matthew] Parker wanted Curteys close to Whitehall.”43 The sermon, which is based on Judges 1, concludes with a typologically infused history of reformation in England. Henry VIII, God’s “noble Moses,” “brought hys people of England out of the Egipt of error … and superstition, throughe the redde Sea, and wildernesse of greate trouble … to the Springs in the mountaynes of Pasga.”44 By allowing the English to read the Old and New Testaments for themselves, Henry was shown “the true Catholicke Church of Christ,” but like Moses, he did not enter the Promised Land, “but dyed in the Land of Moab” (C8v–​D1r). Henry started the Reformation, but because of his sin (glancing at Henry’s general apathy toward godly reform), he died before it was complete. Henry’s “blessed Josua his sonne … possessed his people of England of the truth, his sacraments and Gospell” (D1r). The Edward-​Joshua thus brought the English into the Promised Land of Protestantism. This was not to last, and after Edward’s death, the English “forgat the Lorde their Gode, & served Baal … And therfore God solde some of them … into the handes of Jabin.” It is worth noting that Curteys blamed this fall on “the English Achans [who] coveted the goodly Babilonian garmentes and … the wedges of Golde.”45 Perhaps thinking of prelates such as Gardiner and Pole, Curteys blamed greedy and materialistic clergymen for England’s return to the Catholic fold. Such a point was probably about tact more than anything else: given the sermon was delivered before Elizabeth, Curteys likely thought it unwise to openly attack the Queen’s half-​sister. Realizing the error of their ways, the English “cryed to the Lorde,” who “raysed up a gracious Debora, by whome God brought downe Jabin … and caused his Churche of England to prosper in healthe, wealthe, peace … and many good giftes and graces” (D1v). The Canaanites were the primary worshippers of Baal in the Bible and Jabin, as their king, stands as a clear representation of Catholicism. As occurred in Judges 4, God freed the English from the Catholic-​Canaanites by sending them Elizabeth-​Deborah. Curteys conflated the three monarchs with their Hebrew antecedents—​at no point did he name Henry, Edward, or Elizabeth; he instead knew that the parallels between the biblical stories and the events of the recent past would be immediately apparent to his audience. This depiction of Elizabeth as Deborah is important. It is an example of a biblical analogy being used by a serious theologian who was part of the machinery of the regime, and it expands on the Deborah story to make even more explicit Elizabeth’s sending to the English (as discussed in the previous chapter). However, while several scholars 43 Peter E. McCullough, Sermons at Court: Politics and Religion in Elizabethan and Jacobean Preaching (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998), 82. 44 Richard Curteys, A Sermon preached before the Queenes Majesty at Richmond the. 6. of March last past (London, 1575; STC 6139), sig. C8v. 45 Curteys, Sermon preached before the Queenes Majesty, sig. D1r.

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have noted the Elizabeth/​Deborah analogy, they overlook the comparison between Elizabeth and Judah that appears on the next page of the sermon.46 Judah can refer to both a person and a tribe of Israel that gave its name to the Kingdom of Judah after the northern tribes refused to accept Solomon’s son Rehoboam as king. It thus served a dual typological purpose throughout the premodern period: the tribe of Judah remained loyal to the House of David and was often used (somewhat inaccurately) as a shorthand for Israel. The Hebrew kings most commonly used typologically in the premodern period—​including Jehoshaphat, Hezekiah, and Josiah—​were kings of Judah, not Israel. Judges 1 opens with Judah fighting against the Canaanites, and God pronouncing that “I have delivered the land into his hand.”47 This is the tribe of Judah, although the somewhat ambiguous reference seems to be what allows Certeys to link Elizabeth to Judah, the son of Jacob. As above, Elizabeth and Judah are conflated, and it is perhaps easy to miss the parallel. Curteys prayed that it “may please God muche to increase and long to continue his Gospel and oure gracious Juda his Lieutenaunt and generall in this his Church militant” (D2r). There can be no doubt that “oure gracious Juda” is Elizabeth. As the monarch and Supreme Governor of the Church of England, Elizabeth was God’s lieutenant—​Curteys using lieutenant to mean someone’s representative, rather than the more lowly connotations it carries today.48 Curteys then conflated the English with the Israelites in Judah, praying that “our great Captayne of the trybe of Juda Christ Jesus the righteous … may rewarde us as Conquerours of the world, … Hel, [and] Satan” (D2r). With Jesus serving as the English Judah’s captain, England’s Protestantism not only is secure, but also will be shared with the rest of the “world,” to combat the evils of Catholicism. The two typologies are certainly unusual, but together they are an attempt to make sense of the present, especially in the charged aftermath of Elizabeth’s excommunication and the Ridolfi Plot. Curteys’s expanded use of the Deborah story depicts her as actively involved in the future successes of the Church Militant, and it emphasizes Elizabeth’s sending to the English—​regardless of her gender. Indeed, it is worth noting that of the three biblical figures, Deborah is the only one already exercising authority when the Hebrews sought God’s help. Meanwhile, the Judah type draws on the duality of Judah the man and Judah the tribe (and then kingdom). Jacob prophesizes of his son that “The sceptre shall not depart from Judah”—​a promise that Curteys would have wanted Elizabeth, as England’s Judah, to inherit.49 In addition, Jacob also says of 46 In addition to McCullough, see Margaret Christian, Spenserian Allegory and Elizabethan Biblical Exegesis: A Context for “The Faerie Queene” (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2016), 92–​93; Diarmaid MacCulloch, Tudor Church Militant: Edward VI and the Protestant Reformation (London: Penguin, 2001), 199; and Margaret Christian, “Elizabeth’s Preachers and the Government of Women: Defining and Correcting a Queen,” Sixteenth Century Journal 24, no. 3 (Autumn 1993): 573. 47 Judges 1:2.

48 OED, s.v., “lieutenant, n.1.” 49 Genesis 49:10.

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Judah that “thy father’s children shall bow down before thee.”50 In presenting Elizabeth as the greatest of her father’s children, Curteys suggested that unlike Edward’s reforms, and Mary’s returning of England to the idolatrous practices of Catholicism, Elizabeth would be successful, and recognized for her successes. Curteys would also have known that Judah was one of the longest-​lived of Jacob’s sons (according to the Book of Jasher, Judah died at 129, perhaps only outlived by Levi, who died at 137), meaning he was expressing his hope that Elizabeth would reign for many years. Moreover, Judah is an ancestor of David, Solomon, and Jesus, and he is seen as prefiguring Christ; but like Moses, Joshua, and Deborah, he is not a king. The recourse to these four non-​monarchical types cannot be a coincidence. Curteys was probably emphasizing succession by merit or divine choosing, rather than simply by hereditary right. This is not to say that Curteys was undermining hereditary succession, but instead that he was making the point that the three monarchs had been chosen by God to rule England, and like their biblical antecedents, they were divinely blessed. The sermon is a powerful example of the serious theological weight that lay behind biblical analogies. It combines male and female types for Elizabeth, and uses these types to conceptualize both the present and the recent past. Curteys used the types to flatter his Queen, but at the same time they expound on what was almost certainly a deeply held theological belief. In particular, the types emphasize that Elizabeth’s gender was irrelevant to her rescuing the English from the tyranny of Catholicism. Elizabeth had preserved—​and would continue to preserve—​the English from the Catholic-​Canaanites, and like both Deborah and Judah, she would have a long reign that would bring peace to her people. During the summer of 1575, Elizabeth embarked on what would be the longest progress of her reign, and the one that took her furthest from London. She travelled as far north as Stafford, and was confronted by the town’s economic decay. After being told the reasons for this decline, she agreed to renew the town’s monopoly on capping (i.e., hats) and to help ensure the assizes returned to the town.51 This direct response to the pleas of her people demonstrates the relationship of mutual interdependence that existed between Queen and subject, and the role of civic pageantry in voicing concerns and expressing loyalty will be explored in much more detail below. After her progress around Staffordshire, Elizabeth began to move south again. She visited Worcester between August 13 and 20, where she was entertained with a variety of pageants and orations, before arriving at Woodstock Palace on August 29, where she would remain until early October.52 Because this was her own palace, the entertainments performed for her were not quite the same 50 Genesis 49:8.

51 Cole, Portable Queen, 111.

52 On her visit to Worcester, see Jayne Elisabeth Archer and Sarah Knight, “Elizabetha Triumphans,” in The Progresses, Pageants, and Entertainments of Queen Elizabeth I, ed. Jayne Elisabeth Archer, Elizabeth Goldring, and Sarah Knight (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007), 11–​12.

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as those performed for her while she was on progress as Elizabeth was, in effect, her own host. The entertainments were largely the work of Sir Henry Lee (the Lieutenant of Woodstock) and Edward Dyer (the Keeper of Woodstock), although the influence of the Earl of Leicester has been noted, with connections drawn to Leicester’s earlier entertainments for the Queen in Kenilworth in July 1575.53 Of the various accounts of entertainments performed for Elizabeth, the most relevant here is the Latin oration delivered to the Queen on September 11 by Laurence Humphrey. This is the same Humphrey discussed in the previous chapter, and this oration—​which Humphrey subsequently published54—​expands on the themes he discussed in The Nobles, although following his appointment as Dean of Gloucester in 1571, the oration is more overtly loyal than his earlier tract. This oration is particularly important because it was delivered to the Queen and was published with clear advertisements of this fact (including the printing of Elizabeth’s coat of arms as a frontispiece). Thus, Humphrey not only believed the oration’s biblical motifs to be an appropriate way of explaining England’s providential favour to the Queen herself, but it also invited the Latin-​reading English public to engage with, and be thankful for, this providential favour. Of the many tracts analyzed in this book, Humphrey’s oration contains what is perhaps the most unambiguous explanation of the relevance of the Bible to the present. In his discussion of the importance of the Bible (especially its translation into the vernacular so it can be read widely), Humphrey explicitly linked Elizabeth to her Old Testament antecedents. The oration contains a litany of allusions to the Bible and its stories, and as part of these references, Humphrey presented Elizabeth as being part of the chain of providentially favoured figures sent by God to His people: This book teaches that God himself, who led Saul from asses to a kingdom, David from sheep to a sceptre, Daniel from a den of lions to sovereignty, who killed the general Sisera with the hammer of the woman Jael, a thousand men with the jawbone of an ass, Philistines with the blade of a plough, Goliath with David’s sling, who fought for Deborah with stars from heaven, still reigns in heaven, so that he may protect you (most Christian Deborah) and all kings and queens who lay claim to the purity of the teaching recorded in this book.55

53 See Gabriel Heaton, Writing and Reading Royal Entertainments: From George Gascoigne to Ben Jonson (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010), 18–​20, 24–​25.

54 Laurence Humphrey, Oratio ad sereniss. Angliæ, Franciæ, & Hyberniæ Reginam Elisabetham, in aula Woodstochiensi habita à Laurentio Humfredo, Academiæ Oxoniensis procancellario, anno 1575. Septemb. 11 (London, 1575; STC 13960).

55 “Queen Elizabeth’s Entertainment at Woodstock,” ed. Gabriel Heaton, trans. Margaret Midgley, Sarah Knight, and Janet Fairweather, in John Nichols’s The Progresses and Public Processions of Elizabeth I: A New Edition of the Early Modern Sources, Volume 2: 1572 to 1578, ed. Elizabeth Goldring, Faith Eales, Elizabeth Clarke, and Jayne Elisabeth Archer (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014), 470.

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As the “Christian Deborah,” Elizabeth is the antitype of the Hebrew Deborah, thus explaining why both Queen and country continue to be favoured by the interventionist God they worship. This litany of examples where God protected His chosen figure would have called to mind Elizabeth’s protection, especially before her accession. The reference to the “stars from heaven” that fought for Deborah is somewhat unusual, but its inclusion underscores the serious thought that went into Humphrey’s oration. All the other examples include God intervening to ensure the victory of his chosen figure (for instance, He closed the mouths of the lions, so Daniel came to no harm). Judges 4, which is the primary account of the Israelites’ defeat of the Canaanites, includes no such direct intervention—​Deborah merely prophesizes that the Israelites will be victorious. However, in the song Deborah and Barak sing (recounted as Judges 5), they claim “the stars in their courses fought against Sisera” (Judges 5:20). How the stars actually fought for the Israelites is not made clear—​Judges 5:21 implies that the stars were responsible for the flooding of the Kishon river, which “swept” the Canaanites away56—​but the story is an unmistakable example of God’s intervention, as only God could make the stars fight for the Israelites, and it emphasizes how Humphrey chose specific examples that both demonstrated his point and complemented one another. There are of course conditions placed on this favour, and Humphrey reminded Elizabeth to “keep this book [the Bible] in your mind as if God had placed it there, look after it so that it may look after you, defend this cause of religion, as you are doing.”57 In an oration presented to the Queen, Humphrey was not going to explicitly tell her that she needed to further reform England’s church, or combat anti-​Catholicism more directly, as he probably believed. However, that Elizabeth is “doing” (“facis”) the defending, rather than has “done” the defence, suggests that Humphrey believed there was still scope to ensure that “Christian peace and pure religion” flourished in England. In two publications printed twelve years apart, Humphrey used an array of biblical analogies to conceptualize Elizabeth and her reign, thereby demonstrating the theological seriousness that accompanied the use of biblical analogies. Humphrey may have initially been in conflict with the regime, but by the early 1570s, he clearly believed that conformity was expedient, and like Studley, he was rewarded quickly and relatively lavishly. In presenting Elizabeth as a contemporary Deborah, Humphrey asserted Elizabeth’s legitimacy and supremacy (an important reminder in the aftermath of Regnans in Excelsis), and despite publishing the treatise in Latin, he sought to involve his fellow compatriots in this understanding of England’s providential favour. Like so many of the tracts analyzed here, the implicit flattery does not negate the serious theological reasons for the conflation. In the years after both the Northern Rebellion and the Ridolfi Plot, Humphrey sought to encourage his Queen to continue to defend England’s Protestantism, and by doing so through a biblical analogy, he linked Elizabeth 56 See Tammi J. Schneider, Judges (Collegeville, MN: The Liturgical Press, 2000), 91; and G. W. Ahlström, “Judges 5:20 f. and History,” Journal of Near Eastern Studies 36, no. 4 (1977): 287–​88. 57 “Queen Elizabeth’s Entertainment at Woodstock,” 471.

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to the chain of favoured figures that stretched all the way back to the days of the early Old Testament.

Loyalty, Legitimacy, and the East Anglian Progress of 1578

Elizabeth’s excommunication had some very tangible benefits: with any hope of a rapprochement between Protestant England and the pope now gone, Elizabeth was able to embrace trade with Muslim rulers, particularly in Morocco,58 and formalize the Church of England’s doctrine through the agreement to, and promulgation of, the Thirty-​Nine Articles of Religion in 1571.59 Despite this very public assertion of the royal supremacy, Elizabeth began to face issues within her own church. Her first Archbishop of Canterbury, Matthew Parker, died in May 1575, and was replaced by Edmund Grindal (previously Archbishop of York) in December 1575. Less than two years later, in June 1577, Elizabeth suspended Grindal for failing to suppress puritanism and enforce uniformity throughout his province.60 Grindal’s failures had impacts at the diocesan level—​especially in the Diocese of Norwich. It was against this fraught backdrop that Elizabeth progressed to East Anglia in the summer of 1578. Between July 31 and August 30, 1578, Elizabeth and her court visited various towns and noblemen’s estates across Norfolk and Suffolk.61 Much of the latter part of the tour was spent in Norwich, and two commemorative accounts of the Queen’s visit were published soon after: Bernard Garter’s The Joyfull Receyving of the Queenes most excellent Majestie into hir Highnesse Citie of Norwich was entered into the Stationers’ Register on August 30—​only eight days after the visit to the city had concluded—​and Thomas Churchyard’s pamphlet, A Discourse of the Queenes Majesties entertainement in Suffolk and Norffolk, was entered in the Stationers’ Register on September 20.62 As was typical, the decision to progress to East Anglia was not arbitrary. During the mid-​1570s, the Diocese of Norwich was plagued by religious non-​conformity: Norfolk was home to one of the largest Catholic populations in England, and Norwich itself was a hotbed of puritanism. The first Elizabethan Bishop of Norwich, John Parkhurst, died in February 1575. Parkhurst, while a committed Protestant, had done a poor job of enforcing uniformity in the diocese. His successor, Edmund Freake, who was appointed 58 See Jerry Brotton, This Orient Isle: Elizabethan England and the Islamic World (London: Allen Lane, 2016), 64–​86.

59 See Peter Marshall, “Settlement Patterns: The Church of England, 1553–​1603,” in The Oxford History of Anglicanism, Volume 1: Reformation and Identity, c.1520–​1662, ed. Anthony Milton (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2017), 45–​62. 60 Patrick Collinson, “Grindal, Edmund (1516x20–​1583),” ODNB, doi:10.1093/​ref:odnb/​11644.

61 Cole, Portable Queen, 191. A full description of the 1578 progress can be found in: Zillah Dovey, An Elizabethan Progress: The Queen’s Journey into East Anglia, 1578 (Stroud: Sutton, 1996).

62 David Galloway, ed., Records of Early English Drama: Norwich, 1540–​1642 (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1984), 243.

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in November 1575, had a Herculean task in enforcing uniformity on the diocese.63 Freake, however, seemed to be more interested in suppressing puritanism than Catholicism, which caused him to come into conflict with his diocesan chancellor, the puritan John Becon. Freake appealed to the Privy Council for assistance in this conflict with Becon, and Elizabeth’s progress was intended to ensure the Council’s decision—​that the Elizabethan Settlement be enforced, and that Catholic and puritan non-​conformity was punished with equal severity—​was put into action.64 The visit of Elizabeth and her councillors also allowed them to meet with the city’s Dutch Protestant refugees. Since 1564, Dutch Protestant textile workers had been settled in Norwich in a quasi-​religious refugee program, where they had been allowed to set up their own church. By 1578, nearly one-​third of Norwich’s sixteen thousand residents were Protestant immigrants from the Low Countries, and by the middle of the sixteenth century, Norwich had grown to become the second largest and second wealthiest city in the country.65 The Dutch Protestant population, as well as their export industries, would be an important theme throughout the entertainments performed in Norwich. Given that the East Anglian progress took place against a backdrop of anxieties concerning religion—​more than any other progress of Elizabeth’s reign—​the appearance of multiple biblical figures across the progress’s entertainments is altogether unsurprising. Indeed, the utility of biblical figures to legitimize and reinforce royal power was made apparent from the start of the visit to Norwich. Elizabeth arrived at the city at 1:00 p.m. on Sunday, August 16, and was greeted by the Mayor of Norwich, Robert Wood. Wood, who would be knighted by the Queen during her visit, used the biblical past to explain the city’s delight that their Queen was visiting, and to emphasize the city’s desire to adhere to the Elizabethan Settlement, despite the recent issues with uniformity. Beginning his oration, Wood conflated the citizens of Norwich with the Israelites: If our wishe should be graunted unto us by the Almighty … we would account nothing more pretious (most Royall Prince) than that the bright beame of your most chast eye, which doth so chere us, might penetrate the secret strait corners of our hartes: then surely should you see how great joyes are dispersed there … in beholding thee the light of this Realme (as David was of Israell) now at length, after long hope and earnest petitions, to appeare in these coastes.66

63 Cole, Portable Queen, 141–​45; Patrick Collinson, “Pulling the Strings: Religion and Politics in the Progress of 1578,” in The Progresses, Pageants, and Entertainments of Queen Elizabeth I, ed. Jayne Elisabeth Archer, Elizabeth Goldring, and Sarah Knight (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007), 127. 64 Collinson, “Pulling the Strings,” 127; C. S. Knighton, “Freake, Edmund (c.1516–​1591),” ODNB, doi:10.1093/​ref:odnb/​10136. 65 Matthew Woodcock, Thomas Churchyard: Pen, Sword, and Ego (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2016), 192.

66 Bernard Garter, The Joyfull Receyving of the Queenes most excellent Majestie into hir Highnesse Citie of Norwich (London, 1558; STC 11627), sig. B1v. The Mayor’s oration was delivered in Latin,

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Wood then hinted at the religious issues that had brought the Queen and her Privy Council to East Anglia, emphasizing that the city was full of her “most loving, obedient, and well willing subjectes,” and that they were “most studious of Gods glory and true religion.” He concluded by assuring Elizabeth that “We only therefore desire, that God would aboundantly blesse your highnesse with al good gifts of minde and body” (B2r–​B2v). Given the circumstances that had brought the Queen on progress, these assurances, in addition to being standard platitudes, are somewhat to be expected. Nevertheless, the recourse to biblical motifs at the start of the oration deserves further unpacking. The phrase “the bright beame of your most chast eye” in the Mayor’s speech is curious. While it has a biblical feel, it does not correspond to any specific biblical reference. Certainly, eyes were used in a variety of metaphorical ways in the Bible—​most famously in the parable of the Mote and the Beam from Christ’s Sermon on the Mount. The phrase might, however, draw on a proverb from the Book of Sirach.67 In his discussion of the Creation, Ben Sira claimed that God “set his eye upon their hearts, that he might shew them the greatness of his works.”68 By stating that these “beams” would “penetrate the secret strait corners of our hartes,” Wood seemed to suggest that Elizabeth would see the “greatness” of Norwich during her visit: economically, socially, and religiously. That Wood’s phrase is somewhat removed from the original context of the proverb can perhaps be explained by the Mayor’s desire to avoid conflating Elizabeth with God: after all, Elizabeth was only able to metaphorically look into her citizens’ hearts. This rather obscure reference, however, emphasizes both the deep familiarity early modern people had with the Bible, and the way that biblical examples were reflexively used to make didactic points in the present. The use of the story of David is much more obvious. By referring to David and Elizabeth as the lights of their respective realms, Wood emphasized the divine favour of which both rulers were in receipt. According to 2 Samuel 21:17, Abishai, David’s captain (and nephew), called the King “the light of Israel” during a battle against the Philistines. Abishai told David to retreat from the battle after he was almost slain by a Philistine giant, fearing that David’s death would plunge Israel into chaos. This perhaps commented on the contemporary situation in England: Elizabeth remained unmarried and childless, and her heir presumptive was the Catholic and imprisoned Mary, Queen of Scots. Should Elizabeth die, Mary would become queen, and she would surely attempt to return England to the Catholic fold. Wood hoped that God would preserve Elizabeth, and thus the light of England’s Protestantism, so that the country was not plunged back

but Garter included an English translation of the speech in his account. I quote from the English version, as there are no changes of consequence between the Latin and English versions. 67 The Book of Sirach, or Ecclesiasticus, which was compiled (or possibly written) by Jewish scribe Ben Sira, is part of the Apocrypha. 68 Sirach 17:8.

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into the darkness of Catholicism. The implicit contrast builds on the use of light as a common metaphor in the Bible, especially as a metaphor for following the will of God.69 Indeed, the Bible routinely equated darkness with terrible or ungodly events—​most notably the darkness that covered “all the earth” for three hours while Jesus died on the cross.70 Elizabeth’s accession was therefore a rekindling of the light that Mary I’s reign had extinguished. Elizabeth’s actions here also echo those of David: just as Elizabeth returned England to the light of Protestantism, David restored the light to the Israelites by encouraging sincere worship of God after the unlawful practices of Saul, and by returning the Ark of the Covenant to Jerusalem—​actions for which God blessed David.71 Finally, Elizabeth was only able to “appeare in these coastes” because, like David, she had been protected by God—​both during the reign of her half-​sister, and in more recent years from Catholic assassination attempts. During the speech, Elizabeth was presented with a gold cup worth £100 (about £33,000 in 2022).72 Garter records that after the Mayor finished, Elizabeth responded to both the oration and the cup, heartily thanking the “Maior, and all the reste, for these tokens of goodwill.” Elizabeth then engaged in some clever political theatre, emphasizing what was truly important to her. In addition to expressing gratitude for the golden cup, Elizabeth told her audience that “the heartes and true allegeaunce of our Subjects … are the greatest riches of a Kingdome,” before directly addressing the Mayor’s speech: “as we assure our selves in you, so do you assure youre selves in us of a lovyng and gratious soveraigne.”73 Elizabeth might have been the guest in Norwich on that wet August Sunday, but she was quick to assert her royal power, and to use the entertainments to her own advantage. After this welcome, Elizabeth moved into the city proper. She sheltered in St. Stephen’s Gate due to a shower of rain, and then progressed to the city’s first pageant, which was staged outside St. Stephen’s Church.74 The pageant, designed by Garter, showed off the wool and yarn that Norwich produced and exported, and emphasized the great benefits Norwich had received since the Dutch Protestant exiles had settled in

69 For instance, Isaiah pleaded with the Hebrews to come and “walk in the light of the Lord” (Isaiah 2:5). 70 Luke 23:44. The Gospels of Matthew, Mark, and Luke all recount the same story, although Matthew and Mark say “land,” rather than “earth.” 71 See 2 Samuel 6:1–​12.

72 The cup was not added to Elizabeth’s treasury, suggesting that it was either re-gifted or melted down shortly after the progress. A. Jefferies Collins, Jewels and Plate of Queen Elizabeth I: The Inventory of 1574 (London: British Museum, 1955), 111–​12, 565. 73 Garter, Joyfull Receyving, sig. B2v.

74 For a full account of this first pageant, see Aidan Norrie, “Child Actors in the 1578 Norwich Civic Entertainment,” Shakespeare Bulletin 37, no. 2 (2019): 167–​85.

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the city.75 After this pageant was completed, Elizabeth “marched” to the second pageant, also designed by Garter, which was staged outside the market. The pageant featured “five personages appareled like women” who took it in turns to address the Queen: respectively, a representation of the City of Norwich, Deborah, Judith, Esther, and Martia, the daughter-​in-​law of Gurgunt, the mythical King of Britain who had built Norwich Castle.76 Of these five figures, three are biblical, and the speeches each figure delivered sought to both praise the Queen, and to use the typologies of the biblical figure to counsel her future actions. Deborah spoke second, and of the three biblical figures, her speech is the longest: Where princes sitting in their thrones set god before their sight And live according to his lawe, and guide their people right, There doth his blessed giftes abounde, there kingdomes firmely stand There force of foes cannot prevayle … My selfe (oh peerlesse Prince) do speake by proofe of matter past, Which proofe by practise I perfourmde, and foylde his foes at last. For Jabin king of Canaan, poore Israel did spight, And ment by force of furious rage to overrun us quite. … But he that neyther sleepes nor slackes such furies to correct, Appointed me Debora for the judge of his elect: … So mightie prince, that puisaunt [powerful] Lord, hath plaste thee here to be, The rule of this triumphant Realme alone belongth to thee. Continue as thou hast begon, weede out the wicked … Thus shalt thou live and raigne in rest, and mightie God shalt please. Thy state be sure, thy subjectes safe, thy common welth at ease.77

The speech conflated Elizabeth and Deborah, suggesting that God not only sent Elizabeth to the English like He did Deborah to the Hebrews, but also that under Elizabeth’s rule the English would be protected and blessed, just as the Israelites had been under Deborah. It also mentions the more practical things Elizabeth had done, and needed to continue to do, in order to receive God’s blessings—​especially to live according to God’s laws, and to rule her people wisely and justly. The link here between the Canaanites of Deborah’s day and the Catholics of Elizabeth’s comes through so clearly in the speech that it is almost rendered explicit. 75 Aidan Norrie, “‘Our Queen is Comming to the Town’: Child Actors and Counsel in the Elizabethan Progresses of 1574 and 1578,” in New Directions in Early Modern English Drama: Edges, Spaces, Intersections, ed. Aidan Norrie and Mark Houlahan (Berlin: De Gruyter, 2020), 107.

76 Garter, Joyfull Receyving, sig. C1r; Matthew Woodcock, ed., “The Queen’s Reception and Entertainment at Norwich, 16–​22 August 1578,” in John Nichols’s The Progresses and Public Processions of Elizabeth I: A New Edition of the Early Modern Sources, Volume II: 1572 to 1578, ed. Elizabeth Goldring, Faith Eales, Elizabeth Clarke, and Jayne Elisabeth Archer (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014), 795n1047. 77 Garter, Joyfull Receyving, sigs. C1v–​C2r.

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Certainly, the Canaanites were used as a type for virtually all non-​Protestant foreigners in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. However, during Elizabeth’s reign, the struggle to expel the Canaanites from the Promised Land was also offered as precedent for the present, with English Protestants having to expel the Catholics from England, and to ensure that Catholicism was not allowed to take root again. It could also be a glance at the contemporary situation in Norwich: Bishop Freake was commonly accused of turning a blind eye to Catholic recusancy, and instead clamped down on puritans.78 This need to further “weede out the wicked,” therefore, also contains a warning for Elizabeth. While Deborah told Elizabeth that “Thy state be sure, thy subjectes safe, thy common welth at ease,” this was contingent on the Queen both continuing the work she had done to promote Protestantism and ensuring that she and the English live according to God’s law (a euphemism, of course, for Protestantism). It was paramount that Elizabeth continue to emulate the example of Deborah and “set god before … [her] sight.” Garter includes no details on how the speeches were performed, nor does he record Elizabeth’s response to the speeches, merely claiming that after the pageant was finished, her “thanks [w]‌as plainely expressed [by] hir noble nature.”79 It is thus unclear how the five figures interacted with each other, but after Deborah’s speech, Judith addressed the Queen: Oh mighty Queene and finger of the Lord, … be … sure thou art his mighty hand, To conquere those which him and thee withstand … God ayded me poore widow nerethelesse, To enter into Holofernes field, And with this sword by his directing hand, To slay his foe, and quiet so the land. If this his grace were given to me poore wight, If widowes hand could vanquish such a foe: Then to a Prince of thy surpassing might. What Tirant lives but thou mayest overthrow.80

Elizabeth and Judith are conflated, with Garter emphasizing the providential favour that both women received, while at the same time reminding the Queen of her duty to defend England’s Protestantism. Given the diocesan disunity that the Privy Council was dealing with during the progress, this speech assured the Queen of the city’s adherence to the Elizabethan Settlement—​but it also hinted that the time for dealing with Catholics through policy was past.81 Indeed, it was not uncommon for Catholics (especially the Spanish) to be equated with the invading Assyrians, with Philip II depicted as a 78 Knighton, “Freake, Edmund.”

79 Garter, Joyfull Receyving, sig. C3r. 80 Garter, Joyfull Receyving, sig. C2r.

81 Aidan Norrie, “Elizabeth I as Judith: Reassessing the Apocryphal Widow’s Appearance in Elizabethan Royal Iconography,” Renaissance Studies 31, no. 5 (2017): 716.

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Holofernes—​and given the ongoing struggle between Protestants and Catholics in the Low Countries, it is possible to read this example as an exhortation to Elizabeth to support the Dutch Protestants. By being described as the “finger of the Lord,” Elizabeth was presented as a vessel who would carry out God’s will.82 This allusion, coupled with the example of Judith, showed that it was time to destroy God’s enemies: after all, if God had granted a “poore widow” the strength to slay the great Assyrian general Holofernes, He would certainly likewise strengthen his anointed monarch. The speech of Esther, the final of the three biblical figures, was evidently intended to complement the speeches of Deborah and Judith: The fretting heads of furious foes have skill, As well by fraude as force to finde their pray: In smiling lookes doth lurke a lot as ill, … Thy selfe oh Queene, a proofe hath seene of this, So well as I poore Esther have iwis [indeed]. As Jabins force did Israel perplex, And Holofernes fierce Bethuliel besiege, So Hamons slights sought me and mine to vex, … But Force nor Fraude, nor Tyrant strong can trap, Those whiche the Lorde in his defence doth wrap. The proofes I speake by us have erst bin seene, The proofes I speake, to thee are not unknowen. Thy God thou knowest most dread and soveraigne Queen, A world of foes of thine hath overthrowen.83

Despite being the fourth of the five speakers, Esther offered a brief summary of Deborah and Judith’s feats, explaining why they were worthy of remembering, and linking them to her own actions. Nevertheless, the reason for using the example of Esther was made explicit. Both Esther and Elizabeth faced foes whose “smiling lookes” masked a desire to do “ill.” Just as Haman conspired against the Jews in Persia, Catholics in England meant to assassinate Elizabeth. Like Esther, God defended Elizabeth from such plots, and the Queen’s enemies would continue to fail in their attempts to overthrow her. Out of the three speeches, this one makes the most of the providential favour Elizabeth had already received. Elizabeth’s contemporaries believed that her deliverances were the direct result of God’s intervention: Elizabeth and her people were protected just like Esther and the Jews. As with the other speeches, however, there is an undertone of counsel contained within the analogy. Because God wrapped England “in his defence,” Elizabeth was ideally situated to expand England’s Protestantism, taking on the might of Catholic 82 The concept of the finger of God appears multiple times in the Bible, and they all relate to God directly intervening in the human world. For instance, when Aaron imposed a plague of lice in Egypt, the pharaoh’s magicians were unable to do likewise, and they declared that the plague was “the finger of God” (Exodus 8:19). Similarly, Jesus claimed to be relying on “the finger of God [to] cast out devils” (Luke 11:20). 83 Garter, Joyfull Receyving, sigs. C2r–​C2v.

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Spain and assisting the Protestant rebels in the Low Countries. Just as Esther and the Jews killed their enemies and then celebrated with revelry and gift giving, it was time for Elizabeth to share the gifts England had received through its Protestantism with the rest of the world.84 In this pageant, Garter conflated Elizabeth with three Old Testament heroines to emphasize the Queen’s providential favour, and to push for a more expansionist approach to England’s Protestantism. This is the only civic entertainment across Elizabeth’s reign in which three biblical figures were presented to the Queen, which highlights the role of biblical analogies in bolstering her royal power and demonstrates the utility of the Bible for commenting on the present twenty years into Elizabeth’s reign. On Tuesday, August 19, the weather cleared, and Elizabeth went hunting at the large estate of the widowed Lady Mary Jerningham in Costessey, only a few miles outside Norwich.85 On her way back to her lodgings at Bishop Freake’s palace, Elizabeth was addressed by the Minister of the Dutch Protestant Church in Norwich. As noted above, Norwich was home to a large community of Dutch Protestant exiles, and it seems the community wanted to use Elizabeth’s visit as an opportunity to thank the Queen for the help she offered them. The Minister, who is not identified in Garter’s account,86 began his speech by reminding the audience of “the teares … of faithfull Christians [that] have throughly moved” Elizabeth to “defende and protect the miserable and dispersed members of Christ,” offering “safetie and preservation … of minde as [well as] bodie” toward those who were “banished for Christ [and] his religion,” perhaps (inadvertently) reiterating the message contained within the Mayor’s oration of welcome.87 The Minister then linked Elizabeth with the Old Testament figure Joseph, the son of Jacob, who was sold into slavery by his brothers, but who was preserved by God and made the Egyptian pharaoh’s deputy. According to the Minister, the goodnesse of God towardes your majestie is lively drawen out of the historie of the innocent & most godly Josephus, whom … constant faith, godlinesse of a Christian heart, and heavenly vertue by Gods singular mercie, delivered from the bloudie conspiracie of his brethren & feare of death, and brought unto high dignitie and royal kingdome.88

84 After “the Jews smote all their enemies with the stroke of the sword, and slaughter, and destruction, and did what they would unto those that hated them … a day of gladness and feasting, and a good day, and of sending portions one to another” was celebrated, which is the origins of the Jewish festival of Purim (Esther 9:5, 19). 85 Dovey, An Elizabethan Progress, 76.

86 The Dutch minister in Norwich in 1578 was Hermanus Modert, meaning he was almost certainly the one who delivered the oration. Linda Shenk, “Praising Elizabeth I in Latin at Norwich (1578),” Explorations in Renaissance Culture 46 (2020): 85.

87 Garter, Joyfull Receyving, sigs. D1r–​D1v. The oration was given in Latin, but like the Mayor’s speech, an English translation was published by Garter. I quote from the English version, as there are no changes of consequence between the Latin and English versions. 88 Garter, Joyfull Receyving, sig. D1v.

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The Minister subsequently reiterated that Elizabeth and Joseph endured “the same … with suche temperance and fortitude,” before conflating the Queen and her Old Testament antecedent: “Thou surely doest followe moste hollily, the minde of Josephus, by the singular goodnes of God, aswell in preserving thy kingdome, as in amplifying the kingdome of Christe” (D1v). After concluding his speech, the Minister presented Elizabeth with a silver-​plated cup, which Garter believed was worth £50. Inscribed on the cup was a small verse about Joseph’s life, which again emphasized the link between Elizabeth and Joseph: To royall scepters, godlinesse, Josephus innocent, Doth take, from brothers bloudie hands, and murtherers intent. So thee, O Queene, the Lord hath ledd from prison and deceite Of thine, unto these highest toppes of your princely estate.89

The analogy between Elizabeth and Joseph was clear: Elizabeth had been delivered from her half-​sister Mary just as Joseph had been from his brothers. This, however, is a curious message to share, as the Dutch community had only settled in Norwich after Elizabeth became queen. Thus, few—​if any—​of the Dutch immigrants would have lived in England during the events this oration and the cup describe. The choice of this motif, then, shows that the recent past was regularly associated with the biblical past, and that Elizabeth’s delivery from Mary was still a common enough topic to be discussed some twenty years into Elizabeth’s reign. The choice of the story certainly underscores the belief in the providential favour that Elizabeth was in receipt of, but it may also hint at a contemporary relevance. Rather than using the typology of Deborah or Judith to discuss Elizabeth’s victory over Catholics (which would have been relevant due to the Dutch Revolt and their struggles against Catholic Spain), the Dutch community employed Joseph, who was raised up to power by God, and who looked after his family during the famine. Instead of only referring to Elizabeth’s preservation under Mary, the analogy may also hint that the Dutch—​who could be viewed as being part of a larger Protestant family—​hoped that Elizabeth would help them in their fight against Spain by being a contemporary Joseph to them. Elizabeth had been supporting the Dutch unofficially for several years (she was even offered the Dutch crown in 1575, and again in 1585), but she would only do so officially in 1585, as a consequence of the Treaty of Nonsuch.90 It is tempting to wonder if Elizabeth remembered the Dutch minister’s oration when, only seven years later, she signed the Treaty. Unlike all the other speeches delivered during the 1578 progress, which were essentially fleeting moments of performance, this oration had a prolonged afterlife due to the gift of the cup. We can only speculate on the item’s fate, given that it does not 89 Garter, Joyfull Receyving, sig. D2r.

90 Paul E. J. Hammer, Elizabeth’s Wars: War, Government and Society in Tudor England, 1544–​1604 (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2003), 111–​20; Susan Doran, Elizabeth I and Foreign Policy, 1558–​ 1603 (London: Routledge, 2000), 34–​44, 52–​54.

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appear to have survived, but it was at least extant when the Treaty of Nonsuch was signed.91 The cup would have served not only as a memento of the speech, but also as a stark reminder of the divine protection Elizabeth had been under, which had seen her preserved and allowed to visit Norwich on progress as queen. In addition to these more didactic uses of biblical figures, the Bible was also mined for specific, metonymic types that could be used for more than mere rhetorical effect. In the premodern period, biblical figures were often closely associated with an attribute or skill, and such figures could be called upon to suggest that a person in the present would likewise embody such an attribute. The most obvious example of this practice is the association between Solomon and wisdom: if a commentator wished to describe a person as embodying (divine) wisdom, they could merely invoke Solomon’s name and the point would be apparent to an early modern audience. Indeed, Solomon was employed this way during Garter’s second pageant at Norwich. During the first speech, a person embodying the City of Norwich prayed that God would “blisse [sic] thy noble grace /​ … With all good giftes of Salomon, and twice as many more” (C1v). Garter used this typology to express his hope that Elizabeth would be blessed like Solomon—​as the recipient not only of divine wisdom, but also of the riches that God granted Solomon.92 This was not the only metonymic type employed during Elizabeth’s visit to Norwich. Garter himself delivered a speech to the Queen as she prepared to depart the city that concluded with a plea that God would “length[en] thy life like Noe” (E4v). This was not merely a request that God preserve Elizabeth, but instead linked preservation with extreme old age: Noah was five hundred years old when his sons Shem, Ham, and Japheth were born (Genesis 5:32), six hundred when the world was flooded (Genesis 7:6), and he died at 950 (Genesis 9:29)—​meaning he was the third-​longest lived person in the Bible. While certainly not as developed as the other analogies invoked during the visit, these two examples would have been instantly understood by their audience. The typological point required no additional explanation, further emphasizing the deep familiarity with the Bible that pervaded premodern Europe. Across the entertainments performed for Elizabeth at Norwich, the Queen was conflated, associated, and paralleled with Old Testament luminaries including David, Deborah, Esther, Joseph, Judith, Noah, and Solomon. These figures all provided important typological messages to both the Queen and the entertainment’s audiences. These typologies functioned as both praise intended to bolster the Queen and counsel to be heeded. If the Queen was preserved from her enemies, and granted long life and wisdom (like Joseph, Noah, and Solomon), Elizabeth, as a contemporary Deborah, Judith, and Esther, would be able to advance Protestantism, defeat the tyranny of Catholicism and the Pope, and defend England from internal and external threats. These biblical figures were therefore a powerful way of demonstrating, and bolstering, Elizabeth’s royal power. They legitimized the Queen’s actions to date and sought to influence her future policies. 91 The cup was still in Elizabeth’s treasury in 1597. See Collins, Jewels and Plate, 565. 92 See 1 Kings 3:12–​13.

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The 1578 Norwich entertainments contain the second-​largest group of biblical figures offered to Elizabeth throughout her entire reign (the first being those contained within the verses presented by the Eton scholars in 1563, as discussed in the previous chapter). The appearance of these many biblical figures underscores the way that the Bible was widely understood to have contemporary relevance, with the many analogies and typologies believed to be a legitimate way to praise and counsel Elizabeth. It is also important to remember that these entertainments were not associated with the court or with Elizabeth’s favourites. Unlike the 1575 Kenilworth entertainments, for instance, which were organized by Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester, Garter (no doubt in consultation with the city officials) was responsible for the content of the entertainments. This means that the analogies were considered appropriate for the Queen, both in terms of the counsel they meant to impart and the metonymic associations on which they drew. Garter would not have included a device if he thought it would offend the Queen, and given the time and performance constraints associated with progress pageants, he undoubtedly selected examples that clearly and effectively communicated the intended message.

Enter the Jesuits

In the 1570s, Cardinal William Allen sought to revitalize the training of secular priests who would be sent to minister to Catholics in England. Modelled on the college in Douai, Allen converted the English Hospice in Rome, which dated back to 1362, into a college. By late 1576, the first students had arrived, and on February 4, 1577, Cardinal Giovanni Morone—​Dean of the College of Cardinals—​issued the first document that formally established the English Hospice in Rome as an educational institution.93 It was not until May 1, 1579, however, that Pope Gregory XIII issued the Bull of Foundation.94 News of the College’s founding quickly spread around Europe, especially as, from its inception, the College was closely associated with Jesuits.95 Anti-​Jesuit sentiment was even more virulent than English anti-​Catholicism, and the regime was concerned by the potential influx of Jesuit-​trained Catholics priests into England. In response, parliament passed the Religion Act in 1580, which made it high treason to convert Elizabeth’s subjects “to the Romish religion.”96 The most famous victim of this law is perhaps Edmund Campion, who was hanged, drawn, and quartered on December 1, 1581.97 93 Anthony Kenny, “From Hospice to College, 1559–​1579,” The Venerable 21 (May 1962): 227, 232. 94 Kenny, “From Hospice to College,” 271–​72.

95 Maurice Whitehead, English Jesuit Education: Expulsion, Suppression, Survival, and Restoration, 1762–​1803 (Farnham: Ashgate, 2013), 15.

96 John Raithby, ed., The Statutes at Large, of England and of Great Britain, 20 vols (London, 1811) 4:374.

97 Elizabeth had made clear that in light of the number of English Jesuits coming “into this Realme,” she meant “to make some example of them by punishement, to the terrour of others.” John Roche Dasent, ed., Acts of the Privy Council of England, Volume 12: 1580–​1581 (London, 1896), 271.

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101

The Catholic threat thus entered a new phase: instead of merely being an external danger, Catholic English and Welshmen were being trained as priests so that they could return home and convert their compatriots. England’s Protestantism was now potentially threatened from within. Two tracts from 1579, which were entered into the Stationers’ Register less than two months apart, conflate Elizabeth and Deborah in their dedication. The analogies serve a similar purpose, and the texts evidently interact with a similar religio-​political context. While both tracts postdate Gregory’s Bull of Foundation, they do not necessarily need to be explicitly responding to it: the fear of Jesuit infiltration was fairly widespread, and the texts display a clear concern with both internal and external risks to England’s Protestant settlement. On July 3, 1579, John Tomkys’s English translation of Heinrich Bullinger’s De scripturae sanctae praestantia (On the Preeminence of Holy Scripture, 1571) was entered into the Stationers’ Register.98 The second of Bullinger’s treatises on the authority of scripture (the first being De scripturae sanctae authoritate, published in 1538 and dedicated to Henry VIII), both were responses to Catholic attacks on Protestant theology.99 The translation, on the one hand, reiterates Bullinger’s influence on English Protestant theology;100 on the other, however, it responds to the various Catholics threats England faced, seeking to further legitimize England’s religious settlement. Tomkys, who was a clergyman and translator, may have been a Marian exile. He later became a minister in Shrewsbury, where his iconoclasm and strict godliness demonstrated his puritan leanings.101 The pamphlet, titled A Most Godly and Learned Discourse, is dedicated to Sir Richard Pipe, Lord Mayor of London in 1578. Virtually nothing is known about Pipe, although his puritan leanings are suggested by the godly preachers whose education he funded, and the various anti-​theatrical texts that were also dedicated to him.102 Both Pipe and Tomkys grew up and lived in and around Wolverhampton, which likely explains their connection. With Pipe as Lord Mayor, Tomkys seems to have seized the opportunity to both translate Bullinger’s work for the edification of English Protestants, and to make a name for himself. Tomkys began his dedication to Pipe by claiming, “There hath beene no age … which hath more plentifully tasted of God his singular benefites and speciall grace, than this 98 SRO1790, https://​sta​tion​ersr​egis​ter.onl​ine/​entry/​SRO1​790. Tomkys, however, dated his dedication 10 February 1579. The reason for this not-​insubstantial delay is unclear. 99 W. Peter Stephens, “The Authority of the Bible in Heinrich Bullinger’s Early Works,” Reformation and Renaissance Review 10, no. 1 (2008): 46, 56–​57.

100 See Diarmaid MacCulloch, “The Church of England and International Protestantism, 1530–​ 1570,” in The Oxford History of Anglicanism, Volume 1: Reformation and Identity, c.1520–​1662, ed. Anthony Milton (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2017), 327–​32. 101 Patrick Collinson, “Tomkys, John (d. 1592),” ODNB, doi:10.1093/​ref:odnb/​68275

102 Stephen Gosson, The Schoole of Abuse conteining a plesaunt invective against poets, pipers, plaiers, jesters, and such like caterpillers of a commonwelth (London, 1579; STC 12097.5), E6r –​ F1r; Christopher B. Balme, The Theatrical Public Sphere (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2014), 89.

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our age, wherein he hath caused … the light of his Gospel to shine in the darkenesse of ignorance.”103 As mentioned above, the recourse to light was biblically significant, and it depicted England as being especially favoured. It is also an interesting reading of English history, with Edward VI’s Protestant reforms all but overlooked—​possibly due to the speed with which they were rolled back upon Mary’s accession. Tomkys had already linked England with the Old Testament, but he went on to suggest that because of the country’s Protestantism, the English were God’s new chosen people: “Neither hath he dealt more graciously with any nation, then with this our Realme of England, wherein the professours of the Gospel live safe from the foraine enemie, and free from persecution at home” (A3v). A decade had passed since the failure of the Northern Rebellion, and the half-​hearted attempts at invasion in the aftermath of Regnans in Excelsis had come to nothing, so it is perhaps unsurprising that Tomkys felt confident in expressing these views. Nevertheless, given Elizabeth’s fairly open dislike of puritanism, and the fervour with which Bishop Bancroft would attack puritans from the late 1580s, Tomkys’s claim that “professours of the Gospel live … free from persecution at home” could suggest that his adoption of more puritan views was a later development, although he may have known that Pipe shared similar views to him, and he hoped to disseminate them more widely among the English populace. England may have been favoured by God, but Tomkys was clear that this favour was the result of Elizabeth’s reign, especially her religious policies: his faithfull servaunt Queene Elizabeth, our moste victorious Debora, who by the mightie power of … our God, hath woorthily triumphed over Idolatrie, which is nothing else but spiritual tyrannie, whereby the consciences of her subjects were more grievously afflicted, than were the auncient Israelites by the nine hundred iron charrets of cruell captayne Sysara.104

He then finished the section by praying that God would allow Elizabeth to “judge us double the yeeres, which Debora judged Israell, and that her hand may still prosper and prevaile against that Roomish Jabin untill he bee utterly destroyed” (A4r). Based on Judges 5:31, Deborah was believed to have judged Israel for forty years. Tomkys was not literally expecting Elizabeth to reign for eighty years, but he was both associating long life with God’s blessings (perhaps intended as a slight on Mary I, who died at 42, and was a contrast to Elizabeth, who would turn 46 in September 1579), while also hinting at the uncertainty about England’s Protestant settlement after Elizabeth’s death. Even though the Anjou marriage negotiations would drag on until 1582, few really believed that Elizabeth could give birth to a living child. With the imprisoned Mary, Queen of Scots, Elizabeth’s heir by right of primogeniture, all that was currently ensuring that England “prospered and prevailed” was Elizabeth herself. Such a reading is reinforced by Tomkys’s conflation of the pope with Jabin. Sisera, who Deborah defeated, was only one 103 Heinrich Bullinger, A Most Godly and Learned Discourse of the woorthynesse, authoritie, and sufficiencie of the Holy Scripture, trans. John Tomkys (London, 1579; STC 4067), sig. A3r. 104 Bullinger, A Most Godly and Learned Discourse, sigs. A3v–​A4r.

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of Jabin’s commanders, and thus the enemy (the Catholic-​Canaanites) was not defeated. This point would have been emphasized not only by the foiling of the Ridolfi Plot and the defeat of the First Desmond Rebellion in Munster in 1573, but also by the unrest that would break out into the Second Desmond Rebellion only two weeks after the pamphlet was entered into the Stationers’ Register, which saw James FitzMaurice land in Ireland with a force comprised of papally funded troops.105 Elizabeth, as England’s “victorious Debora,” may have defeated the machinations of Sisera-​Philip II, but the tyranny of the pope-​Jabin still needed to be combated. Tomkys’s recourse to the Deborah typology is very similar to Richard Robinson’s invocation of the type in the dedicatory epistle of his The Vineyard of Vertue. Robinson, who usually included “Citizen of London” on his publications to distinguish himself from a likewise-​named contemporary, was a scribe and translator about whom little is known.106 His many writings and translations are virulently Protestant, and seemingly proved fairly popular—​for instance, The Vineyard of Vertue was reprinted in 1591.107 The pamphlet, which was entered into the Stationers’ Register on August 26, 1579, and appears to be an original composition rather than a translation, used a vineyard metaphor as a structure for his book.108 The vineyard represented England, and each of the “virtues”—​of which there were thirty-​two, including true knowledge of God, good counsel, obedience, and fortitude—​was a plant.109 The tract is dedicated to Edmund Uvedale, although it remains unclear how Robinson and Uvedale were connected. Uvedale contributed money toward both the 1579 and 1591 editions of The Vineyard of Vertue, and he seems to have been associated with Philip Sidney.110 He would, however, gain recognition by fighting in the Netherlands against the Spanish, which caused Burghley to describe him to his son Robert Cecil as “one whoe hath longe served hir Majestie both faithfullie and carefullie in his charge at Fflushing [sic] and in other services in the Lowe Contries.”111 Uvedale’s subsequent 105 Christopher Maginn, William Cecil, Ireland, and the Tudor State (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012), 88. On the English perceptions of the rebellion, see David O’Hara, “Political Obedience and the State: Elizabethan News Pamphlets and Rebellion in Ireland,” Media History 21, no. 2 (2015): 123–​37. 106 R. C. L. Sgroi, “Robinson, Richard (1544/​5–​1603),” ODNB, doi:10.1093/​ref:odnb/​23866. 107 STC 21121.3.

108 SRO1819, https://​sta​tion​ersr​egis​ter.onl​ine/​entry/​SRO1​819. The metaphor is based on the Parable of the Workers in the Vineyard from Matthew 20, although Robinson cites John 15:1–​2 on the title page. 109 The vineyard also included four “arbours,” namely: zeal to godliness, society of good men, observation of the Sabbath, and immortality. 110 Michael Brennan, Literary Patronage in the English Renaissance: The Pembroke Family (London: Routledge, 1988), 13–​15; D. J. B. Trim, “Uvedale, Sir Edmund (d. 1606),” ODNB, doi:10.1093/​ref:odnb/​64773. 111 William Acres, ed., The Letters of Lord Burghley, William Cecil, to his Son Sir Robert Cecil, 1593–​1598 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press for the Royal Historical Society, 2017), 187.

104

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fame, which included sitting as an MP for Dorset in the 1601 parliament, suggests that Robinson hitched his wagon to the right star, and explains why the 1591 edition of the pamphlet retains the dedication (albeit updated) to Uvedale. The dedication is full of examples from the Bible. For instance, Robinson noted that “the holynes of David, [the] innocency of Job, [the] wisedome of Solomon, [and the] fortitude of Sampson … could not avoide [the] enmity” of God’s “moste cruell and spiteful enemies.”112 These examples are rather odd, given that David, Solomon, and Samson were all punished for their disobedience to God, but they do emphasize the way that the Bible was a standard tool of reference. It is unlikely to be a coincidence that he also drew on types that had transferrable attributes in the present, such as Samson’s strength and Solomon’s wisdom. Like Tomkys, Robinson used biblical history to exalt England. According to Robinson, “I doubt whether any Nation under the Sunne, have founde so greate felicitie and blessinges abounding in them, as this little Iland of ours” (A4v). This “felicity” was partially the result of the “Vineyearde in Englande” pulling up “by the roote that unfruiteful figge tree of the Popes planting” (A4v–​A5r). The tract is much more anti-​papal than it is anti-​ Catholic, with Robinson even calling “the Romishe Antichrist and his cursed crew the suckblood successors of the Scrybes & Pharisees.” The pamphlet’s emphasis is therefore on the larger threat posed by Catholics who follow the pope-​Antichrist. In the aftermath of Elizabeth’s excommunication, the equation of the stereotypical human-​made (not God-​made) rule-​obsessers with the pope both highlighted the lack of biblical basis for the contents of Regnans in Excelsis, and emphasized the Catholic descent into idolatry that Protestantism sought to rectify. England had largely been shielded from this threat because of Elizabeth. Robinson claimed that the people of England were “a florishing plant in these most florishing daies of our divine Debora Queene Elizabeth, whose gratious and blessed raigne, the Lorde prorogate unto the ende of the world” (A6r). Like Tomkys, Robinson prayed that Elizabeth would have a long reign, although Tomkys was much more explicit about the Catholic threat and applied typologies to the contemporary situation (hence the pope-​ Jabin and the Sisera-​Philip II). Robinson, however, focused on Elizabeth’s providential sending—​hence the Queen’s description as “divine”—​and the implicit part of the typology, which meant that Elizabeth had defended the English from the Catholic-​ Canaanites (after all, following the vineyard metaphor, it was Elizabeth who uprooted the pope’s fig trees). The section also perhaps hints at Robinson’s hope that England would engage in its own form of religious expansionism: “unto the ende of the world” can be interpreted both temporally and geographically. These two depictions of Elizabeth as Deborah emphasize (to varying degrees) the widely held view that England was a New Israel, with the English being God’s new chosen people. Both writers imagine Elizabeth as the embodiment of the Old Testament 112 Richard Robinson, The Vineyarde of Vertue collected, composed, and digested into a tripartite order (London, 1579; STC 21121), sigs. A2v–​A3r.

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judge who freed the Israelites from their subjugation by the Canaanites. The dedications were evidently meant to flatter Elizabeth, but the clear and detailed way that both writers engaged with the Bible shows that they were using the example of the past to understand the present, and to reassure themselves and their compatriots that despite facing a variety of threats, England would ultimately be delivered by the English Deborah.

Encouraging—​or Cudgelling—​Loyalty

In addition to passing the Religion Act, the third session of Elizabeth’s fourth parliament (January 16–​March 18, 1581) passed an act increasing the penalties for anyone who, “with a malicious Intent … speak any false, seditious and slanderous News, Rumours, Sayings or Tales against … the Queen’s Majesty.”113 For first time offenders, punishments included the pillory, the loss of both ears, and/​or a fine of £200, plus six months’ imprisonment; anyone who was found guilty a second time would be executed and forfeit their goods. In addition, anyone who wrote or published a seditious book would be executed and forfeit their property. Such penalties reflected the real fear that existed about the propaganda Jesuits were spreading in England, as well as their increased presence in the country. They were also, however, a blunt tool intended to cudgel the Catholic population into acknowledging Elizabeth’s legitimacy. Over the next few years, preachers and commentators—​many with puritan leanings—​employed biblical analogies as a tool to encourage loyalty to Elizabeth, and to England’s Protestant settlement. On October 3, 1581, a sermon was preached at Weymouth and Melcombe Regis in Dorset. The printed copy of the sermon states it was preached by “John Madoxe,” but it is generally attributed to puritan preacher and naval chaplain Richard Madox. A clergyman and fellow of All Souls Oxford, Madox is perhaps best known today for the detailed diary he kept during 1582.114 Encouraged by the Earl of Leicester, Madox became a chaplain to Edward Fenton’s Privy Council-​sponsored voyage that left Southampton on May 1, 1582, and was intended to establish an English trading base in Southeast Asia.115 Madox died on February 27, 1583, aged 36, while his ship was off the coast of Brazil.116 This sermon, which must have appeared fairly soon after it was preached, is his only printed work, and otherwise little is known about him. Despite the sermon’s unoriginal title—​“A Learned and a Godly Sermon”—​it was nevertheless unambiguous in its intended audience. While Madox believed that the sermon should “be read of all men,” he claimed it was “especially for all marryners, captaynes and passengers, which travell the seas.” Given the ongoing naval skirmishes 113 Statutes at Large, 4:377.

114 See An Elizabethan in 1582: The Diary of Richard Madox, Fellow of All Souls, ed. Elizabeth Story Donno (London: The Hakluyt Society, 1976). 115 E. G. R. Taylor, ed., The Troublesome Voyage of Captain Edward Fenton, 1582–​ 1583 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press for the Hakluyt Society, 1959), xxvii. 116 John Bennell, “Madox, Richard (1546–​1583),” ODNB, doi:10.1093/​ref:odnb/​64595.

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between England and Spain (including in Ireland), and Madox’s own imminent departure on a privateering mission, the sermon makes use of biblical history in specific ways that reflect both the contemporary religio-​political situation and Madox’s own confessional beliefs. In the sermon, Madox spoke of the blessings England had received because of its Protestantism, and reminded his audience that these blessings needed to be built on: “let us desyre God that the infant whom with paine of trauayle and displeasure of the great Dragon, shee hath heere childed in England and Ireland, may prove a man of might & courage, boldly to fyght the Lordes battails.”117 Elizabeth—​“she”—​had returned England to Protestantism despite the displeasure of the Pope—​“the great dragon”—​and England was now in a position to evangelize through more aggressive means. The description of England’s Protestant settlement as being like a baby being born after a difficult delivery is unusual, and is certainly evocative. It may hint at Madox’s desire for the Church to undergo further reformation, and it probably highlights his zeal for evangelization that had caused him to enrol as a ship’s chaplain. The reference to both England and Ireland is particularly prescient, given the continuing Second Desmond Rebellion, which was supported by Spanish and Italian ships, troops, and supplies. While the massacre of the six hundred or so papal troops at Smerwick in November 1580 turned the tide against the rebels, the fighting continued for another two years.118 The “marryners, captaynes and passengers” that Madox was addressing were partially the reason for the English victory at Smerwick, and it is evident that “the Lordes battails” meant securing Protestantism at home and abroad. Elizabeth’s role in England’s Protestant settlement had only been implicit in Madox’s sermon thus far. This changed when he used two analogies to conceptualize the link between Elizabeth and the expansionist Protestantism for which he advocated. First, he prayed that “Elizabeth may marche with him in comforte and defence, as Debora marched with Baracke … against Sisera the cruell Cananite, & returne againe with like victory.”119 Madox implicitly conflated the Canaanites and Catholicism, and used the biblical story of Deborah—​perhaps more accurately than many of his contemporaries—​to depict Elizabeth as a Deborah who sent Barak (Lord Arthur Grey, the Lord Deputy) to defeat the Catholic-​Canaanites (in Ireland). Typologically, Madox was showing his belief that England would be victorious: even though the “battle” continued, the example of Deborah showed that England under its own Deborah would likewise be victorious. This use of the Deborah typology was paired with Madox’s invocation of Esther. Madox prayed that Elizabeth “may stand unto him as effectually as Hester stoode to Mardocheus against the prowde Ammon, & with as much rejoycing of the people of God, 117 [Richard Madox], A Learned and a Godly Sermon, to be read of all men, but especially for all Marryners, Captaynes, and Passengers, which travell the Seas (London, 1581; STC 17180), sig. A7v.

118 D. Alan Orr, “‘Communis Hostis Omnium’: The Smerwick Massacre (1580) and the Law of Nations,” Journal of British Studies 58, no. 3 (2019): 473–​74, 478–​80. 119 [Madox], Learned and a Godly Sermon, sigs. A7v–​A8r.

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overcome in the end.”120 Who “him” is meant to be is somewhat unclear. It may refer to Haman, and thus is a type for Philip II (with the Pope as King Ahasuerus) due to his “jealous” wish to see all Protestants killed. It may also be a more nebulous reference to the Jesuit missions in England; by the time the sermon was preached, Edmund Campion had been imprisoned for three months, and Robert Persons, who had been heavily involved in the secret Catholic printing press that had been used as a propaganda tool to embarrass the Elizabethan regime, had fled England for France.121 Whoever “him” is, it is clear that this typology was focused on the internal threats faced by England. Together, the two typologies make a clear statement about England’s Protestantism: the English Deborah would lead (or direct) her troops to victory over the Catholic-​Canaanites, and the English Esther would protect England from internal threats. Reflecting fears about both domestic and foreign dangers, the use of these two analogies shows how Maddox was able to read the present through the lens of the Old Testament. For Maddox, invoking the example of Deborah and Esther was intended to encourage his audience, and to suggest that England’s victory in “the Lordes battails” was a providential inevitability. In a proclamation issued on January 10, 1581, Elizabeth decried “the great mischiefe” Jesuits committed “to corrupt and pervert” her subjects, noting that this was “lately seene in the Reamle of Ireland.”122 The proclamation also instituted punishments on those who harboured, or failed to report, Catholic missionaries. The fear that the threat continued to fester is made apparent in another proclamation, issued on April 1, 1582, that, in the aftermath of Campion’s execution, sought to denounce Jesuits as “wicked, false and dangerous traytors” who wish to “stirre up rebellion” and “deprive her Majestie … of her lyfe, crown, and dignitie.”123 The fear of the threat posed by Catholics is palpable in both proclamations, and given the very public way that these proclamations were disseminated, it is unsurprising that their themes were further expounded on in tracts defending Elizabeth and England’s Protestantism. On July 23, 1582, puritan preacher Christopher Fetherston’s tract A Dialogue agaynst light, lewde, and lascivious dauncing, which sought to prove that “to daunce as wee doe daunce in these dayes is evill,” was entered into the Stationers’ Register.124 Scholars generally only refer to the tract as a rhetorically satisfying example of the puritan dislike of popular pastimes, including dancing and theatre going.125 While it does rail against 120 [Madox], Learned and a Godly Sermon, sig. A8r.

121 Stephen Alford, The Watchers: A Secret History of the Reign of Elizabeth I (London: Penguin, 2013), 93–​94, 105–​6, 120–​21. 122 A Proclamation for revocation of Students from beyond the seas, and against the reteining of Jesuites (London, 1581; STC 8127), sig. A1v. 123 A Proclamation to denounce Jesuites traitours (London, 1582; STC 8135), sig. A1v.

124 Christopher Fetherston, Dialogue agaynst Light, Lewde, and Lascivious Dauncing (London, 1582; STC 10835), sig. C1v; SRO2274, https://​sta​tion​ersr​egis​ter.onl​ine/​entry/​SRO2​274.

125 See Kevin Sharpe, “Virtues, Passions and Politics in Early Modern England,” in Reading Authority and Representing Rule in Early Modern England (London: Bloomsbury, 2013), 132; Christopher Marsh, Popular Religion in Sixteenth-​ Century England: Holding Their Peace

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dancing (equating it with popery), Fetherston also engaged in serious theological discussions of England’s providential favour, and used biblical analogies to do so. For Fetherston, God had especially blessed the English, the prime evidence being that “There is no leading into captivitie, neyther any complayning in our streetes” (A3r). The use of “captivity” here almost certainly referred to the captivity of Catholicism, especially given the recent Jesuit proselytizing. It may also allude to the relatively recent annexation of Portugal by Philip II (he was crowned King of Portugal on March 25, 1581). For instance, an anonymous English pamphlet had claimed that Philip’s actions were further proof of his expansionist agenda, with Philip seeking “to bring the aforesaid countries [Portugal and the Netherlands] from their ancient freedomes, and under a Tyrrannicall government of the spanirds.”126 England’s freedom from Spanish (Catholic) tyranny was thus to be celebrated. Fetherston proceeded to detail God’s greatest blessing to the English: Wee have a prudent Princes, a gracious Queene, a godly Judith, a chast Susanna, a vertuous Hester, a discreete127 Debora, which these foure and twentie yeeres hath judged Israel with equitie and right … The Lorde himselfe is our defence, and the God of Jacob is our protectour.128

The point of these analogies for Elizabeth is self-​evident, especially in the way they explicitly link Elizabeth to the Old Testament. What is most significant about this section, however, is the casual and complete conflation of England and Israel. The pamphlet was published in the twenty-​fourth year of Elizabeth’s reign, which means to Fetherston’s mind, Elizabeth is the judge of the English Israel just as Deborah judged the Hebrews. This was not mere flattery or shorthand: Fetherston genuinely believed that England was the new Israel, and that the English had been blessed because the contemporary embodiment of Judith, Susannah, Esther, and Deborah sat on England’s throne. Demonstrating the interchangeability of past and present, Fetherston used the example of the Old Testament to prove both that the English were God’s new chosen people, and that their blessed existence was primarily the result of Elizabeth. The Catholic threat only became more insidious as the 1580s progressed. On July 10, 1584, Sir Francis Throckmorton was executed for his part in the eponymous plot to replace Elizabeth with Mary, Queen of Scots, and return England to the Catholic fold. The plot would have seen England invaded by a Spanish-​backed force led by the Duke of Guise, who would then have married Mary. Walsingham was alerted to the (London: Macmillan, 1998), 105; Ann Louise Wagner, Adversaries of Dance: From the Puritans to the Present (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1997), 34–​35; and Robert W. Malcolmson, Popular Recreations in English Society, 1700–​1850 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1973), 8.

126 A Dialogue or speaking of two Personages (London, 1582; STC 6804), sig. A3v. The move was also unpopular with Catholic figures. See Michael J. Levin, Agents of Empire: Spanish Ambassadors in Sixteenth-​Century Italy (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2005), 111–​12. 127 OED: “Possessing or exhibiting sound judgement.” 128 Fetherston, A Dialogue agaynst Light, sig. A3r.

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plot before anything was put into action, and he managed to confirm the involvement of the Spanish ambassador in England, Bernardino de Mendoza, when Throckmorton had a casket of documents delivered to the ambassador.129 Mendoza was expelled from England, and there would be no more Spanish ambassadors to England for the rest of Elizabeth’s reign. Throckmorton was arrested and tortured, and eventually confessed to the plot—​although he later retracted this confession. Nevertheless, the evidence found at his house was damning enough, and he was executed on July 10, 1584.130 Such a plot, involving the Spanish ambassador as it did, served as a stark reminder of the constant threat to which England and its Protestant settlement was subjected. Just over a month after Throckmorton’s execution, on August 13, John Phillip’s A Sommon to Repentance was entered into the Stationers’ Register.131 This is the same Phillip discussed above whose A Frendly Larum was published a decade earlier in the period around the issuing of Regnans in Excelsis. A Sommon was evidently responding to the contemporary religio-​political situation, with Phillip explicitly blaming the sins of the English for “these dangerous dayes of wickednesse” they were experiencing. His tract sought to show the English that they are “full of all filthines, and repugnant to Christ,” and to offer them a way back into God’s good graces.132 After a litany of thundering denouncements against the various sins of the English, Phillip concluded the pamphlet by informing his readers that should they sincerely repent, and should God look with mercy on their pleas, they would be blessed in various ways. God will blesse our anointed Debora, our virgin Queene, the handmaid of the lord, continue hir highnes helth to our comforts, convert or else utterly confound the power of al hir enimies, forren & domestical, blesse our land, [and] spare us from those plagues that we have most righteously deserved.133

Phillip’s depiction of Elizabeth as the Virgin Queen sits beside a depiction of the Queen as “our Debora.” Not only does this emphasize the way that biblical analogies corresponded with other iconographic devices, but it also shows that acknowledging Elizabeth was a queen and a virgin could be just as much a statement of fact as it was an iconographic choice. The description of Elizabeth as “the handmaid of the lord” could also be depicting her as Mary, the mother of Jesus, who calls herself that to the angel who announced her pregnancy (according to Luke 1:38). Given the term’s association with 129 Alford, The Watchers, 154–​56, 160–​66, 169–​74, 176–​77. 130 Alford, The Watchers, 174.

131 SRO2403, https://​sta​tion​ersr​egis​ter.onl​ine/​entry/​SRO2​403.

132 John Phillip, A Sommon to Repentance. Given unto Christians for a loking glasse, wherin we may behold our owne deformities, and therein and thereby, we are not onely forewarned of our destructions, but we are learned to humble out selves in these dangerous dayes of wickednesse, before the throane of Gods mercy (London, 1584; STC 19875), sig. A3r 133 Phillip, Sommon to Repentance, sig. D8r.

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virginity, however, it could also be an attempt to link biological virginity with spiritual chastity, especially given the failure of the Anjou match two years earlier.134 The reference to enemies “forren & domestical” makes explicit the contemporary context with which Phillip was engaging, showing how engrained the fear of Catholic plots were—​especially in the aftermath of the Throckmorton Plot. Expanding the typologies slightly, as many of Phillip’s readers would likely have done, England’s enemies can be thought of as Canaanites, further explaining why Phillips depicted Elizabeth as England’s “anointed Debora.” The “plagues” were also topical. Plague was believed to be punishment for sin, and in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, Protestant commentators often referred to Catholicism as a plague.135 Such fears were likewise exacerbated by recent outbreaks: both Alghero in Sardinia and Tenerife were ravaged by plague in 1582–​1583, and Venice in 1576–​1577.136 Given the Catholicism of all three plague locations, it is not difficult to see why Phillip applied contemporary understandings of the origins of plague to the dire situation he was predicting. The thrust of the tract, and especially its conclusion, is clear: due to the sins of the English, England was in danger of being invaded or overrun with plague—​a plague of Catholicism. To arrest this fate, the English needed to repent so that God, in His mercy, would continue to defend the English Deborah, and by extension, the English people themselves. We can see here some concern on Phillip’s part: he recognizes that Elizabeth’s “helth” is potentially the only thing standing between England’s return to the Catholic fold—​plague thus meaning both the plague of Catholicism and a literal pestilence, such as the two bouts of smallpox Elizabeth had already survived. Like his contemporaries, Phillip understood that God intervened in the present in both small and significant ways: He could just as easily defend England from Catholic invasion as He could allow it to be invaded. The use of this analogy, however, shows that Phillip believed that the present reflected the (biblical) past, and that the new Israel would be blessed like the old Israel. Just as “the children of Israel cried unto the Lord” to be delivered from the Canaanites, and God answered by sending them Deborah, so Phillip believed that if the English genuinely repented and worshipped God, He would strengthen England’s Deborah and make her victorious against the Catholic-​Canaanites.

134 See Susan Kendrick, Elizabeth I’s Use of Virginity to Enhance Her Sovereignty: Managing the Image of a Sixteenth-​Century Queen (New York: Edwin Mellen Press, 2009).

135 Bryon Lee Grigsby, Pestilence in Medieval and Early Modern English Literature (New York: Routledge, 2004), 153. On plague and sin (especially Catholicism), see, for example: Robert Horne, The Shield of the Righteous: Or, The Ninety first Psalme, expounded, with the addition of doctrines and uses Verie necessarie and comfortable in these dayes of heavinesse, wherein the pestilence rageth so sore in London, and other parts of this kingdome (London, 1625; STC 13825). 136 Samuel Cohn, Jr., “Patterns of Plague in Late Medieval and Early-​Modern Europe,” in The Routledge History of Disease, ed. Mark Jackson (New York: Routledge, 2017), 176–​77.

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Embedding the Catholic Threat The threat Catholics posed to Protestant rulers was laid bare when William the Silent, the Protestant leader of the Dutch rebels, was assassinated by the Catholic solider Balthasar Gérard on July 1/​10, 1584. Both the Throckmorton Plot and the assassination of William seem to have been catalysts for Burghley and Walsingham drawing up the Bond of Association.137 The Bond was intended to rally loyalists to protect Elizabeth from harm. Signatories to the Bond were obliged to execute anyone who attempted to, or successfully, usurped the throne from Elizabeth, or who attempted to assassinate, or successfully assassinated, the Queen. A slightly watered-​down version of the Bond was passed into law as the Act for the Security of the Queen’s Royal Person in 1585. This Act would prove pivotal to the trial and eventual execution of Mary, Queen of Scots. This chapter is bookended by plots against Elizabeth’s life: the Ridolfi Plot and the Throckmorton Plot were perpetrated by Catholics who sought to depose Elizabeth, replace her with Mary, Queen of Scots, and have England restored to Catholicism. Both plots were supported by foreign enemies—​in Ridolfi’s case, Pope Pius V gave written approval of his plan, and the Duke of Alba prepared to lead ten thousand Spanish troops to invade England; in Throckmorton’s case, a Spanish-​backed invasion of England led by the French Duke of Guise was planned. The plots also relied on “domestical” support, with Ridolfi and Throckmorton hoping—​or indeed assuming—​that the planned invasions would coincide with Catholic uprisings. In both cases, the plots were foiled before Elizabeth was in any real danger, but this, unsurprisingly, was cold comfort. Between the issuing of Regnans in Excelsis and the assassination of William the Silent, a variety of commentators used biblical analogies to negate Catholic attacks on Elizabeth and legitimize her royal authority (and by extension her authority to enforce Protestantism on the Church of England), and to bolster England and its Queen to withstand the Catholic threat. Using a range of typologies, commentators read the present through the lens of the Old Testament, assuring themselves and their compatriots that just as God defended the Israelites during the time of Deborah, Esther, Judith, Josiah, and Solomon, so would He defend His new chosen people from the plague of Catholicism. The Catholic threat would become a frightening and pronounced reality over the next five years, culminating in the attempted invasion of the Spanish Armada in 1588. Throughout, the present continued to be read typologically, and a range of commentators emphasized the powerful contemporary relevance that these biblical analogies continued to have.

137 David Cressy, “Binding the Nation: The Bonds of Association, 1584 and 1696,” in Tudor Rule and Revolution: Essays for G.R. Elton from his American Friends, ed. DeLloyd J. Guth and John W. McKenna (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1982), 217–​21, 225–​26.

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Chapter 4

1585–​1590: BIBLICAL TYPOLOGY AND THE CATHOLIC THREAT

According to an indictment presented to a grand jury at the Rochester assize in January 1589, John Gardener, a yeoman from Westgate, Canterbury, publicly declared on November 11, 1588: The pope and his religion muste needes have good success heare in Englande, for that theire religion ys good. And beinge toulde of the repulse of the Spannyards, saide that it was lyes, and we shoulde heare other newes shortly, rejoysinge when any reporte was of theire good succes, and sorroweinge for the contrary.1

In the aftermath of the Armada’s defeat, Gardener—​whose Catholicism is clear from his seditious words—​expressed his “sorrow” that Philip II’s plan had been thwarted. While a yeoman in Canterbury was of limited concern to the higher echelons of the Elizabethan regime, comments like those uttered by Gardener are representative of the wider fear of Catholics in the mid and late 1580s. The regime did not—​and indeed could not—​know how many English people remained loyal to Rome, meaning that they could never be sure of the support on which a Catholic invasion force could rely. The attempted invasion of the Spanish Armada in 1588 was intended to coincide with a Catholic uprising in England, which to the great relief of the regime never materialized (this was perhaps less about loyalty to Rome and more about Hispanophobia, however).2 In a period where the Catholic threat had reached alarming levels, comments like those spoken by John Gardener only reinforced the dangers England faced from “The pope and his religion.” As has been suggested throughout this book, scholars tend to treat the parallel existence of biblical and classical analogies as some kind of dilemma, with various hypotheses proposed to explain the purported waxing and waning of these analogies across Elizabeth’s reign. Such hypotheses tend to focus on the supposed supplanting of biblical figures with classical ones in the latter portion of Elizabeth’s reign, as represented by Donald Stump’s erroneous claim that “between 1583 and 1603 … I have located only five works containing a total of six references.”3 This chapter is intended as a case study of the period between 1585, when the Babington Plot was hatched, and 1590, when the threat of invasion had subsided—​covering both the execution of 1 Calendar of Assize Records: Kent Indictments, Elizabeth I, ed. J. S. Cockburn (London: HMSO, 1979), 290 (no. 1757).

2 Victor Houliston, Catholic Resistance in Elizabethan England: Robert Persons’s Jesuit Polemic, 1580–​1610 (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2007), 48. See also Albert J. Loomie, “The Armadas and the Catholics of England,” Catholic Historical Review 59, no. 3 (1973): 385–​403. 3 Donald Stump, “Abandoning the Old Testament: Protestant Dissent and the Shift in Court Paradigms for Elizabeth,” in Elizabeth I and the “Sovereign Arts”: Essays in Literature, History,

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Mary, Queen of Scots, and the defeat of the Spanish Armada. In doing so, I suggest that rather than attempting to quantify the appearance of biblical analogies by year (which is problematic anyway, due to inconsistent survival rates of the texts that contain them), it is far more productive to link them to moments of intense religio-​political concern. This chapter, covering a six-​year period, contains more examples than several of the other chapters in this book, demonstrating that the Babington Plot, Mary’s execution, and the fear over—​and subsequent defeat of—​the Spanish Armada precipitated an outpouring of polemical and didactic printed material. Many of these texts sought to explain England’s providential favour, and to encourage the English to remain loyal to Elizabeth and her religious settlement. In offering these explanations and encouragements, a range of commentators, polemicists, and writers turned to the biblical past to conceive of the present, and in doing so, they emphasized the habitual way in which the present was read through the lens of the biblical past.

1585: “wicked Traitors” meet God’s “goodnes and providence”

On March 2, 1585, William Parry, former MP and courtier, was executed for plotting to assassinate Elizabeth. A Catholic convert, Parry seems to have been some kind of double agent, spying for both England and Rome.4 He was arrested, but subsequently released, in December 1584 after denouncing the Act Against Jesuits and Seminary Priests in the Commons; in February 1585, he was arrested again—​this time for plotting to kill the Queen.5 Parry claimed to be acting as an agent provocateur to catch would-​be assassins (in this case, Edmund Neville). Whether or not Parry was telling the truth remains unclear, but his arguments failed to sway the court or the Queen, and he was found guilty of treason and hanged, drawn, and quartered.6 In the aftermath of both William of Orange’s assassination and Parry’s execution, the Elizabethan regime became increasingly concerned about targeted assassination attempts.7 As Burghley and Walsingham began to realize, why would Catholics like Philip II or the pope foment a rebellion or invade England when they could just have Elizabeth assassinated, which would mean the crown passed to their Catholic darling Mary, Queen of Scots? This fear is evident in the “official” account of Parry’s treason that was published in an attempt to control the story. As the pamphlet claimed, “evil” Catholics such as Parry sought England’s destruction, for they believed “it was lawfull to

Culture, ed. Donald Stump, Linda Shenk, and Carole Levin (Tempe: Arizona Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies, 2011), 284. 4 Julian Lock, “Parry, William (d. 1585),” ODNB, doi:10.1093/​ref:odnb/​21437.

5 Stephen Alford, The Watchers: A Secret History of the Reign of Elizabeth I (London: Penguin, 2013), 188–​89, 191–​92. 6 Lock, “Parry, William.”

7 Judith M. Richards, Elizabeth I (New York: Routledge, 2012), 123.

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take away the life of a prince, in furtherance of the Catholique religion.”8 It was therefore up to every English person to pray to God to preserve both Elizabeth and England’s Protestant settlement. Again, the regime took no chances here, issuing official prayers of thanksgiving for Elizabeth’s preservation.9 In addition to acknowledging God’s “goodnes and providence” for protecting Elizabeth, the prayer thanked God for delivering “us thy people that weare as Captives to Babilon, out of Bondage and thraldom of the Enemies of thy trewe Churche,” and for restoring “us againe to the free fruition of the Gospell of thy Sonne oure Saviour Christ.”10 In this increasingly fraught religio-​political climate, the English were being urged to think about the “horrors” that would befall them should England return to the Catholic fold: horrors that were comparable to those experienced by the Jews during the Babylonian captivity. As several of the texts analyzed in this chapter show, the Queen’s supporters sought to remind the English of the blessings they had received because of Elizabeth’s Protestant settlement. Only eight months after Parry’s execution, on Elizabeth’s accession day in 1585, the loyalist clergyman and preacher John Prime delivered a sermon at St. Mary’s, Oxford, that expounded on this theme.11 The text for the sermon was 1 Kings 10:9, which was highly appropriate for the date, and given that the verse recounts the Queen of Sheba description of Solomon’s wisdom, it is perhaps unsurprising that Prime used this basis to emphasize the links between Elizabeth and Solomon, and indeed the links between England in the present and the Hebrews under Solomon.12 For a sermon published with the title A Sermon Briefly Comparing the estate of King Salomon and his Subjectes togither with the condition of Queene Elizabeth and her people, scholars generally fail to remark that it contains virtually no explicit links between Elizabeth and her Hebrew antecedent.13 While Victoria Brownlee notes that the “typological reading of Elizabeth I as Solomon” transfers Solomon’s “divine appointment and kingly attributes on to Queen Elizabeth,” the comparisons that Prime drew were 8 A True and Plaine Declaration of the Horrible Treasons, practised by William Parry the Traitor, against the Queenes Majestie (London, 1585; STC 19342a.5), 5.

9 See Norman Jones, Governing by Virtue: Lord Burghley and the Management of Elizabethan England (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015), 112. 10 BL Lansdowne MS 116, fol. 77r.

11 Julian Lock, “Prime, John (1549/​50–​1596),” ODNB, doi:10.1093/​ref:odnb/​22792. The sermon was published soon after its delivery: the dedication is dated November 27, 1585, and the pamphlet bears the publication year of 1585 (suggesting it was printed before late December). 12 1 Kings 10:9: “Blessed be the Lord thy God, which delighted in thee, to set thee on the throne of Israel: because the Lord loved Israel for ever, therefore made he thee king, to do judgment and justice.”

13 For instance, Roy Strong claimed Prime “compared the Queen to Solomon,” but provided no references to such a comparison; and Tristan Marshall includes Prime’s sermon as one of only two examples of a text that compared Elizabeth and Solomon during her reign. Roy C. Strong, “The Popular Celebration of the Accession Day of Queen Elizabeth I,” Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes 21, nos. 1–​2 (1958): 98; Tristan Marshall, Theatre and Empire: Great Britain on the London Stages under James VI and I (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2000), 51n155.

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far more implicit than is generally recognized.14 For instance, Prime recounted how Solomon faced the rebellion of Adonijah, observing that these “domestical examples touch neerest, & affect most, our soveraine & careful queene the Lordes annointed over us.”15 Certainly, the comparison between the two figures who faced rebellion is visible, but it is hardly overt. A similar situation arises when Prime praised Elizabeth’s councillors: “In great measure, wise hearts have they, as Salomon had” (B4v). Given the text of the sermon, and the date it was preached, the relevance of the example to Elizabeth was possibly so obvious that it did not need to be stated. Nevertheless, the pamphlet’s title should not take people in: the implicit comparisons with Solomon sit alongside several explicit analogies that are worthy of closer attention. The discussion of the duplicitous Achitophel led Prime to discuss the treachery of Stephen Gardiner, Bishop of Winchester, whose evil counsel would have seen Elizabeth executed, had God not intervened. According to Prime, in the final days of Mary I’s reign, Elizabeth “found no friend … no firme hope or present help but in God alone, the sure rock of her foundation” (B3v). The reference to God as Elizabeth’s “sure rock” seems to blend Isaiah 28:16 and Matthew 7:24, and it is fitting that Prime went on to use both Old and New Testament figures to explain the Queen’s dramatic change in fortune:16 Only he that is mighty magnified her and tooke her from the prison, as Joseph from the stocks, and made her our Queene, and as it were a Martha to provide for Christ in his members, and as a Marie to heare him in his ministers, and as a verie Debora, to execute justice, equitie and trueth in this English Nation. And hee, that preferred her at the first, preserveth her still, (and preserve her ever.).17

In addition to conflating England and Israel (hence Elizabeth being a Deborah to the English), Prime also drew on more unusual types to explain the Queen’s providential favour. Like Joseph, the son of Jacob, Elizabeth had been unjustly imprisoned, but was delivered by God and restored to her birthright. Relating the story in Luke 10, Prime also compared the Queen to the sisters Martha and Mary: like Mary, Elizabeth listened to the true words of Christ, and like Martha, she cared and provided for Jesus and his disciples. Though uncommon, these types nevertheless show the serious theological point of biblical analogies: Jesus said that Mary “hath chosen the good part, which shall 14 Victoria Brownlee, Biblical Readings and Literary Writings in Early Modern England, 1558–​1625 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2018), 54.

15 John Prime, A Sermon Briefly Comparing the estate of King Salomon and his Subjectes togither with the condition of Queene Elizabeth and her people (Oxford, 1585; STC 20371), sig. A7v. The signature references from B3 on are incorrectly printed as A, but I give them as B here for ease of differentiation. 16 Isaiah 28:16: “Therefore thus saith the Lord God, Behold, I lay in Zion for a foundation a stone, a tried stone, a precious corner stone, a sure foundation: he that believeth shall not make haste.” Matthew 7:24: “Therefore whosoever heareth these sayings of mine, and doeth them, I will liken him unto a wise man, which built his house upon a rock.” 17 Prime, A Sermon Briefly Comparing, sig. B3v.

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not be taken away from her,”18 and in his deathbed blessing to Joseph, Jacob prophesied that God “shall help thee … [and] shall bless thee with blessings of heaven above, [and] blessings of the deep that lieth under.”19 To Prime’s mind, therefore, not only had God rescued Elizabeth from her imprisonment and allowed her to succeed to the English throne, but also He would “preserveth her still”—​just as He had with these biblical luminaries. Prime was a serious theologian: he had received his Bachelor of Theology in 1584 and would receive his Doctor of Theology in 1588.20 This sermon was preached in one of the most significant churches in Oxford, on Elizabeth’s Accession Day, to a highly educated audience. It reiterated how typologies were not limited by gender, and demonstrated the theological weight that came from interpreting the present through the lens of the Bible. Prime seems to have made no attempt to leverage this sermon to gain favour: it is dedicated to “The Christian Reader” (as opposed to Elizabeth or a courtier), and it was printed in Oxford, rather than in London. The sermon, then, seems to be a genuine expression of Prime’s beliefs. Indeed, according to Prime, “Flattery becommeth no place, but lest of al the pulpit,” but his audience “knowe I lie not; God hath blessed her majesty with a wise, a wealthy, a peaceable, and a godlie raigne” (B3r). Such a pronouncement, though of course somewhat disingenuous, demonstrates the widespread acceptance of the use of biblical typologies to legitimize Elizabeth’s reign and her religious policies—​ more than twenty-​five years after her accession.

1586: Official and Popular Responses

The use of biblical analogies in this period is particularly worthy of attention because of their use in both official and popular contexts. As discussed in Chapter 1, in a speech in 1586, Elizabeth compared herself to Solomon to appease the MPs who were clamouring for her to sign the death warrant of Mary, Queen of Scots. This use of a transferrable type was but only one kind of analogy used in this period. Around the same time, the regime sought to include Elizabeth’s subjects in the relief that the Babington Plot had been foiled, and by extension to remind them that threats to Elizabeth were threats to England. On August 25, 1586, the explicitly named An Order of Prayer and Thankesgiving, for the preservation of her Majestie and the realme, from the traiterous and bloodie practises of the Pope, and his adherents was entered into the Stationers’ Register.21 Printed by the Queen’s printer, Christopher Barker, and describing itself as “published by authoritie,” the pamphlet included a prayer and four psalms that were to be read in thanksgiving for Elizabeth’s preservation. It included a preface that referenced several biblical figures and their divine favour, remarking: 18 Luke 10:42.

19 Genesis 49:25.

20 Lock, “Prime, John.”

21 SRO2515, https://​sta​tion​ersr​egis​ter.onl​ine/​entry/​SRO2​515.

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with what zeale ought every one of us to be inflamed to prayse the Lord … Moses and Miriam, and the whole hoste of Israel had never greater cause to sing unto the Lorde for the overthrowe of Pharao, and his armie: nor Debora and Barac for the victorie of Sisera: nor Judith, and the Citizens of Bethulia for the end of Holofernes and the flight of his hoste, then we have for the wonderfull preservation of the life of our most gracious Queene, and thereby for our owne saftie.22

Elizabeth’s protection was explicitly described as the work of providence, and by ordering these prayers to be read in both daily prayer and Sunday services, this message was spread to all her subjects. Biblical analogies, then, were not merely the preserve of court elites and polemic flatterers. These examples, while not specifically for Elizabeth, are implicitly applicable to the Queen. It is not difficult to see the example of Moses leading the Israelites out of Egypt as an analogy for the English leaving the servitude of the pope, and the examples of Deborah and Judith being relevant to Elizabeth. What this preface does make explicit, however, is that the English are God’s new chosen people: just as the old Israel praised God for delivering them, so must the new Israel. In addition to emphasizing the role of providence in preserving His people, all these victories were commemorated by the singing of songs, which explains why they are included in the pamphlet alongside psalms. The Israelites sang the Song of the Sea (also known as the Song of Moses) after successfully crossing the Red Sea (Exodus 15); the Song of Deborah, in which Deborah and Barak sing of their victory, is found in Judges 5; and Judith and the Hebrews sing of the victory over the Assyrians, and of God’s help, in Judith 16. The pamphlet thus was a clear attempt to emulate in the present the celebrations of victory as recorded in the Bible. The Order of Prayer and Thankesgiving may not have explicitly compared Elizabeth to her biblical antecedents, but her subjects seemed more than eager to do so. For instance, John Norden—​who will be discussed in greater detail in Chapter 5—​used this fraught moment to look back on England’s journey along the path of reformation. During “the dayes of the late famous Kinge Henrie the eyght,” the English were “brought out of the bondage of the spirituall Romishe Aegypt, into the pleasaunt lande of the Gospell,” and this “continued [during] the dayes of the godly King Edward the sixt.”23 During the “perillous daies of Queene Marie” the English were forced “backe againe into their former thraldome.” However, God sent “our good Joshua, Queene Elizabeth” who ensured “Our redemption” (57). As a new Joshua, Elizabeth was able to bring the English-​Hebrews into the Promised Land of Protestantism. None of the other reforming monarchs 22 An Order of Prayer and Thankesgiving, for the preservation of her Majestie and the realme, from the traiterous and bloodie practises of the Pope, and his adherents (London, 1586; STC 16517), sigs. A2r–​A2v. 23 John Norden, A Mirror for the Multitude, or Glasse, Wherein maie be seene, the violence, the error, the weaknesse, and rash consent, of the multitude, and the daungerous resolution of such, as without regard of the truth, endevour to runne and joyne themselves with the multitude (London, 1586; STC 18613), 56–​57. The pamphlet was entered into the Stationers’ Register on December 5, 1586. SRO2551, https://​sta​tion​ersr​egis​ter.onl​ine/​entry/​SRO2​551.

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were typologized in this way; it would have been very easy to describe Henry VIII as a Moses (especially given that the Joshua-​Elizabeth could be seen as finishing what the Moses-​Henry began), but as a marginal note earlier in the tract declared, Elizabeth is the “instrument under whome God hath reched us his truth” (2). Just as Joshua was rewarded for his loyalty, so Elizabeth was likewise rewarded, and because she shared these gifts with her people, God has “promised us the fruition of the pleasant lande of knowledge.” Such blessings, however, could be lost, and Norden warned that without true obedience they would indeed be “cut shorte.” The reason for this concern was clearly Catholicism, with Norden reminding his readers to “beware of murmuring against” the English Joshua (57). The threat posed by Catholics had reached alarming levels, and Norden could count on his readers knowing that just as Joshua was able to conquer Jericho through the use of spies, so could Catholics infiltrate England. It was therefore paramount that the English be wary of Catholic attempts to have the nation thrown out of the Promised Land of Protestantism. Norden’s tract, while dedicated to the Queen, was evidently intended to exhort his fellow compatriots to be loyal to Elizabeth and her settlement. Other tracts were much clearer in the counsel they wished to impart to the Queen. For instance, R. Thacker’s ballad, A Godlie Dittie to be Song [sic] for the Preservation of the Queenes most Excellent Majestie’s Raigne, compared Elizabeth’s preservation from the Babington Plot with the example of David, and described the Queen as a Judith. The ballad was published by Abel Jeffes with a royal privilege—​likely making it the earliest example of such licensing for a ballad.24 Given the ballad’s content, however, it is unsurprising that Jeffes received such royal favour, for Thacker declared: All English hearts rejoyce and sing, that feares the Lord and loves our Queene; y[i]‌eld thanks to God our heavenly king, … Who doth our Queene defend.

That Elizabeth was preserved by God was clear, but this preservation was especially reminiscent of that received by David: As David may, her grace may say if open foes an oath had sworne, To seeke her life with blooddie knife. It might the better have been borne. But those to whom shee bare good will, With spite did seek her blood to spill.25

24 Alexandra Hill, “The Lamentable Tale of Lost Ballads in England, 1557–​1640,” in Broadsheets: Single-​Sheet Publishing in the First Age of Print, ed. Andrew Pettegree (Leiden: Brill, 2017), 447. 25 R. Thacker, A Godlie Dittie to be song for the preservation of the Queenes most exclent Majesties raigne (London, 1586; STC 23926), one page.

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Elizabeth, like David, was persecuted by her enemies—​despite only baring them “good will.” Certainly, Elizabeth’s increasingly punitive actions against Catholics suggest that she did not truly bare them good will, but the ballad’s primary message is that wicked Catholics are unfairly targeting the blameless Elizabeth. This point is reiterated when Thacker compares Elizabeth to Judith: A Judith just shee still hath beene, a loving Prince to Subjects all: Shee is our good and gracious Queene, Lord blesse her that shee never fall. In any danger of her Foes But safely keepe her Lord from those.

The intended message of the verse is clear, but it is a very odd example on which to draw. Judith held no position of power whatsoever, and excepting her defeat of Holofernes, we know nothing about her life prior to this (that is, her defeat of Holofernes is not part of a long line of divine interventions on her behalf). Similarly, in the verse that mentions David, it is David who makes an oath to Saul to “not cut off my seed after me” and to “not destroy my name out of my father’s house.”26 This is perhaps evidence of a more general understanding of the types (both David and Judith were protected by God and preserved the Hebrews through their actions), rather than a more literal reading of the biblical stories. As Christopher Haigh has rather sardonically remarked, the ballad serves to make the English “feel lucky, for having Elizabeth in the first place, and for God’s preservation of their darling … [because] God had intervened to sustain their queen, thus illustrating his special favour towards her.”27 While the ballad can certainly be read as such, virtually all texts that utilize a biblical analogy do the same thing, and given the serious ramifications that Elizabeth’s assassination would have on England’s Protestantism, it seems quite logical for people who believed that God constantly and overtly intervened in human affairs to conceive of Elizabeth’s continued preservation in this way. Thacker’s use of the Judith story is similar to other examples from this period; indeed, this section of Elizabeth’s reign is perhaps the only one where Judith was invoked more frequently than Deborah as an example for the Queen. This is largely due to the violence of Judith’s story, and the contemporary parallels that could be drawn from it. The divinely sanctioned murder of the Hebrews’ enemies was used by the author of A Godlie and Zealous Prayer to urge Elizabeth to heed the precedent of Judith in dealing with Mary, Queen of Scots. The prayer, which is attributed to “I. P.,” exhorted God to protect Elizabeth from “the murmuring of Dathan, Coran, and Abiram, which envie the godly estate of her government.” Dathan and Abiram were brothers (and sons of Reuben), and alongside Korah, a Levite, they rebelled against Moses and Aaron, claiming 26 1 Samuel 24:21.

27 Christopher Haigh, Elizabeth I (London: Routledge, 2014), 185.

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they “take too much upon” themselves.28 God punished the rebels severely: Korah and his 249 co-​conspirators were killed by fire sent from heaven, and Dathan and Abiram, alongside their families, were killed when God made “the earth open her mouth, and swallow them up.”29 The examples exhorted God to protect Elizabeth from rebellion, but they also gesture at the royal supremacy, suggesting that both Catholics and the godly need to accept that Elizabeth is “above the congregation of the Lord,” and that she is therefore allowed to shape the Church of England as she sees fit.30 This more general exhortation that Elizabeth be defended from rebellion was followed by two specific biblical analogies. The author prayed that God, “by the powre of thy providence,” defend our happie Heaster, from the conspiracy of all hatefull Hamons, that thirst after the blood of the righteous, intendinge by treachery to worke the spoyle of thine inheritaunce, yea let their devillish devises be brought to naught, and let them perish in their ungodlines, that heave up their hands against thyne annointed.31

The description of Elizabeth as “our happie Heaster” emphasizes the complete conflation between the two figures, with the author also depicting the “treacher[ous]” Catholics as contemporary Hamans. However, just as Haman’s plan to murder the Jews was thwarted, so too would the Catholic attempts on Elizabeth (and by extension England’s Protestants) come to naught. Moreover, the example hints that Elizabeth should be taking further action against Catholics: just as King Ahasuerus permitted the Jews “to destroy, to slay and to cause to perish” Haman and his supporters, so must Elizabeth cause the Catholic-​Hamans to be destroyed.32 This message may be more implicit in the reference to Esther’s story, but it is an explicit part of the way Judith’s story was used: Gyve her highnes power and strength from above, with victorious Judith, to draw the sword, and to cutte of the heades of all such drunken Holoferneses, as are become drunken with the devillish dregges of Antichrist, supersticious popery and treasonne: yea, let them be taken in theyr owne snares, and fall into the pytte which they have digged for the destruction of the innocent. Thus we thy poore people shall rejoyce in thy wonderous workes and make our continuall boastes of thy prayses.

Linking Holofernes’s pagan beliefs with popery clearly draws the connection with Mary, Queen of Scots. Likewise, the author mocks the conspirators for falling into “theyr owne snares,” as their intercepted correspondence, which Walsingham had tricked Mary into signing in approval of the plot, was what led to their undoing. As mentioned above, this story urges Elizabeth to be like Judith and have the head of the Holofernes-​Mary cut off. 28 Numbers 16:3.

29 Numbers 16:30. 30 Numbers 16:3.

31 I. P., A Godlie and Zealous Prayer, to bee used of every Christian and duetifull Subjecte, for the preservation of our most soveraigne Lady Elizabeth (London, 1586; STC 19070.5), one page. 32 Esther 8:11.

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The author made clear that the Catholics would continue to harm the English, noting that Catholics do not care about “the destruction of the innocent” that might come from their pursuit of Elizabeth’s assassination. The English Judith thus had no other option but to order the beheading of the Holofernes-​Mary. In addition to these two explicit analogies, the section of the pamphlet includes two more implicit ones. The prayer beseeched God to protect Elizabeth from “all such ambitious minded Absolons, as have determined to alter the estate of her most gracious government,” and to bring “shame and confusion” on those who have “conspired against her and thy people.” Not only does this reiterate England’s status as a new Israel, but it also presents Elizabeth as a David, whom God would spare from rebellion just as He spared David from the revolt of his son, Absalom. Similarly, the prayer associated Elizabeth with Deborah, exhorting God to establish “the throne of her highnes,” and to “make her an olde and aged mother in the house of Israell” to “advaunce the trueth of thy testament to reedify Jerusalem.” In Judges 5:7, Deborah claimed she “arose a mother in Israel,” and as the prayer’s 1586 audience would have known, no other person in the Bible described themselves in this way. Given that Deborah seems to not have had any children, and that she ruled for forty years (during which time the Hebrews enjoyed peace), this exhortation both emphasized her mother-​like role in protecting the English and demonstrated how the supreme position of authority the judges held was a clear parallel for an English monarch. It also linked England and Israel: Jerusalem only gained its importance under David, who reigned at least a century after Deborah. Nevertheless, it gives Deborah a more prominent role in enforcing “true” worship of God than the Bible does, thereby serving to bolster Elizabeth’s own position. A Godlie and Zealous Prayer was entered into the Stationers’ Register on November 23, 1586.33 This date of entry, coupled with the title given—​“a thankesgyvinge for GODs mercies for our delivery from the intendid tyrannye of the Antichristian PHARAO”—​ reinforces the broadside’s engagement with the debates over Mary’s execution. Babington and his co-​conspirators had been executed two months before the date of this entry, and “the Antichristian PHARAO”—​the pope—​is not mentioned in the published broadside. This means that the author adapted the prayer to focus on Mary: it was no longer merely a general thanksgiving for Elizabeth’s delivery. While the prayer does thank God for Elizabeth’s preservation, it uses these analogies to exhort Elizabeth to execute the imprisoned and guilty Scottish Queen. The violence of Judith, Esther, Deborah, and David’s stories is overt, and they were evidently employed to furnish Elizabeth with biblically sanctioned precedents for executing Mary—​both to protect her people from the threat of Catholicism, just as Judith murdering Holofernes had saved the Israelites from the Assyrians, and to ensure that England would have rest, just as it did during the days of Deborah. 33 SRO2546, https://​sta​tion​ersr​egis​ter.onl​ine/​entry/​SRO2​546.

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It is worth noting that both A Godlie Dittie and A Godlie and Zealous Prayer were published as broadsides, meaning they were fairly cheap and probably reached a substantial audience. While it is anachronistic to describe these texts as propaganda, the wider reach they almost certainly had, and the clear religio-​political purpose they served, emphasize how seriously these broadsides should be taken. The royal approval of A Godlie Dittie, as well as the inclusion of Elizabeth’s coat of arms on A Godlie and Zealous Prayer, demonstrate that the regime understood the importance of communicating such ideas with the wider populace, and that when the concept of Elizabeth’s favour needed to be explained directly, biblical examples were the ideal way to convey this message.

1587: Legitimizing Regicide

On February 8, 1587, Mary, Queen of Scots, was beheaded at Fotheringhay Castle. In the days and weeks after the execution, Elizabeth made a great show of claiming that it had taken place without her approval but, as the kings of both Scotland and France (the former being Mary’s own son) recognized, she had little choice.34 Elizabeth’s own prevarication seems to have emboldened Catholics further, and in January 1587, the Queen was made aware of yet another plot against her—​this one involving the French embassy.35 As Neale has observed, “Possibly, it was a trick … to frighten Elizabeth. Whatever it was, the suspense was becoming intolerable and dangerous.”36 The similarities between this plot and the Throckmorton Plot were evident, and Elizabeth was finally convinced to act. The Scottish Queen’s execution was, unsurprisingly, the subject of much discussion in print, and precipitated the publication of a multitude of treatises denouncing Catholicism and exhorting the English to be loyal to their God-​anointed sovereign. In early 1587 (probably even before Mary was executed),37 Michael Renniger published a treatise that, as Richard Stacey notes, sought to reinforce loyalty to Elizabeth at a moment when the Catholic threat was “particularly acute.”38 The pamphlet is dedicated to the Queen, and the Stationers’ Register entry records that it was entered under the hand of 34 For instance, she wrote to James VI of Scotland on February 14, 1587: “I would you knew (though not felt) the extreme dolor that overwhelms my mind: for that miserable accident, which (far contrary to my meaning) hath befallen.” BL Cotton MS Caligula C IX, fol. 212r. See also Susan Doran, “Revenge her Foul and Most Unnatural Murder? The Impact of Mary Stewart’s Execution on Anglo-​Scottish Relations,” History 85, no. 280 (2000): 589–​612; and Richards, Elizabeth I, 130–​37.

35 Michel Modye, with the assistance of, or at least knowledge of, the French ambassador’s secretary, planned “to kill the Queen by poison or by laying a train of gunpowder where she lieth.” Calendar of State Papers, Domestic Series, of the Reign of Elizabeth, 1581–​1590, ed. Robert Lemon (London, 1865), 380. 36 J. E. Neale, Queen Elizabeth I (1934; Chicago: Academy Chicago, 2001), 287.

37 The tract was entered into the Stationers’ Register on December 10, 1586. SRO2556, https://​ sta​tion​ersr​egis​ter.onl​ine/​entry/​SRO2​556. 38 Richard Stacey, “‘The Vow is Made’: Communal Swearing and Succession in Titus Andronicus,” Forum for Modern Language Studies 54, no. 1 (2018): 60.

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the Archbishop (almost certainly of Canterbury)—​the text was doubtless intended to educate the English on their responsibilities to their sovereign. That this barely concealed state-​sanctioned propaganda was written by Renniger is unsurprising: Renniger was a Marian exile, and shortly after Elizabeth’s accession, he became one of her chaplains (a position he seems to have retained throughout his life), and from 1575 he was the Archdeacon of Winchester.39 Furthermore, in 1582, he had written a virulently anti-​ Catholic Latin tract “On the Fury of Popes Pius V and Gregory XIII against the most powerful sovereign Elizabeth” in the aftermath of the Second Desmond Rebellion, which was likewise dedicated to Elizabeth.40 His loyalist, Protestant, and anti-​Catholic credentials were unimpeachable. That Renniger was thinking about the present through the Bible is immediately apparent from the dedicatory epistle to Elizabeth. Renniger repurposed Psalm 17:8,41 praying that God would “keepe you as the apple of an eye, (as David prayeth) and under the covert of his owne winges.”42 Already, the tract’s readers were being positioned to draw parallels between Elizabeth and David. The tract proper began with Renniger seeking to evidence his belief that Elizabeth’s deliverances were no different from those recounted in the Bible. He asked his readers to consider “When did ever the heartes of faithfull subjectes more melte at the tender mercie of God in the deliverance of their Prince?,” before explaining how it was As if they had seene her plucked out of the Lions mouth, as Paul sayeth of himselfe:43 or drawne out of the gulfe of many waters, as David of himselfe sayeth:44 Or saved out of Nabuchadnezzers furnace, which he had prepared for the three servantes of God. God sent his Angell to save his servantes in the middest of it: as also to stoppe the mouthes of ramping Lions in the denne, where Daniel was in the middest of them.45

What other examples could there be for Elizabeth’s delivery from the Babington Plot than God’s preservation of Daniel, David, Apostle Paul, and Shadrach, Meshach, and 39 Julian Lock, “Renniger, Michael (1528/​9–​1609),” ODNB, doi:10.1093/​ref:odnb/​23378.

40 See Michael Renniger, De Pii quinti et Gregorii decimi tertii Romanorum Pontificum furoribus. Contra potentissimam Principem Elizabetham Angliæ Franciæ & Hyberniæ Reginam (London, 1582; STC 20886). 41 “Keep me as the apple of the eye, hide me under the shadow of thy wings.”

42 Michael Renniger, A Treatise conteining two parts. 1 An Exhortation to true love, loyaltie, and fidelitie to her Majestie. 2 A Treatise against Treasons, Rebellions, and such disloyalties (London, 1587; STC 20888), sig. A2v. 43 2 Timothy 4:17–​18: “Notwithstanding the Lord stood with me, and strengthened me; that by me the preaching might be fully known, and that all the Gentiles might hear: and I was delivered out of the mouth of the lion. And the Lord shall deliver me from every evil work, and will preserve me unto his heavenly kingdom: to whom be glory for ever and ever. Amen.”

44 Psalm 18:16–​17: “He sent from above, he took me, he drew me out of many waters. He delivered me from my strong enemy, and from them which hated me: for they were too strong for me.” 45 Renniger, A Treatise conteining two parts, sig. A5r.

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Abednego? These examples alone were evidently not sufficient, however, and Renniger continued: God delivered Hester the Godlie Queene with her kinred and people, from the cruell conspiracie of Haman: And godlie Judith from the rage of Olophernes: And Kinge David from the treasons of Absalon … And his most tender mercie also, woonderfully [sic] hath delivered Elizabeth our gracious Queene, as most joyfully we have seene of late.46

The examples in the previously quoted passage focused more on deliverance from punishment for worshipping God (for instance, Daniel and Apostle Paul faced execution for their faith). In this passage, Renniger brought together three examples that involved the protection of God’s people: Esther and Judith’s actions saved the Hebrews, and Absalom’s revolt against David probably would have led to the destruction of the Israelite kingdom, and it invited readers to link the rebellious Absalom with the traitorous Mary, Queen of Scots. Biblical analogies were clearly the only way to conceptualize Elizabeth’s miraculous deliveries from Catholic plots. This laundry list of examples presented Elizabeth as not simply the most recent example of a providentially favoured leader, but also as another link in the chain between the figures of the biblical past and the present. In addition to relating Elizabeth’s deliverances to her biblical antecedents, commentators used biblical analogies to emphasize the validity of Elizabeth’s decision to execute Mary. In a tract with a dedication date of February 12, 1587 (only four days after Mary’s execution), lawyer and legal scholar Richard Crompton used the Bible to provide precedent for Elizabeth’s action.47 Kevin Sharpe has noted that Crompton’s joy at Mary’s execution would quite likely have made Elizabeth uncomfortable, but the tract’s dedication to John Whitgift, Archbishop of Canterbury, serves as a useful illustration of the way Protestantism, providence, and godly rule intersected.48 Lest his purpose in writing the pamphlet be overlooked, Crompton laid out his cards from the beginning: If ever Kingdome were blessed … surelie this is that Kingdome, we are that Nation … it hath pleased God to gyve us the light of his Gospel, wherby manie errors, and much superstition … are reformed … [and] it hath pleased him, to give us so gracious a Soveraigne Ladie and Queene, not a forreyner, not a stranger borne, but one of our owne Nation (which is observed as a great blessing of God in the sacred Scriptures).49

46 Renniger, A Treatise conteining two parts, sigs. A5r–​A5v.

47 Peter Lake has erroneously dated the dedication as “1586/​7,” which means his claim “the tract was written after the trial but before the execution of Mary Stuart, which event ushered it into print,” is incorrect. Peter Lake, Bad Queen Bess?: Libellous Politics, Secret Histories and the Politics of Publicity in Elizabethan England (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2016), 299.

48 Kevin Sharpe, Selling the Tudor Monarchy: Authority and Image in Sixteenth-​Century England (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2009), 253–​54.

49 Richard Crompton, A Short Declaration of the Ende of Traytors, and false Conspirators against the state, and of the duetie of Subjectes to theyr soveraigne Governour (London, 1587; STC 6055), sig. A4r.

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Drawing on a range of biblical injunctions (especially those in Deuteronomy 17 and 28),50 Crompton reminded his audience that Elizabeth’s Englishness was itself a gift from God—​a point intended not only to accentuate Mary I’s Spanish heritage (and perceived Habsburg loyalty), but also to emphasize the foreignness of Mary, Queen of Scots.51 The use of “Nation” here also gestures at the belief that England was a new Israel, with Crompton pointing out how blessings in the Bible were relevant to the present. After exploring God’s providential favour to England, Crompton set about furnishing his claim that it was lawful for Elizabeth to execute the Scottish Queen. In addition to offering the example of David and Absalom—​Elizabeth implicitly being David, and Mary Absalom—​he applied God’s promise to David in 1 Chronicles 16:22 to Elizabeth: Nowe for proofe by the word of God, that it is not lawfull for the Subject to touch the Princes person. Howe often doth almighty God by hys Prophet David, say Touch not mine annoynted, as though he should say, Forasmuch as I have placed her in the kynglye throne of thys Realme, and have appoynted her to rule and governe my people, looke thou touch her not, lay no handes on her, offer no violence unto her personne, for I have annoynted and consecrated her to that office and function.52

By conflating David and Elizabeth, Crompton claimed that the Babington Plot had been unsuccessful because Elizabeth was God’s anointed. He also sought to forestall any claims that Mary, who had been anointed queen, was also subject to the same promise by asserting “shee was not our Queene, neither were we subjects to her” (D2r). Crompton therefore linked the past with the present, and at the same time showed both how biblical examples were viewed as legitimate legal precedent, and the way that England’s status as the new Israel meant that God had blessed Elizabeth as He had blessed David. The final two examples for 1587 come from tracts associated with Elizabeth’s accession day and its accompanying celebrations. Lawyer and poet Edward Hake served as mayor of Windsor for 1586–1587, and when Elizabeth visited the Windsor Guildhall on her birthday in 1587, Hake delivered an oration to the Queen.53 This oration was subsequently expanded, entered into the Stationers’ Register on October 30, 1587,54 and published with the dedication to Anne, Countess of Warwick, dated to “this joyfull”

50 The marginal note on this claim is “Deut. 15. 17,” which is almost certainly a mistake for Deuteronomy 17:15: “Thou shalt in any wise set him king over thee, whom the LORD thy God shall choose: one from among thy brethren shalt thou set king over thee: thou mayest not set a stranger over thee, which is not thy brother.” 51 This xenophobia is further evident in the many attempts to Anglicize James VI of Scotland upon his accession to the English throne. See Joseph B. R. Massey, “A Union Made in My Blood: Hereditary Right, Anglo-​Scottish Union, and the Jacobean Manipulation of British History” (PhD thesis, Manchester Metropolitan University, 2022), 155–​59. 52 Crompton, Short Declaration of the Ende of Traytors, sig. D2v.

53 Louis A. Knafla, “Hake, Edward ( fl. 1564–​1604),” ODNB, doi:10.1093/​ref:odnb/​11881. 54 SRO2654, https://​sta​tion​ersr​egis​ter.onl​ine/​entry/​SRO2​654.

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November 17, 1587—​the thirtieth “yeere of her Maiesties most happie Raigne.”55 Evidently, Hake was using the celebrations that accompanied Elizabeth’s accession day to maximize the potential (paying) audience for his tract. As the pamphlet’s title made clear, Hake sought to impress upon his compatriots the blessings they had received from God because of Elizabeth, while also castigating “disloyaltie and unkindnesse” to the Queen. Like many commentators, Hake focused on Elizabeth’s preservation during her half-​sister’s reign, claiming: “there was never mischief so desperat, or Treason so vile, or villany so greate or so deepe, as was the … intention to … destroye the sacred persone of our Elizabeth,” but thankfully, “God had reserved [her for] us” (B3v). Hake also clarified why he was turning to the past, telling his audience that this story “shalbee sufficient for the former parte of my present purpose”—​namely, the “pitifull calamities” that assailed England before Elizabeth succeeded to the throne (B4r). Hake then took these already overt examples of England’s providential favour and made God’s interventions explicit: God in his great mercy, looked uppon us as he did upon the Israelites in Egipte … sending unto us in highe tyme, this his holy handmayden, as it were another Moses, (saved from the same waters of affliction that wee were plunged in) to be our helper, & advanced her … to the Scepter and Dyadem of this (then a moste wofull) Realme.56

Elizabeth had saved the English from the bondage of the popish pharaoh and delivered them to the Promised Land of Protestantism, just as Moses had the Israelites all those centuries ago. Again, presenting England as the new Israel, Hake reminded the English of God’s direct intervention on their behalf. This linking went further than mere parallel: the only way that Hake could conceive of the deliverance of the English on November 17, 1558, was to conflate it with the Exodus. That Elizabeth was “another Moses” reinforces not only the way that the Bible served as a tool to understand the present, but also that God was clearly unbothered by gender. The themes of Hake’s oration were expanded upon in the accession day sermon preached in Lydd, Kent, by loyalist clergyman Isaac Colfe. The sermon was entered into the Stationers’ Register on December 23, 1587,57 and Colfe signed the dedication January 1, 1587/​8—​so his focus on Elizabeth’s deliverances in the months after Mary’s execution is unsurprising. The sermon, which took Psalm 118 as its text, is noteworthy for both 55 Edward Hake, An Oration Conteyning an Expostulation Aswell with the Queenes Highnesse faithfull Subjects for their want of due consideration of Gods blessings enjoyed by meanes of her Majestie (London, 1587; STC 12608), sig. A2v.

56 Hake, An Oration Conteyning an Expostulation, sig. B4r. Hake’s phrase, “holy handmayden,” has been used by several scholars as evidence of the cult of the Virgin Queen that was built up around Elizabeth—​even though the sentence actually depicts Elizabeth as a new Moses. A representative example is Strong, who argues that Hake celebrates how “God sent ‘his holy handmayden,’ who has brought peace and true religion,” without a single mention of the Moses analogy. Strong, “Popular Celebration of the Accession Day of Queen Elizabeth I,” 99–​100. 57 SRO2683, https://​sta​tion​ersr​egis​ter.onl​ine/​entry/​SRO2​683.

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the biblical analogies it contains and the explicit statement it made concerning the use of the biblical past in the present. Psalm 118 is primarily a thanksgiving to God and advocates reliance on Him rather than on human strength. Verse 23—​“This is the Lord’s doing; it is marvellous in our eyes” (which is repeated by Jesus in Matthew 21:42)—​was supposedly recited by Elizabeth when she received the news that her sister had died and she was now queen.58 There was hardly a more fit verse on which to base an accession day sermon. The first part of the sermon focused on verse 22: “The stone which the builders refused is become the head stone of the corner.” Making explicit the relevance of the biblical past, he told his audience: I am not come at this time into this place, worshipfull and beloved, historically to shew unto you what hath of old come to passe unto David of Israel: but chiefly, in consideration of the daie, by way of application to put you in minde, what hath been in your own daies done unto Elizabeth of England.59

To Colfe’s mind, God’s treatment of David and Elizabeth was the same, with both monarchs being the discarded stone that became the cornerstone. Building on these parallels, Colfe recounted Elizabeth’s providential favour—​particularly during the reign of her half-​sister. He noted the many “waies and meanes” that Mary’s wicked counsellors “devised and put in practise not onely to deprive her of ye Crown, but also of her head whereon the Crown should stand.” According to Colfe, the conflation was apt because “never did Saule & his coherents seeke more waies to destroy David, then they sought to destroy her” (B1v–​B2r). These parallels alone were not enough for Colfe, however, and he invoked further analogies to present to his audience the level of providential favour Elizabeth received. In addition to reiterating the example of David, he offered several other comparable deliverances: neither was David at any time in greater daunger of death being persecuted by Saul, nor Peter in greater perril of beheading being fast bound in ye prison by Herod, nor the three children [Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego] in greater danger of burning when they were in the hotte burning fornace. nor Daniel in greater danger of devouring when hee was in the Lions denne. nor Jonas in greater danger of death being alreadie devoured into the Whales belly swimming in the midst of the sea then shee was being in the hands of her enemies.60

58 This anecdote is widely recounted today, even though it first seems to have been made public in the account of Elizabeth’s reign written by Sir Robert Naunton and printed in 1641. Psalm 118:23 was long associated with Elizabeth (having been included on the Queen’s gold coins), but how Naunton, who was born almost four years after Elizabeth became queen, knew this story remains unclear. Robert Naunton, Fragmenta Regalia, Or, Observations on the Late Queen Elizabeth, Her Times and Favorits ([London], 1641; Wing N250), 5. For an example of an Elizabethan coin with the verse on it, see this gold sovereign via the British Museum: https://britis​hmus​eum.org/​col​lect​ ion/​obj​ect/​C_​E-​301.

59 Isaac Colfe, A Sermon Preached on the Queenes Day (London, 1588; STC 5552), sigs. B1r–​B1v. 60 Colfe, Sermon Preached on the Queenes Day, sigs. B2r–​B2v.

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This laundry list of examples may have belaboured Colfe’s point, but it further emphasizes the interchangeability between the (biblical) past and the present: Elizabeth’s deliverances were no different from those afforded to these biblical luminaries. It is also noteworthy that the examples Colfe used, despite being drawn from both Testaments and ranging across the class hierarchy, were all male: he saw no need to invoke Judith or Esther, for instance. Elizabeth was God’s chosen monarch just as David was, and like Daniel and Peter, she would be protected because she worshipped the true God. The Babington Plot was the last major domestic attempt to assassinate Elizabeth. This Catholic surrender was in large part because with the execution of Mary, Queen of Scots, there was no straightforward path to replacing Elizabeth with a Catholic. As I have stressed previously, the fear associated with the possibility of Elizabeth’s assassination was very real, and it should come as no surprise that a society with such high biblical literacy habitually turned to the deliverances recounted in the Bible to explain their Queen’s preservation. Daniel, David, and Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego were all saved from certain death by God’s intervention, and the idea that the angel who shut the mouths of the lions could be sent in the present to aid Elizabeth was altogether comforting. Colfe’s use of the example of Jonah is somewhat unusual, as the sea creature only swallowed Jonah because he tried to avoid delivering God’s judgment to the city of Nineveh. Read in hindsight, however, it is tempting to view this example prophetically. Regardless, in a matter of months after the sermon’s publication, Elizabeth and England would face their greatest challenge yet in “the midst of the sea”—​the Spanish Armada.

1588: The Deliverance that “passeth all others”

Of all the events in Elizabeth’s reign, the victory over the Spanish Armada in 1588 was interpreted as the most indisputable sign of England’s providential favour. As Paul Hammer notes, “Spain’s humiliation in 1588 became a staple of English propaganda,” and for the rest of Elizabeth’s reign, and through much of the seventeenth century, the triumph was frequently invoked—​either implicitly or explicitly—​at moments of religio-​ political tumult.61 Much ink, both scholarly and popular, has been spilled recounting everything from the lead up to the Armada’s departure from Spain in May 1588 until the remaining ships limped back to Spain via Ireland in October 1588.62 One aspect of the “Enterprise of England” that has yet to receive detailed attention, however, is the use 61 Paul E. J. Hammer, “The Catholic Threat and the Military Response,” in The Elizabethan World, ed. Susan Doran and Norman Jones (New York: Routledge, 2014), 640.

62 See, for instance: Garrett Mattingly, The Defeat of the Spanish Armada, 2nd ed. (London: Jonathan Cape, 1983); Roger Whiting, The Enterprise of England: The Spanish Armada (Stroud: Alan Sutton, 1988); Colin Martin and Geoffrey Parker, The Spanish Armada, rev. ed. (Manchester: Mandolin, 1999); James McDermott, England and the Spanish Armada: The Necessary Quarrel (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2005); and Rupert Matthews, The Spanish Armada: A Campaign in Context (Stroud: Spellmount, 2009).

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of biblical typology in the massive number of texts produced by all sides of the conflict during the Armada Crisis. Such a study deserves its own book, but by analyzing a range of examples from 1588 and 1589 that emphasize Elizabeth and England’s providential delivery, we can gain a greater understanding of the importance of biblical analogies more generally to Elizabethan religio-​political discourse. William Averell, echoing Michael Renniger, utilized several biblical figures to reassure Elizabeth of her divine favour, and to remind the English of the loyalty they owed to their queen. The pamphlet was entered into the Stationers’ Register on July 20, 1588—​only one day after the Armada was first sighted off the coast of Cornwall.63 Given the collapse of Elizabeth’s peace negotiations with the Duke of Parma on July 6, there could be little doubt that battle would occur sooner rather than later.64 A pamphleteer and schoolmaster, Averell’s A Mervailous Combat of Contrarieties is most famous as the source for Menenius’s fable of the belly in Shakespeare’s Coriolanus.65 The third part of the tract, which is often overlooked, was a prayer “for this troublesome time.” After thanking God for giving England a “most religious, vertuous, and gracious Queene,” Averell described Elizabeth’s reign to date: “she hath till this time bene a mother in England, and like a Deborah in Israel.” There could be no doubt that the English Deborah had protected her people thus far, but Averell knew that the coming fight would require even greater divine support. He thus beseeched God to make Elizabeth “a Jael to foyle Sisera, a Judith to vanquish Holophernes, and an happie Ester, to confound proud traitorous Haman with his posteritie.”66 There is a subtle distinction between these types. While the Hebrews were divinely protected during Deborah’s judgeship, Jael, Judith, and Esther were all strengthened by God to defeat a specific enemy. Sisera, Holofernes, and Haman were all generals or viziers to kings, so Averell was inviting his readers to view them as types for the Duke of Medina Sidonia, the Duke of Parma, and Philip II—​with the pope being their master. In the feverish period before the battle, Averell comforted his readers by asserting that just as God had strengthened these women to defeat His enemies, so too would He purge “our stinking channels of Popery.”67 In what was probably a more self-​serving engagement with the religio-​political climate, John Phillip—​whose 1570 tract A Frendly Larum was analyzed in the previous chapter—​saw the crisis as an opportune moment to publish a collection of godly prayers.68 It is unclear when in 1588 the pamphlet was written and published. The dedication to Robert Devereux, Earl of Essex, includes Knight of the Garter among his 63 SRO2746, https://​sta​tion​ersr​egis​ter.onl​ine/​entry/​SRO2​746.

64 Paul E. J. Hammer, Elizabeth’s Wars: War, Government and Society in Tudor England, 1544–​1604 (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2003), 145. 65 William Shakespeare, Coriolanus, ed. Peter Holland (London: Bloomsbury, 2013), 35–​36.

66 William Averell, A Mervailous Combat of Contrarieties (London, 1588; STC 981), sig. F2v. 67 Averell, Mervailous Combat of Contrarieties, sig. F2r.

68 These prayers may have been written by Frances Neville, Lady Abergavenny, some years prior. See Louise Horton, “‘Restore Me That Am Lost’: Recovering the Forgotten History of Lady Abergavenny’s Prayers,” Women’s Writing 26, no. 1 (2019): 3–​14.

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titles, giving the text a terminus a quo of April 24, 1588—​the date of Essex’s election to the Order.69 That the prayers are described as “published in these dangerous dayes of wickednesse” suggests that they were published shortly before the Armada’s defeat in August 1588, rather than in its aftermath. In “A godly and fruitfull prayer to be sayd in tyme of bloudy Battaile,” Phillip used biblical examples to show that God could, and would, give his chosen people a “speedy and safe deliveraunce” during periods of conflict. He reminded his readers how God sent the Hebrews Moyses to bring them out of the servitude of Pharao … another whyle Jepthah sette them free from the sworde of the Amonites, wherewith they were greevouslye afflicted, and to make thy power & excellent glory fully known, thou gavest Sampson suche fortitude to bridle ye prowde Philistians.70

These three figures are curious examples to invoke. Moses and Samson were both punished for disobeying God, and Jephthah liberated the Israelites after eighteen years of oppression under the Philistines and the Ammonites—​oppression that God allowed to happen because “the children of Israel wrought wickedness again in the sight of the Lord.”71 This disobedience or wickedness could be a reference to England’s return to the Catholic fold during Mary I’s reign, with Elizabeth’s accession and her restoration of the Church of England to Protestantism analogous to the actions of Moses, Jephthah, and Samson. The use of the three types could also, however, be a further hint at Phillip’s puritan leanings. The invading Spanish could be the Philistines and Ammonites that God was preparing to deliver the English to because they had failed to undertake further, godly reformation. Whatever the specific reason for invoking these three biblical figures, Phillip made clear that they were relevant to the present-​day English because the examples come from “the dayes of oure forefathers.” England was therefore the new Israel, and Phillip wanted his readers to see that just as God had delivered the Israelites in the Old Testament, He would likewise deliver the English from those “prowde Philistians,” the Catholics. Phillip then turned to examples that were more evocative of Elizabeth: Over and besides these, thou of thy love and myraculous goodnesse, hast made feeble women, mightie and victorious conquerours, Debora was a shield to thy people, Judith comforted the distressed Bethulians, and cut off ye head of prowd Holophernus … so good Lord, be thou nowe present with us … in this tyme of necessitie and trouble, [and] set thy hand to help and assist us agaynst the enemy.72

69 Arthur F. Kinney and Jane A. Lawson, eds., Titled Elizabethans: A Directory of Elizabethan Court, State, and Church Officers, 1558–​1603 (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2014), 186.

70 John Phillip, The Perfect Path to Paradice: Contayning divers most ghostly and wholsome Prayers, fruitfull and Christian Meditations, for the comfort of every afflicted conscience (London, 1588; STC 19872), sig. I3v. 71 Judges 10:6.

72 Phillip, Perfect Path to Paradice, sigs. I3v–​I4v.

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Phillip exaggerated the supposed Aristotelian weakness of women to emphasize God’s miraculous intervention on their behalf. The English should not be fearful that they have a “feeble” woman on the throne: instead, like Deborah and Judith, God will comfort and shield His (new) chosen people. The implicit contrast between the male and female types is worth considering. Deborah and Judith may be “feeble women,” but their devotion to God stands in stark contrast to the disobedience of Moses and Samson—​the former being prohibited from entering the Promised Land, and the latter blinded and imprisoned—​and the rash behaviour of Jephthah, who vowed, if the Israelites were to defeat the Ammonites, to sacrifice whatever would come out of the door of his house first, and was therefore forced to sacrifice his only child.73 Evidently, England’s female king was in a better position to receive God’s favour than some of her male predecessors, and Phillip reassured his readers that just as God delivered the Israelites on multiple occasions in the Old Testament, so would He do the same to the English in “this tyme of necessitie and trouble.” The final two examples from 1588 to be discussed were written after the Armada’s defeat. They both celebrate England’s victory, but warn that the Catholic threat was not yet defeated. Anthony Marten declared that he had been prompted to take up his pen “In the feare of final destruction … [which] was prevented by the great mercie of God, and the provident foresight of her excellent Majestie.”74 Despite this, Marten—​a steward of the Queen—​warned his readers that the Catholic threat had not altogether abated. The pamphlet was entered into the Stationers’ Register on September 2, with the authorization of the Archbishop of Canterbury—​less than two weeks after the Dean of St. Paul’s, Alexander Nowell, preached the first public sermon of thanksgiving for the Armada’s defeat on August 20.75 Marten’s pamphlet, which was both an exhortation to the English “to defend their Countrey … from the invasion of Enemies” as much as it was a celebration of God having “lately delivered us,” was liberally peppered with biblical examples. The first analogies echo those invoked after Regnans in Excelsis was issued: It is our Queene, the Lanterne and light of true Religion, that they so much envie, because shee hath reformed the Church in her owne kingdome. Hath she done any thing els[e]‌ then did those good kings of Israel, David, Ezechias and Josaphat?76

Elizabeth—​as a contemporary David, Hezekiah, and Jehoshaphat—​was completely justified in her religious settlement, meaning it was the Catholics who were ignoring 73 Judges 11:31, 34–​35.

74 Anthony Marten, An Exhortation, To stirre up the mindes of all her Majesties faithfull Subjects, to defend their Countrey in this dangerous time, from the invasion of Enemies (London, 1588; STC 17489), sig. A2r.

75 SRO2769, https://​sta​tion​ersr​egis​ter.onl​ine/​entry/​SRO2​769. There are no known copies of Nowell’s sermon. 76 Marten, An Exhortation, sig. B2v.

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the example provided by God. The mention of the lantern and light was meant to both draw on the idea of David as the light of Israel (as discussed in the previous chapter) and to remind the English of the spiritual darkness that Mary I’s revival of Catholicism had plunged the country into. Marten also suggests that Elizabeth’s gender has no bearing on her legitimacy and her royal supremacy—​a less-​than-​subtle counter to the Catholic propaganda that hailed Elizabeth as the “damned, excommunicated Jezebel.”77 The pamphlet concluded with two prayers that Marten claimed were “pronounced in her Majesties Chappell, and elswhere.” Whether this means Marten composed them is unclear, and I have been unable to find the prayers recorded elsewhere. Nevertheless, this does create the possibility that Elizabeth herself heard these prayers, which gives the analogy Marten invoked in the first prayer an even greater impact. He thanked God that He had “put into the hart of thy Servant Debora, to provide strength to withstand the pride of Cicera and his adherents” (F3r). Like Averell, Marten believed that in fulfilment of the Old Testament type, the English Deborah had defended her people and defeated a stronger enemy. The only way Marten could conceive of such an incredible victory was to depict Elizabeth as a contemporary Deborah—​and by doing so, he demonstrated the habitual practice of reading the present typologically. The use of the Deborah type does, however, contain an implicit warning. While the English Deborah withstood “the pride Cicera and his adherents,” the Catholic-​Canaanites were not defeated. Sisera-​Philip II was, after all, only the Pope-​Jabin’s general. As the pamphlet concluded, Marten went to great lengths to stress that the English still needed God’s help to “vanquish” the “Antichrist” (F4r). The example of David was also used by John Prime (whose 1585 accession day sermon was analyzed above) in his 1588 accession day sermon. This sermon applied “the consolations of David” to Elizabeth and used the first part of Psalm 23:4—​“Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for thou art with me”—​as its text. Like the 1585 sermon, the comparisons between Elizabeth and her biblical antecedent are more implicit than explicit. Near the end of the sermon, though, Prime made the connection overt: “God mollified the harts of some of her foes for his mercy sake at her praiers … and a daughter of David had as great deliveraunces as ever David had.” Elizabeth may have been a contemporary David, but Prime went further, claiming that “never [a]‌ Prince, no never creature had ever greater,” because “this late deliveraunce passeth all others.”78 While certainly hyperbolic, Prime again demonstrated the way that the present was habitually read through the lens of the Bible: just as David’s prayer to be spared from Saul was answered, so too was Elizabeth’s 77 In addition to Cardinal William Allen’s infamous diatribe against Elizabeth, which called Elizabeth “the wicked Jesabell,” Cristóbal de Virués penned a verse in which Elizabeth was decried as “maldita Gezabel descomulgada”—​that “damned, excommunicated Jezebel.” William Allen, An Admonition to the Nobility and People of England and Ireland ([Antwerp], 1588; STC 368), sig. A3r; Cristóbal de Virués, Obras Tragicas y Liricas (Madrid, 1609), 209v. 78 John Prime, The Consolations of David, Breefly Applied to Queene Elizabeth (Oxford, 1588; STC 20368), sigs. B2v, B5v.

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prayer for deliverance from the Spanish. Even more importantly, Prime sought to link the very recent past to the biblical past. The defeat of the Armada was merely the most recent example of God delivering His chosen people from their enemies, and by publishing this sermon, Prime implied that just as David’s many deliveries were celebrated, so too would Elizabeth’s be.

1589: The “continuall providence and preservation of God”

The jubilation that the victory over the Armada provoked is visible in the number of thanksgiving events held in London: five sermons were preached at St. Paul’s Cross;79 captured Spanish banners were hung from London Bridge; and after some delays, a public thanksgiving service was held at St. Paul’s Cathedral on November 24, 1589.80 The procession bore several similarities to Elizabeth’s coronation procession—​one of which was the Queen publicly offering a thanksgiving prayer. There is no account of the prayer that she uttered while knelt at the west door of the cathedral, but several other prayers that Elizabeth composed around the same time undoubtedly reflect what she would have prayed at the cathedral.81 In one of these surviving prayers, Elizabeth acknowledged that God’s “worthy providence … hast this year” served “both to daunt our foes and to confound their malice,” for which Elizabeth rendered her “humblest acknowledgments and lowliest thanks.” She then beseeched God to “give us the continuance in my days of like goodness.”82 Given the Queen’s acknowledgement of the role providence played in England’s victory, it is little surprise that her subjects also wholeheartedly claimed that divine intervention was responsible for the Armada’s defeat. The prayer survives as a copy among the papers of Sir Thomas Egerton—​Elizabeth’s Solicitor General, and later Attorney General, Master of the Rolls, and Lord Keeper.83 It contains a title probably added by Egerton himself: “A godly prayer and thanksgiving, worthy the [sic] Christian Deborah … of our days.”84 Such a heading not only shows the widespread acceptance that Elizabeth was indeed a contemporary Deborah, but also 79 Natalie Mears, “Paul’s Cross and Nationwide Special Worship, 1533–​1642,” in Paul’s Cross and the Culture of Persuasion in England, 1520–​1640, ed. Torrance Kirby and P. G. Stanwood (Leiden: Brill, 2004), 45, 45n19. 80 Arthur F. Marotti and Steven W. May, “Two Lost Ballads of the Armada Thanksgiving Celebration [with texts and illustration],” English Literary Renaissance 41, no. 1 (Winter 2011): 31–​40. Elizabeth also wrote a prayer, “Look and Bow Down,” which was set to music by William Byrd and sung by the Children of St Paul’s during the thanksgiving procession. Katherine Butler, Music in Elizabethan Court Politics (Woodbridge: Boydell, 2015), 87. 81 Leah S. Marcus, “Elizabeth on Ireland,” in Elizabeth I and Ireland, ed. Brendan Kane and Valerie McGowan-​Doyle (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2014), 55. 82 Collected Works, 424.

83 J. H. Baker, “Egerton, Thomas, first Viscount Brackley (1540–​1617),” ODNB, doi:10.1093/​ ref:odnb/​8594. 84 Collected Works, 424.

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serves as a reminder of the way that the events of “our days” were interpreted through the lens of the (biblical) past. A month after the Armada thanksgiving service, on December 24, Jean de Frégeville’s tract, The Reformed Politicke, was entered into the Stationers’ Register.85 The tract was an English translation of a French defence of “the generall cause of reformation” that was written in response to “slanders” from the pope and the Catholic League. It is unclear whether De Frégeville only wrote the French version, as no translator is mentioned, but this English translation closely follows the French version (both were entered into the Stationers’ Register at the same time) and retains the dedication to Henri III of France (even though Henri had been assassinated on August 2, 1589).86 Virtually nothing is known about De Frégeville—​his biggest claim to fame is that he is mentioned in several Marprelate Tracts because of his support of the English episcopacy—​but he was probably a French Huguenot who spent time in London.87 De Frégeville focuses on France throughout the tract, but he frequently used England as an example of a nation that had both “mainteined the puritie of Gods lawes these 30 yeares” (since Elizabeth’s accession) and “enjoyed an assured peace.” This was especially significant as England was “under the handes of a woman, and yet such Realmes as be governed by men have bene troubled” (62). Gender was clearly irrelevant to providential protection. This acknowledgement of Elizabeth’s gender likely explains the multiple parallels De Frégeville drew between Elizabeth and Deborah. After acknowledging God’s favour, and the “wisedome and vertue” that He had endowed Elizabeth, De Frégeville explained how this favour “hath bred her peace” and “given her the victorie over her enemies.” The reason for this victory, however, was because Elizabeth “is a second Debora triumphing over Sisara, and judging Israell under a Palme tree.”88 In addition to depicting Philip II as a Sisera, De Frégeville demonstrated the reverberation of biblical types down the centuries. He then made the conflation between Elizabeth and Deborah complete, stating that “under this Palme tree doth our Debora judge Gods people, having mainteined the governement and state of the Clergie, which God hath ordeined by his law, and confirmed in the Gospell.” De Frégeville was asserting here that episcopacy had biblical precedent, equating England’s peace and security with the correct following of God’s word. Significantly, De Frégeville went further than the other examples analyzed in this book when he gave Elizabeth an international role in the Reformation. He first used another biblical example to explain the defeat of the Catholics: “The Giant Golia[t]‌h 85 SRO2845, https://​sta​tion​ersr​egis​ter.onl​ine/​entry/​SRO2​845.

86 The French version is SRO2844, https://​sta​tion​ersr​egis​ter.onl​ine/​entry/​SRO2​844. The future Henri IV is repeatedly mentioned in the tract as “the king of Navarre.” 87 Joseph L. Black, ed., The Martin Marprelate Tracts: A Modernized and Annotated Edition (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008), 273n76.

88 Jean de Frégeville, The Reformed Politicke. That is, An Apologie for the Generall Cause of Reformation, Written Against the Sclaunders of the Pope and the League (London, 1589; STC 11372), 63.

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was overthrowne by a shepheard, yet was that shepheard a man: and behold here two Golia[t]hs, the Pope and the King of Spaine, armed from top to toe, to cause them selves to be beaten by a woman.” Like the earlier mention of Elizabeth’s gender, De Frégeville thought that being defeated by a woman added insult to injury. He then made clear why Elizabeth was an example to be emulated, claiming he celebrate[d]‌ the praise of the Christianly Reformed Debora, who with her Atlanticke shoulder, leaning upon the Devine favor, hath upholden … the Clericall estate under the Reformation. Neither call I her the English Debora, but the Christian Debora, because the good that she hath done to the Church in upholding the state of the Clergie, redoundeth not to England onely, but to all Christendome.89

The “Atlanticke shoulder” referred to both the defeat of the Armada and Elizabeth’s privateering actions, demonstrating the contemporary context on which the text drew. De Frégeville then concluded by expressing his hope that in “taking example of this Princesse, to preserve the state of the Clergie,” so would all the “other places … that shall convert to Reformation.” Elizabeth’s international role in the expansion of Protestantism was asserted, with De Frégeville explicit in his belief that the Church of England was a model that all Christendom should adopt. The Christian Deborah was, for De Frégeville, undoubtedly the reason for England’s safety, because she maintained a church that followed the word of God, abandoned the pope, and resisted the abolition of episcopacy advocated by puritans and presbyterians. De Frégeville hoped that England’s successes and Elizabeth’s protection would serve as catalysts for Europe to undergo further Reformation, and by expressing this wish through a biblical analogy, he demonstrated the widespread practice of turning to the Old Testament to understand the present. Elizabeth summoned the seventh parliament of her reign in September 1588 in anticipation of needing funds to fight the Spanish. When it became clear that there was no such necessity, Elizabeth prorogued the opening of the parliament until February 4, 1589, over her (entirely justified) concerns that MPs would again seek to debate topics she viewed as wholly falling under royal prerogative—​namely religious and foreign policy.90 Despite some clashes, the parliament proceeded with only minor conflicts between MPs and Elizabeth, and she secured an unprecedented double subsidy to prepare further defences.91 The threat of Spain remained a live issue, and in the closing session of the parliament, on March 29, a joint petition from both Houses was submitted, asking Elizabeth to formally declare war on Spain.92 Elizabeth never took this step, although in only a few months, MPs would come to regret such a request. 89 De Frégeville, Reformed Politicke, 64.

90 Tudor Royal Proclamations, Volume III: The Later Tudors (1588–​1603), ed. Paul. L Hughes and James F. Larkin (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1969), 27–​28.

91 J. E. Neale, Elizabeth I and Her Parliaments, 1584–​1601 (London: Jonathan Cape, 1957), 203–​15. 92 T. E. Hartley, ed., Proceedings in the Parliaments of Elizabeth I, Volume II: 1584–​1589 (London: Leicester University Press, 1995), 493.

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Given the scale of the defeat, it is unsurprising that the Spanish attempted to downplay the losses they sustained from the Armada campaign. In late 1588 and in 1589, a variety of tracts were published in England that sought to refute Spanish lies about the losses England had sustained (which intended to convince readers that both navies suffered similar losses), and to emphasize the providential nature of England’s victory.93 One such tract, An Answer to the Untruthes, published and printed in Spaine, in glorie of their supposed victorie atchivued against our English Navie, was entered into the Stationers’ Register on February 1, 1589.94 It is an English translation by Elizabethan translator James Lea of a Spanish text; what this original Spanish text was, however, is unclear. J. N. Hillgarth has suggested that the pamphlet was an original creation, with the invention of a fictional Spanish author intended to heighten the rhetorical impact of Lea’s propaganda-​like defence of England’s navy.95 This is entirely possible: the letters that the pamphlet responds to had previously been published in 1588 in a quasi-​official text, A Packe of Spanish Lyes sent abroad in the World (which was printed by deputies of Christopher Barker, the Queen’s printer), and no specific Spanish text has been identified as the source for this “answer.”96 In addition, as Alan Nelson has noted, the pamphlet was entered into the Stationers’ Register under Walsingham’s hand, suggesting that it was a quasi-​official commission.97 The entry, however, actually says: “Entred for his copie, under Sir Frauncis walsinghams hand and master Coldockes. An answere to the untruthes published in Spaine against the English navie. Wrytten. in the Spanish tonge by a Spanyard.” It seems that scholars have misinterpreted the entry and the pamphlet. Lea’s pamphlet is instead a translation of a Spanish “answer” to the “falsehoods published in Spain” (that is, more general false claims in Spain rather than a specific 93 See Meaghan J. Brown, “‘The Hearts of All Sorts of People Were Enflamed’: Manipulating Readers of Spanish Armada News,” Book History 17, no. 1 (2014): 94–​116; and John J. McAleer, “Ballads on the Spanish Armada,” Texas Studies in Literature and Language 4, no. 4 (Winter 1963): 602–​12. 94 SRO2867, https://​sta​tion​ersr​egis​ter.onl​ine/​entry/​SRO2​867.

95 J. N. Hillgarth, The Mirror of Spain, 1500–​1700: The Formation of a Myth (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2000), 386. Hillgarth sees the pamphlet as being a creation like Burghley’s “Leigh” letter. This letter, which was published in 1588 in English, Dutch, and French, was purportedly by the recently executed Catholic priest Richard Leigh and sent to the former Spanish ambassador to England, Bernardino de Mendoza. Burghley’s ‘Leigh’ claimed that “God shewed no favour to the Spanishe Navy from the beginning to the ending,” which stands in stark contrast to “the great goodnes of God towards England.” [William Cecil], The Copie of a Letter sent out of England to Don Bernardin Mendoza (London, 1588; STC 15413), 17, 38; Hillgarth, The Mirror of Spain, 385; Lake, Bad Queen Bess?, 312–​21.

96 See A Packe of Spanish Lyes sent abroad in the World: First printed in Spaine in the Spanish tongue, and translated out of the originall. Now ripped up, unfolded, and by just examination condemned, as conteyning false, corrupt, and detestable wares, worthy to be damned and burned (London, 1588; STC 23011). 97 Alan H. Nelson, Monstrous Adversary: The Life of Edward de Vere, 17th Earl of Oxford (Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 2003), 312–​13.

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tract) that was written by the Spaniard signing himself “D. F. R. de M.”98 Regardless, what interests me here is the way that England’s victories were read typologically, with these typologies appearing in both the English and Spanish pamphlets. Biblical analogies were central to the pamphlet’s response to Spanish merchant Juan de Gamarra’s letter from August 31, 1588, which had claimed that the English had lost forty ships in their pursuit of the Armada’s remnants off the coast of Scotland.99 No such battle took place, and the writer emphasized that the scale of the Armada’s defeat meant the Spanish felt compelled to lie about subsequent engagements. Implicitly comparing the English with the Hebrews, and Philip II with pharaoh, the writer observed how “The pride of a Pharao in Egypt, God confounded by the waters of the red sea,” so “the pride of your hautie Armada hath he confounded in the Ocean sea.”100 Again asserting the providential nature of England’s victory, these references feature Elizabeth as a contemporary Moses, leading her people through the dangers of the Red Sea to safety. What was implicit soon became explicit. The pamphlet clarified that if De Gamarra had properly considered “the valor of the Queenes Majestie, hir courage and greatnes,” he would “not dare to publish such falshoods.” For the writer, the only way to conceive of Elizabeth’s “greatnes” was to equate her to her biblical antecedents, asserting that it was necessary to “compare hir with Hester for humilitie; in compassion to an Abigail; in prudencie and valor to a Debora; and in courage to a Judith” (13). As the contemporary embodiment of these four Old Testament luminaries, Elizabeth’s—​and by extension England’s—​favour was asserted, with the Spanish presented as God’s enemies. By the time the pamphlet was entered into the Stationers’ Register, the Armada danger was over: the attempted invasion of Ireland was thwarted, and the remnants of the fleet had returned to Spain. The regime was clearly riding high on the back of the Armada’s defeat—​so much so that they decided to press what they saw as their advantage. Intending to capitalize on Philip’s temporary weakness, the English planned their own armada that would burn the Spanish Atlantic fleet (which was in port undergoing repairs), land in Portugal and foment a rebellion there against Philip, and ideally capture the returning Spanish treasure ships from the Americas. Faced with such disastrous losses, the English believed Philip would have no choice but to sue for peace. Such lofty plans, however, were marred by constant delays and supply deficits; plans for

98 The title of the Spanish version is revealing: the plural of “falsehoods” suggests there is no specific tract that it is referencing. D. F. R. de M., Respuesta y desengano contra las falsedades publicadas en España enbituperio de la armada Inglesa [A Response and Corrective to the falsehoods published in Spain denigrating the English navy] (London, 1589; STC 17131).

99 The letter is dated September 31, 1588, in both the Spanish and English versions (in the 1588 edition it is dated August 31), which further suggests that the English tract was a translation of the Spanish pamphlet.

100 D. F. R. de M., An Answer to the Untruthes, published and printed in Spaine, in glorie of their supposed victorie atchieued against our English Navie, trans. James Lea (London, 1589; STC 17132), 12.

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a late March departure were revised multiple times, and the fleet finally left Plymouth on April 28, 1589.101 The enterprise was an unmitigated disaster: forty ships were lost, the expeditionary force sustained heavy casualties (at least fifteen thousand soldiers died or were killed), disease was rampant among the survivors, and despite several landings and sieges, the English only managed to secure about £30,000 worth of loot—​against costs of over £100,000.102 The failure of the English Armada was a sobering wake-​up call, and it is unsurprising that the regime went to such great lengths to hide the failure. This cover-​ up was extremely successful: even today, most people are unaware that the English Armada of 1589 happened at all, let alone that it suffered greater losses than the Spanish Armada the previous year.103 As clergyman Francis Trigge noted in his apology for the Reformation, setbacks like the failure of this counter-​armada were sent by God to keep the English humble: “to trye us whether wee will sticke to his worde alone or no.”104 Tellingly, Trigge claimed that “These waves try our faith,” and were meant “to shake off our drowsines” because Trigge’s compatriots “are deafe at the preaching of his worde.”105 This “deaf[ness]” to God’s word was particularly visible in the dual threats the Church of England faced in the late 1580s. In addition to the Catholic threat, Elizabethan puritans continued to agitate that the English Church undergo further reformation, and their increasingly vocal cries could not be ignored. Matters came to a head in late 1588, when the first of seven Marprelate tracts was published. Arguing against episcopacy and for the imposition of presbyterianism in England, the tracts were immediately controversial and elicited public responses from both clergyman and popular writers (including Robert Greene and John Lyly).106 In mid-​1589, Leonard Wright—​a gentleman moralist and pamphleteer—​published his second of three defences of Elizabeth’s church and episcopacy, The Hunting of the Antichrist.107 Nothing is known of Wright after 1591, so it 101 Luis Gorrochategui Santos, The English Armada: The Greatest Naval Disaster in English History, trans. Peter J. Gold (London: Bloomsbury, 2018), 41. 102 Santos, English Armada, 245.

103 Santos, English Armada, 2–​4, 250.

104 Francis Trigge, An Apologie, or Defence of our dayes, against the vaine murmurings and complaints of manie (London, 1589; STC 24276), 18. 105 Trigge, Apologie, 35.

106 Joseph L. Black, “Introduction,” in The Martin Marprelate Tracts: A Modernized and Annotated Edition, ed. Joseph L. Black (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008), lxii. See also Kristin M. S. Bezio, “Markets, Machinations, and Martin Marprelate: The Marketplace of Publication and Espionage Surrounding the Marprelate Controversy,” in Religion and the Early Modern British Marketplace, ed. Kristin M. S. Bezio and Scott Oldenburg (New York: Routledge, 2021), 149–​70; and Patrick Collinson, Richard Bancroft and Elizabethan Anti-​Puritanism (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013), 60–​74.

107 J. Sears McGee, “Wright, Leonard (d. in or after 1591),” ODNB, doi:10.1093/​ref:odnb/​30047. The tract was entered into the Stationers’ Register on June. SRO2905, https://​sta​tion​ersr​egis​ter. onl​ine/​entry/​SRO2​905. The third defence, A Friendly admonition to Martine Marprelate, and his Mates, was published in 1590 (STC 26030).

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is unclear if his defences were rewarded, although his tracts did elicit caustic responses from Marprelate.108 In his defence of the Queen and her bishops, Wright suggested that the favour England and Elizabeth had received could only be interpreted as divine approval of the Elizabethan Church. According to Wright, Elizabeth was God’s “faythfull annoynted handmayde” who had, because of her divine favour, been preserved from “so many horrible and treacherous conspiracies, both forreine & domesticall,” and was rightly called “that famous woonder [sic] of the worlde.”109 Like De Frégeville, Wright seems to hint that God sent Elizabeth not only for the English, but also for all nations—​a point that might be intended to underscore the pre-​eminence of the English Church, which both Catholic and Protestant nations alike should emulate.110 Wright then claimed that Elizabeth was the “seventh vertuous Prince since William the Conquerour.” In describing the other six “vertuous” monarchs, Wright paralleled them with biblical figures: Henry II had “the fortitude of Josua,” Edward III had the “magnanimity of Gedeon,” Henry V had the “triumphant victories of Machabeus,” Henry VII had the “prudent wisdome of Salomon,” Henry VIII had the “zealous affection” of Hezekiah, and Edward VI the “godly devotion of David.”111 Elizabeth, however, surpassed her predecessors by being the contemporary embodiment of four Old Testament luminaries. She hath most valiantly with honourable Judith, cut off the heade of proud Holifernes. With faithful Debora, delivered Israel from the tyrannie of Sisera. With vertuous Hester, endangered her owne life to save her people and defende the truth. With godly Josia[h]‌, cleansed the land from Idolatrie, and restored Religion to the children of God.112

Wright conflated the Hebrews of the Old Testament with the present-​day English, knowing that his readers would understand, for instance, that Holofernes and Sisera were types for Philip II and Catholics. What is particularly noteworthy here is that Elizabeth is the only monarch to be conflated with a biblical figure of the opposite sex. While the biblical examples of women who “restored Religion” are lacking (Miriam and Huldah are the only ones who might possibly suffice), Wright could have just used the three female examples and focused on Elizabeth’s protection of her people. By relating Elizabeth’s actions to those of Josiah, Wright emphasized that her authority in religious matters was equal to that of the Old Testament kings, and thus her gender was vindicated. Moreover, it is intriguing that Elizabeth was conflated with Josiah here 108 Black, Martin Marprelate Tracts, 273n75.

109 Leonard Wright, The Hunting of Antichrist (London, 1589; STC 26031), 14, 15.

110 In his first Marprelate response, Wright castigated those “in Germanie” who “sow Schismes in the Church” with their “hipocritical puritie” and by “condemming our christian order in baptizing of Infants”—​that is, the Anabaptists in Münster. Leonard Wright, A Summons for Sleepers (London, 1589; STC 26033.5), 22. 111 Wright, Hunting of Antichrist, 14.

112 Wright, Hunting of Antichrist, 14–​15.

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when, as I have already discussed, Edward was more often compared to the Hebrew boy-​king. Possibly, given that David was punished for his disobedience at the end of his life, Wright wanted to avoid implicitly suggesting this would be the case with Elizabeth, so he instead used David for a boy-​king whose early death, and the country’s subsequent return to Catholicism, was widely perceived as God’s punishment for England’s sins.113 Wright may have used common biblical types in his defence of the Elizabethan Church, but the four figures he selected suggest serious thought: for instance, by not comparing Edward VI to Josiah, Wright was able to use the type of Elizabeth. Likewise, the examples used for Elizabeth suggest special favour, and emphasize her protection of the English people. While Henry V had the “triumphant victories of Machabeus,” the English Deborah delivered the new Israel “from the tyrannie of Sisera”; while Henry VIII had the “zealous affection” of Hezekiah, Elizabeth “cleansed the land from Idolatrie” as a contemporary Josiah. Elizabeth’s successes are presented as being greater than those of her male predecessors. This was, almost certainly, meant to flatter the Queen—​but it was not only flattery. The potential consequences of the Armada landing on English soil cannot be overstated: Elizabeth was in no position to repel the assault that would have ensued, and the Spanish would fairly quickly have captured London—​and as had been the case during the Northern Rebellion, it is likely that London’s Protestant landmarks (especially St. Paul’s Cathedral) would have been desecrated by the celebration of Catholic masses. For a loyalist like Wright, such an outcome was unthinkable. It is therefore unsurprising that Wright vehemently disapproved of puritans who agitated for further reform as, in his mind, the church was clearly already favoured by God. The best way that Wright could conceptualize this divine favour, both during Elizabeth’s reign and in the reigns of the other “vertuous” monarchs, was thus to link it to the events of the Old Testament, and to again remind the English that just as Deborah, Judith, and Esther had saved God’s chosen people in the past, so too would Elizabeth protect God’s new chosen people in the present. The Accession Day sermon preached by loyalist clergyman and professor of divinity Thomas White at St. Paul’s Cross also acknowledged the “continuall providence and preservation of God,” who had protected Elizabeth “from so many, and manifest daungers, both before and after the wearing of the Crowne.”114 As Elizabeth entered her thirty-​second year as queen, White thought it appropriate, within the context of the recent victory over the Armada, to describe the various examples of favour Elizabeth (and England) had received, and to link these examples to biblical precedents. As part of 113 Susan Doran, “A ‘Sharp Rod’ of Chastisement: Mary I through Protestant Eyes during the Reign of Elizabeth I,” in Mary Tudor: Old and New Perspectives, ed. Susan Thomas and Thomas S. Freeman (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2011), 21.

114 Thomas White, A Sermon Preached at Paules Crosse the 17. of November An. 1589. In joyfull remembrance and thanksgiving unto God, for the peaceable yeres of her Majesties most gratious Raigne over us, now 32 (London 1589; STC 25407), 51; Stephen Wright, “White, Thomas (1550–​ 1624),” ODNB, doi:10.1093/​ref:odnb/​29273. The sermon was entered into the Stationers’ Register on November 22, 1589. SRO2967, https://​sta​tion​ersr​egis​ter.onl​ine/​entry/​SRO2​967.

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his “Exhortation unto Thanksgiving, for the happie Raigne of Queene Elizabeth,” White summarized what he saw as the Old Testament parallels for Elizabeth’s providential favour: “Shee hath come through manie Daungers to the Crowne, as David; yet God hath given hir Plentie with Salomon: Shee hath Restored Religion with Josias, but shee hath Paide for it with Ezechias” (52). The best way to conceive of Elizabeth’s actions was, therefore, to read them typologically. Like Prime in 1585, White made explicit the serious theological point of invoking analogies, telling his audience “I do not say shee exceedeth these [examples], to flatter hir, but I say shee resembleth them, to comfort us” (52). That God was intervening in human affairs to preserve Elizabeth was an entirely comforting thought, and like many of his compatriots, White saw the events of the Bible as prefiguring the present. To ensure that there could be no doubt as to Elizabeth’s resemblance to these four biblical figures, White expounded on the comparisons. First: For Dangers, whether shee resemble David or no? Consider yee: He afraid of Saule, and shee of hir Sister. And who was worse beset, he, with Saul before, and Absolon behinde; or shee, set betweene two (Marahs)115 the one Crowned before hir, the other shrewdlie hastening to hir Crowne … you shal find hir dangers verie manie, and more then either you know, or can know.116

The parallels between David and Elizabeth are self-​evident, but White’s specific mention of Absalom is noteworthy. Like Absalom, who was killed for the good of Israel, so Mary, Queen of Scots, was executed for the good of the new Israel—​meaning that Elizabeth’s actions were vindicated. David had been distraught at the death of his favourite son, and the parallel might have meant to acknowledge the difficulty Elizabeth had in making the decision. Nevertheless, White claimed that Elizabeth “did suffer long, and too long, almost before shee tooke the Sword in hande,” insinuating that Elizabeth’s prevarication could have had disastrous consequences for England’s Protestantism—​had she not taken up the sword in time.117 White read Solomon’s “Plentie” a little more creatively, as Elizabeth could not rival her Hebrew antecedent’s wealth. He did, however, point out that Elizabeth’s (and England’s) plenty could be seen when her reign was compared “with Marie for Corn, with Edward for Coine, and with Henrie for quietnes” (53). As White knew, the repeated failure of harvests under Mary and the rampant inflation and currency debasement under Edward VI had not reoccurred during Elizabeth’s rule. The claim that England had enjoyed “quietnes” under Elizabeth is somewhat of an exaggeration, especially given 115 It is possible that White was drawing on Exodus 15:23 for his conflation of “Mary” and “Marah,” with the intent to mar both Mary’s actions as being out of bitterness for Elizabeth: “And when they [the Children of Israel] came to Marah, they could not drink of the waters of Marah, for they were bitter: therefore the name of the place was called Marah.” The Geneva Version even included a marginal note on the last Marah, “Or, bitterness.” I thank Susan Doran for this suggestion. 116 White, A Sermon Preached, 53. 117 White, A Sermon Preached, 59.

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the Armada, but the use of “Henrie” alone here probably invited his audience to think about the rebellions and uprisings both Henry VII and Henry VIII faced, which, when considered together, were certainly more perilous. “Josias restored Religion, and not onelie so, but reformed the Temple,” White claimed, which Elizabeth likewise did. Josiah’s godliness meant that it was written in the Bible “That like unto him, there was not a King before, neither rose there anie such in Israel after him.” White, rather cleverly, asserted that the first part of that injunction, “wee doe both say, and thinke, of our most gratious Queene.” Regarding the second part, “(if ever it should please God to give hir a Successor) we would be loath to say” (54). Obviously, White did not think that Elizabeth would live forever, but by leaving the question of succession open, he neatly side-​stepped that religio-​political minefield, instead choosing to emphasize Elizabeth’s paramountcy among her predecessors. White’s explanation of Elizabeth’s similarity to Hezekiah is incredibly detailed, and far longer than the other three comparisons. In addition to equating Hezekiah’s destruction of the brass snake idol with Elizabeth’s purging of popery in the Church of England, it largely revolved around the similarities between the “Prowde and Peereles Invasion, made by the Popish Senacherib, the king of Ashur; who openly Pretended, the cause of his quarrell to be our Religion” and “the Soules that perished in the deepe … when hee that came riding on the wings of the wind, delt with Phillip as he did with Pharao.”118 As in the days of Hezekiah, God had preserved His people from invasion, but White used the example to offer a warning: “But in the meane time, let us take heed, for the Divell is not dead. Nor Zenacherib daunted, for all his ill successe, his Malice wil not let him rest, for he prepareth againe, and meanes to make his seconde comming worse then the first.”119 In the aftermath of the failed English Armada, and as rumours that Philip would send a second armada abounded, White urged vigilance, and exhorted the English to always “bee founde faithfull, and to be thankefull unto him.” White’s sermon emphasizes the way that the present informed the use of analogies but did not necessarily dictate their use. The conflation of Elizabeth and Hezekiah was evidently intended to reflect on the victory over the Armada; the comparisons with Josiah and Solomon were a more general comment on Elizabeth’s godliness and providential favour; and the conflation with David highlighted the continued applicability of the Old Testament past to the present as a means to understand God’s dealings with Elizabeth and the English. Certainly, there was an element of flattery in these somewhat belaboured examples, but the male biblical figures White used to explain Elizabeth’s actions and protection suggest not only that Elizabeth was the contemporary embodiment of a divinely favoured Old Testament monarch, but also that the new Israel would be protected just as the old Israel had—​as long as England’s Protestantism was maintained, that is. 118 White, A Sermon Preached, 54, 57. 119 White, A Sermon Preached, 58.

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The final example from 1589 does something slightly different to the other examples discussed because it demonstrates that while analogies were often cited within specific religio-​political circumstances, they were also habitually used as a way to interpret the present. Richard Hakluyt’s Principall Navigations may seem to be an odd place to invoke a typology for Elizabeth, but the type used nevertheless reinforces the way that the Bible saturated virtually every aspect of Elizabethan life. The tract is dedicated to Francis Walsingham, and in the epistle, Hakluyt emphasizes that Elizabeth is continuing a process of colonization begun by “the kings of this land before her.” In the premodern period, colonization was viewed as an inherently masculine act: it is therefore no surprise that Hakluyt depicts Elizabeth as the contemporary embodiment of an Old Testament king. He began by noting that Henry VIII had intended to spread the gospel (that is, Protestantism) by colonization, “if death had not prevented him.” However, Hakluyt understood that all was not lost, noting that “as the purpose of David the king [was] to builde a house and temple to God,” it was Solomon who “performed it.” Such a two-​step process had likewise occurred in England, a modern-​day Israel: “the zeale … of the aforesaid most renowmed prince may seeme no lesse worthy” in “the person of our Salomon her gratious Majesty, whome I feare not to pronounce to have received the same Heroicall spirit … as an inheritance from her famous father.”120 To Hakluyt’s mind, not only was Elizabeth a contemporary Solomon, but she was also depicted as the undisputed successor of the Davidic Henry VIII. In building on Henry’s regular association with David, Hakluyt was typologizing England’s Reformation: Henry VIII made the initial plans and gathered the resources (just like David), but Elizabeth was chosen by God to complete the task and sent to the English as a second Solomon. While the tract was entered into the Stationers’ Register on September 1, the dedication is dated November 17, meaning Hakluyt was almost certainly seeking to commemorate the accession of the English Solomon and the resulting birth of England’s Protestantism.121 In the aftermath of the Spanish Armada’s defeat, Hakluyt could take comfort from the irrefutable truth that English Protestant expansionism was not only providentially favoured, but also divinely mandated.

1590: Queen Assailed

In about 1590, Elizabeth wrote to the new King of France, Henri IV. The letter was probably written in the aftermath of the Huguenot victory at the Battle of Ivry in March 1590—​a victory that was only made possible with the troops Elizabeth had sent.122 Henri had succeeded to the French throne in August 1589 after the assassination of his distant cousin, Henri III. As a Protestant, he faced significant resistance to his rule, especially 120 Richard Hakluyt, The Principall Navigations, Voiages and Discoveries of the English nation, made by Sea or over Land, to the most remote and farthest distant Quarters of the earth at any time within the compasse of these 1500. yeeres (London, 1589; STC 12625), sig. *3r. 121 SRO2940, https://​sta​tion​ersr​egis​ter.onl​ine/​entry/​SRO2​940. 122 Hammer, Elizabeth’s Wars, 175–​77.

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from the Catholic League (which was supported by Philip II). Elizabeth and her council agreed that allowing France to fall under Philip’s influence would be disastrous for England. In her letter, Elizabeth counselled Henri to take “courage” against the Catholic League, before saying: “Perhaps you will scorn this counsel as coming from a woman’s fearful heart, but when you remember how many times I have not shown too much fear in my breast of pistols and swords that have been prepared for me, this thought will pass.”123 Whatever was publicly said about Elizabeth’s resolve, the various plots against her had evidently taken their toll. Elizabeth, however, concluded the letter by exhorting Henri to pray to God “to preserve you as the darling of His eye.”124 This recourse to providence is not that far removed from its invocations in the texts analyzed here. Elizabeth’s letters to fellow monarchs were characteristically full of advice and counsel. In particular, James VI’s frustration at Elizabeth’s constant suggestions (and her anger when he ignored this advice) is well known.125 But in July 1590, Elizabeth wrote to James about “a sect of perilous consequence” that she believed was threatening to engulf both their kingdoms: presbyterianism.126 She proceeded to exhort James to “stop the mouths or to make shorter the tongues of such ministers as dare presume to make oration in their pulpits for the persecuted in England for the Gospel.”127 Those agitating for further, godly reform were evidently frustrating Elizabeth, and it is possible to see how Elizabeth was wedged between two threats—​the Catholic threat on one side and the puritan threat on the other—​especially in the aftermath of the Marprelate Controversy. Sometime during 1590, and possibly in Edinburgh, An Humble Motion was published. The tract stresses that it is intended for the members of Elizabeth’s Privy Council, in the hopes that England will undergo further reformation—​although many of its suggestions could only be implemented with the Queen’s assent. It is often attributed to John Penry, a presbyterian whose vocal calls for additional reform, as well as his helping to print (and possibly write) many of the Marprelate tracts, led to his execution in May 1593.128 Penry’s authorship is by no means certain, and other than the fact that he was in 123 Elizabeth I: Autograph Compositions and Foreign Language Originals, ed. Janel Mueller and Leah S. Marcus (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2003), 95. Translated by Joseph Massey. Original French: “Peult estre que Vous mespriseres Ce Conseil comme Sortant d’un Coeur paoureux de femme mais Quant il Vous Souviendra par combien de fois Ie n’ay monstre trop de Craincte a mon sein de Pistols et Espees qui m’ont este prepare ceste pancee passera.” 124 Collected Works, 364.

125 See Rayne Allinson, “Conversations on Kingship: The Letters of Queen Elizabeth I and King James VI,” in The Rituals and Rhetoric of Queenship, Medieval to Early Modern, ed. Liz Oakley-​Brown and Louise J. Wilkinson (Dublin: Four Courts Press, 2009), 131–​44; and Susan Doran, “Loving and Affectionate Cousins? The Relationship between Elizabeth I and James VI of Scotland, 1586–​1603,” in Tudor England and its Neighbours, ed. Susan Doran and Glenn Richardson (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2005), 203–​34. 126 Collected Works, 364. 127 Collected Works, 365.

128 Claire Cross, “Penry, John (1562/​3–​1593),” ODNB, doi:10.1093/​ref:odnb/​21894; Collinson, Richard Bancroft and Elizabethan Anti-​Puritanism, 72. “Martin Marprelate” is now generally agreed

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Edinburgh around the time the tract was published (having escaped England after his house was raided in January 1590), there is no clear evidence that it was written by Penry. Even so, the tract is clearly written by a puritan who hoped to encourage further reform of the English church and who was skeptical of the role of bishops, and it should be read as such. As the emphasis on the counsel to the Privy Council made clear, the tract goes to great lengths to assert the author’s loyalty to Elizabeth, lest the counsel be read as a stinging rebuke. The tract proper begins with the author recalling “the wofull estate of this land, before the happye entrance of the gracious raygne of our deare Soveraigne, Queene Elizabeth, (whom God long continue & preserve).” The “wofull estate” of England refers, of course, to the evils of Catholicism, with the author bemoaning the “forrain and usurped power of the Romish Antichrist,” which was “injurious to the common-​ wealth, and cruell to the true members of Christs church.”129 Elizabeth’s accession had banished the “the Romish Antichrist” from England, but the author believed that more could be done to “seeke the prosperous estate of this land.” In addition, the author linked Elizabeth’s safety with further changes to the Church, implying that God would only continue to preserve the Queen if the Church was “reformed after the worde of God.” To make their point, the author turned to the precedent of the Old Testament, using the example of Solomon’s construction of the temple in Jerusalem to justify calls for additional reform. Solomon “was admired & sought to of all people,” and he ensured “the glory, wealthe, and peace of his kingdome.” Much of this admiration was because “hee builded the materiall temple after the patterne given him of God.” Solomon’s example was clearly important, but the author emphasized its contemporary relevance: Is there not a greater than Salomon with us, and shall not the glory of our Queene and countrye, be as great, if we in the building of the spirituall temple, use no other platforme, but that which God doth send unto us?130

The conflation of Elizabeth and Solomon was evidently meant to be flattering, and it also highlights the transferability of attributes (in this case, divine wisdom) between figures. Just as Solomon and the Israelites were blessed for ensuring that God had a suitable place to rest, and for ensuring that God was properly worshipped, Elizabeth and the English would be blessed if the English church underwent further, godly reformation. There could, it seems, be no arguing with that logic. Elizabeth may be England’s Solomon, but the author does imply that there could be consequences for not engaging in further reformation. Later in the pamphlet, the author described how “by the orders of Christ, the Queenes safty is best provided for.”131 to have been Warwickshire gentleman and MP, Job Throckmorton, although Penry probably wrote parts of the tracts. See Black, “Introduction,” xxxiv–​xlvi.

129 An Humble Motion With Submission Unto the Right Honorable LL. of Hir Majesties Privie Counsell ([Edinburgh], 1590; STC 7754), 6. 130 An Humble Motion, 29. 131 An Humble Motion, 90.

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On the surface, this acknowledges that providence was Elizabeth’s best defence: divine protection was better than anything humans could offer. At the same time, though, there is a threatening undercurrent to this observation. Christ could, at any time, stop ordering the Queen’s safety, if the English church did not embrace more fully the “worde of God.” If Penry was indeed this tract’s author, it is easy to see why his various diatribes against the regime led to his execution.132 That said, the recourse to the Solomon typology reveals that the author realized their work would be inflammatory, as using a biblical analogy for this counsel served to mitigate the offence caused. Solomon, whose wisdom was legendary and granted by God, provided a precedent for what the author was proposing. England’s initial reformation (under Henry VIII, Edward VI, and Elizabeth during her early reign) was akin to David’s gathering of the materials for the construction of the temple. It was now time to build it. By engaging in further reform, England’s Solomon would continue to be protected, and the English “may worship our true and everlasting God, according to his worde: in truth, sincerity and uprightnes.”133 The nature of biblical analogies means that they are almost exclusively a textual phenomenon—​especially given that many figures of the Old Testament lacked the attributes that made saints or classical figures instantly recognizable. One of the few examples of a visual analogy from Elizabeth’s reign can be found in a rather unlikely place: on a playing card included in a pack from 1590. In addition to depicting the counties of England and Wales, the pack includes eight extra, introductory cards, containing a map of England and Wales, a view of London, four cards providing a history of England and its governance, a card that depicts Elizabeth’s royal arms, and one that includes a portrait of Elizabeth.134 Designed by William Bowes and engraved by Augustine Ryther, the cards are hand-​coloured (probably in the sixteenth century), and the pack in the British Museum constitutes the only known complete set.135 The portrait of Elizabeth shows her in her parliamentary robes, and is very similar in style and composition to “Elizabeth I of England in Parliament Robes” (ca. 1585–​ 1590), formerly attributed to Marcus Gheeraerts the Younger.136 There are two primary differences, however: instead of holding a fan, as she does in the painting, Elizabeth holds the sovereign’s orb; and instead of wearing a crown, two cherubs—​one holding a book 132 Peter Lake, Anglicans and Puritans? Presbyterianism and English Conformist Thought from Whitgift to Hooker (London: Unwin Hyman, 1988), 10. 133 An Humble Motion, 111.

134 British Museum 1938,0709.57.1–​60. The cards can be viewed through the Museum’s online catalogue: https://britishmuseum.org/collection/object/P_1938-0709-57-1-60. The cards are described in detail in Arthur M. Hind, Engraving in England in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries: A Descriptive Catalogue with Introductions, Part 1: The Tudor Period (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1952), 182–​86. 135 Gerard L’E Turner, Elizabethan Instrument Makers: The Origins of the London Trade in Precision Instrument Making (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000), 177–​78.

136 See Elizabeth and Mary: Royal Cousins, Rival Queens, ed. Susan Doran (London: The British Library, 2021), 245.

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Figure 4.1. Playing card featuring Elizabeth I (1590). © The Trustees of the British Museum.

(Strong posits that it is a Bible) and the other a sword—​place a crown on the Queen’s head.137 The symbols that the cherubs hold seek to emphasize Elizabeth’s wisdom and her zeal to defend England and its Protestantism. Even without the text, it is a powerful image that served to reinforce Elizabeth’s power and sovereignty. 137 Roy Strong, Portraits of Queen Elizabeth I (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1963), 111.

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The image of Elizabeth is bordered by two, four-​line verses (Figure 4.1). The first, above the portrait, compares Elizabeth to Deborah: This mayden queene, like Debora doth raign. She by hir wisdom, and hir constant zeale: In peace, and plentie, doth gods worde maintaine, Would god I couldst, hir vertues all reveale.138

The second verse, below the portrait, expands on the theme of the first verse, while also emphasizing the Queen’s typological links to Deborah: Twise sixteene yeares, ye sceptre in hir hand, No traitors could, nor forraine foes wrest out: Great warres abrode, yet god defends hir land, Lord let thy Angells, compasse hir aboute.139

As incredible as it may seem, this is likely the only image of Elizabeth from her life that depicts her alongside a biblical analogy. Elizabeth was depicted as a Minerva on a medallion from 1602,140 and the frontispiece of Thomas Morton’s Salomon or A treatise declaring the state of the kingdome of Israel (1596) links the Queen with Solomon141—​ but neither uses an image of Elizabeth in place of her name (the card only refers to “This mayden queene” to link the Queen to a biblical figure). The analogy’s appearance on a playing card from 1590 underscores two related threads of this book. Analogies were not, as some have argued, the preserve of the courtly or academic elite. Given that the cards depict the counties of England, the inclusion of a portrait of the monarch on one of the introductory cards is, in itself, not surprising. Bowes, however, has deliberately invoked the Deborah typology and applied it to Elizabeth: he believed not only that his audience would understand the connection, but also that the story he wished to tell could be related through the combination of the text and image—​there are simply too many correspondences between the portraits and the verses for either to be an afterthought.

138 BM 1938,0709.57.2. 139 BM 1938,0709.57.2.

140 Strong, Portraits of Queen Elizabeth I, 139–​40.

141 The frontispiece of Morton’s tract depicts Elizabeth as the Queen of Peace (“Reg. Pacis”) and Solomon as the King of Peace (“Rex Pacis”), which presents the monarchs as mirrors for each other. The two monarchs are further linked by the depiction of a large lion (lions had long been associated with the English monarchy, hence their inclusion on the English coat of arms; and according to 1 Kings 10:19–​20, Solomon’s throne was guarded by fourteen lions). Thomas Morton, Salomon, Or A treatise declaring the state of the kingdome of Israel, as it was in the daies of Salomon (London, 1596; STC 18197.7), sig. A1v; John N. King, Tudor Royal Iconography: Literature and Art in an Age of Religious Crisis (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1989), 257. Susan Doran claims that the frontispiece depicts Elizabeth as David. David, however, is never called “King of Peace” in the Bible, and it seems unlikely that a book about Solomon would use a depiction of David as a mirror of the Queen. See Susan Doran, “Elizabeth I: An Old Testament King,” in Tudor Queenship: The Reigns of Mary and Elizabeth, ed. Alice Hunt and Anna Whitelock (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2010), 105.

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Furthermore, the verses highlight how analogies were not temporally fixed but, instead, contextually specific. Bowes reminds his audience that neither “traitors” (that is, Catholic plotters and maybe even puritan agitators) nor foreign powers had succeeded in invading or deposing Elizabeth because “god defends hir land.” Less than two years had elapsed since the victory over the Spanish Armada, and this was at the forefront of Bowes’s mind—​a point emphasized by the fact that he invoked the Canaanite-​defeating Deborah rather than Solomon or Hezekiah, despite mentioning the Queen’s “wisdom” and “zeale.” Lastly, the image of Elizabeth in her parliamentary robes alludes to the idea of “Deborah with her estates, consulting for the good government of Israel” from the coronation procession of 1559. In the thirty-​two years that had elapsed since the first public comparison with Deborah, Elizabeth’s conflation with the only female judge of the Old Testament was still a relevant typological device for Bowes; a device that attempted to anticipate the future by linking it to the past, given the continued unrest in Ireland, the religious conflict occasioned by both Catholic and godly agitators, and the ongoing Anglo-​Spanish War. It seems that England needed its Deborah now just as much as it had in 1559.

Dealing with the Catholic Threat, Typologically

In 1590, the first three books of Edmund Spenser’s The Faerie Queene were published. Spenser’s depiction of Elizabeth as Belphoebe and Gloriana has led a range of scholars to focus on Elizabeth’s classical analogies in the latter part of her reign. The inherent literary value placed on tomes such as The Faerie Queene completely overshadows the popular pamphlets and broadsides of the period—​sources that this book seeks to show are an untapped well of insight into the time. In the period between 1585 and 1590, the Elizabethan regime seemed to lurch from one crisis to another: some of these were out of their control, such as the Spanish Armada; but others were entirely of their own making—​specifically the disaster of the English Armada. At the same time, the execution of Mary, Queen of Scots, removed one of the key rallying points for rebellion against Elizabeth, and the victory over the Armada, while incredibly over-​hyped and over-​played, reassured a beleaguered nation that all was not lost. During this period, Elizabeth was compared to a dizzying array of biblical figures, both male and female—​many of which scholars have overlooked. More than any other chapter in this book, the examples analyzed here demonstrate that biblical analogies were not only an important tool for interpreting the present, but also a device used to provide collective reassurance at moments of national importance. Commentators, polemicists, and writers routinely turned to the precedent of the Bible, and in doing so, they continued to depict England as a new Israel, and its monarch as the contemporary embodiment of various biblical luminaries. As observed by several of the tracts examined here, this was not about flattery: these were genuine comparisons based on the primacy of the Bible in early modern English culture.

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The appearance of biblical analogies undoubtedly fluctuated throughout Elizabeth’s reign. Clear patterns emerge, however, when their publication is compared to specific events of national importance. From the examples discussed here, it is evident that they were drawn when there was a specific need—​whether real or imagined. The idea that biblical analogies were utilized in the early part of Elizabeth’s reign, only to be usurped by classical analogies, thus needs to be well and truly abandoned. After all, for a society that was saturated in the doctrine of providence, it is not at all surprising that the example of favoured biblical figures was just as relevant then as it had been two and a half thousand years before. The threats Elizabeth faced during the 1580s continued to cause concern throughout her final years, and with history seeming to repeat itself with the sailing of further armadas from Spain, pamphleteers and polemicists employed an impressive array of biblical types to show that God would continue to fight for the English Deborah.

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Chapter 5

1591–​1602: THE TWILIGHT YEARS AND THE CATHOLIC THREAT REDUX

In 1594, Elizabeth

escaped the attempt of her physician, Roderigo Lopez, to poison her on behalf of Philip II. The plot was almost certainly manufactured by Robert Devereux, Earl of Essex, who was angry with Lopez for apparently sharing that the Earl was undergoing treatment for venereal diseases. Both Burghley and Elizabeth seemed to think the accusation ludicrous, and the Queen’s three-​month delay in signing the death warrant is—​correctly, I think—​often read as evidence that the Queen was unconvinced of Lopez’s guilt.1 The propaganda-​like benefit that the regime could garner from the foiling of Lopez’s attempt was evidently too good of an opportunity to pass up, however, and sometime in 1594, Burghley prepared a speech for Elizabeth that touched on the various providential deliveries England, and Elizabeth in particular, had received. While the speech does not appear to have been delivered, the two versions of it that exist do suggest it was seriously considered.2 In the speech, Elizabeth would have focused on the “singularitie of gods favor towarde us above all other prynces,” reminding her audience how “It hath pleased god to cause the same attempte to be revealed.”3 She acknowledged that everything was ordered “by his providence, without any further meanes in mans power,” before concluding:

1 See Martin Hume, “The So-​Called Conspiracy of Dr. Ruy Lopez,” Transactions of the Jewish Historical Society of England 6 (1908–​1910): 32–​55; Edmund Valentine Campos, “Jews, Spaniards, and Portingales: Ambiguous Identities of Portuguese Marranos in Elizabethan England,” English Literary History 69, no. 3 (2002): 599–​616; Edgar Samuel, At the End of the Earth: Essays on the History of the Jews in England and Portugal (London: Jewish Historical Society of England, 2004), 119–​21; and Stephen Alford, The Watchers: A Secret History of the Reign of Elizabeth I (London: Penguin, 2012), 304–​6. The Spanish later claimed that Lopez was in no way an agent of the Spanish crown, and that Philip had authorized no such attempt on Elizabeth. Samuel, At the End of the Earth, 121. 2 Another version is: BL Lansdowne MS 76, fols. 137r–​137v. Even though the speech was almost certainly not delivered, traces of it can be found in the pamphlet Burghley had published anonymously recounting Elizabeth’s escape. See [William Cecil], A True Report of Sundry Horrible Conspiracies of late time detected to have (by Barbarous murders) taken away the life of the Queenes most excellent Majestie; whom Almighty God hath miraculously conserved against the trecheries of her Rebelles, and the violences of her most puissant Enemies (London, 1594; STC 7603). 3 TNA SP 12/​248, fols. 78r, 79r.

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We therfore nowe have no other meanes to lose againste this so barbarous attempt, but to looke upp to heaven, and to send upp to our good god our most bounden thanks, and praise of his holye name as a sacrifyce for our deliverye.4

Whether or not she truly believed that Lopez had attempted to kill her, Elizabeth was in no doubt that God deserved manifold praise for the many deliverances He had granted to her. That the concept of providence pervaded Elizabethan political thought is not a surprise. As is well established, providentialism was a constant thread throughout the period’s discourse. What is often missing from scholarly discussions of providentialism, however, is the way that biblical analogies routinely engage with the doctrine, both explicitly and implicitly. The providential deliveries granted to England were all the more important in the aftermath of the failure of the English Armada in 1589.5 God, it seems, approved of the status quo. Nevertheless, throughout the 1590s, as the threat posed by Catholicism continued to grow, and indeed was put into action on several occasions, polemicists and commentators continued to stress the favour England had received, and the way that England’s monarch reigned as the contemporary embodiment of a range of Old Testament luminaries. The previous chapter emphasized that biblical analogies are often context-​ dependent, with their appearance frequently linked to moments of religio-​political crisis. This chapter highlights how analogies were related to important religio-​political events, and that these analogies sat beside those that were more generalist in nature. In other words, while commentators and polemicists remained acutely concerned about the Catholic threat and employed analogies to claim that God would deliver the English as He had the Hebrews, biblical typologies remained a vital way of understanding and interpreting the present. Contrary to claims that Elizabethans “set aside … Old Testament paradigms in the 1580s and 90s,” this chapter shows that biblical analogies continued to function as an important method of conceptualizing the present, while also bolstering both Queen and nation—​just as they had in previous decades.6

In the Shadow of the Armada

In early 1591, Richard Robinson—​the author of The Vineyarde of Vertue discussed in Chapter 3—​published a translation of the commentaries on Psalms 22 to 34 by German Lutheran theologian Victorinus Strigel. This was a sequel of sorts to the volume he had published in 1582, which covered the first twenty-​one psalms. While there are 4 TNA SP 12/​248, fols. 77r, 79r.

5 See Luis Gorrochategui Santos, The English Armada: The Greatest Naval Disaster in English History, trans. Peter J. Gold (London: Bloomsbury, 2018).

6 Donald Stump, “Abandoning the Old Testament: Protestant Dissent and the Shift in Court Paradigms for Elizabeth,” in Elizabeth I and the “Sovereign Arts”: Essays in Literature, History, Culture, ed. Donald Stump, Linda Shenk, and Carole Levin (Tempe: Arizona Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies, 2011), 286.

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no references to Elizabeth in the text of the commentaries, Robinson dedicated both tracts to Elizabeth’s favourites: the 1582 volume to Ambrose Dudley, Earl of Warwick (who died in February 1590), and the 1591 volume to Sir Christopher Hatton.7 In both dedications, Robinson compared Elizabeth to biblical figures. The analogies in 1582 are much more circumspect, with Robinson praising “the gracious peaceable and prosperous governement of our most honorable Hester. Vertuous Judith and divine Debora, Queene ELIZABETH.”8 These analogies certainly make clear Elizabeth’s providential favour, and link the Queen to her Old Testament antecedents, but Robinson leaves it to the reader to interpret their purpose. In 1591, with Dudley dead, Robinson seems to have taken the opportunity to revise his dedication, and in so doing he added further figures and expanded on the analogies he had previously invoked, making their typological meanings explicit. After discussing the relevance of David to the contemporary religio-​ political situation, Robinson explained how the blessings that David had brought to Israel were likewise being implemented by Elizabeth. The “peaceable, spirituall and corporall warfare in this last age of the world” that God granted Israel under David had, through God’s “unspeakable goodnesse, grace, and mercie,” been “given [to] us this many yeares in England.”9 To Robinson’s mind, these blessings were first and foremost the result of England’s Protestantism. He claimed that “the preaching of the Gospell in the Halcion daies of our most sacred Saba, Queene Elizabeth” who, in “hearing, honouring and advauncing … the wisedome of Christ himselfe,” is “better then Salomon” (A3r). Jesus was often viewed as an antitype of Solomon, so this analogy presented Elizabeth as the antitype of the Queen of Sheba. As Matthew Dimmock notes, the Queen of Sheba was more commonly used as a type for Elizabeth in the latter portion of her reign, in conjunction with the growth of the Virgin Queen iconography—​although Dimmock perhaps overstates this, given the examples already analyzed in this book.10 Nevertheless, while the Queen of Sheba is a less potent type than Solomon, the way Robinson employed the typology served to foreground Elizabeth’s Protestantism and the benefits it brought to England. Robinson then turned to more recent history, focusing on England’s deliveries from various Catholic plots during the reign of England’s Deborah, Esther, and Judith. He claimed that the English “have manifolde and great causes in every degree with the same [as] our divine Debora … to praise the Lord of Hostes for his late most gracious 7 The pamphlet was entered into the Stationers’ Register on March 8, 1591, the dedication is dated April 22, 1591, and Hatton died on November 20, 1591. 8 Victorinus Strigel, Part of the Harmony of King Davids Harp. Conteining the first XXI. Psalmes of King David, trans. Richard Robinson (London, 1582; STC 23358), sig. A3v.

9 Victorinus Strigel, A Proceeding in the Harmonie of King Davids Harpe, trans. Richard Robinson (London, 1591; STC 23359), sig. A3r.

10 Matthew Dimmock, “‘A Pattern to All Princes’: Locating the Queen of Sheba,” in Eastern Resonances in Early Modern England: Receptions and Transformations from the Renaissance to the Romantic Period, ed. Claire Gallien and Ladan Niayesh (Cham: Palgrave Macmillan, 2019), 41–​42.

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victory given us over the Spanish Sysera by sea.” Robinson was in no doubt that God had delivered England from the Spanish Armada, just as He delivered the Hebrews from the Canaanites, with Philip II of Spain depicted as a Sisera—​a commander fighting on behalf of the Pope-​Jabin. Elizabeth was also an Esther, and the English should “celebrate the Lordes loving mercies, with continuall remembrance of thankefulnesse for supplanting and suppressing the prowde, hauty enterprises of hawty Haman domesticall … The Lord hath saved his Sion, dwelling with the Daughter of Babel.” Presenting England as the new Israel, Robinson used the story from Isaiah 47:1 to draw a parallel with Elizabeth, given that the daughter of Babylon is described as a virgin. It is not clear who the “hawty Haman domesticall” is: it could be a general comment that no Catholic plot had succeeded, or it could refer to Mary, Queen of Scots—​the most high-​profile person recently executed for treason against Elizabeth. Regardless, the idea that God had spared the English from Catholics like He did the Jews from Haman is explicit, with the Esther analogy emphasizing that Elizabeth herself was responsible for this protection. The section concluded with an analogy between Elizabeth and Judith. Elizabeth, “our joyfull Judith,” who is “the glory of Israell, and [the] rejoycing of our nation” was given “heavenly helpe, in overcomming, subverting, and vanquishing the pollicy, power, and practises of that Olophernes, the romish Antichrist, and his mischievous members, the Jesuitish Seminaries and Sectaries, with such other forreine Scorpions” (A3v). The point of the analogy is self-​evident, and Robinson has gone to great lengths to explain the variety of foes from whom England had been protected. The praise of the Queen was of course partially tactical: Robinson probably hoped Hatton would pass the tract on to Elizabeth, who would in turn reward his efforts. But it is not merely flattery. Going further than his 1592 dedication, Robinson depicted England as a new Israel, meaning the English were God’s new chosen people, and claimed that many of their blessings were the result of their Queen, who was the contemporary embodiment of the Queen of Sheba, Deborah, Esther, and Judith. These biblical figures all sought to worship God properly, and the latter three figures had preserved their people from their enemies. Comparing the two tracts further discounts Donald Stump’s claims about the use of biblical figures in Elizabeth’s later years: the revised 1591 dedication engaged even more explicitly with biblical figures, which Robinson would not have done had he thought it would diminish the chances that Hatton would share the tract with the Queen. The Catholic threat had grown even more intense since 1584, and as fears continued to abound over a potential second armada, Robinson reassured his readers by reminding them that God had sent them Elizabeth, and as He had already protected England, He would continue to do so—​as long as the country remained committed to Protestantism, of course. Robinson was not alone in using biblical analogies in his dedication; indeed, the majority of biblical analogies analyzed in this book come from dedications and published sermons, both of which were intended to demonstrate literary abilities (to varying degrees). Their use in prayers intended for more popular consumption is often overlooked, even though the genre typically provided a more explicit opportunity to invoke an Old Testament luminary. The use of analogies in published prayers was part of

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the wider Protestant endeavour to involve the laity in devotional piety, as indicated by the number of prayer books published during Elizabeth’s reign.11 One such booklet was Thomas Tymme’s Poore Mans Pater Noster, which sought to impress upon the masses the importance of prayer and piety—​a goal certainly aided by the booklet’s printing in sextodecimo size, making it cheap and portable.12 While perhaps more known today for his works on alchemy and biblical commentary, Tymme’s puritan views are visible across his published works, and given the fraught context of the 1590s, it seems understandable that he would attempt to stress to the populace their duty to faithfully worship God.13 My use of the imprecise date of the 1590s here is deliberate. The earliest surviving copy of The Poore Mans Pater Noster dates from 1598, which declares that it is “newly imprinted the second time.” That this is a second edition corresponds to the entry for the pamphlet in the Stationers’ Register on July 5, 1591.14 It seems likely, then, that the pamphlet was originally published around the time of its entry into the Stationers’ Register in 1591, and that the sextodecimo size of the pamphlet means that no copies of the first edition have survived.15 There is nothing about the 1598 editions that suggests changes were made to the original text; there is no claim that it has been newly revised or enlarged, for instance. The pamphlet’s “Praier for the preservation of our most gratious Soveraigne Queene Elizabeth” was therefore appropriate for both 1591 and 1598, and it should be read in this dual context. After a discussion of the Lord’s Prayer, the pamphlet includes several prayers and prayer-​like psalms: some have a specific devotional function (such as the “praier to be said before the receiving of the holy Communion”), while others simply reminded the English of their duty to God (such as the “Psalme of praises and thanksgiving to God for his benefites”). The “Praier for the preservation of our most gratious Soveraigne Queene Elizabeth” falls into the latter category, and it is unique in the pamphlet for using biblical analogies to make its point. The prayer is evidently aimed at the entire English populace, with Tymme hoping that a wide readership would make God more likely to grant the requests in the prayer. Tymme began by exhorting Elizabeth’s virtues, and asked God to continue to bless the Queen because she “hitherto [hath] advanced true religion and the glorie of thy name 11 Christopher Haigh, “The Church of England, the Catholics and the People,” in The Reign of Elizabeth I, ed. Christopher Haigh (London: Macmillan, 1984), 211–​12; Colin B. Atkinson and Jo B. Atkinson, “Anne Wheathill’s A Handfull of Holesome (though Homelie) Hearbs (1584): The First English Gentlewoman’s Prayer Book,” Sixteenth Century Journal 27, no. 3 (1996): 659. 12 A sextodecimo book is about the size of a modern credit/​debit card.

13 Allen G. Debus, The English Paracelsians (London: Oldbourne, 1965), 87–​89; T. P. J. Edlin, “Tymme, Thomas (d. 1620),” ODNB, doi:10.1093/​ref:odnb/​27945.

14 SRO3250, https://​sta​tion​ersr​egis​ter.onl​ine/​entry/​SRO3​250. The second edition was printed by Peter Short, who had registered the text in 1591. 15 The ESTC only lists one surviving copy of the 1598 edition, which gives further credence to this suggestion.

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through the preaching of the gospell of thy Sonne Christ.”16 He beseeched God to “Give her wisdom & understanding to do that thing which is acceptable unto thee, profitable for us her subjects, and hurtfull to none. Grant her, O Lorde, a perpetuall time, long life, and continuall felicitie” (P4r–​P4v). First published in the thirty-​third year of Elizabeth’s reign, this request to grant the Queen wisdom is perhaps peculiar—​although it probably acknowledges the new and fraught situations that Elizabeth faced. If the prayer is the same in 1598 as it was in 1591, which seems likely, Tymme was probably reassured that his prayer had been answered, given that the Queen had both overcome the Second and Third Armadas, and was in her sixty-​fifth year: Elizabeth was already the third-​longest reigning monarch in English history. The prayer continued with Tymme imploring God to both “deliver … her not into the handes of her enimies,” and to “Give her victorie … over all thine & her enimies” (P4v). Like many of his contemporaries, Tymme presented Elizabeth’s (and England’s) enemies as God’s enemies, and given the continuing English successes since the repelling of the first Armada in 1588 (while ignoring the failure of the English Armada in 1589), it is easy to see the providentialism that is a continuous thread throughout both the prayer and the pamphlet more generally. Tymme may have alluded to various biblical concepts throughout the prayer, but he made sure to make explicit the link between Elizabeth and her Old Testament antecedents. He asked God to: blesse all her godlie actions in such wise, that all the worlde maie knowe, and the posteritie to come may say, that thy mightie arme hath raised up in England a Debora, a Judith, an Hester, and a nourcing Queene for thy Church.17

The analogies are largely self-​explanatory, especially given Tymme’s use of older Hebrew women in relation to his comments on Elizabeth’s age. In a similar way to Foxe’s Acts and Monuments, Tymme evidently hoped that Elizabeth’s providential favour would be remembered by future generations (“posteritie”), just as the victories of Deborah, Esther, and Judith continued to be retold centuries later. Read this way, Tymme reinforces the way that typology worked: just as Elizabeth was a contemporary Deborah, future generations would invoke her example as another link in the chain of God’s providential interventions on behalf of His people. The prayer concluded by reiterating the sentiments already expressed. Tymme prayed that God would “Let thy heavie hand … light upon [strike down] her enemies, and thy right hand find out all such as hate her, and envy her prosperitie”—​again emphasizing the typological function Elizabeth could serve in the future—​before beseeching God to “Save our Queene … from all her enimies,” and to “Let her finish her course, O God, in a good age, an old woman, and of great yeares, to the comfort of thy church, and the glorie of thy name” (P5r–​P5v). Again equating long life with God’s blessings, Tymme conflated 16 Thomas Tymme, The Poor Mans Pater Noster, with a preparative to praier (London, 1598; STC 24419), sig. P4r. 17 Tymme, The Poor Mans Pater Noster, sig. P4v–​P5r.

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Elizabeth’s successes with England’s, although it is possible to read Tymme’s puritan sympathies in this plea: even at this late stage of Elizabeth’s reign, he hoped his Queen could be persuaded to adopt some of the more godly reformations that he and others like him believed were necessary for England’s church. Tymme’s prayer is very similar to many of the example analyzed in this book, yet unlike some of them, this prayer was intended to reach a wide audience. That the prayer for Elizabeth’s preservation is the only one to contain biblical analogies emphasizes both the Queen’s close associations with her Old Testament antecedents, and the way that the biblical past was consistently used to understand, and indeed interpret, the present. It is tempting to speculate if Tymme was aware of the third Spanish prayer in Elizabeth’s Christian Prayers and Meditations, in which the Queen compared herself to these same three biblical figures. More generally, it is also possible to draw connections between Tymme’s prayer and those contained within Christian Prayers and Meditations. Tymme may have been aware of the prayers—​his published translations of several Latin tracts point to his language abilities—​but this was not a necessity. Both Elizabeth and Tymme were writing in a similar religio-​political milieu, and these congruences further emphasize the habitual turn of people in early modern England to biblical typology as a means of interpreting the present. Although Tymme may have been disappointed by Elizabeth’s stymying of further, godly reformation, he clearly believed that God had sent Elizabeth to the English, and that their successes—​especially against Catholics—​ demonstrated God’s favour. The only way Elizabeth could be conceived of, then, was to understand her as the contemporary embodiment of Deborah, Esther, and Judith.

The Second and Third Armadas

The Gran Armada of 1588 is the most famous of Spain’s naval assaults on England, but it was neither the only nor the largest of the attempted Spanish invasions. Throughout the 1590s, Spain and England continued to send their respective navies against their enemy. England also continued to support the Dutch rebels, and her privateers still harried Spanish ships—​sometimes with spectacular results, such as the Battle of Flores in 1592, in which the English captured cargo (including precious metals, gems, and spices) worth around half a million pounds.18 England, however, was also assailed. What had been largely hypothetical fears became a horrifying reality when, in August 1595, a Spanish raid on Cornwall saw the towns of Mousehole, Newlyn, Paul, and Penzance razed, and the Spanish, in thanksgiving for their victory, celebrated a Catholic mass on English soil.19 The Catholic threat was 18 Hammer, Elizabeth’s Wars, 169; C. Lethbridge Kingsford, “The Taking of the Madre de Dios, Anno 1592,” The Naval Miscellany 2 (1912): 85–​121.

19 Richard Carew, The Survey of Cornwall (London, 1602; STC 4615), 156r–​158r; and Robert Dickinson, “The Spanish Raid on Mount’s Bay in 1595,” Journal of the Royal Institution of Cornwall 10, no. 1 (1986–​1987): 178–​86.

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now no longer purely speculation: Spanish Catholics had successfully attacked England and escaped unharmed, making “cruel spoils of all they could gett.”20 In retaliation, Essex commanded an Anglo-​Dutch fleet that sacked Cadiz in June 1596; while the invaders were unable to capture the treasure ships they had hoped to, the attack was largely successful and thus widely celebrated in England.21 This was a “greate victory that god hathe blessed us with,” as Sir George Gifford wrote to the Earl of Southampton.22 Philip II reacted almost immediately, sending a second armada—​with even more ships than the Gran Aramda—​to invade England. It set sail in late October 1596, but was met with unfavourable winds and then fierce storms. The damage was immense, and none of the Spanish ships managed to reach the English Channel.23 Just like in 1588, God seemed to be fighting on the side of the English. During this fraught period—​between the Spanish raid on Cornwall in August 1595 and the collapse of the Second Armada in November 1596—​polemicists and commentators interpreted the uncertainty of the present through a lens of providentialism, as had been the case in the months around the 1588 Armada. Given the malignant threat posed by the Spaniards, a number of pamphlets used biblical analogies to urge Elizabeth to take decisive action against the expansionist Catholics, using the figures’ types to suggest both that God condoned violence in these situations, and that Elizabeth would be strengthened by God to do whatever was necessary to defend England’s Protestantism. The four tracts analyzed in this section used a variety of biblical analogies to allay the fears of the English and to reassure them that with God on their side, England would prevail over the popish Spaniards. Charles Gibbon’s pamphlet, A Watch-​Worde for Warre, Not so new as necessary: Published by reason of … the suspected comming of the Spanyard against us, was entered into the Stationers’ Register on January 19, 1596.24 Virtually nothing is known about Gibbon, other than that he wrote several tracts concerning Protestant theology and good governance, although he seems to have been affiliated with the University of Cambridge, and was probably a priest.25 The pamphlet’s title makes clear its intended purpose, and Gibbon employed several analogies to encourage Elizabeth to take more forceful actions against the Spanish—​and Philip II in particular. 20 TNA SP 52/​56, fol. 459r.

21 TNA SP 12/​259, fol. 70r; Calendar of the Manuscripts of the Most Hon. the Marquis of Salisbury, Preserved at Hatfield House, Hertfordshire, Volume 6: 1596 (London, 1895), 226–​27; Paul E. J. Hammer, “Myth-​Making: Politics, Propaganda and the Capture of Cadiz in 1596,” The Historical Journal 40, no. 3 (1997): 621–​42. 22 CP 199/​54, fol. 80r.

23 Hammer, Elizabeth’s Wars, 198–​99; R. B. Wernham, The Return of the Armadas: The Last Years of the Elizabethan War Against Spain, 1595–​1603 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1994), 69–​81, 130–​40. 24 SRO3821, https://​sta​tion​ersr​egis​ter.onl​ine/​entry/​SRO3​821.

25 Alsager Vian, rev. Elizabeth Goldring, “Gibbon, Charles (fl. 1589–​1604),” ODNB, doi:10.1093/​ ref:odnb/​10587.

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This encouragement largely took the form of biblical example: that is, Gibbon took examples from the Old Testament of women who had defeated military men and offered them as precedent for Elizabeth. Gibbon made clear that Philip was entirely to blame for the present war, claiming “If the Spanyard dyd beare the minde of a man, he would never molest a woman, a Virgine, a Queene, whose lyfe and religion is a light to all the world, whose disposition and dayes requier [sic] quiet.”26 Philip is here likened to an animal who had seemingly abandoned human reason by attacking a woman—​unprovoked—​who ruled her kingdom peacefully and justly. His actions thus justified a violent offensive, with Gibbon reminding Elizabeth and his readers that just as “God brought Sysera that wicked person to death, by the hand of Jael a woman,” and “Olifernes to destruction, by the hand of Judith a woman, and Abimelech, to hys ende … by a woman,” so God will make Elizabeth “powerful, by some meanes or other, to spoyle the Spanyard” (G2v). Not only did Gibbon base this assessment on the history contained within the Old Testament, but he also drew on the experiences of Elizabeth’s own reign. Undoubtedly, the God who “hath delivered her from so many secret villanies at home, will protect her from the open violence of her Enemies abroad” (G2v). Gibbon used these three figures to exhort Elizabeth to defeat Philip once and for all. The choice of the three figures is telling: all three had been personally responsible for killing God’s enemy (unlike Deborah, who oversaw the victory, for instance). Gibbon thus recounted how Jael killed Sisera, how Judith decapitated Holofernes, and how Abimelech—​ Gideon’s son and possibly also a judge—​was killed by an unnamed woman who “cast a piece of a millstone upon Abimelech’s head, and all to brake his skull.”27 While Judith prayed to God for the strength to kill Holofernes, neither Sisera nor Abimelech’s killers needed this extra strength, and the matter-​of-​fact way that Gibbon lists these examples suggests that he believed Elizabeth already had the strength necessary to defeat Philip. Of course, Gibbon would not have expected Elizabeth to literally be the one to kill Philip, so these examples suggest that Gibbon believed God would bolster the Queen’s armed forces to defeat the Spanish. This reading is reinforced later in the same section, where Gibbon claimed that “The Spaniard pretendeth to England, as Pharaoh dyd to Israel” (G2v). This association not only presented England as a new Israel, but also reminded his readers that God would defeat Philip just as He had the Egyptian pharaoh—​perhaps linking the defeats of the various Spanish fleets by storms with the story of the Exodus, where the Pharaoh was drowned after attempting to follow the Israelites across the parted Red Sea. Philip’s weakness and Elizabeth’s strength are the overwhelming themes of this pamphlet. Like Abimelech, who asked his armour-​bearer to kill him so that he did not

26 Charles Gibbon, A Watch-​Worde for Warre, Not so new as necessary: Published by reason of the disperced rumors amongst us, and the suspected comming of the Spanyard against us ([Cambridge], 1596; STC 11492), sig. G2v. 27 Judges 9:53.

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have to bear the indignity of being killed by a woman,28 Philip continued to (shamefully) be defeated “by a woman.” Such a theme is also visible in the sexual undertones of the pamphlet: by invading England, Philip was violating the sacred bond between Elizabeth and her country, which was a particularly heinous crime, given that Elizabeth “is a light to all the world.” This is perhaps a more overt acknowledgement of Elizabeth’s gender than many of the other examples analyzed here, but Gibbon turns it into a positive: he is able to demonize Philip more explicitly and argue that the Queen was in an even stronger position than these three non-​royal Old Testament women had been. As the pamphlet’s title implied, Gibbon believed that the God who had “delivered her from so many secret villanies” would continue to protect England’s providential Queen, and because of this protection, it was imperative that Elizabeth take the fight to Philip—​especially in the aftermath of the Spanish raid on Cornwall. Less than three months later, on April 5, 1596, John Norden’s A Christian Familiar Comfort and Incouragement unto all English Subjects, not to dismaie at the Spanish threats was entered into the Stationers’ Register.29 The similarities between this pamphlet’s title and Gibbon’s emphasizes the fraught context within which the tracts were published and indicates that these kinds of texts were evidently intended for a wide audience. Unlike Gibbon, however, Norden took the bold step of dedicating the pamphlet to Elizabeth herself: it is thus unsurprising that the pamphlet features a range of biblical analogies intended to bolster, encourage, and counsel the Queen. Norden is most famous for his cartographic and surveying works, but he also wrote several devotional tracts. He received preferment from a variety of members of both the Elizabethan and Jacobean regimes, including Burghley, Cecil, Essex, and Sir Robert Carr (the future Earl of Somerset). As Frank Kitchen has observed, the income from Norden’s surveying work was patchy, so his devotional texts were generally written with an eye to marketability and contemporary relevance.30 This eye for contemporary relevance is suggested by the pamphlet’s entry into the Stationers’ Register less than three weeks after the attack on Cawsand. On the night of March 14, 1596, a Spanish ship sailed into Cawsand Bay, Cornwall. About twenty-​ five Spaniards disembarked and entered the village. Once there, they affixed barrels of gunpowder to the doors of several houses and to boats in the harbour and set them on fire. The Spaniards were spotted by an English solider, who opened fire on the invaders and scared them off. The rest of the soldier’s force arrived soon after and managed to prevent the fires from spreading.31 This raid may have prompted Norden to write his tract. The actions of that one soldier fighting against the invading Spaniards can be 28 Judges 9:54: “Then he called hastily unto the young man his armourbearer, and said unto him, Draw thy sword, and slay me, that men say not of me, A women slew him. And his young man thrust him through, and he died.” 29 SRO3848, https://​sta​tion​ersr​egis​ter.onl​ine/​entry/​SRO3​848.

30 Frank Kitchen, “Norden, John (c. 1547–​1625),” ODNB, doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/20250. 31 TNA SP 12/​256, fol. 189r.

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read in the biblical stories contained within the pamphlet, with Norden citing examples where one person was strengthened by God to overcome His foes. The various analogies in the pamphlet engage with the history of Elizabeth’s reign and the present threats. Norden compared Elizabeth to Hezekiah three times, with two of these examples used in a metonymic way. He cast the actions of Philip II against Elizabeth as a contemporary version of an Old Testament battle. According to Norden, Philip claimed to have a “warrant from Senacherib of Rome, to pursue Hezechia of England.”32 The Pope is here conflated with the Assyrian king Sennacherib who, according to 2 Kings 18–​20, unsuccessfully besieged Jerusalem during Hezekiah’s reign. Norden took the comparison further, imagining Philip as fuming: “My Lord and master, Christs vicar, hath commanded mee, and therefore howe dare English Hezechiah … that trusteth not in the power of my masters holynesse, despise mee, his grand chiefetaine, or the least Captaine of his under mee?” (2). The idolatry of Catholics—​especially their veneration of the pope over Christ—​is brought to the fore, and Norden used this fictitious outburst to suggest that because of their lack of true faith in God, Catholics will never be victorious. Norden returned to the analogy later in the pamphlet. He compared the way Hezekiah consulted with his councillors to overcome the threat that was posed by Sennacherib to “our good Hezekia Queene Elizabeth,” who “by the advise of her discreet Counsell, [does] prepare against this threatning hoast of Spayne” (33). Elizabeth, guided by both God and her council, would successfully defend England. As mentioned in the discussion of Elizabeth’s coronation procession, references to the Queen listening to counsel are sometimes read as a negative comment on Elizabeth’s gender. This example, however, reveals the opposite: God rewarded Hezekiah (a man) for listening to counsel, and as a contemporary Hezekiah, Elizabeth would protect her people from the idolatrous Catholics. This comparison is also visible in the way Norden compared the situations of the English under Elizabeth to that of the Hebrews under Joshua. This furthered the pamphlet’s intention to be a “Comfort and Incouragement.” Norden related how “Josua had brought them into the lande of Canaan” to the way “Queene Elizabeth hath brought us into the land of truth, into the light out of darknes” (25), reminding the English of the favour they had already received from God. He thus exhorted his fellow compatriots to remember “the benefits that God had bestowed upon them,” and to “call to mind Gods wonderfull and many blessings towards us” (25). To Norden’s mind, the English were indisputably God’s new chosen people, with Elizabeth having brought them into the Promised Land of Protestantism, just as Joshua brought the Hebrews to Canaan. Norden also presented Elizabeth as a contemporary Deborah. He reminded the English how “as the Israelites thought themselves happie, when they had gotten Debora to governe them: so most happie are wee that have Queene Elizabeth to governe us.” 32 John Norden, A Christian Familiar Comfort and Incouragement unto all English Subjects, not to dismaie at the Spanish threats (London, 1596; STC 18604), 2.

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The English must therefore be thankful for “the godly care of our gracious Debora,” under whom “all the causes of Gods displeasure to bee taken away” (29). England’s Protestantism pleased God, and so He blessed the nation, both by sending Elizabeth to reign as a second Deborah, and by keeping the Catholic-​Canaanites at bay. After these discussions of Elizabeth as Hezekiah, Joshua, and Deborah, Norden zeroed in on the strength that Elizabeth was receiving from God. He first countered claims that because England’s “governour is a woman … the kingdome [is therefore] weake” by reassuring the English how, “in her Majestie, under God,” they have the absolute hope that she is the Judith that God hath ordayned of cut off the head, namely, to dispoyle the man of sinne of all his glorie: she is the Jael that shall pearce his temples with the naile of confusion, … And if weak Debora got such honor in delivering Israel from Jabyn king of Canaan by Barake, … will it not bee honourable to Queene Elizabeth, to breake the force of the invincible navie of Spaine? and if it pleased the mighty of mighties to assiste Deborah … shall hee not assiste Queene Elizabeth his annoynted, his chosen, and her that hee of meere providence preserved and advanced to that high calling?33

Just as God had strengthened and protected these ordinary Old Testament women, he certainly could—​and would—​strengthen His chosen queen. Norden then concluded this section by invoking the example of a male biblical figure, emphasizing that both men and women needed God’s strength. Elizabeth, “as by the hands of Moses,” brought the English “out of most cruell bondage, under that purple harlot of Rome, and under her hath this 37. yeares preserved us from all forraine invasion, [and] affoording us peace” (38). England had been favoured like the Israelites in the Old Testament, with Elizabeth empowered to lead and protect her people like Judith, Jael, Deborah, and Moses had—​all because of the nation’s adoption of Protestantism. England’s religion was directly responsible for its peace, and remaining true to the Church of England was the only way to ensure England’s security. Like Gibbon, Norden emphasized Elizabeth’s gender to de-masculinize Philip. But unlike Gibbon, who only compared Elizabeth to women, Norden used three female and three male biblical figures to encourage the English to stand firm behind their Queen. Tellingly, Elizabeth is both the “Hezechia of England” and “our gracious Debora.” Norden was certainly aware of Elizabeth’s gender, but he had no doubt that it was irrelevant to God, who continued to show His favour. The Spanish raid on Cawsand caused widespread fear: in the space of nine months, Spanish Catholics had twice breached England’s defences and been able to attack property (although the Spanish had been unable to celebrate a Catholic mass in March 1596 as they had in August 1595). Nevertheless, these two assaults were repelled fairly quickly and without widespread damage. The reflex-​like turn to the biblical past shows that even at this late stage of Elizabeth’s reign, commentators routinely considered the present through the lens of the past. Some of the examples were clearly intended to explain Elizabeth’s successes thus far (such as the conflations with Hezekiah and 33 Norden, A Christian Familiar Comfort, 37–​38.

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Deborah), but some had a more didactic purpose. The violence of Judith and Jael’s stories in particular cannot be overlooked, and in a pamphlet that was dedicated to the Queen herself, Norden stressed the need to respond to violence with violence, especially when perpetrated by Catholics. The final two pamphlets from 1596 are not more specifically dateable (for different reasons), but they both expand on the themes contained within Gibbon and Norden’s tracts, and use biblical analogies to demonstrate England’s providential Protestantism. Roger Cotton’s pamphlet is a clear counterpart to those by Gibbon and Norden. Entitled An Armor of Proofe, brought from the Tower of David, to fight against Spannyardes, Cotton made clear both the context to which the pamphlet was responding, and his feelings on the matter. A London draper about whom little is known, Cotton’s various works of poetry frequently expressed virulent anti-​Catholicism.34 The only critical attention An Armor of Proofe has received, however, relates to arguments that it was a source for Shakespeare, Marlowe, and Nashe’s Henry VI, Part 1. The pamphlet is dedicated to Gilbert Talbot, Earl of Shrewsbury, and Cotton included what is probably the first published transcription of the epitaph erected in Rouen of Gilbert’s ancestor John Talbot, the first Earl of Shrewsbury, which has been suggested as a source for the epitaph described in 1 Henry VI.35 There is no entry for the pamphlet in the Stationers’ Register, and there are no dates or dateable events in the pamphlet that give any sense of when it was written. Nevertheless, given that Cotton claimed in the dedication to the reader that his pamphlet was aimed at the “many weake ones [who] are often terrified with rumors of troubles more then they should, and many others [who] lesse regarde them then they ought,” it seems that Cotton was writing in the aftermath of the Spanish raids on Cornwall.36 In addition to tapping into the fairly widespread belief that England was the new Israel (the link between the Tower of London and the Tower of David is not exactly subtle),37 Cotton’s text is littered with the details of many biblical figures, which are accompanied by copious biblical citations. Many of these references were intended to serve as a kind of shorthand. For instance, Cotton prayed both that God would “Cause thou her [Elizabeth’s] Crowne, to shine long, fresh, & bright: /​ yea Davids dayes, twise double do her lende,” drawing on David’s forty-​year reign, and that He would “Cause her in peace, with Sallomon to raigne,” drawing on God’s promise in 1 Chronicles 22:9 that He “will give peace and quietness to Israel in his [Solomon’s] days” (D3r). These references linked Elizabeth with the two Old Testament kings, but Cotton also made two explicit analogies. First, he prayed that God would “blesse our Queene, the hand-​mayde 34 Matthew Steggle, “Cotton, Roger (c. 1557–​1602),” ODNB, doi:10.1093/​ref:odnb/​6426.

35 Josephine A. Pearce, “An Earlier Talbot Epitaph,” Modern Language Notes 59, no. 5 (1944): 327–​ 29; H. Austin Whitver, “Erecting a Pyramid in France: Tomb Symbolism in 1 Henry VI,” Journal for Early Modern Cultural Studies 15, no. 3 (Summer 2015): 85, 97n5. 36 Roger Cotton, An Armor of Proofe, brought from the Tower of David, to fight against Spannyardes, and all enimies of the trueth (London, 1596; STC 5865), sig. A5r. 37 A point made overt by the reference on the pamphlet’s title page to Proverbs 18:10: “The name of the Lord is a strong Tower: the righteous run unto it, and are exalted.”

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of thy will: /​who doth with Jael, thy foes sound blowes stil lend” (D3r). In the aftermath of the raids on Cornwall, this analogy served an obvious purpose, in addition to his desire to prevent the English from being “terrified with rumors of troubles.” Although the use of Jael here, rather than Judith, is perhaps unusual, it was evidently intended to complement the other analogy Cotton invoked. In the final biblical figure-​containing verse of the pamphlet, Cotton prayed that Catholicism would continue to be repelled from England, and that God would make Elizabeth a mother olde and grave: for she to us true Deborah hath bin, So keepe her still, thy people long to save, from those new Gods, which former dayes brought in: and let them not such Gods agayne erect, for fayne they would: but Lord do them reject. (D3v)

Jael had been employed to ensure the destruction of the Spanish Sisera, whereas Deborah was used to represent the defeat of idolatrous Catholicism itself. This shows that Cotton considered how the analogies would intersect, underscoring the deep familiarity that early modern people had with the Bible: while Jael killed Sisera, Deborah was responsible for the defeat of Jabin, the King of the Canaanites. This was a clever use of the typologies: as I have already noted, the Pope was often compared with Jabin, and Philip II, as one of the pope’s commanders, was a Sisera. Cotton prayed (and believed) that Elizabeth, as a Jael and a Deborah, would be strengthened to defeat both Philip and the Pope, ensuring a resounding Protestant victory over Catholicism. The fourth and final pamphlet from 1596 is also by John Norden. Entitled A Progresse of Pietie, it contains a range of prayers and songs intended for various devotional situations (much like Tymme’s Poore Mans Pater noster). It was entered into the Stationers’ Register on August 30, 1591,38 but not printed until 1596.39 The reason(s) for this five-​year delay in publication is unclear. The final prayer in the booklet is entitled “A devout Prayer, for the preservation of her Majesties forces now at Sea,” and it is tempting to speculate that Norden added this prayer shortly before publication, referencing the various state-​sanctioned privateers who were harrying the Spanish fleet.40 Nevertheless, Norden evidently thought that it was the ideal time to release the pamphlet—​he may have received some kind of positive response in the aftermath of the publication of A Christian Familiar Comfort. A Progresse of Pietie is also dedicated to the Queen, suggesting that Norden was again hoping to spread his message as widely as possible. 38 SRO3274, https://​sta​tion​ersr​egis​ter.onl​ine/​entry/​SRO3​274.

39 The text was evidently updated before publication: Norden noted that Elizabeth had reigned “39 yeares almost compleat.” Allowing for the early modern practice of counting anniversaries as they would be in the following year, this would suggest that pamphlet was published in the latter part of 1596 (and thus after A Christian Familiar Comfort). 40 John Norden, A Progresse of Pietie: Or the harbour of Heavenly harts ease, to recreate the afflicted Soules of all such as are shut up in anye inward or outward affliction (London, 1596; STC 18633), 100r.

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The pamphlet contains several prayers for, and poems about, Elizabeth—​two of which contain biblical analogies. In “A praise for her Majesties most gracious government,” a poem with seven four-​line stanzas, Gibbon used an analogy as a metonym for the Queen. Elizabeth, who shared, and continues to share, God’s word with the English, is “a Hester in this land /​ … [to] set his children free” (8r). Norden further emphasized Elizabeth’s providential sending in the final two stanzas. He exhorted the English to “give praise unto the king: /​ That made her Queen,” and to offer “praises” to the “King of kings above: /​ Who sent Elizabeth to bring, /​ so sweet a tast[e]‌ of love” (8r). Referring to both the re-​establishment of Protestantism in England shortly after her accession,41 and the recent defeats of the expansionist Catholics, Norden made clear that Elizabeth was sent as a contemporary Esther to God’s new chosen people, further demonstrating the interchangeability of past and present. Later in the pamphlet, Norden included a quasi-​ sermon that had his readers “consider” how they “ought to carry” themselves “towards our Queene, the head and governour of this houshold” (81v). The section repeatedly stressed that Elizabeth was England’s head—​both spiritually and politically. This repeated use of “head” to refer to Elizabeth—​for instance, in the marginal note “We are to thanke God for our head Queene Elizabeth”—​seems to suggest that Elizabeth’s adoption of the title of “Supreme Governor of the Church of England” in 1559 had little to do with her gender. Rather, it gives further credence to the suggestion that hotter Protestants did not approve of any monarch being described as “Supreme Head,” meaning that the change in title may also have been insisted upon if a man had succeeded Mary I.42 Evidently, female headship was conceivable, and indeed acceptable to God. Norden told his readers that they needed “humblie to thanke our God, that hee hath established our heade in such comely sort, and endued her with all vertues aunswerable unto her high function” (85r). He conflated Elizabeth and Solomon, placing the English in the role of the Queen of Sheba: “we may sing unto our Queen Elizabeth, the Queene of Sabaes songe, which she made of the happie government of Salomon” (85r). Norden then inserted Elizabeth into 1 Kings 10:8–​9: Happie are thy men may wee say, happy are these thy servantes, which stande here before thee, and heare thy wisedome. Blessed bee the Lord thy God, which loved thee, to set thee in the Throne of Englande, because the Lorde loved Englande for ever, and made thee Queen to do equitie & righteousnes.43

And to make even more explicit England’s providential favour, Norden asked the rhetorical question, “How have we … beene maintayned preserved, conducted and 41 Later in the pamphlet, Norden reminded his readers “of our little persecution in the time of Queene Marie, [which] may move us to due obedience unto our God, who did speedilie deliver us by the gracious hand of our most sacred Queen Elizabeth” (37v).

42 See Susan Doran, “Did Elizabeth’s Gender Really Matter?,” in Queens Matter in Early Modern Studies, ed. Anna Riehl Bertolet (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2018), 44. 43 Norden, A Progresse of Pietie, 85r. Norden used the Geneva Version for this verse.

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blessed in her governement?,” before answering: “No nation hath tasted the like benefites, by peace, by plentie, [and] by health” (85r–​85v). Just like the Israelites under Solomon, the English under Elizabeth faced internal and external tumult, but as He had done in the ancient past of the Old Testament, God preserved both England and Elizabeth—​primarily because of their embracing of the Protestant faith. The use of the Solomon typology was most commonly associated with divine wisdom, so because of Elizabeth’s divine wisdom, England experienced many “benefites.” This analogy emphasizes that Elizabeth could be a contemporary Solomon, regardless of her gender. God made Elizabeth England’s head, and if the English continued to obey her (and God), they would continue to experience the “happie government” of England’s Solomon. The four pamphlets from 1596 discussed here emphasize the way that the biblical past was used to make sense of the present, with the various biblical typologies employed to both reassure the English that God would defend them, and to counsel the Queen to take more drastic action against the expansionist Catholics. Given the fraught context within which these pamphlets were published, it is perhaps unsurprising that the majority of analogies implied or invoked military action. Throughout the seventeenth century, Elizabeth was routinely remembered as England’s Deborah, with other figures employed far more infrequently. Here, however, three writers had used a total of nine figures, both male and female, across the four pamphlets. Even at this late stage of her reign, commentators used a litany of analogies to make their didactic point. I remain fascinated, for instance, that Norden does not double up on analogies across his two pamphlets: in A Christian Familiar Comfort, Elizabeth is a Hezekiah, Judith, Jael, Deborah, Moses, and a Joshua; in A Progresse of Pietie, Elizabeth is an Esther and a Solomon. While the typologies serve different purposes, as do the two pamphlets, these examples reinforce not only the carefully considered way that analogies were invoked (Norden used specific and relevant biblical figures to make each of his points), but also how gender was of limited concern when applying a typology. Elizabeth may protect her people like Esther and Deborah, but she was also a Hezekiah and a Moses to the English. The failure of the Second Armada was a serious blow to Philip II: he declared bankrupt for the third time in his reign, and the decimation of the Spanish fleet meant that coastal communities, especially in Galicia, feared that they would be unable to repel English retaliation.44 Work soon began on another armada in Spain, although it was initially unclear whether this armada was intended to attack England (as it would do in late 1597) or to merely replace the destroyed naval defences.45 Despite England’s victories over the two Armadas, the raids on Cornwall in particular highlighted the difficult task facing Elizabeth and her council when it came to defending England’s vast coastline. Coupled with the rebellion in Ireland, it seems 44 See Edward Tenace, “A Strategy of Reaction: The Armadas of 1596 and 1597 and the Spanish Struggle for European Hegemony,” English Historical Review 118, no. 478 (2003): 855–​82. 45 CP 175/​38; Hammer, Elizabeth’s Wars, 199–​204.

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unsurprising that the evils of popery were a constant refrain in polemical tracts. John King, a resolute anti-​Catholic preacher and the future Bishop of London, added to this voluminous literature by publishing a pamphlet containing fifty lectures and sermons. The sermons were delivered in 1594 and 1595 while King was a chaplain to John Piers, Archbishop of York, but they were only published in 1597 after King had moved to London and taken up a position as chaplain to the Lord Keeper of the Great Seal, Sir Thomas Egerton (the future Viscount Brackley)—​to whom the pamphlet is dedicated.46 The publication of the sermons seems to have been a politically calculated decision, and one that paid off. The pamphlet was reprinted twice during Elizabeth’s reign (in 1599, with the claim that the lectures were “newlie corrected and amended,” and again in 1600), and King was appointed a prebendary of St. Paul’s in 1599.47 In addition to serving as a chaplain to James VI & I, he served as Dean of Christ Church from 1605 until his consecration as Bishop of London in 1611.48 Given both King’s subsequent ecclesiastical career and his reputation as a staunch anti-​Catholic preacher, the themes addressed in the sermons deserve to be placed in their proper religio-​political context, especially those that invoke biblical analogies. In three different sermons across the pamphlet, King compared Elizabeth to four Old Testament figures. The title of the pamphlet is Lectures upon Jonas—​that is, Jonah—​and the first forty-​eight are lectures on various parts of the Book of Jonah. The first analogy appears in the sixteenth lecture, which focused on the first part of Jonah 1:14: “they cried unto the Lord, and said, We beseech thee, O Lord, we beseech thee.” King began by discussing the need to pray earnestly to God, noting especially the efficacy of private prayer, as opposed to public and performative worship. King used the example of Elijah and the prophets of Baal: the prophets sang and danced and made a great show of their devotions, whereas Elijah prayed sincerely to God, and it was he whose prayers were answered, with God sending fire down from heaven to cook the meat upon the altar.49 King related this example to the dangers that came from different people praying to God for opposing things. Turning to the situation in England, he noted how “some [were] praying for the life of Deborah the Queene of this land, and some for the life of Jabin the king of Spaine” (211). While King claimed that such prayers were “mingling and confounding the eares of the Lorde with opposite petitions,” he knew they would ultimately be fruitless, and those praying for Philip instead of Elizabeth would find themselves “fallen and severed, both from the vnitie of this publique body of ours … [and from the] mystical body of their Lord and Redeemer, Christ Jesus” (211–​12). To modern readers, the analogy is made so casually that it is possible to overlook it, but for King, Deborah is so closely associated with Elizabeth that her name served as a 46 John King, Lectures upon Jonas, Delivered at Yorke in the yeare of our Lorde 1594 (Oxford, 1597; STC 14976), sig. *3r. 47 STC 14977 and STC 14978.

48 P. E. McCullough, “King, John (d. 1621),” ODNB, doi:10.1093/​ref:odnb/​15568. 49 1 Kings 18:19–​39.

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metonym, with Philip conflated just as metonymically with the defeated Canaanite king. Given that the English Deborah had twice defeated the Spanish Jabin, King believed that those who prayed for Elizabeth’s defeat were ultimately doomed to disappointment. The reason for the conflation is fairly obvious, but it also shows just how habitually the present was read through the lens of the past. For King, the only way to understand Elizabeth and England’s successes was to view her as a contemporary Deborah—​ especially given Deborah’s peaceful and, apparently, undefeated period of rule. The next analogy appeared near the end of the twenty-​ninth lecture, on Jonah 2:8–​9.50 The sermon focused on how England had flourished since its return to Protestantism, with King claiming that when Elizabeth “came to her crowne, shee found the country (as Augustus the city of Rome) of bricke, shee turned it into marble” (400). I include this vignette to further illustrate the way that the past was habitually applied to contemporary events, and to demonstrate that the biblical and the classical pasts were both routinely employed—​often alongside each other—​in the present. Verse 9 concluded with the observation, “Salvation is of the Lord.” King used “salvation” in both its spiritual and its physical meanings, and the latter part of the sermon focused on the latter meaning of the term. While he claimed that Catholics “have long maliced her, and I trust long shall,” he also believed that such actions against Elizabeth would ultimately be the Catholics’ undoing, equating their repeated failure with the deaths of Nadab and Abihu, the eldest sons of Aaron, who were consumed by God’s fire after failing to properly obey God’s instructions concerning sacrifices.51 King then invoked Psalm 21, and claimed the promises God made to King David also applied to Elizabeth: He hath even sworne by his holinesse, as he did to David his servaunt, not to faile Queene Elizabeth. He that prevented her [death] with liberall blessings, before shee tooke the scepter into her handes … will maintaine his owne doings … glorifie his blessed name by advauncing her to glorie, encrease his kingdome by hers, subdue her people unto her, [and] confounde her enemies.52

Here, Elizabeth’s many blessings she had received both pre-​ and post-​accession are paralleled with those granted to David. Preached in the years after the First Armada, and published the year after the Second, King not only depicted the English as God’s new chosen people, but also emphasized that Elizabeth was England’s providential monarch. Just as God chose David to succeed Saul and rule Israel, so Elizabeth was spared under Mary I, allowed to succeed, and protected from internal and external threats—​especially the adversaries who sought to overthrow those who “glorifie his blessed name.” 50 “They that observe lying vanities forsake their own mercy. But I will sacrifice unto thee with the voice of thanksgiving; I will pay that that I have vowed. Salvation is of the Lord.” 51 Leviticus 10:1–​2.

52 King, Lectures Upon Jonas, 401.

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After the forty-​eight lectures came two sermons, each with their own title page. The first was preached in November 1594 at the funeral of Archbishop Piers, who died on September 28. The second sermon is an Accession Day sermon, preached on “the Queenes day” in York in 1595. It took as its text 2 Kings 23:25: “And like unto him was there no king before him, that turned to the Lord with all his heart, and with all his soul, and with all his might, according to all the law of Moses; neither after him arose there any like him.” This king was Josiah, and King used this text as the basis for a lengthy sermon that compared Josiah’s life and reign with that of Elizabeth. After a lengthy preamble that compared Josiah’s reign to that of his predecessors, the various sins of the Hebrew kings (King is particularly severe about Solomon’s foreign marriages), and the various temporal rulers that had also exercised spiritual authority (especially the Roman emperors and the popes), King offered to “the children of this lande” in order to “continue your obedience and faith … some little comparison, betwixte good king Josias, and gracious Queene Elizabeth.”53 The comparison is long and detailed: the first twelve are numbered in the margins, but then the printer seems to have abandoned the numbering; some of the comparisons are fairly straightforward, others are forced. Given the length of this comparison, I have only included the most relevant examples, which are deliberately summarized for brevity. The comparisons start out fairly simple. Both monarchs ensured the “quiet & tranquillity” of their lands by their “happy governement,” and were responsible for “the abolishinge of altars and priestes” and other “such manifold practises,” with Elizabeth leaving “neither colledge nor cloister, nor any other cage of Idolatrous birdes … to feede her people with errours.” They also had good councillors, and shared God’s word with their people: Josiah “found & restored the booke of the lawe hidden in obscurity,” and Elizabeth “delivered from darkenes and banishmente the testamentes of her God.”54 Here, King is reading Elizabeth’s reign typologically, and presenting the Queen as a latter-​day Josiah, whom God had indisputably favoured. The point is made again: Josiah “turned to the Lorde, with all his hearte,” and Elizabeth has “not taken a contrary course.” Because Elizabeth loved and worshipped God “with all her hearte and with all her soule, and with all her mighte,” “the curses of Popes,” “the banding of the Princes of the earth … against her,” rebellions, and assassination attempts had all failed. Most of Elizabeth’s “successes” were attributed to her Protestantism. Just as Josiah eschewed the “idolatry” of his predecessors and returned the Hebrews “to the faith of David,” so “Elizabeth declineth the path which her sister Mary had troden,” and instead “reneweth the waies of her father and brother almost worne out.” Elizabeth “purdged the sacraments of Christ, & reduced them to their right forme,” just as Josiah held “a famous passeover.” While wanting to show a continuation between the Tudor monarchs, it is interesting to see Elizabeth’s religious policy equated with that of her father and half-​brother, especially given King’s more evangelical leanings. 53 King, Lectures Upon Jonas, 697–​98. 54 King, Lectures Upon Jonas, 698–​99.

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Amid the comparison between Elizabeth and Josiah, King used Esther as a metonym for Elizabeth. He claimed that just as Josiah “was directed in all his waies by the booke of the lawe,” “no other starre guided the heart of our gracious Esther,” who “bindeth her people by statutes and lawes, to the true worshippe of God” (699). The interlocking and overlapping use of analogies here not only reinforces the thought that went into their use (God preserved both Elizabeth and Esther’s people from harm), but also shows how various types were applied together to fully conceptualize the present. King did, however, note several instances where Elizabeth surpassed her Hebrew predecessor: Josiah only reigned for thirty-​one years, but Elizabeth had begun the thirty-​ eighth year of her reign; Josiah only began his religious reforms in the twelfth year of his reign, while Elizabeth “proceeded to a full reformation” in her first; and Josiah was slain in battle for not “hearkening to the words of the Lorde out of the mouth of Necho the king of Egypt,” whereas Elizabeth would continue to be preserved until “shee is gathered to her fathers.” The “sorrow” Elizabeth’s natural death from old age would precipitate, however, brought King back to comparing the monarchs. As Josiah “was mourned for by all Judah and Jerusalem … so looke for mourning from all the endes of our land” when the Queen dies. This is because, according to King, Elizabeth not only surpassed Josiah, but among “her noble progenitours and Lords of this Island,” “was there no King or Queene” like her. Perhaps anticipating the Gloriana myth of the next four centuries, King asserted that people would come to believe that “Neither arose there after her, any that was like unto her” (666–​700). After a digression about England’s enemies, King ended the sermon by imploring the English to pray to God to “preserve Queene Elizabeth … and give her a long life ever for ever and ever” (706). Preached on her accession day, it is not surprising that Elizabeth was so lavishly lauded. Given the Bible text of the sermon, the comparison was possibly a natural way of interpreting the text in the context of the day. The sermon, however, contained much more than mere flattery. Elizabeth was a contemporary Esther, who preserved her people, and like Josiah, she reintroduced the true worship of God, modelling true obedience to Him. Most of the comparisons are self-​explanatory, but the careful and detailed way they are presented demonstrates that King genuinely believed Elizabeth was an embodiment of Josiah, and that he wanted his readers to be in no doubt of that fact—​he was unable to think of any other way of conceiving the favour England received. As Edward Chamberlayne claimed in 1647, “The most probable way to know what will be, is to observe what hath beene.”55 This sermon displays a similar view of the intersection of past and present, especially given the way that King emphasized how Elizabeth exceeded Josiah. Elizabeth may be reigning as a contemporary Josiah, but she had already proved her fervent devotion to God, and He in return had shown her even greater favour.

55 Edward Chamberlayne, The Present Warre Parallel’d. Or, A briefe Relation of the five yeares Civil Warres of Henry the Third (London, 1647; Wing C1846), sig. A1r.

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The analogies with Deborah, David, and Esther are fairly brief, but the comparison with Josiah is long and detailed: this is a work of serious theology that was offered in service of practical politics. It is unclear when in 1597 the pamphlet was published, but given the Third Armada set sail from Spain in October that year, King can only have hoped that God would indeed protect Elizabeth—​just as He had Deborah, David, Esther, and Josiah in their times of need. Like the first two Armadas, the Third was ultimately defeated by the weather.56 Again, the providential nature of the victory was emphasized. An English agent in Spain wrote to the council that “I doe see god fight for us,” otherwise Philip’s “resolution and vexation” would have seen “her majesties fleete eyther taken at sea or burnte.”57 Nevertheless, the arrival of the Armada caused panic in England, as the English navy had returned from its failed expedition to the Azores and sailed into port, leaving the coast largely undefended.58 The bungle caused the already fraying relationship between Elizabeth and Essex to deteriorate even further. The Queen handed control of the fleet to the Lord High Admiral, Charles Howard, and created him Earl of Nottingham and Lord Steward.59 The Third Armada was the final one sent to invade England proper, and with the death of Philip II on September 13, 1598, England seemed to be at last free from impending Spanish invasion. While the two powers continued to engage in naval skirmishes, Philip III showed no interest in continuing his father’s attempts on England itself—​although he did attempt to invade England through Ireland, as discussed below. Nevertheless, the fear created by the three Armadas became an engrained part of the English religio-​political psyche—​traces of which can still be detected today.60 As Geoffrey Parker has argued, the literal invasions may have failed, but the Spanish could boast a profound “psychological success.”61 These English victories, which were almost universally regarded as the work of providence, were viewed through a lens of triumphalist and exceptionalist Protestantism, and especially in the aftermath of the Gunpowder Plot of 1605, these deliverances were understood throughout the seventeenth century as proof of God’s favour toward England.62 This means that virtually 56 CP 35/​98.

57 TNA SP 12/​264, fol. 316v.

58 Hammer, Elizabeth’s Wars, 203; Wernham, The Return of the Armadas, 186–​90.

59 CP 142/​161; TNA SP 12/​264, fol. 336r; Wernham, The Return of the Armadas, 191–​94.

60 See Jonathan Charteris-​Black, Metaphors of Brexit: No Cherries on the Cake? (Cham: Palgrave Macmillan, 2019), 67; and Edoardo Campanella and Marta Dassù, Anglo Nostalgia: The Politics of Emotion in a Fractured West (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2019), 76–​77. 61 Geoffrey Parker, Philip II, 3rd ed. (Chicago: Open Court, 1995), 157.

62 As Alexandra Walsham has shown, “the special providences … enshrined in the mythology of English nationhood, above all [were] the defeat of the Spanish Armada and the discovery of the Gunpowder Plot” (251). On the links between providentialism and the commemorations of both the Armada and the Gunpowder Plot, see Alexandra Walsham, Providence in Early Modern England (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001), 245–​66.

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every Elizabeth analogy published after 1588, either implicitly or explicitly, used the associated Old Testament typology to conceptualize God’s support for Elizabeth and the English, and was intended—​in some way—​to reflect on the defeat of the Armadas. Within this tense period, Richard Hooker’s landmark Of the Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity was published. The first four books were published in 1593, and the fifth book in 1597—​the final three books were all published posthumously (books 6 and 8 in 1648, and 7 in 1662).63 Hooker’s tract was greeted with a range of responses, and scholars continue to debate the work’s impact on the development of the Church of England.64 The first published response to Hooker appeared in 1599: the anonymous A Christian Letter of certaine English Protestants, which was probably printed in Middelburg.65 A Christian Letter was clearly written by a person (or persons) with anti-​Catholic and puritan views, although its emphasis on Hooker’s apparent doctrinal errors suggests an acceptance of, or even agreement with, the governing structure of the Church of England—​suggesting, thus, that they were not presbyterians. While the pamphlet is sometimes attributed to Andrew Willet, the scholars who do so provide no material evidence for the attribution.66 It certainly accords with many of Willet’s views, yet given that he published similar tracts in the same period with his name attached, it seems unlikely that he wrote the response and withheld his name—​unless it was possibly a collaborative effort, to which Willet contributed. Whoever the author of the tract, they were clearly anti-​Catholic, and the tract stressed the perceived popishness of some of Hooker’s theology to discredit it. I am less concerned here with the points made in A Christian Letter and the content of Ecclesiastical Polity (especially given that Hooker died less than a year after A Christian Letter was published, leaving his reply unfinished).67 Instead, I am interested in the way the response’s argument is presented, and how it links to the larger associations between Elizabeth and her Old Testament antecedents. Given the concern that the author(s) had for the supposed attack on the Church of England’s Protestant orthodoxy, it is unsurprising that the tract ends by invoking Elizabeth as the providentially favoured embodiment of Deborah the Judge to drive home its claims. While declaring that they “doe not take upon us to censure your bookes; neither rashly to judge of you for them,” the author(s) claim that like “every child loving his mother,” they are “jelous over that which seemeth disgracefull to his mother,” because “you seeme to us to make a wide

63 A. S. McGrade, “Hooker, Richard (1554–​1600),” ODNB, doi:10.1093/​ref:odnb/​13696.

64 Peter Lake, “Business as Usual? The Immediate Reception of Hooker’s Ecclesiastical Polity,” Journal of Ecclesiastical History 52, no. 3 (2001): 456–​86; and Diarmaid MacCulloch, “Richard Hooker’s Reputation,” English Historical Review 117, no. 473 (2002): 773–​812.

65 Richard Hooker, Of the Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity: Attack and Response, ed. John E. Booty (Cambridge, MA: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1982), xiii, xxv.

66 See, for instance: W. B. Patterson, William Perkins and the Making of a Protestant England (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014), 37; and Hooker, Of the Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity, xix–​xxv.

67 Hooker, Of the Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity, xiii, xxviii–​xxxiii.

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open breach in the church, and to stayne the pure doctrine of faith.”68 “Mother” was a common allegory of the church, but in this instance it went further. The “open breach” the authors accused Hooker of creating was a direct affront to Elizabeth herself, and displayed a disregard for the blessings England received during the Queen’s reign. Given the emotive power of appealing to the divinely favoured Elizabeth, it is evident that the author(s) wanted to affirm this point. Continuing the mother metaphor, the author(s) hoped that Hooker could “lovingly and faithfully satisfie” “our demaundes and requestes” (48). Such satisfaction was paramount because they had “sucked out the sincere milke of the Gospell, by the doctrine in England professed, published and preached … these 40. yeares” (48–​49)—​milk that Hooker’s theology would sour. That Elizabeth was responsible for these forty years of “sincere” religion is made explicit through a biblical analogy: wee are not able to render sufficient prayse and thankes to our most mercifull Father … for that worthie instrument of our joy, that blessed Halcyon and Christian Deborah, his annoynted hande-​mayde our soveraigne Ladie and Queene Elizabeth, whom the sunne of righteousnes hath raysed upp to still the raging streames and roaring waves of Gods enemies, even the cursed Cananites of Romish Babilon, whose peaceable and florishing raigne wee most humbly pray … [will] continue in joy and honour.69

Not only had God sent the English Deborah to His people, but He also continued to protect her (and by extension the English) from the various attempts of the Catholic-​ Canaanites. In addition to drawing on the link between the Spanish and the Canaanites (with the pope as the Whore of Babylon), the reference to “waves” also alludes to the defeat of the three Armadas. The recourse to an Elizabeth analogy here is not a mere throwaway observation: in addition to being a powerful rhetorical strategy, the analogy emphasizes the way that the present was habitually read typologically, with the links between Elizabeth and Deborah foregrounded as a means of understanding God’s plan for the English. The author(s) evidently viewed Hooker’s treatise as an attack on the English church, and they are concerned that these changes, if implemented, would incur God’s displeasure. It is possible to detect an accusation of ungratefulness on Hooker’s part implicit in the text. For the author(s), the various successes of the English Deborah proved that God favoured the English and their church settlement, and the authors betray a concern that despite the forty years of Protestantism under Elizabeth, the halcyon days enjoyed by the English could be lost if the popishness of Hooker’s heterodoxy soured the “sincere milke of the Gospell.”

68 A Christian Letter of certaine English Protestants, unfained favourers of the present state of Religion, authorised and professed in England ([Middelburg], 1599; STC 13721), 48. 69 A Christian Letter, 49.

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The Final Years: How Do You Solve a Problem Like Ireland? In January 1600, Hugh O’Neill, Earl of Tyrone, invaded and razed the Plantation of Munster.70 The Earl of Essex, the Lord Lieutenant, had proved unable to end the fighting, and his return to London in September 1599 emboldened the Irish. Essex grew increasingly unstable, and in the aftermath of his failed rebellion, he was executed on February 25, 1601.71 Tyrone and Essex’s actions caused the English strategy in Ireland to change. Essex’s replacement as Lord Deputy was Charles Blount, Baron Mountjoy (later Earl of Devonshire), and he arrived in Ireland on February 24, 1600, with the experienced Sir George Carew serving as President of Munster and Sir Arthur Chichester controlling Carrikfergus in Ulster. Mountjoy was able to make more significant inroads against the Irish, thanks to the better supplies he received from England—​something that Essex had been promised, but never provided with. By the middle of 1601, Carew had largely subjugated Munster, and both Mountjoy and Chichester had made significant inroads in Ulster.72 The situation drastically changed, however, when on September 23, 1601, a Spanish force consisting of twenty-​ three ships and 4,500 soldiers landed at Kinsale, in the south of Ireland.73 Elizabeth and her council responded quickly: troops and ships were dispatched to Ireland throughout October, and by the end of the month, the Spanish ships were blockaded by the English navy, and the English land-​forces numbered about 6,900 soldiers and six hundred horses.74 Perhaps unsurprisingly, the invasion of this Spanish force under Philip III was related to the attempts made by his father. For instance, Sir Robert Cecil exhorted the Commons on November 6 to vote sufficient money for the war effort, claiming that if their predecessors had been miserly at the time of the “great overthrow of his invincible Navy in eighty eight … [surely] we had been destinated to perdition.”75 Indeed, Elizabeth, in a letter to Archbishop Whitgift, claimed that “the king of Spain and the Pope … [seek] to restore there the superstitions of Rome and to reduce that Realm under Spanish tyranny.”76 Not only was this invasion of Elizabeth’s realms seen as a continuation of Philip II’s endeavours, but Elizabeth and the English were also firm in their belief that it was meant to restore Ireland and England to the Catholic fold. History seemed to be repeating itself, and loyalists turned to the biblical past to conceptualize this new stage in the war against Catholic Spain. A variety of publications appeared in late 1601 and early 1602 that sought to bolster the English, but Richard 70 Calendar of State Papers, Ireland, 1599–​1600, ed. Ernest George Atkinson (London, 1899), 440.

71 See Alexandra Gajda, The Earl of Essex and Late Elizabethan Political Culture (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012), 7–​9. 72 Hammer, Elizabeth’s Wars, 224.

73 John McGurk, The Elizabethan Conquest of Ireland: The Burdens of the 1590s Crisis (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1997), 13. 74 Hammer, Elizabeth’s Wars, 225; CP 88/​124.

75 Simonds D’Ewes [and Paul Bowes], The Journals of all the Parliaments during the reign of Queen Elizabeth, both the House of Lords and House of Commons (London, 1682; Wing D1250), 630. 76 Lambeth Palace Library MS 2009, fol. 141.

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Vennard’s The Right Way to Heaven went out of its way to link the present to biblical precedent.77 Entered into the Stationers’ Register on November 19, 1601, The Right Way to Heaven contained a variety of prayers that could be recited to entreat God to once again help the English overcome the invading Catholics.78 The pamphlet was intended to emphasize Vennard’s loyalty to Elizabeth and the regime, given his recent imprisonment after returning to England from the court of James VI of Scotland.79 Nevertheless, that Vennard believed a compilation of prayers, many of which contained biblical references, would help to ingratiate himself with the regime demonstrates that comprehending the present through biblical analogies remained a potent practice, even in the twilight years of Elizabeth’s reign.80 The most relevant example for my purposes is his “prayer for the prosperous successe of hir Majesties forces in Ireland.” As Vennard’s initials appear at the bottom of the prayer, it is safe to assume that it was an original composition. The prayer contains a litany of biblical examples of God preserving His chosen people, some more common than others, and it also explicitly features Elizabeth as the contemporary embodiment of several Old Testament figures. The prayer is worth quoting almost in full to emphasize the sheer number of analogies it contains, as well as the way these analogies were related to the present: Sweet Jesus, God of mercie, Lord of compassion … suffer thy servants [to] passe through that Irish red Sea of Sanguin and blodie pretence, and let those rebbels be overwhelmed with the Egiptian Pharo. Circumvent that rebellious Sissira, that thy judgment (like a naile) may peirce into the braine of his malitious practises: That our Soveraigne may sing with Debora after the victorie, having with Hester preserved hir people, and with chast Judith cut off the head of harme pretending Holofernes. And as to thy servant Moyses, under-​prop the arme of hir Generall with thine owne powre … Stand still O Sonne of God, and give thy people victorie, as the Sunne stoode still when Jos[h]‌ua got the victory. Let the traiterous vassailes be confounded, thy servant Elizabeth preserved, & thy selfe above all glorified.81

77 See, for instance: Ralph Birchensha, A Discourse occasioned upon the late defeat, given to the arch-​rebels, Tyrone and Odonnell, by the right Honourable the Lord Mountioy, Lord Deputie of Ireland (London, 1602; STC 3081); and I. E., A Letter from a Souldier of good place in Ireland, to his friend in London, touching the notable Victorie of her Majesties Forces there, against the Spaniards, and Irish Rebels (London, 1602; STC 7434). See also David Heffernan, “Political Discourse and the Nine Years’ War in Late Elizabethan Ireland, c.1593–​1603,” Historical Research 94, no. 264 (2021): 282–​302. 78 SRO4481, https://​sta​tion​ersr​egis​ter.onl​ine/​entry/​SRO4​481.

79 Herbert Berry, “Vennar [Vennard], Richard (bap. 1564, d. 1615),” ODNB, doi:10.1093/​ref:odnb/​ 28190. 80 Vennard’s belief proved justified, and he enjoyed a relatively successful literary career: The Right Way to Heaven went through at least two further editions, and he published his autobiography (An Apology; STC 24636) in 1614, although he continued to run into trouble with the authorities, which resulted in at least three further spells in prison. See Berry, “Vennar [Vennard], Richard.”

81 Richard Vennard, The Right Way to Heaven: And the true testimonie of a faithfull and loyal subject (London, 1601; BL shelfmark C.53.c.12.), sig. ☞1r.

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Vennard may have been drawing on the common types for Elizabeth, but he ensured that he accentuated their most relevant aspects: for instance, he prayed that the English ships would safely arrive in Ireland, but then that the seas would turn on the Spanish, just as the Israelites crossed the Red Sea in safety, after which the pursuing Egyptians were drowned. This depiction of Elizabeth as a contemporary Moses sits alongside Vennard’s depiction of Elizabeth as a Deborah, Esther, and Judith. While these three women may be standard types for Elizabeth (and their relevance to the contemporary situation in Ireland is fairly obvious), the way they are invoked, especially alongside Moses, emphasizes the consideration that went into choosing the types. Vennard’s decision to invoke Moses went beyond his hope that the Catholics would be defeated just as the Egyptians had been at the Red Sea. Later in the prayer, Vennard recalled the Hebrews’ battle against the Amalekites: according to Exodus 17:8–​16, Moses sent Joshua to fight Amalek, while he would stand atop a hill holding the rod of God. When Moses held up his arms, the Hebrews prevailed, but as soon as they dropped down, the Amalekites gained the upper hand. A great physical ordeal, Aaron and Hur (a companion of Moses and Aaron) helped Moses keep his arms raised until the sun went down, when the Israelites were victorious. In a somewhat convoluted way, Vennard was suggesting that Mountjoy was a Joshua, sent by the Moses-​Elizabeth, with perhaps Cecil and Charles Howard, Earl of Nottingham and the Lord High Admiral, as the Aaron and Hur who supported Elizabeth. Knowing that the Queen would not be physically present to oversee the victory, Vennard employed another analogy for Mountjoy-​Joshua, recalling the Israelites’ defeat of the combined forces of the kings of Jerusalem, Hebron, Jarmuth, Lachish, Eglo, and the Amorites, where God prevented the sun from setting until the battle was won, so the Israelites could fight in the daylight.82 Vennard would also have known that during this battle, God “cast down great [hail]stones from heaven,” which killed more people “than the children of Israel slew with the sword”—​again alluding (even in this implicit fashion) to the way God ensured that even the weather fought on behalf of the English.83 Just as God had helped His chosen people in the Old Testament, so would He help the English, His new chosen people. Vennard’s prayer is a clear example of the way the present was viewed through the lens of the past, with God’s dealings with the Hebrews serving as a template of sorts for the way that God could help the English. Vennard believed God had sent Elizabeth to England as a new Moses, Deborah, Esther, and Judith, and he saw no reason that Elizabeth would not be granted victories like those granted to these four Old Testament luminaries. The prayer also shows the complex way that the present could be interpreted: Elizabeth was a Moses, and she sent the Mountjoy-​Joshua to Ireland, who would be blessed just as Joshua himself was. The pamphlet was published near the beginning of Elizabeth’s forty-​fourth year on the throne, and even at this late stage of Elizabeth’s reign, Vennard indicated that biblical analogies maintained a widespread and popular appeal. He also, 82 Joshua 10:5, 13. 83 Joshua 10:11.

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perhaps even more importantly, highlighted the way that analogies were not strictly gendered. Given the way he described Elizabeth as a Deborah, it would have been very easy to have Mountjoy depicted as a Barak. Instead, Vennard presented Elizabeth as a Moses, showing once again that it was the type that mattered above all else. Vennard’s prayer was seemingly answered: the English victory at the Battle of Kinsale in January 1602 saw Spain abandon the Irish alliance, and the victory all but ended the possibility of the Irish winning the war.84 According to a letter sent to Cecil, the Spanish general Juan del Águila complained to Mountjoy about the members of the Irish alliance his forces fought alongside. Referencing Christ’s third temptation in the wilderness—​in which the Devil took Christ to the top of a high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world to tempt Christ to worship him—​Águila claimed, “I verylye beleive, the divell hidd Ireland from him, because it was fitt for none but for himself.”85 An odd example, but it nevertheless underscores the ubiquity of the Bible as a frame of reference in this period. Discussions of loyalty and rebellion continued to feature in religio-​political discourse. On Easter Tuesday, 1602, A Fruitful Sermon Necessary for the Time was preached by Francis Marbury and published soon after.86 The sermon’s text was Ecclesiastes 10:20, which Marbury used to explain why the English were duty bound to be loyal to Elizabeth.87 Many of Marbury’s sermons around this time featured virulent anti-​Catholicism and A Fruitful Sermon was no different, with Marbury arguing that Catholics cannot be loyal to Elizabeth due to their allegiance to the pope.88 Marbury’s earlier career had been marred, ironically, by his own disloyalty: Patrick Collinson described Marbury as a puritan “hothead,” and Marbury was imprisoned on four occasions for vocally criticizing the regime for allowing (to his mind) poorly trained priests to hold parish positions and become bishops.89 By 1594, however, Marbury seems to have decided that it was expedient to toe the regime’s line. He became associated with the Cecils (both William 84 Paul E. J. Hammer, “The Catholic Threat and the Military Response,” in The Elizabethan World, ed. Susan Doran and Norman Jones (New York: Routledge, 2014), 643–​44. 85 CP 91/​25, fol. 46r.

86 Preached at St. Mary Spital on April 6, it was entered into the Stationers’ Register on April 17, 1602.

87 Ecclesiastes 10:20: “Curse not the king, no not in thy thought; neither curse the rich, no not in thy bed-​chamber; for the foule of the heaven shall carrie the voice, and that which hath winges shall declare the matter” (sig. A7r). See also Michael A. Heimos, “Not ‘to Confound Predicaments’: Loyalty and the Common Law, c.1400–​1688,” in Loyalty to the Monarchy in Late Medieval and Early Modern Britain, c.1400–​1688, ed. Matthew Ward and Matthew Hefferan (Cham: Palgrave Macmillan, 2020), 127–​48.

88 See Mary Morrissey, Politics and the Paul’s Cross Sermons, 1558–​1642 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011), 182–​83.

89 Patrick Collinson, The Elizabethan Puritan Movement (London: Jonathan Cape, 1967), 433; Marilyn J. Westerkamp, The Passion of Anne Hutchinson: An Extraordinary Woman, the Puritan Patriarchs, and the World They Made and Lost (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2021), 32–​36.

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and Robert), and it is perhaps no coincidence that his star rose considerably.90 Marbury may even have hinted at his former truculence in the pamphlet’s epistle when he told his readers that they should “turne all our unnecessarie medlings with Counsels and States, to prayers & thanksgivings for our blessed Lady Queen Elizabeth.”91 As part of his explanation of why the English owed Elizabeth their loyalty, Marbury compared the Queen to five male Old Testament figures, using the analogies to emphasize her providential favour, and to explain the significance of her actions. The section with the analogies began with Marbury warning against “forgetting their princes, and the blessings of God received by them,” especially given the “Papists which have made rebellion and conspiracie” throughout Elizabeth’s reign (D3r). These points were expanded on by the analogies. Elizabeth, according to Marbury, was “our Josiah, for shee hath restored the law that was lost,” linking Elizabeth’s reintroduction of Protestantism in England to the rediscovery of God’s law during Josiah’s reign. She was a Jehoshaphat because she appointed “Judges to execute, not the judgements of man, but of the Lord,” seemingly linking Jehoshaphat’s judicial reforms (2 Chronicles 19:5–​11) with the increasingly punitive laws enacted against Catholics and rebellious subjects. Elizabeth was also “our Hezekiah” because “she hath opened the doores of the Temple of the Lord the first yeare and the first moneth.” A more obscure reference, Marbury seemed to be praising Elizabeth’s swift return of England to Protestantism, as well as linking Hezekiah’s enforcement of monotheistic worship of God with Elizabeth’s removal of Catholic icons. “Fourthly,” Elizabeth was England’s David, “for after great affliction most innocently and with memorable grace endured, she came into the throne of Majestie, to settle peace and comfort in the throne of our conscience,” not to mention she “erect[ed] a throne for Christ to sit in … by giving us lawes in which we may live.” Like David, Elizabeth had been persecuted under her predecessor, but she was preserved to succeed, and like David returning the Ark of the Covenant to Jerusalem, the Queen returned Christ to his rightful position in (the Church of) England, supplanting the pope and the saints. Finally, Elizabeth was England’s Solomon, “for she hath brought and continued aboundance of peace.” Just as the “worke of our protection hath prospered marvellously in her hand,” God’s “protection over her infoldeth as many of us”—​the blessings Elizabeth received were also blessings for the English. Marbury then provided a summary, telling his readers that Elizabeth’s “right is good, her government good, her successe good, [therefore] let our hearts also be good” (D4r). The repeated use of “our” shows that Elizabeth was not merely imitating these biblical figures: she was in fact their contemporary embodiment. A few sentences later, Marbury expanded on his comment that Elizabeth’s “right is good” by offering a vindication of her gender. He asserted that Elizabeth’s “sex is legitimated with this honour by the fift commandement, no lesse then the naturall 90 CP 167/​109; CP 113/​6; CP 114/​86.

91 Francis Marbury, A Fruitful Sermon Necessary for the Time, preached at the Spittle upon the Tuesday in Easter weeke last (London, 1602; STC 17305), sig. A4v.

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mother over her naturall children” (D4r). Elizabeth, as a mother to the English, was owed the honour mandated in the Fifth Commandment, meaning that the English were obliged to obey her as England’s legitimate female king. In the forty-​fourth year of Elizabeth’s reign, Marbury still thought it necessary to defend Elizabeth’s right to rule—​ and he did so with a biblical example. Marbury’s sermon, published less than a year before Elizabeth’s death, emphasizes a number of this book’s key themes. Biblical analogies were clearly an important tool of legitimization and example throughout the entirety of Elizabeth’s reign, and they were used almost reflexively to explain or evidence a point. Marbury also went to great lengths to link Elizabeth to five male biblical figures: while he used the Fifth Commandment to defend the legitimacy of female kingship, he used male typologies to explain the gifts God had bestowed on England when He sent Elizabeth to rule. This decision does perhaps acknowledge the lack of precedent in the Bible for female kingship, but the use of five biblical kings, all of whom were favoured by God, is unlikely to have been an accident. Given his volatile past, it is unsurprising that Marbury sought to publicly praise Elizabeth in this way. The typologies go beyond mere sycophancy, however, and could all be linked to aspects of official policy in specific ways (for instance, he did not link Joshua’s defeat of the Canaanites with Elizabeth’s victory over the Spanish Armada), underscoring their deliberate selection. Such choices show Marbury sincerely believed that Elizabeth was the contemporary embodiment of these Old Testament kings, and he wanted to ensure his readers were left in no doubt of this fact.

Triumphal Protestantism Meets “Our good Hezekia” and “our gracious Debora”

In the first part of 1602, a pamphlet was published in London by Ralph Birchensha that recounted the English victory at Kinsale.92 Other than the fact that he was “Controller Generall of the musters in Ireland,” and that he was probably the father of the musician John Birchensha, nothing is known about him. His tract, however, is a key account of the victory, and is frequently cited by scholars. In the dedication to Mountjoy, Birchensha described the “blessed successe” of the English as being “by Gods most gracious providence.”93 The bulk of the pamphlet takes the form of six-​line stanzas, and in one of these, Birchensha offered some advice to Philip III: And hereby may the King of Spaine observe, How God abhors and hates unjust attempts, And leave his hate gainst faire Elizabeth, Virgin Queene, famous for vertuous life.94

92 It was entered into the Stationers’ Register on February 19, 1602. SRO4512, https://​sta​tion​ersr​ egis​ter.onl​ine/​entry/​SRO4​512. 93 Birchensha, A Discourse occasioned, sig. A2r. 94 Birchensha, A Discourse occasioned, sig. E1r.

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Elizabeth may have ruled for forty-​four years by this time, but Birchensha wanted to make clear that God continued to defend England’s famous “Virgin Queene.” Birchensha’s explicit invocation of providence here is part of the prevailing belief that God intervened in human affairs, and that one of the best ways to understand these interventions was to look to biblical history. The texts analyzed in this chapter do so in a range of ways, offering serious theological interpretations of the present. Several are familiar to scholars for various reasons (especially A Christian Letter and Cotton’s An Armor of Proofe), but the scholarship has all but ignored the biblical analogies contained within these same texts. In the eleven-​year period covered by this chapter, Elizabeth was compared with an incredible range of Old Testament figures: David, Deborah, Esther, Hezekiah, Jael, Jehoshaphat, Joshua, Josiah, Judith, Moses, the Queen of Sheba, Solomon, and the woman who killed Abimelech were all offered as historical precedents for Elizabeth. Any claims that biblical analogies suffered from “a dramatic falling-​off in their use” in the latter decades of Elizabeth’s reign must therefore be put to rest.95 This chapter has also emphasized the wider socio-​religious context in which these analogies were invoked. Certainly, Norden’s exhortations around the time of the Spanish raids in Cornwall and Vennard’s prayer for the success of Elizabeth’s forces in Ireland responded to specific—​and real—​religio-​political threats, and like those discussed in the previous chapter, the analogies utilized providential Protestantism as a weapon against the evils of Catholicism. At the same time, however, biblical analogies retained their important purpose as a conceptual tool and a method of understanding the present. Not all texts were so context specific: both Robinson and Tymme, for instance, employed several biblical analogies, even though their texts would have worked without them. As this chapter, and indeed this book, has consistently demonstrated, praying that God would defend England and protect Elizabeth was an important, and indeed necessary, action in early modern England. Praying that God would defend England’s Deborah, or the English Hezekiah, went a step further; it acknowledged the way that the past and the present interacted, and served as a comforting reminder to contemporaries that God did intervene in human affairs. Just as He had strengthened the Hebrews to defeat the oppressive Canaanites and had preserved His people during the Exodus, so would He defend His new chosen people, the English, and most especially their “gracious Queene Elizabeth”—​as He had done all her life.

95 Stump, “Abandoning the Old Testament,” 284.

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CONCLUSION: BIBLICAL ANALOGY AND PROVIDENTIAL RULE

In 1622, John Taylor’s A Memorial of all the English Monarchs was published. The book contained short biographies in “heroicall verse” of the 150 monarchs who Taylor believed had ruled in England from Brutus to James VI & I.1 Of all the rulers included, Elizabeth is the only one to be compared to any biblical figures. The biography reads like a hagiographic paean: A Deborah, a Judith, a Susanna, A Virgin, a Virago, a Dyanna: Couragious, Zealous, Learned, Wise, and Chaste, With Heavenly, Earthly gifts, adorn’d and grac’d Victorious, glorious, bounteous, gracious, good, And one whose vertues dignifi’d her bloud, … Amongst all Queens, proclaim’d her Queen of harts.2

Following the death of James and the accession of Charles I in 1625, Taylor issued a new edition of the booklet in 1630 that included a (very brief) biography of Charles.3 Despite editing James’s biography, Taylor did not associate James with Solomon, seemingly choosing to ignore the various lamentory texts that hailed James as “Great Britain’s Solomon.”4 Despite the many associations between Henry VIII and David, or Edward VI and Josiah, for instance, Taylor only saw Elizabeth as a latter-​day embodiment of a famed Old Testament figure. We can never know for certain why Taylor made this decision, but it does suggest that Elizabeth’s relationship with the luminaries of the Old 1 This was not the first such text Taylor had written. His A Briefe Remembrance of All the English Monarchs, From the Normans Conquest, untill this present was published in 1618. It too contained biographies of England’s monarchs (although these were told in the first person), as well as engraved portraits of the monarchs. None of these biographies included mention of any biblical figures, although Henry V was described as “Great Englands Mars.” John Taylor, A Briefe Remembrance of All the English Monarchs, From the Normans Conquest, untill this present (London, 1618; STC 23736), sig. C1r. 2 John Taylor, A Memorial of all the English Monarchs, being in number 150 from Brute to King James in heroyicall verse (London, 1622; STC 23773), sig. F4v. 3 John Taylor, A Memorial of all the English Monarchs being in number 151, from Brute to King Charles (London, 1630; STC 23774).

4 In sermon preached at James’s funeral, John Williams, the Bishop of Lincoln and the Lord Keeper, famously described the King as “Great Britaines Salomon.” John Williams, Great Britains Salomon: A Sermon Preached at the Magnificent Funerall, of the most high and mighty King, James, the late King of Great Britaine, France, and Ireland, defender of the Faith (London, 1625; STC 25723), 1.

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184 Conclusion Testament was so strong that even nineteen years after her death, Taylor felt compelled to use these types to describe and commemorate the last Tudor monarch. Taylor’s biography of Elizabeth neatly encapsulates many of the laudatory texts published in the aftermath of the Queen’s death in March 1603. As numerous scholars have shown, the outpouring of grief that accompanied the Queen’s death—​some of it genuine, some of it for show—​not only reflected and repurposed much of the praise offered to Elizabeth during her life, but also cemented the idea of “Good Queen Bess” in English popular culture that remains even today.5 Taylor’s biography also captures many of the themes discussed in the previous chapters: like his Elizabethan predecessors, Taylor believed Elizabeth was a Deborah, not just like Deborah, and had been sent by God to the English. The Old Testament was therefore an enduring source for understanding the last Tudor monarch’s reign. Virtually every moment of importance throughout Elizabeth’s reign, from her coronation procession to her accession days, and from her excommunication to the defeat of the Spanish Armada, was conceived, read, and interpreted typologically. Polemicists and pamphleteers routinely made their didactic points about the present through biblical analogies, conflating the Queen with a litany of biblical figures in the process. Reading the present through the lens of the Bible not only provided a God-​ approved blueprint for handling the contemporary situation, but also reassured the English that just as God had preserved His people in the Old Testament, so would He preserve His new chosen people. This means that arguments concerning the perceived decline in the use of biblical analogies as the Queen’s reign progressed need to be abandoned. Certainly, the appearance of analogies fluctuated year by year (although how much of this is down to varying survival rates will never be known); nevertheless, at every moment of crisis throughout her reign, commentators and polemicists returned to the scriptures to understand the present. In fact, the continuity across Elizabeth’s reign is remarkable: for instance, Elizabeth was compared to Deborah in texts published in both 1559 and 1601, and to David in both 1559 and 1602. Context and purpose may change, but the underlying effect remains the same. In a society that was steeped in the doctrine of providence, biblical analogies were a key technique for providing a practical explanation for, or an example of, the intervention the writer hoped would occur. Hoping that God would defeat the invading Spanish was one thing, but to conceive of it as the English Deborah triumphing over the Spanish Canaanites was another thing entirely. The comfort that the English could take from such interpretations of present events was likely immense, and the use of these typologies to explain the workings of providence should never be underestimated. 5 See John Watkins, Representing Elizabeth in Stuart England: Literature, History, Sovereignty (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002); Catherine Loomis, The Death of Elizabeth I: Remembering and Reconstructing the Virgin Queen (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2010); Julia M. Walker, The Elizabeth Icon, 1603–​2003 (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2004); and Carole Levin, “Elizabeth’s Ghost: The Afterlife of the Queen in Stuart England,” Royal Studies Journal 1, no. 1 (2014): 1–​16.

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The various analogies analyzed in this book also show Elizabeth’s gender was not the concern to her subjects that some scholars have depicted it as being. I hope that the examples analyzed here are another (if not the final) nail in the coffin of the erroneous claim that Elizabeth’s position as a female king was an aberration, and that she constantly had to battle critics of female rule. The many biblical types invoked across Elizabeth’s reign, both male and female, show that gender was essentially irrelevant to the Queen’s monarchical authority, and that because God had preserved Elizabeth and chosen her to return England to Protestantism, there could be no question of her right to be England’s sovereign. Biblical analogies were routinely used to provide counsel to a monarch, but this should not be mistaken as a criticism of the monarch. Certainly, biblical analogies could suggest, both implicitly and explicitly, that Elizabeth needed to change courses, or that she had yet to fully live up to the example provided by the biblical figure, but ultimately, the example of Deborah (for instance) was offered because the writer truly believed that Elizabeth was able to embody her Old Testament antecedent. Whatever critique may be contained in an invocation of a biblical figure, it nevertheless showed that the writer believed the type was relevant to, and replicable in, the present. Elizabeth’s association with these biblical figures did not end with her death, as demonstrated by Taylor’s biography. More work needs to be done to fully understand the continuation of this phenomenon throughout the seventeenth century.6 It should not come as a surprise, however, that Elizabeth continued to be remembered as England’s Deborah for decades after her death. Just as types reverberated down the centuries, so the English Deborah became a type that could be deployed to advise in, and conceive of, the present. After all, why would the view that the English Deborah had defeated the Spanish Canaanites in 1588 be any less prevalent or potent in the seventeenth century? As the senior academic I mentioned at the beginning of this book sardonically pointed out, that Elizabeth was compared to Deborah throughout her reign is not a particularly groundbreaking observation. But, as this book has sought to emphasize, comparing Elizabeth to Deborah served a myriad of functions, many of which have previously been overlooked. And while Deborah may dominate numerically as the most frequently invoked type for Elizabeth, the female judge was by no means the only type employed. More than thirty biblical figures, ranging from the familiar to the obscure, were offered to the Queen as counsel, example, and precedent. Taking a holistic view of Elizabeth’s reign, as this book does, reveals the applicability, potency, and adaptability of biblical analogy to any religio-​political crisis. Biblical analogies may not be a part of political discourse today, but for the people of Elizabethan England, envisaging their Queen as a contemporary Deborah, Judith, Hezekiah, or Solomon provided more comfort and reassurance than anything a twenty-​first-​century spin doctor could ever dream up. 6 I am currently preparing a monograph on this topic, provisionally titled Biblical Typology and Elizabeth I, 1603–​1659: History, Memory, and Providence. See also Aidan Norrie, “‘Courageous, Zealous, Learned, Wise, and Chaste’ – ​Queen Elizabeth I’s Biblical Analogies After Her Death,” Royal Studies Journal 2, no. 2 (2015): 25–​44.

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Secondary Sources Alford, Stephen. The Watchers: A Secret History of the Reign of Elizabeth I. London: Penguin, 2013. Black, Joseph L., ed. The Martin Marprelate Tracts: A Modernized and Annotated Edition. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008. Blessing, Carol, “Elizabeth I as Deborah the Judge: Exceptional Women of Power.” In Goddesses and Queens: The Iconography of Elizabeth I, edited by Annaliese Connolly and Lisa Hopkins, 19–​33. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2007. Bradshaw, Christopher. “David or Josiah? Old Testament Kings as Exemplars in Edwardian Religious Polemic.” In Protestant History and Identity in Sixteenth-​Century Europe: The Later Reformation, edited by Bruce Gordon, 76–​90. Aldershot: Ashgate, 1996. Brownlee, Victoria. Biblical Readings and Literary Writings in Early Modern England, 1558–​ 1625. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2018. Clement, Jennifer. “The Queen’s Voice: Elizabeth I’s Christian Prayers and Meditations.” Early Modern Literary Studies 13, no. 3 (January 2008): 1–​26. Cole, Mary Hill. The Portable Queen: Elizabeth I and the Politics of Ceremony. Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 1999. Collinson, Patrick. The Elizabethan Puritan Movement. London: Jonathan Cape, 1967. —​—​. “Pulling the Strings: Religion and Politics in the Progress of 1578.” In The Progresses, Pageants, and Entertainments of Queen Elizabeth I, edited by Jayne Elisabeth Archer, Elizabeth Goldring, and Sarah Knight, 122–​41. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007. —​—.​ Richard Bancroft and Elizabethan Anti-​Puritanism. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013. Doran, Susan. “Did Elizabeth’s Gender Really Matter?” In Queens Matter in Early Modern Studies, edited by Anna Riehl Bertolet, 31–​52. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2018. —​—​. “Elizabeth I: An Old Testament King.” In Tudor Queenship: The Reigns of Mary and Elizabeth, edited by Alice Hunt and Anna Whitelock, 95–​110. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2010. —​—​. “Elizabeth I and Counsel.” In The Politics of Counsel in England and Scotland, 1286–​1707, edited by Jacqueline Rose, 151–​69. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2017. —​—.​ Elizabeth I and Foreign Policy, 1558–​1603. London: Routledge, 2000. —​—.​ Monarchy and Matrimony: The Courtships of Elizabeth I. London: Routledge, 1996. Groves, Beatrice. Texts and Traditions: Religion in Shakespeare, 1592–​1604. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 2007. Hackett, Helen. Virgin Mother, Maiden Queen: Elizabeth I and the Cult of the Virgin Mary. Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1995.

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Hammer, Paul E. J. “The Catholic Threat and the Military Response.” In The Elizabethan World, edited by Susan Doran and Norman Jones, 629–​45. New York: Routledge, 2014. —​—​. Elizabeth’s Wars: War, Government, and Society in Tudor England, 1544–​ 1604. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2003. Herrup, Cynthia. “The King’s Two Genders.” Journal of British Studies 45, no. 3 (July 2006): 493–​510. Hill, Alexandra. “The Lamentable Tale of Lost Ballads in England, 1557–​1640.” In Broadsheets: Single-​Sheet Publishing in the First Age of Print, edited by Andrew Pettegree, 442–​58. Leiden: Brill, 2017. Hill, Christopher. The English Bible and the Seventeenth-​Century Revolution. London: Allen Lane, 1993. Kesselring, K. J. The Northern Rebellion of 1569: Faith, Politics, and Protest in Elizabethan England. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2010. Killeen, Kevin. The Political Bible in Early Modern England. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2017. King, John N. Tudor Royal Iconography: Literature and Art in an Age of Crisis. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1989. Kinney, Arthur F., and Jane A. Lawson, eds. Titled Elizabethans: A Directory of Elizabethan Court, State, and Church Officers, 1558–​1603. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2014. Levin, Carole. The Heart and Stomach of a King: Elizabeth I and the Politics of Sex and Power. 2nd ed. Philadelphia: University of Philadelphia Press, 2013. Marotti, Arthur F., and Steven W. May. “Two Lost Ballads of the Armada Thanksgiving Celebration [with texts and illustration].” English Literary Renaissance 41, no. 1 (Winter 2011): 31–​63. Marshall, Peter. Heretics and Believers: A History of the English Reformation. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2017. —​—​. “Settlement Patterns: The Church of England, 1553–​1603.” In The Oxford History of Anglicanism, Volume I: Reformation and Identity, c.1520–​1662, edited by Anthony Milton, 45–​62. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2017. McCullough, Peter E. Sermons at Court: Politics and Religion in Elizabethan and Jacobean Preaching. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998. McKenna, John W. “How God became an Englishman.” In Tudor Rule and Revolution: Essays for G. R. Elton from his American Friends, edited by DeLloyd J. Guth and John W. McKenna, 25–​43. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1982. Montini, Donatella. “‘Beholde Me Thy Handmaiden’: The Pragmatics and Politics of Queen Elizabeth’s Prayers.” In Elizabeth I in Writing: Language, Power and Representation in Early Modern England, edited by Donatella Montini and Ilonda Plescia, 83–​107. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2018. Muller, Aislinn. The Excommunication of Elizabeth I: Faith, Politics, and Resistance in Post-​ Reformation England, 1570–​1603. Leiden: Brill, 2020. Neale, J. E. Elizabeth I and Her Parliaments, 1559–​1581. London: Jonathan Cape, 1953. —​—​. Elizabeth I and Her Parliaments, 1584–​1601. London: Jonathan Cape, 1957. Norbrook, David. “The Emperor’s New Body? Richard II, Ernst Kantorowicz, and the Politics of Shakespeare Criticism.” Textual Practice 10, no. 2 (1996): 329–​57.

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192 Select Bibliography Norrie, Aidan. “Child Actors in the 1578 Norwich Civic Entertainment.” Shakespeare Bulletin 37, no. 2 (Summer 2019): 167–​85. —​—​. “‘Courageous, Zealous, Learned, Wise, and Chaste’ – ​Queen Elizabeth I’s Biblical Analogies After Her Death.” Royal Studies Journal 2, no. 2 (2015): 25–​44. —​—​. “Elizabeth I as Judith: Reassessing the Apocryphal Widow’s Appearance in Elizabethan Royal Iconography.” Renaissance Studies 31, no. 5 (2017): 707–​22. —​—​. “What Mary Did First: Re-Assessing the Biblical Analogies of England’s First Female King.” In Mary I in Writing: Letters, Literature, and Representations, edited by Valerie Schutte and Jessica S. Hower, 111–​33. Cham: Palgrave Macmillan, 2022. Osherow, Michele. Biblical Women’s Voices in Early Modern England. Farnham: Ashgate, 2009. —​—​. “Crafting Queens: Early Modern Readings of Esther.” In Queens and Power in Medieval and Early Modern England, edited by Carole Levin and Robert Bucholz, 141–​57. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2009. Richards, Judith M. Elizabeth I. New York: Routledge, 2012. Rose, Mary Beth. Gender and Heroism in Early Modern English Literature. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2002. Santos, Luis Gorrochategui. The English Armada: The Greatest Naval Disaster in English History. Translated by Peter J. Gold. London: Bloomsbury, 2018. Schroeder, Joy A. Deborah’s Daughters: Gender, Politics, and Biblical Interpretation. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014. Sharpe, Kevin. Selling the Tudor Monarchy: Authority and Image in Sixteenth-​Century England. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2009. Shenk, Linda. Learned Queen: The Image of Elizabeth I in Politics and Poetry. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2010. —​—​. “Queen Solomon: An International Elizabeth I in 1569.” In Queens and Power in Medieval and Early Modern England, edited by Carole Levin and Robert Bucholz, 98–​125. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2009. Smith, Victoria. “‘For Ye, Young Men, Show a Womanish Soul, Yon Maiden a Man’s’: Perspectives on Female Monarchy in Elizabeth’s First Decade.” In Gender and Political Culture in Early Modern Europe, 1400–​1800, edited by James Daybell and Svante Norrhem, 143–​57. London: Routledge, 2017. Stahl, Harvey. Picturing Kingship: History and Painting in the Psalter of Saint Louis. University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2008. Strong, Roy C. “The Popular Celebration of the Accession Day of Queen Elizabeth I.” Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes 21, nos. 1–​2 (1958): 86–​103. Stump, Donald. “Abandoning the Old Testament: Protestant Dissent and the Shift in Court Paradigms for Elizabeth.” In Elizabeth I and the “Sovereign Arts”: Essays in Literature, History, Culture, edited by Donald Stump, Linda Shenk, and Carole Levin, 281–​99. Tempe: Arizona Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies, 2011. —​—.​ Spenser’s Heavenly Elizabeth: Providential History in “The Faerie Queene.” Cham: Palgrave Macmillan, 2019. Tudor-​Craig, Pamela. “Henry VIII and King David.” In Early Tudor England: Proceedings of the 1987 Harlaxton Symposium, edited by Daniel Williams, 183–​205. Woodbridge: Boydell, 1989.

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Walsham, Alexandra. Providence in Early Modern England. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001. —​—​. “‘A Very Deborah?’ The Myth of Elizabeth I as a Providential Monarch.” In The Myth of Elizabeth, edited by Susan Doran and Thomas S. Freeman, 143–​68. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2003. Walton, Kristen Post. Catholic Queen, Protestant Patriarchy: Mary, Queen of Scots, and the Politics of Gender and Religion. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2007. Wernham, R. B. The Return of the Armadas: The Last Years of the Elizabethan War Against Spain, 1595–​1603. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1994. White, Micheline. “The Psalms, War, and Royal Iconography: Katherine Parr’s Psalms or Prayers (1544) and Henry VIII as David.” Renaissance Studies 29, no. 4 (2015): 554–​75. Wilson, Elkin Calhoun. England’s Eliza. 1939. Reprint, New York: Octagon, 1966.

194

INDEX

Aaron (biblical figure), xv, 57, 96n82, 120–​21, 170, 178 Abiathar (biblical figure), 80–​81, 82 Abigail (biblical figure), 3, 138 Abimelech (biblical figure), 27n53, 161–62, 182 Abishai (biblical figure), 92 Abraham (biblical figure), xv, 10, 12, 28, 29, 57 Absalom (biblical figure), xv, 31, 33, 122, 125, 126, 142 Achitophel (biblical figure), 41, 116 Adonijah (biblical figure), xv, 32–​33, 80, 116 Ahab (biblical figure), xvi, 32 Alfred (the Great), King of the Anglo-​Saxons, 9 Allen, William (cardinal), 5, 100, 133n77 Anne (Boleyn), queen consort of Henry VIII, 5 Athaliah (biblical figure), 7 Averell, William, 130 Aylmer, John, 4, 42–​46

Babington Plot (1586), 14, 15, 31, 113, 114, 117, 119, 124, 126, 129 Bale, John, 82–​83, 84 Barak (biblical figure), xv, 46, 47, 48, 49, 89, 106, 118, 164, 179 Barker, Christopher, 84, 117, 137 Bell, James, 58n60, 62–​63 Birchensha, Ralph, 181–​82 Boughan, Simon, 58–​59 Bound, Alexander, 57 Bowes, William, 147, 149–​50 Bridges, John, 78–​82 Bullinger, Heinrich, 77–​78, 101 Cambridge, 65, 82, 84, 160 Campion, Edmund, 100, 107 Catherine de’ Medici, queen consort of Henri II of France, 59

Cecil, Robert, 103, 162, 176, 178, 179, 180 Cecil, William, Baron Burghley, 23–​24, 34, 50, 65, 76, 78, 103, 111, 114, 137n95, 153, 162, 180 Cecilia, Princess of Sweden and Margravine of Baden-​Rodemachern, 61–​65 Charlemagne, King of the Franks, 9 Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor, 12–​13 Christian IV, King of Denmark and Norway, 12 Churchyard, Thomas, 19, 90 Colfe, Isaac, 127–​29 Cotton, Roger, 49, 165–​66 Crompton, Richard, 125–​26 Curteys, Richard, 49, 84–​87

Daniel (biblical figure), xv, 8, 16, 18–​19, 27, 28, 56, 60, 88, 89, 124–​25, 129; see also Elizabeth I as Daniel David (biblical figure), xv, 7, 8, 9, 10–​11, 12–​13, 22, 24, 32, 33, 38, 43, 46, 50, 56, 57, 64, 74, 75, 79, 80, 82, 87, 91, 92, 93, 99, 104, 119, 122, 124, 129, 133, 140, 141, 142, 143, 144, 147; see also Elizabeth I as David De Frégeville, Jean, 135–​36, 140 Deborah (biblical figure), xv, 7, 13, 30, 42, 43, 46, 49, 54, 74, 82, 85, 87, 89, 94, 96, 108, 111, 118, 130, 132, 141, 150, 161; see also Elizabeth I as Deborah Devereux, Robert, Earl of Essex, 130–​31, 153, 160, 162, 173, 176 Doran, Susan, 6, 7, 20, 25, 39 Dudley, Robert, Earl of Leicester, 65, 88, 100, 105 Dunning, Robert, 57–​58 Dutch Republic, 72n8, 91, 93, 96–​98, 103, 108, 111, 159

196

196

index

Edward II, King of England, 7 Edward III, King of England, 9, 140 Edward VI, King of England and Ireland, 2, 7, 11, 52, 74, 81, 83, 84, 85, 87, 102, 118, 140, 141, 142, 147, 183 Edward the Confessor, King of the English, 9 Elizabeth I coronation procession, 15, 16–​20, 24, 35, 36–​38, 43, 57, 70, 134, 150, 163, 184 as Daniel, 18–​19, 124, 128–​29 as David, 24, 39, 40–​41, 45, 59, 75, 79–​80, 88, 92, 93, 119–​20, 122, 124–​25, 126, 128–​29, 132, 133–​34, 142, 155, 165, 170, 171, 180, 182, 184 as Deborah, 1, 3, 8, 14, 29–​30, 36–​38, 43, 44, 45, 46–​50, 54, 55, 57–​58, 66, 67, 74, 76, 82, 83–​84, 85, 86, 87, 88, 89, 94–​95, 99, 102–​3, 104–​5, 106, 107, 108, 109–​10, 116, 122, 130, 131, 132, 133, 134, 135, 136, 138, 140, 141, 149, 150, 151, 155, 156, 158, 159, 163–​65, 166, 168, 169, 170, 174, 175, 177, 178, 179, 181, 182, 183–​84, 185 as Esther, 30, 54, 57, 74, 96, 99, 106–​7, 108, 121, 125, 130, 138, 140, 155, 156, 158, 167, 168, 172, 173, 177–​78, 182 as Hezekiah, 77, 132, 143, 163–​64, 168, 180, 182, 185 as Jael, 130, 164, 166, 168, 182 as Jehoshaphat, 75, 80, 132, 180, 182 as Joseph, 97–​98, 99, 116–​17 as Joshua, 39, 40–​41, 118–​19, 163, 182 as Josiah, 72–​73, 75, 76, 77, 79, 81, 82, 111, 140, 142, 143, 171–​73, 180, 182 as Judah, 86 as Judith, 1, 8, 30, 43–​46, 54, 55, 57, 58, 60, 66, 67, 74, 94–​96, 99, 108, 111, 118, 119–​22, 125, 130, 131, 138, 140, 155, 156, 158, 159, 161, 164, 168, 177–​78, 182, 183, 185 and marriage, 60, 61, 92, 102 as Moses, 57, 58–​59, 75, 79, 127, 138, 164, 168, 178–​79, 182 and parliament, 6, 31, 33, 35, 36, 39, 41, 50, 76, 100, 105, 136, 147, 150

progresses, 19, 60, 70, 87–​88, 90–​100 as Queen of Sheba, 38–​40, 41, 155, 156, 182 Religious Settlement, 13, 39, 41, 43, 55, 60, 64, 65, 66, 67, 71, 83, 84, 91, 95, 101, 102, 105, 106, 109, 114, 115, 119, 132, 175 as Solomon, 1, 21–​22, 25, 31, 39, 59, 62–​65, 69–​70, 75, 79, 80, 99, 104, 111, 115–​16, 142, 143, 146–​47, 149, 167–​68, 180, 182, 185 as Susannah, 74, 108, 183 English Armada (1589), 138–​39, 143, 150, 154, 158 Erik XIV, King of Sweden, 61 Esther (biblical figure), xvi, 7, 10, 29, 44, 54, 56, 94, 97, 111, 122 see also Elizabeth I as Esther Fetherston, Christopher, 107–​108 Fletcher, Giles, the Elder, 56–​57 Foxe, John, 158 France, 8, 39, 45, 56, 58, 107, 135, 145 François, Duke of Anjou and Alençon, 5, 70, 102, 110 Garter, Bernard, 90, 93, 94, 95, 97, 98, 99, 100 Gibbon, Charles, 160–​62, 165, 165, 167 Gideon (biblical figure), xvi, 12, 57, 161 Grindal, Edmund, 90 Gustav I, King of Sweden, 11–​12, 61

Hake, Edward, 49–​50, 126–​27 Hakluyt, Richard, 144 Hannah (biblical figure), 2 Hatton, Christopher, 31, 73, 155, 156 Heath, Nicholas, 6 Henri II, King of France, 45, 52 Henri III, King of France, 135, 144 Henri IV, King of France and Navarre, 21n21, 144–​45 Henry V, King of England, 10, 140, 141, 183n1



Henry VII, King of England, 10, 140, 143 Henry VIII, King of England and Ireland, 5, 7, 10, 11, 15n1, 16, 17, 38, 40, 52, 53, 74, 81, 85, 101, 119, 140, 141, 143, 144, 147, 183 Hezekiah (biblical figure), xvi, 3, 7, 12, 74, 86, 140, 141, 150; see also Elizabeth I as Hezekiah Holofernes (biblical figure), xvii, 44, 45, 54, 58, 60, 66, 95, 96, 118, 120, 121, 122, 130, 140, 161, 177 Hooker, Richard, 174–​75 Howard, Charles, Earl of Nottingham, 173, 178 Howard, Thomas, Duke of Norfolk, 76 Humphrey, Laurence, 50–​55, 88–​89 Ireland, 14, 78, 83, 103, 106, 107, 129, 138, 150, 168, 173, 176–​78, 179, 181, 182

Jacob (biblical figure), xvi, 10, 27, 28, 54, 55, 86–​87, 97, 108, 116, 116 Jael (biblical figure), xvi, 88, 130, 161, 164, 165, 166; see also Elizabeth I as Jael James VI of Scotland (and James I of England), 6, 18, 40, 52, 78, 145, 169, 177, 183 Jehoash (biblical figure), xvi, 77 Jehoshaphat (biblical figure), xvi, 3, 12, 76, 77, 79, 80, 86, 180, 182; see also Elizabeth I as Jehoshaphat Jewel, John, 75, 76n21, 77 Jezebel (biblical figure), xvi, 133 Jonah (biblical figure), 128, 129, 169–​70 Joseph (biblical figure), xvii, 10, 12, 60, 97–​98, 116–​17; see also Elizabeth I as Joseph Joshua (biblical figure), xvii, 12, 38, 41, 85, 87, 163, 168, 178, 181, 182; see also Elizabeth I as Joshua Josiah (biblical figure), xvii, 2, 7, 8, 11, 52n42, 72, 79, 81, 86, 111, 141, 171, 172, 183; see also Elizabeth I as Josiah Judah (biblical figure), xvii, 86–​87; see also Elizabeth I as Judah

index

197

Judith (biblical figure), xvii, 3, 7, 11, 13, 29, 37, 38, 43, 44, 56, 57, 58, 60, 66, 98, 118, 122, 129, 132, 141, 161, 164, 165, 166; see also Elizabeth I as Judith King, John (bishop), 169–​73 Kirkham, Charles, 59 Knox, John, 5, 42–​43, 45, 46, 78

Lane, William, 66–​67 Longe, John, 57 Lopez, Roderigo, 153–​54 Louis IX, Saint, King of France, 8, 49

Madox, Richard, 105–​6 Malym, William, 59–​60 Marbury, Francis, 179–​81 Marten, Anthony, 132, 133 Mary I, Queen of England and Ireland, 2, 7, 11, 16, 18, 22, 24, 28, 35, 38, 42, 43, 45, 52, 55, 61, 93, 98, 102, 116, 126, 131, 133, 142, 167, 170, 171 Mary, Queen of Scots (Mary I of Scotland), 14, 15, 20, 23, 24, 30, 31–​32, 33, 42, 45, 52, 60, 68, 72n8, 76, 92, 102, 108, 111, 114, 117, 120, 121, 122, 123, 125, 126, 129, 142, 150, 156 Melchizedek (biblical figure), 76 Minerva (Roman goddess), 67n76, 149 Morton, Thomas, 149 Moses (biblical figure), xvii, 12, 52, 57, 58, 59, 82, 85, 87, 118, 119, 120, 131, 132, 171; see also Elizabeth I as Moses Mulcaster, Richard, 17–​18 Newce, Clement, 69 Noah (biblical figure), xvii, 28, 99 Norden, John, 118, 119, 162–​65, 166–​68, 182 Northern Rebellion (1569), 13, 25, 33, 68, 71, 75, 82, 89, 102, 141 Norwich, 60, 70, 90–​93, 95, 97, 98, 99, 100 O’Neill, Hugh, Earl of Tyrone, 176 Oxford, 51, 65–​67, 78, 105, 115, 117

198

198

index

Parker, Matthew, 51, 85, 90 Parry, William, 114–​15 Penry, John, 145–​46, 147 Philip II, King of Spain, 12, 13, 44, 45, 76, 95, 103, 104, 107, 108, 113, 114, 130, 133, 135, 138, 140, 143, 145, 153, 156, 160, 161–​62, 163, 164, 166, 168, 169, 170, 173, 176 Phillip, John, 73–​75, 109–​10, 130–​32 Pius V (pope), 71, 72n8, 75, 76, 81, 111, 124 Pole, Reginald (cardinal), 12, 85 Porder, Richard, 71–​73 Portugal, 108, 138 Prime, John, 115–​17, 133–​34, 142 Queen of Sheba (biblical figure), xvii, 8, 38, 62–​65, 75, 115, 155, 167, 182; see also Elizabeth I as Queen of Sheba

Regnans in Excelsis (1570), 13, 25, 69, 71, 73, 76, 79, 80–​83, 89, 102, 104, 109, 111, 132 Renniger, Michael, 123–​25, 130 Richard II, King of England, 7, 9–​10, 16 Ridolfi Plot (1571), 33, 76, 82, 86, 89, 103, 111 Robinson, Richard, 103–​4, 154–​56, 182

Samson (biblical figure), xvii, 57, 104, 131, 132 Samuel (biblical figure), xviii, 32, 57 Sarah (biblical figure), 2 Saul (biblical figure), 24, 32, 45, 88, 93, 120, 128, 133, 142, 170 Scotland, 39, 45, 46, 50, 54, 55, 68, 123, 138, 177 Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego (biblical figures), xviii, 60, 124, 128, 129

Shakespeare, William, 72, 130, 165 Sidney, Philip, 73, 103 Sisera (biblical figure), xvii, 49, 50, 88, 89, 102, 103, 104, 106, 118, 130, 133, 135, 140, 141, 156, 161, 166 Solomon (biblical figure), xviii, 3, 7, 9–​11, 13, 15, 21–​22, 26, 32, 33, 34, 39, 59, 61, 69, 74, 80, 86, 87, 117, 144, 150, 155, 165, 171, 183; see also Elizabeth I as Solomon Spain, 97, 98, 106, 129, 136, 137, 138, 151, 159, 168, 173, 176, 179 Spanish Armada (1588), 14, 111, 113–​14, 129–​32, 134, 135, 136, 137, 138, 141, 143, 144, 150, 156, 158, 159, 160, 170, 181, 184 Stapleton, Thomas, 78, 79, 82 Stubbs, John, 5 Studley, John, 82–​84, 89 Susannah (biblical figure), xviii, 27, 28, 60, 74; see also Elizabeth I as Susannah Taylor, John, 183–​184, 185 Thacker, R., 119–​20 Throckmorton Plot (1583), 13, 33, 69, 108, 109, 110, 111, 125 Tomkys, John, 101–​2, 103, 104 Trigge, Francis, 139 Tymme, Thomas, 157, 158–​59, 166, 182 Vennard, Richard, 177–​79, 182

Walsingham, Francis, 76, 108, 111, 114, 121, 137, 144 White, Thomas, 141–​43 Willet, Andrew, 53n46, 174 Wright, Leonard, 139–​41