Bad Queen Bess? Libels, Secret Histories, and the Politics of Publicity in the Reign of Queen Elizabeth I, by Peter Lake

Peter Lake has carved out a position as one of the most important historians of Elizabethan politics and religion of the modern era, with interests stretching from high court politics to the so-called ‘public sphere’, from Puritans to Catholics, political thought to popular religion, political treatises to Shakespeare, and much more beyond. Many of these are the subject of critical analysis in his present book, an expanded version of his Ford Lectures in 2010–11 but based on research conducted over at least ten years. Pitched around the analysis of a series of texts, Lake shows that some English Catholics were engaged in polemical and propaganda debate with some members of the Elizabethan regime (specifically, Lord Burghley and his supporters): they argued about the nature of the relationship between them and the regime, particularly over issues such as loyalty (to Crown and papacy), toleration, persecution, Elizabeth’s political legitimacy, the royal supremacy and the succession, as well as the nature and validity of Protestantism itself.

Legitimacy · Monarchy · Persecution · Political science · Politics · Protestantism · Publicity · Queen (butterfly) · Reign · Subject (documents) · Toleration · Classics · Historical Studies of British Isles · History · Law · Literature: history, themes, analysis · Philosophy · Religious studies · Scottish History and National Identity