This study has two primary purposes; to examine the evolution of the concepts and statutes of Tudor treason legislation as reactions to unprecedented political, religious and social changes, and to develop the relationship between this thesis of treason and the Renaissance stage. An analysis of a broad and relatively un-researched body of historical and legal material accounts for the conditions in which writing, particularly the personal letter, aroused anxiety and suspicion. It is argued that this political and religious tension inspired the inclusion of writing as treason in the 1534 treason act, a statute drawing upon the concept of imagining the king's death of the Great Statute of Treason of Edward III. The letter is identified as the primary document of proof of "imagination" or intent in Tudor judicial opinion. A close study of treason trials of the period, in which the generic significance is the use of letters as evidence of intent against the alleged traitors, presages a substantive and novel reading of the chosen plays of this study, which foregrounds the discernable political and cultural anxieties of these judicial events. Differing, both in substance and approach, from traditional analyses, the treatment of each play (and other primary texts) evaluates and locates dramatic representations of treacherous correspondence within Tudor concepts of treason, while incorporating gender theory and post-structural reassessments of spoken and written language. In resituating Renaissance plays in the debate on treason, this study addresses the regulation of language, not merely within the Tudor law of treason by words, but also the play text, both complex, and, yet, mutable expressions of containment. It is, perhaps, the deliberate ambiguity of both statute and stage that allows continuing critique, such as that undertaken here.

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This study uses the Anjou marriage negotiations as a case-study of politics and policymaking in the mid-Elizabethan period. It questions Susan Doran's recent argument that Elizabeth was prevented from concluding the marriage because factional divisions in the council denied her the support she required to gain parliamentary ratification for an unpopular match. More broadly, it re-examines John Guy's argument that Elizabeth's reign can be divided into two periods (dividing c.1585-7) each with its own distinct agenda and dominant political creed. Its aim is to re-establish the integrity of the middle years of the reign on their own terms and reflect how this alters our perception of the reign as a whole. The thesis redefines the mid-Elizabethan polity in terms of political issues and creeds. It challenges the traditional emphasis of 'foreign policy' and shows the succession and catholic conspiracy continued to dominate the agenda (chapters one and two). This made Scotland the focus of policy-making: not only was it strategically crucial to English defences but Mary, and later James VI, were perceived by councillors as major threats to the realm whilst the succession remained unresolved (chapters one and five). In policymaking, the privy council did not retain its role as a corporate advisory body it had in the 1560s: Elizabeth asserted her imperium and took the lead, establishing a period of 'personal rule'. Though councillors disagreed on the substance of policy and the role of counselling, they recognised marriage was a personal issue on which they could not dictate to Elizabeth either directly or by manipulating the public debate (chapters three and four). Elizabeth ultimately chose not to marry but she was also unwilling to resolve the succession politically because it raised questions about political authority and legitimacy she was unable to resolve. This caused policy-making first to stumble in 1580 and then collapse in 1581 (chapters five and six). If the lead Elizabeth took in political debate demonstrated the strength of her 'personal rule', then her inability to find and sustain new directions in policy highlighted its weakness.

The controversy that led to the conviction of the Puritan exorcist John Darrel for fraud in 1599 has mainly been viewed by historians in the context of the struggle between Puritans and the Church of England. Darrel’s activities have been seen as Puritan propaganda, whilst the authorities’ reaction has been seen as part of their campaign against Puritanism. Their clamp down on Darrel’s activities has also been seen as contributing towards increasing scepticism towards demonic possession in early modern England, especially in cases involving witchcraft. This thesis argues that the Darrel controversy cannot be read solely as a manifestation of the Puritan/establishment conflict, as it will demonstrate how the controversy was actually part of the broader re-assessment of the role of the supernatural in the contemporary world following the Reformation, and that anti-Catholicism, in particular hostility towards the Catholic rite of exorcism, played a significant role in informing sceptical attitudes towards demonic possession. Focussing upon the work of the Puritan preachers John Deacon and John Walker, it will also challenge the Puritan/establishment dichotomy over possession. Their work denied the possibility of possession in their own time by drawing on and elaborating existing medical, natural philosophical and theological arguments, particularly the doctrine of the cessation of miracles. Their work was significant because it was the first work that systematically explored the intricacies of the phenomenon of possession, and it offered an alternative way of thinking about demonic affliction, namely the category of obsession. Writings that appeared following the Darrel controversy demonstrate an awareness of Deacon and Walker’s arguments, and also reveal how the idea of obsession was absorbed into broader demonological thought, thus highlighting how Deacon and Walker’s work was much more significant than has previously been thought.

This thesis reconstructs and analyses the life and agency of Elisabeth Parr, marchioness of Northampton (1526-1565), with the aim of increasing understanding of women’s networks of influence and political engagement at the mid-Tudor courts, c. 1547-1565. Analysis of Elisabeth’s life highlights that in the absence of a Queen consort the noblewomen of the Edwardian court maintained and utilized access to those in power and those with political significance and authority. During the reign of Mary Tudor, Elisabeth worked with her natal family to undermine Mary’s Queenship and support Elizabeth Tudor, particularly by providing her with foreign intelligence. At the Elizabethan court Elisabeth regained her title (lost under Mary I) and occupied a position as one of the Queen’s most trusted confidantes and influential associates. Her agency merited attention from ambassadors and noblemen as well as from the Emperor Maximilian and King Erik of Sweden, due to the significant role she played in several major contemporary events, such as Elizabeth’s early marriage negotiations. This research is interdisciplinary, incorporating early modern social, political and cultural historiographies, gender studies, social anthropology, sociology and the study of early modern literature. The chronology of Elisabeth’s activity is drawn chiefly from primary material. Research has uncovered c. 110 individual original documents directly relating to Elisabeth - many of which have not previously been printed elsewhere. Through the use of digital resources and extensive archival research, this thesis makes an intervention in the history and historiography of the reigns of Edward VI, Mary I and Elizabeth I: the reintegration of Elisabeth’s activity into these reigns reveals the lacunae in scholarship on early modern women.

This thesis examines the religious conservative faction at the Courts of Henry VIII and Edward VI between 1540 and 1550. This period, which has traditionally received minimal attention in comparison to preceding and succeeding decades, was reputedly marked by a conservative reaction against the reforms of the 1530s. Contemporary evangelical observers, and particularly later polemicists, purported that the 1540s was marked by a regression in religious affairs. The situation was attributed to a group of prominent conservatives within the Church and Royal Court. This perception of late Henrician polity has proved enduring. Though some, chiefly Alec Ryrie, have indicated the tenacity of evangelicalism throughout these years, such critiques have questioned the influence of the conservatives through examinations into their religious opponents. This thesis focuses specifically on the conservatives and assesses their influence in late Henrician polity, and in the early years of Edward VI's reign. This study first examines the construction of the image of the religious conservatives, and contrasts the pervasive posthumous creation with contemporary reports of the group's leadership, membership and activities. The latter sources failed to provide a concise image of the composition and leadership of the group that undermines later, and still current, defined verdicts on the matter. The notion that the faction was led by Thomas Howard, Third Duke of Norfolk and Stephen Gardiner, Bishop of Winchester is robustly and repeatedly rejected. The years 1540-50 are examined in close detail, and in chronological fashion, to reevaluate the religious conservatives' roles in a number of notable events. This study emphasises the degree of consensus and cooperation between Henry VIII and his leading conservative subjects, and has deviated from the traditional view that the group assumed control over domestic and foreign affairs. It is argued that the conservatives were concerned to be seen operating within the frameworks of the law, especially during heresy investigations, and that this facet was obscured by contemporary and later accusations of their reputed seditious behavior. This thesis takes a separate but equally important departure from the established view of the religious conservatives by proposing a different date for the group's decline in fortunes. The period 1547-50, and not Henry VIII's death in the winter of 1546-7, is argued to have been a decisive moment for the conservatives.

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Received accounts of Elizabethan Catholic gentry are largely de politicised , obscuring the extent and range of gentry political behaviour and assuming a general withdrawal into apolitical quietism. This thesis is an attempt to restore Elizabethan Catholics as political animals, identifying a range of political engagement, putative and real. It locates an analysis of the activities of the Lancashire Catholic community, recusant and non recusant, within revisionist historiography on the tongue duree of the English Reformation and within the 'new Tudor political history' , with its emphasis on political clienteles, conflicts of patronage and ideology, and interactions between regional and court politics. Leading Catholic gentry are found to display a range of behaviours connected to national, British, and European political currents. In the process two prevailing assumptions are questioned : that Lancashire communities were 'remote' and 'peripheral', detached from the mainstream of English political and intellectual life, and that the behaviour of Lancashire Catholic gentry in the Elizabethan period can be written entirely within a 'loyalist' paradigm.

Heraldry, heralds and the Earl Marshal played a conspicuous part in English life during the period c.1480-1603. This thesis explores their significance in the military, diplomatic and court cultures of the period. In four thematic parts, it seeks to reveal their crucial importance in the politics and government of the period. The first section explores the changing status of royal heraldry and heralds, as chivalric culture took on a more monarchical bent and ideas of sovereignty crystallized. It attempts to demonstrate how the royal coat of anus and heralds became emblems of sovereign authority and imperial kingship. The second section investigates the role of heralds in war, politics and diplomacy, exploring the divers ways in which they were employed at home and abroad. It endeavours to explain the relative decline of their international responsibilities, and the persistence of their domestic functions. The third section examines how reforms at the English court and changes in the heralds' . internal affairs helped to re orient their activities towards armorial matters. It looks at the reasons why grants of arms, noble funerals and heraldic visitations came gradually to dominate the heralds' activities, and how the intersection of patronage and ideology drove changes to the rules governing the bearing of anus. The fourth section examines how one of the great officers of state, the Earl Marshal, exploited his military and heraldic jurisdiction for political advancement during the sixteenth century. It seeks to show how a symbiotic relationship between the heralds and the Earl Marshal gradually developed, driven by needs of patronage and mutual interest.

This study undertakes an examination of the appropriations of King James VI and I, early modern King of Scotland and England, considering how the monarch represents himself in his literature in tandem with how subsequent authors have appropriated James across time and media. To that end, this thesis has been divided into two parts. Drawing upon ideas of self-fashioning, Part One examines the development of James' literary personae. Chapter One addressed the construction of James as poet-king, assessing the degree to which his poetical enterprises are inflected by national and political concerns. Chapter Two turns to James' political literature in order to evaluate James' shifting methodologies of representation within his later prose. This chapter also investigates the degree to which James' earlier literary habits reappear within his political discourse. Part Two offers an exploration of Jamesian appropriation from his reign until the twenty-first century. Chapter Three discusses representations of James created through the adaptation of the King's texts and of his linguistic patterns. Over the course of James' reign a myth-making process occurs, creating various verbal and visual images that become synonymous with James' name. These connections are repeated in the commemorations offered at the King's death. Chapter Four begins by examining these mourning celebrations, tracking the general decline of the Jamesian image over the remainder of the seventeenth century. Although James appears to have been forgotten in the majority of the eighteenth century, the French Revolution triggers a nostalgic glance to the Stuart King. Chapter Five, therefore, considers the trajectory of Jamesian appropriation in the Romantic and Victorian periods. Finally, Chapter six assesses the degree to which the twentieth and twenty-first centuries witness the evolution of James into a disembodied sign valued less for its historical existence, and more for its currency as a literary device aiding cultural commentary.