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This study reassesses the significance of education in the lives and thinking of the early modern English Separatists. For this purpose, 'early modern' is construed as the period from the accession of Elizabeth I in 1558 to the outbreak of the First Civil War in 1642. ,The thesis first describes the origins, nature and development of Separatism during this period, and then sets the study in context by delineating the nature of education in those eight or so decades. In order to facilitate the handling of the material germane to the study, the leading original proponents of the distinctive Separatist ideology are considered in chapters three and four. Chapter three deals with the three men who in the late Tudor years set the parameters for the subsequent groVV'ch of a comprehensive and self-consistent Separatist philosophy. Chapter four examines the contributions of the 1 7 most prominent men who built on their work in the early Stuart period. The very fact of their prominence, however, entails the likelihood that they were better-educated than the majority of their fellowbelievers, and perhaps to that extent unrepresentative of them. The resulting possible distortion is therefore corrected by investigating the educational levels of 52 Separatist prisoners in London gaols at the turn of the ninth and tenth decades of the sixteenth century. Past work in this field has tended to a minimalist interpretation of the available evidence. This thesis concludes that both the educational achievements of the first early modern English religious Separatists, and their attitudes to education, have been underestimated. It seeks to correct this misrepresentation with a judgement more closely corresponding to the evidence yielded by an objective review of the facts.

In this thesis, I analyse four historical fiction novels as recharacterizations of Elizabeth I’s agency, to argue for the merit of fictionalized narratives of history. These narratives address the conflict between Elizabeth’s political and natural bodies, which I investigate in view of Ernst Kantorowicz’s concept of kingship, while emphasizing her learned experience and perseverance as responsible for her success. In doing so, historical fiction novels represent the motivations of the contemporary author and reader while also asserting the agency and capability of female rulers like Elizabeth, retroactively. In her own time, Elizabeth’s female body was a point of contention in patriarchal England, and early modern authors highlighted her chastity to represent the queen as beyond the rest of humanity, particularly women. In this thesis, I assess how contemporary authors respond to such history, to represent Elizabeth as a fallible woman in a novel way. Elizabeth’s fallibility in these texts represents the capabilities of women in power, credited to their female experience rather than the supernatural status or divine appointment of the early modern ruler. While there is a breadth of research available pertaining to historical depictions of Elizabeth, fewer critics focus upon contemporary accounts. Elizabeth’s legacy in film is represented in such research, but few critics have analysed her presence in historical fiction, though she is a popular heroine of the genre. This thesis examines the prioritization of Elizabeth’s female body in her youth in Robin Maxwell’s Virgin: Prelude to the Throne (2001), her experiences as an unwed queen in Alison Weir’s The Marriage Game (2014) and Susan Kay’s Legacy (1985), and her role as a mother figure in Anne Clinard-Barnhill’s Queen Elizabeth’s Daughter (2014). These authors assert Elizabeth’s agency and demonstrate the value of historical fiction as a genre, rewriting history to reflect female experience as an asset. / Thesis / Master of Arts (MA) / In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, authors depicted Elizabeth I as an extraordinary ruler appointed by God and an extraordinarily chaste woman. Such authors acknowledge Elizabeth’s flawed, natural body, as mortal and female, but praise her incomparable chastity as surpassing other women and ensuring a strong political body or government. While contemporary fiction authors also assess a separation between the political and private, they prioritize individual interiority and female capability as they construct Elizabeth’s navigation of a patriarchal court as a woman in power. This thesis investigates historical fiction, in four novels, as a valuable space for authors to rewrite the agency of Elizabeth I through narratives in which she demonstrates her own decision making and emotional complexity. In this thesis, I assess agency in Robin Maxwell’s Virgin: Prelude to the Throne (2001), Alison Weir’s The Marriage Game (2014), Susan Kay’s Legacy, and Anne Clinard Barnhill’s Queen Elizabeth’s Daughter (2014).

Thesis advisor: Mary T. Crane / Thesis advisor: Caroline Bicks / <italic>Disappearing Acts</italic> interrogates the concept of Petrarchism and the role of the Petrarchan mistress in early modern England. Critics from the early modern period onward have viewed Petrarchism as limiting to women, arguing that it obstructs female agency. This view stems from a long history of trying to establish the parameters of Petrarchism itself, a body of literature whose inchoate nature makes it difficult to define. <italic>Disappearing Acts</italic> takes as its starting point the instability of Petrarchism, embracing the ways in which it functions as a discourse without boundaries, whose outlines are further blurred by its engagement with other genres, forms, and contexts. Examining the intersections between Petrarchism and other early modern discourses&mdash;religious, political, theatrical, humanist, romantic&mdash;illuminates the varied ways in which the role of the mistress is deployed in early modern literature and suggests that, as a term, the &ldquo;Petrarchan mistress&rdquo; loses the coherence that critics often impose on it. Rarely ever entirely there or entirely missing, the figure of the mistress instead signifies an unstable, liminal role that results in far more complex representations of women. This project emphasizes the complexities of the Petrarchan mistress and examines this figure as a performative role that is negotiated rather than simply inhabited as a prison. Each chapter traces the intersections between Petrarchism and another early modern discourse in England. Chapter One examines the overlap between Reformist language and Petrarchan language, particularly in the &ldquo;absent presence&rdquo; of the Eucharist and the female beloved. I argue that the elusive persona of the Protestant martyr Anne Askew is produced by the conjunction of Petrarchan and Reformist discourses. Chapter Two interrogates the relationship between the theory of the king&rsquo;s two bodies and the concept of the Petrarchan female double, pairing Edmund Spenser&rsquo;s <italic>Faerie Queene</italic> with the writings of Elizabeth I and Mary Queen of Scots. I suggest that female queens of the sixteenth century both secured and imperiled their authenticity by comparing themselves to a false version. Chapter Three examines the relationship between Petrarchism and the figure of the ghost in early modern England. I consider Shakespeare&rsquo;s <italic>The Winter&rsquo;s Tale</italic> in relation to the female complaint, a popular genre appended to sonnet sequences in which a ghost complains about her fate, and I argue that Shakespeare&rsquo;s evocation of ghostliness enables Hermione to return from her immobilized position to perform a Pertrarchan role in which she can speak her own desires. Chapter Four reexamines Mary Wroth&rsquo;s character, Pamphilia, as two different characters produced by two different genres: one by the prose romance <italic>The Countess of Montgomery&rsquo;s Urania</italic> and one by the sonnet sequence <italic>Pamphilia to Amphilanthus</italic>. While the Pamphilia of the sonnets proclaims her constancy, the Pamphilia of the romance exposes the tensions produced by the varied historical uses of the term in discourses from martyrology to stoicism. / Thesis (PhD) — Boston College, 2010. / Submitted to: Boston College. Graduate School of Arts and Sciences. / Discipline: English.

“A Body Politic to Govern: The Political Humanism of Elizabeth I” is a study that examines the influence between the virtues and thoughts of the political humanists of the Italian Renaissance, and the political persona of England’s Elizabeth I. In order to do this I have dealt with questions concerning how Elizabeth constructed literary works such as letters and speeches, as well the style in which she governed England. I have studied Elizabeth’s works and methods within their literary and historical contexts. This has included the examination of the works of relevant humanist contemporaries such as her own advisors, Members of Parliament, and fellow monarchs. In the course of my research I have traveled to libraries and archives in the United States, England, and Scotland to study original manuscripts when possible as well as microfilm copies of the originals in other cases. My focus was to examine the literary works of Elizabeth I within their historical contexts in order to see what possible influence might be discernible from contemporary humanist as well as classical sources. In this dissertation I demonstrate a discernible influence between the thoughts and virtues of political humanism upon the public presentation of Elizabeth I’s political persona. Elizabeth exemplified the virtues of political humanism through her dedication to the vita activa, amor patriae, and service to the greater good of her realm. In so doing I argue that Elizabeth presented herself as a prince stressing her classical education and divine-sanction as the authority by which she ruled England’s government and church.

This dissertation argues that the Elizabethan settlement was a deliberate, self-conscious spiritual reformation, inaugurated and nurtured from above by Elizabeth I in public and private devotional works put forth by royal authority, and taken up and advanced from below in influential books of public prayer published by long-term English evangelicals. This spiritual reformation offered a balance of continuity and change, of tradition and reform, intentionally designed to provide for the devotional needs of English Christians of divergent spiritual identities and confessional commitments. Responding to longstanding historiographical debates over the English Reformation as either a political reformation “from above” or a popular reformation “from below,” and to recent expositions both of the vitality of late medieval Catholic devotion and the dissemination of sixteenth-century Evangelical piety, the dissertation explores the English Reformation as a spiritual phenomenon, using Elizabethan prayer literature, both public and private, as its central sources. It argues that the foundations and contours of Elizabeth Tudor’s evangelically ecumenist style of piety and spirituality were established in her childhood in the mid 1540s through the influence of her stepmother, Katherine Parr. After her accession to the throne, Elizabeth’s piety and spirituality were reflected in her Act of Supremacy, her Act of Uniformity, and her Book of Common Prayer (1559), and were modeled and transmitted from above by her official primer of 1559. Elizabeth’s model of piety was consciously and deliberately taken up and advanced in the works of printers John and Richard Daye, and Henry Bull; and, authors Elizabeth Tyrwhit and Anne Wheathill. These printers and authors were long-term, committed evangelicals of a hotter temper than their queen. Bull advanced Elizabeth’s spiritual reformation by publishing traditional and evangelical prayers side-by-side. The two Daye prayer books followed Bull’s lead. The 1569 Daye prayer book also published a series of foreign language prayers authored by Elizabeth. Tyrwhit and Wheathill advanced the queen’s spiritual reformation not only by offering traditional and evangelical prayers, but also by constantly echoing the language of her Book of Common Prayer. The dual movement of these two matrices created the broadly based spiritual reformation that was the Elizabethan Settlement.

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In November 1558, Elizabeth I ascended the throne of England as a single Queen with Protestant tendencies in a male-dominated Catholic world. Her council believed it was imperative that she marry immediately, and the rest of Western Europe agreed. Catholic suitors sought to bring England back under Catholic control. Protestant suitors hoped for an ally in the religious wars that were ravaging Europe. Even Englishmen sought to become king. Ambassadors from the Spanish Empire, the Holy Roman Empire, and the Baltics and Scotland came to negotiate the suits of their monarchs. Ambassadorial correspondences are often used as primary source material for historians, yet few rarely recognize the importance of the ambassador and his role in the court, especially during the marriage negotiations of Elizabeth I. Ambassadors left their home to live in a foreign country, often for long periods of time. The ambassadors were the embodiment of their sovereigns during the negotiations, and often success or failure rested on their abilities. An ambassador was the eyes and ears of the Elizabethan court for his sovereign in a foreign country. They wrote minutely detailed letters that included basic facts and information along with court gossip and personal opinions and recommendations. Their intimate relationship with the Queen and her court made their recommendations invaluable to their monarch. They were far more than mere note takers and should be recognized as such. The focus of this thesis deals primarily with the ambassadorial reports of the Spanish and Hapsburg ambassadors as they participated in the negotiations in one form or another during the time frame discussed, 1558-1560. They also not only wrote about their own negotiations but the negotiations involving Protestant and English suitors. Their reports are full of pertinent information that, without, their monarchs would have been blind to the goings on of the English court. The marriage of Elizabeth I was seen as a priority by all except her. During the first two years of her reign, more than a half dozen suits were pursued, not just by kings and dukes, earls and knights, but, more importantly, by their ambassadors.

Portia serves as a complex and often underestimated character in William Shakespeare's controversial comedy The Merchant of Venice. Using the critical methodologies of New Historicism and feminism, this thesis explores Portia's representation of Elizabeth Tudor, Queen of England from 1558 to 1603. Striking similarities exist between character and Queen, including physical description, suitors, marriage issues, and rhetoric. In addition, the tripartite marriage at the play's conclusion among Portia, Bassanio, and Antonio represents the relationship Elizabeth Tudor formed between her merchant class and her aristocracy. Shylock serves as a representation of a generic or perhaps Catholic threat to England during the early modern era. Moreover, by examining Portia's language in the trial scene, the play invites audiences to read her as a representative of the learned Renaissance woman, placing special emphasis on the dialectical and rhetorical elements of the language trivium in classical studies. Finally, through a close reading of the mercantile language in the text, Portia can be interpreted as the merchant of the play's title.

Sixteenth century Elizabeth I of England has long been a figure of interest to Renaissance scholars, and their work largely focuses on how her gender impacted the power, politics, and culture of her day. Many have perceived her to be a heroine whose ingenuity and determination circumvented the limitations imposed on a female ruler in patriarchal Renaissance England. In my thesis, I examine the life and work of Elizabeth I, and the self-representations she constructed within the boundaries imposed on highborn women. In the first half of my thesis, I suggest that she embraced and utilized the female roles available to her to secure agency and a degree of safety for both herself and England. In the second half, I suggest that masculine subjects such as Sir Philip Sidney and Edmund Spenser, in turn, sought to manipulate her later self-representations to negotiate their own agency and identity which was perceived to be beset with anxieties and biases stemming from the ageing Queen's seizure and redefinition of the female gender role allotted to her. A chronological examination of the self representations evident in her personal writing, commissioned portraiture, parliamentary speeches, and sonnets, as well as the poetry of two of her foremost masculine subjects, suggests a shift in gender politics and a tension roused by an ageing Queen regnant in a rigidly patriarchal society. / Graduation date: 2012