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THE MONARCHICAL REPUBLIC OF MARY I*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  04 August 2009

ALICE HUNT
ALICE HUNT*
Affiliation:
University of Southampton
*
School of Humanities, University of Southampton, Highfield SO17 1BJa.hunt@soton.ac.uk
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Abstract

In his celebrated 1987 essay, ‘The monarchical republic of Queen Elizabeth I’, Patrick Collinson wrote that ‘Elizabethan England was a republic which also happened to be a monarchy: or vice versa.’ Since then, the idea of an Elizabethan ‘monarchical republic’ has been tested, challenged, and developed, with precedents found in Henry VIII's and Edward VI's reigns. Mary I's reign has not, however, been considered for its contribution to the debates. Yet, in 1553, the unique circumstances of Mary's accession as England's first queen regnant, who was also still legally a bastard, exacerbated sixteenth-century anxieties about monarchical authority, and about the correct relationship between a monarch and parliament. Prior to Mary's coronation, her council put forward an unprecedented proposal: they wanted parliament to sit before Mary was anointed and crowned queen. This article explores this proposal, in conjunction with two texts, Richard Taverner's An oration gratulatory made upon the joyfull proclayming of the moste noble Princes Quene Mary Quene of Englande and the play Respublica, to argue that, at the beginning of her reign, significant pressure was put on Mary to rule her country as a ‘monarchical republic’.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Historical Journal , Volume 52 , Issue 3 , September 2009 , pp. 557 - 572
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2009

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Footnotes

*

I am very grateful to Patrick Collinson for his comments on this article, and for endorsing its title. I also thank Susan Doran, Thomas Freeman, and Anna Whitelock for their astute and helpful comments.

References

1 Patrick Collinson, ‘The monarchical republic of Queen Elizabeth I’, in Patrick Collinson, Elizabethan essays (London and Rio Grande, 1994), pp. 31–57, at p. 43. The essay was first published as ‘The monarchical republic of Queen Elizabeth I’, Bulletin of the John Rylands University Library of Manchester, 69 (1987), pp. 394–424.

2 Collinson, Patrick, ‘Elizabeth I and the verdicts of history’, Historical Research, 76 (2003), pp. 469–91, at p. 490.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

3 Collinson, ‘Elizabeth I’, p. 489.

4 For a more absolutist version of Elizabethan rule, particularly in the latter part of the reign, which modifies the extent of a monarchical republic, see Peter Lake, Anglicans and Puritans?: Presbyterians and English conformist thought from Whitgift to Hooker (London, 1988). Stephen Alford's The early Elizabethan polity: William Cecil and the British succession crisis, 1558–1569 (Cambridge, 1998) identifies, like Collinson, quasi-republican rumblings in the Elizabethan polity. Other important responses to Collinson include Simon Adams, ‘Favourites and factions at the Elizabethan court’, in Ronald G. Asch and Adolf M. Birke, eds., Princes, patronage and the nobility: the court at the beginning of the modern age c. 1450–1650 (Oxford, 1991); John Guy, ‘The 1590s: the second reign of Elizabeth I?’, in John Guy, ed., The reign of Elizabeth I: court and culture in the last decade (Cambridge, 1995), pp. 1–19; Anne McLaren, Political culture in the reign of Elizabeth I: queen and commonwealth, 1558–1585 (Cambridge, 1998); and Natalie Mears, Queenship and political discourse in the Elizabethan realms (Cambridge, 2005). Most recently, an anniversary collection of essays in response to Patrick Collinson's 1987 essay has appeared: John F. McDiarmid, ed., The monarchical republic of early modern England: essays in response to Patrick Collinson (Aldershot, 2008).

5 See Markku Peltonen, Classical humanism and republicanism in English political thought, 1570–1640 (Cambridge, 1995); J. G. A. Pocock, ed., The varieties of British political thought (Cambridge, 1993); and, earlier, Pocock's The Machiavellian moment: Florentine political thought and the Atlantic republican tradition (Princeton, NJ, 1975; reissued 2003). See also Ann Hughes, The causes of the English civil war (2nd edn, Basingstoke, 1998); and Martin van Gelderen and Quentin Skinner, eds., Republicanism: a shared European heritage (Cambridge, 2002).

6 Collinson, ‘The monarchical republic’, p. 36. Sir Thomas Elyot's 1552 Latin dictionary translates Res publica as ‘common weale’: Bibliotheca Eliotae: Eliotes Dictionarie the second time enriched, and more perfectly corrected, by Thomas Cooper (London, 1552). Smith's De republica anglorum appeared in English in 1594 as The common-wealth of England. However, in his Boke named the governour, Elyot distinguishes between the ‘publike weale’ and the ‘common weale’, between publicans (those who rule) and commoners. Elyot writes ‘hit semeth that men have ben longe abused in calling Rempublicam a comune weale … And consequently there may appere lyke diversitie to be in englisshe, betwene a publike weale and commune weale, as shuld be in latine, betwene Res publica and Res plebeia’, Donald W. Rude, ed., A critical edition of Sir Thomas Elyot's ‘The Boke named the governour’ (New York, NY, and London, 1992), pp. 15–16. Sir Thomas Smith's De republica anglorum was first printed in 1583 but he began writing it in 1563. See Sir Thomas Smith, De republica anglorum, ed. Mary Dewar (Cambridge, 1982).

7 Collinson, ‘The monarchical republic’, p. 39, and see Stephen Alford, Kingship and politics in the reign of Edward VI (Cambridge, 2002); and Dale Hoak, ‘Sir William Cecil, Sir Thomas Smith, and the monarchical republic of Tudor England’, in McDiarmid, ed., The monarchical republic of early modern England, pp. 37–54.

8 Calendar of letters, despatches, and state papers, relating to the negotiations between England and Spain, preserved in the archives at Simancas and elsewhere (London, 1862–1954) (CSP: Spanish), xi (1553), p. 151.

9 The fourteenth-century coronation service book, the Liber regalis, used for all Tudor coronations, included rubrics for the crowning of a queen consort, but not a queen regnant. The Liber regalis is still held at Westminster Abbey. For a translation, see Leopold G. Wickham Legg, ed., English coronation records (London, 1901).

10 On the acts of succession, see G. R. Elton, ed., The Tudor constitution: documents and commentary (2nd edn, Cambridge, 1982), pp. 2–3; and Statutes of the realm, iii: 1534 Act of Succession, 25 Henry VIII, c. 22 (p. 471), 1536 Act of Succession, 28 Henry VIII, c. 7 (p. 655), and 1544 Act of Succession, 35 Henry VIII, c. 1 (p. 955).

11 As the ‘devise for the succession’ was never sanctioned by parliament, letters patent dated 21 June 1553 instead declared the princesses Mary and Elizabeth bastards and summoned parliament to ratify this and the deviation of the crown to Jane. The letters state that all needed to be ‘established, ratefyed, and confirmed, as well by authoritye of parleamente’. J. G. Nichols, ed., The chronicle of Queen Jane and two years of Queen Mary, and especially of the rebellion of Sir Thomas Wyatt written by a resident in the Tower of London (London, 1850), p. 98.

12 ‘Events of the kingdom of England beginning with King Edward VI until the wedding of the most serene Prince Philip of Spain and the most serene Queen Mary as related by Monsignor G. F. Commendone: an Italian manuscript in the library of the Monasterio de San Lorenzo El Real Del Escorial’, in C. V. Malfatti, ed. and trans., The accession, coronation and marriage of Mary Tudor as related in four manuscripts of the Escorial (Barcelona, 1956), pp. 3–65, at p. 9.

13 Paul L. Hughes and James F. Larkin, eds., Tudor royal proclamations (3 vols., New Haven, CT, and London, 1964–9), ii, p. 3.

14 Whitelock, Anna and MacCulloch, Diarmaid, ‘Princess Mary's household and the succession crisis, July 1553’, Historical Journal, 50 (2007), pp. 1–23.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

15 David Loades, The reign of Mary Tudor: politics, government and religion in England, 1553–1558 (2nd edn, London, 1991), pp. 19–20.

16 Malfatti, ed., The accession, coronation and marriage of Mary Tudor, p. 16.

17 CSP: Spanish, xi (1553), p. 238.

18 Ibid., p. 241.

19 Ibid., p. 241.

20 The original letter is in French, in Simon Renard's handwriting. The version in the Calendar of state papers is translated from a transcript in L.-P. Gachard and C. Pinot, eds., Collection des voyages des souverains des Pays-Bas (4 vols., Brussels, 1874–82), iv, pp. 124–7 (relevant paragraph p. 126).

21 CSP: Spanish, xi (1553), pp. 238, 241.

22 Ibid., p. 241.

23 On the issue of gender in Mary's reign, see the work of Richards, Judith, in particular her ‘Mary Tudor as “Sole Quene”? Gendering Tudor monarchy’, Historical Journal, 40 (1997), pp. 895–924.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

24 John Guy, Tudor England (Oxford and New York, NY, 1988); and Dale Hoak, ‘Two revolutions in Tudor government: the formation and organization of Mary I's privy council’, in Christopher Coleman and David Starkey, eds., Revolution reassessed: revisions in the history of Tudor government and administration (Oxford, 1986), pp. 87–115. Guy, for example, writes that, at this time, Mary's council saw ‘traditionalists … bedded down with politiques’, Tudor England, p. 230.

25 According to ambassador Simon Renard, it followed ‘the rites of the old religion’, CSP: Spanish, xi (1553), p. 262.

26 Calendar of state papers and manuscripts, relating to English affairs, existing in the archives and collections of Venice, and in other libraries of northern Italy (London, 1864–1947) (CSP: Venetian), v (1534–54), p. 430. The break with Rome was not officially reversed, and England absolved, until the third parliament in 1554.

27 CSP: Spanish, xi (1553), p. 220.

28 Ibid., pp. 239–40.

29 CSP: Venetian, v (1534–54), p. 431.

30 Malfatti, ed., The accession, coronation and marriage of Mary Tudor, p. 34.

31 CSP: Spanish, xi (1553), pp. 259–60.

32 Juan Paez de Castro, ‘A diary of events regarding the happenings in connection with the rebellion of Thomas Wyatt and others following the arrival of the imperial ambassadors’, in Malfatti, ed., The accession, coronation and marriage of Mary Tudor, pp. 63–75, at p. 67.

33 Richard Grafton, A chronicle at large and meere history of the affayres of Englande and kinges of the same (London, 1569), p. 1332.

34 An oration gratulatory made upon the joyfull proclayming of the moste noble Princes Quene Mary Quene of Englande was printed by John Day in 1553.

35 Andrew W. Taylor, ‘Taverner, Richard (1505?–1575)’, Oxford dictionary of national biography. This account of Taverner's life and career does not mention An oration gratulatory.

36 Taverner, An oration, Aiiiv.

37 Ibid., Avv–Avir.

38 Ibid., Avir–Aviv.

39 On the authorship question, see W. W. Greg's introduction to his edition of the play: W. W. Greg ed., Respublica: an interlude for Christmas 1553 attributed to Nicholas Udall, Early English Text Society (London, 1952), pp. vii–xxi. See also Bradner, L., ‘A test for Udall's authorship’, Modern Language Notes, 42 (1927), pp. 378–80CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Greg Walker, The politics of performance in early Renaissance drama (Cambridge, 1998). The identification of Udall as author on stylistic grounds is persuasive but cannot, unfortunately, be conclusive.

40 Respublica, ed. Greg, ll. 5–6, 39. Further line references will be to this edition and will be in the main text.

41 Mary was probably at Richmond for Christmas 1553.

42 A 1554 warrant from the Marian revels office refers to ‘our welbeloved Nicholas Udall’ who ‘haithe at soundrye seasons convenyente heretofore shewed and myndethe herafter to showe his diligence in settyng forthe of dyalogges & enterludes before us for our regall dysporte and recreacyon’, Documents relating to the revels at court in the time of King Edward VI and Queen Mary, ed. Albert Feuillerat (Louvain, 1914), p. 291.

43 In The politics of performance, pp. 172–92, Walker provides a detailed analysis of the play as a response to disastrous Edwardian economic and social policies. For the play's religious stance, see Debax, Jean-Paul, ‘Respublica: pièce catholique?’, Caliban, 24 (1987), pp. 27–47Google Scholar; and Winkelman, Michael A., ‘Respublica: England's trouble about Mary’, Comitatus: A Journal of Medieval and Renaissance Studies, 33 (2002), pp. 77–98.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

44 For this view, see Bevington, David, ‘Drama and polemics under Queen Mary’, Renaissance Drama, 9 (1966), pp. 105–24CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Rutledge, Douglas F., ‘Respublica: rituals of state elevation and the political mythology of Mary Tudor’, Medieval and Renaissance Drama in England, 5 (1991), pp. 55–68.Google Scholar

45 Thomas Betteridge, Tudor histories of the English Reformations, 1530–1583 (Aldershot, 1999), p. 138.

46 Betteridge, Tudor histories, also discusses the ‘conflicting nature of the play's two models of history’, p. 138.

47 Loades, The reign of Mary Tudor, pp. 27ff.

48 The Quenes majesties passage through the citie of London to Westminster the daye before her coronacion, ed. James M. Osborn (New Haven, CT, 1960), Ciiiv, Ciiiir.

49 Ibid., Div.

50 Ibid., Diiiv.

51 On the Tudor coronations, see my The drama of coronation: medieval ceremony in early modern England (Cambridge, 2008).

52 The Quenes majesties passage, ed. Osborn, Diiiir.