At the heart of Valerie Schutte's new short-form monograph are four translations by Princess Elizabeth that the princess dedicated and gave to her father, brother, and stepmother Catherine Parr, and two translations by Princess Mary. Schutte aims to uncover what the dedications (or lack thereof) attached to these works reveal about the princesses’ political status and abilities before their respective accessions to the throne. Schutte's slim volume, however, covers more ground and encompasses a wider array of texts than this might suggest, as these six core texts are heavily contextualized and form the basis of a broader discussion of dedications and gift-giving.
Chapter 1 discusses the pre-accession book dedications received by the two princesses. Here, the focus understandably falls more heavily on nineteen pre-accession dedications to Mary than Elizabeth's seven. The overarching argument here is that the number and timing of the dedications reflected the status of the princesses at the time. Chapters 2 and 3 are devoted to examining two translations by Mary (of passages by Aquinas and Erasmus) and Elizabeth's four dedications. Mary did not dedicate either of these translations to any individual. The Aquinas may not have been a gift, but copies apparently circulated widely at court, enhancing Mary's scholarly reputation, while her translation of Erasmus appeared as part of the first English translation of Erasmus's Paraphrases, a translation and publication project under the auspices of Catherine Parr. Schutte argues that including a section by Mary helped to augment the prestige of the publication and that Parr likely did not ask Elizabeth because her involvement would not have had the same effect. In contrast, Schutte argues that Elizabeth held a significantly lower position at court than her sister, which meant that she turned to book gifts and dedications as a means of securing favor from her father, stepmother, and brother.
Indeed, throughout, Schutte tends to favor the conclusion that Mary's translations and dedications were a sign of the strength of her position, while Elizabeth's were a sign of her weakness and lack of prestige. This is one way in which Schutte presents her work as part of the scholarly trend of reassessing Mary's reputation vis-à-vis that of her younger sister. Schutte acknowledges in this instance and others that alternative explanations are possible; scholars who would not see such a large gap between the two princesses’ positions will likely favor other interpretations.
As Elizabeth's dedications were all linked to the giving of texts as New Year's gifts, Schutte's fourth chapter examines the annual ritual at the royal court, looking at ground covered in more general terms by Maria Hayward and Felicity Heal, but with a narrower lens: that of the New Year's gifts that members of the Tudor royal family made to other members. One pattern that emerges clearly from the discussion is Mary's preference for lavish gifts whereas Elizabeth preferred personalized ones, a habit she continued when queen and which may equally explain her use of book dedications and gifts more broadly. Part of Schutte's argument explaining why Elizabeth's enduring scholarly reputation has been stronger than that of her sister lies partly in the fact that Elizabeth's translations were subsequently published and eulogized by their later editors. Consequently, the final chapter analyzes editions of Elizabeth's translation of Marguerite de Navarre's Miroir de l’âme pécheresse, published in 1548, 1568, 1580 and 1582.
The format of short-form monograph works well for this sort of project. The heavy contextualization Schutte provides would have been impossible in an extended article (or even two). Equally, the work will have greater appeal in its current form, as sections are of interest to scholars working on book dedications and book gifts, translations, and relations among the Tudor royal family. It is, however, a book that assumes significant background knowledge in places.
