2 The Elizabethan exclusion crisis and the Elizabethan polity
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Patrick Collinson
Abstract
‘The Elizabethan exclusion crisis’ refers to the sustained concern of much of the ‘political nation’ in the reign of Elizabeth I to forestall the accession to the English crown of Mary Queen of Scots; and, indeed, to prevent any other remedy for the dangerous vacuum of an uncertain succession which would threaten the Protestant religious and political settlement and all that it stood for. It is a question of whether a crisis could endure for as many as twenty-seven years, which was the time it took finally to put paid to Mary Stuart's claim at Fotheringhay. As with the Cold War, the fact that the exclusion crisis ended with less of a bang than a whimper has discouraged the legitimate exercise of counterfactual history.
Abstract
‘The Elizabethan exclusion crisis’ refers to the sustained concern of much of the ‘political nation’ in the reign of Elizabeth I to forestall the accession to the English crown of Mary Queen of Scots; and, indeed, to prevent any other remedy for the dangerous vacuum of an uncertain succession which would threaten the Protestant religious and political settlement and all that it stood for. It is a question of whether a crisis could endure for as many as twenty-seven years, which was the time it took finally to put paid to Mary Stuart's claim at Fotheringhay. As with the Cold War, the fact that the exclusion crisis ended with less of a bang than a whimper has discouraged the legitimate exercise of counterfactual history.
Kapitel in diesem Buch
- Front matter i
- Contents v
- List of abbreviations vi
- Acknowledgments vii
- Introduction 1
- 1 The politics of religion and the religion of politics in Elizabethan England 36
- 2 The Elizabethan exclusion crisis and the Elizabethan polity 61
- 3 Servants and citizens 98
- 4 Pulling the strings 122
- 5 Elizabeth I and the verdicts of history 143
- 6 Biblical rhetoric 167
- 7 John Foxe and national consciousness 193
- 8 Truth, lies and fiction in sixteenth-century Protestant historiography 216
- 9 One of us? 245
- 10 William Camden and the anti-myth of Elizabeth 270
- 11 John Stow and nostalgic antiquarianism 287
- Index 309
Kapitel in diesem Buch
- Front matter i
- Contents v
- List of abbreviations vi
- Acknowledgments vii
- Introduction 1
- 1 The politics of religion and the religion of politics in Elizabethan England 36
- 2 The Elizabethan exclusion crisis and the Elizabethan polity 61
- 3 Servants and citizens 98
- 4 Pulling the strings 122
- 5 Elizabeth I and the verdicts of history 143
- 6 Biblical rhetoric 167
- 7 John Foxe and national consciousness 193
- 8 Truth, lies and fiction in sixteenth-century Protestant historiography 216
- 9 One of us? 245
- 10 William Camden and the anti-myth of Elizabeth 270
- 11 John Stow and nostalgic antiquarianism 287
- Index 309
