10 William Camden and the anti-myth of Elizabeth
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Patrick Collinson
Abstract
There is some evidence that William Camden's early ambition was to be a historian, until persuaded by the Dutch scholar Ortelius that the Britannia project should have priority. Camden had an ambivalent attitude to the near-contemporary history which was his next major undertaking, a history of England, Scotland and Ireland, in the reign of Elizabeth I, constructed on the model of the Annals of the Roman historian Tacitus, referred to as the Annales. We are indebted to Camden ample material for both favourable and unfavourable characterisations of Elizabeth. We also owe to him as her first historian and for providing the sense of the absolute centrality to the Elizabethan story of the so long deferred question of Mary Queen of Scots. Camden was certainly not the stuff of which Elizabethan myths of Gloriana were made.
Abstract
There is some evidence that William Camden's early ambition was to be a historian, until persuaded by the Dutch scholar Ortelius that the Britannia project should have priority. Camden had an ambivalent attitude to the near-contemporary history which was his next major undertaking, a history of England, Scotland and Ireland, in the reign of Elizabeth I, constructed on the model of the Annals of the Roman historian Tacitus, referred to as the Annales. We are indebted to Camden ample material for both favourable and unfavourable characterisations of Elizabeth. We also owe to him as her first historian and for providing the sense of the absolute centrality to the Elizabethan story of the so long deferred question of Mary Queen of Scots. Camden was certainly not the stuff of which Elizabethan myths of Gloriana were made.
Chapters in this book
- 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
Chapters in this book
- 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
