The Early Elizabethan Polity: William Cecil and the British Succession Crisis, 1558–1569

by Stephen Alford

• ISBN13: 9780521892858
• ISBN10: 0521892856
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2002-06-20
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Summary

Traditionally historians have argued that the court of Elizabeth I (1558–1603) was factional, divided between competing subjects who were manipulated by their Queen. This book provides a different account: of councillors who were united by two connected dangers, namely Catholic opposition to Protestant England and Elizabeth’s refusal to marry or to settle England’s succession. This alternative account of the first decade of Elizabeth’s reign investigates three main areas. It challenges the notion that Elizabeth I and her councillors agreed on policy, and that the Queen and her secretary, William Cecil, formed an inseparable political partnership; it establishes the importance of rhetorical training and the relationship between education and Elizabethan debates on the issue of service to the Queen, balanced against service to the Commonwealth; and it deals with the radical political conditions of the first decade, and argues that the origins of later Elizabethan crises lay in the 1560s.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgements	ix
List of abbreviations	xi
Introduction	1	(8)
William Cecil and early Elizabethan political culture	9	(34)
The politics of Britain and the development of the British succession crisis 1558--1559	43	(28)
Anglo-British negotiations for a settlement 1560--1563	71	(26)
New Tudor politics and the domestic impact of the succession issue 1560--1563	97	(23)
The Darnley marriage and weaknesses in the Elizabethan polity 1564--1566	120	(22)
Cecil, parliament, and the succession 1566--1567	142	(16)
Cecil's proposal for the settlement of Britain 1567--1568	158	(24)
The crisis of 1569 and an alternative remedy	182	(27)
Conclusion: the early Elizabethan polity	209	(14)
Appendices	223	(21)
Bibliography	244	(22)
Index	266