Abstract
When Sir Philip Sidney and his colleagues in Anglo-Dutch relations used poetry to praise Elizabeth as a nymph and celestial goddess in the 1570s (chapter two), they infused secular images with religious significance in order to encourage royal support for the Protestant States. These delightful texts laud Elizabeth as a radiant queen whose bright beams and keen wisdom could easily translate into international leadership and assistance, if she would so choose.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution.
Buying options
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Learn about institutional subscriptionsPreview
Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.
Notes
Yates, Astraea: The Imperial Theme in the Sixteenth Century (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1975).
The main scholars who examine Blenerhasset’s work are Josephine Waters Bennett, Lily B. Campbell, Helen Hackett, and Ivan L. Schulze. See Bennett, introduction to A Revelation of the True Minerva, by Thomas Blenerhasset (New York: Scholars’ Facsimiles & Reprints, 1941)
Campbell, introduction to Parts Added to “The Mirror for Magistrates”, by John Higgins and Thomas Blenerhasset (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1946)
Hackett, Virgin Mother, Maiden Queen: Elizabeth I and the Cult of the Virgin Mary (Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1995), pp. 119–23
Schulze, “Blenerhasset’s A Revelation, Spenser’s Shepheardes Calender, and the Kenilworth Pageants,” ELH, 11:2 (June 1944): 85–91.
Sherman, “Maurice Kyffin,” in Sixteenth-Century British Nondramatic Writers: Second Series, David A. Richardson, Dictionary of Literary Biography, vol. 136, 214–16 (Detroit, MI: Gale, 1994), p. 214.
For more on the idea of divine secrets and prophecy in pastoral poetry (especially in England and in the Netherlands), see Jan van Dorsten, The Anglo-Dutch Renaissance: Seven Essays, [Jan A. van Dorsten] ed. J. van den Berg and Alastair Hamilton, 72–83 (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1988), p.
Richard Bauckham’s work on Tudor apocalyptic paradigms has prompted me to use this term “Brocardist.” Bauckham speculates, with some humor, that perhaps there was a Brocardist circle, and I suggest that this notion may have some validity. Bauckham, Tudor Apocalypse: Sixteenth century apocalypticism, millennarianism and the English Reformation: from John Bale to John Foxe and Thomas Brightman (Oxford: Sutton Courtenay Press, 1978), p. 219.
Petersen, Preaching in the Last Days: The Theme of “Two Witnesses” in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1993), p. 163.
Those few who did use millennial paradigms—most notably James Sanford and Stephen Bateman—gave Elizabeth a central role in supporting the Gospel and trampling the papal Antichrist (Bauckham, Tudor Apocalypse, pp. 212, 218–21). For the notion of England as God’s elect nation guided by Elizabeth toward a millennial golden age, see Bernard Capp, “The Political Dimension of Apocalyptic Thought,” in The Apocalypse in English Renaissance Thought and Literature: Patterns, Antecedents, and Repercussions, ed. C. A. Patrides and Joseph Wittreich, 93–124 (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1984), p. 95.
See, for example, the letter of 3 March 1582 from William Herle to Leicester in Great Britain, Public Record Office, Calendar of State Papers, Foreign Series, of the Reign of Elizabeth, January 1581-April 1582, ed. Arthur John Butler, vol. 15 (London: Her Majesty’s Stationery Office, 1907), particularly p. 515.
Dawson was completely responsible for printing Blenerhasset’s Reuelation, and he was involved in helping Henry Denham publish the last two sections of Bentley’s Monvment. See John N. King, “Thomas Bentley’s Monument of Matrons: The Earliest Anthology of English Women’s Texts,” in Strong Voices, Weak History: Early Women Writers & Canons in England, France, & Italy, ed. Pamela Joseph Benson and Victoria Kirkham, 216–38 (Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press, 2005), p. 217.
For a good overview of these specific biblical images, see John N. King, Tudor Royal Iconography: Literature and Art in an Age of Religious Crisis (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1989), p. 244
Elizabeth I: Collected Works, ed. Leah S. Marcus, Janel Mueller, and Mary Beth Rose (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2000), p. 179.
Kyffin’s background and interest in biblical exegesis surface both in his will (he leaves five pounds to Hugh Broughton for the purpose of publishing his observations on the Bible) and in the fact that his brother was a preacher. See Kyffin’s entry in the Dictionary of National Biography, vol. 31, ed. Sidney Lee, 352–53 (New York: Macmillan and Co., 1892), p. 352.
For more on Melissus’ praise of Elizabeth as Rosina, see Jan A. van Dorsten, Poets, Patrons, and Professors: Sir Philip Sidney, Daniel Rogers, and the Leiden Humanists (Leiden: Leiden University Press, 1962), p. 97.
For a good description of this title page, see Margery Corbett and Ronald Lightbrown, The Comely Frontispiece: The Emblematic Title-page in England, 1550–1660 (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1979), pp. 49–56.
Roy C. Strong and Janvan Dorsten drew my attention to this image in their work, Leicester’s Triumph (Leiden: Leiden University Press, 1964), pp. 44–45.
This connection with military might also resonates with her depiction on a Dutch medal in 1587. On one side, she is portrayed as enthroned over a seven-headed apocalyptic beast, while on the other side is imprinted a papal scene. Roy C. Strong, The Portraits of Queen Elizabeth I (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1963), p. 138, Medal 16.
Quoted in William H. Sherman, John Dee: The Politics of Reading and Writing in the English Renaissance (Amherst, MA: University of Massachusetts Press, 1995), p. 131.
In addition to this more traditional apocalyptic image, Kyffin may also be referring to the plant of truth (also called the plant of righteousness) from the Book of Enoch—a connection Kyffin would have learned about secondhand from Dee rather than reading this pseudepigraphal book directly. Dee viewed himself as a second Enoch; in fact, he began to write his own Book of Enoch in 1583—a text in which he provides the Enochian alphabet he received from the angels. Kyffin had visited Dee in June 1582—only seven months after Dee had recorded his first substantial contact with angels. The plant of truth (as described in the Book of Enoch) will, in turn, teach the elect people in the final millennial age. This section of 1 Enoch, significantly, was a key influence in Revelation 19 and the millennial chapter 20. This connection is highly speculative because neither Dee nor Kyffin would have read 1 Enoch firsthand; however, I do think further study on the relationship between Kyffin’s work and Dee’s works is merited. Both men wrestled with merging the pragmatic with the mystical, sometimes through a millennial lens. For Dee’s reference to Kyffin’s visit, see The Private Diary of Dr. John Dee, and the Catalogue of his library of Manuscripts, ed. James Orchard Halliwell (London: Camden Society, 1842), p. 15.
see both Escobedo, Nationalism and Historical Loss and Nicholas H. Cluee, John Dee’s Natural Philosophy: Between Science and Religion (London: Routledge, 1988).
Bridges, A Defence of the Government Established in the Chvrch of Englande for Ecclesiasticall Matters (London, 1587; STC 3734), p. 62. Peter Lake initially drew my attention to this section in Bridges’ text in Anglicans and Puritans?: Presbyterianism and English Conformist Thought from Whitgift to Hooker (London: Unwin Hyman, 1988), p. 120.
Copyright information
© 2010 Linda Shenk
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Shenk, L. (2010). Queen of the Word: Elizabeth, Divine Wisdom, and Apocalyptic Discourse in the 1580s. In: Learned Queen. Queenship and Power. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230101852_4
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230101852_4
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, New York
Print ISBN: 978-1-349-37933-0
Online ISBN: 978-0-230-10185-2
eBook Packages: Palgrave History CollectionHistory (R0)