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‘Our English Deborah’ Elizabeth analogies in early- and mid-seventeenth-century England (1603–1659)
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Norrie, Aidan (2021) ‘Our English Deborah’ Elizabeth analogies in early- and mid-seventeenth-century England (1603–1659). PhD thesis, University of Warwick.
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Official URL: http://webcat.warwick.ac.uk/record=b3679332
Abstract
This thesis analyses how analogies using Elizabeth I of England were employed by a variety of writers and commentators in a range of ways to counsel, critique, warn, rebuke, and reprove her Stuart successors, as well as the two Lords Protector, during the turmoil and upheaval of the period 1603 to 1659. In this period, Elizabeth was paralleled with, compared to, or conflated with a litany of biblical figures, including Daniel, David, Deborah, Esther, Jacob, Josiah, Judith, Moses, Samuel, Solomon, and Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. Elizabeth had been compared and conflated with many of these figures during her reign for various religio-political purposes, and had in fact compared herself to Deborah, Judith, Esther, David, Daniel, and Solomon. The existing scholarship on Elizabeth analogies, however, almost exclusively deals with how they were invoked during Elizabeth’s lifetime. A central argument of this thesis is that such analogies remained extremely potent devices of counsel and rebuke, and took on new meanings and purposes, in the decades after Elizabeth’s death.
Scriptural analogies—those drawn between Elizabeth and a biblical figure—were a central part of the legacy of the last Tudor monarch in early- and mid-seventeenth-century England. This thesis argues that they provided (retroactive) religio-political validation of Elizabeth’s reign, as both a female king and as a resolute Protestant; they depicted Elizabeth as a providential monarch whom the incumbent Stuart monarch or Lord Protector should be emulating; and by offering such counsel to her successors they sought to effect meaningful change. Elizabeth analogies allowed the dead queen to be depicted by different groups of people—with a range of agendas—as the embodiment of a providential ruler from the Old Testament whom her successors should emulate.
| Item Type: | Thesis (PhD) | ||||
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| Subjects: | D History General and Old World > DA Great Britain P Language and Literature > PN Literature (General) > PN0441 Literary History P Language and Literature > PR English literature |
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| Library of Congress Subject Headings (LCSH): | Elizabeth I, Queen of England, 1533-1603, Elizabeth I, Queen of England, 1533-1603 -- In literature, English literature -- Early modern, 1500-1700 -- History and criticism, Elizabeth I, Queen of England, 1533-1603 -- Public opinion, Literature and history -- Great Britain, Great Britain -- History -- Elizabeth, 1558-1603 -- Historiography, Monarchy in literature | ||||
| Official Date: | May 2021 | ||||
| Dates: |
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| Institution: | University of Warwick | ||||
| Theses Department: | Centre for the Study of the Renaissance | ||||
| Thesis Type: | PhD | ||||
| Publication Status: | Unpublished | ||||
| Supervisor(s)/Advisor: | Marshall, Peter ; Grant, Teresa, 1972- | ||||
| Sponsors: | University of Warwick. Chancellor’s International Scholarship | ||||
| Format of File: | |||||
| Extent: | xii, 273 leaves : illustrations | ||||
| Language: | eng |
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