Oehle, Birgit (1999) An audience with the Queen : subversion, submission and survival in three late Elizabethan progress entertainments. PhD thesis, University of Warwick.

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Abstract

Three late Elizabethan progress entertainments are being discussed: Cowdray (August
1591), Elvetham (September 1591), and Harefield (July 1602).
The Elvetham entertainment has received some critical attention and is comparatively
well known due to the extraordinary preparations undertaken for the royal visit, and the
fact that a woodcut of an artificial crescent-shaped lake, especially dug for the occasion,
has survived. The other two entertainments have been somewhat neglected, and
Harefield survives only in fragmentary form. To my knowledge, its text has never been
printed in toto, and the thesis will include a transcript of the original manuscript housed
in Warwickshire County Record Office.
The traditional view that progress entertainments were pastoral tales whose main
purpose was to consolidate and confirm existing class structures is challenged.
Entertainments are rather complex fictions that serve not merely to establish and
preserve the `beautiful relation' between Queen and her subjects, highborn as well as
lowly. These occasions were also very much sites for the exercise of power, by monarch
and hosts alike. When examining these festivities in their historical and political
contexts and illuminating their hosts' backgrounds, significant new interpretations, or at
least possible alternative readings, may be found. Most importantly, the entertainments
have to be viewed holistically, as events rather than as the texts that have come down to
us.
The hosts of the first two entertainments were powerful peers who were politically
suspect from the regime's point of view. Both these lords, on the other hand, had little
reason to love the regime because they had been harassed. Despite this state of affairs,
traditional interpretations still maintain that both entertainments were submissive in
tenor; that their hosts regarded the royal visit as an honour, and tried to (re)gain the
Queen's favour through the spectacles that they were putting on. I would claim that
these pageants are far more complex affairs and have to be read on different levels of
signification. Far from being submissive, these fetes can be interpreted as challenging
the existing order, if not indeed actively trying to subvert it.
Having said that, there are country welcomes that seem to conform to the more
traditional view of progress entertainments. The third pageant at Harefield was offered
by a top-ranking Elizabethan official whose relationship with the Queen was
presumably more amicable. Her visit to him was probably intended as a sign of favour,
and his motivation in hosting the entertainment may well have been the consolidation of
his own position within her close circle of councillors. He would have aimed at
maintaining the existing order rather than challenge it; at establishing a `beautiful
relation' between all classes. These conclusions can only be drawn, however, once the
event as a whole has been studied as well as the surviving fragments of text.

Item Type:	Thesis (PhD)
Subjects:	D History General and Old World > DA Great Britain P Language and Literature > PR English literature
Library of Congress Subject Headings (LCSH):	English drama -- Early modern and Elizabethan, 1500-1600, Elizabeth I, Queen of England, 1533-1603, Royal visitors -- Great Britain
Official Date:	July 1999
Dates:	Date Event July 1999 Submitted
Institution:	University of Warwick
Theses Department:	Centre for the Study of the Renaissance
Thesis Type:	PhD
Publication Status:	Unpublished
Supervisor(s)/Advisor:	Mulryne, J. R.
Extent:	[xii], 291 leaves
Language:	eng

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