1. 'To be Deborah': the political implications of providentialism under a female ruler. The debate over headship. Restored Protestantism and the English Deborah. The queen and the regime. The incorporated crown: Privy Councillors and the queen -- 2. Announcing the godly common weal: Knox, Aylmer and the parameters of counsel. A queen called by God: John Knox's First Blast of the Trumpet. Inaugurating the 'mixed monarchy': John Aylmer's reflections on female rule. Conclusion: counsel and sovereignty in the godly nation -- 3. Feats of incorporation: the ideological bases of the mixed monarchy. Counsel, consent and conscience: the common good. Commonwealth ideology. Conquest and consent: the Marian legacy. Incorporating the queen
Summary
Anne McLaren explores the consequences for English political culture when, with the accession of Elizabeth I, imperial "kingship" came to be invested in a female ruler. She looks at how Elizabeth managed to be queen, in the face of considerable male opposition, and emphasizes the continuities between Elizabeth's reign and the outbreak of the English civil wars in the seventeenth century. Political Culture in the Reign of Elizabeth I thus offers a wholesale reinterpretation of the political dynamics of the period
Bibliography
Includes bibliographical references (pages 244-265) and index
