Robert Beale (15411601) was a diplomat and administrator who worked at the heart of Elizabethan governance and international policymaking. In spite or perhaps because of the voluminous record he left behind, he has never been the subject of a dedicated biography, and his remarkable life and influence have therefore remained hidden. By thoroughly investigating Beales personal reference archive, which remains largely intact at the British Library, and additional material from archives across the UK, mainland Europe, and the USA, this book brings Beales life into sharp focus: from his shadowy upbringing in Coventry and London, through his first trips to the European mainland in the 1550s, and to his prominent roles in Queen Elizabeths government. By reconstructing the complex web of transnational connections he forged throughout Europe, David Scott Gehring demonstrates for the first time the extent to which these networks and his experiences abroad made him an invaluable agent of the Elizabethan regime. In the process, Gehring reveals Beales broader significance for our understanding of the workings of Elizabethan government, especially the role of second- and third-level players within it, and he recognizes the impossibility of truly understanding Elizabethan England without considering its interactions with and connections to the rest of Europe. The book makes a range of novel contributions, including to understandings of Elizabethan foreign policy, the succession, religion, political life, and intelligence gathering.

An alternative account of the so-called 'succession crisis' in the first decade of the reign of Elizabeth I.

This is the first edition ever of the Queen’s correspondence in Italian. These letters cast a new light on her talents as a linguist and provide interesting details as to her political agenda, and on the cultural milieu of her court. This book provides a fresh analysis of the surviving evidence concerning Elizabeth’s learning and use of Italian, and of the activity of the members of her ‘Foreign Office.’ All of the documents transcribed here are accompanied by a short introduction focusing on their content and context, a brief description of their transmission history, and an English translation.

This innovative textbook uniquely combines an integrated survey of European and English history in the sixteenth century. The book is structured in three parts: the Western european Environment, The Rise of the Great Monarchies and the Crisis of the Great Monarchies. It covers political, social, religious and economic history from the late Renaissance to Mary Stuart and Philip II. It recognises the amount of common belief and interest between the British Isles and Western Europe in the century of the Reformation and Counter-Reformation and indicates how events on one side of the Channel influenced those on the other side. Key Features: * colourful and informative biographical sketches of major figures * clearly structured genealogical charts, chronologies and full glossaries * surveys of changing historiograhical debates, including contemporary issues * documentary exercises related to examination questions * lavish illustrations including maps, tables, photographs and line drawings Drawing on many years of classroom experience, Terry Morris presents in a highly readable and concise format the essential elements of narrative and debate while also indicating routes to follow for deeper and more advanced study. The book will be essential reading for students of early modern history.

Europe's mythical origins lie in Zeus' abduction of the Asian princess Europa. Down the real centuries, Asia has played a crucial role in the making of Europe - as an object of Orientalist fantasy and colonial desire, but also of the spread of the liberating values and humane letters associated with the continent. In this book, a lifelong admirer of Europe casts a critical yet loving eye on the continent to ask what it means to him. The book revolves around a series of personal encounters. These range from following his father to Cambridge, and meeting two Bengali lovers in Calcutta who cherish Eros with classical Greek purity, to watching his wife recover in a Polish hospital that lavishes care on her for almost free. These encounters are intertwined with passionately argued essays on the Holocaust, the Soviet ideal and the Berlin Wall as keenly-contested sites of the European imagination. A chapter on Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa's historical novel, The Leopard, combines literary and political analysis to peer into the heart of Italy, while an essay on champagne in France discovers the France in champagne. An analysis of secularism in the post-9/11 world defends one of the abiding legacies of Europe. Finally, a chapter on postmodern Europe upholds the European Union as perhaps the most exciting international project on offer today. The literary flair of this scholarly book captures the vividness of the intellectual engagement between Asia and Europe.

Color Overheads Included! Northern European Renaissance contains 12 full-color transparencies, 12 reproducible pages, and a richly detailed teacher's guide. Among the topics covered in this volume are the humanists of northern Europe, Johann Gutenberg, Martin Luther, Elizabeth I, Elizabethan England, Elizabethan drama, Francis I, and science and scientists of northern Europe.

There were many surprising accessions in the early modern period, including Mary I of England, Henry III of France, Anne Stuart, and others, but this is the first book dedicated solely to evaluating their lives and the repercussions of their reigns. By comparing a variety of such unexpected heirs, this engaging history offers a richer portrait of early modern monarchy. It shows that the need for heirs and the acquisition and preparation of heirs had a critical impact on sixteenth- and seventeenth-century culture and politics, from the appropriation of culture to the influence of language, to trade and political alliances. It also shows that securing a dynasty relied on more than just political agreements and giving birth to legitimate sons, examining how relationships between women could and did forge alliances and dynastic continuities.

Elizabeth I is one of England's most admired and celebrated rulers. She is also one of its most iconic: her image is familiar from paintings, film and television. This wide-ranging interdisciplinary collection of essays examines the origins and development of the image and myths that came to surround the Virgin Queen. The essays question the prevailing assumptions about the mythic Elizabeth and challenge the view that she was unambiguously celebrated in the literature and portraiture of the early modern era. They explain how the most familiar myths surrounding the queen developed from the concerns of her contemporaries and yet continue to reverberate today. Published to mark the 400th anniversary of the queen's death, this volume will appeal to all those with an interest in the historiography of Elizabeth's reign and Elizabethan, and Jacobean, poets, dramatists and artists.

This Seminar Study introduces students to England's foreign policy during the reigns of the Tudor monarchs. In this succinct introduction the author addresses the key questions facing students - for example, to what extent did monarch or minister make policy. Each reign is analysed in turn providing a narrative and explanation of the major events and policy decisions throughout the Tudor period.

Introduced by a brief examination of the anonymous seventeenth-century miniature painting used on the book's jacket and frontispiece, essays in Resurrecting Elizabeth I in Seventeenth-Century England combine literary and cultural analysis to show how and why images of Elizabeth Tudor appeared so widely in the century after her death and how those images were modified as the century progressed. The volume includes work by Steven W. May (on quotations and misquotations of Elizabeth's own words), Alan R. Young (on the Phoenix Queen and her successor, James I), Georgianna Ziegler (on Elizabeth's goddaughter, Elizabeth of Bohemia), Jonathan Baldo (on forgetting Elizabeth in Henry VIII), Lisa Gim (on Anna Maria van Schurman and Anne Bradstreet's visions of Elizabeth as an exemplary woman), and Kim H. Noling (on John Banks' creation of a maternal genealogy for English Protestantism).