A collection of new and previously-published essays on the culture of the English Renaissance state.

Reading Authority and Representing Rule in Early Modern England explores the publication and reception of authority in early modern England. Examples are drawn from a broad range of source, including royal portraits, architecture, coins and medals and written texts.This is a volume that presents the history of society and state as a cultural as well as an institutional or political history. The author, Kevin Sharpe, was a leading scholar in interdisciplinary approaches to the study of early modern Britain. He pioneered the application of methods and approaches from other disciplines, such as literary criticism, reception studies and visual culture, to the study of the English Renaissance state. This will be an important text for anyone studying early modern England, as well as for those interested in the methods of cultural history and the explication of written and visual texts.

This book is a study of English conversion narratives between 1580 and 1660. Focusing on the formal, stylistic properties of these texts, it argues that there is a direct correspondence between the spiritual and rhetorical turn. Furthermore, by focusing on a comparatively early period in the history of the conversion narrative the book charts for the first time writers’ experimentation and engagement with rhetorical theory before the genre’s relative stabilization in the 1650s. A cross confessional study analyzing work by both Protestant and Catholic writers, this book explores conversion’s relationship with reading; the links between conversion, eloquence, translation and trope; the conflation of spiritual movement with literal travel; and the use of the body as a site for spiritual knowledge and proof.

This book ranges over private and public reading, and over a variety of religious, social, and scientific communities to locate acts of reading in specific historical moments from the sixteenth through the eighteenth centuries. It also charts the changes in reading habits that reflect broader social and political shifts during the period. A team of expert contributors cover topics including the processes of book production and distribution, audiences and markets, the material text, the relation of print to performance, and the politics of acts of reception. In addition, the volume emphasises the independence of early modern readers and their role in making meaning in an age in which increased literacy equaled social enfranchisement and interpretation was power. Meaning was not simply an authorial act but the work of many hands and processes, from editing, printing, and proofing, to reproducing, distributing, and finally reading.

The early 17th century was a time of great literature the era of Cervantes and Shakespeare but also of international tension and heightened diplomacy. This book looks at the relations between Spain under Philip III and Philip IV and England under James I in the period 1603-1625. It examines the essential issues that established the framework for diplomatic relations between the two states, looking not only at questions of war and peace, but also of trade and piracy. Óscar Alfredo Ruiz Fernández expertly argues that the diplomatic relationship was vital to the strategic interests of both powers and also played a highly significant role in the domestic agendas of each country. Based on Spanish and English archival sources, England and Spain in the Early Modern Era provides, for the first time, a clear picture of diplomacy between England and Spain in the early modern era.

Placing the reading of history in its cultural and educational context, and examining the processes by which ideas about ancient Rome circulated, this study provides the first assessment of the significance of Roman history, broadly conceived, in early modern England.

This book shows how liberal education taught Tudor and Stuart monarchs to wield pens like swords and transformed political culture in early modern Britain.

In Queens and Power in Medieval and Early Modern England, Carole Levin and Robert Bucholz provide a forum for the underexamined, anomalous reigns of queens in history. These regimes, primarily regarded as interruptions to the ?normal? male monarchy, have been examined largely as isolated cases. This interdisciplinary study of queens throughout history examines their connections to one another, their constituents? perceptions of them, and the fallacies of their historical reputations. The contributors consider historical queens as well as fictional, mythic, and biblical queens and how they were represented in medieval and early modern England. They also give modern readers a glimpse into the early modern worldview, particularly regarding order, hierarchy, rulership, property, biology, and the relationship between the sexes. Considering topics as diverse as how Queen Elizabeth?s unmarried status affected the perception of her as a just and merciful queen to a reevaluation of ?good Queen Anne? as more than just an obese, conventional monarch, this volume encourages readers to reexamine previously held assumptions about the role of female monarchs in early modern history.

A Short History of Early Modern England presents the historical and cultural information necessary for a richer understanding of English Renaissance literature. Written in a clear and accessible style for an undergraduate level audience Gives an overview of the period’s history as well as an understanding of the historiographic issues Explores key historical and literary events, from the Wars of the Roses to the publication of John Milton’s Paradise Regained Features in depth explanations of key terms and concepts, such as absolutism and the Elizabethan Settlement

This is a detailed 2002 study of the political significance of the murder of Sir Thomas Overbury, 1613.