The Struggle for the Succession in Late Elizabethan England: Politics, Polemics and Cultural Representations (review)

This excellent collection has several things to recommend it. Not least is the fact that it approaches Anglo-Scottish history with a French sensibility. Eleven of its seventeen contributors are from French universities, introducing voices that are not often heard in the conversation. Joining them are leading British scholars to consider the debate over the succession that started after the execution of Mary of Scotland. Part of the ongoing Astraea series from the Institut de Recherches sur la Renaissance at Montpellier 3, it began as a conference celebrating the succession of James VI/I to the English throne in 1603.

Mayer's excellent introduction justifies the invitation to historians and literary scholars to look at the succession. Noting that the death of Elizabeth was celebrated in 2003 with greater enthusiasm than the accession of James I, he sees his book as a corrective to English ethnocentrism. Portraying Elizabeth as less than successful and James as much more effective than he is usually recognized to have been, Mayer argues for an understanding of James's political skill and intelligence. His diplomacy, he argues, took him to the throne of England through effective dealings with Essex and Cecil and by neutralizing the Catholic rejection of his claim. Although the union of the two kingdoms was thwarted by Parliament, James, nonetheless, built an Anglo-Scottish administration that made his subjects used to their "Britishness." This identity was the product, too, of the Helgersonian discursive forms of state building found in the literary production of the Jacobean era. "There is good reason," he writes, "not to extend, as is sometimes done in literary studies, the Elizabethan period to the beginning of the Stuart era" (15). Mayer argues, and his contributors agree, that many writers were inspired by James's new style, which they echoed in their works. There was nostalgia for the old Queen, but there was also an appropriation of her as a representative of monarchy that could be transformed by Jacobean writers. All of these arguments are borne out by contributors.

The book is divided into four topical sections, each containing a set of essays. The first deals with Anglo-Scottish politics and diplomacy. The second contains articles on political thought concerning the succession. The third portion addresses religious polemics concerning the succession, and the last, "Staging the Succession," takes up the theatrical and rhetorical productions surrounding it.

In a review of this length it is impossible to do justice to the eighteen articles in the book, but a few are worth heralding. In the treatment of Anglo-Scottish diplomacy, Catherine Lisak's piece on George Puttenham's Justificacion is a fascinating analysis of Elizabeth's "case of conscience" over the execution of Mary Queen of Scots.

In the discussion of the political thought of the pre-accession period, Bernard Bourdin's exploration of divine right, the doctrine of the two kingdoms, and the legitimizing of royal power is stimulating. On these issues, James entered into a debate about this question with leading Catholics, such as Persons and Bellarmine, just as he debated with Presbyterians like Andrew Melville. In all cases, he was asserting a royal independence that ecclesiastical authorities derided. Compared with a similar problem for Henry IV in France, James's solution was "bound to resemble a form of political gallicanism" because it called for the supremacy of the sovereign (138). James's arguments, says Bourdin, were based on historical assertions which did not depend on the contractual theories that would arise later in the century.

The most interesting contribution on religion comes from Sandra Jusdado. She writes on the appellant priests and the succession question. Seeing the debate over Catholic jurisdiction in England as really about the politics of succession, she shows that the appellant priests forged a political argument for cooperation...