The Image of Elizabeth I in Early Modern Spain ed. by Eduardo Olid Guerrero and Esther Fernández (review)

In 1971, William S. Maltby published his now classic study of the Black Legend of Spanish Cruelty, which considered the emergence of anti-Spanish polemicists in England and their sophisticated propaganda machine. At the end of his study, Maltby remarked curiously that in response "no complemental Anglophobia seems to have developed in Spain" (135). "We are still faced with the problem," he continued, "of why the English fostered such grotesque exaggerations, while the Spaniards, as a rule, did not" (136).¹ Since Maltby's text appeared, much work has been done to better understand early modern Anglo-Spanish relations, but his question, in essence, remains somewhat tantalizingly unanswered. Why did Spain not respond to England's vehemence in kind?

The Image of Elizabeth I in Early Modern Spain addresses a fundamental aspect of this question, that which concerns the relationship between Spain and England's Protestant queen. It follows other volumes that reconsider presumed Spanish disinterest in representing England during the early modern period, a time during which the political relationship between these two countries was, in a word, volatile. This collection of essays, edited by Eduardo Olid Guerrero and Esther Fernández, provides a comprehensive exploration of Spain's early modern representation of Elizabeth. As Olid Guerrero states, the essays collected in The Image of Elizabeth I seek to answer "three essential questions: first, how was the Elizabethan political and iconographic strategy regarded by the other side of the Channel? Second, how influential was the presence of Spain in Elizabeth I's policies and in the representation of her public persona? And third, in what ways did her image evolve once she passed away and her legacy became legendary for the Spanish audience?" (2). In responding to these questions, the essays in this collection demonstrate the value of considering the Anglo-Spanish relationship from the Spanish perspective as they dissect elements of Spain's complex response to the English queen who became Philip II's foil.

This edited volume is comprised of three sections, which include a total of ten essays preceded by an introduction written by Olid Guerrero. Olid Guerrero's introduction examines early modern impressions of the English queen from the European continent, and it provides an outline of Anglo-Hispanism and Elizabethan studies as they relate to the creation of Elizabeth's image. Within this overview, Olid Guerrero traces scholarship on Anglo-Spanish relations back to the nineteenth century. He points to the ideological bias of modern historiography on Elizabeth in addition to more recent reconsiderations of the complexity of her reign. This introduction underscores the volume's place within Elizabethan studies, but the edited collection also joins others that respond to Maltby's conundrum, such as Anne Cruz's Material and Symbolic Circulation between England and Spain, 1554–1604 (Routledge, 2008) and Alexander Samson's The Spanish Match: Prince Charles's Journey to Madrid, 1623 (Routledge, 2006).

The first part of this collection, "Anglo-Spanish Relations and the Politics of Elizabethan Queendom," is made up of four essays, the first two of which lay the groundwork for the historical and literary connections that existed between Spain and England during Elizabeth's lifetime. Part one begins with Magdalena de Pazzis Pi Corrales's essay on the history of England and Spain's relationship in the sixteenth century. Based on the complex web of political, religious, and economic interaction between these two countries, Pazzis Pi Corrales describes their story as "an ongoing process whereby friendship between the two countries became direct aggression, and tolerance and respect became full confrontation" (51). This essay provides a useful historical overview for the uninducted student of Anglo-Spanish relations. Jesús M. Usunáriz's essay also functions as an overview for readers new to the subject of Elizabeth in Spain. He examines a large number of texts from genres that include poetry...