Elizabeth I, Patriotism, and the Imagined Nation in Three Eighteenth-Century Plays

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Notes

¹ J. Ralph, The Fall of the Earl of Essex (London: 1731); H. Jones, The Earl of Essex: A Tragedy (London: 1753); H. Brooke, The Earl of Essex: A Tragedy (London: 1761). All plays accessed through Early English Books Online.

² Elizabeth I, Elizabeth I: Collected Works, edited by L.S. Marcus, J. Mueller and M.B. Rose (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2000), 326.

³ Elizabeth I, Elizabeth I: Collected Works, 326.

⁴ Elizabeth I, Elizabeth I: Collected Works, 337.

⁵ See R. Strong, The Cult of Elizabeth: Elizabethan Portraiture and Pageantry (London: Thames and Hudson, 1977) and F. Yates, Astrea: The Imperial Theme in the Sixteenth Century (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1975). For more recent studies of Elizabeth's reputation and cult both in her lifetime and posthumously, I draw on S. Frye, Elizabeth I: The Competition for Representation (New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1993); C. Levin, The Heart and Stomach of a King: Elizabeth I and the Politics of Sex and Power (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1994); M. Dobson and N.J. Watson, England's Elizabeth: An Afterlife in Fame and Fantasy (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002); J. Watkins, Representing Elizabeth in Stuart England: Literature, History, Sovereignty (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002); and J.M. Walker, The Elizabeth Icon, 1603–2003 (Houndmills, Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2004).

⁶ Watkins, Representing Elizabeth, 38.

⁷ J. Banks, The Unhappy Favourite, or, the Earl of Essex (London: 1682). Accessed through Early English Books Online.

⁸ See, for example, F.M. Kavenik, British Drama, 1660–1779: A Critical History (New York: Twayne-Simon and Schuster, 1995), 174; and L. Brown, English Dramatic Form, 1660–1760: An Essay in Generic History (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1981), 96.

⁹ For example, L. Marshall, National Myth and Imperial Fantasy: Representations of Britishness on the Early Eighteenth-Century Stage (Houndmills, Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2008); and B.E. Orr, Empire on the English Stage, 1660–1714 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001).

¹⁰ This concern became especially important after the Licensing Act of 1737, which severely limited the numbers of plays to be produced and banned plays with overt political content. See J.A. Downie, ‘Literature and Drama’, in A Companion to Eighteenth-Century Britain, edited by H.T. Dickinson (Malden: Blackwell, 2002), 329–43 (336).

¹¹ B. Harris, Politics and the Nation: Britain in the Mid-Eighteenth Century (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002), 64. See also C. Gerrard, The Patriot Opposition to Walpole: Politics, Poetry, and National Myth, 1725–1742 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1994), 192–4.

¹² See H. Smith, Georgian Monarchy: Politics and Culture, 1714–1760 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006).

¹³ J. Hervey, Lord Hervey's Memoirs, edited by R. Sedgwick (London: William Kimber, 1952), 218. Caroline was speaking of her hated eldest son Frederick, Prince of Wales, but as Smith acknowledges, the sentiment holds true for early Hanoverian royalty in general (Georgian Monarchy, 118).

¹⁴ Elizabeth was certainly not in total control of her image at all times, but she put considerable effort into crafting and maintaining her identity as a powerful ruler, as the Hanoverian kings did not. For more on Elizabeth's self-representation, see the sources cited in note 1 above.

¹⁵ L. Colley, Britons: Forging the Nation 1707–1837 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1992), 203.

¹⁶ Harris, Politics and the Nation, 96.

¹⁷ Harris, Politics and the Nation, 97.

¹⁸ Gerrard's Patriot Opposition provides the fullest account of it for in the first half of the eighteenth century, but see also D. Griffin, Patriotism and Poetry in Eighteenth Century Britain (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002); Harris, Politics and the Nation; and H. Cunningham, ‘The Language of Patriotism’, in Patriotism: The Making and Unmaking of British National Identity, vol. 1, History and Politics (London: Routledge, 1989), 57–89.

²⁰ C. D'Anvers [N. Amhurst, H. Bolingbroke, and W. Pulteney], The Craftsman (London: 1731), vol. 7, 201. Google Books. http://books.google.com/books?id=hzp7O8Nomc4C&dq=craftsman+journal+amhurst&printsec=frontcover&source=bn&hl=en&ei=zYMES5G8HpTUsgPQ6NGJBg&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=5&ved=0CBQQ6AEwBA#v=onepage&q=queen%20elizabeth&f=false

¹⁹ D. Hume, The History of England; from the Invasion of Julius Caesar to the Revolution of 1688. By David Hume, Esq., with the Author's Latest Alterations, etc, to Which is Prefixed, a Short Account of His Life, Written by Himself, 6 vols (London: 1837), vol. 5, 330.

²¹ C. Kidd, ‘Integration: Patriotism and Nationalism’, in Companion to Eighteenth-Century Britain, 369–80 (376).

²² Walker, The Elizabeth Icon, 92.

²³ K. Wilson, The Island Race: Englishness, Empire and Gender in the Eighteenth Century (London: Routledge, 2002), 52–3.

²⁴ A. Somerset, Elizabeth I (New York: Knopf, 1992), 529–46.

²⁵ H. Bolingbroke, Bolingbroke: Political Writings, edited by D. Armitage (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997), 272.

²⁷ Hume, History, 326.

²⁶ Bolingbroke, Political Writings, 288.

²⁸ Hume, History, 329.

²⁹ G.J. Barker-Benfield, The Culture of Sensibility: Sex and Society in Eighteenth-Century Britain, second edition (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1996), 137.

³⁰ Dobson and Watson, England's Elizabeth, 89.

³¹ The Secret History of the Most Renowned Q. Elizabeth and the E. of Essex, By a Person of Quality (Cologne [London]: 1680), 5. Early English Books Online.

³² The Secret History of the Most Renowned Q. Elizabeth and the E. of Essex, By a Person of Quality, 5.

³³ Dobson and Watson, England's Elizabeth, 88.

³⁴ L. Brown, Ends of Empire: Women and Ideology in Early Eighteenth-Century English Literature (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1993), 101.

³⁵ Brown, English Dramatic Form, 96.

³⁶ J. Marsden, Fatal Desire: Women, Sexuality, and the English Stage, 1660–1720 (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2006), 16, 192–3.

³⁷ See E. Kantorowicz, The King's Two Bodies: A Study in Mediaeval Political Theology (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1957); M. Axton, The Queen's Two Bodies: Drama and the Elizabethan Succession (London: Royal Historical Society, 1977); and Levin, Heart and Stomach of a King, especially ‘Elizabeth as King and Queen’. Frye notes that although Elizabeth often aligned her natural body with her female one, she also referred to her body politic as both male and female, thus giving herself, in essence, two bodies politic (Elizabeth I, 13).

³⁸ For a more fully developed version of this argument, see J. Clement, ‘Elizabeth I and the Politics of Gender: Empire and Masculinity in John Banks’ The Unhappy Favourite', Restoration 31:1 (2007), 1–25.

³⁹ The full title of Ralph's play is The Fall of the Earl of Essex. As it is Perform'd at the Theatre in Goodman's-Fields. Alter'd from the Unhappy Favourite of Mr. Banks.

⁴⁰ For Nottingham's lines, see Ralph, Fall of Essex, 27.

⁴¹ Marshall, National Myth, 68.

⁴² R.W. Kenny, ‘James Ralph: An Eighteenth-Century Philadelphian in Grub Street’, in The Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography 64:2 (1940), 218–42 (223).

⁴³ Kenny, ‘James Ralph’, 227–8.

⁴⁴ See B. Kemp, Sir Robert Walpole (London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1976), 78–9; also Gerrard, who points out that ‘the most sustained parallels were drawn between William Cecil, Lord Burghley and his similarly low-born and long-serving counterpart Robert Walpole’ (Patriot Opposition, 164).

⁴⁵ P. Jupp, The Governing of Britain 1688–1848: The Executive, Parliament and the People (London: Routledge, 2006), 18.

⁴⁶ Somerset, Elizabeth I, 518.

⁴⁷ Ralph, Fall of Essex, 34.

⁴⁸ Ralph, Fall of Essex, 7.

⁵⁰ Ralph, Fall of Essex, 8.

⁴⁹ Gerrard, Patriot Opposition, 157.

⁵¹ Ralph, Fall of Essex, 66.

⁵² Pelham took office after a brief period when Lord Wilmington served as first minister during 1742–3. See Jupp, Governing of Britain, 19.

⁵³ M.J. Powell, Britain and Ireland in the Eighteenth-Century Crisis of Empire (Houndmills, Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2003), 3.

⁵⁴ Powell, Britain and Ireland, 4.

⁵⁵ D. MacMillan, ‘Some Notes on Eighteenth-Century Essex Plays’, Modern Language Notes 55:3 (1940), 176–83 (178).

⁵⁶ H. Jones, Dedication to The Earl of Essex. A Tragedy. As It Is Acted at the Theatre Royal in Covent-Garden (London: 1753), Early English Books Online.

⁵⁷ Kavenik lists Jones' Earl of Essex as one of the most popular plays for 1747–79, with seventy-eight performances (British Drama, 163).

⁵⁸ F. Gentleman, The Dramatic Censor; or, Critical Companion, 2 vols [1770] (Westmead: Gregg International, 1969), vol. 2, 236.

⁵⁹ Bolingbroke, Political Writings, 288.

⁶⁰ Jones, Earl of Essex, 8.

⁶¹ Gentleman, Dramatic Censor, 235.

⁶² Gerrard, Patriot Opposition, 4–6.

⁶³ Jones, Earl of Essex, 27.

⁶⁴ Jones, Earl of Essex, 35.

⁶⁵ Elizabeth I, Elizabeth I: Collected Works, 138.

⁶⁶ Harris, Politics and the Nation, 72.

⁶⁷ Jones, Earl of Essex, 39.

⁶⁸ Jones, Earl of Essex, 3.

⁶⁹ Jones, Earl of Essex, 12.

⁷⁰ Jones, Earl of Essex, 13.

⁷¹ Jones, Earl of Essex, 17.

⁷² See M.G.H. Pittock, Inventing and Resisting Britain: Cultural Identities in Britain and Ireland, 1685–1789 (New York: St Martin's Press, 1997), 121; also Harris, Politics and the Nation, 35–41.

⁷³ According to R.W. Bevis, Gustavus Vasa was not performed until 1744 in Dublin, under the title The Patriot. See his English Drama: Restoration and Eighteenth Century, 1660–1789 (London: Longman, 1988), 202.

⁷⁴ J. Leerson, ‘Henry Brooke’, in The Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, edited by H.C.G. Matthew and B. Harrison (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000), 895–7 (896).

⁷⁵ Harris, Politics and the Nation, 200.

⁷⁶ MacMillan, ‘Some Notes’, 180–3.

⁷⁷ Brooke, Earl of Essex, 180.

⁷⁸ Kavenik, British Drama, 174.

⁸⁰ Brooke, Earl of Essex, 21.

⁷⁹ Brooke, Earl of Essex, 41.

⁸¹ Brooke, Earl of Essex, 39.

⁸⁴ Brooke, Earl of Essex, 13.

⁸² In A Dissertation upon Parties, for example, Bolingbroke writes, ‘This, at least, is certain, that in all these ages Britain hath been the temple, as it were, of liberty’ (Political Writings, 113). See also Gerrard, Politics and the Nation, 108–49.

⁸³ J. Thomson, ‘Rule, Britannia’, The Broadview Anthology of British Literature, vol. 3, The Restoration and Eighteenth Century, edited by J. Black, et al. (Peterborough, Ontario: Broadview Press, 2006), 557. Like the three playwrights under discussion, Thomson calls upon English history to celebrate a British imperial future in his poem, written for the masque Alfred.

⁸⁵ For the opposition to Bute, see J. Brewer, ‘The Misfortunes of Lord Bute: A Case-Study in Eighteenth-Century Political Argument and Public Opinion’, The Historical Journal, 16:1 (1973), 3–43; also the essays in Lord Bute: Essays in Re-Interpretation, edited by K.W. Schweizer (Worcester: Leicester University Press, 1988).

⁸⁶ Leerson, ‘Henry Brooke’, 896.

⁸⁷ S. Ayling, George the Third (London: Collins, 1972), 71.

⁸⁸ I should note here, however, that when Bute gained power he hired Ralph to write in support of his government and against attackers such as John Wilkes. See K.W. Schweizer, ‘Lord Bute and the Press: The Origins of the Press War of 1762 Reconsidered’, in Lord Bute, 83–98 (87–95).

⁸⁹ Brewer, ‘Misfortunes of Lord Bute’, 34.

⁹⁰ K. Wilson, The Sense of the People: Politics, Culture, and Imperialism in England, 1715–1785 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995), 193.

⁹¹ Brooke, Earl of Essex, 77.

⁹² Brooke, Earl of Essex, Epilogue.

⁹³ P.D.G. Thomas, George III: King and Politicians 1760–1770 (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2002), 33.

⁹⁴ Brooke, Earl of Essex, 8.

⁹⁵ Ayling, George the Third, 96.

⁹⁶ The author wishes to thank Bridget E. Orr, Peter Anstey, and especially Jocelyn Harris for their inspiration and help in writing this article.