The Struggle for the Succession in Late Elizabethan England - Politics, polemics and cultural representations

The Struggle for the Succession is a collection of specially commissioned essays by some of the best specialists in the fields of early modern British history and literature. Far from being a period of unsurpassed cultural blossoming and of uncontested political rule, the last decade of Elizabeth I's reign let the cracks appear in the veneer of so-called English national unity. The book, with essays on the political and religious context, charts the stages of what became in fact a struggle for the succession, as James VI of Scotland endeavoured to tip the balance in his favour through a mixture of diplomacy, propaganda and theoretical writings. While the reign of Elizabeth I has often been the subject of praise and admiration, the story of how England acquired waits first Scottish monarch remains largely untold. No area of the political and religious spectrum was left untouched by the issue of the queen's succession, a topic which enabled Elizabethans (whether protestant, puritan, catholic, or of no particular faith) to project their hopes of a different or indeed better future. The articles in the literature section of the book suggest moreover that the weight of Elizabethan censorship had been hitherto overemphasized by critics and that artists and dramatists were able to convey, amplify and explore the concerns of the many who remained - almost until the queen's death - preoccupied by what had become, especially in the last few years of the aging monarch's reign, one of the nation's most burning issues. This collection of articles is essential reading for historians and literary scholars, or indeed anyone interested in this intense and complex period of political and cultural change.