Representing Elizabeth in Stuart England

"I have chosen this one because, alongside the representation of Elizabeth in her own time, another huge and fascinating topic is the way she has been represented ever since. That is set in motion in the 17th century, the century after her death. John Watkins has written this wonderful study of it. It draws out a couple of very interesting points: one is the way in which during the Stuart period and running up into the Civil War period you have the conflict developing between the Crown and Parliament. Elizabeth gets claimed by both sides. For the royalists she is the champion of monarchy and ideas on what it is to be a real monarch. But the parliamentarian side claim her as a democrat. They assert that she supported democracy and was on the side of the people. Support Five Books Five Books interviews are expensive to produce. If you're enjoying this interview, please support us by donating a small amount . She becomes this very politically contested figure, and what Watkins also shows is that as we move on into the later 17th century she becomes much more of a fictionalised figure. Towards the end of the century you have a whole genre of stories known as secret histories. These are like early historical novels which are really scandal novels claiming to tell the truth about Elizabeth’s love affairs, for example her affair with Essex. You also get she-tragedies showing Elizabeth as a passionate romantic figure. John Banks is the main author of these. He writes a play called The Island Queens which is the first play to bring Elizabeth face to face with Mary Queen of Scots. In real life they never actually met but he brings them together in a wonderful charged encounter which has been taken up by many fictional writers ever since. One reading of it could be that the monarchy was becoming rather dull. We are talking about the period of the Glorious Revolution and the beginning of the curtailment of the powers of the monarchy, moving into the constitutional monarchy which we see today. There is a real excitement to this monarch who can be a scandalous figure and, of course, there is the added dimension that she is a woman which makes her private life even more interesting. People always wanted to know what she was like privately, whether she was really a virgin. No, I don’t think so. I think it was just too important for her to remain the Virgin Queen, and if she really had ever slept with someone, given the nature of her household and endless servants being around, her secret would have got out. “Of course she had flirtations but I think she never actually slept with anyone” Even if she had bribed people not to tell they could always have been bribed by foreign spies. There were plenty of rumours, but if she had it would have been so damaging to her authority and she was too intelligent to give that up. Of course she had flirtations but I think she never actually slept with anyone."