This book re-evaluates the nature of Elizabethan politics and Elizabeth's queenship in late sixteenth-century England, Wales and Ireland. Natalie Mears shows that Elizabeth took an active role in policy-making and suggests that Elizabethan politics has to be perceived in terms of personal relations between the queen and her advisors rather than of the hegemony of the privy council. She challenges current perceptions of political debate at court as restricted and integrates recent research on court drama and religious ritual into the wider context of political debate.

Since the sixteenth century, the governments and established churches of the British Isles have summoned the nation to special acts of public worship during periods of anxiety and crisis, at times of celebration or for annual commemoration and remembrance. These special prayers, special days of worship and anniversary commemorations were national events, reaching into every parish in England and Wales, in Scotland and in Ireland. They had considerable religious, ecclesiastical, political, ideological, moral and social significance, and they produced important texts: proclamations, council...