The Queen’s Mercy: Gender and Judgment in Representations of Elizabeth I

234 Pages·2014·5.404 MB·English

by  Mary Villeponteaux (auth.)

QUEENSHIP AND POWER
Series Editors: Carole Levin and Charles Beem
This series brings together monographs, edited volumes, and textbooks from scholars
specializing in gender analysis, women’s studies, literary interpretation, and cultural,
political, constitutional, and diplomatic history. It aims to broaden our understanding of
the strategies that queens—both consorts and regnants, as well as female r egents—pursued
in order to wield political power within the structures of male-dominant societies. In
addition to works describing European queenship, it also includes books on queenship
as it appeared in other parts of the world, such as East Asia, Sub-Saharan Africa, and
Islamic civilization.
Editorial Board
Linda Darling, University of Arizona (Ottoman Empire)
Theresa Earenfight, Seattle University (Spain)
Dorothy Ko, Barnard College (China)
Nancy Kollman, Stanford University (Russia)
John Thornton, Boston University (Africa and the Atlantic World)
John Watkins (France and Italy)
Published by Palgrave Macmillan
The Lioness Roared: The Problems of Female Rule in English History
By Charles Beem
Elizabeth of York
By Arlene Naylor Okerlund
Learned Queen: The Imperial Image of Elizabeth I
By Linda Shenk
High and Mighty Queens of Early Modern England: Realities and Representations
Edited by Carole Levin, Debra Barrett-Graves, and Jo Eldridge Carney
The Monstrous Regiment of Women: Female Rulers in Early Modern Europe
By Sharon L. Jansen
The Face of Queenship: Early Modern Representations of Elizabeth I
By Anna Riehl
Elizabeth I: The Voice of a Monarch
By Ilona Bell
Tudor Queenship: The Reigns of Mary and Elizabeth
By Alice Hunt and Anna Whitelock
The Death of Elizabeth I: Remembering and Reconstructing the Virgin Queen
By Catherine Loomis
Queenship and Voice in Medieval Northern Europe
By William Layher
The Foreign Relations of Elizabeth I
Edited by Charles Beem
The French Queen’s Letters: Mary Tudor Brandon and the Politics of Marriage in
Sixteenth-Century Europe
By Erin A. Sadlack
Wicked Women of Tudor England: Queens, Aristocrats, Commoners
By Retha M. Warnicke
AM onarchyo fL etters:R oyalC orrespondencea ndE nglishD iplomacyi nt heR eigno fE lizabethI
By Rayne Allinson
Three Medieval Queens: Queenship and the Crown in Fourteenth-Century England
By Lisa Benz St. John
Mary I: Gender, Power, and Ceremony in the Reign of England’s First Queen
By Sarah Duncan
The Last Plantagenet Consorts: Gender, Genre, and Historiography, 1440–1627
By Kavita Mudan Finn
Fairy Tale Queens: Representations of Early Modern Queenship
By Jo Eldridge Carney
Mother Queens and Princely Sons: Rogue Madonnas in the Age of Shakespeare
By Sid Ray
The Name of a Queen: William Fleetwood’s Itinerarium ad Windsor
Edited by Charles Beem and Dennis Moore
The Emblematic Queen: Extra-Literary Representations of Early Modern Queenship
Edited by Debra Barrett-Graves
Queenship in Medieval Europe
By Theresa Earenfight
The Queens Regnant of Navarre: Succession, Politics, and Partnership, 1274–1512
By Elena Woodacre
Queenship in the Mediterranean: Negotiating the Role of the Queen in the Medieval
and Early Modern Eras
Edited by Elena Woodacre
The Queen’s Mercy: Gender and Judgment in Representations of Elizabeth I
By Mary Villeponteaux
T Q ’ M
HE UEEN S ERCY
G J
ENDER AND UDGMENT IN
R E I
EPRESENTTAAATIONS OF LIZABETH
Mary Villeponteaux
THEQUEEN’SMERCY
Copyright © Mary Villeponteaux, 2014.
Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1st edition 2014 978-1-137-37174-4
All rights reserved.
First published in 2014 by
PALGRAVE MACMILLAN®
in the United States—a division of St. Martin’s Press LLC,
175 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10010.
Where this book is distributed in the UK, Europe and the rest of the world,
this is by Palgrave Macmillan, a division of Macmillan Publishers Limited,
registered in England, company number 785998, of Houndmills,
Basingstoke, Hampshire RG21 6XS.
Palgrave Macmillan is the global academic imprint of the above companies
and has companies and representatives throughout the world.
Palgrave® and Macmillan® are registered trademarks in the United States,
the United Kingdom, Europe and other countries.
ISBN 978-1-349-47577-3 ISBN 978-1-137-37175-1 (eBook)
DOI 10.1057/9781137371751
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Villeponteaux, Mary.
The queen’s mercy : gender and judgment in representations of
Elizabeth I / Mary Villeponteaux.—First edition.
pages cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.

1. Great Britain—Politics and government—1558–1603. 2. Great
Britain—History—Elizabeth, 1558-1603. 3. Elizabeth I, Queen of
England, 1533–1603. 4. Women—Political activity—Great Britain—
History—16th century. 5. Queens—Great Britain—Biography. 6. Mercy
in literature. 7. Clemency in literature. 8. Justice in literature. I. Title.
DA355.V55 2014
942.05(cid:25)5—dc23 2014002963
A catalogue record of the book is available from the British Library.
Design by Newgen Knowledge Works (P) Ltd., Chennai, India.
First edition: July 2014
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
In memory of my parents,
AnneB ellingerV illeponteauxa ndL orenzA imarV illeponteaux,J r.
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C
ONTENTS
Acknowledgments ix
Note on Texts xi
1 “By Nature Full of Mercy”: The Clemency of the Queen 1
2 “The Sacred Pledge of Peace and Clemencie”:
Elizabethan Mercy inThe Faerie Queene 35
3 “Proud and Pitilesse”: Elizabethan Mercy and the
Sonnet Tradition 67
4 “A Goodly Musicke in Her Regiment”: Elusive Justice in
The Merchant of Venice 107
5 “Pardon Is Still the Nurse of Second Woe”: Measure for
Measure and the Transition from Elizabeth to James 133
6 “Good Queene, You Must Be Rul’d”: Feminine Mercy
in the Plays of Heywood and Dekker 157
Notes 175
Bibliography 207
Index 219
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A
CKNOWLEDGMENTS
Iam grateful to the editors of Palgrave’s Queenship and Power
series, Carole Levin and Charles Beem, for their encouragement
and support of this project. Several of the ideas in this book were
first aired in papers I presented at meetings of the Queen Elizabeth I
Society. To the members of that group of erudite and congenial schol-
ars I owe a debt of thanks for valuable suggestions, stimulating dis-
cussions, and new insights about Queen Elizabeth and her culture.
Georgia Southern University helped me with a Scholarly Pursuit
Award that gave financial support for the summer of 2013; I am
grateful for that award as well as for the generosity of my department
chair, David Dudley, who gave me a course release during my final
semester of work on this book. Graduate student Collin Kimmons
assisted with the proofreading and formatting of quotations and
notes; I greatly appreciate her cheerful willingness to help.
The anonymous reader for Palgrave Macmillan and the reader
who revealed her identity, Linda Shenk, both offered excellent advice
that I very much appreciated. Their careful readings and suggestions
for revision helped me immeasurably. I would also like to thank my
colleague and friend Julia Griffin for her generous help in reading
chapters and offering knowledgeable and thoughtful suggestions.
Thanks also go to Larry Weiss, lawyer and Shakespearean, for his
comments on the Measure for Measure chapter and matters of equity.
I am grateful, too, for the friendship of my colleague Maria Magoula
Adamos, with whom I had several enlightening conversations about
the philosophy of forgiveness.
Part of Chapter Two was originally published inSpenser Studies 25
(2010) as “Dangerous Judgments: Elizabethan Mercy in The Faerie
Queene,” and is used with the permission of AMS Press. A version
of Chapter Four appeared as “‘A Goodly Musicke in Her Regiment’:
Elizabeth, Portia, and the Elusive Harmony of Justice” inExplorations
in Renaissance Culture 37.1 (Summer 2011): 71–82, and is reprinted with
permission of the South-Central Renaissance Conference. My spe-
cial thanks to Thomas Herron, editor of EIRC, and David Ramm,
editor-in-chief of AMS Press, for making the process of obtaining