-
So here’s a review of a new book about —of all things— Queen Elizabeth’s bedfellows. Unfortunately, as the reviewer notes, author Anna Whitelock “never quite throws off her academic inhibitions” and so we are left with a lot of stories about Elizabeth, her suitors and the key issue of succession that wind up skipping the key question surroudning everything: was the Virgin Queen actually the Virgin Queen? Given how this issue is currently roiling the authorship debate it’s a shame that Whitelock apparently ignores it.
-
Review: Elizabeth’s Bedfellows, By Anna Whitelock – Reviews – Books – The Independent
-
Sex sells. The publishers must have thought this when offered Elizabeth’s Bedfellows: an Intimate History of the Queen’s Court. Whitelock’s book proposes to look at Elizabeth I’s reign through the bedchamber, her ornate rooms in her palaces, guarded by 30 women.
-
The many men who wanted to get close to Elizabeth had to penetrate this circle to reach her. Whitelock’s book should be full of sexual intrigue, thwarted desire, and jealousies. But the historian never quite throws off her academic inhibitions.
-
Dudley and Elizabeth stalked around each other for decades, jealous of each other’s romantic links, but parted only upon his death, over which she was inconsolable. This affair, even if never consummated, should provide dramatic tension for much of the book. But the pulse never races in the detail-laden prose.
-
The question of who would marry Elizabeth was a serious one. England was still riven by her father Henry VIII’s divorce from the Catholic Church, and with counterclaims for the throne from all corners, what was required from Elizabeth was a clear line of succession.
-
One cannot fault Whitelock for her meticulous research, but there is little mention of the Elizabethan culture of love, played in the miniatures of her lovers, in the sonneteers, and the depictions of the queen in Shakespeare – think Titania in A Midsummer’s Night Dream. Elizabeth’s romantic adventures extended far beyond the bedchamber, into the popular pysche, and the inclusion of that could have lent some passion to an otherwise fairly dry history.
-
Review: Elizabeth’s Bedfellows, By Anna Whitelock
June 4, 2013
Book reviews, History Queen Elizabeth Leave a comment
Being Bess: On this Day in Elizabethan History…February 25th 1601
March 6, 2012
History Essex Rebellion, Queen Elizabeth Leave a comment
COMMENT: We’re noting this blog entry on the Earl of Essex’s execution (Feb. 25, 1601) because of one comment about Elizabeth herself that touches (we think) on the real issue behind the Shakespeare authorship debate, that being the truth about Elizabeth herself. The blogger makes a big point about how Elizabeth NEVER let a man influence her, and how she might take YEARS to make a decision. These qualities are then touted as showing how that makes her a “pragmatist and master politician.” Years to make a decision? That is not masterful. Given that the most important decision of her reign — settling the succession — is one that she never did make (resulting in the Essex Rebellion, some would say), perhaps she was not a master politician. Perhaps her failure to exectue her duty was a betrayal of everyone around her, and of her country. And perhaps that is part of what is being covered up in the Shakespeare authorship mystery.
-
Being Bess: On this Day in Elizabethan History…February 25th 1601
-
Contemporaries outside of Essex’s circle of sycophants and modern scholars can agree that Essex’s allegations had no bearing; these were the rants of a madman nursing his wounded pride. And as I have explained in previous articles, everyone who knew Queen Elizabeth, especially those members of her inner circle, knew that no one persuaded to the queen to do anything against her own will. Queen Elizabeth was a pragmatist and a master politician, who heard endless points of view and deliberated for months, sometimes years before ever making a decision. No man could influence her without her permitting it.
-
Review: Elizabeth Rex (Chicago Shakespeare Theatre) | Chicago Theater Beat
December 10, 2011
History, Theatre reviews Elizabeth Rex, Essex Rebellion, Queen Elizabeth Leave a comment
COMMENT: Here’s a review of the play Elizabeth Rex in Chicago. The play, which premiered in 2000 in Stratford (Ontario), has been a hit for 10 years, what with its intriguing interplay of Queen Elizabeth, the Essex Rebellion and the execution of Essex, and Shakespeare. But of course what really distinguishes it —and makes it OK to play with anywhere, anytime — is that it threatens no one. At a time when Roland Emmerich’s Anonymous tackles the same subject matter in a direct assault on history, such a story as Elizabeth Rex is really exposed for the “politically correct” fluff that it is.
-
Review: Elizabeth Rex (Chicago Shakespeare Theatre) | Chicago Theater Beat
-
Findley’s character-driven drama riffs on two historical facts: Queen Elizabeth I sentenced her former lover to death for treason, and the night before his execution, the Virgin Queen attended a Shakespeare play. In Elizabeth Rex, Findley imagines said play as Much Ado About Nothing, and that Shakespeare (Kevin Gudahl) and his rogue band of actors are forced to take shelter in the royal stables due to rioting and an imposed curfew. In great need of distraction, the Queen herself (Diane D’Aquila) visits the actors – and ends up in an all-night battle of wits with Ned (Steven Sutcliffe), who plays the role of Beatrice in Much Ado and whose own looming death of syphilis has liberated him from the filters demanded by polite society.
-
The art of acting is all-consuming, with a constant dichotomy of connection (absorbing the audience in a moment) and distance (you’re not really your character – or are you?). No wonder the Queen seeks out Shakespeare’s troupe: she’s ultimately connected to the nation as she controls everyone’s fate, yet literally no one can touch her without permission. When one gives everything – in politics, in love or in art – what is left? As the smart and all-around superb Elizabeth Rex proves, the answer can be found in one word: more.
-