Women and Politics in Early Modern England, 1450–1700

James Daybell, University of Plymouth, UK Contributors: James Daybell, Barbara J. Harris, Lynne Magnusson, Natalie Mears, Alan Stewart, Karen Robertson, Tricia Bracher, Sara Jayne Steen, Helen Payne, Susan Frye, Jerome de Groot, Elizabeth Clarke, Claire Walker: Thomas Middleton, Mary Carleton, Aphra Behn, Valerie Wayne.

'Jerome de Groot has made a skilful use of the collection of poems addressed to Henrietta Maria by the University of Oxford in the early 1640s as the basis for a consideration of the use of gender as a weapon... Mary Pryor's pioneering study showed years ago that Oxford women played a crucial part in cementing the bonds of family and friends. Barbara Harris has extended this insight to a wider and more aristocratic sphere. Elizabeth Clarke's essay on women's spiritual diaries that show the extent to which men directed or exploited these writings is a valuable reminder of the complexities of gender relationships.' Parergon ’This is a strong, valuable collection. It certainly goes far to demonstrate the public prowess of aristocratic women in the Tudor and early Stuart eras.’ H-Albion

• Contents: Introduction: Rethinking women and politics in early modern England, James Daybell; Sisterhood, friendship and the power of English aristocratic women, 1450-1550, Barbara J. Harris; A rhetoric of requests: genre and linguistic scripts in Elizabethan women's suitors' letters, Lynne Magnusson; Politics in the Elizabethan Privy Chamber: Lady Mary Sidney and Kat Ashley, Natalie Mears; Portingale women and politics in late Elizabethan London, Alan Stewart; Negotiating favour: the letters of Lady Ralegh, Karen Robertson; 'Suche newes as on the Quenes hye wayes we have mett': the news and intelligence networks of Elizabeth Talbot, countess of Shrewsbury (c.1527-1608), James Daybell; Esther Inglis and the English succession crisis of 1599, Tricia Bracher; The Cavendish-Talbot women: playing a high-stakes game, Sara Jayne Steen; Aristocratic women, power, patronage and family networks at the Jacobean Court, 1603-25, Helen Payne; Anne of Denmark and the historical contextualisation of Shakespeare and Fletcher's Henry VIII, Susan Frye; Mothers, lovers and others: royalist women, Jerome de Groot; Beyond microhistory: the use of women's manuscripts in a widening political arena, Elizabeth Clarke; Loyal and dutiful subjects: English nuns and Stuart politics, Claire Walker; Assuming gentility: Thomas Middleton, Mary Carleton, Aphra Behn, Valerie Wayne; Index.