Chapter 3 - 1570–1584: Popery, Plots, Progresses—and Excommunication

Summary

In around 1576, Clement Newce (or his son William) added several large wall paintings to a room of his house in Much Hadham, Hertfordshire. One painting depicts the Judgment of Solomon, while another includes Elizabeth's royal arms supported by two yeomen of the guard holding halberds and wearing the royal badge, accompanied by the declaration, “God Save the Queen.” The latter scene was clearly intended as a declaration of loyalty to Elizabeth. But Newce goes even further in the depiction of the Judgment: Solomon has been replaced by an unmistakable representation of Elizabeth (Figure 3.1). Relatively few people would have seen these murals (although the Newces may have been anticipating a potential royal visit), yet the statement they made was unambiguous. The Judgment of Solomon was a widely known and referenced story that was regularly used didactically. Newce, by inserting Elizabeth into this scene in the place of Solomon, was making explicit that Elizabeth embodied the divine wisdom with which Solomon was routinely associated.

The previous chapter focused on the first decade of Elizabeth's reign, emphasizing the way that biblical types were used to legitimize and bolster the new Queen through an examination of texts that have been overlooked or misinterpreted by scholars. In contrast, the period covered by this chapter—that is, between the issuing of Regnans in Excelsis in 1570 and the execution of the Throckmorton Plot's conspirators in 1584—has received more attention from scholars than most other periods in Elizabeth's reign—likely due to the regular recourse to the Bible in refutations of Regnans in Excelsis throughout the 1570s. Because of this attention, this chapter focuses on fewer examples and instead draws out the examples’ connections to wider issues, highlighting how biblical analogies were a legitimate device of counsel based on a serious theological understanding of the intersection between the past and the present. This chapter is also more interested in analyzing tracts by authors who appear elsewhere in this book, showing how a commentator could utilize an array of biblical types—depending on the religio-political situation on which they were commenting.

For this reason, a large part of this chapter is devoted to the analogies employed during Elizabeth's visit to Norwich in 1578.