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1 - Beyond Shallow and Silence

War in the Age of Shakespeare

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  17 August 2021

By
Paul E. J. Hammer
Edited by
David Loewenstein  and
Paul Stevens
David Loewenstein
Affiliation:
Pennsylvania State University, University Park
Paul Stevens
Affiliation:
University of Toronto
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Summary

Taking its lead from a famous scene in 2 Henry IV and drawing upon the latest historical scholarship, this chapter surveys the modernization of England’s military capacity during the reign of Elizabeth I. By contrast with the success of England’s naval revival, the parallel effort to overhaul the antiquated county militia system and to create armies for service abroad achieved only partial success. While bows and bills were gradually replaced by guns and pikes and a proportion of each county’s militia was formed into “trained bands,” the sheer scale of the effort meant that the modernization of England’s military capacity on land always remained a frustratingly incomplete endeavor. Even so, Elizabeth’s privy council and the lord lieutenants of the counties made greater progress in this effort than has typically been recognized and managed to sustain war on multiple fronts over a period of more than twenty years.

Keywords

2 Henry IVmilitary revolutiontrained bandssoldiersnavywarshipsRobert DevereuxEarl of EssexHenry VTroilus and CressidaFalstaff
Type
Chapter
Information
The Cambridge Companion to Shakespeare and War , pp. 1 - 18
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2021

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References

Further Reading

Fissel, Mark Charles. English Warfare, 1511–1642, London, Routledge, 2001.Google Scholar
Gadja, Alexandra. “Debating War and Peace in Late Elizabethan England,” Historical Journal, 52 (2000), pp. 851–78.Google Scholar
Hammer, Paul E. J. Elizabeth’s Wars: War, Government and Society in Tudor England, 1544–1604, Basingstoke, Palgrave Macmillan, 2003.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hammer, Paul E. J. The Polarisation of Elizabethan Politics: The Political Career of Robert Devereux, 2nd Earl of Essex, 1585–1597, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1999.Google Scholar
Lawrence, David R. The Complete Soldier: Military Books and Military Culture in Early Stuart England, 1603–1645, Leiden, Brill, 2009.Google Scholar
Nolan, John S. Sir John Norreys and the Elizabethan Military World, Exeter, Exeter University Press, 1997.Google Scholar
Rapple, Rory. Martial Power and Elizabethan Political Culture: Military Men in England and Ireland, 1558–1594, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2009.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Schwoerer, Lois G. Gun Culture in Early Modern England, Charlottesville, University of Virginia Press, 2016.Google Scholar
Smuts, Malcolm. “Organized Violence in the Elizabethan Monarchical Republic,” History, 99 (2014), pp. 418–43.Google Scholar
Trim, D. J. B. “The Context of War and Violence in Sixteenth-Century English Society,” Journal of Early Modern History, 3 (1999), pp. 233–55.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Younger, Neil. War and Politics in the Elizabethan Counties, Manchester, Manchester University Press, 2012.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

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