Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Note on text
- Acknowledgements
- List of Abbreviations
- Introduction: classical humanism and republicanism in England before the Civil War
- 1 Classical humanism restated
- 2 Classical republicanism in the margins of Elizabethan politics
- 3 Civic life and the mixed constitution in Jacobean political thought
- 4 Francis Bacon, Thomas Hedley and the true greatness of Britain
- 5 Thomas Scott: virtue, liberty and the ‘mixed Governement’
- 6 The continuity of the humanist tradition in early Caroline England
- Epilogue
- Bibliography
- Index
- IDEAS IN CONTEXT
2 - Classical republicanism in the margins of Elizabethan politics
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 02 December 2009
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Note on text
- Acknowledgements
- List of Abbreviations
- Introduction: classical humanism and republicanism in England before the Civil War
- 1 Classical humanism restated
- 2 Classical republicanism in the margins of Elizabethan politics
- 3 Civic life and the mixed constitution in Jacobean political thought
- 4 Francis Bacon, Thomas Hedley and the true greatness of Britain
- 5 Thomas Scott: virtue, liberty and the ‘mixed Governement’
- 6 The continuity of the humanist tradition in early Caroline England
- Epilogue
- Bibliography
- Index
- IDEAS IN CONTEXT
Summary
It is clear that classical humanist and even republican arguments were prevalent in the mid Elizabethan period. But in order to gauge the most thorough as well as the radical uses of these arguments in particular contexts, we have to move from the centre of Elizabethan politics to its margins. It is significant that the most pervasive and extreme employment of humanist and republican arguments occurred at the margins rather than at the centre of the political community and that they have been little known, at all. This is first an indication of the applicability of republican notions. Classical polis and Italian renaissance communities were, of course, urban communities, and it should therefore come as no surprise that political notions derived from these sources could be adapted to an English urban community as well. Similarly, it is hardly original to indicate the instability of an unsettled frontier, such as Ireland. But what is not often appreciated is that both sets of circumstances could offer an apposite context for republican arguments to emerge.
Secondly, the occurrence of humanist and republican arguments at social margins rather than at the centre reveals something of their controversial nature. It was less dangerous to employ them in such obscure places as Tewkesbury or Ireland; as soon as they were brought to the centre, they were marginalized by the use of translations of foreign treatises to convey the message. Finally, the fact that applications of humanist and republican arguments took place only on the fringes of the Elizabethan political world is an indication of the restricted influence which the authors examined in this chapter exerted.
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- Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 1995
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