Description
Book SynopsisAn exploration of the importation of French political thought into England during the last decades of Elizabeth's reign. The French Religious Wars generated a large body of political propaganda from the Huguenots, the Politiques (a Huguenot-Catholic confederacy) and the Catholic League. Dr. Parmelee discusses how, in the last decades of the reign ofElizabeth I some 130 translated documents were imported into England, most of them - originating from the Politiques, written in support of the Protestant Henry of Navarre's accession to the French throne-advocating religious tolerance as a way to peace. She argues that while most English political thinkers did not openly embrace or articulate the absolutist ideas often expressed in these writings, they had a wide impact on political discourse in the lateElizabethan period. They were useful against foreign enemies, Catholic recusants and Presbyterians, but particularly, in a time of fear of civil war engendered by an unsettled succession, they helped to establish an intellectualclimate conducive to the later development of Stuart absolutism. Dr. Lisa Ferraro Parmelee teaches in the Department of History at Villanova University.
Trade ReviewLucidly written and finely researched....Parmelee convincingly argues that a number of elements in late 16th-century French thinking helped to pave the way for the growth of absolutism in Stuart England... An important and original contribution to the histories of early modern Britain and of political thought. * AMERICAN HISTORICAL REVIEW *
A valuable book, providing a sketch of key themes in late Elizabethan political thought in addition to a persuasive and detailed account of the propaganda use made of French materials. * HISTORY *
