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Busy bodies: women, power and politics at the court of Elizabeth I, 1558-1603
Descriptive
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Title
Busy bodies: women, power and politics at the court of Elizabeth I, 1558-1603
Name
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Howey
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Catherine L.
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Catherine L. Howey
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author
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Bellany
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Alastair
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Advisory Committee
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Alastair Bellany
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chair
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Jones
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Jennifer
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Advisory Committee
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Jennifer Jones
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internal member
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Mack
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Phyllis
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Advisory Committee
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Phyllis Mack
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internal member
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Smuts
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R. Malcolm
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Advisory Committee
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R. Malcolm Smuts
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outside member
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Rutgers University
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degree grantor
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Graduate School - New Brunswick
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school
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theses
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2007
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2007
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English
PhysicalDescription
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electronic
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xii, 322 pages
Abstract
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The purpose of this dissertation, Busy Bodies: the Role of Women at the Court of Elizabeth I, 1558-1603, is to build upon the small, but growing body of scholarship that examines how women exercised political agency at the court of Elizabeth I and how their courtly activities played a part in shaping the reign and Elizabeth's iconography. The dissertation uses an interdisciplinary approach to a diverse range of sources such as dress, portraiture, government documents, tomb monuments and letters to explore the various ways Queen Elizabeth I and her court women, especially the women who worked in the queen's privy chamber--the two to three small rooms the monarch used for private repose--mutually constructed each other's power and identity. Until recently, scholars have argued that the Elizabethan privy chamber women were apolitical--an argument based largely upon unquestioned assumptions about gender. However, as this dissertation demonstrates gender did not preclude women from politics, but rather shaped the way women could gain and wield their power. Gender as a category of historical analysis can also expand the definition of "political" and identify new arenas where politics was practiced such as the exchange of news, information, and sartorial gifts.
The women who served the queen were important because they were in close physical proximity to the queen, and because the queen often appropriated their bodies, clothes, and service to construct or extend her own monarchical image and power. Since the queen allowed these women to act as queenly surrogates who extended her authority to places outside the palace, privy chamber women acquired higher status and more privileges than they otherwise would have held by birth or marriage. However, this special status and its privileges also created tension between the queen and her uniquely empowered female courtiers. While women were more often part of the processes that connected Elizabeth to larger circles of her subjects, they also had the potential to disrupt these relationships. Therefore, understanding how the queen interacted with other women is necessary if we are to understand Elizabeth's reign as a whole.
The women who served the queen were important because they were in close physical proximity to the queen, and because the queen often appropriated their bodies, clothes, and service to construct or extend her own monarchical image and power. Since the queen allowed these women to act as queenly surrogates who extended her authority to places outside the palace, privy chamber women acquired higher status and more privileges than they otherwise would have held by birth or marriage. However, this special status and its privileges also created tension between the queen and her uniquely empowered female courtiers. While women were more often part of the processes that connected Elizabeth to larger circles of her subjects, they also had the potential to disrupt these relationships. Therefore, understanding how the queen interacted with other women is necessary if we are to understand Elizabeth's reign as a whole.
Note
(type = degree)
Ph.D.
Note
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Includes bibliographical references (p. 303-321).
Subject
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Topic
History
Subject
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Topic
Women in politics--England--History
Subject
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Topic
Women--History--Renaissance, 1450-1600
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Graduate School - New Brunswick Electronic Theses and Dissertations
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rucore19991600001
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http://hdl.rutgers.edu/1782.2/rucore10001600001.ETD.16092
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ETD_490
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doi:10.7282/T3VH5P7B
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Geographic
Great Britain
Genre
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ETD doctoral
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Rights
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Open
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Catherine Howey
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Rutgers University. Graduate School - New Brunswick
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Non-exclusive ETD license
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Author Agreement License
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I hereby grant to the Rutgers University Libraries and to my school the non-exclusive right to archive, reproduce and distribute my thesis or dissertation, in whole or in part, and/or my abstract, in whole or in part, in and from an electronic format, subject to the release date subsequently stipulated in this submittal form and approved by my school. I represent and stipulate that the thesis or dissertation and its abstract are my original work, that they do not infringe or violate any rights of others, and that I make these grants as the sole owner of the rights to my thesis or dissertation and its abstract. I represent that I have obtained written permissions, when necessary, from the owner(s) of each third party copyrighted matter to be included in my thesis or dissertation and will supply copies of such upon request by my school. I acknowledge that RU ETD and my school will not distribute my thesis or dissertation or its abstract if, in their reasonable judgment, they believe all such rights have not been secured. I acknowledge that I retain ownership rights to the copyright of my work. I also retain the right to use all or part of this thesis or dissertation in future works, such as articles or books.
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