The Elizabethan Renaissance: The Cultural Achievement by A. L. RowseReview by: W. Gordon ZeeveldThe American Historical Review, Vol. 78, No. 3 (Jun., 1973), pp. 680-681Published by: Oxford University Press on behalf of the American Historical AssociationStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1847694 .

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68o Reviews of Books

supporting characters, appears as a condottiere who combined, like Wallenstein, a great mili- tary capacity with a desire for landed wealth. King Edward is coldhearted and solitary. Ma- thew rates the king's genius lower than did Hester Chapman but accepts W. K. Jordan's view that Edward was the guiding force behind the plan to disinherit his sisters in favor of Lady Jane. Most reduced in stature is Protector Somerset, who fails both as a soldier and a statesman. Running through the essay are themes of personal loneliness and provincial isolation. Mathew emphasizes that neither Lady Jane, Lady Elizabeth, nor King Edward traveled beyond the shores of England; more- over, their learning consisted of linguistic exer- cises pursued without historical understanding.

The serious student of mid-Tudor England will find this impressionistic account at once stimulating and baffling. Mathew believes, for example, that many courtiers were indifferent to the religious controversies of the Reforma- tion. Sir William Petre, secretary of state to King Edward, willingly accepted whatever form of religion the Crown promoted, while Northumberland, brought up at the court of Henry VIII, similarly supported the sovereign's wishes without question. The author contends that the Henrician religious outlook survived after 1547 and influenced the "great majority of the leaders who would come in time to sup- port the Lady Mary." These leaders, obedient to the Crown, welcomed the restoration of "King Henry's mass" but found the "idea of Rome" quite uncongenial. What is troubling is Mathew's failure in some instances to reveal the sources upon which his judgments are based. He says a great deal about Northumber- land but does not appear to have read the duke's unpublished correspondence. Although Northumberland was not a prolific writer, his letters are vital for understanding his political and religious views. We are told that very little is known of Sir William Paget when in fact nearly one hundred letters survive for the reigns of Edward VI and Mary. Mathew's con- clusions are then valuable primarily as guide- lines for further research. On the other hand, the general reader will find this book a fasci- nating character study of those who sur- rounded Lady Jane, that idol of Protestantism

who did so little but inspired so much histori- cal writing.

BARRETr L. BEER

Kent State University

A. L. ROWSE. The Elizabethan Renaissance: The Cultural Achievement. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons. 1972. Pp. xiv, 412. $12.50.

In this, the concluding volume of Professor Rowse's survey of the Elizabethan age, one senses that he has arrived in the happy hunting ground for which the earlier volumes were a preparation. His journey's end is no small personal achievement and sums up admirably his overview of the special world that has been for so long his chosen residence. One can forgive at this date his long and one-sided duel with the professors of literature, his chatty and sometimes catty allusions. They have become a fixture of his style that by expectancy would be missed. We can see them now as an exuberant charge at windmills in his defense of the isle and the island-empress, Elizabeth. His larger purpose, carried off with 6clat, is to relive the age, and few will care to measure by inches the miles of territory the book encompasses. Its true measure is the hitherto standard work Shakespeare's England (1917), in which various aspects of Elizabethan culture were written up by specialists, each writing independently of the others. Professor Rowse by contrast has an- ticipated what present-day historians recognize, the seamless garment of th-at cultural phenome- non which made the 158os and 1590S an excit- ing time to be alive. He has accomplished an impossible task, and the wonder is that it could be done at all.

Yet, at second thought, the very fact of single authorship of such a work imposes its own lim- itations. It is necessary to ask, and Professor Rowse never pauses in his journey to define, the boundaries of culture. He repeatedly calls our attention to the elitist group who com- posed it; the remainder of Elizabethan society are thereby consigned to oblivion. But a social history that intends to be comprehensive must include that great nameless majority who did not write books, compose music, paint pictures, or -tuff snow into chickens. It is all very well to be given the grand tour of the luxuriance of the age, the cloud-capped towers, the gorgeous palaces, the solemn temples, the great globe it-

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Modern Europe 68i

self; but how shall we learn of the faceless ones who brought those towers, palaces, and temples into being but who were nonetlheless essential to that gorgeous result? For this patient, ver- miculous exploration we need a Joan Thirsk or a Geoffrey Elton.

Yet again it is proper to remember, not to their shame, that the names Professor Rowse holds responsible for the cultural achieve- ment-Bacon, Raleigh, Donne (rather than Jewel, Whitgift, Cartwright, or Father Par- sons), Hooker, Marlowe, Jonson, Harriot, Gil- bert, Harvey, and Shakespeare-were for the most part a self-made aristocracy. Professor Rowse detests Puritans (Milton occasionally ex- cepted); the author's sympathies are plainly with the establishment. Shakespeare is admired as a prudent, conformist countryman, "too wise . . . to upset the natural arrangements of so- ciety for hypothetical gain and evident illu- sions," scornful (with Raleigh) of the rank- scented many. But is is worth observing that Professor Rowse's. final assessment of the im- press of Elizabethan culture on Europe centers almost wholly on that same upstart crow who wrote primarily to and for a popular audience.

In brief, The Elizabethan Renaissance is a personal record, as it must and perhaps should be-like that of Burckhardt and Huizinga to whom he dedicates the book; which is not to say that it is any less valuable as a skillful and eloquent fusion of the elements Professor Rowse sees as composing England's greatest moment.

W. GORDON ZEEVELD

Woodbine, Maryland

GEORGE MALCOLM THOMSON. Sir Francis Drake. New York: William Morrow and Company. 1972. Pp. x, 358. $10.00.

A fair-minded reviewer should try to discover an author's purpose and then report on his suc- cess in the endeavor. George M. Thomson in Sir Francis Drake does not pretend to reveal new facts about the great Elizabethan sea rover. The author's purpose is to retell the life story of the best-remembered of Queen Eliza- beth's adventurers in terms that will interest the general reader. In that effort he has suc- ceeded. This is a swashbuckling story told with a verve and spirit that would have pleased its sub- ject. It is not a book for specialists but one that

almost anyone can read with pleasure. The au- thor writes with skill and tells his story well. He has utilized the best of secondary authori- ties and made an intelligent synthesis of their findings.

Specialists may quarrel with some of his gen- eralizations. Occasionally he slips into a twen- tieth-century interpretation of the sixteenth century, as, for example, in referring to the "appalling manners" of Queen Elizabeth. In his discussion of Drake's ethics, Thomson is in- clined to apply a modern definition of piracy to Drake's deeds. In general, however, he tries to write from the point of view of the age. He does not fall into Froude's error of interpret- ing Queen Elizabeth's parsimony in making money available to the navy as shortsighted av- arice. He is careful to emphasize the queen's difficulties in raising money and the poverty of the royal treasury.

One of the best portions of Thomson's book is his description of the fight with the Armada. He does not repeat the popular mistake of call- ing it a great "victory" for the English navy but properly evaluates the various factors con- tributing to the Spanish disaster. Following Mattingly, Thomson gives the Spanish com- mander, the duke of Medina-Sidonia, better marks than he usually gets, though the author somewhat underrates the character and capac- ity of the duke's master, Philip II. Thomson adds flavor to his narrative with numerous quotations from contemporaries, but these are usually undocumented, and the reader is left wondering about their accuracy and sometimes about their sources.

Although students of the Elizabethan period will learn little that they do not already know, they will find Thomson's book a stirring and entertaining narrative. They may also envy his capacity to write in a vivid prose style without lapsing into flamboyance.

LOUIS B. WRIGHT

National Geographic Society

GEORGE MACDONALD FRASER. The Steel Bonnets. New York: Alfred A. Knopf. 1972. Pp. 395, xiv. $8.95.

This is not only a work of first-rate historical popularization but an innovative piece of scholarship which deals with a topic that has been strangely underexamined in British histo-

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