Tudor Queenship: The Reigns of Mary and Elizabeth (20 page)

A patterne likewise may therein be left to all Princes whatsoever, to take good heed to their manner of government when as they may see, with what severitie the Lord did punish...[the] faults [of Saul].
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In England’s case, if areas of ungodliness in the commonwealth were not amended, then the queen’s enemies might rise again and divine vengeance be exacted.

Far more Protestants, however, chose the route of epideictic literature, a form of rhetoric in which admonishments and counsel lurked beneath surface praise. From the late 1570s onward, for example, a number of Protestant writers dedicated devotional books based on the Psalms and/or Book of Ecclesiastes to Elizabeth that explained in complimentary terms why they thought that the queen was an appropriate recipient, while advising that she improve her godly record or make changes in policy. So, in the dedication of his devotional work, 
A Golden Chaine
, Thomas Rogers drew a complimentary set of appropriate comparisons between Elizabeth and David:

Application hereof might aptly be made unto your Highnes, as the foiling of Goliath with your Majestie’s overthrowing the Pope; his rooting out of the Philistines with your Majestie’s suppressing the Papistes; his affliction [under Saul] with your imprisonment; his persecution with your trobles; his singing of godlie songes with your godlie bookes; his love of his God with your promoting his glorie and defending of pure religion...

Rogers also drew a parallel between Elizabeth and Solomon in a short passage stronger on rhetoric than specifics:

He that seeth not that both we your subjects reape as great benefits by the meanes of your Highnes from God, as did the Israelites by the meanes of King Salomon; and also your Majestie as great blessings, as ever Salomon, he is senseless; if he confesse them not, he is ungrateful, unworthie of any blessing of God.
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At the same time, though, Rogers’ dedication reminded Elizabeth of her princely duties and exhorted her to fulfill them properly. Magistrates, he wrote, should benefit their country, profit their Church, avoid behaving like tyrants, and encourage subjects to live in godliness by banishing idolatry and sponsoring “good learning.” One day, Rogers cautioned, Elizabeth, like all rulers, “shal render an accompt unto the King of al Kings of their behavior,” and so she should take good care to imitate David and Solomon (whose words of wisdom were in his book), but not Cesare Borgia “as that Florentine [i.e., Machiavelli] doth counsel.”
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Likewise, in the poetic dedication of her translation of Psalms (which was presented to the queen in 1599) Mary Sidney Herbert, the countess of Pembroke, offered surface tributes to Elizabeth and declared that it was fitting to give “Gods loved choice unto his chosen love.” After all, she said, both Elizabeth and David were equally of royal status, both were chosen and beloved by God, and their experiences mirrored each other’s. In their early lives, she wrote, they were “Both clear in right, both nigh by wrong oppressed”; once on the throne, both were beset by “The foes of heav’n”—the Philistines in David’s case, and in Elizabeth’s the even greater enemy of Spain. “Thus hand in hand with him thy glories walke,” enthused Pembroke.
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Nonetheless, Pembroke also gave Elizabeth advice. In her dedicatory poem she restricted herself to recommending an interventionist godly foreign policy: the queen would have to defend Protestant Europe “in these most active times” if her reputation were to surpass “her living peers/ And rival still to Judah’s faithful King.” Within the Psalms themselves—particularly numbers 45, 82, and 83—Pembroke proffered counsel about the duties expected of the godly monarch together with threats of divine punishment if these expectations were not fulfilled.
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Unwilling to follow the admonitory path of Edward Dering, various godly Protestant preachers likewise chose the epideictic genre, lauding Elizabeth as David or Solomon while at the same time offering advice or drawing attention to some of her inadequacies as a godly ruler. John Rainolds, for example, extolled without reservation the secular achievements of Elizabeth that corresponded to those of David and Solomon in his sermon on Psalm 18 (preached at a meeting in the University of Oxford to give thanks to God for the foiling of the Babington plot in August 1586). Just as David brought his kingdom silver and gold, Elizabeth gave hers the “puritie of coine.” Just as David put garrisons in Syria and Idumaea (countries that bordered the north and south), so she fortified her land borders and protected her seas with a strong navy. Just as David delivered Israel from the Philistines, so Elizabeth fought successfully in Scotland and France and now hoped for similar victory in the Netherlands. In one respect Elizabeth even surpassed David: “The peace we have enjoyed makes her a Solomon rather than a David.”
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However, when it came to the establishment of true religion, Rainolds was unwilling to equate Elizabeth with Solomon. Her achievements in this area, he pointed out, were closer to those of David than those of the son who went on to complete his father’s work. Just as David had brought the Ark of the Covenant into Jerusalem but did not build the Temple, so Elizabeth had introduced into England the Gospel, prayers, and hymns “in a language knowen to all” but had not established true religion. David had been unable “by reason of his warres to build up the Temple”; similarly, Elizabeth “by occasion of difficulties and wants” had not been able to provide “that wise and faithful workmen for the perfite edifieing of the house of God with doctrine and discipline.” She had gone some way to prepare for it “by fostering Colleges and Schooles, the nurseries of the ministerie” but had left much to be done, presumably by a future Solomon.
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In 1601, William Leigh alighted upon a similar theme. In his sermon on Psalm 123, Leigh noted that David had left his heir a great deal to do. When close to death, David had commended the princes of Israel to help Solomon perfect his work, telling them,

I have beene your King in warre, that peace might be within your borders, and by my hand the Lord hath given you rest on every side. Now therefore, see to His rest who hath thus repaired your ruines, builde God an House...
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Although Leigh did not say it outright, the implication was that David’s words could equally well apply to Elizabeth (and consequently that her successor should behave as Solomon). At the same time, Leigh identified one damning contrast between the two princes: David had put aside riches and left “plentifull provision towards the Lord and his Religion”; not so Elizabeth. “[I]n these chilling and colde dayes of decayed Devotion,” wrote Leigh, “...both Princes & people are prodigall to spend upon themselues, but too sparing (God wot) to maintain the religion.”
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III

Given their recognition of Elizabeth’s evident limitations as a godly ruler, why did fervent Protestants such as these continue to associate her so closely and positively with the godly Old Testament kings? When writing commentaries or preaching on texts from Samuel, Chronicles, Kings, Psalms, Canticles, or Ecclesiastes, why did they not follow the example of Bunny and simply avoid parallels with Elizabeth? A principal reason seems to be that the biblical analogies were an instrument in the polemical war against papists.

One form of counterattack against Catholics calling for Elizabeth’s deposition was to celebrate her as a providential ruler in the mold of David or Solomon. Protestants, therefore, picked out similarities in the early lives of both monarchs to demonstrate how both had been selected and protected by God. David’s accession to the throne had been against all expectations and solely of the Lord’s doing: “no lesse merveilous (if we consider it),” declared Isaac Colfe, “was the advancement of Queen Elizabeth to the Crowne of this Realme...if we consider the multitude and mightinesse of her enemies.”
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To reinforce this point, preachers listed striking—if, at times, somewhat labored—parallels between David’s early life and Elizabeth’s personal history. David, they explained, was the “last and least of his father’s house,” and so was Elizabeth. David faced the derision of his siblings, Elizabeth of a sister. Saul, a king, egged on by Doeg, persecuted David; Mary, a queen, encouraged by Gardiner, “was wroth with Elizabeth.” David was exiled in the “holds” of Ein Gedi; Elizabeth in the “holds” of Woodstock. David was pitied by the king of Gath, enemy to his religion; Elizabeth was pitied by Philip of Spain.
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Protestant preachers similarly found parallels in the later political careers of the two monarchs. In the same way that David had faced enemies from the idolatrous nations surrounding Israel and the rebellion of his friends and kin, so Elizabeth had confronted and vanquished her Catholic enemies at home and abroad. Specific contemporary counterparts were found for David’s individual foes. Rainolds thought that Ishboseth (the fourth son of Saul) and David’s renegade general Abner were analogous to the rebellious earls of Northumberland and Westmorland, Lord Dacre, and the duke of Norfolk.
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As already seen, many Protestants found in Mary Stuart a highly suitable candidate for the role of Absalom;
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even after Mary’s death, the parallel continued to be drawn with Thomas White declaring in his Accession Day sermon of 1589,

For Dangers, whether shee [Elizabeth] resemble David or no? Consider yee: He afraid of Saule
,
 and shee of hir Sister
.
 And who was worse beset, he, with Saul before, and Absolon behinde; or shee, set betweene two (Marahs) the one Crowned before hir, the other shrewdlie hastening to hir Crowne.
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Once Mary was completely out of the political frame, David’s enemies were more usually compared with the Catholic seminaries and Jesuits. William Leigh likened the “mightie Absaloms” and “many Achitophels” to “plotting Jesuits, and Seminaries, with their whining Cardinall Allen, [who] in their bloody designes, have disclaimed their Elizabeth.”
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Similarly in his anti-Catholic diatribe, Francis Hastings maintained “as wicked Sheba blew the trumpet of sedition against Dauid; so hath this your Cardinall [Allen] done against her Majestie.”
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Protestants obviously delighted in the propaganda coup that these parallels afforded them, for they demonstrated God’s continuing support for their queen and religion. So John Prime could triumphantly pronounce in an Accession Day sermon of 1588, only months after the defeat of the Spanish Armada, “Truely the deliveraunces of David were but a tast of those which we feede on. Papists, the peevishe and worst sort of them bite the lippe hereat.”
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Because Elizabeth had experienced deliverances from danger (like David) and brought such great benefits to her subjects (like Solomon), she was, claimed these preachers, clearly God’s chosen ruler who must be obeyed. “If the head be ill, the head cannot prosper,” pronounced John Prime in his sermon on Solomon, and his listeners had only to see “what blessings on us God hath bestowed” to acknowledge “what dutifulnesse is due therefore.” But even if this were not the case, Prime maintained, “All autority is of God” and, therefore, the Catholic doctrine that “Treason against the Prince is no sin against God” was clearly false.
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Taking issue with the scriptural basis—especially Samuel II—utilized by the Catholics for justifying tyrannicide, Prime and other preachers contested the argument of polemicists such as Thomas Dorman, Thomas Stapleton, Thomas Harding, William Allen, and Robert Persons that the prophet Samuel’s anointing of David while Saul was still alive demonstrated the validity of the pope’s deposing power.

Protestant theologians had already taken up the task of dismissing this scriptural argument. In 1573 John Bridges explained that

David (although he were himselfe also the Lords anoynted) would never oppugne Saule, or rebel agaynst him, but only stode at his defence, and when he had Saule in his daunger, he would neither kill him, nor take him, nor depose him, but let him go, and committed his quarell to the Lorde, bicause Saule was not onely likewise the Lordes annoynted, but then in lawfull possession of the crowne.
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Thomas Bilson presented a similar case in his 1585 treatise, 
The True
Difference
. In addition, he asserted that Samuel had not, in fact, deposed Saul when anointing David but instead had excluded Saul’s sons from the throne: “the Scepter was not taken out of Saule’s handes, but his seede rejected from inheriting the kingdome.” In other words, David was anointed as Saul’s successor, not his competitor. As this argument could be extended to provide a justification for Mary Stuart’s exclusion from the succession, it was particularly pertinent in the political circumstances of 1585.
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A decade or so later, Francis Bacon (though, of course, not a theologian) adopted and developed the argument when he took up the challenge presented in the polemical works of the Jesuits. As he explained it, not only had David not murdered Saul himself but he had even condemned to death the soldier who had followed the king’s command and dealt Saul a death blow:

because he [the soldier] dared to lay his hands upon the anointed of the Lord: and yet was Saul a king forsaken and abandoned of God; he had taken his mortall wound before, so as this soldiour tooke from him his paine, and not his life; and it was to a good ende, least a heathenish insulting upon the person of Saul.
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Bridges, Bilson, and Bacon naturally made no explicit reference to the queen in their critical analyses—after all they could not accept the Catholic parallel between Saul and Elizabeth. Nonetheless, their arguments were picked up in the preachers’ sermons that associated Elizabeth with David. Indeed, both Prime and Rainolds cited Bilson’s work by name, and the latter referred to him as the author who had successfully revealed the flaws in the Catholic claims that it was “lawfull and meritorious to kill Kings.”
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Rainolds then reiterated Bilson’s two central arguments arising from the David narrative: first, that Samuel had not deposed Saul and, second, that David had refrained from laying hands on Saul after Samuel’s sentence: “for who can lay his hand on the Lordes anointed (saith he) and be giltles?”
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Leigh equally made use of David’s story to show that God alone “setteth up, and pulleth downe” kings and took the opportunity to launch a diatribe against Catholics who argued otherwise: