'With My Rulinge': Agency, Queenship, and Political Culture through Royal Progresses in the Reign of Elizabeth I

Queen Elizabeth I reigned over a period of cultural and political vitality between 1558—1603. She cultivated a period of spectacle, display, pageantry and representation. Elizabeth I was determined to connect with her people both at court and throughout the kingdom. Royal progresses proved vital to this connection and to the spectacle and display that produced the age of Gloriana. This thesis argues that royal progresses serve as a point of reassessment of Elizabeth I’s agency, queenship and political culture while providing an insight into the development of the relationship between the ruler and ruled. The impact that progresses had on the cultivation of loyalty, allegiance and obedience serves to enhance our understanding of how important this component was in the establishment of royal power. The study of progresses highlights the intersection of Elizabethan politics and culture that features a unique dialogue between the monarch, government, court and the localities they visited. Using the newly edited John Nichols collection, The Progresses and Public Processions of Queen Elizabeth I, and building upon the seminal work of Mary Hill Cole’s The Portable Queen, the multidisciplinary approach employed within this thesis articulates the larger issues of religion, authority and power, court dynamics and diplomacy within the national narrative but also within local communities that ultimately united the monarch and their subjects. By investigating the dynamics and dialogues that occurred between the Queen and her subjects on royal progresses, this thesis demonstrates through three case studies instances of where Elizabeth I’s agency was visible; how Elizabeth’s queenship was characterised and defined; and how Elizabethan political culture was shaped by the 1578 progress, the use of hunting on progresses and the use of the Chapel Royal on progress