Introduction

Abstract

When Queen Elizabeth I died on March 24, 1603, few of her subjects could remember life under another monarch “except,” John Stow noted, “they were aged persons.”¹ The Queen’s forty-four-year reign, longer than that of any of her predecessors, was, for many of her English subjects, peaceful, prosperous, and Protestant: “Englande was rychor, in bettor repute and esteem amonge forenors, and everie waye ye subjectes moore happie in her reygne then evor itt wase before,” Sir John Oglander wrote in his memoirs, “or to be doubted evor will be agayne.”² While some English subjects doubted that their country’s stability could continue under the rule of Elizabeth’s foreign successor, James VI of Scotland, and others feared that the Queen’s death would be followed by civil war, Elizabeth’s Privy Councilors took measures to suppress all other contenders to the throne and successfully welcomed James—and his two sons—to England. The Privy Council’s careful planning ensured that no political rebellions marred James’s arrival in England, but preparing the hearts and minds of English subjects to accept their new King was the work of poems, sermons, pamphlets, and plays. The literary response to Elizabeth’s death taught the country how to mourn and remember the Queen, and how to welcome and accept the new King.