Music and musical entertainments are here shown to be used for different
ends, by both monarch and courtiers.
Queen Elizabeth I (1558-1603) had a strong reputation for musicality;
her court musicians, Thomas Tallis and William Byrd, even suggested that
music was indispensable to the state. But what roles did music play in
Elizabethan court politics? How did a musical image assist the Queen in
projecting her royal authority? What influence did her private
performances have on her courtships, diplomatic affairs, and
relationships with courtiers? To what extent did Elizabeth control court
music, or could others appropriate performances to enhance their own
status and achieve their ambitions? Could noblemen, civic leaders, or
even musicians take advantage of Elizabeth's love of music to present
their complaints and petitions in song?
This book unravels the connotations surrounding Elizabeth's musical
image and traces the political roles of music at the Elizabethan court.
It scrutinizes the most intimate performances within the Privy Chamber,
analyses the masques and plays performed in the palaces, and explores
the grandest musical pageantry of tournaments, civic entries, and royal
progresses. This reveals how music served as a valuable means for both
the tactful influencing of policies and patronage, and the construction
of political identities and relationships. In the late Tudor period
music was simultaneously a tool of authority for the monarch and an
instrumentof persuasion for the nobility.
KATHERINE BUTLER is a Senior Lecturer at Northumbria University,
Newcastle.
