Courtship, Slander, and Treason: Studies of Mary Queen of Scots, the Fourth Duke of Norfolk, and a Few of Their Contemporaries, 1568–1587 by Arthur Freeman and Janet Ing Freeman

Abstract

Reviewed by: Courtship, Slander, and Treason: Studies of Mary Queen of Scots, the Fourth Duke of Norfolk, and a Few of Their Contemporaries, 1568–1587 by Arthur Freeman and Janet Ing Freeman Thomas M. Mccoog S.J. Courtship, Slander, and Treason: Studies of Mary Queen of Scots, the Fourth Duke of Norfolk, and a Few of Their Contemporaries, 1568–1587. By Arthur Freeman and Janet Ing Freeman. (London: Distributed by Maggs Bros Ltd. 2019. Pp. ix, 401. £35.00. ISBN 978-0-993376-22-1.) Two distinct but complementary sections comprise this work: "Mary Queen of Scots and the Fourth Duke of Norfolk: The Literature of the 'Forbidden Match,' 1568–73" by Arthur Freeman; and "The Trial and Death of Mary Queen of Scots in Contemporary Report: A Codicological Study" by Janet Ing Freeman. The studies are not, as the authors explain in the Prefatory Note, "retellings or reinterpretations … but essentially surveys of contemporary literature—narrative, argumentative, judgemental, propagandistic, and libellous—devoted thereto" (p. vii). Both sections begin with a clear, concise presentation of the historical background; indeed, a very helpful time line from 1509 to 1603 concludes the book. Each text is examined for style, locution, date of composition, authorship, printed and manuscript editions, circulation and influence. Particularly in the exposition of authorship, Arthur Freeman delineates and often refutes attributions proposed by other scholars and canonized by the Revised Short Title Catalogue. Alas, in a short review, I must restrict my comments to a few texts. Mary, Queen of Scots, arrived in England in May 1568. Four years earlier as Mary was looking for a suitor, Queen Elizabeth recommended Robert Dudley, soon to be Earl of Leicester, and Thomas Howard, Duke of Norfolk. Mary preferred Henry Stuart, Lord Darnley, and Norfolk was not interested. After the events of the intervening four years, the possibility was revived. A Discourse touching the pretended match published around the same time as the Northern Rising (1569–70) and Regnans in excelsis, Pope [End Page 630] Pius V's excommunication of Queen Elizabeth (1570), attacked the proposed marriage. Freeman rejects the attribution of this work to Thomas Norton: "Anonymous A Discourse emerged from the press; anonymous, in my view, it remains" (p. 50). "An Answer to a slanderous booke," the full text of which is printed here for the first time, rebuts the accusations and defends Mary and Norfolk. Here too the author remains unknown. A Treatise of treasons (1572), arguably the best known of the texts analyzed, defended the honor of Mary and, equally important, denounced the Elizabethan establishment as constructed by "new men" William Cecil and Nicholas Bacon. The author of this important treatise remains unknown despite various efforts at identification. We must, according to Freeman, console "ourselves, if at all, by at least one significant exclusion: the [John Leslie] Bishop of Ross" (p. 165). It is surprising that Freeman fails to mention that Cecil's friends dissuaded him from refuting the treatise: instead the government retaliated with a proclamation against seditious works, especially attacks on Bacon and Cecil. The bishop of Ross did, however, author "A Discourse conteyning a perfect accompt," and "A Brief discourse of the friendly and honest part," another text printed here for the first time. Leslie's frequent appearance again highlights the lack of a monograph on his role and significance in his advocacy of Mary's cause, in the proposal of an "Association," joint sovereignty, for Mary and her son James VI, and in the formation of alliances aimed at her liberation. Recent works by Susan Doran and Paulina Kewes on marital negotiations and the succession would have benefitted Freeman. The late Regius Professor Patrick Collinson once commented on the different terms used by literary critics and historians to describe the documents of their trade. The latter speak of sources, archival and published, from which data are extracted; the former speak of texts scrutinized from different perspectives with measured judgments. Arthur and Janet Ing Freeman are literary critics whose analysis has revealed much to this historian who has strip-mined some of these documents for information. [End Page 631] Thomas M. Mccoog S.J. Loyola University Maryland Copyright © 2021 The Catholic University of America Press