Gender, Culture, and Politics in England 1560–1640: Turning the World Upside Down, by Susan D. Amussen and David E. Underdown

Abstract

This book is a work of love, that of Susan Amussen for her late husband David Underdown. Drawing on the notes and drafts (sometimes sketchy) that he left behind at his death in 2009, Amussen completed a book that she ‘would never have started writing’ and ‘David would have never finished writing’, a book that bears her stamp as much as his. Its main theme is the tension between the ideal of harmony and order in early modern England and the fears—and sometimes reality—of a world turned upside down. Its main argument is that anxiety about inversion is key to understanding the mental world of early modern people and that gender was a vital component of that anxiety. To demonstrate this, Amussen and Underdown examine various facets of gender inversion and demonstrate its connectedness to, and impact on, social practices, politics and culture. In the first chapter, ‘Unruly Women’, the historians first examine the pamphlets addressing the ‘battle of the sexes’ controversy and then relate examples of women who were unruly according to early modern culture: in the community, they discuss scolds, disobedient daughters, nagging wives and women living alone; at court, they cite the scandalous Lady Frances Howard and Lady Anne Clifford who challenged the patriarchal order by fighting to gain control of her rightful inheritance. The second chapter looks at the reverse side of the coin, the ‘failed patriarchs’ who proved unable to control their wives, daughters or households, and, in the case of James I, his court. These men are often neglected in gender studies, yet, as the authors rightly point out, they were probably thought more dangerous than their unruly women. The subject of the next chapter is the fear of gender inversion as expressed in drama. Early modern plays not only deal with unruly women in general terms but also often allude to actual events where women had proved disorderly. Amussen and Underdown remind us that The Duchess of Malfi was ‘deeply embedded in contemporary life’, namely the Frances Howard scandal, Arbella Stuart’s failed attempt at elopement and even the reburial of Mary Queen of Scots. Chapter Four focuses on a specific episode that illustrates the preceding themes: a Star Chamber case that occurred in 1608 when a clothier complained about the abuse he had received from the community as a result of trying to curtail the May Games the previous year. Although generally just seen as part of the culture war between puritan and traditionalists, the case (explain the authors) reveals the shared culture of those on both sides of the divide. All onlookers believed that unruly women and failed patriarchs were a societal problem, and understood the power of ‘familiar patterns of inversion’ (the charivari and the image of the failed patriarch) that were used against members of the local government. Furthermore, the incident raised questions about how far the inversionary nature of revels could be permitted in an ordered, patriarchal society. In the final chapter, the authors demonstrate how various shared assumptions about inversion played their part in witchcraft cases.