Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Introduction
- 1 Modes and means of literary production, circulation and reception
- 2 The Tudor era from the Reformation to Elizabeth I
- 3 The era of Elizabeth and James VI
- 4 The earlier Stuart era
- 15 Literature and national identity
- 16 Literature and the court
- 17 Literature and the church
- 18 Literature and London
- 19 Literature and the theatre to 1660
- 20 Literature and the household
- 5 The Civil War and Commonwealth era
- Chronological outline of historical events and texts in Britain, 1528–1674, with list of selected manuscripts
- Select bibliography (primary and secondary sources)
- Index
- References
15 - Literature and national identity
from 4 - The earlier Stuart era
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 28 March 2008
Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Introduction
- 1 Modes and means of literary production, circulation and reception
- 2 The Tudor era from the Reformation to Elizabeth I
- 3 The era of Elizabeth and James VI
- 4 The earlier Stuart era
- 15 Literature and national identity
- 16 Literature and the court
- 17 Literature and the church
- 18 Literature and London
- 19 Literature and the theatre to 1660
- 20 Literature and the household
- 5 The Civil War and Commonwealth era
- Chronological outline of historical events and texts in Britain, 1528–1674, with list of selected manuscripts
- Select bibliography (primary and secondary sources)
- Index
- References
Summary
In 1603, the Scottish King James VI inherited the throne of England. The following year, he issued a proclamation, changing his title from ‘King of England and Scotland’ to ‘King of Great Britain’. James wanted to unite more than just the crowns of the two kingdoms. His ultimate goal was to create ‘a united British nation’. He introduced a new gold coin, called the ‘unite’ (unit), which featured an inscription declaring ‘I will make them one nation.’ The English and Scots, he argued, were currently ‘two nations’, but both inhabited ‘one Ile of Britaine’, and they were ‘alreadie ioyned in vnitie of Religion and language’. In time, he hoped, the two nations would become one. The ultimate political allegiance of all his subjects – English, Scots, Welsh and Irish – was to himself. It made sense for countries that were already united by their political and religious loyalties, and by geography and language, to enter into still closer union. Writing in favour of the Union, the Scotsman Robert Pont found it remarkable that his country men and the English had so long been mortal enemies. In times past, he argued, God had ‘armed these nations with mallice and hatred one against another’ in punishment of their popish idolatry. Since the Reformation, however, God had changed his attitude towards the two peoples, and if they refrained from angering him by sinning too seriously, it was now possible for them to live together as ‘one commonwealth … in a lovelie and perpetuall peace’.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- The Cambridge History of Early Modern English Literature , pp. 457 - 486Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2003
References
, Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism, rev. edn, New York: Verso, 1991.Google Scholar
, A Sermon preached before his Maiestie, on Sunday the fifth of August last, London: R. Barker, 1610.Google Scholar
Annála Rioghachta Eireann. Annals of the Kingdom of Ireland, by the Four Masters, from the Earliest Period to the Year 1616, ed. , 7 vols., Dublin: Hodges and Smith, 1848–51.Google Scholar
, The Advancement of Learning, ed. , The Oxford Francis Bacon, 4, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 2000.Google Scholar
, ‘A Brief Discourse, Of the Happy Union of the Kingdomes of England and Scotland’, in Resuscitatio, London: by S. Griffin for W. Lee, 1657. 3rd edn, 1671.Google Scholar
, The travels of certaine Englishmen into Africa, Asia, Troy, Bythinia, Thracia, and to the Blacke Sea, London: for W. Aspley, 1609.Google Scholar
, Newes from the East-Indies: Or, A Voyage to Bengalla, London: J. Okes, sold by , 1638.Google Scholar
, Rerum Scoticarum historia, Edinburgh: A. Arbuthnot, 1582. 4th edn, 1643. Trans. as The History of Scotland, London: A. Churchill, 1690. Mod. edn, The History of Scotland from the Earliest Period to the Regency of the Earl of Moray, ed. and trans. , 6 vols., Glasgow: Blackie, Fullarton & Co., 1827.Google Scholar
, Britannia sive florentissimorum regnorum, Angliae, Scotiae, Hiberniae chorographica descriptio, London: R. Newbery, 1586. 6th edn, 1607. Trans. as Britain, Or a chorographicall description of the most flourishing Kingdomes, England, Scotland, and Ireland, trans. , London: G. Bishop and J. Norton, 1610.Google Scholar
, and (eds.), The Oxford History of the British Empire. Volume 1. The Origins of Empire. British Overseas Enterprise to the Close of the Seventeenth Century, Oxford University Press, 1998.Google Scholar
[,] A Large Declaration concerning the late tumults in Scotland…By the King, London: R. Young, 1639.Google Scholar
, Discourse on History, Law, and Governance in the Public Career of John Selden, 1610–1635, University of Toronto Press, 1996.Google Scholar
, ‘Colonial Identity in Early Seventeenth-century Ireland’, in (ed.), Nationality and the Pursuit of National Independence, Belfast: Appletree Press, 1978; Vol. 11 of Historical Studies. Papers Read Before the Irish Conference of Historians.Google Scholar
, The Blessed Revolution: English Politics and the Coming of War, 1621–1624, Cambridge University Press, 1989.Google Scholar
, ‘Thomas Middleton and the Court, 1624: A Game at Chess in Context’, Huntington Library Quarterly, 47 (1984).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
, The Epistle Congratulatorie of Lysimachus Nicanor, of the Societie of Jesu, to the Covenanters in Scotland. Wherein is paralleled our sweet harmony and correspondency in divers materiall points of doctrine and practice, Dublin: Society of Stationers, 1640. 4th edn, London: R. Young and R. Badger, 1640; 5th edn, London, 1684.Google Scholar
, A Dictionarie of the French and English Tongues, London: A. Islip, 1611. 10th edn, 1650.Google Scholar
, De Unione Regnorum Britanniae Tractatus, edited from the manuscript in the Advocates’ Library, with a translation and notes, trans. , , 60, Edinburgh: T. & A. Constable, 1909.Google Scholar
, A Discoverie of the true causes why Ireland was never entirely subdued, nor brought under Obedience of the Crowne of England, untill the beginning of his Maiesties happie raigne, London: for J. Jaggard, 1612.Google Scholar
, A true relation of the travailes and captivitie of William Davies, Barber-Surgion of London, under the Duke of Florence, London: N. Bourne, 1614.Google Scholar
and , ‘History and Ideology: The Instance of Henry V’, in (ed.), Alternative Shakespeares, London: Methuen, 1985.Google Scholar
, Pseudo-Martyr. Wherein … this conclusion is evicted. That those of the Romane religion ought to take the oath of allegiance, London: for W. Burre, 1610. Mod. edn, ed. , Montreal and Kingston: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 1993.Google Scholar
, Poly-Olbion, London: for M. Lownes et al., [1612]. Second part, or a continuance of Poly-Olbion, London: for J. Marriott et al., 1622.Google Scholar
, , Poetical Works of William Drummond of Hawthornden, with ‘A Cypresse Grove’, ed. , 2 vols., Manchester University Press, 1913.Google Scholar
, The glory of England, or a true description of many excellent prerogatives and remarkable blessings, whereby she triumpheth over all the nations of the world, London: for T. Norton, 1618.Google Scholar
, History of England from the Accession of James I to the Outbreak of the Civil War, 1603–1642, 10 vols., London: Longmans, Green and Co., 1883–4.Google Scholar
, James I and the Politics of Literature, Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1983.Google Scholar
, Nationalism: Five Roads to Modernity, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1992.Google Scholar
, A Treatise of Vnion of the two Realmes of England and Scotland, London: F. Kingston for C. Burby, 1604.Google Scholar
, Forms of Nationhood: The Elizabethan Writing of England, University of Chicago Press, 1992.Google Scholar
[], Some Speciall Arguments which warranted the Scottish subiects lawfully to take up armes in defence of their Religion and Liberty, Amsterdam: Richt Right Press, 1642.Google Scholar
, of Godscroft, A generall history of Scotland, together with a particular history of the houses of Douglas and Angus, Edinburgh: Evan Tyler, 1648.Google Scholar
, The Political Works of James I, ed. , Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1918.Google Scholar
, ‘Newes from the Holy Ile’, in , ‘Parr Lane: “Newes from the Holy Ile”’, Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy 99C (1999).Google Scholar
and (eds.), Stuart Royal Proclamations. Volume I. Royal Proclamations of King James I 1603–1625, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1973.Google Scholar
, The Formation of the British State: England, Scotland, and the Union 1603–1707, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1987.Google Scholar
, Religious Controversies of the Elizabethan Age: A Survey of Printed Sources, London: Scolar Press, 1977, and Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1977.Google Scholar
and (eds.), Standard Catalogue of British Coins. Coins of England and the United Kingdom, 22nd edn (London: Seaby, 1986), 310.Google Scholar
, The Rise of English Nationalism: A Cultural History 1740–1830 (New York: St Martin’s Press, 1987), p..Google Scholar
, ‘“The cruell pressure of an enraged, barbarous people”: Irish and English Identity in Seventeenth-Century Policy and Propaganda’, Historical Journal, 41 (1998).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
, Writing the English Republic: Poetry, Rhetoric and Politics, 1627–1660, Cambridge University Press, 1998.Google Scholar
, Bishop Overall’s Convocation Book, MDCVI [1606], concerning the government of God’s catholic church and the kingdoms of the whole world, London: for W. Kettiby, 1690. Mod. edn, The Convocation Book, MDCVI, Oxford: J. H. Parker, 1844.Google Scholar
, Court Patronage and Corruption in Early Stuart England, London: Unwin Hyman, 1990.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
, Classical Republicanism in English Political Thought 1570–1640, Cambridge University Press, 1995.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
, The Outbreak of the Irish Rebellion of 1641, Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 1994.Google Scholar
, A New Description of Ireland: wherein is described the disposition of the Irish, London: [W. Jaggard for] T. Adams, 1610.Google Scholar
, The Analecta of David Rothe, Bishop of Ossory, ed. , Dublin: M. H. Gill & Son, 1884.Google Scholar
, Regiminis Anglicani in Hibernia Defensio, adversus Analecten, London: [H. Lownes, J. Dawson and J. Haviland] for J. Bartlet, 1624.Google Scholar
, A Relation of the State of Religion: and with what Hopes and Pollicies it hath beene framed, and is maintained in the severall States of these Westerne parts of the world, London: [G. and A. Snowdon for] S. Waterson, 1605.Google Scholar
and , Standard Catalogue of British Coins. Volume 2. Coins of Scotland, Ireland & the Islands (London: Seaby, 1984), 58.Google Scholar
, Apostolike Obedience. Shewing the duty of subjects to pay tribute and taxes. A Sermon, London: M. Flesher for R. M[ynne], 1627.Google Scholar
, The Correspondence of Philip Sidney and Hubert Languet, ed. , Boston: Merrymount Press, 1912.Google Scholar
, Royalists and Patriots. Politics and Ideology in England 1603–1640, London: Longman, 1999.Google Scholar
[] (attrib.) A View of the State of Ireland, in , Two Histories of Ireland, the one written by E. Campion, the other by M. Hanmer, Dublin: , and London: T. Harper, 1633. Mod. edn, A View of the State of Ireland, ed. and , Oxford: Blackwell, 1997.Google Scholar
, The History of the Church of Scotland, London: J. Flesher for R. Royston, 1655. 4th edn, 1677.Google Scholar
, Pacata Hibernia. Ireland Appeased and Reduced, or, an Historie of the late Warres of Ireland, especially within the Province of Mounster, London: A. Mathewes for R. Milbourne, 1633.Google Scholar
, The Scottish Revolution 1637–1644: The Triumph of the Covenanters, Newton Abbot: David & Charles, 1973.Google Scholar
The Jacobean Union. Six Tracts of 1604, ed. and , , 4th ser., 21, Edinburgh: C. Constable, 1985.Google Scholar
, A True Relation of the Late Battell fought in New England, between the English, and the Pequet Salvages, London: N. Butter and J. Bellamie, 1638.Google Scholar