It is clear that classical humanist and even republican arguments were prevalent in the mid Elizabethan period. But in order to gauge the most thorough as well as the radical uses of these arguments in particular contexts, we have to move from the centre of Elizabethan politics to its margins. It is significant that the most pervasive and extreme employment of humanist and republican arguments occurred at the margins rather than at the centre of the political community and that they have been little known, at all. This is first an indication of the applicability of republican notions. Classical polis and Italian renaissance communities were, of course, urban communities, and it should therefore come as no surprise that political notions derived from these sources could be adapted to an English urban community as well. Similarly, it is hardly original to indicate the instability of an unsettled frontier, such as Ireland. But what is not often appreciated is that both sets of circumstances could offer an apposite context for republican arguments to emerge.

Secondly, the occurrence of humanist and republican arguments at social margins rather than at the centre reveals something of their controversial nature. It was less dangerous to employ them in such obscure places as Tewkesbury or Ireland; as soon as they were brought to the centre, they were marginalized by the use of translations of foreign treatises to convey the message. Finally, the fact that applications of humanist and republican arguments took place only on the fringes of the Elizabethan political world is an indication of the restricted influence which the authors examined in this chapter exerted.