During the past 25 years Elizabethan history has been transformed by the work of Simon Adams. Famous for the depth and breadth of his research in libraries and archives throughout Britain, Western Europe and the USA, he has brought to life the most enigmatic of the greater Elizabethans: Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester. Together with his edition of Leicester's accounts and his reconstruction of Leicester's papers, Adams has published numerous essays and articles on Leicester's influence and activities. They have reshaped our knowledge of Elizabeth and her Court, Parliament, the localities from Wales to Warwickshire and such subjects of recent debate as the power of the nobility and the noble affinity, the politics of faction and the role of patronage. Sixteen of Simon Adams' essays are found in this collection, organized into three groups: the Court, Leicester and his affinity, and Leicester and the regions. The collection ranges from much-cited essays in standard textbooks to papers at international conferences, as well as articles in a variety of journals.

View our feature on Sarah Gristwood’s Elizabeth & Leicester.Though the story has been told on film—and whispered in historic gossip—this is the first book in almost fifty years to solely explore the great queen’s attachment to her beloved Robert Dudley, the Earl of Leicester. Fueled by scandal and intrigue, their relationship set the explosive connection between public and private life in sixteenth-century England in bold relief. Why did they never marry? How much of what seemed a passionate obsession was actually political convenience? Elizabeth and Leicester reignites this 400- year-old love story in a book for anyone interested in Elizabethan literature.

Robert Dudley, the first Earl of Leicester, was a leading figure at the court of Elizabeth I, and this book presents a scholarly edition of both his two surviving household accounts (from 1558 to 1581), and the fragments of his disbursement books (from 1584 to 1586). The work also includes an appendix of those lists of household servants that have survived. This is the only collection of such information available for such a prominent member of the Elizabethan court, and as such provides numerous valuable insights into the personal finances of members of the Elizabethan aristocracy. It will thus be essential reading for any serious scholar of the high politics of the Elizabethan period.

In 1649, Charles I was executed before Whitehall Palace in London. This event had a major impact not only in the British Isles, but also on the continent, where British exiles, diplomats and agents waged propaganda battles to conquer the minds of foreign audiences. In the Dutch Republic, above all, their efforts had a significant impact on public opinion, and succeeded in triggering violent debate. This is the first book-length study devoted to the continental backlash of the English Civil Wars. Interdisciplinary in scope and drawing on a wide range of sources, from pamphlets to paintings, Helmer Helmers shows how the royalist cause managed to triumph in one of the most unlikely places in early modern Europe. In doing so, Helmers transforms our understanding of both British and Dutch political culture, and provides new contexts for major literary works by Milton, Marvell, Huygens, and many others.

The Immortals is the fairy-tale account of Leicester City, who rose from the very bottom of the English Premier League—the world’s toughest soccer league—to triumph against all odds (5,000–1) and finish as champions. Ending up in League One (third level) for the first time in 2008–09, the team stormed through the season to win the league and was promoted back up to the League Championship (second league). After four seasons as a middle-of-the-pack team, Leicester won the league in 2013–14, being promoted to the EPL for the first time in a decade. After a strong start the following season, the team quickly faded and looked to be facing relegation. But after winning seven out of their last nine games, they avoided the demotion and finished in fourteenth place. Under the calm and wise management of Claudio Ranieri—who was named as manager to start the 2015–16 season—the East Midlands club stunned football supporters by winning despite not having a recognizable superstar on the team. With massive team spirit and a never-say-die attitude, the team kept Tottenham, Arsenal, and Manchester City at bay to secure their first ever Premier League trophy in their 132-year history. In the process, journeyman players such as Jamie Vardy, Riyad Mahrez, N’Golo Kante, and Kasper Schmeichel became household names and added to the team’s growing lore. Written by legendary soccer writer Harry Harris, with seventy-six books to his name, The Immortals is a must-read for all fans of the sport, as well as those who adopted Leicester City and the Foxes during their dramatic run.

The third volume in this annotated collection of texts relating to the 'progresses' of Queen Elizabeth I around England includes accounts of dramatic performances, orations, and poems, and a wealth of supplementary material dating from 1579 to 1595.

Stages of Loss supplies an original and deeply researched account of travel and festivity in early modern Europe, complicating, revising, and sometimes entirely rewriting received accounts of the emergence and development of professional theatre. It offers a history of English actors travelling and performing abroad in early modern Europe, and Germany in particular, during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. These players, known as English Comedians, were among the first professional actors to perform in central and northern European courts and cities. The vital contributions made by them to the development of a European theatre institution have long been neglected owing to the pre-eminence of national theatre histories and the difficulty of researching an inherently evanescent phenomenon across large distances. These contributions are here introduced in their proper contexts for the first time. Stages of Loss explores connections real and perceived between diminishments of national value and the material wealth transported by itinerant players; representations of loss, waste, and profligacy within the drama they performed; and the extent to which theatrical practice and the process of canonization have led to archival and interpretive losses in theatre history. Situating the English Comedians in a variety of economic, social, religious, and political contexts, it explores trends and continuities in the reception of their itinerant theatre, showing how their incorporation into modern theatre history has been shaped by derogatory assessments of travelling theatre and itinerant people in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Stages of Loss reveals that the Western theatre institution took shape partly as a means of accommodating, controlling, evaluating, and concealing the work of migrant strangers.

Few articles in the humanities have had the impact of Lisa Jardine and Anthony Grafton’s seminal ‘Studied for Action’ (1990), a study of the reading practices of Elizabethan polymath and prolific annotator Gabriel Harvey. Their excavation of the setting, methods and ambitions of Harvey’s encounters with his books ignited the History of Reading, an interdisciplinary field which quickly became one of the most exciting corners of the scholarly cosmos. A generation inspired by the model of Harvey fanned out across the world’s libraries and archives, seeking to reveal the many creative, unexpected and curious ways that individuals throughout history responded to texts, and how these interpretations in turn illuminate past worlds. Three decades on, Harvey’s example and Jardine’s work remain central to cutting-edge scholarship in the History of Reading. By uniting ‘Studied for Action’ with published and unpublished studies on Harvey by Jardine, Grafton and the scholars they have influenced, this collection provides a unique lens on the place of marginalia in textual, intellectual and cultural history. The chapters capture subsequent work on Harvey and map the fields opened by Jardine and Grafton’s original article, collectively offering a posthumous tribute to Lisa Jardine and an authoritative overview of the History of Reading.

This title is part of UC Press's Voices Revived program, which commemorates University of California Press’s mission to seek out and cultivate the brightest minds and give them voice, reach, and impact. Drawing on a backlist dating to 1893, Voices Revived makes high-quality, peer-reviewed scholarship accessible once again using print-on-demand technology. This title was originally published in 1970.