Aislinn Muller, The Excommunication of Elizabeth I: Faith, Politics, and Resistance in Post-Reformation England, 1570-1603, Leiden: Brill, 2020, pp. x+242, €125.00, ISBN: 978-90-04-42600-9

Abstract

ambiguities of confessional allegiances during the Tudor period. What do we mean by Catholic? This was as vexed a question during Mary’s reign as it was before and after her. It is worth noting that critiques of Mary were not only the product of Protestant zeal, but also of a certain Jesuit sensibility later in the sixteenth century, which emphasized her failures of religious reform. Her shortcomings were linked to a supposedly corrupt court that could and did help dupe and misleadMary and Philip. Samson ultimately argues that the co-rulership of Philip and Mary was, in fact ‘a great success, incorporating England into the heart of a global empire’ (p. 223). To be sure, the cultural and political effects of the marriage are not primarily ‘negative’ but it would be remarkable if England departed from the realities of the rest of the empire, held together as it was in the shadow of instability and discontent, even within the Iberian Peninsula. If one were forgiven to dabble in counterfactuals, as much of the recent literature on Mary does, it is easy to imagine this early honeymoon period as described here descending into chaos amid contention between the regime and the papacy (the architect of religious reform, Reginald Pole, had been excommunicated by the Pope), potential ongoing punishments of Protestants, and deepening involvement of England in the various crises attending the Spanish Habsburg empire. It seems to me that a glittering court does not in any way reflect stability. Ultimately, though, Samson has provided a foundational work in what he rightly identifies as a field awaiting more exploration. There is little doubt that his book is a sort of death knell for old-fashioned takes on Mary and Philip: it shows by example that there are all sorts of sources that have been untapped. Having helped establish this, I hope that scholarship will increasingly deal with the Marian regime outside the shadow of chauvinist and confessional scholarship that seems more dull and dilapidated with every passing year.