The Mercenary State

Throughout the late Elizabethan period, England’s population was incorporated in an ongoing military mobilization, with English armies maintaining a nearly constant presence on multiple fronts in the Low Countries as well as France and Ireland. Through an analysis of the autobiographical writings of English soldiers, this chapter examines how the conditions of military service enabled them to reflect on their economic position as mercenaries, able to transfer their labor power, as a way of reimagining their ability to assert their agency as political subjects. The chapter looks at texts written by English military agents themselves, with an extended discussion of George Gascoigne alongside analysis of lesser-known figures such as Sir John Smythe and the Norris family. The latter sections of the chapter examine the effects of extraterritorial military service on models of English domesticity, particularly the material histories of local communities, households, and families.