Elizabeth I on Trial: Forensic Rhetoric in George Puttenham’s Justification

abstract:This essay considers a lesser-known manuscript tract by the English author George Puttenham in light of debates over the execution of Mary Queen of Scots. Known as the Justification, this document survives in numerous contemporary manuscript witnesses, and it has usually been taken by scholars as a straightforward defense of Queen Elizabeth for ordering Mary’s execution. Sarah Case suggests otherwise through an analysis of the tract’s rhetorical structure. She reads the Justification in relation to the Elizabethan succession issue, arguing that forensic rhetoric allowed Puttenham to skirt parliamentary restrictions against speech and writing on the subject. This strategy, as well as the complexity of the issues surrounding it, comes into fuller view, owing to new manuscript evidence about Puttenham’s tract.