Jane Shore and the Politics of Cursing
Thomas Churchyard's contribution to the 1563 edition of The Mirror for Magistrates, "Shore's wife," one of the first literary treatments of Jane Shore's role in pre-Tudor English affairs, is notable for its political exploitation of one of several of Edward IV's concubines. Narrating her fall from politically influential mistress of a king to an impoverished, friendless woman, Churchyard's Shore bitterly curses Richard III, whom she regards as the cause of her suffering. Engaging in the historiographical hazing of one of England's most unpopular monarchs, Churchyard's tragic heroine is subversive, if not treasonous, in her stance against Richard III.
Shakespeare's Histories: Mirrors of Elizabethan Policy
First published in 1947 in the USA. This edition reprints the first UK edition of 1964. Published to critical acclaim, the central argument of this book is that the historical play must be studied as a genre separate from tragedy and comedy. Just as there is in Shakespearean tragedies a dominant ethical pattern of passion opposed to reason, so there is in the history plays a dominant political pattern characteristic of the political philosophy of the age. From the 'troublesome reign' of King John to the 'tragical doings' of Richard III, Shakespeare wove the events of English history into plots of universal interest.
The Race of Time: Three Lectures on Renaissance Historiography
Professor Baker recounts and analyses the relations of the English Renaissance historians to other writers of their time and to the historians of later ages.