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.
Naturalization in the Mirror and A Mask
This essay argues that John Milton’s A Mask Presented at Ludlow Castle is an early foray into the republicanism that shapes many of the author’s later works. As he writes his first major commissioned piece for the new English President of Wales, Milton taps into the advice tradition exemplified by John Higgins’s Mirror for Magistrates to explore a form of naturalized citizenship that respects Britain’s ancient internal divisions. The writer’s vision of mobile, identitively labile citizens rejects static ideals of British identity promoted by the central Crown to embrace a politics of local affiliations and regional sovereignty.
Just Wars: From Cicero to Iraq
Preface and Acknowledgements. Introduction -. PART I: MAPPING THE JUST WAR TRADITION. Chapter 1: Antiquity -. Chapter 2: The Middle Ages -. Chapter 3: Renaissance and Reformation -. Chapter 4: From Holy War to Enlightenment -. Chapter 5: Modernity and Beyond -. PART II: CONTEMPORARY ISSUES. Chapter 6: The Just War Tradition Today -. Chapter 7: Terrorism -. Chapter 8: Pre-emption -. Chapter 9: Aerial Bombing -. Chapter 10: Humanitarian Intervention -. Conclusion. Bibliography -. Index