Shakespeare's Birthday Lecture: "Elizabeth I and Mary Queen of Scots"

This article is about the annual Shakespeare Birthday lecture. For other articles about Shakespeare's Birthday, see Shakespeare's Birthday (disambiguation).

For more past programming from the Folger Institute, please see the article Folger Institute scholarly programs archive.

This was a lecture given by John Guy on April 28, 2003.

Elizabeth I is one of the legendary personalities of history, but when Mary Queen of Scots, her "loving 'sister' and cousin," returned home from France, the rival queens competed for space and authority in the British Isles. And yet, they had much in common. Leading (male) councillors subverted both their monarchies on gender and religious grounds. This lecture sought to reassess Elizabeth I using her dealings with Mary and these councillors as a prism.

Lecturer: John Guy is Visiting Fellow of Clare College, University of Cambridge, and Honorary Research Professor of the University of St. Andrews, Scotland. He is the author of Politics, Law, and Counsel in Tudor and Early Stuart England (2000) and editor of The Reign of Elizabeth I: Court and Culture in the Last Decade (1995) among numerous other works.