The Blow That Was Heard Across the Channel - Elizabeth I's Indirect Response to John Knox's The First Blast

Abstract

Sofia Patino-Duque's incisive and creative essay was written for my course on "Political Thought in Early Modern Britain." Patino-Duque began with a deep interest in the question of how Queen Elizabeth I of England (reign 1558-1603) managed to rule her kingdom, despite and in the face of the patriarchal and often oppressive gender regime that prevailed in early modern Europe. Sofia also wanted to explore the ways that "political thought" – usually conceived as a rarefied field of intellectual endeavor – actually affected political life on the ground. She chose to do this by looking at the famously misogynistic polemical tract The First Blast of the Trumpet Against the Monstrous Regiment of Women, written by John Knox, the legendary Calvinist reformer and one of the fathers of Scottish Protestantism. Knox's work, written on the eve of Elizabeth's unexpected accession to the throne, expatiated in lurid terms upon the unfitness and ungodliness of feminine governance. Patino-Duque's paper tried to show how Eliza- beth I, after arriving at the pinnacle of power, navigated and indeed at times managed to exploit the very patriarchal assumptions and misog- ynistic tropes that found expression in Knox's book. Patino-Duque's thoughtful essay, built on a highly creative and historically nuanced concept, stands as a testimony both to its author's skill and to the can- ny and sophisticated techniques of self-presentation deployed by one of early modern Europe's most impressive political figures.