ABSTRACT
When William Harrison wrote of the peripatetic Elizabeth I that ‘every nobleman’s house is her palace’, he was only slightly exaggerating, because the queen’s progresses took her into the homes of more than four hundred of her subjects during the course of her long reign.1 Both the queen and her hosts – members of the aristocracy and gentry, as well as various towns and the two universities – profited from the mutual access and exchange of views. By drawing those men and women privileged by title, office, and family into her court’s changing orbit, Elizabeth used and strengthened the social network of the country’s natural leaders. Beyond the practical need to avoid plague and clean out royal residences, the court’s movements occurred because of the queen’s desire to interact with civic and county communities and to enact her royal authority through the cultivated chaos of sustained travel.2 On progress Elizabeth used civic and manorial arenas to stage her public dialogue on a political agenda that included aspects of the royal prerogative, including marriage negotiations, defense against invasion, diplomatic maneuvering and religious conformity. While these national issues concerned the government throughout her reign, the one that underlay them all and that remained charged with significance (and occasionally with danger) was that of religious conformity. Given the queen’s commitment to her newly established Protestant church and the potential impact of any royal visit, her decision to accept the hospitality of hosts closely tied to Catholicism was significant. Even as laws and proclamations targeted non-attendance at church, seditious religious books and icons, and priests and Jesuits in England, Catholicoriented hosts entertained the queen. Given the relative dangers for people sympathetic to Catholicism who entertained the queen, we may wonder what motivated these hosts and their royal visitor to share lodgings. These hosts, like most others who entertained Elizabeth on progress, wanted access to her for favors, validation of their status within their locality, and contact with important court officials. They might also have hoped that their hospitality would counterbalance royal concerns regarding their religious irregularities.
