ABSTRACT
Giles Fletcher viewed the English constitution from the position of a proponent of parliamentary monarchy, a position best expounded in the most famous work of Tudor political thought, Sir Thomas Smith's The Commonwealth of England. The earliest reference to the Russe Commonwealth can be found in the first edition of Hakluyt's Principall Navigations, which came out toward the end of 1589. In the Library of Cambridge University there is a manuscript of Fletcher's Of the Russe Commonwealth prefaced by an autograph dedication to the Queen. Of the Russe Commonwealth came back into circulation early in the nineteenth century when it was discovered by Russian historians. N. Karamzin located a copy of the 1591 edition in the archive of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and referred to it frequently in the ninth and tenth volumes of his History, published in the 1820's.
