ABSTRACT
By drawing the critical gaze away from the centres of Elizabethan processions and concentrating instead upon their margins, it is possible to demonstrate the ambiguities and absences that are discernible in traditional conceptualisations of the constitution of early modern processional audiences. Further ambiguities can also be demonstrated regarding the same conceptualisations of the consciousness of these audiences in terms of their potential alliances. Consecutive readings of original documents have transmitted the notion of a monolithic audience response throughout history, such interpretations being based upon perceptibly partial readings. The historical transmission of the monolithic nature of the audience response has been achieved by taking these original documents at their word, despite the fact that they have been seen to be propagandist documents. Recognition of the propagandist nature of these documents, however, opens them up to readings of an alternative kind, readings which find an articulation of ambiguities and anxieties that have been traditionally ignored or overlooked.
