ABSTRACT
Very vocal Puritan members of Parliament reinterpreted the right of freedom of speech as the right to initiate policy and criticise government decisions. However, Neale is quite clear in pointing out that the movement towards constitutional monarchy and parliamentary sovereignty was one initiated under Henry VIII when he first broke with Rome and when Sir Thomas More made his radical claim for freedom of speech for the House of Commons. Since female power was seen as a sexual anomaly the reign of Queen Elizabeth, the author incited great social anxiety in English society and this anxiety found political expression in the debate between apologists and theologians. Deloney may have chosen to speak only of Boudica as a good queen and as a victim but Ubaldini, on the other hand, chose to include Boudica's savage side in his Le Vite delle donne illustri in which he describes the 'extremely cruel acts' carried out by the forces of Bunduica.
