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<!DOCTYPE html><html><head><title>Divinity and State - David Womersley - Google Books</title><link rel="stylesheet" href="/books/css/_a33f2a89320471e58c940b9287b9d4eb/kl_viewport_kennedy_full_bundle.css" type="text/css" /><link rel="stylesheet"href="https://fonts.googleapis.com/css2?family=Product+Sans:wght@400"><link rel="canonical" href="https://books.google.com/books/about/Divinity_and_State.html?id=hZ8VDAAAQBAJ"/><meta property="og:url" content="https://books.google.com/books/about/Divinity_and_State.html?id=hZ8VDAAAQBAJ"/><meta name="title" content="Divinity and State"/><meta name="description" content="In 1589 the Privy Council encouraged the Archbishop of Canterbury to take steps to control the theatres, which had offended authority by putting on plays which addressed 'certen matters of Divinytie and of State unfitt to be suffred'. How had questions of divinity and state become entangled? The Reformation had invested the English Crown with supremacy over the Church, and religious belief had thus been transformed into a political statement. In the plentiful chronicle literature of the sixteenth-century, questions of monarchical legitimacy and religious orthodoxy became intertwined as a consequence of that demand for a usable national past created by the high political developments of the 1530s. Divinity and State explores the consequences of these events in the English historiography and historical drama of the sixteenth century. It is divided into four parts. In the first, the impact of reformed religion on narratives of the national past is measured and described. Part II examines how the entanglement of the national past and reformed religion was reflected in historical drama from Bale to the early years of James I, and focuses on two paradigmatic characters: the sanctified monarch and the martyred subject. Part III considers Shakespeare's history plays in the light of the preceding discussion, and finds that Shakespeare's career as a historical dramatist shows him eventually re-shaping the history play with great audacity. Part IV corroborates this reading of Shakespeare's later history plays by reference to the dramatic ripostes they provoked."/><meta property="og:title" content="Divinity and State"/><meta property="og:type" content="book"/><meta property="og:site_name" content="Google Books"/><meta property="og:image" content="https://books.google.com.sg/books/publisher/content?id=hZ8VDAAAQBAJ&printsec=frontcover&img=1&zoom=1&edge=curl&imgtk=AFLRE70etTRtD3BTIZ91hSiAzu1ADYzwfr6H8xNzCZWkOihSliC6qFiL7u7zqxzxxghSU5bCSYwledYC6sI3dvD4WaIuadrygf5dSIkUIdaqdg3aOSaD9_DgnecNoXqiY85RwO7R17XG"/><link rel="image_src" href="https://books.google.com.sg/books/publisher/content?id=hZ8VDAAAQBAJ&printsec=frontcover&img=1&zoom=1&edge=curl&imgtk=AFLRE70etTRtD3BTIZ91hSiAzu1ADYzwfr6H8xNzCZWkOihSliC6qFiL7u7zqxzxxghSU5bCSYwledYC6sI3dvD4WaIuadrygf5dSIkUIdaqdg3aOSaD9_DgnecNoXqiY85RwO7R17XG"/><script></script><style>#gbar,#guser{font-size:13px;padding-top:1px !important;}#gbar{height:22px}#guser{padding-bottom:7px !important;text-align:right}.gbh,.gbd{border-top:1px solid #c9d7f1;font-size:1px}.gbh{height:0;position:absolute;top:24px;width:100%}@media all{.gb1{height:22px;margin-right:.5em;vertical-align:top}#gbar{float:left}}a.gb1,a.gb4{text-decoration:underline !important}a.gb1,a.gb4{color:#00c !important}.gbi .gb4{color:#dd8e27 !important}.gbf .gb4{color:#900 !important} #gbar { padding:.3em .6em !important;}</style></head><body class=""><div id=gbar><nobr><a target=_blank class=gb1 href="https://www.google.com.sg/search?tab=pw">Search</a> <a target=_blank class=gb1 href="https://www.google.com.sg/imghp?hl=en&tab=pi">Images</a> <a target=_blank class=gb1 href="https://maps.google.com.sg/maps?hl=en&tab=pl">Maps</a> <a target=_blank class=gb1 href="https://play.google.com/?hl=en&tab=p8">Play</a> <a target=_blank class=gb1 href="https://www.youtube.com/?tab=p1">YouTube</a> <a target=_blank class=gb1 href="https://news.google.com/?tab=pn">News</a> <a target=_blank class=gb1 href="https://mail.google.com/mail/?tab=pm">Gmail</a> <a target=_blank class=gb1 href="https://drive.google.com/?tab=po">Drive</a> <a target=_blank class=gb1 style="text-decoration:none" href="https://www.google.com.sg/intl/en/about/products?tab=ph"><u>More</u> »</a></nobr></div><div id=guser width=100%><nobr><span id=gbn class=gbi></span><span id=gbf class=gbf></span><span id=gbe></span><a target=_top id=gb_70 href="https://www.google.com/accounts/Login?service=print&continue=https://books.google.com.sg/books%3Fid%3DhZ8VDAAAQBAJ%26printsec%3Dfrontcover%26output%3Dhtml_text%26hl%3Den&hl=en&ec=GAZACg" class=gb4>Sign in</a></nobr></div><div class=gbh style=left:0></div><div class=gbh style=right:0></div><div class="kd-appbar"><h2 class="kd-appname"><a href="/books">Books</a></h2><div class="kd-buttonbar left" id="left-toolbar-buttons"><a id="appbar-view-print-sample-link" href="https://books.google.com.sg/books?id=hZ8VDAAAQBAJ&printsec=frontcover&output=html_text&source=gbs_vpt_read"></a><a id="appbar-view-ebook-sample-link" href=""></a><a id="appbar-patents-prior-art-finder-link" href=""></a><a id="appbar-patents-discuss-this-link" href="" data-is-grant=""></a><a id="appbar-read-patent-link" href=""></a><a id="appbar-download-pdf-link" href=""></a></div><div class="kd-buttonbar right" id="right-toolbar-buttons"></div><script>(function() {var div = document.getElementById('left-toolbar-buttons');var links = div.getElementsByTagName("a");for (var i = links.length - 1; 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