Elton's Old Fashioned Views

I have nearly finished reading Elton on Elizabeth I. I have found him to be a pleasurable read, though I cannot vouch for the accuracy of his narrative, having nothing to compare it to. The writing is a little old fashioned though that is to be expected for a book published in the 1950's. One thing I noticed when reading Elton today was how prejudiced he is against the Gaelic and Celtic culture. This is evident in the section on Ireland. He descibes the troubles as "the struggle of one form of civilisation (if it deserved the name) against the superior power of another". This, to me, is a very inflamatory statement. Elton goes on to describe Ireland as "virtually ungoverned and heather" and compounds his prejudice by declaring the "tribes lived in conditions reminiscent of 'heroic' poetry and perhaps more familiar from the Scottish Highlands where a similar mode of life endured even longer." Now I am no expert, but I do regard myself as an interested party where Scottish Gaelic/Highland history is concerned and I am aware of the more modern thinking on the subject that Gaelic/Celtic culture was in many ways very advanced and sophisitcated. Certainly by 1550 it was very much in decline in the Scottish Highlands, where the monarchy had stripped the McDonald Lordship of the Isles of real power and the resulting vacuum, which the crown had declined to fill had fuelled a descent into the clan anarchy which is so often popularised in film and book. But throughout the middle ages the Gaelic/Celtic Lordship of the Isles (the Hebrides and West Highlands ruled from Islay) had a sophisticated culture that included an elaborate legal and judicial system and the written word. This was far in advance of the feuding medieval states of Western Europe.

Now I know that Ireland had travelled further down the path of Anarchy than the Highlands by 1550, but Elton describes a land totally alien to his own value system and I think that is where his problem, and those of many others, lies in that it appears to have clouded his ability to be objective. He seems to have forgotten that the Celtic/Irish church rivalled Rome for dominance of the Catholic Church in the early Middle Ages until the Synod of Whitby (?) settled in favour of Rome.

Reading Elton I am struck by the thought that Elizabeth's reign was dominated by 3 themes. The first was religion, specifically the violent counter reformation and attempts by Mary to return England to Rome and the demands of a vociferous minority who wanted to purify the English church and make it even more vigourously protestant on the model of Calvin. Elizabeth's own preference and inclination was for a moderate church, on Henrician lines.

The second theme was European politics and the threat, and subsequent reality, of war which this brought. European politics was dominated by the reformation and counter-reformation and by the rivalry between the houses of Valois and Hapsburg (France and Spain). Rebellion in the Spanish Netherlands led to over over 30 years of protracted war in which England was at first only unnofficially involved. Later England's involvement became formal and saw such events as the burning of Cadiz by Drake and the Spanish Armada in 1588. England maintained a small army in the Netherlands and an armed presence in Ireland, to deny it to Spain.

The third theme was the poverty of the crown and government. Elizabeth, as I have already mentioned previously, had to deal with all that these intractable issues brought with very few funds. This meant she had to rely on parliament to grant subsidies and as a consequence her reign saw a growth in the power and priveledges of parliament.

All three themes were inextricably linked, one fed the other ad infinitum and all contrived to make each more complex and difficult than perhaps they needed to be. Ultimately, the fact that England emerged from Elizabeth's reign more powerful than it began, and Elizabeth survived all the troubles is a testament to her skills and achievements as a monarch.