1. Dr Harriet Archer, Newcastle University harriet.archer@ncl.ac.uk
Women through the Looking Glass: Gender and History in the Elizabethan “Mirror” Tradition
Dr Harriet Archer,
Newcastle University

2. Readers Writers Subject matter Intersection of these roles in Complaint Poetry
c. 1410, Staedel Museum, Frankfurt

3. Female Readers
‘I would not haue a Maiden altogether forbidden, or restrained from reading … but I would haue her if she reade, to reade no other bookes but suche as bee written by godlie Fathers, to our instruction and soules healthe, and not suche lasciuious Songes, filthie Ballades, and vndecent bookes as be moste commonly now a daies sette to sale, to the greate infection of youth. I would haue our Maiden, that will attire her minde by this Mirrhor to read, (if she delight to bee a reader) the holie scripture, or other good bookes, as the bookes of Plutarche, made of suche renowmed and vertuous women as liued in tyme past, and those of Boccas tendyng to the same sence or some other, nerer to our tyme’. Thomas Salter, Mirror of Modesty (1579)

4. In De mulieribus claris and De casibus virorum illustrium:
‘Boccaccio makes the allures of women roughly analogous to the allures of fortune: they are both seductive and treacherous, but their dangers can be avoided by stoicism’.
Paul Budra, A Mirror for Magistrates and the de casibus Tradition (2000), p. 61.

5. Elizabeth I, Procession Portrait (c. 1600).
Framing narratives; inset accounts?

6. The Mirror for Magistrates (1563-87)
‘And although some realmes more careful then we, haue envayled their Crowne to their Male thinking it not meete for the fyminine sexe to beare the royal office: yet if they consyder all circumstaunces, and the chiefest vses of a prince in a realme, they shal see howe they are deceiued’. ‘Seeing women are by nature tender harted, milde, and pitiful who may better than they discharge this dutie?’ ‘And as for wisedome and pollicye, seeing it consisteth in folowing the counsel of many godly, learned, & long experienced heades, it were better to haue a Woman, who consideringe her owne weakenes and inabilitie, should be ruled thereby, than a man which presuming vpon his owne fond brayne, will heare no aduise saue his owne’. ‘For whatsoeuer man, woman, or childe, is by the consent, of the whole realme established in the royal seate, is vndoubtedlye chosen by God to be his deputie: and whosoeuer resistethe any such, resisteth against God himselfe, and is a ranke traytour and rebel’.
The Mirror for Magistrates ( )

7. Elizabethan Mirrors The Mirror for Magistrates:
A historical warning: what happens to rulers who behave badly (it isn’t pretty...)
The Mirror of Princely Deeds and Knighthood:
An idealised, fictive account of valorous behaviour; a romance.
The Mirror of Modesty:
Instructions for women on how to behave, using historical examples.
Editions of all three printed

8. Spenser’s Faerie Queene (1590s)
‘…Goddesse heauenly bright,
Mirrour of grace and Maiestie diuine,
Great Ladie of the greatest Isle…’
(I.Proem.4).
‘…thou, O fayrest Princesse vnder sky,
In this fayre mirrhour maist behold thy face’.
(II.Proem.4).

9. Spenser’s Faerie Queene (1590s)
Ne let his fayrest Cynthia refuse,
In mirrours more than one her selfe to see,
But either Gloriana let her chuse,
Or in Belphoebe fashioned to bee:
In th’one her rule, in th’other her rare chastitee.
(III.Proem.5).

10. Cate Blanchett as Elizabeth I (2007)

11. from the Mirrhor of Modestie (1579), by Thomas Salter
‘In my iudgemente there is nothyng more meete, especially for yong Maidens then a Mirrhor, there in to see and beholde how to order their dooyng. I meane not a Christall Mirrhor, made by handie Arte, by whiche Maidens now adaies, dooe onely take delight daiely to tricke and trim their tresses... No, I meane no suche Mirrhor, but the Mirrhor I meane is of muche more worthe then any Christall Mirrhor; for as the one teacheth how to attire the outwarde bodie, so the other guideth to garnishe the inwarde mynde, and maketh it meete for vertue’.
from the Mirrhor of Modestie (1579), by Thomas Salter

12. The Mirror for Magistrates (1559-1610)
Potted history of Britain, in catchy verse format
Ancient British and Medieval authority figures (eg Julius Caesar, Uther Pendragon, Richard III, Jane Shore)
Tyrants who meet sticky ends, sinners who are punished
“Autobiographical” complaints in verse, framed by dramatized commentary.
De casibus tragedy: a medieval form depicting a tragic fall from high to low,
Fortune turning like a wheel, or....

13. ‘Like a Rolling Stone’, Bob Dylan (1965)
Once upon a time you dressed so fine You threw the bums a dime in your prime, didn’t you? People’d call, say, “Beware doll, you’re bound to fall” You thought they were all kiddin’ you You used to laugh about Everybody that was hangin’ out Now you don’t talk so loud Now you don’t seem so proud About having to be scrounging for your next meal How does it feel How does it feel To be without a home Like a complete unknown Like a rolling stone?

14. Jane Shore, or ‘Shore’s Wife’.
The first and most famous woman to feature in the Mirror for Magistrates (added in 1563).
The most popular Mirror complaint.
The model for sixteenth-century female verse complaints.
Likened to “a rolling stone” in Thomas Churchyard’s 1593 version of the complaint.

15. The Penance of Jane Shore
Robert Scott Lauder,
The Penance of Jane Shore

16. Jane Shore, print by Edward Scriven, 1821

17. Emily Berrington as Jane Shore in the BBC’s The White Queen (2013).

18. Jane Shore’s complaint, Mirror for Magistrates (1563)
“My grave mischance, my fall and heavy state, Is such a mark whereat each tongue doth shoot, That my good name is plucked up by the root”. “…Loud reproach doth sound unto the skies And bids my corpse out of the grave arise, As one that may no longer hide her face, But needs must come and show her piteous case”. “I heard the voice of me what people said, But then to speak alas I was afraid”. “Wherefore give ear, good Baldwin do thy best, My tragedy to place among the rest”. “Giue me leave to plead my cause at large”

19. Female Power Jane Shore: Queen Helena: Eleanor Cobham’s witch:
“I governed him that ruled all this land:  I bare the sword though he did wear the crown,  I struck the stroke that threw the mighty down”.
Queen Helena:
“His mighty Mace did rule the Monarchy,  My wit did rule (some writers say) his Mace”. 
Eleanor Cobham’s witch:
“There was a Beldame called the witch of Ey,  Old mother Madge her neighbours did her name  Which wrought wonders in countries by heresy  Both fiends and fairies her charming would obey  And dead corpses from grave she could uprear”. 

20. Eleanor Cobham
“If a poor lady damned in exile Amongst princes may be allowed place Then gentle Baldwin stay thy pen awhile And of pure pity ponder well my case”. ‘Surely (said one of the company) this Lady hath don much to move the hearers to pity her…But I marvel much where she learned all this Poetry touched in her tale, for in her days, learning was not common, but a rare thing, namely in women. […] Me think (quod another) she passeth bounds of a Ladies modesty, to inveigh so cruelly against the Cardinal Beaufort. Not a whit (quod another) having such cause as she had, & somewhat ye must bear with women’s passions’.

22. The Penance of Eleanor, Duchess of Gloucester (1900) Edward Austin Abbey

23. Other women depicted in the Mirror for Magistrates...

24. Statue of Sabrina Quarry Dingle, River Severn (1846)
John Higgins,
The First Part of the Mirror for Magistrates (1574)
Complaint of Sabrine.
‘A virgin small, appeared before my sight,  For cold and wet eke scarcely move she might,  As from the waters drowned she diddering came:  Thus wise, her tale in order did she frame’. 

25. Sabrina’s complaint
‘My lamenting made the soldiers sad,  Yet nought prevailed’.
‘What pen or tongue, or tears with weeping eye,  Could tell my woes, that saw my mother bound,  On water’s shore, wherein she should be drowned’. 

26. Cordelia and King Lear in prison, William Blake (c. 1779)
John Higgins,
Complaint of Cordila (1574)
‘She stayed a while, her colour came and went,  And doubtful was that would have told her pain:
  In woeful sort she seemed to lament,  And could not well her tongue from talk refrain, 
For why her griefs unfold she would right fain,  Yet bashful was’.
Cordelia and King Lear in prison, William Blake (c. 1779)
“A woman yet must blush when bashful is the case,  Though truth bid tell the tale and story as it fell:  But since that I mislike not audience, time nor place,  Therefore, I cannot still keep in my counsel well:  No greater case of hart then griefs to tell,  It daunteth all the dolors of our mind,  Our careful hearts thereby great comfort find”. 

27. Complaint of Lady Aebbe The Second Part of the Mirror for Magistrates (1578).
“The ear of man the like hath never heard, No pen, nor tongue the like hath ever told, Had ever man a heart that was so hard, That with his iron breast durst be so bold, To do the like against the Feminine kind? Not one in faith that ever I could hear, But these”. ‘Writers have made mention of none that might compare with her, both for the goodness of the cause, and the valiant going through with the quarrel. Now a multitude may be found, who furnish their unperfect personages with all kind of foolish filthy furnitures, to bestow that on every he who will have it, which she was so desirous to keep’.

28. Coldingham Priory, Berwickshire
Image:

29. Queen Helena, Museo Capitolino in Rome

30. Queen Helena The Second Part of the Mirror for Magistrates (1578)
‘She planted religion amongst her subjects, which were at that time savage, neither knowing God, nor esteeming godliness, she was Daughter unto King Coell: she was Queen of Britain, Empress of the world, Wife unto Constantius: Mother to Constantine the Great. Yet the descriptions of time, I mean the Chronicles, have left so little report of her, that I found her standing betwixt Forgetfulness and Memory, almost smothered with Oblivion. We should do her great wrong to deny her a place in this Pageant, Speak therefore good Madame Hellina’.

31. Byzantine Constantine and St Helena

32. Helena’s Complaint
“Men’s due deserts each Reader may recite, For men of men do make a goodly show, But women’s works can never come to light, No mortal man their famous facts may know No writer will a little time bestow, The worthy works of women to repeat, Though their renown and due deserts be great. But now at last I have obtained leave, My spotless life to paint in perfect white: Though writers would all honour from me reave, Of all renown they would deprive me quite, Yet true report my deeds shall burnish bright, And rub the rust which did me much disgrace, And set my name in her deserved place”.

33. 1606 Theatre of the World, translation of Abraham Ortelius’s
Miroir du Monde (1570s).
Translated in the 1580s by
Elizabeth Cary as
‘The Mirror of the World’ (manuscript).

34. The Mirrour of Princely
Deedes
and Knighthood
Translated by
Margaret Tyler
(London, 1578).

35. Margaret Tyler, Preface
Thou hast here gentle Reader, the history of Trebatio, an Emperor in Greece: whether a true history of him in deed, or a fained fable, I know not, but by me it is done into English for thy profit & delight.
For I take the grace thereof to be rather in the reporters device, than in the truth of this report. I would that I could so well impart with thee that delight, which my self findeth in reading the Spanish: but seldom is the tale carried clean from another’s mouth.
If men may and do bestow such of their travails upon Gentlewomen, then may we women read such of their works as they dedicate unto us, and if we may read them, why not farther wade in them to the search of a truth?
It is all one for a woman to pen a story, as for a man to address his story to a woman.

36. Questions Can women claim the right to tell their
stories today? See the Independent’s
coverage of Kristen Stewart and
“The worst poem of all time, which she
recited out loud to [Marie Claire] during
her cover interview, and kindly allowed them to publish in full for their own general amusement” (11/02/14)
Mary Beard, London Review of Books, 14/02/14:
“when we are thinking about the under-representation of women in national politics, their relative muteness in the public sphere…we have to focus on the fundamental issues of how we have learned to hear the contributions of women. We need to go back to some first principles about the nature of spoken authority, about what constitutes it, and how we have learned to hear authority where we do”.