Surveillance, Militarism, and Drama in the Elizabethan Era

The Elizabethan period has often been represented as a 'Golden Age' featuring domestic peace and the flowering of cultural production, especially drama. Using neglected documentary evidence, Curtis C. Breight presents an opposite view, arguing that the Elizabethan state was in fact controlled by a Machiavellian faction founded by Sir William Cecil, whose power lay in focusing English energies in global conflict between Protestant England and international Catholicism. He reveals how knowledge gained through surveillance facilitated massive military and maritime operations in which many lives were lost, fuelling popular resistance to domestic and foreign policies.