A Queen in a “Purple Robe”: Henry Constable’s Poetic Tribute to Mary, Queen of Scots

Abstract

The religious sonnets that the Elizabethan poet and courtier Henry Constable wrote in exile, which reveal strong post-Tridentine and continental influences, have been edited and assessed as they survive in a manuscript in the British Library (Harley MS 7553), thought to be the only witness. The rediscovery of another manuscript containing the Spiritual Sonnets, held at Berkeley Castle in Gloucestershire, throws light on the hitherto obscure history of their production and reception. It also adds four new sonnets to the canon of Constable’s poetry, three of which are addressed to Mary, Queen of Scots. This article looks at the rediscovered sonnets as pieces that fit in a larger martyrological narrative constructed around the figure of the executed queen; in addition, it brings to the fore Constable’s personal anxieties as an exiled Englishman who hoped to return home under the rule of a more tolerant king.