Throughout history, the realities of contemporary cultural climates have always been subject to the analysis of the writers and artists of the day. This is no less true in the context of Elizabethan England; as Louis Montrose puts it, “the ruler and the ruled are construable as subjects … shaped within a shared conjuncture of cultural forms and social relations, who jointly reshaped that conjuncture in the continuous process of performing, speaking, picturing, and writing” (3). Arguably the most famous of all of Elizabethan creatives, Shakespeare, contributed vastly to this reshaping of the relationship between ruler and subject. Henry IV Part 1 in particular was a commentary on modern times, relating to and helping affect and shape perceptions …show more content…
She was questioned legally as she was the child of the marriage between Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn, a marriage that would eventually end in tragedy. Elizabeth’s father executed Anne because of her suspected adultery and his own religious concerns and bastardized Elizabeth; she would spend much of her life trying to return to the state of societal acceptance she had enjoyed during the years following her birth. The affair with her mother not only delegitimized her legally, but also had an effect on the public’s view of her. The King’s actions with regard to his remarriage to Anne Boleyn were subjected to the moral standards of the English community and found lacking, which thus shed much confusion on the subject of Elizabeth’s legitimacy, even during the period of time in which she was the sole heir to the throne (Montrose 13). Elizabeth only ever partially recovered from this, being reinstated as one of many heirs to the throne in 1544 with the third and last Henrician Act of Succession. The reactions of the public would stay with her her entire reign; as Montrose once again succinctly puts it, “she would spend much of her reign dealing with the religious, legal, political, and diplomatic consequences of the sensational events that had occasioned her birth”