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the cloak of Petrarch to instead position the Queen as a mere lover. Marriage, a constant reminder to Elizabeth of her restricting femininity, would not allow her submission. Victor Von Klarwill for example accounts Baron Caspar Breuner as stating that Elizabeth would ‘rather go into a nunnery, or for that matter suffer death, than marry against her will’. Interestingly, one can postulate that this sonnet was either recited to a private audience at court or circulated through a manuscript – perhaps both. Consequently, the sonnet declares the monarch’s superior wit and literary abilities, in addition to denouncing gendered expectations, delivered through the form of common court entertainment.

The common argument is that a monarch’s verse is an expression of complete authority. This is – or, should be – a motion abandoned. Whilst this is true to some extent – why should Henry VIII need to heighten his power as a fearful tyrant? As Jonathan Goldberg maintains a monarch surely has some ‘instrument of royal power’. The likes of Herman – with his gesticulation of the ‘political imaginary’ – would fundamentally disagree that royal power is equivalent to absolute power. He argues that monarchs write verse with the means of ‘manipulating or appropriating the political imaginary of monarchy to enhance his or her position’. I wholly support Herman’s sentiment which implies that the monarch does not write to ‘rise’ positionally – this is impossible. However, I do take issue with the verb ‘enhance’. I believe Elizabeth cannot be grouped alongside male monarchs so easily. As a sole female ruler, she needed to create power before she ‘enhanced’ it.