Exploring Russia in the Elizabethan Commonwealth : The Muscovy Company and Giles Fletcher, the Elder (1546-1611).

Cover -- Half-title -- Series information -- Title page -- Copyright information -- Dedication -- Table of contents -- List of figures -- Acknowledgments -- List of abbreviations -- Notes on style, dates and terminology -- Introduction -- Notes -- Chapter 1 An adventuring commonwealth -- The English 'discovery' of Muscovy -- The Establishment of Anglo-Russian Diplomatic Relations, 1555-88 -- Negotiating Commonwealth in the Muscovy Company Abroad -- Maintaining commonwealth: order and honour in a foreign land -- Disorder and dishonour in the commonwealth abroad -- Merchants behaving badly: corruption within the Muscovy Company -- 'We feare the pounishement of death': interloping and the tyranny of monopoly -- Notes -- Chapter 2 A commonwealths-man in Russia -- Giles Fletcher, the elder: scholar, poet and parliament-man -- Remembrancer of the City of London -- Training on the job: Fletcher's embassies -- Fletcher's Russian commission -- Fletcher's ambassadorial writings -- 'The summe of my negotiation': civility and sequestration -- 'Means of decay &amp -- remedies': troubleshooting the Muscovy trade -- Notes -- Chapter 3 Creating a feigned commonwealth -- Constructing the Russe Common Wealth -- The significance of Fletcher's prefatory material -- Fletcher's historical additions -- Elaborating on the Tartars: additional information -- Revising and pruning for print publication -- Continuity in Fletcher's texts -- Richard Hakluyt's The Principall Navigations (1589) and Fletcher's of the Russe Common Wealth (1591) -- Writing the monarch: Fletcher's literary ambitions -- Notes -- Chapter 4 A corrupted commonwealth -- God's providence in Russia -- Corruptions of the Russe commonwealth -- Russia's corrupt Christianity -- The consequences of tyrannical government in the Russian commonwealth -- Civil Tartars and barbarous Russians -- Notes.

Chapter 5 A commonwealth counselled -- Models of tyranny and the late Elizabethan regime -- Evil counsel in the commonwealth -- The Russian parliament and the English commonwealth -- The fate of the nobility under a tyrant -- Resisting tyrannical rule in the commonwealth -- Russian popery, English anti-popery -- Economic oppression in the tyrannical commonwealth -- Russian and Irish comparisons -- Notes -- Chapter 6 A controversial commonwealth -- Fletcher censored -- The Politics of Fletcher's Love Poetry -- Defending Poetic Counsel: Fletcher's prefatory material -- The Politics of Sonneteering -- Fletcher and courtly love: the sonnets -- A mirror for magistrates? Fletcher's 'Richard III' -- 'My syncere love and incorrupt hart towards hir Majestie my most deer Soveraign': Fletcher's later career -- Notes -- Conclusion -- Notes -- Select bibliography -- Index.

Concentrates on the fascinating life and work of Giles Fletcher, the elder (1546-1611) and his analysis of government and commonwealth, through the image of Russia. His account of Russia remains the most comprehensive early modern western European account of the 'barbaric' land on Christendom's borders.

Description based on publisher supplied metadata and other sources.

Electronic reproduction. Ann Arbor, Michigan : ProQuest Ebook Central, 2024. Available via World Wide Web. Access may be limited to ProQuest Ebook Central affiliated libraries.