RESULTS OF EDUCATIONAL INITIATIVES OF COURT RENAISSANCE THINKERS IN THE CONNECTION OF THE PROBLEM OF EDUCATION OF THE “IDEAL RULER”

The article is devoted to the coverage of the results of pedagogical initiatives of Renaissance thinkers in the context of the problem of educating the “ideal ruler”. In addition to the theoretical development of the image of the “ideal ruler” and ideas for his upbringing, humanists had the opportunity to directly participate in the upbringing of children of nobles in the XIV – XVIth centuries. Thus, the article analyzes the best practices of elite education of the Late Middle Ages according to the author’s methods of court humanists. An important aspect of monitoring the effectiveness and reality of the measures taken by humanists to form the personality of the leader is the characterization of those historical personalities and their biographies with which they were in a “teacher-pupil” relationship. The article traces the results of the educational influences of Renaissance philosophers and educators through the study of the future fate of European authorities, through prosopographic and archontological special-historical methods of scientific knowledge. The imagological approach made it possible to assert that the experience gained by humanist educators in “nurturing statesmen from diapers” had both its achievements (for example, Philip IV the Beautiful and Sigismund Augustus) and its defeats (for example, Ferdinand of Aragon and Mary Tudor). The idea of educating the ruler with their practical Renaissance embodiment in a specific product – the formed personality of a statesman, is an important component of justifying the need to educate modern leaders.

The Visit of Envoy Osip Nepeya to England (1556–1557): Success or Failure of Russian Diplomacy?

Introduction. The visit of the Russian envoy Osip Nepeya to London in 1556–1557 is usually considered as the beginning of the official relations between Russia and England. In the light of modern views about the sixteenth-century diplomacy, this event requires a more thorough research. Methods. The Nepeya’s trip was traditionally viewed as an insignificant episode in the context of general reviews of bilateral relations concentrated mainly on trade. The reasons and possibilities of the military and political rapprochement between England, Spain and Russia in the 1550s, which was the most likely goal of the Nepeya’s journey to England, have never been investigated. Therefore, this article is based on an analysis of numerous multilingual sources. Analysis. The author clarifies the Nepeya’s diplomatic rank and certain previously unknown details of the Muscovites’ stay in London. He analyzes Nepeya’s mission to England in the context of foreign affairs of Ivan IV, Mary Tudor and Philip II Habsburg. Results. It is concluded that the rulers of Spain and England could provide military support to Ivan IV, but they were not interested in military and political alliance with the Muscovy and the war against Turkey. However, establishing official equal relations between England and Russia at the highest level, as well as obtaining trade privileges for Russian merchants was the main result of Nepeya’s trip. This allows us to conclude that the first Russian diplomatic mission in London was successful.

Mary Tudor – From the Page to the Screen

This article explores representations of Mary I of England, wife of Philip II of Spain. Specifically, it examines the portrayal of the queen – perhaps most famously known by the epithet ‘Bloody Mary’ – in the TV series Carlos, Rey Emperador (2015-2016), and in its associated online supporting materials. It details how textual representations of Mary underpin European visual depictions of the queen, and considers the ways in which Mary transcends stereotypical, quintessentially English-language portrayals of Mary for Spanish and Portuguese audiences. In doing so, it posits wider observations on the mnemonic strategies underpinning the series Carlos, Rey Emperador, and its different framings for Spanish and Portuguese audiences on the Internet.

The Accession of Mary Tudor

When Edward VI died, Mary Tudor’s chances of merely retaining her freedom, let alone of succeeding her brother on the throne, seemed slim. Her survival and eventual triumph over her enemies must have seemed to her supporters, as it later seemed to Cardinal Reginald Pole preaching to the Lords and Commons in Westminster, clearly providential. Heywood’s response to the accession of his former patron Mary Tudor is the subject of this chapter, which examines accounts of his oration at her coronation and the ballad he wrote to celebrate her marriage to Prince Philip of Spain, the future king Philip I. It suggests the web of delicate irony that the playwright spins in the ballad to place Philip as distinctly ‘second’ to Mary in status and significance, thus supporting the queen’s attempts to counter fears that she would be political subservient to her powerful foreign spouse.

Discord, Dissent, and Division

Even if we cannot follow Heywood’s engagement with the fine details of political events in his work in these years in quite the way that we could through his earlier interludes, it is nonetheless possible, and important, to track his path against the wider picture of English Reformation politics, the advance of royal policy and the reactions it provoked, in order to see how the twists and turns of Fortune’s favour affected him, his family, and influential patrons such as Mary Tudor, and how and why Heywood was brought to his own crisis of conscience in the winter of 1543. This chapter examines Heywood’s fortunes in the years following More’s death against the curious contortions of Henry VIII’s religious policy, describing the evolution of Henry’s Erasmian ‘middle way’ in religion, and the tensions that it permitted and exacerbated, setting the scene for Heywood’s condemnation for treason for denying the Royal Supremacy in 1542.

Bellicose Verse

The final poem that Heywood published during the reign of Mary Tudor, and perhaps the last new poetic work he would publish in his lifetime, was a rather more overtly loyalist and patriotic work, the Brief Ballet [Ballad] touching the Traitorous Taking of Scarborough Castle, printed by Thomas Powell in 1557 and known as ‘Scarborough Warning’. This chapter examines this little-known ballad, which condemns the brief, treasonable seizure of Scarborough Castle by Thomas Stafford and a group of English exiles with French support. It sets the poem’s agenda in the complex circumstances of Anglo-French diplomacy in the later Marian years, and demonstrates how it contributed to the campaign to persuade the privy council and City of London to support Queen Mary’s intention to declare war on France in support of her husband, Philip II.