hly. Treasonous hopes for her death were as common as those spoken against her father and her sister. But Mary ruled for only a brief time and for Elizabeth restrictive notions about female roles and gossip about her supposed liaisons with courtiers made popular discontent an even greater threat. Scandalous tales and rumor had helped to destroy her mother and had posed a serious threat to her father. Thus Elizabeth was dedicated to controlling the processes in which the people's notion of the public Queen was produced. The suppression of sedition was only a reactive strategy and played a minor role in image control as it was practiced by the last Tudor monarch. Far more important was the nature of the public Elizabeth R being "systematically and consciously fashioned by those . . . who were specifically engaged in production of the texts, icons, and performances in which the queen was variously represented to her people, to her court, to foreign powers, and (of course) to Elizabeth herself" (Montrose 318).
Elizabeth was aided in her attempt to control this process by those with the greatest stake in her monarchy. The members of her Court sponsored the representations of the Queen, helped shape the various iconographical schemes, and even represented themselves as wholeheartedly convinced by the projected image. The rewards of politics flowed directly from Elizabeth and were contingent on participation in the maintenance of the public image of the sovereign. The most famous and striking example of the Courtier's position is the somewhat extreme case of the Earl of Essex whose secret marriage, reckless expenditures, and "propensity for foreign adventures that were spectacular failures" lost him Elizabeth's favor (Levin, Heart 150). Her refusal to renew his ten-year monopoly on sweet wines precipitated financial disaster for Essex and provoked his ill-fated rebellion. Prior to this Essex had been one of the primary practitio...