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Piety, Patriotism, and Empire: Lessons for England, Spain, and the New World in the Works of Richard Hakluyt*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 November 2018

David A. Boruchoff
David A. Boruchoff*
Affiliation:
McGill University
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Abstract

This essay examines the didactic intent of historical works that modern critics, under the influence of a later, especially Victorian, view of English history, have construed as unalloyed propaganda for Protestant England in the pursuit of empire and in its rivalry with Catholic Spain. Careful analysis of the editorial practices of Richard Hakluyt (ca. 1552–1616) reveals that he and others of his generation instead employed patriotic conceits, such as the claim to God's Providence and protection, in a more complex and circumspect manner: as both encouragement and a corrective to national endeavor and as a yardstick against which to measure what was actually done.

Type
Studies
Information
Renaissance Quarterly , Volume 62 , Issue 3 , Fall 2009 , pp. 809 - 858
Copyright
Copyright © 2009 Renaissance Society of America

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Footnotes

*

The research in this essay was supported by a Major Collaborative Research Initiative grant from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada for the project “Making Publics: Media, Markets and Association in Early Modern Europe, 1500–1700” (www.makingpublics.mcgill.ca). I also thank Megan Moore of the Center for Renaissance Studies at the Newberry Library in Chicago for procuring copies of the texts by Las Casas cited in these pages. All translations are my own unless otherwise indicated.

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