Everything about Ruled Britannia totally explained
Ruled Britannia is an
alternate history novel by
Harry Turtledove, first published in hardcover and paperback by
Tor Books in
2002.
Plot summary
The book is set in the year
1597, in an alternate universe where the
Spanish Armada is successful. The
Kingdom of England (and apparently most of Britain) has been conquered and returned to the fold of the
Roman Catholic Church under the rule of
Queen Isabella, daughter of
Philip II of Spain.
Queen Elizabeth, deposed, is imprisoned within the
Tower of London as her fellow
Protestants are burned as heretics by the English Inquisition.
The story is seen from the point of view of two famous playwrights: English poet
William Shakespeare, and Spanish poet
Lope de Vega; supporting characters include contemporaries
Christopher Marlowe,
Richard Burbage, and
Will Kempe.
Shakespeare enters the scene as a modest upstart playwright just coming into his own when he's contacted by members of an underground resistance movement who are plotting to overthrow the Spanish dominion of England and restore Elizabeth I to the throne. To do this, they employ Shakespeare himself, tasking him to write a play depicting the saga of
Boudicca, an ancient
Iceni queen who rebelled against the
Roman invasion of Britain in the 1st century A.D. The conspirators hope that the play will inspire its audience, Britons once again under the heel of a foreign enemy, to overthrow the Spanish.
The plan is complicated by the Spaniards who, also recognizing Shakespeare's talents, commission him to write a play depicting the life of King
Philip II of Spain and the Spanish conquest of England. Now Shakespeare must write two plays—one glorifying the valor of Britain, the other glorifying its conquest and return to the Catholic Church—at the same time. There is also a subplot of the exploits of the skirt-chasing Spanish playwright and soldier Lope de Vega, who is tasked by his superiors in the Spanish military hierarchy to keep an eye on Shakespeare (in fact, de Vega even has a part in Shakespeare's
King Philip) and while he does so flits from woman to woman.
Despite danger at every turn from both the
Spanish Inquisition and a home-grown English Inquisition, the secret play comes to fruition, and despite qualms from Shakespeare and his fellow players it's performed. As the conspirators had hoped, the audience is roused into an anti-Spanish fury and rampages through London, killing any Spaniard they see and freeing Elizabeth from the
Tower of London. Despite this victory and England's reclaimed freedom, there's considerable loss of life on both sides.
Shakespeare is rewarded by the reinstated Queen Elizabeth with a knighthood and an anulment of his unhappy marriage to
Anne Hathaway, which frees him to marry his long-time mistress. The queen also grants his daring request that his
King Philip play, which he considers to contain some of his best work, be staged. At the end of the story Shakespeare uses his new status to facilitate the escape of Lope de Vega from England.
The Play's the Thing
The book makes several references to various plays by Shakespeare, both real and fictional. Some existing plays, such as
Hamlet and
As You Like It, are given new names (
The Prince of Denmark and
If You Like It), and presumably different content. Another play mentioned,
Love's Labour's Won, is the title of an actual lost play by Shakespeare, presumed to be a sequel to the existing
Love's Labour's Lost. As the author mentions at the end of the book, he created the play "Boudicca" from elements of Shakespere's other works and from
Bonduca, an actual play on the same subject by Shakespeare's contemporary, sometime collaborator and successor, the playwright
John Fletcher.
Relation to earlier books on the same theme
The theme of the Spanish Armada winning and conquering England was used in several earlier works. The general tendency of these was to present the Armada's victory as a crucial turning point in global history, producing a world completely different from the one we know.
Thus,
Keith Roberts'
Pavane series depicts a Twentieth Century in which much of the world is ruled by a Catholic theocracy, the Inquisition is still gruesomely active and technological development is far slower than in out timeline. In
John Brunner's "
Times Without Number" England has been completely Hispanised, with the English Language barely surviving as "a debased peasant dialect".
Conversely, Turtledove's treatment of the same theme makes the Armada's victory into a far less crucial issue. The Elizabethan Age has been seriously disrupted, but not destroyed. The Queen returns triumphantly to her throne and takes up where she left off ten years previously.
Further Information
Get more info on 'Ruled Britannia'.
|
External Link Exchanges
Do you know how hard it is to get a link from a large encyclopaedia? Well we're different and will prove it. To get a link from us just add the following HTML to your site on a relevant page:
<a href="http://ruled_britannia.totallyexplained.com">Ruled Britannia Totally Explained</a>
Then simply click through this link from your web page. Our crawlers will verify your link, extract the title of your web page and instantly add a link back to it. If you like you can remove the words Totally Explained and embed the link in article text.
As long as your link remains in place, we'll keep our link to you right here. Please play fair - our crawlers are watching. Your site must be closely related to this one's topic. Any kind of spamming, dubious practises or removing the link will result in your link from us being dropped and, potentially, your whole site being banned. |
