Nicolaus Mameranus

Book excerpt: In Nicolaus Mameranus, Matthew Tibble recovers an obscure but revealing body of poetry and political commentary that the Imperial poet laureate Nicolaus Mameranus produced for the court of Mary I of England during the visit of her husband, Philip II of Spain, in 1557. Where most studies portray this period as one of decline and decay, Tibble argues instead that, for many Catholics, 1557 was characterised by hope and a sense of progression. He argues that the royal couple successfully re-forged their image as the embodiment of a political union that many considered the foundation of a new Anglo-Habsburg dynasty, and, equally successfully, represented their dual monarchy as a bastion in the fight to reform Catholic Christianity in response to the Protestant Reformation.