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I.

In her study of the role of theater and popular entertainments in the dissemination of the doctrine of the “king's two bodies” in the second half of the sixteenth century, Marie Axton emphasizes that this period was one of high anxiety with respect not only to the problem of royal succession but more generally to “the very principles by which government and authority are perpetuated.”¹ The legal and political problem of succession was, of course, especially acute because of Elizabeth's status as “virgin queen.” The lawyers who participated in the debates about succession—in large measure by way of propagandistic…