“Engendering England: The Restructuring of Allegiance in the Writings of Richard Morison and John Bale,” in Renaissance and Reformation, Vol. XX, No. 1, Winter 1996, pp. 50-77.

In this excerpt, Vanhoutte explores Bale's attempts at building nationalism through engendering England as a maternal figure in King Johan. Vanhoutte claims that King Johan's “primary goal may be … to impress upon its audience that ‘the Reformation will be defeated if it is nothing more than a switch in royal policy’ … [but also has concerns with the nature of monarchial and papal power, with the crimes of sedition and treason, and with the allegiances of English subjects and the abuses of the clergy.”]

The place to begin is in 1518, in Tudor England, where a disguising staged by Henry VIII's revels department signals the unifying potential of the Pagan figure, the Turk. In honor of the “Universal Peace Treaty” signed in London, the...