In this 2019 publication, Matthew Dimmock masterfully tells a story about the last two decades of Queen Elizabeth I's reign (1558–1603), a topic well covered by long-established scholarship. By placing China in the center of the monograph's subtitle (England, China and the Rainbow Portrait), the author already signals the centrality of China in his novel conceit of Elizabethan globalism beyond the received notion of Elizabethan England, which has also shaped the discourse on the symbolic and emblematic significance of the Rainbow Portrait—a strange but well-known image of the Virgin Queen—articulated largely based on Western sources, including classical mythologies.
In this handsomely produced volume of over three hundred pages with nearly ninety illustrations in color, Dimmock vividly paints a complex picture of just how China played a central role in the construction and assertion of England's nascent national identity, specifically as that of a mercantile and Protestant polity with amities toward a non-Christian world. Buoyed by its defeat of the Spanish Armada in 1588, which catapulted its belated entry into the overcrowded and competitive arenas of global trade in the sixteenth century, England, then still without direct access to China, turned its desiring gaze toward this fabled realm, figuratively and literally, both as the veritable center of the world and as the most ideal domain with abundant wealth, superior governance, and advanced culture.
England thus perceived its future relations with China, or Cathay, not only as the ultimate outcome of East-bound Elizabethan foreign policy—which had already established its trading alliances with the Ottoman Empire, Russia, Morocco, Persia, India, and others—but also as the indispensable resources for further advancing England's ascendancy in the expanding global enterprise. Unlike Spain, which, driven by aggressive religious and imperial ambitions, had established itself as a hegemon in Asian and other parts of the world by the mid-fifteenth century, England gained fluency in the newly acquired language of international diplomacy and practiced ambassadorial luxury gift bearing as learned from the Ottoman Empire and other non-European countries.
Dimmock delivers this fascinating tale by focusing on a single event, the sumptuous housewarming party hosted by Robert Cecil, secretary of state, on 6 December 1602 at Cecil House built on the Strand, which Queen Elizabeth herself attended. The author reconstructs this celebration, including the Rainbow Portrait, as the channel through which to characterize Elizabethan globalism: Cecil strategically orchestrated the branding of the queen's image textually, visually, and materially as that of England—a nation poised to become the center of the globe, toward which all nations turn seeking her wisdom and love. To that end, Dimmock guides readers through his own reconstruction of the housewarming party in eight chapters, each tantalizingly titled: “A Very Great Entertainment”; “The Play: ‘A Conference between a Gentleman Usher and a Post’”; “A Letter from China”; “A Mantle, a Portrait”; “China on the Strand”; “Love and Commerce: Writing to China”; “Attending to Sheba”; and “Reorientations.” Bookended with an introduction (“Compassing the World”) and conclusion (“Dreaming of China”), these chapters function as a scaffold to build a case for the Anglo-Sino relation, be it imaginary or aspirational, that played a pivotal role in forming England's self-perception as a global player.
Taken together, Dimmock's tightly constructed story, based on meticulous research and robust analysis, though at times largely conjectural, throws into high relief the intricately multilayered network of diplomatic and trade relations built through delicate negotiations and cultural translations that ultimately constituted a unique mercantile system that was Elizabethan globalism. At the same time, it illuminates the singular centrality of Robert Cecil as the very architect of Elizabethan globalism through the multifaceted roles he assumed in service of the queen and in pursuit of his own self-interests.
As such, this publication will appeal to readers in a wide range of disciplines, including history, art history, Renaissance studies, gender studies, translation studies, and material culture studies, to mention just a few. In sum, this beautiful, richly illustrated volume is a feast to the eye and the mind. It should be savored leisurely, one image or idea at a time, to fully appreciate the dynamic and colorful rendition of Elizabethan globalism that the author proffers in this exhaustive study.
