Professor Susan Doran’s incisive and lively talk on the male rivalries surrounding Elizabeth I

Professor Doran of Oxford University spoke to a large audience in the new Humanities Lecture Theatre at 7 Woodland Road about the males at Elizabeth’s court across the decades of her reign.  She presented a series of case studies of the rivalries which Queen Elizabeth had to deal with.  In a lecture illustrated by Tudor portraits she introduced the characters of Leicester, Sussex, Nottingham, Norfolk, Burghley and his son Robert Cecil and less powerful but equally intriguing figures like Philip Sidney, Southampton, Oxford and Walter Ralegh.  Male status and ego were very much emphasized and the idea that this was a reign riven by faction was challenged by Professor Doran.  The audience was a mixture of Bristol Sixth Formers and adults and after our Q & A session many sixth formers stayed behind to ask their own questions to Professor Doran.