‘[L]awfull Soveraignty’ in the Renaissance Scottish History Play: The Limits of Recognition in William Alexander’s

Abstract: This article examines literary discussions of sovereignty in two history plays by the Scottish courtier William Alexander, The Alexandraean Tragedy and The Tragedy of Julius Caesar , which were published during the debates about the Anglo-Scottish union under James VI and I. Alexander’s plays speak to problems in the premodern European sovereignty paradigm, particularly its antagonistic structure, its imperial lexicon, and its reliance on historical narratives of past acknowledgments of authority that I label ‘sovereign recognitions’. The pervasive effects of this discourse are evident even in the more innovative political writing of George Buchanan (1506–1582) and James himself, as well as in the royal government’s arguments for the union as the restoration of the ancient ‘Imperiall Crowne’ of Great Britain. Alexander’s plays, by contrast, employ a form of the recognition scene, including a character’s or the audience’s realisation of a greater truth, to challenge sovereign recognitions and to reflect on the meaning of ‘lawfull Soveraignty’. By understanding the premodern paradigm’s dependence on narrative and acts of recognition, we can see how literary texts such as Alexander’s drama contributed to early political thought, often responding more thoughtfully to the discourse’s shortcomings than most governmental documents, political treatises, or chronicles.