The Honorable Burden of Public Office traces the rise of civic humanism in England through the
lives and careers of six prominent Elizabethans - John Cheke Walter Haddon Thomas Wilson
Thomas Smith Nicholas Bacon and William Cecil. It not only recreates the network of intricate
relationships and activities that reshaped Elizabethan political culture it explores the
connections between English humanism and the Continental Renaissance and it shows the
development of England's emerging classical culture within a broader European context. A solid
detailed and original scholarly work based on extensive archival research The Honorable
Burden of Public Office demonstrates how the integration of ideas and actions transformed
politics and society in the sixteenth century.
