Martial power and Elizabethan political culture: military men in England and Ireland, 1558–1594 Rory Rapple (Cambridge University Press, £60) ISBN 9780521843539 An enduring symbol of Queen Elizabeth’s ‘Merry England’ is Falstaff, Shakespeare’s comic creation. The playwright almost certainly conjured him from the many unemployed army captains loitering about London. When not jossing with the ... Read more
