Leicester's Commonwealth (originally titled The Copie of a Leter wryten by a Master of Arts of Cambrige) (1584) is a scurrilous book that circulated in Elizabethan England and attacked Queen Elizabeth I's favourite, Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester. The work was read as Roman Catholic propaganda against the political and religious policy of Elizabeth I's regime, particularly the Puritan sympathies fostered by Leicester. In doing so, it portrayed Leicester as an amoral opportunist of "almost satanic malevolence"[1] and circulated lurid stories of his supposed scandalous deeds and dangerous plots.
The text is presented as "a letter written by a Master of Art of Cambridge to his friend in London, concerning some talk passed of late between two worshipful and grave men about the present state and some proceedings of the Earl of Leicester and his friends in England". The title Leicester's Commonwealth was first used in the 1641 edition. The book significantly influenced Leicester's historical reputation in the ensuing centuries.
- ^ Haynes, Alan: The White Bear: The Elizabethan Earl of Leicester, Peter Owen, ISBN 0-7206-0672-1, p. 151