This was an interdisciplinary conference, held in The Shakespeare Centre, Stratford-upon-Avon, 16-17 April 2004, on all aspects of the progresses, pageants, entertainments and court culture of Queen Elizabeth I. Speakers and participants were drawn from English, History, History of Art, and Classics. Topics considered included: the political and religious contexts of the progresses; regional and local studies; civic pageants and receptions; the royal household; opposition to the progresses, popular and political; gift-giving on the progresses; civic and private hosts; the relationship between the entertainments and the Elizabethan theatre; and the role of the progresses in fashioning Elizabeth’s monarchy.

The conference featured papers from over twenty academics, with sessions being chaired by Professor Bernard Capp, Dr Elizabeth Clarke, Dr Gabriel Heaton and Dr Sarah Knight.