It is time to fill a void in renaissance drama studies by reconsidering the Stuart historical drama in the context of recent research on the history of renaissance historiography. To be sure, over the last few decades several critics have scrutinized the renaissance history play in conjunction with renaissance historiography, but only Irving Ribner's now inevitably dated investigation extends beyond the works of Shakespeare and into the Stuart period. Many critics have slandered the Stuart historical drama by insisting on its inferior status compared to Elizabethan history plays. But such defamations are based less on a thorough appreciation of the Stuart history play on its own terms and in its historical context, than on the unfounded assumption that historical drama ought to be heroical, nationalistic, and more or less ideologically coherent – that it ought to be Elizabethan in character. With the accession of James I, a new set of political ideologies fused with typically Elizabethan modes of representation (including the drama) to foster a decidedly different cultural and literary landscape in England. In appearance and rhetoric, King James presented himself as more autocratic, more convinced of his absolutist powers, than Elizabeth ever had. To sanction this image of himself, James frequently turned to historical modes of argumentation. In part as a response to these changes, the Stuart playwrights begin to rethink and redefine the role of the monarch in their history plays.