In this important contribution to the cultural and educational history of Elizabethan England, Peter Mack examines the impact of humanist training in the use of language on English prose writing. Study of the rhetorical codes and conventions in terms of which the debates of the period were conducted is currently a major area of historical and literary inquiry. Peter Mack provides a wealth of new information, showing how this humanist training was deployed in literary genres and in more practical legal and political settings.