Love Letters to Fortune: Queen Elizabeth’s Lottery of 1567–1569

In this study, Michael Witmore examines the early modern practice of drawing lotteries, one that has roots in antiquity but became a source of public funding and entertainment. By demonstrating the ways in which these practices engaged a desire to commune with fortune and in some sense manufacture ‘chances’ in the service of entertainment and moral edification, Witmore links a popular form of civic entertainment to broader ideas about the nature of contingency and the practice of playgoing in early modern England.