It is an early Stuart commonplace to laud Queen Elizabeth for her skillful handling of the ambitions of her most powerful courtiers. Fulke Greville, for instance, in his Dedication to Sir Philip Sidney, praises Elizabeth for avoiding “the latitudes which some modern princes allow to their favorites as supporters of government and middle walls between power and the people's envy.” As a result of this wise policy, “she never chose or cherished a favourite – how worthy soever – to monopolise over all the spirits and business of her kingdom.” As has often been noted, this judgment seems to have at least as much to do with Greville's hostility to James and his government as with enthusiasm for the late queen's famous memory. Likewise Sir Robert Naunton, in his posthumously printed Fragmenta Regalia (1633, printed 1641): “Her ministers and instruments of state … were many, and those memorable. But they were only favorites not minions, such as acted more by her own princely rules and judgment than by their own will and appetites.”

It is by no means clear that Naunton – a former client of Buckingham, once described as the duke's “creature” – wanted to criticize early Stuart government by his praise for Elizabeth. But his widely read account of Elizabeth's reign nevertheless formed the basis for a strain of politicized nostalgia in which the corrupt favoritism and domestic tyranny of James and Charles was contrasted with an idealized vision of the Elizabethan past in which the management of faction helped ensure a healthy state.