Theodora Jankowski looks at both the light and the dark side of the Elizabeth character in each of John Lyly's court plays, while at the same time considering how that allegory works in terms of the various issues Lyly debates within the plays. She demonstrates how Lyly, while praising the queen and accepting her beneficence, simultaneously manages to present his audiences with the "dark queen," the opposite side of the positive image of the Queen of England.