Sartorial Politics in Early Modern Europe: Fashioning Women 9789048537242

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Sartorial Politics in Early Modern Europe

Visual and Material Culture, 1300–1700 A forum for innovative research on the role of images and objects in the late medieval and early modern periods, Visual and Material Culture, 1300–1700 publishes monographs and essay collections that combine rigorous investigation with critical inquiry to present new narratives on a wide range of topics, from traditional arts to seemingly ordinary things. Recognizing the fluidity of images, objects, and ideas, this series fosters cross-cultural as well as multi-disciplinary exploration. We consider proposals from across the spectrum of analytic approaches and methodologies. Series Editor Dr. Allison Levy, an art historian, has written and/or edited three scholarly books, and she has been the recipient of numerous grants and awards, from the National Endowment for the Humanities, the American Association of University Women, the Getty Research Institute, the Dumbarton Oaks Research Library of Harvard University, the Whiting Foundation and the Bogliasco Foundation, among others. www.allisonlevy.com.

Sartorial Politics in Early Modern Europe Fashioning Women

Edited by Erin Griffey

Amsterdam University Press

Cover illustration: Jacob Heinrich Elbfas, Christina as a young regent under guardianship, 1637, oil on canvas. Nationalmuseum, Stockholm. Cover design: Coördesign, Leiden Lay-out: Newgen/Konvertus isbn 978 94 6298 600 8 e-isbn 978 90 4853 724 2 doi 10.5117/9789462986008 nur 685 © E. Griffey / Amsterdam University Press B.V., Amsterdam 2019 All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this book may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise) without the written permission of both the copyright owner and the author of the book. Every effort has been made to obtain permission to use all copyrighted illustrations reproduced in this book. Nonetheless, whosoever believes to have rights to this material is advised to contact the publisher.

Acknowledgements The idea for this project started with a dress. In April 2016, it was announced that a group of divers had discovered a shipwreck – apparently from the mid seventeenth century – in the Wadden Sea off the Dutch island of Texel. The divers found a dramatic haul of objects, including an array of silk garments. Amongst these was one that dominated news headlines – a silk dress which was initially connected to one of Henrietta Maria’s ladies-in-waiting, who lost her baggage at sea in 1642. Although this identification turned out to be incorrect, it sparked my imagination, since so few original garments survive from this period. I was lucky enough to see some of these garments and fragments in person, and it reminded me how historians rely heavily on clothing as it is portrayed in portraits and documented in accounts and inventories. But there is still so much more to discover about the relationship between actual garments and those portrayed, described, and listed. Physical garments remind us of the real currency of clothing, as material value, as social status, as national identity, as familial belonging. They were not just worn for practical reasons of warmth and modesty; the fabrics, colours, cut, and decoration were also carefully selected to articulate value and meaning. While scientific analysis continues on the shipwreck and its goods, and dress historians examine the materials, construction, and countries of origin of the clothes, the fact that they were packed in a ship reminds us that garments, like people, were regularly on the move – naturally, in some cases, by ship, whether as raw materials transported, finished garments sent as gifts, shipped for long-term moves (something royal brides knew all too well at this time), or for short-term trips. Certainly, my ability to travel was instrumental in preparing this volume. For this, I am grateful to the University of Auckland for a generous Faculty of Arts Research Development Grant that enabled me to make a number of trips to the UK and Europe. My fellow contributors are based in a number of places that were very much on the sartorial map in the early modern period, and I am privileged to have been able to work with such a brilliant line-up of historians, art historians, and literary scholars. I am particularly grateful for the new research contributors undertook for their essays here. Three contributions have been translated, from Spanish, French, and German, and it is gratifying to be able to include this material in English. My students have also played an important role in the development of this collection. Many have worked on aspects of early modern elite women and dress, including Jemma Field, Katy Bond, Natalie Bell, and Mirren Brockies. Jemma worked closely with me in the initial stages of this project and remained a constant presence throughout. I could not have completed this book without the assistance of Susannah Whaley, who was instrumental in proofreading, formatting, as well as making

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a number of sharp editorial suggestions with both the essays and, critically, in the introduction. And, as many readers here will agree, I have been very lucky to have worked with Erika Gaffney at Amsterdam University Press. She has been, as always, encouraging and engaging. Finally, I would like to thank my husband and daughter for being endlessly supportive despite my long and frequent trips away from home, and to my parents, who I think will fancy this a very appropriate project for a child who was always obsessed with clothes.

Table of Contents List of Illustrations

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Introduction15 Erin Griffey 1. Isabella d’Este’s Sartorial Politics Sarah Cockram

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2. Dressing the Queen at the French Renaissance Court: Sartorial Politics Isabelle Paresys

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3. Dressing the Bride: Weddings and Fashion Practices at German Princely Courts in the Fifteenth and Sixteenth Centuries75 Kirsten O. Frieling 4. Lustrous Virtue: Eleanor of Austria’s Jewels and Gems as Composite Cultural Identity and Affective Maternal Agency93 Lisa Mansfield 5. Queen Elizabeth: Studded with Costly Jewels115 Susan Vincent 6. A ‘Cipher of A and C set on the one Syde with diamonds’: Anna of Denmark’s Jewellery and the Politics of Dynastic Display139 Jemma Field 7. ‘She bears a duke’s revenues on her back’: Fashioning Shakespeare’s Women at Court161 Robert I. Lublin 8. How to Dress a Female King: Manifestations of Gender and Power in the Wardrobe of Christina of Sweden183 Julia Holm 9. Clothes Make the Queen: Mariana of Austria’s Style of Dress, from Archduchess to Queen Consort (1634–1665) Laura Oliván Santaliestra

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10. ‘The best of Queens, the most obedient wife’: Fashioning a Place for Catherine of Braganza as Consort to Charles II227 Maria Hayward

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11. Chintz, China, and Chocolate: The Politics of Fashion at Charles II’s Court253 Juliet Claxton and Evelyn Welch 12. Henrietta Maria and the Politics of Widows’ Dress at the Stuart Court Erin Griffey

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Works Cited

303

Index333

List of Illustrations Colour Plates 1. Titian, Isabella in Black, c. 1534–36, oil on canvas. Kunsthistorisches ­Museum, Vienna. KHM-Museumsverband. 2. Workshop of Frans Pourbus the Younger, Marie de’ Medici, Queen of France, c. 1610, oil on canvas. Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam 3. Joos van Cleve, Eleanora of Austria, Queen of France, c. 1531–34, oil on panel. Royal Collection Trust / © Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II 2018. 4. Nicholas Hilliard, Queen Elizabeth I, 1576–78, oil on panel. Waddesdon Manor. Photo: Wikimedia Commons. 5. William Segar (attributed), Elizabeth I (The Ermine Portrait), c. 1585, oil on panel. Reproduced with permission of the Marquess of Salisbury, Hatfield House. 6. Isaac Oliver, Anna of Denmark, c.1612, watercolour on vellum laid on playing card. Royal Collection Trust / © Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II 2018. 7. Christina’s coronation cloak, in its current state after having been remodelled. The Royal Armoury, Sweden, Erik Lernerstål, CC BY-SA 3.0. 8. Diego de Velázquez, Mariana of Austria, 1652, oil on canvas. © Archivo ­Fotográfico Museo Nacional del Prado, Madrid. 9. King Charles II and Catherine of Braganza with allegories of the four continents, beadwork basket, after 1662. 39.13.1, purchase, Mrs Thomas J. Watson Gift, 1939. Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. 10. Peter Lely, Louise de Kérouaille, Duchess of Portsmouth, c. 1671–1674, oil on canvas. Image Courtesy of Getty’s Open Content Program. 11. Gerrit van Honthorst, Elizabeth of Bohemia, 1642, oil on canvas. National Gallery of Art, London NG6362.

Black and white figures Figure 1.1: Master of the Pala Sforzesca (Sforza Altarpiece), Madonna and Child Enthroned, the Doctors of the Church and the Family of Ludovico il Moro (his wife Beatrice d’Este and sons), 1494, tempera on panel Pinacoteca di Brera, Milan. ©2018. Photo Scala, Florence / courtesy of the Ministero Beni e Att. Culturali e del Turismo

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Figure 1.2: Piero del Pollaiuolo, Galeazzo Maria Sforza, c. 1471, tempera on panel. Galleria degli Uffizi, Florence. Figures 1.3a and 1. 3b: I mprese of Isabella d’Este. Insignia … IX. Insignia Veneta, Mantuana, Bononiensia, Anconitana, Urbinatia, Perugiensia, Italian, 1550–1555. Bayerische Staatsbibliothek München / Bavarian State Library, Cod.icon. 274, fol. 103r and fol. 104r, urn:nbn:de:bvb:12-bsb00001421-6 Figure 1.4: Portrait of a Young Woman (Eleonora Gonzaga?), also known as The Boston Raphael, c. 1505, oil on panel. Galleria degli Uffizi, Florence. Figures 1.5a and 1.5b: Late sixteenth-century doll. Photographers: Erik Lernestål / Helena Bonnevier, Swedish Royal Armoury (CC BY-SA), Inventory Number: 77 (56:15) 260 Figure 1.6: Francesco Bonsignori, The Adoration of the Blessed Osanna Andreasi, 1519, tempera on panel, Palazzo Ducale, Mantua / Bridgeman Images. Figure 1.7: Francesco Bonsignori, Drawing of Isabella d’Este, 1519, black chalk on paper. © Trustees of the British Museum. Figure 1.8: Giulio Romano, Margherita Paleologa, c. 1531, oil on panel. Royal Collection Trust / © Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II 2018 Figure 2.1: Jan Wierix, Marie de’ Medici, 1601, engraving. Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam. Figure 2.2: Charles Martin, Marie de’ Medici and her son the ‘dauphin’ ­Louis, 1603, oil on canvas. Musée des Beaux-Arts du Château, Blois. Figure 3.1: Wenceslaus Hollar after Hans Holbein the Younger, Anne of Cleves, etching. Royal Collection Trust/©Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II 2018 Figure 4.1: Attributed to the Master of the Guild of St. George, Emperor Charles V at the age of two together with his sisters Eleanor and Isabelle, 1502, oil on panel. Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna. Figure 4.2: Jean Hey (called Master of Moulins) (fl. 1480–1500), Margaret of Austria, c. 1490, oil on oak panel. Robert Lehman Collection, 1975 (1975.1.130) © The Metropolitan Museum of Art / Image source: Art Resource, NY. Figure 4.3: Titian, The Empress Isabella, 1548, oil on canvas. Museo del Prado, Madrid. Inventory number: Pooo415 Figure 4.4: Workshop of Anthonis Mor, Maria of Portugal, 1550–55, oil on canvas. Convento de las Descalzas Reales, Madrid. Photo Credit: Album / Art Resource, NY.

List of Illustrations

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Figure 4.5: Workshop of Joos van Cleve, Eleanor of Austria, after 1530, oil on oak panel. ©fotógrafo José Pessoa, Museu Nacional de Arte Antiga, Lisbon. Direção-Geral do Património Cultural / Arquivo de Documentação Fotográfica (DGPC/ADF). Figure 4.6: Workshop of Anthonis Mor, Eleanor of France, 1549–50, oil on panel. Convento de las Descalzas Reales, Madrid. Figure 5.1:  Unknown maker, pendant (salamander), late sixteenth ­century, enamelled gold set with pearls and an emerald. Salting Bequest © Victoria and Albert Museum, London. Figure 5.2: Nicholas Hilliard, Elizabeth I (The Phoenix Portrait), c. 1575, oil on panel. © National Portrait Gallery, London. Figure 5.3: British School, Elizabeth I, c. 1580–1603, oil on panel. Royal Collection Trust / © Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II 2018. Figure 5.4: Nicholas Hilliard, Elizabeth I, c. 1600, portrait miniature in a case of enamelled gold set with diamond and ruby. © Victoria and Albert Museum, London. Figure 5.5: Unknown maker, pendant (The Wild jewel), 1590s, central turquoise cameo of Elizabeth I set in enamelled gold with diamonds, rubies and pearls, and pendant pearls. © Victoria and Albert Museum, London. Figure 5.6: Unknown artist, Sir Christopher Hatton, probably 17th century based on a work of 1589, oil on panel. © National Portrait Gallery, London. Figure 6.1: Attributed to Adrian Vanson, James VI of Scotland, 1595, oil on panel. National Galleries of Scotland, Edinburgh. Figure 6.2: Anna of Bavaria, illustrated jewellery inventory. Bayerische Staatsbibliothek München, Cod.icon. 429, fol. 8v. Figure 6.3: Danish made (?), (Possibly by Dirich Fyring in Odense), bracelet with interior links bearing crowned “C4” monogram, c. 1593– 1600, hinged links of gold with niello, rubies, and diamonds. The Royal Danish Collection, Rosenborg Castle, Copenhagen. Figure 6.4: Paul van Somer, Elizabeth Grey, Countess of Kent, c. 1619, oil on panel. Tate, London. Figures 7.1a-e: Queen Elizabeth’s 1597 Proclamation Against Excess of Apparel. Queen’s College Sel.b.230 (254). Reproduced by permission of The Provost and Fellows, The Queen’s College, Oxford. Figure 8.1: David Beck, Christina of Sweden, 1650, oil on canvas. Nationalmuseum, Stockholm, 0308sv. Figure 8.2: Samples of black ribbons bought by the delegation in 1650. Photo: the Author. SLA, Klädkammaren, Räkenskaper, B 37, s.171.

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Figure 8.3: Henrik Münnischhofen, Magnus Gabriel De la Gardie and Maria Eufrosyne av Pfalz-Zweibrücken, 1653. Nationalmuseum Stockholm, Grh34. Figure 8.4: A page from Queen Christina’s wardrobe account book of 1647. Photo: the author. SLA, Klädkammaren, Räkenskaper II, B 31, p. 58V. Figure 8.5: Jacob Heinrich Elbfas, Christina as a young regent under guardianship, 1637, oil on canvas. Nationalmuseum, Stockholm, Grh0504-färg-Gr. Figure 8.6: Pierre II Mariette, Christina on horseback, 1656, engraving. ­Nationalmuseum, Stockholm, Cecilia Heisser, TiG2745-fram. Figure 9.1: Frans Luycx, Ferdinand with his sister, Mariana of Austria, as children, 1637, oil on canvas. © Kunsthistorisches Museum, Wien. Figure 9.2: Frans Luycks, Mariana of Austria, 1639, oil on canvas. © Archivo Fotográfico Museo Nacional del Prado. Figure 9.3: Frans Luycks, Mariana of Austria, 1646, oil on canvas. © Archivo Fotográfico Museo Nacional del Prado. Figure 9.4: Workshop of Velazquez (attributed to Martínez del Mazo), Mariana of Austria in a Light Red Dress, 1651–1661, oil on canvas. © Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna. Figure 9.5: Workshop of Velázquez, Mariana of Austria praying, 1655–1661, oil on canvas. © Patrimonio Nacional, El Escorial. Figure 10.1: Wenceslaus Hollar, Catherine of Braganza, 1661, etching. Harris Brisbane Dick Fund, 1928. Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. Figure 10.2: Royal warrant signed by Catherine of Braganza, 1667, on ­vellum. E.522–1911 © Victoria and Albert Museum, London. Figure 10.3: Fragment of wall paper or lining paper with half-length figures of Charles II and Catherine of Braganza, c. 1662, woodblock print on paper. E.1258–1933. Given by Mr H. Lambert Williams © Victoria and Albert Museum, London. Figure 10.4: Mirror frame, with a border of satin embroidered with silk and metal thread, and framed in wood painted to imitate lacquer, 1660–80, 351–1886 © Victoria and Albert Museum, London. Figure 10.5: Dish with portraits of Charles II and Catherine of Braganza, c. 1662–85, tin glazed earthenware, Brislington pottery. 3869–1901, transferred from the Museum of Practical Geology, ­Jermyn Street © Victoria and Albert Museum, London. Figure 11.1:  Fragment of seventeenth-century Indian, cotton chintz. © Victoria and Albert Museum, London. Figure 11.2: A fashionable man’s attire, published in Mercure Galant, Paris, October 1678. Bibliothèque Nationale de France.

List of Illustrations

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Figure 11.3: A fashionable couple visiting a shop, published in Mercure Galant, Paris, January 1678. Bibliothèque Nationale de France. Figure 11.4: Detail of a room with chintz hangings from the Dolls’ House of Petronella Dunois, 1678. Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam. Figure 11.5: Seventeenth-century blanc-de-chine figures in European dress. © Victoria and Albert Museum, London. Figure 11.6: Detail showing glass-fronted porcelain cupboards, from the Dolls’ House of Petronella Oortman, 1686. Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam. Figure 11.7: Recipe for making chocolate, with an illustration of a chocolate pot, by Lady Ann Fanshawe (1625–1680). Wellcome Library, London. Figure 12.1: Unknown artist, Elizabeth of Bohemia, 1613, oil on panel. © National Portrait Gallery, London. Figure 12.2: Unknown artist, Anna of Denmark, 1628–44, oil on panel. © National Portrait Gallery, London. Figure 12.3: Michel Lasne, Anne of Austria, 17th century, engraving. © RMN-Grand Palais (Château de Versailles) / Gérard Blot. Figure 12.4: Workshop of Bernard van Orley, Margaret of Austria, c. 1519, oil on panel. Royal Collection Trust / © Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II 2018. Figure 12.5: Pierre I Firens, Marie de’ Medici, 1610, engraving. © The Trustees of the British Museum, London. Figure 12.6: Nicolas Pitau the Elder, Christine de France, 1663, engraving. © The Trustees of the British Museum, London. Figure 12.7: Pierre Daret, Henrietta Maria, 1652, engraving. Royal Collection Trust / © Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II 2018. Figure 12.8: William Faithorne, Henrietta Maria, 1655, engraving from W ­ alter Montagu, The Queen’s Closet Opened. Royal Collection Trust / © Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II 2018. Figure 12.9: Richard Gaywood, Henrietta Maria, c. 1649–60, etching. © ­National Portrait Gallery, London. Figure 12.10: Henrietta Maria’s matrix seal, 1660, obverse. Royal Collection Trust / © Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II 2018. Figure 12.11: Jacob Toorenvliet and Pierre Philippe, The Feast of the Estates of Holland for Charles II, 1660, engraving. © The Trustees of the British Museum, London.

Introduction Erin Griffey

Fashion as Meaning: ‘the pattern of your imitation’ Writing in 1673, Hannah Woolley’s The Gentlewoman’s Companion; or, a Guide to the Female Sex advised women to ‘incline somewhat to the Mode of Court (which is the source and foundation of fashion); but let the example of the most sober, moderate, and modest be the pattern of your imitation’. Female clothing materialised both fashion and virtue, engagement with the court and with traditional female values. Medieval and early modern concepts of ‘costume’ and ‘habit’ embodied outer appearance or clothing as well as manners or moral qualities.1 As such, clothing was inherently powerful. It worked to link a person to the (fashionable) authority of the court, but it also had the potential (and limitations) of communicating personal morality. Essentially, clothing embodied identity. As Ulinka Rublack states, clothing was not ‘something external to the body, that could be simply put on and taken off, or that could function as an abstract sign: rather, it was seen to mould a person and materialize identity’.2 Likewise, looking specifically to the early modern court, Ann Rosalind Jones and Peter Stallybrass trace the term ‘fashion’ to its Latin origin as the verb ‘to make’, or, in its biblical sense, ‘to create’, i.e., creating a self through their appearance.3 The power of clothing in creating an immediately recognisable identity was readily understood by early modern theatre companies who relied on dress to communicate character and social status in a symbiosis of inner and outer appearance. Rank, wealth, magnificence, and personal virtue was embodied in dress, and, as such, dress was inherently political, richly materialising the qualities associated with the wearer, whatever their rank.4 1 The relationship between clothing and morality has a long history dating to antiquity. For a brief summary within the context of sixteenth-century costume books, see Ilg, ‘The Cultural Significance’, 45–47. On the double meanings of ‘costume’ and ‘habit’, see 46–47. 2 Rublack, Dressing Up, 138. 3 Jones and Stallybrass, Renaissance Clothing, 1–2. 4 For the way in which the outer also engendered the inner, see ‘The Greatness in Good Clothes: Fashioning Subjectivity in Mary Wroth’s Urania and Margaret Spencer’s Account Book (BL Add. MS 62092)’ in Snook, Women, Beauty and Power, 63–85.

Griffey, E. (ed.), Sartorial Politics in Early Modern Europe: Fashioning Women, Amsterdam University Press, 2019 doi: 10.5117/9789462986008_intro

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Clothing necessitated careful selection across every aspect of the attired body – the choice of garment type, the fabric, the cut, the colour, the texture, and the decoration.5 This was based on the inherent dialectic in clothing between the subject and the observer, presentation and perception. At the early modern court, elites were keenly aware that they were always on display, performing and being observed, with Rublack characterising the social group as being ‘supremely dress-literate’.6 This was not new to the Renaissance, however, for it was in strong evidence at the medieval court where, as Susan Crane states, the secular elite understood ‘themselves to be constantly on display, subject to the judgment of others, and continually reinvented in performance’.7 Turning to Renaissance Florence, Carole Collier Frick similarly highlights the consciousness of clothing choices when she describes the elite citizens ‘wrestl[ing] daily with self-identity, appearance and display’ in a ‘combative arena’ that was explicitly staged for display, recognition, and comprehension.8 The same can be said for the early modern courts explored in this volume. Indeed, if the court was a dominating force in fashion, providing a ‘pattern of your imitation’, its display by the power brokers of court dress – above all royalty – was loaded with both political and moral significance.9 Sartorial decisions needed to be made carefully, given not just the high visibility of clothing but also the number of people involved, the complexity of the garments, and the expense incurred. Dress in the early modern period was inherently demanding. A single outfit required a whole entourage of suppliers, tradesmen, and specialists, including mercers, tailors, embroiderers, haberdashers, milliners, pin-makers, and farthingale-makers. And it was, on the whole, very expensive, with fine materials ‒ especially silk fabrics, fancy trimmings, and rich embroidery ‒ commanding very high prices, while complicated garments needed elaborate pinning, lacing, and tying, thereby necessitating considerable time to get dressed as well as help from others.10 Moreover, in terms of sheer expense, clothing and accessories provided a vehicle for communicating the wealth and magnificence of the crown.11 The role of clothing in signalling social status and wealth has been well traversed by sociologists, dress 5 A point also made in Breward, The Culture of Fashion, 65. 6 Rublack, Dressing Up, 53. 7 Crane, ‘The Performance of Self’, 4–5. For the all-importance of display in an early modern court context, see Griffey, On Display, esp. 1–9. 8 Frick, Dressing Renaissance Florence, 1. Sophie Tomlinson highlights the silent yet expressive woman in Stuart court masques in a performance that translates directly to performance through dress: ‘The fact that women in masques were mute meant that the power of their performance lay chiefly in their sumptuous appearance and physical movement’, Women on Stage, 21. 9 As Rublack has underscored, courts inspired fashion but also counter-fashions: 10; and courts were not the only influence on clothing. 10 On the rituals and demands of dressing and undressing, see Jones and Stallybrass, Renaissance Clothing, 23. See also Marin, The Portrait of the King, 27–28, who argues that all of this work reflected the status of the wearer. 11 For clothing as a sign of royal magnificence, see Hayward, ‘Luxury or Magnificence?’.

Introduction

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historians, and fashion theorists.12 Because a fashion must be first devised and then repeated, Roland Barthes argues that to wear a certain form of dress is to accept and reinforce ‘a set of collective representations’ about what that dress means and the other conventions that go along with it.13 For a dress to be fashion, it is circulated not only as a garment but ‘broadly as a meaning’, and ‘acts out meaning’.14 Clothes spoke for the wearer the moment they entered the room, and many garments were easily recognisable from a distance executed as they were in bold hues, adorned with rich ornamentation, and often extending to an impressive scale. The importance of clothing equally translated into court portraiture wherein a sitter’s facial features were often sketched hastily, but their clothes were laboured over with painstaking detail, for it was the garments that ‘materialised their status’.15 Richard Brilliant asserts that kings and queens effectually possess two bodies, one their own, and the other belonging to their state; and in portraits and prints, they appear ‘fully encased in the trappings of royalty because that was the body worthy of portrayal’.16 The transformative power of clothing is borne out in the popular story told by the clerk in Chaucer’s The Canterbury Tales, where, in a Cinderella-like moment, the peasant Griselda is transmuted into a lady worthy to marry the prince merely through the act of putting on a suite of noble clothes, and in doing so she is known to have become ‘another person’.17 The story also demonstrates how the reverse could occur, as the noblewoman is made into a peasant again when her finery is removed. Similarly, royal jewellery is inevitably laden with symbolic value, and yet these can be broken up, melted down, or pawned. Clothes and jewellery depend on magnificent display on an appropriately worthy body. Recent scholarship has shown that visual and material display at the early modern court was always invested with political significance. In the most immediate sense, this display communicated the value of magnificence as a material mirror of wealth and political power. The grand palaces built for European monarchs accomplished this, as did art collections and portraits. Bodily display, in the form of dress, was just as important in staging political and moral value at court. One might argue it was even more important since it commanded such vast sums – and regular reinvestment – and it needed to be renewed daily. In a seminal 1996 article, Malcolm Smuts argues for a broader understanding of the aesthetics of court display that encompasses not only the fine arts of painting, sculpture, and architecture, but banquets, masques, and clothing.18 Readily visible – both on the physical person and through 12 Classic studies include Veblen, The Theory of the Leisure Class; Simmel, ‘Fashion’; and Bourdieu, Distinction. See also Davis, Fashion, Culture and Identity. 13 Barthes, The Fashion System, 10. 14 Barthes, The Fashion System, 10, 289. 15 Jones and Stallybrass, Renaissance clothing, 12; see also 34. 16 Brilliant, Portraiture, 102. 17 Chaucer, The Canterbury Tales, 220; the example of Griselda is also cited by Crane, The Performance of Self, 34; Jones and Stallybrass, Renaissance clothing, 13, 220. 18 Smuts, ‘Art and the material culture’, 86.

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pictorial commemoration – clothing offered a particularly potent opportunity for royalty, nobility, courtiers, and office holders to stage their political, national identity and dynastic identity.19 This extended to jewellery, which was an ever-present feature of early modern court attire. Jewels were often incorporated directly into apparel, or were carefully selected to complement and aggrandise an outfit. Clothing was deployed strategically by kings in court ceremonial and foreign politics, wherein close attention was paid to the quality and quantity of fabric and the richness of ornamentation. Maria Hayward’s analysis of Henry VIII’s wardrobe, portraits, and diplomatic gifts, for example, demonstrates the central role of clothing in conveying the king’s authority and engaging in diplomacy.20 For royal women, bodily display was a powerful means to negotiate and assert marital viability, nationality, confessional identity, conjugal loyalty, dynastic continuity, and factional belonging, which could be communicated in the cut, fabric, style, colour, and trimmings of a garment, a pair of shoes, a piece of figurative or inherited jewellery, or pair of silk stockings. Early studies of female sartorial magnificence looked to the example of Elizabeth I, with foundational publications by Janet Arnold and Roy Strong.21 More recently, sustained attention has been given to Eleonora of Toledo’s impact on fashion at the Medici court in the work of Roberta Orsi Landini and Bruna Niccoli.22 However, while there are few studies that foreground the political dimensions of early modern queens’ sartorial choices, the importance of wearing national styles in claiming political allegiance has been well acknowledged. Janet Cox-Rearick’s exploration of the ‘power dressing’ of the Spanish consorts Eleonora of Toledo at the courts of Cosimo de’ Medici and François I shows how their wearing of Spanish dress was central to claiming imperial allegiance.23 In particular, Spanish dress, with its distinctive high neckline, long sleeves, and conical skirt, was highly influential throughout early modern Europe.24 Necklines, collars, sleeves, and skirt shapes were carefully choreographed for sophisticated audiences that read national identity and political allegiance in them. 19 On clothing and national and regional identity with a focus on early modern Germany, see Rublack, Dressing Up, esp. 125–175. For early modern costume books and their demonstration of the close relationship between clothing and nationhood, see Ilg, ‘The Cultural Significance’. For a costume book that focusses on female clothing, see Amman’s Gynaeceum siue theatrum […]. 20 See Hayward, ‘Fashion, Finance, Foreign Politics’. 21 Arnold, Queen Elizabeth’s wardrobe unlock’d and Strong, The Cult of Elizabeth and Gloriana. See also Lawson, ‘A Rainbow for a Reign’, 26–44. 22 For Eleonora of Toledo’s sartorial magnificence and influence on the Medici court, see Landini and Niccoli, Moda a Firenze, 1540–1580: Lo stile di Eleonora di Toledo. On the potential for clothing to signal status, wealth, and professional position, see Storey, ‘Clothing Courtesans’, esp. 106–107. For anxieties about foreign cloth and clothing styles in subverting national identity in early modern England, see Hentschell, ‘A Question of Nation’. 23 Cox-Rearick, ‘Power-Dressing’, 39–69. 24 See Butazzi, ‘Il modelli spagnolo nella moda europea’, 80–94; Colomer and Descalzo, eds., Vestir a la española en las cortes europeas, esp. Carmen Bernis and Amalia Descalzo, ‘Spanish Female Dress in the Habsburg Period’, in volume 1, 39–75, and Almudena Pérez de Tudela, ‘Costume at the court of Philip II: Infantas Isabel Clara Eugenia and Catalina Micaela’, also in volume 1, 321–362.

Introduction

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Colour also had particular currency. The Catholic Church positioned colour prominently within the context of liturgical vestments and church decoration, with changes in accordance with the liturgical calendar. A courtly garment’s colour, too, was imbued with potential meaning, as with black to signify stability and/or mourning, green to connote youth and fertility, and tawny to symbolise love and longing.25 Henrietta Maria, for example, wore green for her entry into London as the bride of Charles I, and she wore it on May Day.26 Colour offered the opportunity to showcase wealth through the choice of expensive dyes such as black and crimson and to demonstrate political and personal alliance in the case of livery colours.27 Black had particularly strong associations with Austro-Hispanic court dress and could be used to signal imperial loyalty.28 As Jane Schneider has argued, the ‘black courts’ of Burgundy and Spain influenced the currency of black clothing at the Elizabethan court.29 Moreover, the cut and colour of clothing could reflect political and/or familial identity. For elite women whose currency was closely measured in marital alliances (whether speculative or secured), clothing made strong claims about the power and magnificence of their family dynasty as a whole.30 Furthermore, being less vocally active in a public political context, their appearance was one way they could make an impact.

Women and Fashion as Tool This volume shows women at the most elite levels of society engaging in politics. Coinciding with the revisioning of women’s history in the 1980s, Joan W. Scott drew attention to ‘a certain functionalist view ultimately rooted in biology’ that maintained ‘separate spheres’ for men and women in the study of history. Historians then considered, and still tend to consider today, women predominantly in relation to 25 Breward, The Culture of Fashion, 67; Griffey, On Display, 4; Snook, Women, Beauty and Power, 70. 26 Griffey, On Display, 4. 27 On the trade, availability, and value of dye stuffs in early modern England and their relationship to the ‘political economy’, see Schneider, ‘Fantastical Colours in Foggy London’, 109–127. On black as a colour of mourning, see Griffey, ‘Henrietta Maria and the Politics of Widows’ Dress’ in this volume; on the currency of red at the court of Henry VIII, see Hayward, ‘Crimson, Scarlet, Murray and Carnation’. On colour in Queen Elizabeth’s wardrobe, see Lawson, ‘Rainbow for a Reign’. For blue in late medieval and early modern England, see Hayward, ‘Dressed in Blue’, 168–185. On colour and meaning at the Elizabethan and Jacobean courts as seen in Wroth’s Urania, see Lamb, ‘Dressing Queens (and Some Others)’, 317–321. On the symbolic and social values of colour, see the work of Michel Pastoureau, including his books on the colours blue, black, green, and red, all published with Princeton University Press. 28 On the wearing and significance of black at the Habsburg courts, see Colomer, ‘Black and the Royal Image’. See also Cox-Rearick, ‘Power-dressing’, 40, 52–53, and Quondam, Tutti i colori di nero. 29 Schneider, ‘Fantastical Colours’, 122. 30 Frick discusses this in reference to elite women in Renaissance Florence, whose clothing needed to reflect the collective family honour, Dressing Renaissance Florence, 79.

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sex and family, leaving to men ‘issues of politics and power’.31 The essays in this volume provide a direct revisioning of this issue, closing the distance between the two spheres.32 Women, power, politics, family, and sex are considered concurrently. Since many royal women crossed cultural boundaries in early modern Europe through their marriage into other courts, their physical appearance was inflected with real purpose and strong visibility for both the natal and marital courts, and it was staged proudly in painted portraits and widely circulated in commemorative prints and medals. Such sartorial politics marked royal women as powerful agents of cultural exchange and diplomacy. This was clearly marked out in the portraits made as part of marriage negotiations as well as the garments and jewels selected for other key moments in the political and religious calendar: marriage, coronation, birth, baptism, and mourning. Contemporary observers recounted these ensembles with relish and often with forensic attention to detail. The gifting of clothing also provided a forum for claiming allegiance, announcing favour, transmitting wealth, and showcasing royal connections.33 It was common for royal women to gift clothing and to receive garments themselves as gifts. A clear example is seen in the case of Elizabeth I, who repeatedly gave and received sartorial gifts, which became institutionalised in the celebration of New Year’s Day.34 Mary, Queen of Scots, while imprisoned by Elizabeth, even tried to soften the English queen by presenting her with a skirt of crimson satin worked through with silver, which she had sewn herself.35 In an essay on the sleeve, Evelyn Welch states that exchanges of cloth were ‘signs of friendship’ and, even if gifts did not have monetary prestige, they built affective relations.36 Contemporaries were quick to comment on a new queen’s style of personal adornment, and queens were typically encouraged to abandon their natal traditions in favour of current fashions at their marital court.37 This highlights clothing as a site for social transformation for women, from unmarried to married, but also as an act of assimilation from a foreign country into their marital court.38 The custom of dismissing a wife’s foreign attendants for local ones suggests a similar drive, for both clothes and attendants were visible signifiers of national identity and station. If in her home country the set of clothing and attendants had signified her status, they now marked 31 Scott, ‘Gender’, 1057. 32 Timothy McCall states that there is a ‘diminishing yet still resilient tendency to assume that only women are gendered or sexual, whereas men have standard or essentially human bodies’, ‘Brilliant Bodies’, 449. Accepting that there is gendered male dress, as McCall does, in fact makes distinct the possibilities of female dress. 33 On clothing left in wills, see Jones and Stallybrass, Renaissance Clothing, 202–204. 34 Howey, ‘Fashioning Monarchy’, 142–147. 35 Howey, ‘Fashioning Monarchy’, 151. 36 Welch, ‘New, old and second-hand culture’, 110. 37 This is well known in the case of Marie Antoinette. For her ‘remise’ or handover, she was subjected to the traditional undressing ritual, as discussed by Weber, Queen of Fashion, 25–27; one of her ladies-in-waiting explained that this ritual ensured a foreign bride ‘would not retain any trace of [her] court [of origin], not even her slip or her stockings’, Weber, Queen of Fashion, 25. 38 This is seen in Chaucer’s Griselda, too, as previously noted.

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her as a foreigner, and her position and her entourage necessitated translation into this new context which read and understood her garments differently.39 But clothing was also an opportunity for women to show personal agency, operating as a silent form of speech. Christopher Breward has argued that images of elite women, such as the ‘encrusted and embellished’ miniatures painted by Isaac Oliver, ‘fulfill and suggest the noblewoman’s role as a hollow cipher […] lacking any sense of individuality other than the details of dress’.40 However, many elite women did individualise their clothes for personal ends, especially in making dynastic connections and claims of national identity. Evidence that not all early modern women were ‘hollow ciphers’ has already been found in abundance in Anne J. Cruz and Mihoko Suzuki’s edited collection, The Rule of Women in Early Modern Europe, which considers power exerted by sovereign women. Looking to Isabel of Castile, for example, Barbara F. Weissburger observes how, during the procession on the morning of her coronation, the queen chose the symbol of a sword over a sceptre to highlight her virility rather than her femininity.41 Part of this volume’s purpose is, however, to illuminate the ways in which the ‘emblems’ of dress women wore could be manipulated and used to their advantage even in circumstances in which a woman did not directly occupy a position of power. This example of what might be called ‘soft power’ is analogous to Carole Levin’s presentation of Elizabeth I as a strategically loving sister to her younger brother while he was sovereign in order to ensure her own survival.42 ‘Soft power’ is a term which has been widely used in the context of modern and historical diplomacy since the 1990s.43 This volume goes beyond diplomacy to engage with a ‘proto-soft power’ that is unique to dress.44 As has been intimated in my earlier discussion of identity and dress, dress in the early modern court was, in effect, a language with its own rustling, clinking signs – a language consisting of sound, sight, and even scent in the form of pomanders worn on the body and the fragrant herbs that were strewn on the floors at court. This audible language was the prerogative of a certain class: those who could afford the silks and jewels which made such sounds, and which spoke for them as an extension of their own gestures. When this language (which could be used for diplomacy but extended to other diverse ends) appeared on a body of inborn power, including a woman’s body, it spoke in specific and powerful 39 See also Snook, Women, Beauty and Power, 71–75, for her discussion of how Alanius endeavours to make Nereana love him through changing her clothes, deliberately acculturating her into his environment. 40 Breward, The Culture of Fashion, 72. 41 Weissburger, ‘Tanto monta’, 50. 42 Levin, ‘Elizabeth I as sister’, 125. 43 Rivère, Early Modern Diplomacy, Theatre and Soft Power, 4. James Daybell and Svante Norrhem’s discussion of female diplomacy also references ‘soft power’, arguing that female ‘influence could be achieved by other (softer but nevertheless intended) means’ of achieving influence, ‘Rethinking Gender and Political Power’, 10; see also 20 for ‘soft cultural and economic power’. 44 See Ladan Niayesh’s use of the term ‘proto-soft power’ in her essay ‘The Fabric of Silk Power’ on the Persian silks worn by diplomatic ambassador Sir Robert Shirley, 205.

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ways. Furthermore, this was a language that took into account gender and virtue. Welch points out that sleeves provided a suitable area for ‘seemingly asexual’ display for women, when there was ‘concern that the area around the breast should be treated modestly, and not attract overt attention’.45 Early modern royal and noble women appear to have been aware of the response their dress effected. Some of these transnational queens remained loyal to the styles of their homes in their real lives, while appearing in the dress of their marital court in formal opportunities for display such as portraits. Diplomatic audiences with foreign ambassadors offered the opportunity to adapt one’s appearance to the ambassador’s home country in order to signal political favour or to pointedly signal allegiance to a different court/country. Women could use clothing as a way of directly entering into the politics of the male sphere. For example, at the Field of Cloth of Gold in June 1520, Catherine of Aragon wore a Spanish headdress with her hair down around her shoulders to indicate her reluctance towards an Anglo-French alliance at Spanish expense.46 Furthermore, female dress was politicised in offering an arena for women to enact patronage and, as such, to show agency as directors and templates of fashion, and to set ideals of femininity at court.

Redressing Magnificence This edited volume participates in two timely and vibrant scholarly discussions about the early modern court: firstly, royal women as political and cultural agents and secondly, clothing as a central player in the broader courtly arsenal of magnificent display. Increasingly, scholars are calling for a reconsideration of what constituted ‘the political’ in early modern Europe, arguing for a move away from traditional definitions that have distinguished between the public and the private, the domestic and the political. In turn, this has seen a growing re-evaluation of the political value of royal and elite women by understanding how they used cultural avenues and social mores to advance their political aims.47 There is a growing body of scholarship on early modern queenship, with several important edited collections that examine queenship across a range of court centres.48 In addition, the study of a number of significant early modern royal marriages has proven a valuable pathway into understanding the dynastic imperatives that governed royal women and the political and cultural significance of wedding festivities.49 45 Welch, ‘New, old and second-hand culture’, 104–105. 46 Matthews, ‘Apparel, Status, Fashion’, 150. 47 See, for example, Daybell and Norrhem, Gender and Political Culture in Early Modern Europe, 1400–1800. 48 McManus, Women and Culture; Orr, Queenship in Europe 1660–1815; Gough and Smuts, Queens and the Transmission of Political Culture; Cruz and Suzuki The Rule of Women; and Woodacre’s Queenship in the Mediterranean. 49 Smart and Wade, eds., The Palatine Wedding of 1613; McGowan, ed., Dynastic Marriages 1612/1615; and the forthcoming Brepols volume, Canova-Green and Wolfson, The Wedding Journey of Charles I and Henrietta Maria.

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More commonly, though, elite women have been studied in isolation. Studies on individual queens and queens consort have reshaped our understanding of female royal patronage and cultural agency, and have brought new figures to our attention beyond the more familiar subjects of Elizabeth I, Isabella d’Este and Marie de’ Medici. Pioneering studies of these women have been instrumental in shaping approaches to elite women and the political implications of their visual persona and cultural patronage. Other prominent court women who have been the subject of recent scholarly attention along these lines include the Archduchess Isabella Clara Eugenia, Elizabeth of Bohemia, and Hedwig Eleonora.50 Nevertheless, there is still scope for the examination of other queens and noblewomen, as Jemma Field’s recent work on Anna of Denmark has demonstrated.51 Similarly, the power dynamics between women at court merits further attention, building on the volume edited by Nadine Akkerman and Birgit Houben.52 While these studies have enhanced our understanding of the diverse ways in which royal women could politicise the sociocultural avenues available to them – for example, court spaces, theatrical patronage, household positions, and gift-giving – the analysis of how garments and accessories were marshalled for political and personal reasons has been comparatively less explored. When clothing has been discussed in relation to national identity, this has focussed on national styles of dress.53 Certainly clothing at the early modern court has been the subject of renewed interest by historians in particular, who have moved from earlier studies which charted history through the styles of garments worn in portraits to new considerations of the role of dress in the broader theatre of early modern magnificence, the adoption of different types of clothing for different rituals, and the political value of dress.54 The politicised nature of clothing at the courts of Louis XIV and XV has been the subject of several notable studies, including those by Peter Burke, Philip Mansel, and Daniel Roche.55 Marie Antoinette’s sartorial choices have been analysed by Caroline Weber, 50 For Isabella Clara Eugenia, see Wyhe, ed., Isabella Clara Eugenia. On Elizabeth of Bohemia, see Smart and Wade, eds., The Palatine Wedding of 1613 . See also Kleinman, Anne of Austria: Queen of France and McGowan, Dynastic Marriages 1612/1615. 51 See Field, ‘Anna of Denmark and the Arts’, ‘The Wardrobe Goods of Anna of Denmark’, and ‘Anna of Denmark: A Late Portrait’. 52 Akkerman and Houben, The Politics of Female Households. 53 See, for example, the three essays constituting Section One, ‘Fabrics of Nation’, by Ulrijke Ilg, Roze Hentschell, and Elizabeth Wincott Heckett, in Richardson, ed., Clothing Culture, 29–91. See also Hentschell, The Culture of Cloth. Spanish dress has been the subject of a notable recent essay collection, Colomer and Descalzo, eds., Vestir a la española en las cortes europeas. On clothing and national identity, see in particular Rublack, Dressing Up. 54 For a recent assessment of the significance of this field of study and key works, see McCall, ‘Materials for Renaissance Fashion’, 1449–1464. See also Paresys and Coquery, eds., Apparence(s), ; Flicker and Seidl, eds., Fashionable Queens; Santaliestra, ‘Isabel of Bourbon’s Sartorial Politics’; van Wyhe, ‘The Making and Meaning of the Monastic Habit’. 55 See Burke, The Fabrication of Louis XI; Mansel, Dressed to Rule; and Roche, ‘The Culture of Clothing’.

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who has discussed the cultural and political impact of these ‘fashion statements’.56 As Weber vividly demonstrates, Marie Antoinette was a fashion innovator who championed ‘unorthodox styles […] [in] defiance of time-honoured royal customs’. In turn, her critics ‘resented her because they retained an expectation that the royal consort should respect the established limits of her position, should retain the air of docile conformity and anodyne polish that previous consorts had reassuringly conveyed’.57 Certainly this argument warrants comparison with the earlier queens, queens consort, and aristocratic women discussed in this volume. Furthermore, studies of specific royal wardrobes and the dress of specific courts have also advanced our knowledge of early modern dress at court, with recent studies by Jemma Field of Anna of Denmark’s wardrobe and Orsi Landini on that of Cosimo de’ Medici’s.58 Scholars including Janet Arnold, Valerie Cumming, Elizabeth Currie, Maria Hayward, Lisa Monnas, Anna Reynolds, Aileen Ribeiro, Ulinka Rublack, Jenny Tiramani, Susan Vincent, and Evelyn Welch have done much to illuminate the materials, terminology, construction, economic value, and patterns of social circulation of apparel in the early modern period.59 Notable too is their use of historical, literary, and visual analyses to address the symbolic meanings attached to items of male and female dress, and to highlight the common disconnect between physical items of dress and visual self-representation. While dress is now often analysed within a broader sociopolitical context and notions of self-fashioning, it is notable that jewellery has not drawn the same level of current scholarly attention. An important exception is Marcia Pointon’s Brilliant Effects, which offers fascinating insight into the politics of jewellery. While its analysis of early modern court portraits is limited, Pointon’s book provides a richly interdisciplinary approach to the study of early modern jewellery.60 Other studies have foregrounded the role of jewellery within the context of marriage and associated issues of gender, property, and affective relationships.61 However, 56 Weber, Queen of Fashion. See also Thomas, The Wicked Queen, esp. 81–104. See also Goodman, ed., Marie Antoinette for the ‘crucial political and cultural contests that were enacted on the very body of the Queen’ (1), especially the chapter by Mary D. Sheriff, ‘The Portrait of the Queen’, 45–71. 57 Weber, Queen of Fashion, 6. 58 Field, ‘The Wardrobe Goods of Queen Anna of Denmark’, 3–27; Landini, Moda a Firenze 1540–1580: Cosimo de’ Medici’s Style. 59 For a historiography of early modern dress, see Vincent, ‘From the Cradle to the Grave’, 163–178. For key texts by these scholars, see Arnold, Patterns of Fashion; Patterns of Fashion; Cumming, Royal Dress; North and Tiramani, eds., Seventeenth-century Women’s Dress Patterns: Book One and Book Two; Tiramani, ed., 17th-Century Men’s Dress Patterns; Rublack, Hayward, and Tiramani, eds., The First Book of Fashion; Monnas, Renaissance Velvets; Merchants, Princes and Painters; Currie, ed., A Cultural History of Dress; Fashion and Masculinity; Welch, ‘Art on the Edge’, 241–268; and Welch, ed., Fashioning the Early Modern. 60 Pointon, Brilliant Effects. 61 See Randolph, ‘Performing the Body in Fifteenth-Century Florence’, 182–200. The two essays on jewellery in Mirabella, ed., Ornamentalism are by literary scholars: Karen Raber, ‘Chains of Pearls: Gender, Identity and Property’, 159–181, and Catherine Richardson, ‘“As my whole trust is in him” Jewellery and the Quality of Early Modern Relationships’, 182–201.

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studies of jewellery have traditionally been – and largely still are – the domain of curators. Several studies of medieval and early modern jewellery, including works by Joan Evans, Hazel Forsyth, Yvonne Hackenbroch, Diana Scarisbrick, and Anna Somers Cocks, discuss the art of the goldsmith, the different gemstones and cutting techniques, and the changing fashion in types of jewels.62 While jewellery specialists, including Evans, highlight the importance of jewels in relation to dress, jewellery remains relatively unexplored as a central component of bodily display at court.63 While the materials and specialists involved in creating clothing and jewellery were different, the styling of the two together involved some coordination by the wearer, possibly in conjunction with wardrobe staff and/or dressers. Pendants, hat jewels, necklaces, earrings, bracelets, and belts needed a clothed body for display, and jewels could be reworked and repositioned, not to mention gifted or pawned.64 Relevant to the women’s jewellery discussed in this volume, Natasha Awais-Dean’s recent study of the ownership and meaning of male jewellery in Tudor and Jacobean England lifts jewellery out of its effeminate associations with frivolity and empty fashion. ‘For to be bejewelled’, Awais-Dean states, ‘signalled more than mere ornament; it reflected what it meant to be a man.’ As early modern jewellery could convey identity, remembrance, and even power, ornamentation required conscious deliberation.65 This volume looks to a variety of courts and royal women to consider how female political power is enacted specifically through sartorial display. There is no other volume with this focus on material display, while at the same time juxtaposing queens regnant and consort, as well as aristocratic women within the court more broadly. This approach nuances our understanding of the political and personal significance of bodily display to women as they negotiated the geographic, confessional, and religious divides of early modern Europe. Because of the many women considered, the collection offers the opportunity for national divides, or convergences in such display to be considered by the reader across chapters. Magnificence, in this context, is redressed not only as a powerful political statement for women with limited power in decisions both in their own lives and at court, still while confirming notions of femininity, but as a complex, targeted, tailored language of dress in which literacy was essential. This language was dynamic – responding to changing political agendas. The volume further extends into consideration of how the personal (the individual’s own body and its adornment, literally the clothes on its back) and the political (the 62 Evans, A History of Jewellery 1100–1870; Forsyth, London’s Lost Jewels; Hackenbroch, Renaissance Jewellery  and Enseignes; Scarisbrick, Tudor and Jacobean Jewellery; Cocks, An Introduction to Courtly Jewellery and ed., Princely Magnificence. 63 Evans, A History of Jewellery, 12. 64 On the value of specific jewels, see Strong, ‘Three Royal Jewels’, 350–353; for pawning, see Jones and Stallybrass, Renaissance Clothing, 26–32; Collins, Jewels and Plate of Queen Elizabeth I, esp. 136–141, 167. 65 Awais-Dean, Bejewelled, 121.

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machinations of power and diplomacy between persons, court, and countries) were intricately linked in the lived experience of the early modern court.

Sartorial Politics: Fashioning Women On entering a room, and in the voluminous gowns and sparkling jewels that eclipsed a woman’s body in portraits, sartorial display spoke first and lasted longest. This volume demonstrates that women at early modern courts participated in sartorial politics in three principal ways: to showcase and advance claims to dynasty, both to their natal and marital court; to engage in diplomacy; and to embody appropriate royal magnificence in court ceremonial. The essays cover a broad expanse of early modern Europe, including Sweden, England, France, Germany, Italy, and Spain, providing a strong cross-cultural perspective of early modern Europe. This approach is essential to the study of early modern royal women, who often married into courts far from their natal home but maintained close ties with their home country. This breadth of focus also facilitates comparison of court culture, fashions, and the role of dress in staging political power in early modern Europe. The elite subjects examined in the volume cover women of the highest royal ranks at the most powerful courts to second tier noble women at princely courts; what unites them all is an understanding that the sartorial was deeply political. The authors here draw on the full panoply of visual and published sources and several have conducted fresh archival work for their essays, drawing on chronicles, letters, ambassadorial accounts, and inventories. Most essays focus on a particular woman or group of women from a single court, with several examining the cultural transfer and associated sartorial displays that occurred with a royal marriage into a foreign court. As we shall see, the tensions and anxieties around foreign fashions at their new marital courts needed to be carefully negotiated alongside the expression of their family heritages, as interpretations of court clothing were themselves politicised. Clothing also provided an opportunity for elite women to present themselves as arbiters of taste, fashion templates to serve as models for other courtly women as well as other aspiring elites. Other essays provide a wide-ranging study of a single court or style of dress, and three further essays examine the central role of jewellery in the arsenal of sartorial politics. Another essay analyses the theatrical costumes worn by royal women in Shakespeare’s tragedies. As a whole, this range of essays enables readers to see how dress, both ceremonial and performed, in portraits and onstage, communicated social status and magnificence, made claims to political power and international connections, and shaped public opinion. Although many notable courts are not addressed here, the hope is that this collection demonstrates that this is a rich subject that warrants further studies by historians and art historians, both of individual courts and cross-culturally, as well as literary scholars in considering sartorial themes in drama and literature.

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The essays are organised roughly chronologically, beginning with the late fifteenth century and ending in the late seventeenth century. Sarah Cockram’s study of one of the most celebrated Renaissance fashion icons, Isabella d’Este, sets the scene to demonstrate the central role of clothing and jewellery in the marchesa’s statesmanship, patronage, and family life. Cockram shows how Isabella’s ‘cultural and sartorial cachet were bargaining chips for a vulnerable state such as Mantua in the face of peninsular conflict and Valois/Habsburg power play’, detailing how she used the style of her clothing, personal imprese, and other symbolic imagery to assert political allegiance, wealth, nobility, and refinement. Once dubbed ‘Machiavelli in skirts’, such was her sartorial power as a trendsetter that dolls wearing Isabellian styles were in demand at foreign courts. Isabella’s sartorial choices displayed her own lineage alongside her promotion of her husband’s Gonzaga dynasty. She achieved this particularly through the wearing of devices, recognisable symbols which were consequently taken up and strengthened in use by her children. Isabelle Paresys then presents an overview of the sartorial politics that operated for queens at the Valois and Bourbon courts, whose clothing materialised royal dignity, dynastic prestige, and the power of the French monarchy and kingdom of France as a whole. This sartorial magnificence, which involved queens’ lavish expenditure on clothing and their subsequent portrayal in suitably rich clothing in their portraits, was accompanied by great largesse to cement allegiances amongst household staff and courtiers. As Paresys explains, the role of dress in claims to power was particularly acute for regents, for whom renouncing queenly magnificence in favour of mourning justified their otherwise unconventional rule. The essay that follows by Kirsten Frieling examines princely weddings as ‘the key interface for exchanging fashions because of the many ways they promoted contact between courts within dress styles’. It was here, at dynastic weddings, that different dress styles were encountered, providing a ‘fashion forum’, and women were central to this process of cultural exchange. Focussing on noblewomen who married into German princely courts around 1500, Frieling discusses how dress practices were communicated, in particular the reception of foreign styles – whether regional or national – and the relationship with identity politics at a time of significant change in a woman’s life. Adopting her new court’s dress became a way for the bride to integrate socially and culturally. Although Frieling points to evidence that male rulers exploited the politics of clothing to promote their political rank, she has found no evidence that German elite women’s dress was interpreted in explicitly political terms. This may be attributed to their lower rank or lesser power than their royal female contemporaries. Nonetheless, Frieling’s essay points to sartorial strategies embedded within political structures. The importance of conformity of dress – within regions, nations, and courts – meant that a new bride’s clothing was examined as a sign of her loyalty and integration in her marriage, which, beyond being a simple cultural exchange, was inherently political.

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The next set of three essays, by Lisa Mansfield, Susan Vincent, and Jemma Field examine jewellery as an artful and strategically deployed element of dress in both court ceremonial and in portraits. These essays indicate that, while today we associate jewellery almost exclusively with femininity and a desire to look good, elite women in early modern courts wore jewellery for all the ‘manifold and multi-layered’ reasons that the men of Awais-Dean’s studies do. Mansfield’s essay on Eleanor of Austria provides a revealing case study of how jewellery was used to promote the splendour and status of a bride’s natal dynasty. Mansfield pieces together the documentation of Eleanor’s jewels in inventories and portraits, demonstrating how these were worn strategically to promote her illustrious lineage and affective ties. As a Habsburg princess with ties to several prestigious courts, Eleanor was valuable as a dynastic bride and married into the Portuguese (Manuel I) and French (François I) courts. The dual role of jewellery as dynastic imperative and affective link is evidenced by her gift to her only daughter of her jewellery. Mansfield’s essay highlights Eleanor’s large collection of jewels as motivated by her desire to provide a maternal legacy for her daughter Maria, whom she was forced to leave behind in Portugal for more than 30 years when she remarried. Moreover, Eleanor embraced jewellery at a time when new sources of gemstones were opening up, in the New World and in India. In this sense, too, the wearing of jewellery showcased political and cultural capital. Susan Vincent’s essay on Queen Elizabeth I highlights the treacherous terrain trodden by those who sought appropriate representative jewelled gifts to give a sovereign who placed great importance on personal thought. Gifts embodied loyalty, and gifted jewels needed apt grandeur. Vincent’s essay explicates that the queen’s jewels, received, re-gifted, or worn, contributed to and symbolised the eternal and lamented memory of a golden age. Such a legacy is worthy of a queen whom Vincent claims ‘was the most bejewelled person in the history of England’. Jemma Field’s essay considers jewellery as a readily identifiable marker which transcends the personal to convey political significance. Field’s essay particularly focusses on the cipher lettering incorporated into a woman’s costume which spoke silently yet unmistakably of her faith, her ancestral connections, her loyalties, or to whom she owed favour. Wearing jewellery containing the first letter of a powerful family member’s name could serve to remind contemporaries of a favourable connection. This is reminiscent of the heraldic coats of arms worn by medieval knights, which, as Crane discusses, ‘could talk’.66 Such symbols were used to further political ends when strategically given as gifts. Robert Lublin’s essay considers the role of costume in characterising royal women in Shakespeare’s tragedies. While the context Lublin considers is theatre and his material is based in literary text, he highlights the performative element of dress, 66 Crane, The Performance of Self, 11.

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especially as it was used in the royal court. His extension of the study of the history of dress to its representation in literature, specifically in plays, is comparable to studies of early modern masquing undertaken by scholars such as Barbara Ravelhofer and Sophie Tomlinson.67 Ravelhofer describes the costumes worn in masques by the nobility themselves as ‘visual political currency, often with substantial material value’. The masques show nobles taking advantage of the magnificence of costumed display in an obviously performed context, which signifies their awareness of the impressions created by the costumes they wore.68 In dressing themselves as queens, duchesses, and nobles, the players of theatrical troupes paralleled the real nobility in their daily performances ‒ as they dress to occupy a role, and to represent their social and political status. Jones and Stallybrass have discussed the boy actor’s body as permeable, ‘open to transformation by the materials it assumes’, as it undergoes ritualised changes of embodiment that is akin to the donning of a monarch’s robes.69 Lublin highlights dressing to attain (or enact) royal status especially in the appearance (or lack thereof) of crowns in Shakespeare’s plays. While the players on the Elizabethan stage might be only ‘playing’ at kings and queens, the importance of Lublin’s analysis hinges on the recognition and response to elite dress by the public at large, noble and common alike, and he highlights costume’s central role in assisting a believable performance. This much has been suggested by Breward, who states that the formation of the self through the display of fashion was ‘controlled in a manner that is highly suggestive of the theatrical’.70 With this in mind, Julia Holm’s essay contemplates gender play on a different stage – that of the court of Christina of Sweden, who used fashionable dress to demonstrate her position as a strong and modern monarch, despite being a woman. Christina’s assertion of her right to rule, and her representation of her power as monarch, was articulated through dress in a much more strident manner than would have been required had she been a man. This went some way to enabling Christina to live up to her father’s warrior legacy and to compensate for her perceived feminine fragility. Her coronation robes deliberately continued and expanded on the rhetoric of power invested in the monarch. While Christina looked to France as a locus of sartorial advancement and therefore cultural power, she was notable in using French fashion to advance, rather than replace, Swedish sartorial display. Two seventeenth-century queens who married into foreign courts and experienced a hostile response to their native fashions, Mariana of Austria and Catherine of Braganza, are the subjects of essays by Laura Oliván Santaliestra and Maria 67 Early modern royalty and nobility were commonly entertained by masques and some even participated, wearing lavish attire and with rich staging. See Tomlinson, Women on Stage in Stuart Drama, 24, 54, 57; Ravelhofer, The Early Stuart Masque, 1–2. 68 Ravelhofer, The Early Stuart Masque, 125 69 Jones and Stallybrass, Renaissance Clothing, 5, 13. 70 Breward, The Culture of Fashion, 70.

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Hayward, who demonstrate how these queens negotiated their sartorial and related political identity at their marital court. Santaliestra follows the progression of Mariana’s dress in portraits from her infancy to her motherhood, and the dramatic change dress embodied in the transferral from Austrian archduchess to Spanish queen. At the same time, this future was made manifest in pictorial representations of the princess from the time that she was about three years old. Santaliestra focusses particularly on the use of a popular and yet cumbersome piece of clothing, the farthingale, as part of Mariana’s initiation into a different court structure and her place within it. The farthingale further encompasses the role destined for Mariana as Spanish queen, acting to a royal woman’s advantage in protecting her from the close scrutiny that accompanied the inevitable pressure to bear a child and heir. Catherine of Braganza faced the same scrutiny, which Hayward notes was heightened by the need to compete with her husband Charles II’s various fertile mistresses. Catherine’s sartorial strategies were thus needed to differentiate her superior role as queen. Part of this included adopting English dress and taking full advantage of the sartorial privileges allowed to her, yet it also meant demonstrating her piety and modesty in contradiction to these would-be usurpers. At her birthday celebration in 1666, for example, Hayward states that Catherine’s lack of jewels and plainness upstaged Charles’s mistresses, who turned out in full finery. In this, the Stuart consort shows herself balancing Woolley’s advice on court style and personal morality with aplomb, taking the ‘self-promotion’ of the mistresses to a higher, while subtler level. In the process, she justified her legitimate position as wife and queen, in spite of her foreignness and Catholicism. The essay by Juliet Claxton and Evelyn Welch is unique in shifting its focus beyond how sartorial politics were played out within the court of Charles II, as discussed in the previous essay, to consider the origins of the garments themselves. The essay examines fashion imported from the East and highlights the inherent politics of clothing before many garments were even sewn. The wearing and propagating of fashion items, such as Indian chintz, amongst the elite ladies of the court relied on colonial structures of exchange and the increasingly predominant role of the woman merchant. Claxton and Welch explore the wares of one such unnamed ‘china-woman’ through the inventory of her goods compiled on her death. The structures of exchange colluded to by these female merchants provided a space in which female seller and buyer came together to shape fashions, which is of particular significance as Claxton and Welch point out that women’s clothing was often purchased for them by men. What is more, the writers argue that the fashions embodied in garments worn by Charles II’s court were dependent on a complex chain of merchants, maritime networks, and retailers, which renders their significance more than a simple matter of elite taste. The inclusion of this essay, along with that of Lublin, attempts to situate

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elite dress at court as part of its wider cultural and interdisciplinary context, as Lou Taylor encouraged in her conclusion to The Study of Dress History.71 The final essay, by Erin Griffey, examines one of the most pervasive sartorial symbols at the early modern court, mourning dress, with its distinctive black garments and veil. If weddings were typically the most visible and highly choreographed occasion for female sartorial politics, the deaths of their husbands offered a suitable opportunity to publicly deploy dress for strategic purposes. A number of royal widows adopted mourning dress as a long-term sartorial strategy that materialised the traditional widows’ virtues of chastity, humility and piety, and devotion to their husband’s memory. This dress took on particular political currency for royal widows as mothers and regents of royal heirs. Griffey analyses Henrietta Maria’s adoption of mourning dress after the execution of Charles I and the political agendas that informed it. She also examines the broader visual iconography of the royal widow and contemporary queens who would have been models for Henrietta Maria. The royal widow provides a fitting conclusion to this volume, highlighting the affective purpose of clothing and jewellery and providing a balance between the meanings dress required as part of early modern social conventions, and the way in which individuals could shape their sartorial choices for deliberate effect using the materials (quite literally) available to them. As the examples of early modern queens and noblewomen show us, a woman did not just reflect her clothes, as the aformentioned ‘hollow cipher’ comment seems to suggest, but was able to use her clothes to effect (or protect) her identity and own wants and needs. Her clothes were vestments of agency which could speak variously for herself, and for the interests of others. Clothes simultaneously reinforce a social perception and allow the wearer to manipulate it to their advantage. Clothes do allow for masking, and while presenting a seamless identity for performance in line with conventional fashions, deliberate sartorial choices testify to a secret self underneath which may or may not reflect the display enacted on its surface. Female identity – moral, social, cultural, political – was inextricably bound up in the dressing of the body. This volume is subtitled ‘Fashioning Women’ and yet its implicit title is ‘Women Fashion(ing) Themselves’. Fashion set rules, and sartorial politics explores the extent to which women – either themselves or their families – exploited these rules, asserting political value through their clothing and jewellery to create or to fashion an effective material image. Fashion, in the sense of dress norms, could be emphasised and manipulated in line with the wearer’s purpose, and it is the balance between inner identity and perceived identity that sartorial politics is navigated. The essays in this volume reflect this occurrence at all levels of court, exploring and expanding on the variances with which women fashioned themselves according to rank and agenda. 71 Taylor, The Study of Dress History, 272.

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Woolley’s Gentlewoman’s Companion highlights the composite political and moral dimensions of fashion, making apparent the contradictory demands that women faced. A woman could dress to look good, and yet moral regulation was needed because the outer presentation expressed what was within. In overtly Christian courts, the latter could scarce be forgotten, even for a queen. Moreover, godliness was a justifying quality of political power. The conflation of this outer self with the inner, being taken at face (dress) value, highlights sartorial choice as not only connected to, but an integral part of, the behaviour with which noble and royal ladies conducted themselves on the stage that was the court, and before the observers, that were their noble peers.

1.

Isabella d’Este’s Sartorial Politics1 Sarah Cockram

Abstract For Isabella d’Este (1474–1539), the sartorial was deeply political. Although her state of Mantua was a second-league power, fashion played a key role in shrewd strategies of diplomacy, networking, and co-rule with her husband Francesco II Gonzaga, and magnified the city’s influence. With a dazzling retinue, Isabella dressed for political success whatever the occasion: on travels, for wedding festivities, or in mourning. Not only could Isabella suggest expedient allegiance during the turbulent Italian Wars by wearing fleurs-de-lys or Spanish blouses, but she could use her reputation for sophistication and trendsetting as leverage with powerful states, winning favour and service from those above and below her. It is not without merit that Isabella has been dubbed ‘Machiavelli in skirts’. Key words: zazara headdress; Renaissance power sharing; Renaissance female court networks; ladies-in-waiting; Renaissance cosmetics [siamo] tutta vestita de ziglij We are dressed all in fleurs-de-lys ‒ Isabella d’Este, 1499

In October 1499, Isabella d’Este, marchesa of Mantua (1474–1539), wrote her envoy in Venice a letter that she intended to be shown to the French ambassador, Accurse Mainier.2 The ambassador was making veiled threats of a visit to Mantua and had sent apologies to Isabella, with a menacing undertone, for having questioned the marchesa’s commitment to Mantua’s alliance with France. Should the ambassador visit her, Isabella reassured Mainier, he would find her dressed all in lilies, her clothing 1 I would like to thank Erin Griffey and Timothy McCall for their valuable comments on this chapter and Deanna Shemek and Margaret Rosenthal for enjoyable and stimulating discussion of Isabella d’Este’s sartorial strategies. 2 Unless otherwise stated, translations are my own and letters referenced are from the Archivio Gonzaga of the Archivio di Stato, Mantua (ASMn). In transcriptions, original spelling is retained but punctuation, accent marks, and capitalisation are modernised. Abbreviations are expanded except for honorifics. Isabella d’Este to Donato de’ Pretis, 16 October 1499, Busta (file, henceforth B.) 2993, Libro (copybook, henceforth L.) 10, carta (page, henceforth c./cc., recto/verso) cc.71v-72r: ‘Volemo ben che respondiate alla parte che ve ha dicto schrizando che la vora venire in questa terra a visitarne, et dimandarne perdono de quello che l’ha dicto de

Griffey, E. (ed.), Sartorial Politics in Early Modern Europe: Fashioning Women, Amsterdam University Press, 2019 doi: 10.5117/9789462986008_ch01

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adorned with French fleurs-de-lys.3 The symbolism of Isabella’s attire, asserting her credibility as ‘a good francese’, and dedicated ally of Louis XII, was politically powerful in dangerous times. October 1499 found Isabella and her husband Marchese Francesco II Gonzaga (1466–1519) in a thorny predicament. Five years into the Italian Wars (1494–1559), with the peninsula a battleground for supremacy between French and imperial powers and with ever-shifting alliances and tussles for advancement – indeed, for survival – by the states of Italy, Mantua was the kind of second-league principality ripe for swallowing up. It was eyed greedily by foreign sovereigns and by state-snatching chancers, such as the pope’s son Cesare Borgia, with the backing of an ultramontane army. On 6 October, the king of France had entered Milan and ejected the city’s duke Lodovico Sforza, husband of Isabella’s late sister Beatrice d’Este, and at the king’s side were the rapacious Cesare Borgia and Isabella’s husband Francesco Gonzaga, in his capacity as military captain. Despite Francesco’s French alliance, the marchesa’s friendship with her former brother-in-law Lodovico Sforza brought her under deep suspicion, and rumours circulated that, with Venetian support, the French might take possession of Mantua.4 As a matter of urgency, Isabella had to prove herself decisively francese and drew for the ambassador an epistolary image of herself head to toe in lilies. Her clothes were a prime means of pronouncing wholehearted pro-French loyalty. For Isabella d’Este, and the men and women around her, the sartorial was political. Adept in the deployment of fashion, it is not without merit that Isabella was described by Alessandro Luzio in 1910 as ‘Machiavelli in skirts’.5 As with any Renaissance noble or ruler, Isabella’s attire was under constant scrutiny. She turned this to her advantage as a famed trendsetter. Although Mantua was a lesser power, renown for culture and patronage, meticulous image management, and politicking magnified nuj, credendo fussimo sfrocescha [sforzesca], perché la è mo’ chiara che siamo bona francese. Direti alla S. Sua che acceptamo molto voluntieri la offerta sua et che venendo ne farà grande piacere, et vederemola di bon core […] doppo ch’el [Lodovico Sforza] comincioe a tractare male lo Ill.mo S. nostro consorte cominciassimo anchora nuj a demettere l’affectione nostra […] siamo sempre state unite cum lei [Francesco Gonzaga], facendone francese et hora siamo in supremo grado bona francese, per le demonstratione, et honori facti per la M.tà Sua al predetto S. nostro Consorte, et quando la S.S. serà qua cognoscerà che se nel passare suo ne ritrovò ben disposta che a hora siamo dispositissime, et tutta vestita de ziglij’. Only for Donato, she wrote: ‘Circa le parole che ve ha dicte l’oratore regio ve respondemo nel modo che vedereti potergela monstrare’. The ambassador responded by asking forgiveness and offering service. Accursius Maynerius to Francesco, Venice, 2 November, B.1438, c.644r: ‘Suplie a Madame très humblement qu’elle me pardonne la mauvaise oppinion que j’ay eu d’elle. A ceste heure qu’elle est toute bonne Françoyse je suis tout son très humble serviteur’. See Cockram, Isabella d’Este, 128–129. 3 In addition to the many examples of fleur-de-lys fabric in French royal images and rare surviving textiles, including at the Metropolitan Museum of Art (eg. Accession Nos. 09.50.1022 and 46.156.54), for contemporary Italian examples see Figure 1.3 and, for instance, Boltraffio’s Portrait of a Boy as Saint Sebastian, Pushkin Museum, Moscow. 4 Cockram, Isabella d’Este, 128. 5 Machiavelli ‘in gonnella’, Luzio, ‘la corte sforzesca’, 145. This epithet is taken up by James, ‘Machiavelli in Skirts’.

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the city’s influence.6 Isabella co-ruled shrewdly with Francesco, through shared resources, joint administration and exercise of justice, and common diplomatic policy.7 In this chapter, I argue that clothing and adornment played a key role in Mantuan strategies. As an important tactic for survival of such tempestuous times, Isabella and Francesco cultivated alliances but were ready to shift these as circumstances changed (such as a French takeover of Milan), and, as necessary, were prepared to delay, deflect, and dissimulate. Both spouses might seem to support different parties, coming together again behind the best bet.8 Fashion was a valuable element in this ploy of divided fronts. Not only could Isabella suggest expedient allegiance through the wearing of fleurs-de-lys or, indeed, of a Spanish blouse (or ambiguously mix such signals), but she could present fashion gifts to cement friendships and use a reputation for sophistication as leverage with more powerful states. Isabella aimed to impress whatever the occasion: at home or on travels, for wedding festivities or in mourning. Her costumes were typically made up of a camicia or chemise; a camora or gown, in one piece or as a bodice (pecto) and skirt, often with detachable sleeves laced on with ribbons; and sbernia or mantle. These were complemented with jewellery, hairstyles and millinery, accessories, and cosmetics in a spectacular ensemble. Outfits were often bedecked with her personal devices. The marchesa’s costume and beauty, with attendant neo-Platonic virtue, were celebrated in portraiture and literary representation, for instance by the painter Titian (Colour Plate 1) and the writer Giangiorgio Trissino. A combination of black velvet, gold knots, bejewelled headdress, rubies, and pearls is common across visual and verbal evocations of Isabella’s attire. Isabella had Titian portray her in this trademark costume in a retrospective portrait to show the marchesa as a teenage bride (before she wore it). A word portrait of Isabella in a similar outfit is provided by Trissino in I Ritratti (set in Milan c.1507). Trissino describes Isabella’s hair, jewels, and dress in detail. Isabella’s radiance, spectacular finery, and dynastic authority come together in neo-Platonic apotheosis.9 Isabella’s clothes displayed status and wealth, as commodities and through markers of monetary value, nobility, and inner and outer beauty. Although Isabella’s wardrobe accounts do not survive, we have a post-mortem inventory, and her surviving correspondence of some 28,000 letters in the Mantuan archive is a remarkable 6 The substantial scholarship on Isabella’s art patronage and collecting might be approached through Ames-Lewis, Isabella and Leonardo; Brown, Per dare; Campbell, The Cabinet of Eros; Ferino-Pagden; ‘La Prima Donna’; and San Juan, ‘The Court Lady’s Dilemma’. For Isabella’s music, see Prizer, ‘Una “Virtù”’ and Shephard, ‘Constructing’. Online resources for Isabella’s many activities can be found at IDEA: Isabella d’Este Archive at http://isabelladeste.web.unc.edu/. 7 See Cockram, Isabella d’Este; James, ‘Marriage by Correspondence’; and Bourne, Francesco II Gonzaga. 8 Cockram, Isabella d’Este. 9 Trissino, li Retratti, 43v-44r. A number of writers praised Isabella’s appearance and political attributes. See, for example, Ariosto’s Orlando Furioso, Canto 13, 59–60; the fourth tale of Niccolò Liburnio’s Le Selvette; Antonio Tebaldeo’s Sacre, legiadre, honeste, immortal dive; and Mario Equicola’s De mulieribus.

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resource.10 The letters show, for instance, that Isabella’s agents and diplomats, under precise instructions, tirelessly acquired only the very finest for her wardrobe: ostrich feathers, furs, silks, velvets, Rheims linens, Ocaña gloves. She regularly obtained fashion items through the services of this network of well-connected correspondents, as Evelyn Welch puts it, shopping by ‘mail order’.11 Isabella’s reputation for style was steadily built from the time of her marriage at fifteen in 1490, under expert tutelage in sartorial politics from her mother Eleonora of Aragon.12 However, comparatively cash-strapped, Isabella faced competition from richer rivals (including her sister Beatrice and sister-in-law Lucrezia Borgia). Not to be outdone, Isabella could turn to creativity when capital was limited. She defined herself as an arbiter of taste, and the courts of France and Spain requested dolls dressed in miniature replicas of Isabella’s outfits. The sharing of Isabella’s exclusive pieces, such as the distinctive zazara, the large round headdress in Titian’s portrait, could win the attention and favour of those above her and the desire of those below to do her service. Alongside innovation, Isabella kept wearing her trademark styles to express continuity and authority. Isabella also projected magnificence, and possession, through the attire of her entourage and family as, for instance, in the quintessentially Isabellian outfit of her new daughter-in-law Margherita Paleologa in Giulio Romano’s portrait of c. 1531 (Figure 1.8). Isabella’s attire is entwined with matters of power, patronage, and family life in ways that are artificial to separate, as is evidenced by the frequency and interconnectedness of Isabella’s references to fashion woven through her extensive correspondence. Attention to the sartorial was a central component in a programme of statecraft by which Isabella maximised opportunities for co-rule to best advantage and acted with decisiveness over her political environment.

Sartorial Politics and Diplomacy Research into the political activity of late medieval and early modern queens and noblewomen increasingly shows the significance of states(wo)manship and female diplomatic action.13 Work on Isabella’s letters has not only demonstrated power sharing with her husband, but also suggests female networks with directive participation and expertise in political (including military) matters.14 Women’s contributions can 10 See Isabella’s letters at IDEA: Isabella d’Este Archive (http://isabelladeste.web.unc.edu/). 11 Welch, Shopping, 262. In addition to Welch, see Brown and Lorenzoni, Isabella d’Este and Lorenzo da Pavia. 12 For instance, Eleonora sent Anna Sforza, her son’s betrothed, an outfitted doll in 1484 (Cartwright, Beatrice d’Este, 8). This sartorial embassy functioned as a gift, as the demonstration of a mother-in-law’s affection, and as a way to showcase Ferrarese innovation and magnificence at the Milanese court. 13 For recent work see Sluga and James, Women, Diplomacy and International Politics (2016); Earenfight, ‘Medieval Queenship’; Mattozzi, ‘The Feminine Art’; Matheson-Pollock, Paul, and Fletcher, Queenship and Counsel. 14 See the publications on Isabella by Deanna Shemek, Carolyn James, and Sarah Cockram.

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be identified within traditional channels of political action, such as through overt authority in co-rulership, acting as regent, meeting visiting dignitaries, or undertaking state visits. However, political agency can also be revealed in rich texture by broadening how we frame means of political influence to include areas such as behind-the-scenes consultation, negotiation, and decision making, as well as network building, and the use of familial relationships. Inclusion of the sartorial within a wider conceptualisation of the means and scope of political action gives a more nuanced picture of political mechanisms and their outcomes. As Timothy McCall has recently pointed out in a review essay of work on Renaissance fashion, studies of the sartorial might once have been dismissed as frivolous but cultural, material, and corporeal turns have brought heavyweight and field-changing scholarship to the fore.15 In approaching fashion as a system, through a sociological and semiotic lens, dress is recognised as an indicator, and maker, of status and identity – both in innovation and in continuity – and as an integral part of gendered display and performance. To the Renaissance mind, and period eye (not to mention other sensory dimensions), fashion could be a consequential matter, subject to sumptuary law and attentive appraisal, open to expert reading of value and provenance: of a velvet’s width, weight, and pile; a dye’s depth and fastness; or a leather or fur’s original living owner.16 Integrating the sartorial with the political exposes the importance of fashion to the Renaissance man and woman as anything but trivial, indeed, at times, of deadly seriousness, seen in the case of Isabella’s potentially state-saving lilies. As the ‘first lady’, and perhaps the most studied woman, of Renaissance Italy, Isabella d’Este has often been put forward as a special case.17 This Isabellian preeminence has extended to the literature on Isabella and fashion, from the 1896 studies of Isabella’s lusso by her prolific fanatici Alessandro Luzio and Rodolfo Renier, to more recent work by Chiara Zaffanella, Evelyn Welch, and Yassana Croizat.18 Janet Cox-Rearick credits the marchesa as ‘the ruler whose innovative dress broke with traditional fifteenth-century court style and made a transition to that of the sixteenth century’, and Deanna Shemek describes Isabella as a ‘pioneer of fashion and design’.19 In this chapter, I too wish to follow these studies in showcasing Isabella’s place as a trendsetter, and to demonstrate her role as a mistress of sartorial politics par excellence, but I would also like to indicate here that Isabella, while masterful, was not unique. Further work on other Italian Renaissance 15 McCall, ‘Materials’. See also Welch, ed., Fashioning. 16 For the sensory effect of Renaissance textiles, see Allerston, ‘Consuming’, 21. 17 Niccolò da Correggio described Isabella as ‘la prima donna del mondo’. Luzio and Renier, La coltura, 129. On Isabella as a special case, to quote Deanna Shemek, ‘there is general agreement that Isabella d’Este embodied [the role of ruling consort] extraordinarily, exercising agency and inventiveness in ways that far surpassed other women’s practices at the time, even within her own class’. Shemek, ‘Isabella d’Este and the Properties’, 126. 18 Croizat, ‘“Living Dolls”’; Luzio and Renier, ‘Il lusso’; Welch, Shopping; Zaffanella, ‘Isabella d’Este’. See also Malacarne, Fruscianti vestimenti. For Luzio and Renier as fanatici, see Agosti’s introduction to La coltura, vii-xxxvii. 19 Cox-Rearick, Splendours, 9; Isabella d’Este, Selected Letters, 7.

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noblewomen’s sartorial politics will be welcome, from those who have already received some attention in research on statecraft or fashion, such as Lucrezia Borgia, Beatrice d’Este, and Eleonora of Aragon, to those hitherto less studied in these areas such as Elisabetta Gonzaga, Costanza d’Avalos, Margherita Cantelma, Eleonora Orsini del Balzo, and Isabella’s ladies-in-waiting.20

Figure 1.1: Master of the Pala Sforzesca (Sforza Altarpiece), Madonna and Child Enthroned, the Doctors of the Church and the Family of Ludovico il Moro (his wife Beatrice d’Este and sons), 1494, tempera on panel. Pinacoteca di Brera, Milan.

20 For recent work, see Locci, ‘La correspondencia’; Ghirardo, ‘I gioielli sacri’; Burgess Williams, ‘Rewriting Lucrezia Borgia’; Venturelli, ‘“Novarum Vestium Inventrix”’ and other contributions to Giordano, Beatrice d’Este; James, ‘What’s Love’; and James and Kent, ‘Margherita Cantelmo’.

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Political Statement through Sartorial Style and Symbol Communication of political allegiance through men´s and women’s clothing was well understood in Renaissance Italy, for instance through the wearing of livery, armorials, or motifs or styles with political associations. While an impulse for conformity with dominant fashions might outweigh political messages, the wearing of attire connected to the practice of a given centre could signal desire to imitate or a need to show alliance. As Evelyn Welch puts it, these were ‘forms of visual allegiance […] tinged with issues of hierarchy’.21 Isabella’s son and heir Federico Gonzaga was forced by François I to adopt French fashions in 1515; by 1525, he was styled in a manner suggestive of imperial sympathies.22 Black was frequently linked to Spanish fashions. Colour and garment cut or type could indicate provenance and thus adherence to, or contacts in, that area. For instance, the coazzone – a very long roll of hair bound with ribbons, often secured with a fine jewelled cap and forehead band ‒ was a hairstyle of Spanish and Neapolitan origin. The coazzone was taken by Isabella’s mother Eleonora of Aragon to Ferrara on her marriage, and later became associated with Isabella’s sister Beatrice when she instituted it as the dominant style in Milan after her marriage there. Beatrice wears the coazzone in the Pala Sforzesca (Figure 1.1).23 Later still, the style was worn by Lucrezia Borgia in Ferrara.24 The coazzone thus linked the courts of Naples, Ferrara, and Milan in a sartorial sign of Spanish connection, dynastic grandeur, continuity, and cross-peninsular alliance. Isabella was keen to emphasise her royal Aragonese descent, and her wearing of her mother’s styles and fashionable Spanish blouses could represent this heritage as well as relationships with Southern/Spanish notables such as Costanza d’Avalos.25 In addition to shapes, styles, and items associated with different areas, clothes could incorporate symbols, as per the fleurs-de-lys worn by Isabella, and by Galeazzo Maria Sforza in his portrait by Piero del Pollaiuolo (Figure 1.2), or the Sforza heraldry embroidered on a sumptuous tunic gifted to the adolescent Lorenzo de’ Medici in 1466.26 Imprese or devices could be woven into or embroidered on fabric, singularly on the left sleeve or repeated throughout the cloth. These devices consisted of an image or motto, alone or combined, expressing the aspirations, character, or virtues of their owner, as an individual or within a dynasty. They could be presented, 21 Welch, ‘Art on the Edge’, 254. 22 Cox-Rearick, Splendours, 18; Welch, ‘Art on the Edge’, 254–255. 23 Welch, ‘Art on the Edge’, 247–249. 24 Williams, ‘Rewriting Lucrezia Borgia’, 89. 25 On Isabella’s Aragonese descent: Isabella had the following inscription around the walls of her garden in the Ducal Palace: ISABELLA ESTENSIS, REGUM ARAGONUM NEPTIS, DUCUM FERRARIENSIUM FILIA ET SOROR, MARCHIONUM GONZAGARUM CONIUX ET MATER, FECIT A PARTU VIRGINIS MDXXII. For wearing of Eleonora’s items, see Isabella to Girolamo Ziliolo, 3 April 1496, B.2992, L.6, c.74r: ‘Desiderando nui havere una de quelle binde che soleva portare […] haveremo charo che essendone in salvarobba ne vogliati dimandare una in dono alo Ill.mo S. nostro patre’. On Costanza d’Avalos (1460–1541), countess of Acerra and duchess of Francavilla, see Mutini’s DBI entry. 26 McCall and Roberts, ‘Art’.

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Figure 1.2: Piero del Pollaiuolo, Galeazzo Maria Sforza, c. 1471, tempera on panel. Galleria degli Uffizi, Florence.

for example, in room decorations and on portable objects such as tableware as well as on furnishing fabrics,27 accessories, and clothing. In a letter of September 1492 to Francesco Gonzaga, Isabella d’Este describes a gift from her brother-in-law Lodovico Sforza of Milan, of fifteen braccia of gold and silver brocade embroidered with a Sforza device. This luxuriant fabric a divisa was worth at least 40 ducats per braccio and Isabella had a gown made of it immediately to flaunt while in Milan.28 Wearing someone else’s impresa was a potent sign of alliance and shared ideas. 27 For bedcovers with Isabellian imprese, see Ferrari, ‘Arredi’, 101. 28 B.2991, L.2, c.66v: ‘un brochato rizo soprarizo d’oro cum qualche argento, lavorato ad una divisa che si dimanda el fanale, zoè el porto de Genua, che sono due torre cum uno breve che dice: tal trabajo m’es placer por tal thesauro no perder’. Molly Bourne gives a braccio as 0.465 metres, Francesco II Gonzaga, 18. In May 1493,

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Figures 1.3a and 1. 3b: Imprese of Isabella d’Este. Insignia … IX. Insignia Veneta, Mantuana, Bononiensia, Anconitana, Urbinatia, Perugiensia, Italian, 1550–1555. Bayerische Staatsbibliothek München / Bavarian State Library.  

Isabella also deployed a number of Gonzaga family designs and her own personal imprese, devised with humanist advisors, to highlight her specific qualities and virtues within the political sphere (Figures 1.3a and 1.3b).29 One of Isabella’s most recognisable devices was the impresa delle pause, found on garments and on a signet ring (thus able to imprint and disseminate Isabella’s mark on letters).30 The impresa shows a musical clef matching the pitch of Isabella’s voice and a pattern of rests in the shape of an ‘M’ (calling to mind musica/marchesa/Mantova) followed by a repeat sign. It represents silence and equilibrium, and suggests cultural connoisseurship, female virtue, political acumen, and self-control, in knowledge of when to speak and when to say nothing. The same idea of balance is found in Isabella’s motto nec spe nec metu (‘in neither hope nor fear’), with a proclamation of princely equanimity and appraisal. Devices such as the Candelabrum could proclaim Isabella’s religious faith Bernardino de’ Prosperi sent Isabella a full description from Ferrara of the crimson brocade camora with the same device that her sister Beatrice wore for her entry into her hometown. Lodovico Sforza again presented Isabella a sumptuous gold fabric with one of his devices, la colombina, in 1495. Zaffanella, ‘Isabella d’Este’, 215. For a surviving contemporary fabric of the same design in the Museo Poldi Pezzoli, Milan, see Ferrari, ‘Arredi’, 363. 29 For imprese, see Malacarne, ‘Il segno di Isabella’. 30 On the impresa delle pause as Isabella’s device, see Shephard, ‘Constructing’, 699–703. See also IDEA Music at http://ideamusic.web.unc.edu/. On the signet ring, see the 1542 inventory of Isabella’s jewels, no. 184. Ferrari, ‘L’“inventario”’, 36.

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and steadfastness. Her calembour motto XXVII has religious and political connotations as a reference to her capacity to repel threats in vanquishing of the Seven Vices or of enemies. Isabella’s adoption or highlighting of certain imprese could function as an expressive response to particular political circumstances. For instance, according to Paolo Giovio, Isabella asserted her Candelabrum device in defiance of her son Fe­derico’s favouring of his mistress Isabella Boschetta.31 Isabella displayed imprese on her person in outfits through which she could convey her right to rule and her intellectual authority. A letter to Federico Gonzaga describes the marchesa attending a banquet in a gown embroidered with her Candelabrum impresa in jewels, tempting to thieving hands which managed to steal seven jewelled devices from the back of the dress.32 Isabella wore the impresa delle pause when confronted with perhaps her greatest rival, Lucrezia Borgia, who married Isabella’s brother Alfonso d’Este in 1502. Isabella disapproved of the Este/Borgia union and felt keen competition as the bride arrived to take her place as the next duchess of Ferrara.33 Lucrezia’s large dowry and marriage jewels made it difficult for Isabella to compete in extravagance.34 As the foremost Este lady, Isabella was to receive her new sister-in-law with the eyes of the Ferrarese and visiting dignitaries upon her; for the occasion, she chose a gown which the Venetian diarist Marino Sanuto describes as ‘embroidered with musical pauses’.35 Through this outfit’s sophisticated imagery, Isabella proclaimed a restrained, harmonious nature, in contrast to the notoriety of the Borgia bride. The marchesa also lay claim to supremacy in musical virtuosity and patronage as competition between Lucrezia and Isabella in this sphere commenced.36 31 Giovio, Dialogo, 140. Francesco Gonzaga adopted a crucible device with the biblical motto ‘Probasti me Domine et cognovisti’ in 1497 after being sacked by the Venetians on suspicion of treachery. 32 Amico Maria della Torre to Federico Gonzaga, quoted by Luzio and Renier, ‘Il lusso’, 451: ‘havendo una veste la Ex.tia Sua indosso da li candelerii d’oro, che la porta per insignia et impresa, gli ne furono robbati setti denanti da la veste’. 33 Isabella sent an informant, known as Il Prete, to Rome to describe Lucrezia and her wardrobe. Isabella would have taken some consolation from description of an out-of-date dress with ‘le maniche strette come si usavano dieci anni fa’ (Felisatti, Isabella d’Este, 121). However, Lucrezia was far from unfashionable for celebrations in Ferrara (Isabella d’Este, Selected Letters, 173–192). Sanuto describes the luxurious outfits Isabella deployed. 1 February 1502: ‘una veste de veludo verde, carica di passatori d’oro, uno robbono de veluto negro, fodrato de lupi servieri; in testa havea uno scuffioto d’oro; al fronte uno cerchiello d’oro; e al collo uno cerchiello d’oro con diamanti dentro’. 4 February 1502: ‘una veste recamata a seve de oro tirato; al collo havea una filza de perle grossa, in mezo uno grosso diamante; in fronte una lenza de zioe de gran valuta’. 5 February 1502: ‘una vesta de tabi biancho de arzento, la testa e il collo aconzia con alcune zoie’. Sanuto, I Diarii, vol. IV, col. 222, 226, and 227. 34 Daughter of Alexander VI, Lucrezia had one dress alone worth 20,000 ducats and a berretta worth 10,000 ducats: a sum putting Isabella’s entire dowry to shame (Felisatti, Isabella d’Este, 11). Isabella’s dowry was 25,000 ducats, plus 2000 ducats of trousseau and 3000 in jewels (Zaffanella, ‘Isabella d’Este’, 209–210). This amounts to the same total as Lucrezia’s two items. By contrast, Lucrezia’s dowry, aside from her incredible trousseau, was 100,000 ducats plus a further 200,000 in precious items, in addition to land and reduction of the Este tribute to the Church (Fusero, The Borgias, 239). 35 Sanuto, I Diarii, vol. IV, col. 224. The marchesa of Cotrone reported to Francesco that Isabella outshone the other noblewomen in ‘una bella camora richamata di quella inventione di tempi e pause’, 2 February 1502, B.1238, c.355v. 36 Prizer, ‘Isabella d’Este and Lucrezia Borgia’.

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Isabella communicated erudition, refinement, and political attributes and alliance in the sharing of designs as well as in display of her own or others’ devices. Isabella and her sister Beatrice (Isabella’s first challenger for sartorial dominance before her early death in 1497) shared the same impresa of knots, known as the fantasia dei vinci. This was suggested by their kinsman Niccolò da Correggio and perhaps originally designed by Leonardo da Vinci. The knots are potentially suggestive, not only of Leonardo’s name, but also of the complicated knottiness of political life (like Mantuan labyrinth devices).37 In November 1493, Beatrice told her sister that she wanted to have a camora made in dark velvet with knots in gold for the wedding of Bianca Maria Sforza to the king of the Romans (later Holy Roman Emperor) Maximilian.38 Isabella and Beatrice showed unity of sisters and courts, the fantasia dei vinci being used in Milan and Mantua.39 Lodovico Sforza may have had his illegitimate daughter Bianca portrayed by Leonardo wearing the fantasia dei vinci on her arm.40 Despite being worn by others, the knots remained strongly connected to Isabella. They are found in the ceiling designs of Isabella’s second set of rooms in the Ducal Palace in Mantua, and are worn in Titian’s Isabella in Black (Colour Plate 1). If the portrait of a young girl of c. 1505 known as the Boston Raphael (of infamously disputed attribution, now in the Uffizi) does indeed have as its subject Isabella’s eldest daughter Eleonora Gonzaga, the unusual headband in knot design makes the connection of mother and daughter (Figure 1.4). In having the soon-to-be marriageable Eleonora portrayed in such a way, Isabella could tie her daughter’s charm with her own and underline the intellectual and sartorial sophistication of her court. Eleonora’s appearance also represented Mantuan taste and interests when Isabella ensured that, upon marriage, Eleonora left for Urbino with as imposing a wardrobe as possible. This came during a perilous period, of tight finances, in which Francesco Gonzaga was a prisoner of the Venetians (1509–1510). Eleonora’s attire needed to be right when called to visit her new husband’s uncle Julius II in Rome, as her father’s fate was in the pope’s hands.41 The ability of splendid apparel and its decorative symbolism to create an impression, and to aid attempts to gain and hold influence, was well understood by Isabella and those around her. 37 Francesco Gonzaga had a ceiling decorated with a labyrinth device in his palace of San Sebastiano (now in the Ducal Palace). 38 ASMn, Lavori Femminili dal 1459 al 1595, Schede Davari, B.1612, c.876, lavori alle vesti. Quoted by Zaffanella, ‘Isabella d’Este’, 221. 39 The sisters often acted in association with each other, and with their mother before her death. For instance, Beatrice asked Isabella if she could send her the pecto of a certain camora her mother had given her so that Beatrice could have its distinctive teardrop design copied. 25 September 1493, Lavori femminili dal 1459 al 1595, Schede Davari, B.1612, c.877, lavori alle vesti. Quoted by Zaffanella, ‘Isabella d’Este’, 221. 40 Bianca Sforza may be the subject of La Bella Principessa, of disputed attribution to Leonardo, private collection. 41 Isabella d’Este, Selected Letters, 304–305.

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Figure 1.4: Portrait of a Young Woman (Eleonora Gonzaga?), also known as The Boston Raphael, c. 1505, oil on panel. Galleria degli Uffizi, Florence.

Isabella allowed her own devices to be taken on only by carefully selected recipients beyond her family. In 1504, after a request through her close friend Margherita Cantelma, Isabella wrote to the imperial ambassador Filiberto granting him leave to make wide use of her personal motto nec spe nec metu: because we believe it to be a sign of no little favour and reputation that Your Lordship has deigned to request it, and we will have great pleasure that you accept it, we give it to you most willingly, with full authority to use it, write it, paint it, wear it, and have it worn by your household in any way and form that we can and do, who have invented it and made it our particular device.42 42 Isabella to Jacopo d’Atri, 26 November 1504, B.2994, L.17, c.49v. Isabella to Filiberto, 7 October 1504, B.2996, L.17, cc.40v-41r: ‘perché reputamo ad non pocho favore et reputatione che la S.V. se sij dignata a ricercarlo, et haveremo grande piacere che la lo accepti che noi ge lo donamo molto voluntieri cum ampla auctorità de usarla, scrivierla, depingerla, portarla et farla portare alli familiari soi in quel modo et forma che noi potemo et facemo, che siamo state a inventrice, et habiamola facta nostra impresa peculiare’. Quoted Luzio,

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In 1507, Ercole Cantelmo, Margherita’s son, was allowed to take an Isabellian impresa onto the battlefield, decorating his armour while in the service of the count of Pitigliano.43

Sartorial Embassy and Trademark Styles Isabella’s sartorial politics influenced not only women’s attire but also men’s, propagated her reputation, and promoted relationships with the powerful.44 As well as through symbolism of dress, this could be achieved through the gifting of items, sometimes with the opportunity to dress multiple individuals. In 1503, Isabella sent Cesare Borgia 100 Ferrarese carnival masks with a letter ostensibly suggesting wellearned fun, rejoicing in Cesare’s triumphs in seizing lands in the Romagna, and urging Cesare to continue keeping her informed on his movements.45 Isabella used such a gift to gather intelligence and to maintain the security of her state as she governed without her husband while Francesco’s military career took him far from Mantua. She also reminded Cesare of his alliance to her natal city, now home to his sister. Ferrarese carnival masks on the face of the enemy ‒ like the nec spe nec metu on Filiberto’s apparel ‒ show Isabella’s skill in sartorial embassy. Not only can ambassadors, envoys, or intermediaries express sartorial politics through their own attire and present fashion items as diplomatic gifts, but these items themselves can perform emissarial roles. Fashion gifts take a high-status symbolic proxy of the donor to the recipient, connecting the two, and are to be worn and displayed on the recipient’s body and experienced by the recipient’s senses, to stimulate gratitude and memory of the donor. In 1506, when the marchesa of Crotone, Eleonora Orsini del Balzo, requested that Isabella loan her a camora so that she could copy it for her daughter, who was coming to Italy in the suite of the queen of Aragon, Isabella immediately gifted a fine gown.46 Isabella was also the recipient of gifts such as the Spanish-style blouse sent by Costanza d’Avalos, countess of Acerra, in 1493, which Isabella told the countess she wore often with affection for its donor.47 ‘Isabella d’Este e Giulio II’, 865–866n. Luzio describes Filiberto as, ‘uno di quei diplomatici autorevoli, la cui influenza [Isabella] sapeva così abilmente sfruttare a beneficio dello stato di Mantova’. Filiberto’s importance is suggested by Isabella’s assertion to the ambassador that: ‘per le mane de V.S. passano li apunctamenti de li stati de Italia’, Ferrara, 28 April 1504, b.2192, n.n. 43 Hickson, ‘Female Patronage’, 127–128. 44 On 17 April 1496, Isabella instructed Giorgio Brognolo to send black fabric for gifting to an unnamed male recipient. B.2992, L.6, cc.91v-92r. Isabella d’Este, Selected Letters, 90. 45 Isabella to Cesare, 15 January 1503, B.2993, L.14, cc.88r-v. Cockram, Isabella d’Este, 153. 46 Isabella to Floramonte Brognolo, 12 October 1506, B.2994, L.19, c.83r: ‘che la desyderaria havere una de le nostre camore per monstra per sua figliola che viene cum la regina de Aragona, havemone facto dare una […] de veluto leonato, listata de tela de arzento et fodrato de cendale alexandrine qual gli fareti apresentare da nostra parte’. Luzio and Renier, ‘Il lusso’, 454–455. 47 B.2991, L.3, cc.39v-40r. Isabella d’Este, Selected Letters, 56.

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Isabella’s use of sartorial embassy extended to the sending of fashion dolls in replicas of full Isabellian outfits at the request of François I. In 1515, Isabella’s heir Federico wrote to her from the French court asking for, ‘a doll dressed in your style with shirt, sleeves, under garment and outer, in outfit and headdress and hairstyle as you wear them. […] His Majesty is planning to have some pieces like those made to give to the French ladies’.48 Isabella received a request in 1524 from her third son Ferrante, at the Spanish court of Charles V, for a similar doll.49 A slightly later doll from the Swedish Royal Armoury may give a sense of the appearance of Isabellian examples (Figures 1.5a and 1.5b). Yassana Croizat argues that fashion dolls such as those requested from Isabella, expand[ed] the sender’s sphere of influence [and] acted as a tangible sign of her status as a leader, as someone possessing enough wealth, taste, and independence not only to create new models of sartorial expression, but to effectively promote them as well. For the recipient, such a gift would have been perceived as an invitation to share in its sender’s sartorial identity.50

Figures 1.5a and 1.5b: Late sixteenth-century doll. Swedish Royal Armoury.

48 Milan, 19 November 1515, B.2121, c.198: ‘[il] Re desidera che Vostra Signoria li mandi una puva vestita alla fogia che va lei de camisa, di maniche, de veste di sotto, e di sopra, et de abiliamenti, et aconciatura di testa, et deli capilli, come la porta; mandando perhò varie fogie di aconciatura di testa, Vostra Signoria satisfarà melio perché Sua Maestà designa far fare alcuni de quelli habiti per donar a donne in Franza’. See Tamalio, Federico Gonzaga, 128. 49 Croizat,‘”Living Dolls”’, 101. 50 Croizat,‘”Living Dolls”’, 113–114.

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Isabella’s sartorial embassies and representation at the most powerful courts thus included fashion items in miniature and full size, and these could function as visual, tactile, and olfactory ambassadors. Isabella produced cosmetic ingredients such as civet, and bought products including musk, ambergris, rose water, and fresh and dried flowers from near and far, to have in-house apothecaries blend them to her personal specifications.51 She held a reputation for signature fragrances and cosmetics, for both men and women. Such individualised and intimate products pleased the senses and prompted remembering of their donor. In 1501, Isabella thanked Bianca Maria Sforza, wife of Maximilian I, for a dress that she had received by sending perfumes.52 In 1516, Isabella sent perfumed bracelets to be presented by Federico Gonzaga to Queen Claude of France and jars of her best perfume to be reserved for the most important women of the court: the queen, the queen mother Louise of Savoy, and the duchess of Alençon.53 The queen appreciated the bracelet such that she reportedly wore it continuously and enjoyed the scent even at night, encouraging Isabella to send perfumed gold buttons that would be suited to overnight wear.54 These were part of a diplomatic strategy to gain French support for the duke of Urbino, Isabella’s son-in-law, against Medici hostility. In 1520, Isabella dispatched a gift of the best perfumed gloves at the request of the queen of France as those the marchesa had sent in the past remained the queen’s favourite. The queen appreciated their fineness and scent and reserved them for special occasions.55 Cultural and sartorial cachet were bargaining chips for a vulnerable state such as Mantua in the face of peninsular conflict and Valois/Habsburg power play. Isabella made use of her networks to source first-rate recipes and ingredients for her cosmetic armoury, for instance, writing to her husband’s sister Elisabetta Gonzaga, duchess of Urbino, for a handcream and its recipe in 1496.56 She used sartorial embassy and gift giving to strengthen ties of indebtedness and goodwill with men and women above and below her, including those with cultural influence. Isabella gifted a fine velvet dress to the wife of the sculptor Antico in a gesture of favour and social elevation.57 She sent perfume and cosmetics to the celebrated Emilia Pia, to the Magnificent Giuliano de’ Medici, and to the Venetian scholar (later cardinal) Pietro Bembo, all of whom would feature as elegant interlocutors in Baldassare Castiglione’s Book of the Courtier (published 1528).58 51 For civet, see Cockram, ‘Interspecies Understanding’, 283–284. For perfumes, see Isabella d’Este, Selected Letters, 126, 197, and 407. 52 B.2992, L.12, c40r. Isabella d’Este, Selected Letters, 161. 53 B.2996, L.32, c.87r. Isabella d’Este, Selected Letters, 405. 54 B.2997, L.33, cc.14v-15v. Isabella d’Este, Selected Letters, 407–409. 55 Luzio and Renier, ‘Il lusso’, 683–684. 56 B.2992, L.7, c.20r-v, 20 May 1496, writing to Elisabetta: ‘perché io desydero havere l’uncto predicto da mane, et anche la recetta’, and, having received these, 10 July, cc.67v-68r. 57 B.2993, L.12, c.27v. Isabella d’Este, Selected Letters, 158. 58 Shemek, ‘In Continuous Expectation’, 338. Luzio and Renier, ‘Il lusso’, 679. In another example of network building and service, Isabella received a jocular request for cosmetics from Camillo Costabili in Ferrara on 7 January 1505, B.1240, cc.394r-v and c.397r. Correspondence from a Roman profumier of 1516 can be found in B.863, diversi.

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Isabella’s trademark pieces promoting her sartorial reputation at other courts included the zazara, or capigliara, jewelled headdress, woven of rich fabric and real hair. This distinctive item, seen in Titian’s Isabella in Black (Colour Plate 1) and in Rubens’s copy of Titian’s lost Isabella in Red (c. 1600, Kunsthistorisches Museum), added height and authority to the silhouette and complemented curves in contemporary fashions. The zazara calls to mind Castiglione’s later advice to the court lady to make a self-aware judgement in choosing the most flattering garments, while dissimulating the effort behind such attention, with the light touch and artful artlessness that Castiglione would term sprezzatura.59 The clever design of the zazara led to Isabella receiving letters from various quarters requesting permission to wear it.60 As well as fashionability, this was a mark of political allegiance to the marchesa and, as Welch has pointed out, could show support of the pro-Sforza cause of Isabella’s nephew ousted from Milan by the French.61 Female adherents and ladies-in-waiting (donzelle) were essential to Isabella’s strategies. Donzelle in sumptuous dress, or indeed captivating undress, could attract attention of powerful figures. For example, Galeazzo Visconti was heartsore in 1491 after the departure of the marchesa and her company from Milan, describing memories of Isabella having her hair styled surrounded by partially clothed donzelle.62 Isabella and her ladies were among the first to adopt the use of underpants known as calzoni alla galeotta, and underclothes and undress have an important role in Isabella’s sartorial politics, with the revealed and hidden in outfits; practical benefits of underwear in riding and protecting modesty; and matters of seduction by the donzelle (allowing Isabella to use sex as a political weapon without compromising her own virtue).63 Isabella deployed her ‘army of ladies’, ‘exercito di donne’, forging attachments with key players to push political agendas and gain information, for instance at the Congress of Mantua in August 1512. Some months later in Milan, Isabella exploited the infatuation for Eleonora Brognina of both the imperial ambassador Matteo Lang, bishop of Gurk, and the viceroy of Naples, Ramón de Cardona. The donzella was rewarded for a kiss by the viceroy with 59 Castiglione, Il Cortegiano, I, 26, and III, 8: ‘aver iudicio di conoscer quai sono quegli abiti che le accrescon grazia e più accommodati a quelli esercizi ch’ella intende di fare in quel punto, e di quelli servirsi [and] accrescer quello che è dono della natura. Così, essendo un poco più grassa o più magra del ragionevole, o bianca o bruna, aiutarsi con gli abiti, ma dissimulamente più che sia possibile’. 60 For instance, from Eleonora Rusca da Correggio in 1509. For another request to wear an Isabellian invention, see Susanna Gonzaga’s letter of 15 April 1512: ‘haveria grandissimo desiderio portare una maya pelosa facta cum quelli canoncini d’oro come porta la Excellentia vostra perché mi piace molto quella fogia, ma perché gli sono serva dubitando farli dispiacere portandone, ho prima voluto intendere da lei, essendo sua inventione, se la si contenta ch’io ne porti’. B.1802. Luzio and Renier, ‘Il lusso’, 462 and 667. 61 Welch, ‘Art on the Edge’, 251–253. 62 Galeazzo Visconti to Isabella, Milan, 11 February 1491: ‘Io non poso pur smentigarme la vita nostra de la sera et la sua dolce compagnia […] pensandome de trovarla che se conzi el capo, et apresso Sua Signoria Teodora et Beatrice in maniche de camixa et […] Violante et Maria pur desvestite, et quando non la trovo, me trovo de mala voglia’. Luzio and Renier, ‘Delle relazioni’, 40–41. 63 For Isabella and her ladies’ adoption of underpants, see Luzio and Renier, ‘Il lusso’, 463.

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a gift of luxurious cloth and jewellery.64 An enchanting, imposing retinue, well-attired in versions of Isabella’s trademark styles in a uniform of allegiance, was an important asset, particularly as the marchesa aged.65 Isabella continued to make an international impact with her costume and entourage, for instance when she went to France incognito in 1517 or in 1529–1530 in Bologna for the imperial coronation by the pope of Charles V, who, in April 1530, would elevate the Gonzaga by naming Federico the first duke of Mantua.66 Dressed for Success Isabella was a driver of taste at European courts. By 1523, in thanks for a gift of stylish silk and gold headwear, Isabella was hailed by the queen of Poland as the originator of all the beautiful fashions of Italy.67 As well as buying goods from international centres of expertise and from across Italy, Isabella had local economic influence in strengthening the Mantuan fashion industry, and promoting this through female networks. Mantua gained renown for the making of headwear and Isabella established local manufacturing of velvet, satin, and damask in 1523.68 By 1533, the city’s clout was such that Caterina Cibo Varano and Catherine de’ Medici had their wardrobes made in Mantua under Isabella’s direction, in anticipation of travels to France for Catherine’s wedding to the future Henri II.69 Isabella had excellent seamstresses and embroiderers in-house, including a Greek lady with precise needlework skills offered to Isabella by Costanza d’Avalos, and she was in competition with Beatrice and their mother over the services of the Spanish embroiderer, Jorba.70 Isabella was eager to use the most accomplished craftsmen and women. However, Isabella’s expenditure 64 Isabella to Francesco, Milan, 1 February 1513, B.2120, fasc.II, c.88r-v: ‘Non voglio già tacere alla S.V. il gran favore che ha la Brognina dal Sig. Vicerè a concorrentia de Mons. Gurgense […] Il S. Vicerè […] gli detti uno baso, dovi per non lassare quello piacere senza il suo premio gli mandete poi a donare vinticinque braza de veluto cremesino, et altritanti de veluto negro. […] Hoggi poi gli ha mandato ad presentare due manille, una filcia de deci paternostri alla francese cum una crocetta et due collanete tutte d’oro’. Cockram, Isabella d’Este, 179, 182–183. 65 Isabella exercised careful quality control over the donzelle’s dress, refusing some Spanish gloves in 1506, for instance. B.2994, L.19, cc.25r-v. Isabella d’Este, Selected Letters, 270. 66 Giovanni Mussi di Cremona to Federico Gonzaga, Lyon, 4 June 1517, B. 634: crowds admired ‘cum maravilia le foze de Madama et sue donzelle, et dicono molte donne de qui che le foze nostre de le donne sono molto più belle’. Luzio and Renier, ‘Il lusso’, 466 and Cartwright, Isabella d’Este, II, 263. 67 Luzio and Renier, ‘Il lusso’, 267: ‘habbemo […] sei scuffiotti de seta et de oro de nova foggia […] per tanto pregamo Vostra Signoria se contenta quando qualche nova foggia di abendare la testa li occorserà, che semo certissimo non mancarne mai per essere Vostra Signoria fonte et origine de tucte le belle foggie d’Italia, de mandarne qualche una bella et che li piaccia’. For further exchanges of gifts with the queen, see Ferrari, ‘Arredi’, 106–107. 68 See Castagna, Mercanti. 69 Luzio and Renier, ‘Il lusso’, 465–466. 70 Luzio and Renier, ‘Il lusso’, 453 and 457.

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was restricted by recurring financial pressures at the Mantuan court, in comparison, for example, to those of Lucrezia Borgia as discussed above or to Beatrice d’Este, who accumulated an eye-watering 84 dresses in her first two years in Milan.71 Isabella succeeded in comparing favourably with her magnificent sister, who was described as an inventor of new fashions, ‘novarum vestiarum inventrix’, by Francesco Muralto in his Annalia.72 In 1495, King Charles VIII of France, who had met Beatrice, asked the priest Bernardino d’Urbino to describe Isabella’s appearance and accomplishments and was told that Isabella outshone her sister. Charles was keen to hear about Isabella’s outfits in detail.73 Strategies of innovation were invaluable for Isabella in preventing her from being outdone by richer women, including Lucrezia Borgia.74 The appeal of Isabella’s styling led to the adoption of her headdresses by Lucrezia, proclaiming Isabella’s flair in her home city. In 1505, Benedetto Capilupi wrote to Isabella from Ferrara: ‘the headdresses worn by these ladies and the duchess are just like those worn by Your Excellency and our ladies’.75 Isabella exploited trademarks such as the zazara; the putting together of striking outfits with older and newer pieces and eye-catching accessories; and artful, or indeed playful, use of hairstyling or cosmetics.76 For instance, Isabella wrote to the Milanese court jester Baron Bonvesino to find out how men there were able to dye their hair black and then remove the colour, as she would like to try this.77 Isabella also turned to nimble diplomatic practice to deflect financial embarrassment. In April 1493, when Isabella feared that her trip to Venice might coincide with Beatrice’s official visit, the marchesa made known that she wished to be welcomed by the doge as a daughter rather than as a guest. This status called for less pomp by Isabella’s suite while presenting an impression of intimate diplomatic ties between Mantua and the Serenissima.78 On a later trip to Venice, Isabella and Elisabetta Gonzaga avoided a formal visit to the Signoria with the excuse that they had only brought travelling attire and were incognito, not on official business with official dress.79 71 On 18 May 1502, Isabella outlined to her father her annual revenue of c.10,500 ducats and the expenditures required from this sum, including ‘per il mio vestire et de le mie donne’. B.2993 L.13, cc.71v-72v. See Shemek, ‘Properties’ and note 34 above. For the dresses acquired by Beatrice, see Luzio and Renier, ‘Il lusso’, 451. 72 Venturelli, ‘Novarum Vestium Inventrix’, 14. 73 Cartwright, Beatrice d’Este, 284. For more on Isabella’s reputation in France, see Luzio and Renier, ‘Il lusso’, 466–467. 74 To quote Rosita Levi Pisetzky: ‘forse Lucrezia trionfa per le sue vesti d’oro, di velluto, di broccato, ma non sembra che abbia mai raggiunto il prestigio di Isabella come innovatrice di fogge’, Storia, III, 22. 75 Capilupi to Isabella, 3 February 1505: ‘La conzadura de la testa de queste donne et de la duchessa è appunto come quella de V. Ex. et de le donne nostre, cum le vellette chi zalde, chi broccate et chi bianche’. Luzio and Renier, ‘Il lusso’, 666. 76 Welch, ‘Art on the Edge’. 77 23 July 1496, B.2992, L.7, c.74v. 78 Cartwright, Beatrice d’Este, 175. 79 Cartwright, Isabella d’Este, I, 217–219.

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State apparel required state jewellery. Isabella oversaw the making of a fine jewelled hat for Francesco Gonzaga’s formal entry into Bologna with papal forces in 1506.80 A large gem and pearls are central to Isabella’s zazara depicted by Titian (Colour Plate 1) and the inventory of Isabella’s jewels taken after her death lists splendid pieces. The grand items of a wardrobe were commodities that could be pawned to raise funds for political motives, and this was particularly true for gemstones and bejewelled clothing. In 1494, Isabella pawned jewels to support an attempt to obtain a cardinal’s hat for her brother-in-law Sigismondo Gonzaga. Financial demands led to Isabella’s jewels being held in pawn for an extended period. In July 1496, having heard of the impending expiration of one pawn contract and the possibility of another being taken out, Isabella urged her husband to recover the jewels.81 She appealed to Francesco’s understanding that jewels were required in the display of honour of the House of Gonzaga and of Isabella herself, particularly while she was still young and could carry off more extravagant items, but a balance was to be struck between the wearing of jewels and political exigencies, and between Isabella’s own wishes and the greater good of dynasty. Like other portable finery such as tapestries and plate, jewels could be lent between friendly courts to make an impression on a crucial occasion. Isabella lent her largest pearls to Elisabetta Gonzaga for a visit of Pope Julius II to Urbino in September 1506.82 As with gift-giving, this was an effective means of cementing alliance and indebtedness. In addition to splendour and value, jewels contributed to the semiotics of sartorial politics through the meanings attributed to different gemstones, and through learned or pious significance and functions of devotion, as with rosaries.83 Isabella’s jewels were often personalised and, mindful of their importance, as in all her acquisitions, Isabella issued intricate instructions to her agents, sometimes sketching her requirements.84 The presence of religious messages or of Isabella’s devices, initials, or name on her jewels85 projected the marchesa’s virtuous erudition and authority. However, Isabella’s jewels were only partially her own: they were badges of dynasty, passed down through the family, often given on special occasions such as weddings or the birth of children, and ready to be pawned as needed. In her hands or not, Isabella’s jewels demonstrate highly developed schemes of self-presentation and dynastic aggrandisement in gemmological and sartorial politics. 80 Isabella to Francesco, 30 October 1506, B.2116, fasc.XI.3, c.278r. 81 If something had to be pawned, Isabella preferred it be her jewelled camora than pieces of jewellery. Isabella to Francesco, 27 August 1496, B.2111, c.268 and c.303. See also Shemek, ‘Properties’. 82 Cartwright, Isabella d’Este, I, 284. 83 Woods-Marsden, ‘Portrait’, 67 and Ghirardo, ‘I gioielli sacri’. 84 Herald, Renaissance Dress, 171 and Brown, Per dare, 104. 85 As on her medals, Isabella’s jewels may also have shown her portrait. Isabella seems to have possessed a ring with an image of her face, resembling her likeness by Leonardo. Ferrari, ‘L’ “inventario”’, 27. Luzio and Renier, ‘Il lusso’, 294–324.

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As well as her shopping contacts, Isabella deployed a carefully fostered news-gathering network for intelligence on others’ jewels and clothing.86 Isabella received a description in 1501 of Caterina Sforza’s costume.87 In 1502, she was sent a doll dressed in Florentine style by Eleonora Orsini del Balzo.88 In avid amassing of information on her soon-to-be sister-in-law, Isabella learnt from her correspondent Bernardino de’ Prosperi that Lucrezia, who would wear Eleonora of Aragon’s jewels, also had ‘great jewels, worthy of the rank of a queen’. He urged Isabella: ‘Your Ladyship must use all your talent to demonstrate whose daughter you are and – even if you do not have many, many jewels – that yours do not appear any less well set than anyone else’s’.89 Isabella was kept informed of attire in Beatrice’s Milan by a variety of sources.90 After the death of their mother, Isabella learnt that her sister wore elegant mourning with fine white veils, and she requested that Beatrice send some.91 The symbolic value of the outfits was heightened in the matched elegance of the trendsetting Este princesses across courts. Isabella made further use of female networks by sending gifts to her sister-in-law Chiara Gonzaga in France and asking for the finest black fabric.92 Outside of mourning, Isabella often wore sombre colours after making voti ‒ vows of religious devotion in times of need that might promise pilgrimage and the casting aside of luxuries. Luzio and Renier suggest that, as well as the opportunity to travel, Isabella’s sartorial preferences encouraged her to make many such voti.93 Dressing in dark colours could signify wealth and authority, and was not only flattering, but suggested a piety and lack of frivolity. This choice could also be a necessity when Isabella’s jewels were in pawn. In 1496, Isabella wrote to her husband that if her last pieces were pawned, she would have to wear black as she could not be seen in bold colours or brocades without jewels.94

86 For news gathering, see Cockram, Isabella d’Este, 44–47, and James, ‘An Insatiable Appetite’. See also note 33 above. 87 Il Prete to Isabella, Siena, 18 December 1501, B.1103, c.255r. 88 Lorenzoni, ‘Tra francesi e spagnoli’, 131. 89 De’ Prosperi wrote to Isabella of Lucrezia on 3 October 1501, ‘Il se intende anche lei havere de gran zoglie et digne et essere in ordine da regina […] La Signoria Vostra adoperi mò lo inzegno suo acciò la dimonstri de chi fo figliola, et se la non haverà tante, tante zoglie, che le sue non comparano manco ben poste de quelle de l’altri’. B.1237. Prizer, ‘Isabella d’Este and Lucrezia Borgia’, 5. See note 33 above for jewels Isabella wore as described by Sanuto. Lucrezia likewise attempted to find out information on Isabella’s dress. Luzio and Renier, ‘Il lusso’, 464–465. 90 Cartwright, Beatrice d’Este, 167–171. 91 Isabella to Beatrice, 23 October 1493, B.2991, L.3, c.91r. 92 Isabella to Chiara Gonzaga, 3 January 1494, B.2991, L.4, cc.11v-12r: ‘Io porto adesso negro […] per la morte de la Ill.ma M.a mia matre […] et perché scio che in quello paese sono panni negri molto più fini che sono questi nostri, prego V.S. cum quella confidentia che dovemo usare l’una de l’altra, che la voglia mandarmi […] tanto panno che me facia una camorra cum le manighe et coda, quale portarò per suo amore’. 93 Luzio and Renier, ‘Il lusso’, 460. See also James, ‘Travels’. 94 Isabella to Francesco, 27 August 1496, B.2111, c.303r-v (copy in B.2191).

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Figure 1.6: Francesco Bonsignori, The Adoration of the Blessed Osanna Andreasi, 1519, tempera on panel. Palazzo Ducale, Mantua.

Upon widowhood, Isabella was portrayed by Francesco Bonsignori in a 1519 altarpiece showing the Beata Osanna Andreasi, a mystic and stigmatic attached to the Gonzaga family (Figure 1.6). Bonsignori’s preparatory drawing, now in the British Museum (Figure 1.7), shows Isabella kneeling in veneration of Osanna. Isabella’s pose and black-and-white clothing in the altarpiece mirror three nuns who face Isabella on the other side of the painting, one of whom is Isabella’s daughter Ippolita (1501– 1570).95 Isabella was newly in the position of regent, which she would hold alongside 95 Isabella’s daughter Livia Osanna (1508–1569) would also become a nun, and abbess of the Clarissan convent of Corpus Domini (Santa Paola) in Mantua.

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Figure 1.7: Francesco Bonsignori, Drawing of Isabella d’Este, 1519, black chalk on paper. British Museum, London.

Francesco’s brothers until Federico came of age. Her costume reassuringly declared Isabella a ruler of modest and devout authority. Isabella’s sartorial choices thus balanced the bright and the solemn, each carefully selected to the advantage of the marchesa and the Gonzaga. Later in life, she continued to hold her reputation for sartorial power, with trademark elements of her look constituting what we might follow Shemek in terming ‘Isabella’s personal

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Figure 1.8: Giulio Romano, Margherita Paleologa, c. 1531, oil on panel. Royal Collection Trust / Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II.

branding’.96 Such was Isabella’s success that several portraits of ladies wearing the fashionable zazara have been erroneously identified as portraits of the marchesa.97 Scholars such as Frederick Hartt and John Shearman classified Giulio Romano’s portrait of Isabella’s daughter-in-law Margherita Paleologa of c. 1531 as a portrait of the marchesa (Figure 1.8).98 The sitter is indeed in Isabellian ensemble, complete with zazara and vinci. In a forceful image of state, Margherita’s attire ‒ and the appearance of a more soberly 96 Isabella d’Este, Selected Letters, 7. 97 Bernardino Licinio’s Portrait of a Woman Holding a Portrait of a Man (c.1525–1530) in the Castello Sforzesco, Milan, is one example. 98 A number of scholars, believing the painting to portray Isabella, have dated it from Giulio’s time in Mantua of 1524–1525, eg. Hartt, Giulio Romano, I, 82–84 and Shearman, Early Italian Pictures, 118–121. However, more compelling, including by age and physiognomy of the sitter, is the now more commonly accepted identification as Margherita Paleologa, who married Federico in 1531 (bringing Mantua the territory of Monferrato). Castagna and Lorenzoni, ‘Un presunto ritratto’.

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dressed marchesa herself, entering through a doorway in the background ‒ expresses dynastic permanence and Isabella’s enduring ability to exert influence over fashion, family, and politics. Isabella’s style was subject both to change (avoiding outmoded garments and responding to events) and to consistency (in high quality fabrics which could be reused, and in jewels and characteristic designs worn for several years, even decades). She adopted strategies of similarity and differentiation, conformity and leadership, with multilayered costumes of multilayered meaning that were at once of the magnificence associated with the most noble, and also recognisably hers. Her personal taste, Renaissance aesthetics, courtly ideas about beauty and splendour, and indicators of nobility and wealth came together in her attire. In a period of mutual influence between Italian and international styles, the marchesa deployed diplomatic networks of men and women, and manoeuvred herself into a position from which she could direct fashion and the advancement of her own and her family’s status through one of its most forceful signs. Isabella was described by l’Unico Aretino as ‘not only the most glorious but also the most powerful woman that ever there was’ of her House.99 All dressed in the fleur-de-lys, out to wow at the Congress of Bologna, producing perfume for royal night buttons, or dispensing the zazara, Isabella worked to gain the favour – nose, eye, and ear ‒ of those above her, and the service of those below. At the core of Isabella’s objectives was appreciation of her personal authority across interconnected spheres, alongside the shoring up of power for her state and dynasty. With these objectives in mind, she was a figure of inventiveness and élan in mastery of Renaissance sartorial statecraft.

About the author Sarah Cockram is Teaching Fellow in Early Modern European History at the University of Edinburgh. She is the author of Isabella d’Este and Francesco Gonzaga: Power Sharing at the Italian Renaissance Court (2013). Alongside her research on questions of gender, power, and court culture, Sarah works in the field of historical animal studies and, among her recent publications, Sarah’s article ‘Interspecies Understanding: Exotic Animals and their Handlers at the Italian Renaissance Court’ (2017) was awarded the Society for Renaissance Studies essay prize.

99 Bernardo Accolti to Isabella, Rome, 14 August 1511, Autografi, B.8, fasc.2, c. 15r, asking for Isabella’s help that his cardinal brother might become pope, as ‘non solo la più gloriosa ma la più potente donna che may fussi in casa vostra’.

2. Dressing the Queen at the French Renaissance Court: Sartorial Politics1 Isabelle Paresys

Abstract During the Renaissance, and despite religious wars and international conflicts, the French court increasingly empowered itself. The queen was closely associated with royal dignity and dynastic prestige. This chapter addresses the dress politics and practices that regulated the appearances of the queen of France in order to display her magnificence and majesty, increasing her importance in the court. Some of these princesses were from top-tier or second-tier foreign dynasties and had to govern the realm during turbulent times. Their looks were an object of attention. The article examines how they were able to mobilise their dressing for strategic ends in terms of expression of their national identity and of their power as regents of the realm for their sons. Key words: France; queen; dress; clothing; identity; widowhood

During the Renaissance, the royal court became the centre for a codified culture distinct from the rest of society.2 It produced vestimentary codes and norms that governed an entire scale of appearances that differentiated its members from other social elites.3 After the disappearance of the last great feudal courts in France, the last of the Valois and the first of the Bourbons worked on the consolidation of the royal court at the end of the sixteenth and beginning of the seventeenth centuries. From the time of François I, there was a commitment to the importance of having a brilliant court, in competition with European courts. It was a question of being ‘the queen of all other courts’, reported the ambassador from Mantua in 1539, a requirement maintained by successive sovereigns in spite of civil and religious conflicts (in 1562–1598) and international conflicts, particularly with Spain, which led to the dissolution of the court for eleven years after 1589.4 Once peace had been reestablished, the last years of the reign of Henri IV perpetuated the frenzy of courtly luxury in the first decade of the seventeenth century.5 As the court increasingly empowered itself, 1 This essay was translated by Sidney Smith, University of Auckland. 2 Le Roux, ‘Codes sociaux’, 131–148. 3 Paresys, ‘La cour de France’, 223–237. 4 Cited in Chatenet, ‘Habits de cérémonie’, 224. 5 Dubost, Marie de Médicis, 190–191; Donville, Signification de la mode sous Louis XIII, 40ff.

Griffey, E. (ed.), Sartorial Politics in Early Modern Europe: Fashioning Women, Amsterdam University Press, 2019 doi: 10.5117/9789462986008_ch02

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setting itself apart from the rest of society, it installed luxury as a sign of entitlement and social distinction. The court reflected the power of the king and was also the instrument of that power. As it became materialised in an increasingly lavish setting, it also saw the place of the queen being established at its centre. The queen of France was closely associated with royal dignity and dynastic prestige. Her importance could be measured by the steady increase, from the very end of the fifteenth century, in the number of people employed in her household, including the maids-of-honour. Without in any way supplanting men, these maids-of-honour made women more visible at court than they had ever been before.6 The presence of ladies-in-waiting in the households of the queen mother, the sister, and the daughters of the king also contributed to this phenomenon. In a court whose desire was to be magnificent, what dress politics and practices regulated the appearances of the queen of France, the first lady of the court? How were these princesses, some of whom were from top-tier or second-tier foreign dynasties, able to mobilise their appearance for strategic ends? Envisaging the ways in which the queen was dressed unfortunately runs up against the fragmentary nature of French court documentation. Only fragmentary traces of accounts for their purchases exist. Additionally, until the beginning of the seventeenth century, portraits of French queens were less abundant than in some other European courts, including England and Spain, for example. Nor are there royal costumes among the very rare pieces preserved in museums. All the same, it is possible to analyse the practices and strategies in the matter of queenly appearance in terms of ostentatious magnificence, of the display of majesty and of the naturalisation of the queen’s identity.

Dressing Royal Magnificence First among equals, just like the king, in the performance space that was the Renaissance court, the queen obviously did not deviate from its ontology of sumptuous appearance.7 Cultivating an extraordinary appearance was in fact one way of maintaining preeminence. This was achieved through a performative method of distinctiveness that was both corporeal and material, and even more so for the queen and the princesses of royal blood. Royal sumptuary laws, which became active again in 1485 and saw the enactment of eleven more edicts up to 1610 before intensifying again in the early seventeenth century, established a grammar of distinctiveness based on a hierarchy of materials, colours, items of clothing, and jewels for ornamentation and adornment. It functioned on the principle of privilege, which favoured certain 6 7

Kolk, ‘The Household of the Queen of France’, 3–22. Paresys, ‘La prééminence par la distinction des apparences’, 361–377.

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members of the court according to a system of concentric networks around, initially, the personage of the king and his household. Under pressure from the grand lineages, this was enlarged to include princes and dukes.8 The queen was also the first to benefit from this, as well as the women of the royal family and those of the queen’s and the king’s sister’s retinues, as the royal declarations of 1549 and 1576 remind us.9 In this way, legislation and fashion practices outlined a model of earmarked expenditure and a monopoly of ostentation for the royal family circle.10 Queen Louise of Lorraine, the wife of Henri III, who preferred to dress modestly on normal days but did dress up for solemn occasions, once confronted a shopper in a Parisian boutique. This woman, the wife of a parliamentary president, had the entire store running around to show her luxury fabrics to which her rank did not entitle her, which Louise reminded her of and which the bourgeois lady took badly. Once she became aware of the queen’s identity, the distraught lady dissolved into apologies.11 Dressed to Impress It goes without saying, therefore, that the attire of queens showed a spectacular magnificence when the monarchy performed in front of its subjects, during the ceremonials of the royal entry into the kingdom’s cities or the numerous festivals given at the court, some of which were held at the behest of queens, such as Catherine de’ Medici or Marie de’ Medici, both instilled with their lavish Florentine culture. The apparel of the queen and her female retinue was an object of attention, by witnesses, official chroniclers praising the monarchy, and by admiring diarists and ambassadors scrutinising French practices. The sought-after effect – to impress the public – can be felt in their descriptions. Therefore, during her royal entry into Rouen on 2 October 1550, Catherine de’ Medici was dressed in a gown of gold cloth embellished with gold embroidery and heavy with pearls and precious stones. The overall effect was of such splendour that the queen resembled a ‘sky sparkling with stars’, enthused the chronicler. Her sister-in-law and other princesses were dressed similarly, ‘in a way that you thought right and proper for such princesses’. The sight of the procession ‘filled the people with admiration, uncertain whether it was the well-formed bodies and the natural features of their faces that enhanced their luxurious attire, or if it was the magnificence of the costumes that enhanced the beauty of their personages’.12 The luxury of the queen’s retinue was well understood as the measure of her own status as well as a sign of royal power. The adornments, brocades, and jewels worn by 8 Paresys, ‘La prééminence par la distinction des apparences’, 376. 9 Recueil général des anciennes lois françaises; Declaration du Roy. 10 Bastien, ‘“Aux tresors dissipez l’on cognoist le malfaict”’, 24. 11 Boucher, Deux épouses et reines, 89. 12 C’est la deduction du sumptueux ordre, n.p.

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Queen Eleanor of Austria at the marriage of the young Catherine de’ Medici to the Duke of Orleans in 1533 were ‘so magnificent that they are beyond description’, as a citizen from Marseille who witnessed the spectacle of the procession in his city on that occasion commented repeatedly.13 Hierarchic icons glittering with a thousand fires, magnificence that was indescribable, an effect of almost stunning the public, and the juxtaposition of the bodily beauty of the queen with her clothing: these are the commonplaces we find in the hyperbolic discourse of contemporary observers. Their aim was to signal the majestic status of the queen by, literally, materialising her through her finery. Adornment from jewels, pearls, or precious stones sewn on the clothing played a role all the more important in the early sixteenth century, when international aristocratic fashion accorded them an increasingly grand position. In courtly one-upmanship, the queen placed the bar so high as to be unsurpassable. She was helped in this by the fact that, during the reign of her husband, the crown jewels were placed in her care. The queen could appropriate them as if they were in some way jewels of office, to which were added those gifted to her or, as Marie de’ Medici did, after a frenzied purchase of precious stones enabled her to procure her own assets.14 At the 1606 christening of her daughter, Christine, Marie’s gown was enriched ‘with thirty-two thousand pearls and three thousand diamonds.’15 For the new Bourbon dynasty, it was about signalling the restoration of the brilliance of the court, reestablished in 1600 by Henri IV in his marriage to Marie, after eleven years of eclipse due to the slow resolution of civil and international wars and of financial problems. Conspicuous Consumption and Generosity These impressive appearances were simply one reflection of a whole economy of royal female appearance, although the limited state of the accounting archives for the queens’ households preventing us from gaining any full appreciation for all of the queens. Nevertheless, one can still adduce principles of the system for queenly expenditure. An important budget, recorded in the accounts of the royal L’Argenterie, was set up every year for the purchase of textiles, accessories, and the costs of the production of the queen’s personal clothing.16 It is impossible to determine how frequently the royal wardrobe was renewed in the sixteenth century given the state of the archives. It was certainly not the frequency achieved in the eighteenth century, when 13 ‘Le mariage de Catherine de Médicis’, vol. 1, 254. 14 Dubost, Marie de Médicis, 192. See also Cosandey, La reine de France, 87. 15 Mercure de France, 1606, cited in Dubost, Marie de Médicis, 192. 16 This is a service of the Royal household dedicated to managing the purchasing of the Chamber and the Wardrobe. Archives nationales de France, série KK.

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the wardrobes of the king and the queen were totally refashioned annually in order to assist the French luxury textile industry.17 Newly made clothing was added to the existing clothing kept in the wardrobe coffers, both enabling a regular renewal of the queen’s appearance and the illusion of innovation. Catherine de’ Medici played this game: she dressed magnificently, reported Antonio Soriano, the Venetian ambassador in 1550, ‘so that the garment she wore on a particular day did not reappear for many months’.18 In 1556, she was responsible for expenditure on 35 gowns, 47 kirtles, and 21 mantles.19 The budget devoted to the queen’s clothing, the luxury materials of which they were composed, and the ability to augment the number of garments far beyond simple need reflected the ethos of conspicuous consumption by the aristocratic elite. Their expenditure was linked to their prestige, whether actual or desired.20 The reigning dynasty set the standard. The appearance of its members had to maintain the first rank it occupied at court as well as on the international front, including when financial difficulties from religious wars weakened the monarchy.21 That is why, once peace was restored and the court reestablished, Henri IV, with a view to giving his new dynasty a comparable splendour to that of the Valois, allowed his new wife expenditure equivalent to the 7881 pounds spent by Catherine de’ Medici in 1556.22 In 1634, Queen Anne of Austria received an even greater endowment of more than twice this amount, a development which attested to the growing attention paid to royal appearance.23 More prosaically, the sumptuous silks, whether plain, worked, or embossed with motifs, the gold and silver cloth, and the pearls and jewels residing in the coffers or worn by the queen, were all capital amassed by the monarchy. In a sense, the queen wore part of the kingdom’s fortune on her body. Furthermore, the accounts of the queen’s household reveal that the ability to spend on clothing was not the only sign of monarchical power. This was also expressed through munificence, the ability of the queen to give with largesse, to express her grandeur through generosity. In 1556, Catherine de’ Medici spent almost the same amount on her own wardrobe as she did to dress her dwarves, to make some purchases for her children, and especially, to make numerous gifts of clothing, fabrics, and furs.24 These were not only destined for Mary Stuart, her future daughterin-law, who had been raised at the court (and who received the gift of a gown of silk 17 Roche,  La culture des apparences; Chiozzotto, ‘Les apparences vestimentaires de Louis XV’. 18 Cited by Chatenet, La Cour de France, 191. 19 Paresys, ‘Vêtir les souverains français à la Renaissance’. 20 Veblen, The Theory of the Leisure Class; and Elias, ‘Le système des dépenses’, 48–49. 21 See Paresys, ‘Marquer la prééminence’, 366. 22 The pound was a unit used in France that amalgamated weight and value. On one of the rare years for which accounts have been preserved for a queen of France, see Paresys, ‘Vêtir les souverains français’, article 7; and Lecarpentier-Bertrand, ‘Du corps royal au corps domestique’, 535. 23 Lecarpentier-Bertrand, ‘Du corps royal au corps domestique’, 535. 24 Paresys, ‘Vêtir les souverains français’, articles 7, 30; and National Archives, KK 118.

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taffeta shimmering with gold ribbon), but also for the ladies of the royal household, for mourning gowns in black silk, or for weddings in crimson velvet. More modest gifts were also made to the chambermaids, the laundress, the chaplain, and the doctor, even to people in the king’s household for taking care of the royal spouse. For the queen, it was a question of using gifts to nurture social ties with her household personnel as well as members of the court.25 The queen’s liberality also related to the political strategy of consolidating aristocratic loyalties with the high nobility in a tense political context. A quarter of the purchases of jewels made by Marie de’ Medici between 1601 and 1632, for example, were given to members of the royal family but also to all types of figures and clients in her network in order to buy their loyalty.26 In May 1571, after the religious peace of 1570, Charles IX gave consent to a Catholic noble and a Protestant to marry in front of the court. The king gave a gown of gold cloth to the bride, which the Queen Mother, Catherine de’ Medici, had covered with crown jewels to the sum of 200,000 ecus, with the aim of dazzling the young woman and encouraging her to stay amongst the queen’s ladies in the court, where they would be able to force her to practise Catholicism.27

Dressing and Depicting the Royal Majesty The magnificence of the Queen of France was attested to by contemporary witnesses and by the accounting records for her household. She was one with her magnificence. But what image strategies surrounded the queen? Was there also particular dress indicating royal female dignity? Majestic Clothing If the objectified body of the queen, impressing through its finery, was put on display in showy monarchical ceremonies, it was not commonly shown this way in the Valois’s favourite means of depiction – portraits. The Valois preferred more intimate portraits. These were smaller, head-and-shoulder portraits in either paint or pencil, rather than the full-length portraits, which were really portraits of the magnificent costumes and of the true power of costume portraits, favoured by, for example, the Habsburgs of Spain and the Holy Roman Empire and the Tudors of England as an illustration of their dynastic splendour, and also by the Medicis of Tuscany, eager for recognition on the international level.28 In England, for example, in 1545, the queen 25 On gifts, see Davis, Essai sur le don dans la France du XVIe s. 26 Lecarpentier-Bertrand, ‘Du corps royal au corps domestique’, 307. 27 Gouyon, Mémoires de Charles Gouyon, 110–112; and Boucher, Société et mentalités autour de Henri III, 341. 28 Zvereva, Les Clouet de Catherine de Médicis. See also Brouhot, ‘Le portrait du costume’.

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consort Katherine Parr was entitled to be painted in a large portrait in rich attire, dressed, notably, in French style.29 In contrast, only two large portraits of queens of France are known to have been commissioned before Marie de’ Medici at the beginning of the seventeenth century. Even large portraits of the king were rare. The 1573 portrait of Elisabeth of Austria, the wife of Charles IX, was based on a small headand-shoulders portrait by François Clouet (c. 1571–1572, Louvre). But the full-length portrait of Elisabeth endows the gown with large sleeves in the French manner, even though they were no longer fashionable, and a surprising brocade of white, black, and gold, likely to have been copied from the iconic portrait by Bronzino in 1545 of Eleanor of Toledo, the Duchess of Tuscany.30 This 1573 portrait imitated the Florentine layout of the patterns of golden pomegranates, closed or opened (such as the bust of the gown), and the design of dark velvet ironworks, but the painter narrows their line drawing. The majesty of the queen in this portrait is based on the voluminous quality of her gown, the jewels, the rich lynx fur of the sleeves, and a brocade referencing ironwork, all of an unprecedented luxury for that era. Later, towards 1590, the Grand Duke of Tuscany had a commemorative portrait of his relative, Catherine de’ Medici painted in Florence; Catherine had died in 1589 and had been the grandmother and adoptive mother of his new wife, Christine of Lorraine.31 In a format borrowed from the portrait of his former daughter-in-law, Elisabeth of Austria, Catherine is not depicted in widow’s garb, despite having worn it from 1559, but in the brilliant attire expected of a queen of France: her gown is entirely sewn with pearls and diamonds. The objective was to reinforce the dynastic prestige of the Florentine Medicis by showing their ties to a royal persona, the first Medici to ascend to the French throne.32 And, to signify the identity of this prestigious relative to a Tuscan court which dressed itself in the Spanish manner, Catherine is dressed in the French style fashionable before her widowhood, her great sleeves of lynx fur not anachronistic this time. Only the neck rising above her fichu curiously references French fashion of the 1580s in a telescoping of time. The Dress of the Queen in her Majesty Several decades later, Marie de’ Medici, who became queen in 1600, made an innovation in the depiction of queens of France by launching a type of portrait of a quite different majesty. She had herself painted by Frans Pourbus the Younger in a sumptuous portrait in which she wore a coronation gown, a first for a portrait of 29 Master John, Katherine Parr, c. 1545, London, National Gallery. 30 Jooris van Straten, Elisabeth d’Autriche, reine de France, 1573, Madrid, Monasterio de las Descalzadas Reales; François Clouet, Elisabeth d’Autriche, 1571–1572, Paris, Louvre; Agnolo Bonzino, Eléonore de Tolède et son fils Giovanni, 1545, Florence, Uffizi. 31 Florentine School, Catherine de Médicis, c. 1590, Florence, Palazzo Pitti. 32 Brouhot, ‘Le portrait du costume’, vol. 1, 315.

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the queen of France (Colour Plate 2).33 The velvet, diamonds, pearls, and great lace ruff of the gown breathe luxury, but the majesty of the queen is embodied in more symbolic elements which make direct reference to the French monarchy, such as the blue and ermine of the mantle, the golden fleur-de-lys embroidered throughout the whole gown, the white stomacher in the form of an inverted fleur-de-lys, and even a small crown closed on the top in the manner of an imperial crown worn in the imperial manner. The queen’s attire had these symbols in common with those of the coronation costume of the king, signifying that she shared the sovereign dignity of her husband even if she did not share the power. Indeed, a queen’s legal and political inferiority was underlined by the judicial consultants and even by the ceremony of her coronation, if indeed the queen was crowned, which was not always the case.34 If Marie was finally crowned, ten years after her marriage, it was because Henri IV, assassinated the day after the ceremony, was preparing to leave for war and wanted to confer regency on her.35 This great portrait had been destined to celebrate the occasion of her coronation. The impact of the queen’s dress was so powerful that, in 1622, Rubens painted Anne of Austria dressed in an identical manner, a portrait subsequently repeated in engravings and propaganda paintings even after her widowhood, when being depicted in majesty felt essential during the regency of her son Louis XIV.36 This attire also powerfully influenced other representations of Anne and then of Maria Theresa of Austria. In these portraits, sleeves, the volume of the skirt, and lace collars were adapted to the fashion of their times but retained the stomacher in the form of the fleur-de-lys and also the blue gown covered in fleur-de-lys.37 The dress of the queen in her majesty adapted itself, then, to fashion at the very beginning of the seventeenth century. In this respect, it departed from the majestic image of the queen that had been codified since the funeral ceremonies of Charlotte of Savoy in 1483 and which, from the beginning of the fourteenth century, had gradually developed in parallel with the closer link of Valois wives to the communication of power.38 This dress was based on two elements: the very long blue mantle covered in fleur-de-lys and the often purple surcoat, both garnished with ermine, ‘showing that it was appropriate for a queen and princess to wear ermine in this way’, as the chronicler of the funeral of Anne of Brittany in 33 Frans Pourbus, Marie de Médicis reine de France, c. 1610, Paris, Louvre. Dubost, Marie de Médicis, 202. Ducos, Frans Pourbus le jeune 1569–1622, 224–226. 34 Cosandey, La reine de France, 138. 35 Dubost, Marie de Médicis, 277. 36 Pierre-Paul Rubens, Anne d’Autriche en habit de reine, c. 1622–1625, Norton Simon Museum. See, for example, Philippe de Champaigne, Anne d’Autriche et ses enfants, 1646, Versailles. 37 Jean Nocret, Marie-Thérèse d’Autriche, c. 1660, Versailles. 38 Gaude-Ferragu, ‘Habit réel, habit imaginé’, 7, 11–13.

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1514 commented.39 Other ceremonies (coronations, royal entrances), on the other hand, showed a greater liberty in relation to form (with or without surcoat), ornamentation (with or without fleur-de-lys), and colours (white, violet, predominantly blue, crimson) worn by the queens. Nonetheless, in the sixteenth century, the queen, during these ceremonies, began increasingly to wear a surcoat, a female garment that had become outmoded since its disappearance at court in the years 1420–1440.40 It became, however, an insignia of regal dignity, doubtless reflecting the custom in iconography at the end of the Middle Ages to draw or sculpt it to indicate a queen, princess, noblewoman, or saint.41 Its parachronistic nature certainly conferred on it a sense of timelessness befitting the notion of the perennial nature of royal dignity. At the same time, the wearing of this surcoat took hold among princesses married to the sons of France. For example, this is the ‘small ermine corset’ worn by Catherine de’ Medici in 1533 and among princesses of blood for their weddings, as Marguerite de Valois, who became the bride of King Henry of Navarre (in 1572), recounted in her memoirs.42 She described herself as ‘married in royal style with crown and surcoat of flecked ermine which goes in front of the body […] and a great blue mantle seven metres long carried by three princesses’.43 The length of the train indicated the rank held at court. This veritable stage costume making the queens of the Renaissance archaic is similar to the praying statues on their tombs in the royal necropolis of Saint-Denis in the North of Paris where the sovereigns were buried. They imitate, up until Catherine de’ Medici, the burial and tomb of Anne of Brittany.44 In the portrait of her majesty by Frans Pourbus the Younger, which was for her coronation but would also be for her recumbent effigy much later on, Marie de´ Medici dusted off her queenly attire by removing its archaic nature: a gown with a drum-shaped farthingale, and sleeves and collar of voluminous lace according to the courtly fashion at the beginning of the seventeenth century. If the stomacher gave the impression of a very refined and therefore fashionable torso, and consigned the traditional surcoat to oblivion, it did however remain semi-heraldic in being covered with ermine and in the form of a fleur-de-lys. The fleur-de-lys which appeared on the blue mantles of the kings of France completely covered the fashionable gown on this occasion. The overall effect in some ways worked as a syncretism of tradition and fashion. 39 Cited in Chatenet, ‘La reine en majesté’, 176. 40 Gaude-Ferragu, ‘Habit réel, habit imaginé’, 16. The surcoat was a short garment worn over the kirtle, covering the torso and the hips. 41 Gaude-Ferragu, ‘Habit réel, habit imaginé’, 16. 42 Bourilly, ed., Honorat de Valbelle, vol.1. 43 Valois, Mémoires et autres écrits, 91. 44 The tombs of Louis XII and Anne of Brittany (1515–1531) and of Henri II and Catherine de’ Medici (1560–1573).

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The Majesty of Mourning Widowhood obliged a queen to renounce the magnificence of her appearance, to wear a black dress for the rest of her life, and to withdraw from the world, at least until she married again, as Anne of Brittany did in 1499 in order to preserve the union of her duchy with the French Crown. But, for a queen, royal remarriage was an exception. According to the texts, the norm for a queen was to wear mourning clothes in shades of tan, purple, violet, or crimson during other court mournings. But widowhood obliged the former queen to wear attire distinct from the queen who succeeded her called white mourning because of the white veiling falling from the white hood and another veil, partly pleated, which passed under the chin and fell onto a black gown, as worn by Eleanor of Austria after 1543 and Mary Stuart in 1560.45 Contrary to what some writers have said, white mourning was not the sole prerogative of queens. Ladies of the court took white mourning on the death of their husbands, of a parent, or on the death of the king, to which several of the pencil portraits by the Clouets attest.46 By wearing white mourning in 1560, the young Mary Stuart was choosing to differentiate herself visually from her mother-in-law, Catherine de’ Medici. On the tragic death of Henri II in 1559, Catherine had chosen to wear black mourning. In this, Catherine de’ Medici was following the example of Anne of Brittany, widow of her first husband, Charles VIII (1498), who seemed to have broken with the tradition of the white queens in doing so. Undoubtedly, Catherine’s total look in black (hood, veil, and gown) was designed to signify her state as the mourning widow of a husband tragically killed in a tournament. Perhaps she also wanted to differentiate herself from her husband’s very influential mistress, Diane de Poitiers, a splendid widow who always dressed in black and white.47 Also inconsolable after the deaths of their spouses Charles IX (in 1574) and Henri III (in 1589), Elisabeth of Austria and Louise of Lorraine followed the example of their mother-in-law in wearing black mourning. On Catherine’s body, and later on Marie de’ Medici’s (1610) and Anne of Austria’s (1643), the wearing of black mourning nonetheless took on a more political sense, that of the government of the kingdom by a woman whose painted or printed portrait disseminated her image for purposes of legitimation. By contrast, in the same era female, power was visualised in England by a prolific series of portraits of Elizabeth I in which the magnificence of her extraordinary finery signalled her queenly power. But in France, the fundamental laws of the kingdom prevented women from accessing the throne. Queens succeeded in governing only when, as mothers of kings who were still minors, they were permitted to exercise regency in the name of their 45 Antonio Moro, Eléonore d’Autriche veuve de François Ier, c. 1548, Madrid, Descalzadas Reales; François Clouet, Marie Stuart en deuil blanc, c. 1560–1561, Royal Collection Trust. 46 Zvereva, ‘La beauté triomphante’, note 39, 87. 47 François Clouet, Portrait of Diane de Poitiers mourning the loss of her husband, 1550. Versailles, château de Versailles et de Trianon.

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sons, a frequent event in the late Renaissance. Catherine and Marie de’ Medici both continued to exercise authority beyond the coming-of-age of their sons.48 Widow’s attire made the end of the queen’s reign visible, then, but it also offered visibility of another form of royal majesty: that of women who governed, through the delegation of power which the regency allowed them to exercise. Symbolically, it was in renouncing showy forms of royal majesty – the magnificence and the attire of a queen in her majesty – by which these queens were really able to exercise power, even if this was violently contested during their regency in times of the wars of religion or, for example, during the La Fronde (1648–1653). Marie de’ Medici commissioned a painting in 1631 by Anthony van Dyck, in which she was dressed in her widow’s clothing, on a black dais, and with the queen’s crown at her side. This was despite having lost her royal status and her royal pensions for having taken refuge with enemies of the kingdom. Thus, she showed in her own way the difficulty she had in renouncing this power ‒ that of her son ‒ when it was affirmed after 1617.49

Naturalising the Queen of France Beyond the queen’s dresses of majesty and mourning, there was another question related to clothing which took on a strong political significance. Clothing had an essential function in identifying social, sexual, and national differences. The diffusion of fashions which had intensified during the Renaissance resulted in giving the fashionably dressed body a cosmopolitan appearance, which moralists of every type began to denounce.50 Meanwhile, many years of religious and civil wars (1562–1598) had exacerbated the question of identities in France. Given the tense context of European dynastic rivalries and wars in the early modern period, the erosion of the international prestige had shaken French national identity deeply. In this context, reactions to foreign fashions became more violent and the matter of recognising the national identity of the Queen of France from her finery was becoming crucial. Appearance as an Object of Attention The matrimonial strategy of the last of the Valois and then the first of the Bourbons was to marry the Crown to the successors or the relatives of the holders of great fiefdoms (Brittany, Lorraine) or, depending on the level of international interest at court at that time, with foreign princesses (Tudor, Hapsburg, Medici). For the same reasons, the kings of France exported their daughters to other courts. The outfits worn 48 Cosandey, La reine de France, 317. See also Waneggfellen, Catherine de Médicis. 49 Anton van Dyck, Marie de Médicis, 1631, Bordeaux, Musée des Beaux-Arts. 50 Paresys, ‘The Dressed Body’, 227–257.

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by these queens and princesses aroused curiosity. At the ceremonies and festivals in which they participated, they were scrutinised by observers. Thus, the chronicler of the royal entrance of Catherine de’ Medici into Lyon in 1548 details the dress of the queen, who entered the city borne on a litter along with the king’s sister: ‘dressed in similar adornment with headdresses so ornamented with resplendent precious stones that they seemed more like another Heaven as brilliant as the gems on their gowns of rich gold […] and silver cloth’.51 Catherine de’ Medici had an acute awareness of the way people looked at queens. In 1578, her daughter Marguerite lamented having to leave the brilliant court of the Valois for the more modest court of her husband, the King of Navarre. She was afraid that she would no longer be able to keep up with fashion, which would change before she could return. Catherine replied: ‘Why do you say that […]? For it is you who invent and produce beautiful ways of dressing; and, wherever you go, the court will take your lead, rather than your taking your lead from the court’.52 With this oracular statement, the queen assigned to her daughter, a princess of France and a queen herself, the role of leader and trendsetter in the matter of fashion, according to the principle that fashion flows from the high to the low.53 It was indeed a form of power to be able to influence the court in this way. Elizabeth I herself enquired from England what the French queens were wearing. In March 1577, she asked to be sent, through her ambassador in France, a farthingale similar to that worn recently by Queen Louise and by the Queen of Navarre, as well as a copy of one of the Queen of France’s gowns.54 In 1566, she ordered the same ambassador to send to England a tailor who had served the Queen of France so that she could dress in the Italian and French manner.55 However, for all their observations of the appearance of queens, contemporary sources rarely spoke of them as initiators of fashion, unlike the histories of costume written later. These histories attribute to the queens the role of inventers and importers of fashion, especially of foreign origin. The vogue for the farthingale was, for example, normally attributed to Eleanor of Austria who had imported it from Spain after her marriage to François I.56 Catherine de’ Medici was frequently attributed with having Italianised the court after her marriage in 1533, while, from the beginning of his reign, François I himself had encouraged the ladies of the court to take inspiration from Italy by having fashion dolls and Italian-style sleeves brought in for them.57 The great collar raised in a corolla behind the head, 51 Relation des entrées solennelles dans la ville de Lyon de nos rois, 59. 52 Brantôme, Recueil des Dames, I, V, 323–327. 53 Veblen, The Theory of the Leisure Class (1899). 54 Boucher, Société et mentalités, 318. 55 Hayward, ‘Quelle influence de la mode française’, 54. 56 See, for example, O’Followell, Le Corset, Ch. 5; or Boucher, Histoire du Costume en Occident, 192. 57 On this point, see Croizat, ‘“Living Dolls”’, 94–130.

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worn at the beginning of the seventeenth century, was renamed ‘the Medici collar’, despite the fashion’s having already existed at court before its arrival in France. Undoubtedly, we should see here the visual impact of the many portraits of this queen. But, in reality, invention in relation to fashion was due more to the system of emulation and differentiation which characterised the way the court functioned, and its appetite for adopting new ideas from outside, than to the influence of any given personality, even that of a queen.58 A Gradual Expectation that the Appearance of the Queen be Naturalised If the queens did not capture any contemporary observers’ attention to their inventiveness regarding fashion, the foreign origins of the kings’ spouses, if applicable, drew more attention of the commentators. Not all of them had been acclimatised to the French court in their youth after their marriage to an heir to the throne, as Mary Stuart and Catherine de’ Medici had been. Married by proxy in their native countries (Eleanor of Austria and Marie de´ Medici, for example) or at the French border (Anne of Austria), the queens proceeded slowly across the kingdom during which they were provided with the ceremony of the royal entrances into urban areas. Their outfits provoked all the more curiosity as they seemed strange to the public eye, these new queens presenting themselves to their subjects dressed in the fashion of their own courts. So the description of Eleanor of Austria, the dowager of Portugal, at her royal entrance to Bordeaux in 1530, dwelt conventionally on the luxuriousness of the outfit of this sister of Charles V, the Holy Roman Emperor, but also on what distinguished it from French fashion: a headdress made of a hairnet of gold from which her hair, twined with ribbon, hung all the way to her heels; a cap of velvet; heavy earrings; and a crimson gown whose bouffant sleeves revealed white taffeta.59 Her style was labelled Spanish rather than Portuguese or Castilian. The description corresponds to the portraits of the queen made in France by Jean Clouet, with the papos characteristic of Iberian fashion (hair covering the ears), and by Joos van Cleve, in which she wears an Indian necklace brought from Portugal (Colour Plate 3).60 Crowned in 1531, Eleanor was coupled to her husband in terms of monarchical depiction, but he did not reproach her for maintaining her Iberian way of dress. He even allowed her to keep Spanish maids in addition to the French girls in her household.61 She dressed ‘almost every day in Portuguese fashion as did her eight maids 58 Paresys, ‘Marquer la prééminence’, 373–374. 59 Bourilly, ed., Journal d’un bourgeois de Paris, 416–417. 60 See the portrait of Eleanor by an anonymous painter, inspired by Joos van Cleve, but identified wholly incorrectly as being of Maria de Portugal, c. 1530, Chantilly, Musée Condée. Jordan and Wilson-Chevalier, ‘L’épreuve du mécénat’, 343. 61 Roche, ‘“Une perle de pris”’.

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attired in grey satin’, wrote a Mantuan ambassador.62 Sometimes, however, she wore a gown in French style whilst wearing a Spanish headdress, playing in this way on the image she wished to convey. In a 1532 inventory, gowns ‘made in the French way’ sat alongside gowns ‘in Castilian style’ and marlottes, long mantles secured under the throat, as worn in Spain.63 The question of a queen of France displaying her origins was not raised until the time of the last of the Valois. Mary Tudor, briefly the last wife of Louis XII, who had arrived in France dressed in English style, had adopted French fashion, wearing a ‘French headdress’ on her return to the court of Henry VIII.64 François I, who had little theoretical hostility to foreign fashion, also endured the Spanish attire of the new queen because of the dynastic link he entered with the powerful Habsburgs after years of conflict. It was also a way for Eleanor to signify the reconciliation between her brother and her husband to which her marriage was supposed to have contributed. Nevertheless, once the conflict between Charles V and François I started up again, François I ordered the departure of most of the Spanish women in the queen’s entourage in 1537, the consequence of Eleanor’s strong support for peace with her imperial brother.65 Undoubtedly, from that time on, the queen was expected to show which side she was on: henceforward, she wore dress which was decidedly in French fashion. Two pencil portraits by François Clouet from about 1540 show her with a hood in the French style.66 The only account of the Argenterie still extant for this queen (1544) no longer mentions clothing in Spanish style. On the other hand, it testifies to numerous purchases of gowns and mantles made ‘in the German way’.67 It is difficult to know whether this means clothes that followed German fashion trends or if it were the clothing accountant’s interpretation of ‘Flemish style’. Brought up, like her brother, at the court of her aunt Marguerite of Austria, Eleanor and her ladies sometimes dressed in Flemish style when she was queen of Portugal.68 Her sensitivity to Flemish culture seemed to continue once she was in France. On the eve of the Epiphany 1539, the queen of the day was chosen from among the eighteen most beautiful ladies of the court, all of them dressed in Flemish style.69 Moreover, the court remained open to foreign influences. Much later, in 1610, with Marie de’ Medici’s arrival into France, the ideological and political context was very different. 40 years of civil and religious upheavals, onto which had been grafted the renewal of the conflict with Spain, had strengthened the national conscience and a deeply anti-Spanish sentiment. The Italianisation of 62 Correspondence of G.-B. da Gambara to the Duchess of Mantua cited in Chatenet, La Cour de France, 191. 63 Roche, ‘“Une perle de pris”’, 32–33. 64 Hayward, ‘Quelle influence de la mode française’, 54. 65 Cox-Rearick, ‘Power-Dressing’, 49. 66 Chantilly, Musée Condé. Collection de Catherine de Médicis. 67 National Archives of France, KK 105. 68 Jordan and Wilson-Chevalier, ‘L’épreuve du mécénat’, 351. 69 Chatenet, La cour de France, 218.

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the court under the last of the Valois had additionally left a profound unease. Henri IV responded by issuing a new edict: that the queen’s entourage must be entirely French, which was achieved in 1604.70 The same expectation extended to the fashion worn by the queen. It is possible that the growing moralist discourse in the second half of the sixteenth century, which held that inconsistency of dress and the influence of foreign fashion was a perversion of national identity, had particularly borne fruit in relation to the dressed body of the queen, mother of the future king of France.71 Yet, despite the fashion dolls brought from France to Florence by Henri IV, Marie de’ Medici failed to understand that she was expected to make a metamorphosis from foreign princess to Queen of France in the materialised form of her dress. So it was dressed in the fashion of the Tuscan court, strongly influenced by Spanish style to which the Medicis had added their taste for a profusion of ornaments and jewels, in which Marie first stepped on French soil.72 She brought her tailor from Florence, Gilles Zoccoli, a person sufficiently important in her eyes to be entrusted with the mission of carrying the news of the dauphin’s birth to Florence. She requested from Henri IV Leonora Dori Galigaï, a lady who dressed in Italian finery and who was accused of being of too lowly in origin to carry out duties in physical contact with a queen.73 Marie only yielded to French fashion in November 1601 after having given birth to the dauphin, Louis, with whom she was depicted, so dressed, in 1603 (Figures 2.1 and 2.2).74 The fashion worn by the queen was a deliberate political choice, and perhaps even more sensitive once the queen became regent. Breaking with her mourning gown in the French style (see, for example, her portrait by Frans Pourbus the younger in 1617), Marie de’ Medici suddenly had herself dressed in October 1616 in Spanish style by the lady-in-waiting of her daughter-in-law, Queen Anne of Austria, Infanta of Spain. The effect it produced on the court was immense and scandalous, given the very tense situation between the princes and the Protestants on the one hand, and the queen mother and her government on the other hand.75In this way, the regent displayed her relationship with Catholic Spain, already signalled by the double marriage of the children of Spain with those of France in 1615, a politics at odds with that of Henri IV at the time of his assassination. In exposing herself dressed like this, in disguising her identity while adopting the enemy’s, the queen mother fed the suspicions of those who accused her of perverting the French monarchy. Conscious of the identity issues around her image, Marie had herself depicted 20 years later by Rubens, in the 70 Dubost, Marie de Médicis, 129. 71 On the subject of these morals, see Paresys, ‘Paraître et se vêtir au XVIe siècle’, 15–16. 72 Landini, ‘Lo stile fiorentino alla corte di Francia,’ 138–143. See, for example, her portrait by Sandi di Tito and Tiberio Titi, Marie de Médicis en reine de France, 1600, Florence, Palazzo Pitti. 73 Dubost, Marie de Médicis, 127, 131. 74 Charles Martin, Marie de Médicis et son fils, le dauphin Louis, 1603, Blois, Musée des Beaux-Arts du Château. 75 Dubost, Marie de Médicis, op. cit., 528.

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Figure 2.1: Jan Wierix, Marie de’ Medici, 1601, engraving. Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam.

13-painting cycle to her glory displayed in the Luxemburg Palace, disembarking at Marseilles in 1600 dressed in French style.76 Moreover, the queen’s costume was put at the service of a kind of revisionist history. The magnificent pomp of the clothed body of the queen of France was part of her majesty and of the kingdom’s grandeur, as was the case for the husband with whom she shared royal dignity. This magnificence, like that of the court in general, became a strategic ethos of this aristocratic microcosm during the Renaissance. It was especially so given the importance of the international rivalries between monarchs and the tendency of civil and religious wars to weaken the monarchy. Once royal power 76 Pierre-Paul Rubens, Le débarquement de Marie de Médicis à Marseille le 3 novembre 1600, 1621–1625, Paris, Louvre.

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Figure 2.2: Charles Martin, Marie de’ Medici and her son the ‘dauphin’ Louis, 1603, oil on canvas. Musée des BeauxArts du Château, Blois.

was strengthened, grand portraits of the queen in majestic attire appeared, the model for which was initiated by Marie de’ Medici at the beginning of the seventeenth century and was established for succeeding queens. But this blue and gold dress worn by queens did not really depict royal female power. Queens only achieved this if

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their son the king was a minor, a phenomenon which occurred three times between 1560 and 1650. The opulence of the queen’s royal outfit signified her majesty and the power of the monarchy but not her authority to govern as the king did. Paradoxically, for a queen, it was her black widow’s robe that, in case of regency, symbolised the exercise of power as a woman. This period also saw the establishment of a requirement that the appearance of foreign queens be naturalised. Henceforth, a queen of France had to be dressed in French style from the day of her marriage. If the transition of identity did not happen automatically in 1615 for Anne of Austria, it was imposed on her daughter-in-law Maria Theresa, dressed in French style for her religious marriage ceremony at the Spanish border (in June 1660), when she was attired in a gown and mantle covered with fleur-de-lys, then in a silver robe in French style, to the relief of the court which found her hairpieces and Spanish farthingales deeply unattractive.77 The expectation that the outfits of the queen reflected national identity were still in force 110 years later. Although her own clothes were made in France, Marie-Antoinette was completely undressed, down to her stockings and chemise, in the replacement marquee at the Rhineland border, ‘so that she keeps nothing from a foreign court’.78 The maintenance of a naturalisation ritual which ignored the reality that France reigned supreme in the circulation of fashion trends during the eighteenth century, testified to the symbolic importance of the identity adopted by a queen of France through the way she dressed. The passion of this future queen for the fashion of her new country paradoxically contributed to feeding the animosity against her on the eve of the French Revolution.79 But that is another story.

About the author Isabelle Paresys is Associate Professor of Cultural History at the University of Lille, France, and has mainly published on dress and fashion in Renaissance France and Europe. She edited Paraître et apparences du Moyen Âge à nos jours (2008), and co-edited Se vêtir à la cour en Europe (1400–1815) (2011) and A Feast for the Eyes: Spectacular Fashions (2012). She has recently published ‘The body’ in A Cultural History of Dress and Fashion in the Renaissance (1450–1650), vol. 3, ed. by Elizabeth Currie (Bloomsbury, 2017). She is currently researching Renaissance costumes in French cinema.

77 See Petitot, ed., Mémoires de Mme de Motteville, vol. 5, 57–60. 78 Chalon and Angulo, eds., Mémoires de Madame Campan, 52. 79 Weber, Queen of Fashion.

3. Dressing the Bride: Weddings and Fashion Practices at German Princely Courts in the Fifteenth and Sixteenth Centuries1 Kirsten O. Frieling

Abstract Marriages between the aristocratic elite played an important role in the exchange of fashion at early modern European courts. Because bridal couples usually came from different regions or countries, different styles of clothing came into contact at the wedding celebration as well as afterwards, when the bride started living at her husband’s court. Focussing on princely German courts in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, this paper shows how noble women took their natal dress with them to their marital court and how the court reacted to their foreign style. By analysing the dress practices of noble women, this essay looks into the political potentials of dress and the shaping of identities of the female elite at German courts. Key words: German courts; dowry; trousseau; dress practices; foreign style; wedding

In the late Middle Ages, kinship ties within the European aristocracy were of major importance for cultural exchange processes at princely courts. A relatively dense network of marriage relationships formed the basis for a wide range of different contacts2; and the increasing mobility towards the end of the Middle Ages intensified this even further. These relationships also favoured the exchange and communication of princely fashions between different regions and countries. During the subsequent transition from the Middle Ages to the early modern period by the end of the fifteenth and the beginning of the sixteenth century, princely dress practices were not just determined socially but also and above all culturally. Anchored in specific life worlds, they maintained not only social position, lineage, and/or family status, but also specific, although not clearly circumscribed, geographical spaces. 1 This essay is mainly based on my broader research dealing with dress and fashion at German princely courts in the late Middle Ages. See Frieling, Sehen und gesehen werden. I thank Jonathan Harrow for his help with the translation into English. 2 See Spieß, ‘Europa heiratet’ (with many maps).

Griffey, E. (ed.), Sartorial Politics in Early Modern Europe: Fashioning Women, Amsterdam University Press, 2019 doi: 10.5117/9789462986008_ch03

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Contemporaries already registered differences between domestic and foreign princely dress very precisely and assumed that there were several simultaneously coexisting, spatially linked fashions. Envoys and emissaries who helped communicate news and cultivate social contacts reported on dress customs at other courts, and they frequently took robes or fabrics home as presents.3 Aristocrats receiving their training at several different courts also spread knowledge about foreign dress styles.4 However, what were likely even more significant for the exchange of fashions were the personal meetings between the aristocrats themselves that occurred – frequently on the basis of existing familial ties – within, for example, the framework of court feasts, longer stays for educational and training purposes, and political negotiations or visits. If far-reaching kinships in the European aristocracy are viewed as constitutive of the exchange of courtly fashions, then marriages within the aristocratic elite can be assigned a key role in this process. Because the bride and groom at princely weddings usually came from different regions or countries, different styles of dress met up directly both at the wedding celebrations and afterwards in everyday married life at the court. It was particularly the women’s wardrobe that was involved here, because they were the ones who relocated to their husband’s court through marriage, thereby exchanging their habitual fashion environment for a new and more or less different one. Linked to these considerations, the present essay addresses princely weddings as catalysers for the communication of fashions and their effects on the dress practices of noblewomen at German courts in the late fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries. It examines the channels by which dress styles were exchanged in the course of intercultural marriages, in which categories contemporary observers categorised fashions and distinguished between foreign and familiar dress habits, and how the court and its surroundings reacted to foreign ways of dressing. It thereby also asks about the identity-forming and political implications of aristocratic female dress. By pursuing this interest, the study fits in simultaneously with two current trends in historical research: first, it picks up on the results of recent research emphasising the role of aristocratic and royal women as (politically) active agents in cultural transfer processes in the Middle Ages and, above all, in the early modern period.5 Second, it links up with the growing number of studies analysing the significance of fashion and dress for social positioning; that is, for the processes of locating the self and others in the social structures of the hierarchical society of the late Middle Ages or early modern period.6 Whereas previous studies have generally concentrated on one of these two 3 See Schwinges and Wriedt, eds., Gesandtschafts- und Botenwesen im spätmittelalterlichen Europa; and, for fabrics and garments, see Ehm, Burgund und das Reich, esp. 276–277, 279, 284. 4 Paravicini, ‘The Court of the Dukes of Burgundy’, 90, 92–93. 5 See, for example, Unterholzner, ‘Bianca Maria Sforza’; Zey, ed., Mächtige Frauen?; Hartmann, Die Königin im frühen Mittelalter; Fößel, Die Königin im mittelalterlichen Reich; Puppel, Die Regentin; Berger, Anna Amalia von Sachsen-Weimar-Eisenach. 6 Keupp, Die Wahl des Gewandes; Frieling, Sehen und gesehen werden; Rublack, Dressing Up; Mansel, Dressed to Rule.

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epochs, that is, either the Middle Ages or the early modern period, this essay focusses deliberately on the epochal threshold around 1500 common in German historical research and thus on a period of accelerated change in German history in which – as this essay will show – it was precisely the perception of foreign fashions that changed. Nonetheless, choosing this time period has consequences regarding the availability of sources. Unlike the German princely courts of the later sixteenth, seventeenth, or eighteenth centuries, for which there is abundant source material, sources on precisely these courts in the late fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries are markedly more difficult to analyse. Relevant manuscripts on dress practices tend to be scarce, with the appropriate material being widely dispersed and correspondingly difficult to find. Nonetheless, the search is worthwhile. Narrative sources such as chronicles, reports by emissaries, or descriptions of court celebrations, but also court administrative records such as lists of the content of bridal trousseaux, palace inventories, and court accounts all provide information on how foreign types of dress reached German princely courts around 1500 through marriages with foreign noblewomen, how these fashions were perceived, and how the courts reacted to them. The following will view the meeting together of different dress styles within the framework of princely weddings in the late fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries as a cultural transfer process plotted out in three parts. The first part focusses on the communication channels for fashion that opened up through princely marriages. Alongside direct meetings at the wedding ceremony itself, it was particularly both the bridal trousseau and the entourage accompanying the noblewoman to her new court that were significant for the transfer of fashion. The second part then addresses the perception of foreign dress styles; and the third examines how foreign fashions were received and discusses the identity-forming potential and possible political implications of the noblewomen’s dress. This will show how increasingly ‘national’ references emerged in descriptions of aristocratic dress towards the end of the fifteenth century. There appears to be evidence that contemporaries assigned this an identify-forming effect – particularly with the aim of helping a foreign princess to integrate into her new court. As far as the political dimension of aristocratic dress is concerned, it seems that a gender-specific difference can be seen in the courts of the Holy Roman Empire around 1500: whereas contemporary observers assigned a political connotation to the dress of a male aristocrat under certain circumstances, they evidently assigned no political significance to aristocratic women’s dress – at least on the level of dress practices. Communication Channels for Fashion in the Framework of Princely Weddings There are good reasons to view marriages within the European aristocracy at the transition from the Middle Ages to the early modern period as the key interface for exchanging fashions because of the many ways they promoted contact between

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courts with different dress styles. If the son of a prince or the daughter of a king were to be wedded, sartorial contacts were made already during the initiatory marriage negotiations – in other words, when emissaries carefully probed and gathered informal information on the potential marriage candidate. Likewise, the courts involved already came into contact with foreign dress habits during the wedding preparations, not only through the physical presence of envoys, but also through portraits painted in the course of negotiations.7 Frequently commissioned from renowned artists to give the interested party an idea of what the bride looked like, these delivered not just a visual impression of the future consort but also presented the current fashions in their homeland.8 The most famous portraits are surely Jan van Eyck’s portrait of Isabella of Portugal and Hans Holbein the Younger’s portrait of Anne of Cleves, which was later etched by Wenceslaus Hollar (Figure 3.1). Nonetheless, three other aspects must have been far more important as a means of communicating dress practices. These were first, the personal meeting during the wedding celebrations; second, the dowry, consisting mostly of fabrics and clothing, that an aristocratic daughter brought with her marriage; and third, the relocation of the noblewoman to the court of her husband, sometimes accompanied by a small entourage. Initially, the wedding celebration can be viewed as a kind of fashion forum.9 Apart from meetings between rulers, these offered one of the few opportunities during the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries for princes and kings, accompanied by their entourage, from different regions and countries to meet face-to-face. With their own specific ways of dressing, it was not just the married couple who were on show but also the guests coming from regions shaped by different cultures. Bride and groom, invited relatives and friends, their retinues and their vassals: at the ceremony, contemporaries could study other dress styles and compare familiar with foreign fashions. When George the Rich, Duke of Bavaria married Hedwig, the daughter of the Polish king, in Landshut in 1475, an observer noted the different style of Polish dress. This was Hans Oringen, who wrote a report on the marriage that was probably commissioned by Ernest, Elector of Saxony. He noted that the Polish guests in Landshut had worn conspicuously short dresses and wide cloaks.10 One chronicler remarked 7 For initiations of international princely marriages and their procedures, see Spieß, ‘Fremdheit und Integration’, esp. 270–271. 8 When Philip the Good, Duke of Burgundy, sent envoys to Portugal in 1428 to negotiate about a marriage with the Portuguese princess, Jan van Eyck travelled with them. To be on the safe side, he painted two portraits: one of them was sent back to Burgundy by land and the other by sea. Spieß, ‘Fremdheit und Integration’, 272, note 13; Huizinga, Herbst des Mittelalters, 346; Cartellieri, Am Hofe der Herzöge von Burgund, 230. When the Holy Roman Emperor Frederick III was looking for a wife, it was a portrait of Eleonore of Portugal given to him by envoys that convinced him to marry her. See Wiesflecker, Kaiser Maximilian I, vol. 1, 59. King Charles VI of France decided to marry Isabelle of Bavaria after having seen the portraits of three different noble women. Huizinga, Herbst des Mittelalters, 346. 9 For princely weddings in the Holy Roman Empire, see Bauer, Feiern unter den Augen der Chronisten; Spieß, ‘Höfische Feste’; Zeilinger, Die Uracher Hochzeit. 10 ‘Abschrift des Festberichts von Hans Oringen’, 249, 258.

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Figure 3.1: Wenceslaus Hollar after Hans Holbein the Younger, Anne of Cleves, etching. Royal Collection Trust / Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II.

on Beatrice of Naples, who married King Matthias of Hungary one year later, that she had attended the crowning shortly before her marriage in iren waelischen klaydern (‘her Italian clothes’) and attended her wedding with a veil alsdann die Walhin tragen (‘how Italian women used to wear it’).11 If the bride’s journey to her marriage and the marriage guests’ journey back home are also included in a broad sense, further opportunities emerge for sartorial exchange. For example, the Italian ladies-in-waiting who accompanied Bianca Maria 11 Westenrieder, ed., Beyträge zur vaterländischen Historie, vol. 3, 124, 128.

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Sforza to her wedding with Maximilian I exchanged robes with the ladies-in-waiting of Catherine of Saxony, Archduchess of Austria, when the bridal train made a long stopover in Innsbruck.12 And, after Marquis Rudolf of Mantua had attended the marriage of his sister Barbara to Eberhard I, the Duke of Württemberg in Urach, he travelled back to Mantua with his 26-man entourage in German dress.13 This led to the entourage not being recognised immediately in his homeland.14 Just like the direct personal contact at the celebrations, the trousseau of the duchess can also be assigned a key role in communicating fashions. The dowry always included a great deal of fabrics and clothing.15 In other words, a noblewoman came to her husband’s court with her own wardrobe tailored in the contemporary fashion of her homeland. The dowry of the aforementioned Hedwig of Poland contained a relatively large number of furs, which may have paid tribute to the dress style of the time at the Polish court.16 When the aforementioned Bianca Maria Sforza married Maximilian I, she brought several Italian robes and head coverings to her marriage whose forms differed greatly from the head coverings worn at that time by the female aristocracy in the Holy Roman Empire.17 Whereas distinguished ladies in Italy at that time wore a rounder, sphere-like cap and frequently a type of hairnet on their heads, the noblewomen of the Holy Roman Empire preferred steeple-crowned caps or wore flat berets instead of hairnets and ribbons.18 Bianca Maria’s striking headdress would therefore have attracted much attention at the Innsbruck court. Things were similar with the rich bridal trousseau of Antonia Visconti, who brought numerous Italian robes and fabrics with her in 1380 when she married Eberhard III, Count of Württemberg.19 Finally, clothing styles were probably also communicated by the fact that a duchess or princess frequently did not move to her husband’s court alone, but was accompanied by several, often trusted companions.20 These could also include a tailor. For example, when Mathilde of Hesse married John II, Duke of Cleves, she was accompanied by not only two maidens, a chambermaid, two knaves, and a chaplain, but also a tailor.21 The entourage that Sibylle of Brandenburg brought to the court of her husband Duke William IV of Jülich-Berg had a similar composition.22 If a tailor was 12 Spieß, ‘Fremdheit und Integration’, 288. 13 Zeilinger, Die Uracher Hochzeit, 120. 14 Spieß, ‘Fremdheit und Integration’, 288. 15 For dowries, see Spieß, ‘Unterwegs zu einem fremden Ehemann’, 26–29. 16 See Hiereth, ‘Zeitgenössische Quellen zur Landshuter Fürstenhochzeit’, 125–128. 17 See the inventory of her dowry: Calvi, ed., Bianca Maria Sforza-Visconti, 134–138. 18 For Italian garments and headwear at that time, see Pisetzky, Il costume e la moda nella società italiana, 184–192, 208–224. 19 See Sandtner, ‘Zum Brautschatz der Antonia Visconti’ and Schwarzenbek, ‘Die lombardische Mode’. 20 See Spieß, ‘Fremdheit und Integration’, 281–282; Spieß, ‘Unterwegs zu einem fremden Ehemann’, 33. 21 Demandt, ed., Regesten der Landgrafen von Hessen, vol. 2.1, Nr. 1191, 466. 22 Abschied der Räte Herzog Wilhelms von Jülich and Berg. Priebatsch, ed., Politische Correspondenz, vol. 2, Nr. 702, 654.

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one of those who moved from the old to the new home, then, to some extent, this meant that a duchess or princess was accompanied by an expert on fashion issues who was familiar with her previous dress style. If, in contrast, she came without her own tailor and assigned future responsibility for her wardrobe to her husband’s court tailor, she still had the option, if needed, of falling back on a correspondingly proven expert. For example, Duchess Amalie of Bavaria sent for her sister Anna’s tailor to make her dresses that she had evidently seen before on Anna and apparently liked so much that she wanted the same for herself. Anna, married to Elector Albrecht of Brandenburg, sent her tailor to Bavaria with black velvet so that he could die rock wol machen kann nach unnßerm snidt (‘make the dress according to our style’) for Amalie on the spot.23 Amalie thanked Anna at once, ensuring her that she would keep the tailor only so long bis das er uns solche cleider gemacht (‘until he had made us such clothes’), and darnach uwer lieb wider ubirsenden werde (‘afterwards send him back to you’).24 Whether during the course of marriage negotiations and at the wedding feast, or from the dowry and through the accompanying entourage, the framework of marriages within the aristocratic elite of Europe offered a range of opportunities to get to know other fashions. The next section will examine on which levels and in which ways cultural differences in aristocratic dress styles manifested in the late fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries. The Perception of Foreign Dress Styles at Court At the transition from the Middle Ages to the early modern period, noblewomen’s dress was oriented towards the broader widespread fashion trends to be found at all European courts.25 The relatively homogeneous appearance given by the European aristocracy around 1500 was due, on the one hand, to aristocratic dress being made, in principle, from the same fabrics and furs, restricted to a similar range of colours, and embroidered in similar ways with gold, silver, pearls, and precious stones.26 However, it was above all the cut that was responsible for the similarity. In the late fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries, two successive fashion trends essentially determined dress habits at European courts. During the fifteenth century, European aristocratic fashion for the most part was long influenced by French royal and 23 Letter from Anna of Brandenburg to her sister Amalie of Bavaria (12 July 1480). Steinhausen, ed., Deutsche Privatbriefe des Mittelalters, vol. 1, Nr. 321, 217. 24 Letter from Amalie of Bavaria to her sister Anna of Brandenburg (20 July 1480). Steinhausen, ed., Deutsche Privatbriefe des Mittelalters, vol. 1, Nr. 323, 218–219. 25 The development of fashion as mentioned hereafter has been worked out in detail by many books dealing with the history of costume, for example, Thiel, Geschichte des Kostüms; Koch-Mertens, Der Mensch und seine Kleider; Krause and Lenning, Kleine Kostümkunde. 26 Shown in detail by Frieling in Sehen und gesehen werden.

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princely courts and, above all, by the Burgundian court. In many ways, the portraits of princes and princesses in French-Burgundian dress still shape popular ideas on the Middle Ages even today. Then, starting in the 1480s in the Holy Roman Empire, aristocratic fashion changed completely:27 The long pointed forms with their stress on the vertical dimension so popular in the French-Burgundian court fashion were replaced by rounder more sweeping forms that tended to follow more closely the natural proportions of the body. It seems as if the origins of this change in fashion are to be found in the Holy Roman Empire and that the new way of dressing spread from there to courts in neighbouring countries. It was, above all, the ‘Schaube’, a specific cloak, as well as the neck and sleeve shapes of women’s dresses, that changed.28 This fashion continued to set the tone until the middle of the sixteenth century, when it was replaced by Spanish court fashion. However, these basically common features in fabrics, cut, colour, and decoration neither ruled out individual preferences nor cultural differences.29 As the examples reported above already suggest, it was above all regional and country-specific differences in aristocratic dress style that stood out for contemporary chroniclers. Regional variants evidently referred mainly to details of the cut. For example, during preparations for the marriage of Duke William IV of Jülich-Berg and Sibylle of Brandenburg in 1481, differences of opinion arose between the father of the bride, Albert of Brandenburg, and the future bridegroom over where and how the bride’s dress should be made. They disagreed particularly strongly over the cut. William planned to send a tailor from the Rhine to the Ansbach court so that he could sew Sibylle’s dress in the Rhineland style on the spot. Albert rejected this plan, arguing that Sibylle’s entire dowry was already completed except for a gold-woven dress, and it would be schimpflich (‘shameful’) if one dress were not to match the rest of her robes at the wedding ceremony. However, he did offer to have Sibylle’s dress altered to match the Rhineland style. Albert’s other daughter, Amalie, was married to Louis I, Count Palatine of Zweibrücken and was therefore familiar with Rhineland fashions.30 Albert had learnt from her that garment folds in the Rhineland were niderer stechen (‘less pronounced’) and the hem was decorated with a broad trim. As soon as Amalie returned home in the next few weeks, he wanted to have the folds changed accordingly. William evidently took up this offer because he did not send a tailor to Ansbach and the marriage could be celebrated in July 1481.31 Hence, there were evidently differences 27 The burgundian influence on princely fashion ended after the death of Charles the Bold. His daughter Mary married the later Emperor Maximilian I and the dukedom of Burgundy went to the House of Habsburg. Halfway through the sixteenth century, the court of the Habsburgs in Spain promoted a fashion style which was predominant at princely courts in Europe in the second half of the century. 28 Krause and Lenning, Kleine Kostümkunde, 102, 97. 29 Louis of Savoy, for example, prefered garments in grey and brown – probably because of his religiousness. See Page, Vêtir le prince. 30 Schwennicke, ed., Europäische Stammtafeln, vol. 1.1, Tafel 96. 31 Letter from Albrecht of Brandenburg to William of Jülich-Berg (9 February 1481). Redlich, ‘Die Hochzeit des Herzogs Wilhelm IV. von Jülich-Berg’, 274.

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in aristocratic dress between the court of the Duke of Jülich-Berg and that of the Margrave of Brandenburg. How regional variations manifested in dress details such as the breadth of the hem or the fall of the folds in country-specific fashions was noted by contemporaries predominantly in terms of the cut, with a certain kind of cut designated as characteristic of a specific country; that is, it was assigned to that country. One chronicler reporting on the Landshut marriage in 1475 pointed out repeatedly that the bride Hedwig of Poland wore skirts that were auf polonisch sitten gemacht (‘made in Polish style’).32 This could evidently be seen in the way the cut was unusually broad compared to the German style. As the witness noted: vnd der rock waß gemacht gar weit nach yren sitten (‘and the skirt was cut widely as is their custom’).33 The unknown author of a report on Maximilian I’s journey to Ghent to marry Mary Duchess of Burgundy in the summer of 1477 noted that, during his stay in Ghent, the bridegroom had received golden and silver Burgundian dresses as well as a gown of black velvet auf welhisch gemach (‘made in the French-Burgundian way’).34 Foreign fashions were always compared with the familiar dress style, because it was only through being contrasted with known local fashions that divergences and foreign elements of other fashions became apparent. Hence, foreign fashions were always viewed implicitly as a kind of alternative to familiar fashions. At the beginning of the sixteenth century, cultural differentiations in aristocratic dress were no longer defined, as shown above, by contrasting ‘own against foreign’, but were increasingly interpreted ‘nationally’ and thereby in ways going beyond the foreign or the other. This trend is documented succinctly in a comment in Philippe de Commynes’s memoirs on princely meetings: Et quant ce sont deux nations differantes, leur langaige et habillemens sont differans; et ce quil plaist a l’ung ne plaist pas a l’autre (‘And when they are two different nations, their language and their dress are different; and that which pleases one does not please the other’).35 Because national identity at the end of the Middle Ages was always explained culturally and reflected in cultural practices such as the way of dressing, it is hardly surprising that the more intensive expression of a national consciousness emerged at the same time as national categories in fashion.36 For the Holy Roman Empire, however, national tendencies should not be overrated, because dress remained strongly regionalised due to the lack of a political and cultural centre. Precisely because aristocrats were, in many ways, ‘fundamentally focused internationally’, ‘national closure tendencies’ in aristocratic dress nonetheless emerged particularly strongly during this period.37 32 Westenrieder, ed., Beyträge zur vaterländischen Historie, vol. 2, 142 and 124, 136. 33 ‘Abschrift des Festberichts von Hans Oringen’, 256. 34 Chmel, ed., Actenstücke und Briefe, vol. 1, 161. When he was crowned in Aachen on 9 April 1486, Maximilian was dressed in ain kurtz güldins röcklin uf die franzosich art (‘a short golden garment made in French style’). Schneider, ‘Johann Reuchlins Berichte’, 553. 35 Commynes, Mémoires, 194. 36 See Sieber-Lehmann, Spätmittelalterlicher Nationalismus, and Simon-Muscheid, ‘“Schweizergelb” und “Judasfarbe”’. 37 Sieber-Lehmann, Spätmittelalterlicher Nationalismus, 16–17.

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This leads to the question: How did court life in the Holy Roman Empire around 1500 deal with the cultural differences that could be seen so clearly in dress when a noblewoman married into the German aristocracy?

The Reception at Court of Noblewomen Dressed in Foreign Styles Unfortunately, accounts of how German courts reacted to the different dress of a bride and future duchess or princess are only sparse and scattered in the late fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries. The few surviving indications in the source material suggest that the new court environment insisted on a sartorial adaptation of the new wife. It clearly seemed important to Maximilian I, for example, that his new wife Bianca Maria Sforza should dress according to German aristocratic fashion. For a church service held in March 1494 as part of the marriage ceremonies, he expressed the wish for her to dress in German-style robes and wear a crown that he had previously given to her.38 The wish that the bride should adopt local dress habits is also reflected by Hans Oringen when reporting on the appearance of Hedwig of Poland at her marriage to George the Rich, Duke of Bavaria: She would be ser ein wolgestalte vnd wolgeschickte furstin (‘very much a shapely and astute duchess’) as soon as she were to be dressed nach deuschen [sic] sitten (‘according to German customs’).39 At times, some kind of costume change seems to have been a ceremonial part of a wedding service. Shortly before Hedwig and George stood before the marriage altar, the ladies-in-waiting accompanying the bride took her to a side chapel, took off part of her dress (perhaps the coat), uncovered her head, and decorated her with a new headdress. This consisted of a thin veil covering her eyes and her face with a crown placed on top. In addition, they placed a broad braid (perhaps a headband) decorated with pearls over her open hair and plaited her tresses anew. It was only after the ladies-in-waiting had taken Hedwig and gesmucket hetten nach jren sitten (‘adorned her according to their customs’) that they led the daughter of the king of Poland to the high altar.40 Oringen reports that this ritual strongly moved the bride, subsequently adding a note to the margin of his report stating vnd sie weinet gar ser (‘and she even cried greatly’).41 Maximilian’s wish recorded by Erasmus Brascha that his Italian bride should put on German robes may well refer to a costume change. Apparently, Galeazzo Maria Sforza even planned to portray his wife Bona’s costume change on frescos.42 38 Letter from Erasmus Brascha, envoy of the duke of Milano, to his master Ludovico Sforza. Böhmer, Regesta Imperii XIV, vol. 1, Nr. 477, 59. 39 In detail, the text says: vnd so sie gecleydet wirt nach deuschen [sic] sitten, So [sic] wirt sie ser ein wolgestalte vnd wolgeschickte furstin. ‘Abschrift des Festberichts von Hans Oringen’, 257. 40 ‘Abschrift des Festberichts von Hans Oringen’, 253. 41 ‘Abschrift des Festberichts von Hans Oringen’, 253. 42 Spieß, ‘Fremdheit und Integration’, 278.

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The significance of the bride changing her clothes as part of a marriage ceremony, as formalised as it may actually have been in a single case, is symbolic. Both literally and figuratively, removing part of her old home and replacing it with part of her new home epitomised her transition from the custody of her parents to that of her future husband. Perhaps the costume change also simultaneously represented a type of integration measure designed to ease the noblewoman’s adaptation to her new environment.43 Dressing in the typical fashion of her husband’s court would be a sign that she was now a member of his court who had been visibly adopted by her new family. Nonetheless, it is difficult to judge whether this costume change had any relevance beyond a ceremonial act. Practical considerations would suggest that, even after the wedding, women would, to some extent, continue to follow the fashions of their homeland. The robes in the bride’s trousseau were by no means just objects of prestige, but designed for daily use. The robes, for example, given to Sibylle of Brandenburg for her marriage in 1481 to Duke William of Jülich-Berg had been tailored on the orders of her father Albrecht Achilles, Elector of Brandenburg, to account for the fact that his fourteen-year-old daughter was not yet fully grown, so that they would continue to fit her in three to four years’ time.44 He told his son-in-law that he had ordered the robes of his daughter to be tailored in such a way that William could mit den prenten erstrecken (‘lengthen them at the hems’) nach euerem gevallen, ob ir wolt, wan es not wurd (‘as it pleases you, if you wish it, when it is necessary’).45 When ordering the robes that Albrecht Achilles gave as part of his daughter Barbara’s dowry when marrying Ladislaus II, King of Bohemia, he took the future growth of the twelve-year-old bride into account. Although the marriage had been agreed in August 1476, it had still not been carried out at the beginning of the following year. Therefore, in view of the lack of clarity of the situation, Albrecht decided in February 1477 to be cautious and wait, keeping the fabrics and tailors assigned to Barbara in Franconia, dann so man ir die [Gewänder] yetzund snyd und machet, so wuchs sie daruß (‘then if the garments were to be cut and tailored now, she would grow out of them’).46 If a noblewoman took a tailor in the entourage that accompanied her to the new court, it is highly likely that this tailor would at least initially carry on making her clothes in the previous familiar style. 43 Spieß, ‘Unterwegs zu einem fremden Ehemann’, 32. 44 Letter from Albrecht of Brandenburg to William of Jülich-Berg (9 February 1481). Redlich, ‘Die Hochzeit’, 274. Sybilla was fourteen years old when she married him. Schwennicke, ed., Europäische Stammtafeln, vol. I.1, Tafel 96. 45 Letter from Albrecht of Brandenburg to William of Jülich-Berg (9 February 1481). Redlich, ‘Die Hochzeit’, 274. 46 At the same time, he was willing to das man die samat und sneider hinein schick und ir yetzund mach (‘send velvet and a tailor to make her the garments right now’) provided that Barbara would like to. Note added to a letter from Albrecht of Brandenburg to his son Johann (23 February 1477). Steinhausen, ed., Deutsche Privatbriefe des Mittelalters, vol. 1, Nr. 236, 166, note 4; Priebatsch, Politische Correspondenz, vol. 2, Nr. 274, 288. Supplement by K.O. Frieling.

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In contrast, Hans Oringen’s comment that Hedwig of Poland would look even more beautiful when she first changed into German aristocratic robes suggests that it was common practice at the courts of the Holy Roman Empire around 1500 for newly married duchesses and princesses to adopt the dress style of their new surroundings. As long as the women did not bring their own tailor to their new court and making their robes was taken over by their husband’s court tailors after the marriage, it is certainly probable that their robes were made according to the fashions prevalent at the new court. Moreover, it seems plausible – not least, against the background of the examples given above for a more or less formalised costume change as part of the wedding ceremony – that the bride’s new environment would encourage her to dress according to the fashion of her new home in order to ease her integration. Finally, the situation of a newly married noblewoman was already difficult enough. She was far from home, surrounded – apart from a very few trusted persons – by strangers whose language she mostly could not speak and confronted with having to learn unfamiliar social rules and behavioural norms.47 If this applied on a grander scale to brides coming from other countries, it also applied on a smaller scale to aristocratic daughters who married within the empire. An example from Saxony shows how dress could well be used to bond newly married noble ladies with their new environment. In 1530 and 1531, at the court of John Frederick I, Elector of Saxony, the elector ordered his wife Sibylle of Cleves, whom he had married in 1527, to be dressed in the same clothes as the elector’s two younger sisters, the fifteen-year-old Maria and the thirteen-year-old Margareta (Sibylle was only three years older than Maria).48 Invoices from the Saxon court tailors reveal diverse entries for the wardrobe of these three ladies at the Coburg court in this period. The itemisation reveals clearly that Sibylle, Maria, and Margareta received, not only the same dresses and partlets, but also the same winter clothing.49 Placing the sisters visually by the side of their sister-in-law through their garments reinforced the bond between the new bride and her new family sartorially and assigned the daughter-in-law the same position within the family as the elector’s own sisters.50 Even if it can be assumed generally that there was a juxtaposition of different fashions in the early days of marriage, and it is only in single cases that one can trace an actual fashion change in the everyday dress practices of a noblewoman after her wedding, the cited reports clearly and fundamentally show that contemporary observers at the transition from the fifteenth to the sixteenth century forged at least an implicit link between dress practices and cultural identity. This awareness of the 47 See Spieß, ‘Fremdheit und Integration’. 48 Schwennicke, ed., Europäische Stammtafeln, vol. 1.1, Tafel 154. 49 Staatsarchiv Coburg, LA A Nr. 1960, fol. 9r and fol. 2r. Shown in detail by Frieling, Sehen und gesehen werden, 218. 50 Women related by marriage were assigned to women related by blood in another way, too, for daughtersin-law were called daughters. See Spieß, Familie und Verwandtschaft, 499.

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effectiveness of dress as a culture-shaping and identity-forming agency is particularly apparent in the efforts to integrate the newly married duchess or princess through dress, be it within the framework of a kind of costume change during the wedding ceremony or a uniform clothing of wife and sisters after marriage as practised at the court of John Frederick I. Dressing in local garments and, even more strongly, displaying a sartorial uniformity embedded the new duchess in a highly visible way in her new court life and marked her as belonging to her husband’s court. This cultural identify-forming effect of dress signalld a belonging together both within and beyond the court, thereby also helping to integrate the new bride. Chroniclers around 1500 possessed an awareness of not only the importance of (aristocratic) dress for the constitution of cultural identities, but also a fundamental sensitivity to the formulation of political claims through garb. For example, one of the reasons why the efforts of Charles the Bold, Duke of Burgundy, to be crowned a king failed was because of his exaggerated sartorial self-display. When he met the Holy Roman Emperor Frederick III in Trier in the autumn of 1473 to arrange a marriage between his daughter Mary and Frederick’s son Maximilian, while simultaneously negotiating the right to be a king for himself, he dressed so ostentatiously that he affronted the emperor, the electors, and the other artistocats attending.51 Although these artistocrats, commensurate with the occasion, had presented themselves in Trier in gueter klaidung güldenen stücken, samet oder ander köstlicher eschmück (‘in good clothing, golden garments, velvet, or other costly decoration’), the Duke of Burgundy outshone them greatly through his many changes of outfits.52 Once, he wore a dress of black velvet with a vine leaf pattern of precious stones and pearls extending from the sleeves to the floor in which the ducal goldsmith Gérard Loyet had previously set at least 120 large pearls, two large and 100 medium-sized balais (Persian rubies), one large and fourteen medium-sized rubies, and 80 diamonds.53 Charles attracted particularly great attention from contemporary observers by wearing a golden dress set with pearls and precious stones to a banquet he gave for the emperor and the electors. Its value was estimated to be 100,000 guilders.54 A further set of robes worn when paying a return visit to Frederick III was so furnished with large precious stones, rubies, thumb-sized diamonds, and large pearls that one witness estimated the value of the jewels alone at 100,000 guilders.55 51 For the famous meeting in Trier, see Ehm, Burgund und das Reich, 130–197; ‘… und begeret ein kunig zu werden’. 52 Keller, ed., Die Geschichten, 14. 53 Charles wore this garment probably on 4 October under a golden coat. See Ehm, Burgund und das Reich, 151. For the purchases of fabrics and other preparations, see Ehm, Burgund und das Reich, 150. 54 Tobler, ed., Die Berner Chronik des Diebold Schilling, vol. 1, 112. Another eyewitness reports that the emperor himself estimated this garment at 100,000 guilders. Chmel, ed., Bericht eines Augenzeugen, vol. 1, Nr. 15, 58. Supplement by K.O. Frieling. 55 Chmel, ed., Bericht eines Augenzeugen, vol. 1, Nr. 15, 56. Spieß, ‘Der Schatz Karls des Kühnen’, 278–279, discusses contemporary estimations of jewellery.

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How greatly attentive the duke was to his external appearance is illustrated by a misfortune that beset the ducal entourage on its way to Trier. While staying in Luxemburg, a coat was left behind. Unfortunately, this was not just any coat, but one that Charles the Bold had had made specifically for his first meeting with the emperor. His goldsmith Loyet had decorated it with 23 large balais, 1,400 large pearls, and three ounces of fourteen sterling gold.56 Because the duke did not want to do without the coat, there was no alternative but to send a messenger back to fetch it. Charles the Bold then halted his entourage before the gates of Trier until the coat arrived. Not even the arrival of the Archbishop of Trier, who had ridden out to greet the Burgundian delegation, could persuade Charles to change his mind, get the entourage moving again, and appear before the emperor in another robe.57 Although it evidently made a lasting impression on contemporary observers in Trier that sich der herczog allweg in eim besundern cleide hat sehin lassen (‘the duke always wanted to be seen in a special dress’),58 his sartorial behaviour also triggered some astonishment – at least among participants from the Holy Roman Empire. Envoys from Brandenburg remarked that, not only Frederick III, but also the electors had reacted with Befremden (‘irritation’) to the demonstrative splendour that the duke displayed with his garb.59 A German observer also sensed irritation with the refusal of Charles and his entourage to protect themselves from the rain that started to fall as they arrived in Trier. Whereas the emperor and the aristocrats accompanying him drew over ire mäntell (‘their coats’) to protect themselves and their splendid robes from the rain that started to fall as the two delegations entered the city, Charles refused to umb[zu]nemen (‘put on’) a raincoat despite uber maß große[n] platzregen (‘the excessive downpour’) and also forbade his entourage to do so.60 This behaviour led Wilwolt von Schaumburg, a German aristocrat who was in attendance at Trier, to comment appositely: aber herzog Karl wolt aus seinem stolz nicht, damit er seine klainat oder geschmück bedecken mocht (‘but Duke Charles did not want to because of his pride; for this would hide his jewels or adornment’).61 56 Spieß, ‘Der Schatz Karls des Kühnen’, 283, points out that the goldsmith got his wages only for the sewing, while the used jewels were taken from Charles’s treasures: ‘Der Herzog führte gewissermaßen seinen Schatz am eigenen Leib der Öffentlichkeit vor’. 57 Ehm is convinced that this coat was the ‘palletot’ which Charles wore at his first meeting with Frederick III. See Ehm, Burgund und das Reich, 151–152. A French eyewitness tells about une manteline toute chargee de tres grosses perles de reubiz, dyamants et gros ballais, autant que on en y a peu mettre (‘a coat that was decorated with as much as possible very large perles, rubins, diamonds and balais’) which the Burgundian duke wore at the entry into Trier and laquelle manteline l’on extime valoir ii.c mil escuz (‘this coat was estimated at 200,000 écus’). Chmel, ed., Extract d’une lettre, vol. 1, Nr. 16 (4. Oktober 1473), 59. However, Wilwolt von Schaumburg reports about a coat of arms. See Keller, ed., Die Geschichten, 14. 58 Chmel, ed., Bericht eines Augenzeugen, vol. 1, Nr. 15, 59. 59 Ehm, Burgund und das Reich, 153. 60 Keller, ed., Die Geschichten, 14. 61 Keller, ed., Die Geschichten, 14.

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That Charles in no way wanted to be prevented from displaying his precious dress was only one aspect of his clothing behaviour. Another was that the duke was evidently using his dress to claim a political rank to which he was not entitled. Through his sartorial display, Charles evoked the impression that he had already been granted the royal title he sought. A Burgundian eyewitness noted succinctly: Et en verité il [Karl der Kühne] estoit bien habillié en roy, il ne luy falloit que couronne en teste (‘And in truth, he [Charles the Bold] was well dressed as king; all he lacked was a crown on his head’).62 What he had intended as a compliment was evidently understood by the emperor and the electors as a presumption. In his efforts to present himself as magnificently as possible, Charles the Bold overshot the mark and evidently lost all sense of what was and what was not appropriate to his rank. His excessive display of splendour, be it in dress or in other areas, was an affront to the emperor and electors and was understood as an expression of impertinent arrogance that could no longer be compensated even by gestures of submission.63 One of Charles the Bold’s robes may have particularly annoyed the electors in Trier. The Duke of Burgundy came to the negotiations held on the 2 and 3 October 1473 wearing a coat strongly matching the vestments of the electors in appearance but markedly more sumptuous. He wore ein gulden stück in mantels wies vor offen bis uff die erden und mit hermlein gefütert und hat ein umbgeslagen goller mit hermlein (‘a golden coat that was open, reached to the ground, was lined with ermine, and had a raised partlet with ermine’).64 In itself, this was harmless. What made this coat offensive was the form of the ermine partlet that in deckt bis mitten in den rükke und lenger dann die kurfürstenkappen gieng (‘covered him to the middle of his back and was longer than the partlets of the electors’ coats’).65 In other words, the Duke of Burgundy not only borrowed from the electors’ regalia, but also took things further by selecting a more precious brocade and by using more ermine in his partlet. Because the similarity between Charles’s coat and the electors’ regalia and the difference in the breadth of the collar were both glaringly apparent, it can be assumed that the Duke of Burgundy had chosen his outfit intentionally and was fully aware of its significance.66 His choice of garb was evidently based on a political calculation: dressed in the aforementioned coat, he presented himself as being of higher rank than the electors, thereby claiming for himself once more so highly visibly the right to be king. Charles the Bold, Duke of Burgundy, emphasised his political claims at the meeting with Frederick III in Trier, not only through his dress in general – in which he anticipated his desire to be raised to the kingship through his exceptionally pompous attire even 62 Ehm, Burgund und das Reich, 153. 63 See Ehm, Burgund und das Reich, 153. 64 Ehm, ‘… und begeret ein kunig zu werden’, 248; Burgund und das Reich, 154. 65 Ehm, ‘… und begeret ein kunig zu werden’, 248; Burgund und das Reich, 154. 66 Not only the envoys of Brandenburg, but also a cleric in the entourage of the archbishop of Mainz associated Charles’s coat with the electors’ regalia. Ehm, Burgund und das Reich, 154 mit Anm. 156. For the Burgundian pretension, see, in detail, Müller, Théâtre de la préséance.

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before the negotiations had in any way been brought to an end – but also by pointedly wearing a specific garb. He skilfully exploited the fundamental contradiction between dress and constitutional reality. Because rank was always also visualised in dress and thereby, to some extent, both first constituted and simultaneously reproduced by dress, the opposite was also true: it could be questioned and undermined through dress. Charles’s ‘attempted sartorial usurpation’ as Petra Ehm has stated, which was additionally supported by the fact that the form of the electors’ regalia was still not yet definitively established in 1473 and thus open to alteration.67 In view of what was in any case a fraught relation between the Duke of Burgundy and the electors due to a rivalry that had been fermenting for a long time, the electors could only view Charles’s robe as a deliberate provocation. Hence, not surprisingly, they were not prepared to accept this presumption and eventually refused to recognise Burgundy as a kingdom.68 In view of the sensitivity of contemporaries for the political connotations of dress in 1500, as emerges repeatedly in detail in the examples presented here, it can be anticipated that potential political implications of dress also played a role in the reaction to foreign dress of newly married duchesses and princesses. In fact, none of the inspected data material indicates any political interpretation – going beyond a mere national-cultural allocation – of the cultural differences in the dress of aristocratic women at the courts of the Holy Roman Empire at the turn of the fifteenth to the sixteenth centuries. It seems as if contemporaries did not associate the dress of aristocratic women in any way with political assertions – in contrast to that of aristocratic men. Whether this general difference in the perception of male and female aristocratic dress practices means that aristocratic women at princely courts in the Holy Roman Empire of 1500 actually did not exploit the political potential of dress in practice, or that the perspective taken by the male chroniclers simply did not pay any attention to the possible sartorial formulations of women’s political claims remains an open question. However, the fact that no evidence was found for political implications of noble women’s dress in practice seems contradictory to the shaping of female aristocratic dress in portraits or other paintings where political pretentions could be raised.

Conclusion It would be hard to overestimate the pivotal role of aristocratic weddings in bringing together and communicating different fashions in the late fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries. Marriages within the aristocratic elite of Europe promoted the 67 For the development of the electors’ regalia, see Frieling, Sehen und gesehen werden, 186–190. 68 See Müller, Théâtre de la préséance. For the electors’ opposition to a higher Burgundian rank, see Ehm, Burgund und das Reich, 181–182. For a general judgement of the meeting in Trier, see Ehm, Burgund und das Reich, 195–197.

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exchange of dress styles, not only through the personal meetings of aristocrats, negotiators, and vassals during the wedding preparations, at the wedding ceremony, and at the new court of the wife, but also through the transfer of garments and fabrics during and after the wedding. This process of cultural exchange was essentially the product of aristocratic and royal women. They were the ones who moved from their parental courts to the courts of their wedded husbands and generally to a different cultural environment. It is no longer possible to clarify clearly what effects these moves had on the dress practices of aristocratic women at the courts of the Holy Roman Empire around 1500. However, there are some indications that the new court would try to influence the bride to exchange her customary dress for that in fashion at her husband’s court as a means of assisting her integration. How far women actually followed this suggestion also remains an open question. Practically speaking, at least at the beginning of their marriage, duchesses and princesses can be expected to have not just adopted the dress habits of their new environment but also to have continued to wear the clothes made in the fashion of their old home. The wish for sartorial adaptation with which the courts in the Empire reacted to the foreign fashions of aristocratic and royal women from other countries also shows how the courts were aware of the identity-forming cultural influence of dress and how the proposed conformity was designed mostly to demonstrate that the new duchess or princess belonged to her husband and thereby facilitated her integration. The broad view of aristocratic dress practices in the Holy Roman Empire at the transition from the fifteenth to the sixteenth century shows first, how cultural differences in (aristocratic) dress from the end of the fifteenth century onward were no longer perceived as such but were increasingly interpreted nationally. Second, it shows that the perception of aristocratic male and female dress reveals a decisive gender-specific difference – at least on the level of dress practices: Whereas the robes of dukes and princes could have political significance, no political significance was evidently assigned to the clothing of duchesses and princesses. Whether this perception indicates a German characteristic which is due to the complex political structure in the Holy Roman Empire around 1500 lacking a strong political and cultural centre, or whether it reflects a general difference between dress practices of aristocratic women on the one hand and normative concepts of female noble dress on the other hand requires further investigation. However, these findings indicate that we should be aware that political assertions of dresses were bound to specific contexts.

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About the author Kirsten O. Frieling teaches in the Department of History at the Universität Bielefeld. She is the author of Sehen und gesehen werden: Kleidung an Fürstenhöfen an der Schwelle vom Mittelalter zur Neuzeit (ca.1450–1530) (Thorbecke Verlag, 2013). Her research is focussed on the roles of the body and dress in constructing social and political identity in Germany in the early modern period.

4. Lustrous Virtue: Eleanor of Austria’s Jewels and Gems as Composite Cultural Identity and Affective Maternal Agency Lisa Mansfield

Abstract The use of sumptuous apparel in private and public spheres from ceremonies to portraits is a recurring theme in representations of Eleanor of Austria (1498–1558), reflecting the display practices of the women of her exalted Habsburg, Burgundian, and Spanish lineage. Moving beyond the sartorial politics of her imperial allegiance, this essay critically redefines the political, economic, and emotional significance of Eleanor’s acquisition and benefaction of jewels and gems as queen consort of Portugal (1518–1521) and France (1530–1547). It discusses her strategic self-adornment with these luxe accoutrements as an affective practice motivated by her familial devotion and maternal agency in service of the Habsburg dynasty. Key words: Habsburg women; dynasty; jewels and gems; dowry; gifts; maternal agency

This essay considers the entwined economic, political, and emotional significance of jewels and gems for Eleanor of Austria (1498–1558), twice queen consort of Portugal (1518–1521) and France (1530–1547).1 Over the past two decades, the sketchily evidenced contours of Eleanor’s profile, as one of the most elusive elite women of the Habsburg dynasty, has started to emerge through research highlighting her cultural activities and diplomatic efforts.2 In addition, a small number of literary descriptions and portraits have generated useful publications on the sartorial politics of her Spanish imperial representation as a French queen consort.3 These studies are complemented by the pioneering – comprehensive – archival research of Eleanor’s limited surviving inventories by Annemarie Jordan Gschwend.4 While this chapter draws 1 Gschwend, ‘Ma meilleur soeur’, 2582, notes the variations of Eleanor’s name as Lianor, Lyénor, Aliénor, Leonora, Eleanora, Eleanore, Éléonore, and the English spelling of Eleanor to be used in this chapter. 2 Wilson-Chevalier, ‘Art patronage and women (including Habsburg)’, 474, 477, 490–499; Pardanaud, ‘Plaider, convaincre, entrer en scène’, 195–216; Mansfield, ‘Portraits of Eleanor of Austria’. 3 Anderson, ‘Spanish dress worn by a Queen of France’, 215–222; Cox-Rearick, ‘Power Dressing’, 39–69. 4 Jordan Gschwend, ‘Ma meilleur soeur’, 2569–2598.

Griffey, E. (ed.), Sartorial Politics in Early Modern Europe: Fashioning Women, Amsterdam University Press, 2019 doi: 10.5117/9789462986008_ch04

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on this valuable foundation, it specifically focuses on providing an interpretation of Eleanor’s discerning deployment of jewels and gems. Profound value was attached to these precious, durable, symbolic, and recyclable objects within Eleanor’s cultural heritage, with heirloom ornaments bestowed names and women’s livelihoods literally equated with their jewels.5 Therefore, the ensuing discussion not only demonstrates Eleanor’s participation in the affective compensatory gifting culture of her familial network, but also her strategic self-adornment with these luxe accoutrements to communicate a carefully crafted composite cultural identity that moved beyond her imperial allegiance. Moreover, comparative examination of Eleanor’s feminine exemplars and patterns of benefaction illuminate the personalised politics underpinning her wide-ranging matriarchal role and construction of a material maternal legacy through her collection and display of jewels and gems.6 Despite a dearth of archival documents for substantiating the precise extent and character of Eleanor of Austria’s patronage and collecting activities, a small number of portraits, and two (published) inventory lists provide the primary sources for this investigation.7

Marital Destiny and Maternal Models Eleanor’s lineage merged Austrian, Burgundian, Castilian, and Aragonese imperial bloodlines, but her acculturation as an accomplished courtly woman and Habsburg was guided by her maternal guardian, Margaret of Austria (1480–1530), at her court in Mechelen.8 In 1502, the four-year-old Flemish princess was portrayed on the left wing of a triptych attributed to the Master of the Guild of Saint George (Figure 4.1).9 The triptych also depicts two of Eleanor’s five younger siblings, with Charles V (1500–1558), the future Holy Roman Emperor, in the middle panel, and Isabella (1501–1526), on the right.10 The likenesses not only convey familial resemblance, but also allude to the future pathway of 5 Jordan, ‘Catherine of Austria’, 173–174; Roberts, ‘The Posthumous Image of Mary of Burgundy’, 63–64; Checa Cremades and González Garcia, Inventories, vol. 1, 918–921. On the economic, practical, cultural, and personal value attached to jewels and gems in fifteenth-century Italy, including the practice of naming significant objects, see Clark, ‘Transient Possessions’, 186, 193–197, 220. 6 Jordan Gschwend, ‘Ma meilleur soeur’, 2573; González Garcia, ‘Charles V and the Habsburgs.’ 7 Portuguese transcripts of both documents Inventario y evaluación de la piezas de plata Ilevadas a Portugal ‘Inventory and evaluation of the silver pieces taken to Portugal’, 1518, Archivo General de Simancas, Valladolid, Patronato Real, leg. 50–42 and Inventario incomplete de joyas regaladas por Manuel I de Portugal, ‘Incomplete inventory of jewels given to her by Manuel I of Portugal’, 1518, Archivo General Simancas, Valladolid, Patronato Real, leg. 50–44, are published in Gschwend, ‘Ma meilleur soeur,’ 2593–2598. I wish to acknowledge, with sincere thanks, Alan Baxter’s translation of these documents. 8 Boom, Eléonore, 19–22; Tamussino, Margarete, 147–194; Eichberger, ‘Margaret of Austria’, 49–50; Gschwend, ‘Ma meilleur soeur’, 2571. 9 Lorentz, ‘Children’s Portraits’, 117. 10 Charles bore the titles of Duke of Burgundy, King of Spain, and Holy Roman Emperor, and, on his imperial abdication in 1556, was succeeded by his brother, Ferdinand I.

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Figure 4.1: Attributed to the Master of the Guild of St. George, Emperor Charles V at the age of two together with his sisters Eleanor and Isabelle, 1502, oil on panel. Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna.

each child. Charles wears a bejewelled collar of the Order of the Golden Fleece and faces his slightly taller older sister. While his central placement denotes his birth order, it also forecasts the impending dynastic leadership of the two-year-old. As emperor, Charles V would conduct himself as a paternal figure for his sisters, following the model set by Maximilian I, while Eleanor would dutifully adopt an affectionate sisterly and supportive maternal role predicated on her willing obsequiousness.11 Her selfless dedication to the welfare of her brothers and sisters would replenish the emotional space left open by the demise of Margaret of Austria in 1530.12 The youngest girl, Isabella, obediently replicates the position of Charles, with her upwards gaze simultaneously directed towards Eleanor, as she holds a doll of an elegant courtly lady garbed in red. Eleanor wears a fine necklace with a pendant and a long chain of interlocking golden beads. Her jewellery, together with her preternatural poise and the tiny violet held in her small right hand, simultaneously evoke her modesty and prospect as a ‘valuable pawn destined to be queen of France, England, Poland or Portugal’.13 11 Gschwend, ‘Ma meilleur soeur’, 2570, 2584, n. 27. 12 Wilson-Chevalier, ‘Art Patronage’, 483; Gschwend, ‘Ma meilleur soeur’, 2570. 13 Gschwend, ‘Ma meilleur soeur’, 2572; Hall, Dictionary of Subjects, 107, 167–168, 266, 294. Though difficult to identify in reproductions, the flower resembles an iris, intersecting with symbolic meanings of the Virgin Mary’s purity, spring, and Greek mythology as a goddess personifying a rainbow and a messenger of Juno.

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Carefully planned nuptials years in advance were not unusual for Habsburg marriages. Thrice married, Margaret of Austria was similarly subjected to the matrimonial machinations of her imperial father, Maximilian I (1459–1519), who had himself been placed in an arranged marriage by his father, Frederick III (1415–1593), Holy Roman Emperor, husband of Eleanor’s namesake, Eleanor of Portugal (1434–1467).14 Eleanor’s portrait also reflects the demure and pious model of feminine comportment conveyed in Margaret of Austria’s likeness at age ten by Jean Hey (called the Master of Moulins) (Figure 4.2), dated to around 1490. The painting shows the youthful sitter in contemplation, fondling a gold Paternoster bead amongst her pearl rosary. Contextualised by her betrothal at the age of three to the infant Dauphin Charles, the future Charles VIII (1470–1498), the border of her collar is embroidered with golden, interlocking capital letters of C and M. The ornate enamel, ruby, and pearl pendant hanging from her necklace forms the charitable symbol of a pelican pricking its breast with its beak (to feed its young).15 Margaret of Austria’s humiliating repudiation by the French king in 1491, at the age of eleven, for the hand of Anne of Brittany (1477–1514), would damage relations between the Habsburg and Valois royal houses that would linger into Eleanor’s second marriage with François I (1494–1547).16 Before her tenure as French queen consort, Eleanor’s eligibility on the international marriage market was played out in a series of unresolved betrothals with powerful monarchs.17 The Habsburg princess’ first instalment at the Portuguese court at the age of nineteen was masterminded by her brother with the approval of Margaret of Austria.18 The union was designed to safeguard the Iberian Peninsula by uniting the Habsburg and Avis dynasties.19 In preparation for her Portuguese marriage, Eleanor’s trousseau incorporated precious objects from the capacious treasury of her biological mother, Joanna of Castile and Aragon (1479–1555), ‘the Mad’.20 Her grandmother, Isabella of Castile (1451–1504), had, in turn, previously bequeathed her collection of jewels and gems to her daughter, Joanna.21 The suggestion of a direct line of maternal gifting is, nevertheless, complicated by Joanna’s reclusive incapacitation and imprisonment at Tordesillas (Valladolid), which was exacerbated – through genuine grief and political narration – by the premature death of her husband, Philip the Fair 14 On Margaret of Austria’s betrothals and marriages, see Jansen, Queenship, 83–84, 86, 92; Tamussino, Margarete, 25–123; Boom, Eléonore, 1–63; Tremayne, The First Governess, 3–5, 17, 25, 61–63. 15 Sterling, Fifteenth- to Eighteenth-Century European Paintings, 11–19. 16 Jansen, The Monstrous Regiment, 83–84; Tremayne, The First Governess, 21–22, 212–213. 17 Rodríguez-Salgado, ‘Charles V’, 42, 50, 90–91. Potential husbands included Henry VIII (1491–1547), King of England; Sigismund I (1467–1548), King of Poland; Louis XII (1462–1515), King of France; Antoine (1489–1544), Duke of Lorraine, and Christian II of Denmark. 18 Fitchner, ‘Dynastic Marriage’, 243–256; Rodríguez-Salgado, ‘Charles V and the Dynasty’, 27–111; Jansen, The Monstrous Regiment, 91–92. 19 Gschwend, ‘Ma meilleur soeur’, 2572; Elbl, ‘“The Elect, the Fortunate, the Prudent”’, 87–111. 20 Boom, Eléonore, 19–22; Tamussino, Margarete, 147–194; Gschwend, ‘Ma meilleur soeur’, 2571–2573; Barghahn, ‘Blending Myth and Reality’, 29. 21 Jansen, The Monstrous Regiment, 71–73, 76–78; Edwards, Ferdinand and Isabella, 161.

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Figure 4.2: Jean Hey (called Master of Moulins) (fl. 1480–1500), Margaret of Austria, c. 1490, oil on oak panel. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.

(1478–1506).22 For Eleanor and her siblings, parental absence was, therefore, replaced with a focus ‘on the cult of the Habsburg dynasty, reinforced by the exchange of family heirlooms, jewels, precious relics and gifts of an exotic nature’.23 As the family’s proxy patriarch, Charles V pillaged Joanna’s copious resources to leverage the strategic marriages of Eleanor and her three younger sisters: Isabella, Queen Consort of Christian II (1481–1559), King of Denmark, Sweden, and Norway; Mary (1505–1558), Queen Consort of Louis II (1506–1526), King of Hungary; and Catherine (1507–1578), Queen Consort of John III of Portugal (1502–1557).24 The Holy 22 Aram, ‘Queen Juana’, 33–46. 23 Gschwend, ‘Ma meilleur soeur’, 2571. On Eleanor’s restricted role as a queen consort compared by the regencies entrusted to her sisters, see Mansfield, ‘Portraits of Eleanor of Austria’, chapter forthcoming. 24 Gschwend, ‘Ma meilleur soeur’, 2570, 2573. For Juana’s inventory, see Torres, Inventarios reales, 171–375.

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Roman Emperor also buttressed his own union with Isabel of Portugal (1503–1539) in 1526 by appropriating the most valuable plate and jewels from his mother’s collection.25 Despite Joanna’s enforced isolation, Bethany Aram contends that she was unwavering in her determination to ‘secure the inheritance’ of her children, with ‘The queen’s consistent, self-sacrificing support for her offspring [emerging] as one fact in a sea of fictions, rumors, and legends elaborated around her.’26 Joanna’s devotion to her alienated children opens a neglected source of indirect influence on Eleanor’s identity as ersatz matriarch to her widely dispersed siblings, and suggests her cultural agency enacted on behalf of her only surviving child, Maria of Portugal (1521–1577) in 1521.27

Maternal Self-Sacrifice in Service of the Habsburg Dynasty Eleanor’s first marital alliance with Manuel I (1469–1521), ‘the Fortunate’, from 1518 to 1521, was short-lived and relatively harmonious. The Portuguese monarch, who was 30 years her senior, passed away within three years of their nuptials, shortly before the (posthumous) birth of the Infanta Maria. However, in the short interval before her second tenure as French queen consort, Eleanor ‘was forced by royal strategies’ to return to Spain with Charles V in 1523, leaving her toddler daughter at the Portuguese court.28 The separation between mother and daughter, who was not yet three years old, was due to the Infanta’s immense fortune, which was controlled by Manuel I’s son and successor, John III, the husband of Eleanor’s youngest sister, Catherine.29 Eleanor’s desire to reunite with her daughter is revealed in letters, portrait commissions, and her direct involvement in Maria’s (unsuccessful) future marriage negotiations with ‘her nephew and godson, Philip II of Spain (1527–1598)’, ‘the Prudent’.30 In a letter dated to 1542, Eleanor expressed her delight in viewing a likeness of Maria, stating ‘I was very satisfied with your portrait, my daughter […] since I cannot see the original, I pray to God that this can one day happen, and with your pleasure, which will be my own.’31 After an estrangement lasting over three decades, the longed-for reunion occurred across fifteen days in 1558, with Eleanor gifting Maria ‘in person […] gems, jewels, and plate valued at over 200,000 ducats’; that this impressive 25 Gschwend, ‘Catherine of Austria’, 181–182. 26 Aram, ‘Queen Juana’, 36–37. 27 Gschwend, ‘Ma meilleur soeur’, 2572–2573, 2593–2598; Rodrigues, ‘For the Honor’, 10; Jansen, The Monstrous Regiment, 94. Manuel I was previously married to Eleanor of Austria’s aunts, Isabella (1470–1498) and Maria (1482–1517) of Aragon-Castile. 28 Gschwend, ‘Ma meilleur soeur’, 2572. 29 Gschwend, ‘Ma meilleur soeur’, 2588, n. 125. Also see Serrão, A Infanta Dona Maria. 30 Calendar of Letters, 27–28, 178; Gachard, Retraite et mort, vol. 2, 114–115; Gschwend, ‘Ma meilleur soeur’, 2579–2581; Wilson-Chevalier, ‘Art patronage and women’, 493–494; Woodall, Anthonis Mor, 216. 31 Pacheco, 1675, fol. 24, cited in Woodall, Anthonis Mor, 218.

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inheritance was doubled shortly after Eleanor’s death in the same year attests to the affective maternal intent compelling her final material bequest.32 The dowager queen of Portugal’s arrival at the Valois court in 1530, without her daughter, was beleaguered by a somewhat different set of adversarial personal and political conditions that challenged her agency as a queen consort. The fourteenyear-long marriage, tainted by the enduring enmity of Habsburg-Valois relations stemming from Margaret of Austria’s rejection by Charles VIII, was exacerbated by François I’s loss of the imperial election in 1519 and the ongoing hostilities of the Italian Wars (1494–1559).33 François I’s crushing defeat at the Battle of Pavia (24 February 1525) by Charles V’s imperial troops and his year-long captivity in Spain cemented the mutual animosity between the Valois king and Habsburg emperor.34 The ensuing marital alliance between the Valois widower and Habsburg widow was negotiated in the terms of the Treaty of Madrid (14 January 1526) and settled by François I’s mother, Louise de Savoie (1476–1531), and her former sister-in-law, Margaret of Austria, as a condition of the Paix des Dames ‘Ladies’ Peace’ or treaty of Cambrai (3 August 1529).35 Having relinquished the Dauphin François (1518–1536), and his younger brother, Henri (1519–1559), the future king of France, as imperial hostages in exchange for his own release from captivity, the treaty also facilitated the release of François I’s offspring.36 In binding the French king to his imperial archenemy’s closest familial ally, Eleanor was recast as a queen consort ‘whose power was curtailed’, despite the pomp and ceremony that commemorated the marriage.37 At the age of 32, she was tolerated by an indifferent royal spouse for whom succession was secure, and who was instead preoccupied with hunting, patronage of art and architecture, and enjoying the charms of his current royal mistress, Anne de Pisseleu, Duchess of Étampes (1508–1580).38 The strength of the Habsburg sibling bond ensured that Eleanor would, for a second time, willingly forfeit her emotional desires and personal aspirations for Charles V’s political ambitions and his vision of universal empire.39

The Portuguese Dowry The pinnacle of the gendered political value of jewels and gems was found in the context of courtly marriage, whereby the monetary capital and worldly possessions of a bride, both given and received, typically remained the property of her husband 32 Gschwend, ‘Ma meilleur soeur’, 2581. 33 Aram, ‘Voyages’, 96. 34 Knecht, Renaissance Warrior, 218–227. 35 Knecht, Renaissance Warrior, 247, 284. 36 Knecht, Renaissance Warrior, 246–248, 272, 283–287; Gschwend, ‘Ma meilleur soeur’, 2575. 37 Cox-Rearick, The Collection of Francis I, 270–273; Gschwend, ‘Ma meilleur soeur’, 2570. 38 Knecht, Renaissance Warrior, 249, 286, 289, 448; Gschwend, ‘Ma meilleur soeur’, 2577. 39 Gschwend, ‘Ma meilleur soeur’, 2570, and 2572, for Eleanor’s youthful infatuation and desire for a ‘love match’ with one of Charles V’s courtiers in 1517. Also see, Moeller, Eléonore, 198–218, 324–328.

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as a condition of her dowry.40 However, for the women of the Habsburg dynasty, dowries were negotiated to equip queen consorts with monetary and material provisions as a foundation for financial security and autonomy. Therefore, on Eleanor’s marriage to Manuel I in 1518, she was contracted to receive: from the emperor 200,000 doblas for her dowry and an annual rent of 2,000,000 reais, while Manuel provided the remaining third of her dowry and an annual rent of 15,000 doblas; a settlement which guaranteed Leonor wealth and independence.41

In the same year, the new queen of Portugal was gifted a generous assemblage of jewels and gems by the king, including rare and exotic Indian ornamental objects, which were collectively designated as her ‘inalienable property’ external to her dowry.42 The mostly Flemish and French decorative objects and household items, which formed part of Eleanor’s dowry, are recorded in a concise inventory, along with the partial list of acquisitions gifted to her by Manuel I. These incomplete documents constitute the extent of knowledge concerning the precise contents of her estate. Both lists show a systematic process of evaluation in which the new queen’s jewels and gems were carefully weighed, concisely described, categorised, and judged according to quality of craftsmanship. An implicit equation is made between the tangible wealth of the material items with the worthiness and virtues of the queen consort, reflecting the symbolic dimension and pragmatic function of Renaissance dowries.43 Eleanor, together with her jewels and gems, was indirectly situated within a courtly transaction that aimed to honour the glory of the Habsburg dynasty, while advancing the prestige of the royal house of Avis. The household provisions Eleanor brought from Flanders to Portugal included gold and silver plate and jewel-encrusted headpieces, necklaces, earrings, bracelets, and rings, amounting to the total of ‘six thousand and five hundred and eighty cruzados or ducados which make at 315 reis to the dobra six thousand and seven hundred and sixty dobras’.44 It is difficult to provide accurate conversion of Portuguese currency values between the sixteenth and 21st century. However, the unit of currency was the reis (singular: real), a small copper coin, while the cruzado (a gold coin stamped with the royal arms on the obverse and Cross of Saint George on the reverse), the equivalent of the Spanish ducat, also acted as a measurement of standard medieval weight unit, and weighed 0.125 medieval ounces. In 1517, the value of cruzado was 400 reis or the equivalent of between 2–10 English shillings (silver coins).45 The assessments of the 40 King, Women of the Renaissance, 53; Hayward, Dress at the Court, 188–189. 41 Gschwend, ‘Ma meilleur soeur’, 2572. 42 Gschwend, ‘Ma meilleur soeur’, 2573. 43 Randolph, ‘Performing the Bridal Body’, 182–200; Elbl, ‘“The Elect, the Fortunate, and the Prudent”’, 108–109. 44 Gschwend, ‘Ma meilleur soeur’, 2596: ‘Sam deste cruzados ou ducados seys mijl e quynhemos e oytemta que (tachado: vale) fazem da dobras iijc (300) lxb réis a dobra seis mijl e seteçemtos e sesemra dobras.’ 45 Codrington, Ceylon Coins, 91; Bruster, ‘Money’, 398.

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items, penned by two goldsmiths representing the interests of Charles V and Manuel I respectively, under the watchful supervision of several Flemish courtiers from the emperor’s household, confirm the formality of the evaluation procedure. They accorded the highest value to the gemstones, noting their size and category, with the descriptions followed by a valuation in Portuguese monetary units.46 The first dowry notation is recorded as: ‘Item – one headpiece with four rubies and four diamonds and six pearls valued at one thousand and eight hundred cruzados.’47 Other costly items of self-adornment, such as diamond rings, are complemented by loose diamonds, for example: ‘Seven diamonds, six table-cut diamonds and one faceted diamond, each set deeply in gold, all seven valued at one hundred cruzados.’48 Ornaments featuring rubies and diamonds are complemented by emeralds, for instance: ‘One carquam or ¨necklace¨ with three rubies and two emeralds and six pearls valued at four hundred cruzados’, followed by ‘Another carquam with seven emeralds and six pearls valued at four hundred cruzados’.49 Precious stones and jewellery are complemented by elaborate sacred and secular objects and extravagantly embellished items of detachable clothing, although there are no surviving portraits that feature Eleanor’s jewellery or wardrobe during her short time in Portugal. However, her lavish Flemish-style clothes and ornate jewels made an indelible impact on Manuel I’s courtiers during the wedding celebrations, with the king and his courtiers sporting Flemish-style clothing in honour of the new queen.50 The custom of changing apparel to indicate (private or public) cordiality or displeasure was an enduring political tactic for the women of Eleanor’s exalted pedigree.51 Other items in the dowry include: ‘One cross of diamonds with sixteen diamonds and three pearls’; ‘Two sleeves that have two hundred and eight pearls mounted in gold in triangles’; ‘One gold sprinkling vase enameled with pinkish silver with forty eight grains of seed pearls and with a chain for hanging’; and ‘Five chains of fossils that weighed altogether one hundred and fifty cruzados’.52 The fossils were possibly 46 Gschwend, ‘Ma meilleur soeur,’ 2573. 47 Gschwend, ‘Ma meilleur soeur,’ 2595: ‘Jtem huua bordadura de cabeça com quartro rrobys e quarto diamaes e seis perlas avaliado em mill e oytoçemtos cruzados.’ 48 Gschwend, ‘Ma meilleur soeur,’, 2595: ‘Sete diamaaes, seis tavoleras e hum lavrado a façetas, emgastados, em ouro cada hum sobre sy avaliados todos sete em çem cruzados.’ On styles of diamond-cutting and -faceting in the sixteenth century, see Hackenbroch, Renaissance Jewellery, 395, 400; Ogden, Diamonds, Chapters 7 and 8. According to Haas, Hödel, and Schneider, Diamant, 238–239, Maximilian I is believed to have given Mary of Burgundy the first diamond engagement ring. 49 Gschwend, ‘Ma meilleur soeur,’ 2594: ‘Hum carquam ou colar com tres balayes e duas esmeraldas e seis perlas havaliado em quatrocemros cruzados’ and ‘Outro carquam com sere esmereldas e seis perlas avaliado rodo em seysçemos cruzados.’ The word ‘balayes’ is interpreted as an abbreviation of balas ruby. On (Columbian) emeralds in Renaissance jewels, dowries, and curiosity cabinets, see Lane, Colour of Paradise, 86. 50 Gschwend, ‘Ma meilleur soeur’, 2573. 51 Anderson, Hispanic Costume, 144; Anderson, ‘Spanish Dress’, 216, 222; Matthews, ‘Apparel, Status, Fashion’, 150; Cruz, ‘Introduction’, 16. 52 Gschwend, ‘Ma meilleur soeur’, 2594–2595: ‘Huua cruz de diamaaes que tem dezasete diamaaes e tres perlas …’; ‘Duas mamgas que tem dozemtas e oyto perlas postas em ouro em tryamgolo availiado cada tryamgolo com seu ouro e perllas …’; ‘Huua almaraixa douro esmaltada de rroxecre com quoremta e oyto

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‘serpent’s tongues’ or ‘tonguestones’, referring to shark teeth amulets similar to the pendants displayed in the 1449 painting of A Goldsmith in his Shop by Petrus Christus, which were believed to offer protection against poisons.53 Other curiosities incorporating the fossilised resin of amber (possibly decorative buttons) include: ‘One hundred and one burin-engraved open gold beads full of amber that weighed together with the amber five ounces and five drams, valued thus the gold, the amber and the workmanship at sixty cruzados’.54 In an age of New World discovery and conquest, pearls are, not surprisingly, the most conspicuous ornaments, with short and long strands offset by individual baubles, for example: ‘One toque with seventy-three pearls valued at one hundred and forty six cruzados’; ‘Another toque with twenty four large pearls valued at one hundred and twenty cruzados’; ‘One hundred pearls threaded on a string valued at five hundred and five cruzados each one’; ‘Eight loose pearls, some of which have gold pins, valued all at fifty cruzados’.55 While the toque appears to refer to a headdress (a type of round brimless cap with some height at the crown), the metallic attachments on the loose pearls suggest adaptability for use in earrings or brooches. With its spherical structure and naturally lustrous sheen, the delicate materiality of the pearl was also a desirable attribute of ideal Renaissance femininity, enhancing the luminosity of the complexion and evoking the smoothness of the skin with haptic resonance. The universal allure of these versatile, passive, luxury objects, coveted by elite men and women, also shared an intimate iconographic connection with the exemplars of the Virgin Mary, as Queen of Heaven, and ancient goddess, Venus.56 This dual symbolism created a performative nexus in the display practices of elite women, aligning the feminine virtue of chastity with legitimate corporeal beauty, not to mention the seductive extravagance of Cleopatra.57 For Eleanor and her Habsburg graaos dalljofar e com huua cadea per que se pemdura que pesou jumtamemte cymquo onças e duas oytauas …’; ‘Cymquo cadeas de foçys que pesarom todas jumtamemte çemto e cymquoemta cruzados.’ 53 Petrus Christus, A Goldsmith in his Shop, 1449, oil on oak panel, 100.1 x 85.8 cm. Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. On the shark teeth or ‘glossopetrae’ in the painting, see Velden, ‘Defrocking St Eloy’, 242; Duffin, ‘Fossil Sharks’ Teeth’, 125–131. On the complex meaning of ‘fossils’ in the Renaissance, see Rudwick, The Meaning of Fossils, 1–7, 15. 54 Gschwend, ‘Ma meilleur soeur’, 2595: ‘Çemto e huua comtas abertas de boryll douro de ducado cheas danbar que pesarom com o ambar cimquo onças e cymquo oytauas, avaliadas, asy o ouro como o ambar e feytio, em sesemta cruzados.’ 55 Gschwend, ‘Ma meilleur soeur’, 2595: ‘Huua dobradura de cabeça com setemta e tres perlas avaliado em çemto e quoremta e seys cruzados’; ‘Outra dobradura de cabeça com vimte quarto perlas grosas avaliado em çemto e quoremta e seys cruzados’; ‘Çem perlas emfiadas em lynha postas em quynhemtos cruzados a çimquuo cruzados cada huua’; and ‘Oyto perlas soltas em que estam alguuas que tem pernos douro avaliadas todas em cymquemta cruzados’. On the cultural history of pearls as imperial commodities in the sixteenth century, see Kunz and Stevenson, The Book of the Pearl; Otte, Las Perlas del Caribe; Donkin, Beyond Price; Joyce and Addison, Pearls, 93–94. 56 On pearls worn by early modern men, see Joyce and Addison, Pearls, 170–171; McCall, ‘Brilliant Bodies’, 447, 450–451, 455, 457–459, 461–463, 485; Awais-Dean, Bejewelled. 57 Hall, Dictionary of Subjects, 73–74. On the origins of the sacred and secular symbolic complexity of the pearl, especially for women, see Raber, ‘Chains of Pearls’, 159–181.

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female kin, the allusion to Venus also recalled the Ovidian Habsburg marital motto Bella gerant alii! Tu, felix Austria, nube! Nam quae Mars aliis, dat tibi regna Venus! (‘Let the strong fight wars! Though happy Austria marry! What Mars bestows on others, Venus gives to thee!’).58

Exotic Gifts Received at the Manueline Court Eleanor’s tenure at the court in Lisbon coincided with the apogee of the Manueline maritime empire and Portugal’s exploratory incursions into Africa, Brazil, India, and the Orient.59 In the early sixteenth century, Lisbon was on the ascent as a cosmopolitan commercial hub within the global trade network that competed for New World luxury commodities, including the lucrative market for precious stones and pearls.60 Eleanor’s strategic placement as the third Habsburg queen consort of Manuel I ensured continuing peaceful political relations between the contending Iberian empires of Spain and Portugal.61 Moreover, on her arrival in Lisbon in 1518, the abundance of pearls in Eleanor’s dowry intersected with the oceanic enterprise of the global pearl trade, which was simultaneously fueling Portugal’s powerful maritime economy and Spanish imperialism.62 Charles V, and his Portuguese spouse, Isabel, the eldest daughter of Manuel I, would, in turn, both be directly involved in regulating the thriving commerce in pearls in a bid to contain Spain’s lust for these organic jewels of the sea.63 Like the pearls that would embellish Eleanor in her future portraits as queen of France, Isabel’s likenesses, including the posthumous painting by Titian (Figure 4.3), invoke the physical grace and moral virtue of the Empress with an elegant use of jewellery composed of sparkling gems and luminescent pearls.64 Isabel’s mutable ‘queenly identity’ as a Spanish imperial consort with ‘a Portuguese flair’ was manifest in her ‘jewelry, clothing, and furnishing’, and represents a compatible exemplar for Eleanor’s future image-making practice in France as a paragon of Habsburg bridal virtue.65 58 Patrouch, ‘“Bella gerant alii’”, 25–26; Palos, ‘Bargaining Chips’, 1. 59 Bell, The Conquest of the Indies, 197; Russell-Wood, The Portuguese Empire; Berbata and Enenkel, ‘Introduction’, 1. 60 Silva, ‘The Portuguese Gem Trade’, 25; Winius, ‘Jewel Trading’, 15–34; Gschwend, ‘Lisbon’, 16–23; Gschwend, The Global City. 61 Subrahanyam, ‘Holding the World’, 1359–1360, 1363, 1365. Manuel I was previous to Eleanor’s aunts, Isabella (1470–1498), and Maria (1482–1517) of Aragon-Castile. 62 See Warsh, American Baroque; Andrews, The Spanish Caribbean, 54–57; Barrera-Osorio, Experiencing Nature, 35–37. 63 Boom, Tears of Mermaids, 15–16. 64 Cloulas, ‘Les portraits’, 58–68; Goffen, Titian’s Women, 64, 81–103; Lozano, ‘The Construction of Isabel’, 145–162. 65 Lozano, ‘The Construction of Isabel’, 157; Anderson, Hispanic Costume, 182; Woodall, Anthonis Mor, 218.

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Figure 4.3: Titian, The Empress Isabella, 1548, oil on canvas. Museo del Prado, Madrid.

Eleanor’s residency in Portugal, which situated her within a courtly network immersed in buying and selling luxury goods, is likely to have engendered her access to royal jewellers and gem merchants active in Lisbon.66 Moreover, as a veritable ‘merchant king’, Manuel I generously ‘supplied himself and his relatives with every possible commodity available’ including ‘his wives and children’.67 The partial list of objects gifted to his third Habsburg bride is, accordingly, striking for its vivid augmentation of Eleanor’s worldly possessions, particularly for the suite of jewels imported from India. The first notation lists: ‘Item – one necklace from India with rubies and round pearls, comprising forty eight rubies, and additionally a rose that 66 Palos, ‘Bargaining Chips’, 4–5, 12, 18. On the spectacular celebrations for the royal marriage and influence of Eleanor’s splendid Flemish-style clothing at the Portuguese court, see Gschwend, ‘Ma meilleur soeur’, 2573–2575. 67 Sá, ‘The uses of luxury’, 599.

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has nine large rubes and other small ones and also eighty four pearls, medium and small ones’.68 A range of new objects not listed in Eleanor’s dowry, which are also of Indian origin, include belts and brooches, for example: ‘Item – one belt that comprises fourteen pieces of gold from India, and made in India, that has two hundred and seventeen rubies, including some large ones, and two emeralds and also other very small rubies and small diamonds that were not removed that weighs altogether four marks and three ounces’; followed by ‘Item – one brooch from India that has seven rubies and seventeen emeralds and many diamonds, that cannot be counted, and four large pearls. It weighs, together with the chain on which they are mounted, one mark and two ounces scarcely’.69 The inventory also includes the first and only reference to sapphires in both the dowry and list of royal gifts in ‘an altarpiece of gold, consisting of Our Lady and her son in her lap and four angels and which has eight pearls and four sapphires and two rubies’.70 While the work accords with Eleanor’s sparsely documented collection of small-scale Flemish-style devotional images and religious activities in Portugal, the jewels and gems, especially the deep blue sapphire embellishments, intensified the sacred maternal symbolism befitting a wedding gift from husband to wife.71 The majority of trinkets are intended for self-adornment, including scented accessories, and objects for feminine grooming, such as ‘a gold choker that has fifty five pendant grains of musk’; a decorative, foldable, mirror ‘with enameled parts full of amber with a pearl on the button of the cover’; and ‘an enameled toque with gold with small flowers and roses.’72 Moving beyond the power of possession, these exquisite items were designed to amplify the queen’s femininity through stimulating the senses of sight, smell, and touch. Pearls are again integrated in equal measure with rubies, diamonds, and emeralds in the various rings, brooches, strands, and pendants, but are composed in new formations and given comparatively careful description moving beyond weight, number, and dimensions. The list includes a series of distinctive pear or tear-drop 68 Gschwend, ‘Ma meilleur soeur’, 2597: ‘Jtem hum collara da Jmdea de rrobys e perllas rrendondas que tem quoremta e oyto rrobys, e mais huua rrosa que tem nove rrobys de los gramdes e outros pequenon e tem mays lxxxiiij perllas, meas e pequentas.’ 69 Gschwend, ‘Ma meilleur soeur’, 2597: ‘Jtem huua cymta que tem xiiij peças douro da Jmdea, e feyta na Jmdea, que tem duzemtos e xbij rrobjs, em que emtram alguus gramdes, e duas esmeraldas e asy outros muyto pequenynos e diamaes pequenos quese nom quitarom que pesou jumtamemte quarto marcos e tres onças esquaso’; ‘Jtem hum firmall da Jmdea que tem sete rrobys e xbij esmeraldas e muytos diamantes, que se nom podem comtat, e quarto perllas gramdes. Que pesa, com a cadea em que se poem, hum marquo e duas onças esquaso.’ 70 Gschwend, ‘Ma meilleur soeur’, 2598: ‘Jtem hum rretauolo douro, que tem Nosa Senhora com seu filho no collo e quarto anjos e tem oyto perlas e quarto çafiras e dous balays, que pesou todo jumtame mte cymquo marcos e huua onça e ma com sua cadea.’ 71 Gschwend, ‘Ma meilleur soeur’, 2575. 72 Jordan Gschwend, ‘Ma meilleur soeur’, 2598: ‘Jtem huua gargamtilha douro que tem lb (55) graaos dalmizquere pemedemtes’; ‘Jtem hum espelho laurado de boryll e esmaltado a partes cheo dambar com hua perla no bottom da cubertura que pesou todo, com seu lume e ambar e dubertura e perla’; ‘Jtem hum toucadilho douro de mes e rrosas esmaltado.’ On the diversity of scented objects in Renaissance culture, see Welch, ‘Scented Buttons and Perfumed Gloves’, 13–39.

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shapes, for example: ‘Item – one rose of diamonds that has twenty diamonds and two rubies, a large one on the top and a small one in the middle, and a pearl pendant set in gold’; ‘Item – one cut diamond in a sacred cross set in gold with a pear-shaped pearl pendant’, and ‘Item – one brooch with a pointed cut diamond and an elongated emerald with three pearl pendants, the middle one being the larger’.73 The inventory also records several strands of pearls, including one with ‘forty one pearls’, another with ‘eighty seven pieces’, another with ‘fifty five pearls and a ruby and a gold and silk tassel with buttons’.74 These strands of pearls are offset by additional strings ranging from 100 to 300 pearls, with the pedantic account-keeping process alleviated only by two revealing entries noting that a ‘strand of two hundred and eighty one (281) pearls’ and ‘a strand of two hundred and four pearls’ were not weighed because they were in the possession of the queen.75 It is possible that the final item of ‘twelve bracelets of pearls that have/has N’ also infers that the jewels were removed and in Eleanor’s possession.76 Despite the document’s incomplete content, the royal gifts received in Portugal raise new avenues for interpretation concerning Eleanor’s active use of her recently acquired jewels and gems in her strategic practices of self-adornment and familial gift-giving at the French court.

Imperial Identity and Cultural Transfer at the French Court On her formal entry into Bayonne as queen of France in 1530, the contemporary eyewitness, Sebastién Moreau, described Eleanor ‘as a princess conscious of her lineage, source of all virtue and of imperial luster, she was very beautiful to behold’.77 More than a public 73 Gschwend, ‘Ma meilleur soeur’, 2597: ‘Jtem huua rrosa de diamaaes que tem xx diamamtes e dous rrobys, hum gramde em cima e outro pequento no meo, e huua perlla pemdemte posta em seu pes douro que pesa todo jumtamemte’; ‘Jtem hum diamamte laurado em cruz de Cristos emgastado em ouro com huua perlla feyçam de pera pemdemte que pesa todo jumtamemte’; ‘Jtem hum firmall com hum diamam de pomta e huua Esmeralda comprida com tres perllas pemdemetes e a do meo mayor que pesa todo, com o ouro e perlas.’ 74 Gschwend, ‘Ma meilleur soeur’, 2598: ‘Jtem hum rramall de perllas que tem Rj ta (41) perlas’; ‘Jtem outro rramal de perlas que tem lxxxbij peças’; ‘Jtem outro rramall de perllas, que tem cymquoemta e cymquo perllas e hum rroby e huua borlla douro e seda com sus botooes.’ 75 Gschwend, ‘Ma meilleur soeur’, 2598: ‘Jtem outro rremal de ijc lxxxj (281) perlas que tem a rrajnha que so nom persou’ and ‘Jtem outro rramall de duzemtas e quarto perlas que tamben tem a dita senhora que se nom pesou.’ 76 Gschwend, ‘Ma meilleur soeur’, 2598: ‘Jtem doze manylhas de perllas que tem N.’ On the 206-carat ruby that formed the French royal collection of jewels, see Cox-Rearick, The Collection of Francis I, 375. 77 Cox-Rearick, ‘Power-Dressing,’ 40, 63, n. 15. For the full account, see Moreau, La Prise, ser.1, vol. 2, 437: ‘Elle avoit une fine robe de velour noir double de satin cramoisy, les manches montées de satin cramoisy bandées de grandes bandes de drap d’or séparées qui se tenoient à esguilleches de rubans de fine soye ferrées de fer d’or esmailliez, chargés de perles fort belles. Sa teste estoit acoustrée et habiliée à la portugaloise. Sur icelle y avoit un pourpris garny de pierres précieuses beau et riche, à l’entour du quel y avoit d’autres grosses perles qui donnoient fort beau lustre à la beauté et reluysance d’iceulx. Sur son estomac avoit un colleral garny triplement encores d’autres perles plus grosses où estoient meslées parmy des rubys et dyamans grans, eaulx

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spectacle, the sparkle and sheen created by the jewels and pearls, which complemented the tactility of the queen consort’s sumptuous black velvet, crimson satin, and cloth of gold gown, was a powerful device for meeting ideals of physical beauty and moral virtue.78 Ceremonies and literary descriptions were supplemented by portrait commissions, which activated her dormant agency as a conventional foreign queen consort and provided an alternative mode of bejewelled display for navigating the complex web of courtly gazes that scrutinised her deportment.79 In the first five years of her marriage, Eleanor’s representation in ceremonies and portraits – her style of clothing, hair, and jewels – affirmed the Spanish, Portuguese, and French hybridity of her imperial identity.80 The series of alluring portraits executed by Joos van Cleve (Colour Plate 3) and his workshop produced in 1530 promote Eleanor’s devotion to her brother’s imperial vision, recalling Titian’s posthumous portrait of her sister-in-law, Empress Isabel (Figure 4.3).81 The state portraits of Eleanor (Colour Plate 3 and Figure 4.5) were replicated in at least ten versions by the Flemish artist’s workshop, reflecting the Habsburg practice for disseminating multiple likenesses as family or diplomatic gifts.82 Eleanor’s flawless luminosity, heightened by the subtle sensuous display of her décolletage, golden brocade of her bodice, and slashed, puffed sleeves, embellished with soft lynx fur, form an elegant backdrop for her spectacular jewels.83 The Spanish stylistic elements of the gown, including the lavish detachable sleeves and black velvet fabric, aligned with Charles V’s adoption of ‘Spanish dress, language and customs’ from 1529, and are accentuated by the Spanish inscription on the letter clasped in her hands commemorating her new title as ‘Most Christian Queen of France’.84 However, the cultural significance of black in Burgundian as well as Spanish courtly fashions reinforces Eleanor’s benign placement in France symbolically as a Habsburg bride in the guise of a Venusian peacemaker and conqueror of Mars.85 et de grant valeur qui reluyscient fort. Son dit estomac estoit tout découvert et blanc comme alabaster, et davantiage ung tant doulx et benyn un maintien de princesse, sentant sa maison et source de toucte vertu et de illustre impériale, la faisant très-beau a voir.’ Lozanzo, ‘Choices and Consequences’, 145, notes that Isabel of Portugal was similarly described by a contemporary commentator as ‘Muito isenta da sua condiçam’ (fully conscious of her condition). 78 For examples of the various display practices, symbolism, and patronage of jewels and gems for Renaissance courtly women, see Bimbenet-Privat, ‘Dessins inédits’, 191–196; Randolph, ‘Performing the Bridal Body’, 182–200 and Engaging Symbols, 108–137; Matthews, ‘Apparel, Status, Fashion’, 147–153; Holian, ‘Family Jewels’, 148–173 and ‘The Clues in the Jewels’, 452–464; Roberts, ‘The Posthumous Image’, 55–70. On the equation between physical beauty and moral virtue, see Baskins, ‘Typology’, 48. 79 For additional references to contemporary descriptions of Eleanor, see Gschwend, ‘Ma meilleur soeur’, 2572. 80 Anderson, ‘Spanish dress’, 215–222; Cox-Rearick, ‘Power-Dressing’, 39–51. 81 Scailliérez, François Ier et l’art des pays-bas, 254–259. 82 Hand, Joos van Cleve, 168–170; Eichberger, ‘Official Portraits’, 100–101. 83 Cox-Rearick, ‘Power Dressing’, 47. 84 Cox-Rearick, ‘Power Dressing’, 40; Matthews, ‘Apparel, Status, Fashion’, 188; Hand, Joos van Cleve, 101–102, 168–170. Inscription: ‘Ala xpianisima [christianisma] y muy ponderosa siñora la Reyna my sinora.’ 85 Colomer, ‘Black and the Royal Image’, 77–86.

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The conciliatory aspect of her seemingly assertive, even defiant, imperial physical appearance discernible in the portraits by Joos van Cleve would be demonstrated in her amicable assumption of French-style attire to appease François I after six years at the French court.86 In her enamel plaque portrait by Léonard Limosin, dated to 1536, she is shown wearing a pearl-strewn headdress and gown in the French style, with an intricately patterned translucent décolletage and decorative white ruff that softens her distinctive Habsburg jawline and flatters her porcelain complexion.87 However, in the following year, François I reportedly urged Eleanor to adopt the fashions native to his kingdom permanently and dismissed most of her Spanish entourage.88 Eleanor’s willingness to oblige this request is confirmed in a drawing attributed to the Clouet workshop, dated to around 1540.89 The jewels and gems in her portraits by Joos van Cleve also conjure items gifted to her by François I and Manuel I. Regarding the latter, pear-shaped pendant pearls and sapphires are set within her gold hair brooch, with a large drop pearl, and interspersed between the large perfectly round pearls on her gold collar. The finely embroidered bateau neckline repeats the formation with miniature square-cut sapphires forming a pattern between smaller pearls. Deep red ruby pins attach the voluminous Spanish-style sleeves to her gown and are replicated on her sapphire-, ruby-, and pearl-encrusted hairband, and clasp of her pearl-embellished belt. Eleanor’s delicate hands are decorated with six golden rings set with ruby and sapphire stones. Moreover, her crimped ear puffs worn in the Portuguese style, drop-pearl sapphire hair brooch, and triple-pearl pendant earrings are almost identical to the jewels worn by her daughter, Maria of Portugal, as a youthful ‘Habsburg bride’, in her elegant and dignified seated portrait by Anthonis Mor (Figure 4.4), dated between 1550 and 1555.90 Eleanor’s concerted efforts to meet with her daughter in correspondence and portrait exchanges confirm the maternal context of her image-making practice and continuing accumulation of jewels and gems at the French court. Allusions to Portugal also inflect a version of Joos van Cleve’s portrait of Eleanor attributed to the artist’s workshop (Figure 4.5) held in the Museu Nacional de Arte, Lisbon. In addition to the sparkling display of gems and pearls, with a string of luminescent baubles forming two loops in the centre of the bodice pinned with a ruby pendant-pearl brooch, Eleanor wears a barely visible necklace in the style of a fine choker with a small pendant of Manuel I’s imperial impresa of the armillary sphere.91 She also delicately pinches 86 Wilson-Chevalier, ‘Art Patronage’, 507. 87 Léonard Limosin, Eleanor of Austria, 1536. Enamel plaque. Musée national de la Renaissance, Écouen, inv. CI 2 520. 88 Anderson, ‘Spanish Dress’, 222; Wilson-Chevalier, ‘Art Patronage’, 507, n. 74. 89 Workshop of François Clouet, Eleanor of Austria, Queen of France, c. 1540, black chalk, sanguine, 31 x 22.6 cm, Musée Condé, Chantilly, inv. no. MN24 B275. On Eleanor’s close working relationship with the Clouet workshop, see Wilson-Chevalier, ‘Art Patronage’, 492–493. 90 Cox-Rearick, ‘Power-Dressing’, 40; Woodall, Anthonis Mor, 201. 91 On the symbolism of the armillary sphere, see Gschwend, ‘Catherine of Austria’, 186.

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Figure 4.4: Workshop of Anthonis Mor, Maria of Portugal, 1550–55, oil on canvas. Convento de las Descalzas Reales, Madrid.

François I’s ‘betrothal ring’ in the thumb and forefinger of her right hand, providing subtle amplification of her carefully crafted hybrid identity and imperial devotion as a Habsburg bride. The Lisbon portrait seems to have been made for the perusal of the Portuguese court, for the gaze of Eleanor’s sister and successive queen of the realm, Catherine, and also as a gift intended to nurture a maternal connection with her daughter, Infanta Maria.92 In a general sense, this communicative complexity highlights the significant role played by portraits in the exchange culture that supported the Habsburg familial network. In the more intimate context of the mother-daughter bond, Eleanor’s embodiment of lustrous virtue is not only given a performative value as a model of feminine courtly comportment, but simultaneously attests to the vicissitudes of 92 Cox-Rearick, ‘Power-Dressing’, 48.

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Figure 4.5: Workshop of Joos van Cleve, Eleanor of Austria, after 1530, oil on oak panel. Museu Nacional de Arte Antiga, Lisbon.

her status, her removal from Portugal to France, as a willing sacrifice made in service of the Habsburg dynasty. To what extent the stylistic panache and emotional nuances of Eleanor’s hybrid identity can also be interpreted in the context of Joanna of Castile’s complex categorisation as a queen who is difficult to label as simply ‘“Spanish” or “foreign”’, ‘“mad”’ or maternal, is a question for future consideration.93 93 Aram, ‘Queen Juana’, 33.

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The maternal motivation behind Eleanor’s bejewelled representation in her portrait practice was complemented by her continuing consumption of jewels and gems at the French court. According to Gschwend, François I was: […] aware of her passion for jewelry [and] presented Leonor with valuable gems: an extraordinarily large emerald, a ruby purchased from the Antwerp goldsmith and tapestry dealer, Jooris Vezeleer, and a table-cut amethyst. A casket from his personal treasury, filled with rubies, diamonds, rings and jewels belonging to his first wife, Claude de France (1499–1524), and which Eleanor was allowed to keep, were bestowed upon his new queen. François equally granted her official use of eight jewels from the crown treasury, which included the celebrated ruby, Côte de Bretagne […]94

François I was equally generous in giving exquisite jewels and gems to his mistresses, and, when access to the jewels or gems was temporary, his political support or emotional investment in his queen or mistress was readily divested by retracting the precious objects.95 Despite the impasse that determined the stagnant relationship between the royal couple, François I’s carefully calculated munificence, stipulating jewels and gems Eleanor was permitted to keep against those she could borrow, appears to have been both a purposeful distraction from a compromised partnership and an attempt to solicit her cultural knowledge and contacts gained and maintained in Portugal.96 François I’s genuine appreciation for the intricate artistry of jewels and gems was demonstrated in his employment of accomplished Italian metalsmiths and gem-cutters, such as Matteo del Nassaro and Benvenuto Cellini.97 According to Gschwend, Eleanor also ‘commissioned Parisian jewelers […] [and] in 1536 she sent her sister, Catherine of Austria, forty-eight gold buttons, a gold belt and nine pairs of aglets (puntas), all made with “curious designs”’, which ‘Catherine gave to [her] daughter, Maria of Portugal’.98 The curious designs invoke the quixotic flamboyance of the Mannerist style of the School of Fontainebleau, which evolved out of the king’s extensive project of refurbishment underway at his favourite château.99 However, mutual cultural transfer between the king and queen is likely to have occurred by way of Eleanor’s contact with her sister in Portugal. Following her instalment on 94 Gschwend, ‘Ma meilleur soeur’, 2576. Also see, Godefroy, Le céremonial françois, vol. 1, 772–773. 95 Toudouze, Françoise de Châteaubriant, 123–125, Plogsterth, ‘The Institution’, 405–406, n. 131; Knecht, Renaissance Warrior and Patron, 551. 96 Gschwend, ‘Ma meilleur soeur’, 2576–2577. 97 Hackenbroch, Renaissance Jewellery, 55–57; Cox-Rearick, The Collection of Francis I, 387–388. 98 Eichberger and Gschwend, ‘Collections and Connoisseurship’, 16; Gschwend, ‘Ma meilleur soeur’, 2576, 2589, n. 143. 99 Scholarship on the School of Fontainebleau is extensive, see, for example, Béguin, L’école de Fontainebleau.

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the Portuguese throne in 1526, Catherine developed one of the first internationally renowned Kunstkammer in Iberia. Her collection of ‘non-European objects’ (both natrualia and artificialia) from ‘an Indian crystal elephant […] to a mother-of-pearl ewer […]’, among multifarious objects ‘from India and the Far East’, was a magnet for François I’s expansive collecting activities and discerning tastes.100 The king’s interest in exotic animals and luxury commodities was demonstrated as early as the second year of his reign, when he ventured out to sea from Marseille to witness Manuel I’s gift of a rhinoceros making its way via a galley to Pope Leo X.101 Also in 1516, François ‘dispatched his agent, Antoine de Conflans, to Portugal with the sole purpose of buying elephants’ to add to the royal menagerie at the Château d’Amboise, which also housed a lion and lynx.102 However, his procurement of ‘exotic flora and fauna […] Indian, Chinese and Turkish luxury goods’ coincides with his marriage to Eleanor in 1530.103 François I’s desire for rare mother-of-pearl objects is also confirmed by his purchase of an elaborately decorated Gujarati casket from the French agent, Pierre Lemoyne, in Lisbon, which was facilitated by Eleanor’s diplomatic networks.104 This shared fascination for rare and precious jewels and gems, which is likely to have smoothed social, if not conjugal, relations between the Valois king and his Habsburg queen consort, was assisted by their ability to communicate in French as their arterial language.105

Conclusion As well as displaying her refined taste and cosmopolitan cultural capital, Eleanor’s utilisation of jewels and gems performed multiple personal and political functions that intersected with the complexity of her private life and public roles. Her malleable self-fabrication as a loyal, patient, and adaptable queen consort emulated diverse models of feminine conduct established by the exalted courtly women of her Habsburg, Burgundian, Spanish, and Portuguese heritage. Her portable collection of material possessions also formed a seamless intersection with her patronage of portraiture at the French court. Upon the death of François I in 1547, she returned to the ‘brilliant’ court of her sister, Mary of Hungary, in Brussels in the following year as ‘a 100 Gschwend, ‘In the Tradition’, 1–8; Gschwend, ‘A Crystal Elephant’, 121–126. On the French king’s magnificent patronage and collecting activities, see Cox-Rearick, The Collection of Francis I. 101 Barrillon, Journal de Jean Barrillon, vol. 1, 193. 102 Loisel, Histoire des ménageries, vol. 1, 263–270; Gschwend, ‘Ma meilleur soeur’, 2577 and 2589, n. 148, for a reference to a letter from François I to Manuel I asking for Asian beasts. 103 Gschwend, ‘Ma meilleur soeur’, 2576–2577; Gschwend, ‘Rarities and Novelties’, 32–41; Serrão, Infanta Dona Maria, 161–194. 104 Gschwend, ‘Ma meilleur soeur’, 2577; Bimbenet-Privat, L’Orfèvrerie Parisienne, 110–112. On Eleanor’s emerging status in diplomacy, including her maternal compassion as an adoptive mother to François I’s children, see Pardanaud, ‘Plaider, convaincre’, 195–216. 105 Pardanaud, ‘Plaider, convaincre’, 195; Gschwend, ‘Ma meilleur soeur’, 2576.

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Figure 4.6: Workshop of Anthonis Mor, Eleanor of France, 1549–50, oil on panel. Convento de las Descalzas Reales, Madrid.

well-endowed dowager queen’.106 With her challenging tenures as Habsburg bride and imperial queen consort complete, Eleanor immersed herself in the diplomatic tasks of marital negotiations and the long-awaited reunion with her daughter. Accordingly, her portrait as dowager queen of France by Anthonis Mor (Figure 4.6), made around 1549–1550, depicts her as a proud and pious widow. The subtle remnants of her lifelong love of jewels and gems remain visible in the plain enamel and metallic bands worn on three of her slender fingers. However, her decorous widow’s weeds now replicated the mature portraits of her (deceased) surrogate mother, Margaret of Austria, which signified her maternal commitment to family and political responsibilities as governor of the Habsburg Netherlands.107 The austere elegance of Mor’s portrait, in turn, supports the argument threaded throughout this essay, that Eleanor’s expansive 106 Gschwend, ‘Ma meilleur soeur’, 2579. 107 Welzel, ‘Widowhood’, 103–113.

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maternal agenda was expressed in a personal-political framework that inspired and guided her collection and display of her jewels and gems. While the unprecedented scale of Eleanor’s material bequest would restrict her daughter to the Portuguese crown as an unmarriageable ‘natural reserve’, it is tempting, though problematic, to assume her intent in this unusual outcome.108 Nevertheless, on receipt of her mother’s estate in 1558, Maria of Portugal was given the means to retire as an elite courtly woman of independent wealth, free to pursue her religious devotions, and, like her mother, accrue ‘a substantial collection of Flemish tapestries, paintings, furniture, and jewellery’.109 For both mother and daughter, jewels and gems would provide a means of emotional succor, a socially acceptable expression of non-verbal communication to replace an absence of conjugal love, physical presence, and maternal affection with a tangible and durable legacy.

About the author Lisa Mansfield is Senior Lecturer and Head of Art History at the University of Adelaide. Her research explores northern European art of the Renaissance era, with a focus on portraiture, representations of gender and power, art and warfare, and intersections between art and natural history. She is currently a Chief Investigator on an Australian Research Council Discovery Project that examines the gendered performance of power through material culture and display during the Italian Wars (1494–1559).

108 Serrão, A Infanta Dona Maria, cited in Gschwend, ‘Ma meilleur soeur’, 2572, 2588, n. 122; Frade, ‘Hic sita Sigea es’, 52–53; Caravalhal, ‘The Households’, 389. 109 Gschwend, ‘Portuguese Royal Collecting’, 269.

5. Queen Elizabeth: Studded with Costly Jewels Susan Vincent

Abstract Queen Elizabeth I was the most bejewelled person in English history. While scholars have become appreciative of the care with which her image was crafted and the political purposes it served, the role that jewellery played has tended to be overlooked. This chapter discusses this important part of her wardrobe. It begins by taking an object-biographical approach, considering the composition, making, and wearing of elite jewellery in general. It turns then to Elizabeth’s collection, examining the importance of gift-giving, the design of her jewels, and their potential symbolism and political function. Finally, it looks at the way Elizabeth’s own image was incorporated into jewellery forms, and the process by which this gem-encrusted monarch was herself transformed into an icon. Key words: Queen Elizabeth I; jewellery; symbolism; dress; Protestant; gift

Queen Elizabeth I was the most bejewelled person in the history of England. In a century whose portraits suggest an importance for male and female jewellery-wearing unmatched by previous or subsequent eras, Elizabeth’s image stands out as saturated with gems and precious metals. Contemporaries also remarked this, particularly visiting foreigners. Paul Hentzner from Bradenburg, admitted to the presence chamber in the summer of 1598, wrote up the experience in his journal, describing the queen’s ‘Necklace of exceeding fine jewels’, her white silk gown bordered with ‘pearls the size of beans’, and her ‘oblong Collar of gold and jewels’. Under her gloves, he wrote, she wore rings and jewels, so that when she raised her bare hand to be kissed, it sparkled. The following year Thomas Platter found her ‘gorgeously apparelled’, ‘lavishly attired’, and ‘studded with costly jewels’. Another description comes from Giovanni Carlo Scaramelli, a Venetian official whose 1603 letter reporting to the Doge recounts Elizabeth’s appearance in the month before her death. Her throat was ‘encircled with pearls and rubies down to her breast’, and around her forehead were ‘great pearls like pears’. Indeed, Scaramelli said, the queen ‘displayed a vast quantity of gems and pearls upon her person; even under her stomacher she was covered with

Griffey, E. (ed.), Sartorial Politics in Early Modern Europe: Fashioning Women, Amsterdam University Press, 2019 doi: 10.5117/9789462986008_ch05

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golden jewelled girdles and single gems, carbuncles, balas-rubies, diamonds; around her wrists in place of bracelets she wore double rows of pearls’.1 The excess of these and similar descriptions, although seemingly hyperbolic, effectively render in words Elizabeth’s portraits from the second half of her reign. Like the written descriptions, the painted images present the complex magnificence of their sitter’s appearance, the detail and decoration of every part given careful and equal attention. In truth, in looking at them it can be hard to gain a visual purchase, the eye sliding off rather than registering the detail. But slowing the gaze and unpicking her adornment reveals its astonishing quantity, richness, and elaboration. Take the panel painting of c. 1583–1584 by Nicholas Hilliard, for example (Colour Plate 4). Most immediately noticed against her plain black gown are Elizabeth’s two immense necklaces or chains, which also match the girdle at her waist.2 They comprise triple threads of pearls – each strand symmetrically graduated, with the largest pearl in the centre – interspersed with single pearls and table-cut gems, probably diamonds, and from the colour, perhaps rubies and sapphires too. Some of these gold-mounted gems stand alone, others are set with more pearls. Beneath these necklaces, running centrefront down her gown, are large gold ‘buttons’ – decorative not functional – each with a big central diamond, four smaller gems, and four tiny white enamelled flowers, like daisies. Matching buttons are worn on her hair, studding the back of her head, and from this angle the height and size of the diamonds becomes apparent: they rise like obelisks or small pyramids. Alternating with these is a set of gold-mounted pearls that float above the queen’s tight auburn curls. There are more pearls threaded through her hair – lengths of tiny seed pearls binding the hair roll on the crown of her head – and at the front, hanging over Elizabeth’s forehead, is a solitaire diamond and a single pendant pearl. The largest individual item is the pelican jewel that hangs just below Elizabeth’s ruff, the symbolism of which we will return to later. Beneath the gold pelican sits an immense pointed diamond flanked by enamelled daisies and roses, below which are further gems in a crescent, a fleur-de-lys in small diamonds, and three massive tear-shaped pearls. This entire jewel is actually attached to a carcanet, or collar, that, barely visible, Elizabeth wears beneath her ruff – some of its pendant pearls can be seen emerging from under the lace edging. Behind the queen’s shoulder, and mirrored by the headdress, stands a wired veil, its stiffened edge decorated with gold lace, tufts of black silk, and still more pearls. Moving to her sleeves, padded shoulder rolls are decorated with feathery silk circles, each buttoned with a large central pearl, and these again alternate with more of the diamond-and-daisy jewels that run centrally down the gown and in her hair. At right angles from each of the silk and pearl motifs run further sets of triple-stranded pearls, which likewise echo the larger necklaces hanging around the queen’s neck. The sleeves themselves, 1 All descriptions cited in Arnold, Queen Elizabeth’s Wardrobe Unlock’d (hereafter QEWU), 11–12. 2 For Arnold’s description of this painting: Arnold, QEWU, 24–25. On pearls as Elizabeth’s signature jewel, Raber, ‘Chains of Pearls’.

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white silk, are narrowly slashed in what looks like a series of rows but may just be long lines of slashing. The banded puffed effect is either caused, or heightened, by silken strips worn across the arms, which themselves have been sewn with pearls and little enamelled flowers. Finally, at the very front of the painting, Elizabeth holds a feathered fan, whose jewelled handle – diamond, pearls, and more floral enamels – can just be glimpsed. Fans such as this appear frequently in Elizabeth’s portraits, and in her wardrobe inventories occupy a section of their own. They were exceptionally elaborate: ‘Item one Fanne of white feathers with a handle of golde havinge twoe snakes wyndinge aboute it garnished with a ball of diamondes in the ende and a crowne on each side within a paire of winges garnished with diamondes’.3 Despite the written descriptions left by visitors to the Elizabethan court, on close examination the detail of portraits like this can seem like piecemeal madness – a fantasy of jewelled excess whose gem-encrusted layers reflect a wild painterly enthusiasm run riot. Yet we would be wrong to take such images at anything less than face value, for in many cases inventory and other textual evidence supports the accuracy of the painted record. Scholars are agreed that while Elizabeth’s face was usually taken from a pattern, her garments and gems were faithfully painted from life.4 This is further supported by the findings of Natasha Awais-Dean, who has concluded with regard to contemporary male adornment, that ‘The jewels depicted in portraiture are accurate renderings of extant pieces and these descriptions match closely what we read in contemporary documents.’5 Queen Elizabeth was thus drenched in jewels. She appeared as more richly and heavily adorned than her subjects certainly, but also than other monarchs of the time. Yet her expenditure on her wardrobe was relatively modest: comparing the final years of her reign with the opening years of James I’s reveals that annually James actually spent nearly four times as much on his wardrobe as did his predecessor.6 As for Elizabeth’s jewellery, much of it was inherited from her Tudor forbears, before her being worn by her father, his wives, and then her brother Edward and sister Mary. Later, as we will see, she received quantities as gifts. What therefore was different about Elizabeth was the use she made of jewellery as her reign progressed, her deployment of it as part of her persona of mature rule. In its quantity and in its type, Elizabeth’s jewellery staked political claims, manifested ties of loyalty and affect with her subjects and court, and decorated the frail, living flesh with glittering magnificence. Far more prosaically, another thing to hold in mind is the likely physical effect and consequence. For the beholder, the magnificence of the later years of Elizabeth’s reign hit the eye, the colours glinting in the sun or a candle’s light, the jewellery 3 From the Stowe Inventory, transcribed in Arnold, QEWU, 324. 4 Discussed throughout Arnold, QEWU, ch. 2. For Ribeiro, Gallery of Fashion, in sixteenth-century portraits we see ‘the literal truth in dress’ (11). 5 Awais-Dean, Bejewelled, 34. 6 Annually £9,535 for Elizabeth; £36,377 for James: Arnold, QEWU, 1. On the ownership of jewels by Henry VIII and Prince Henry (elder son of James I), see Awais-Dean, Bejewelled, 19–22.

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perhaps making subtle sounds in movement. For the wearer though, an elderly woman, the effects of such splendour must have come at a considerable cost. The weight of court garments, the yards and yards of embroidered silks and velvets, was substantial enough. To wear this loaded with jewellery, vast pendants, pearls, headdresses, and armbands, all of them set in gold, will have required determination and physical effort on the part of the aging Elizabeth. On formal occasions, in this immensely heavy and complicated costume, with assemblages of garments and jewellery tied and pinned together, perhaps at times precariously, anything other than a slow and deliberate carriage will have been next to impossible. As a matter of fact (as we will see below), we know how often things dropped off – a queen’s ransom in misplaced gems lost from her majesty’s back. It is no wonder that observers described the queen’s movements as dignified and stately.7 There are different ways to approach the gold and gems that Elizabeth wore, including those that pay attention to their biography as objects. We need first to remind ourselves of their rarity. Gems and precious metals were things seen by few and owned by even fewer. They were also fundamentally exotic, found not within the soils and rock of England but mined from other, unimaginably distant lands. Diamonds, for example, came from India, rubies from Burma, and sapphires from Sri Lanka. Superb emeralds were brought to Europe from Colombia, discovered by the Spanish in their exploration and conquest of Central and South America. The best pearls were fished from the waters of the South China Seas.8 Gemstones were thus the fruits of Renaissance exploration and trade, quests that brought material gain but also information. This knowledge drove an expansion of geographical and scientific understanding and an ongoing assessment of wonders newly discovered, in which the lines between real and mythical, wondrous and explicable, were constantly being tested, revised, and re-evaluated. This can be seen at work, for instance, in the questioning by Elizabeth’s government in 1584 of David Ingram, a sailor, regarding his knowledge of a newly encountered land to the north of the River May, in present-day Florida. The questioners wanted to glean the truth regarding the strange beasts Ingram had encountered, and whether or not it was a fruitful land. They were particularly interested in the manner and apparelling of the inhabitants, who were said to be adorned with hoops of gold and silver. Ingram confirmed that this was the case, describing the ‘great abonndance of gold, sylver and pearles’ in this land. There were springs and brooks, he said, containing pieces of gold, ‘somme as bigge as his fynger, others as bigge as his fyst’.9 Information like this both advanced geographical and anthropological knowledge, and constituted a colonising imperative, pointing the way to swell state coffers. 7 For example, Thomas Platter: ‘dignified and regal bearing’; Sieur de Maisse: ‘great gravity’ and ‘stately’. Both quoted in Arnold, QEWU, 10–11. 8 Cocks, ed., Princely Magnificence, 12–19; Forsyth, London’s Lost Jewels, esp. 92–143. 9 TNA, SP 12/175, fol. 163.

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Conjoined with the exoticism of such precious substances was a belief that they possessed magical and medicinal virtues, a belief whose credulity seems to encapsulate the profound otherness of the past. But this is surely our failure of imagination. Gems and precious metals, utterly exotic, were possessed of extraordinary characteristics: of ductility, hardness, transparency, lustre. They were engendered within oysters latched to the seabed or the stony heart of rocks, and their creation was an ineffable mystery. If the power of lodestones, whose magnetic nature drew iron, was clearly if invisibly manifested, why might not other rocks and minerals be likewise invested with miraculous energies? Such ideas also fitted naturally into a humoral theory of health, which advised medical treatment with sympathetic and antipathetic substances. Under such circumstances and in such an intellectual context, it was only reasonable to at least be open to the possibility that gems possessed prophylactic virtues. Even today the popularity of crystal therapy attests to the lure and promise of such ideas. The first printed book in English to contain a lapidary, Batman vppon Bartholome his booke De proprietatibus rerum, was published in 1582. It draws directly on both classical and medieval texts, and presents the reader with the observations of earlier writers. Its reports are typical of the genre. Among the many virtues of diamonds, for example, they are said to resist poison and witchcraft, banish fear, assure victory in argument, and ‘helpe them that be lunatike or phrantike’. Carbuncles (garnets) burn with an internal light, and are so fire-like that if thrown on a flame absorb and quench it. By contrast, blue sapphires are cooling of both the emotions and the body. They thus help to calm those in strife and spread peace and accord. If hung near the pulse and the veins of the heart, a sapphire helps cool fevers and staunches blood and sweat.10 Although undoubtedly it was for other reasons that Elizabeth principally wore her jewellery, it is equally certain that she was acquainted with these kinds of ideas. For instance, she owned an ivory box that was inset with engraved agates, a gift in 1562 from Matthew Parker, the archbishop of Canterbury. The box was also inscribed with descriptions of agate’s magical qualities, something the archbishop was clearly able to reconcile with a Christian worldview. Elizabeth was also both the recipient and giver of ‘magical’ jewellery. Near the end of her life Sir John Stanhope sent her a piece of gold inscribed with characters, which by its virtues had caused its previous owner to live to the age of 120; the queen, it was said, ‘in confidence took the said gold and hung it about her neck’.11 She herself had given a ring to the earl of Essex. Engraved with the words ‘IESUS AUTEM’, referring to Luke 4.30 (Jesus autem transiens per medium illorum ibat, ‘But Jesus passing through their midst went on his way’), the talisman was to protect Essex in his travels, guarding him against thieves.12 Elizabeth also apparently 10 Batman vppon Bartholome: diamond [adamant], Book 26, cap. 9; carbuncle, Book 26, cap. 26; sapphire, Book 26, cap. 87. 11 Evans, Magical Jewels, 169–170. 12 Scarisbrick, Tudor and Jacobean Jewellery, 52.

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took a belt-and-braces approach to that occupational hazard feared by Renaissance princes, poisoning. In addition to her tasters she had a number of helpful jewels, including a bracelet with a bezoar stone (actually a concretion formed within animal intestines) for use as an antidote, and two pieces of unicorn horn. The unicorn horn (to us, narwhal tusk) detected the presence of poison. One piece was mounted onto a decorative whistle, and the other was set in a locket that also contained her cameo portrait.13 Gems, then, were drawn from exotic sources. Along with their international trade ran a corresponding international network of artistic skill, the craftsmen whose labour turned raw material to finished jewellery. In London the goldsmiths were mostly based in Cheapside and under the oversight of the guild, but there were also many aliens who worked independently of company control.14 John Spillman, for example, appointed as Elizabeth’s jeweller in 1589, was German.15 Earlier, in 1561, Elizabeth had William Cecil write to the English ambassador in France, Sir Nicholas Throckmorton, to send her a French goldsmith. She desired that he ‘come hither with furniture of aglets, chains, bracelets etc: to be bought both by herself and by the ladies here to be gay in this Court’.16 However, the making of the jewellery itself was seldom the work of only one artisan, but was broken down into multiple and minutely specialised tasks. In a kind of proto-Fordian assembly line, there were wireworkers, ring-makers, button-makers, enamellers, pearl-piercers, and many more. According to Hazel Forsyth in her study of the Cheapside Hoard, a major collection of Elizabethan and Stuart jewellery discovered in a Cheapside cellar in 1912, a single pendant might require up to 27 different processes.17 Perhaps the most significant of these was the cutting of the stones. The craftsmen who did this turned a raw lump into a faceted gem, opening its heart to the play and flash of light. And while we maybe take this for granted, it was at the time a cutting-edge technology so to speak. For it was only in the sixteenth century that the first cuts appeared, transforming simple carbochon forms – rounded and polished stones – into pyramid, hogs-back, table, and rose facets, techniques that were to develop further in the centuries to follow.18 Adding to the rarity, glamour, and beauty of gems, was thus the lure of the new. Adorned by this wondrous jewellery, Elizabeth was a walking state treasury. In this she was not alone. For owners at every social level jewellery was not simply decorative, it was also capital that could be sold or pawned in a cash flow crisis. It was 13 Mentioning Elizabeth’s tasters, André Hurault, Sieur de Maisse, A Journal, 35. Elizabeth was also regularly given unset bezoar stones as a New Year’s gift: see Lawson, ed., New Year’s Gift Exchanges, 306, item 82.200; 339, item 84.196; 357, item 85.188; 377, item 88.176; 396, item 89.173; 415, item 94.162. 14 Forsyth, London’s Lost Jewels, 20–22, 85–90. 15 Scarisbrick, Tudor and Jacobean Jewellery, 34–35. On foreign jewellers and expertise at Henry VIII’s court, Awais-Dean, Bejewelled, 14, 18. 16 Quoted in Cocks, ed., Princely Magnificence, 40. 17 Forsyth, London’s Lost Jewels, 83. 18 The exact dating is uncertain: Gere, ‘Rings from 1500 to 1900’, 94–95; Forsyth, London’s Lost Jewels, 160–161.

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merely the sum that could be realised that varied with social status. Thus Rudolph II of Prague negotiated a substantial loan with England in 1578, for which he put up 308 items of plate and jewellery as collateral.19 The king of Navarre likewise used diamonds as security for his loan, diamonds that Elizabeth kept despite the king’s insistence that the sum had been repaid. The Mirror of Portugal, a fabulous diamond valued at £5000, became hers at a bargain price when its owner, a claimant for the Portuguese throne, was unable to pay back his loan of £3000.20 She is depicted wearing this spoil of international finance in a portrait of c.1590, currently in the Compton Verney collection.21 Probably unsurprisingly with commodities of such value, whether that value was financial, aesthetic, or talismanic, their acquisition could be achieved by methods more dubious than either international trade or high finance. Theft was always an option, and one that the queen personally favoured. The activities of the Elizabethan state-sponsored privateers like Sir Francis Drake are well documented; their maritime missions combined exploration, intelligence-gathering, defence, and plunder. The instructions given to Richard Hawkins in 1593 are illustrative. His commission was to ‘attempte some enterpryse’ against the Spanish, harrying off the coasts of the West Indies, Brazil, Africa, America, or the South Seas. Hawkins and his partners were entitled to any goods they stole, but ‘one fifthe parte of the Treasure Jewelles and pearles that shalbe taken’ had to be reserved for the crown.22 Another way of approaching Elizabeth’s jewellery is to consider the life story of individual pieces. As we saw with the Mirror of Portugal, these might be given names and thus ‘personalities’, which enables them to be traced through multiple ownerships. The Three Brethren, for instance, was originally owned by Charles the Bold of Burgundy (1433–1477), who fighting the Swiss eventually lost the jewel, the war, and his life. It was sold by the Swiss to Jacob Fugger, the Augsburg merchant and banker, to be bought eventually by Henry VIII. It passed to Henry’s children, first Edward, then Mary, and finally Elizabeth, whose inventory of 1587 describes it as ‘a faier flower with three great ballaces and in the middes a great pointed diamond and three great pearles sett with a faier great pendaunt pearle, Called the brethren’. She is depicted wearing it in a number of paintings, including the Ermine portrait (Colour Plate 5). In time it passed to James I, who had it reset in 1623 for Prince Charles to wear. The latter as king eventually pawned it, twice: the second time it was valued at £9,400.23 19 Cocks, ed., Princely Magnificence, 5. 20 Scarisbrick, Tudor and Jacobean Jewellery, 19. 21 Can be viewed online at http://www.comptonverney.org.uk/cv_collections/queen-elizabeth-i/. Passing to her successor James I and then Charles I, the gem was pawned again by Queen Henrietta Maria, along with other of the crown jewels, during the English Civil War. It was then sold to Cardinal Mazarin, who bequeathed it to the French crown. The French crown jewels were stolen in 1792, and the Mirror of Portugal disappeared. Its present whereabouts remains unknown: Balfour, Famous Diamonds, 198. 22 TNA, SP 12/245, fol. 205. 23 Cocks, ed., Princely Magnificence, 32–33.

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This short account of The Brethren shows clearly the adaptive quality of Renaissance jewellery. Not specifically or necessarily gendered, many items could be worn by both men and women. Equally, they could be transformed by new settings, or even re-cut entirely, the key constituent gems being re-crafted into different shapes and new facets. Considering the form and function of Elizabeth’s jewellery complicates it in other ways too, revealing the boundary between garment and accessory to have been very porous. Many parts of her dress – like sleeves, stomacher, veil, and partlet – were detachable and held together with jewelled fastenings. Moreover, sometimes these fastenings ceased to have any practical role, transforming the once utilitarian into the purely decorative. A good example of this are aglets. Originally metal tags on the end of laces and ribbons that enabled them to be easily threaded through holes (in the manner of shoelaces today), in some cases they became detached from function and were instead decorative motifs. Gems and pearls too were frequently embroidered directly onto a fabric ground. This kind of work is described in a warrant from 1562, which records the payment to embroiderer David Smith for ‘garnishing of a Whalles head of goldsmyths worke with buttons and Lowpes made of Blewe silk and gold to putt upon a skarf’.24 Jewelled borders were applied to the hems and edges of garments, and, perhaps most fundamental of all, some fabrics were woven incorporating gold or silver threads. These were made by winding the thinnest of precious metal strands around a silken core. With garments such as this that blend ornament and utility, fabric and gemstones, the idea of jewellery as supplemental to dress forms largely collapses. Underlining the sense of Elizabeth’s person woven, pinned, and sewn with decorative elements is the day book kept by her ladies-in-waiting that records outward deliveries from her wardrobe, including items that were lost in wear. For the book’s editor, the dress expert Janet Arnold, it conjured an image of Elizabeth ‘shedding jewels’ like ‘some perambulating Christmas tree’: loste from her majesties backe the 22 May Anno predycto at Westminster two p(ea) rles from a Gowne of clothe of golde Lost at Ritchmount the 12 of February from of[f] her Majesties back wearinge the gown of purple cloth of silver one great diamond owt of a claspe of golde25

Much of what has been discussed above is not distinct to this particular English queen. The acquisition of her jewels through inheritance and international trade, finance and appropriation was standard for a monarch. Likewise, an appreciation of their material and immaterial properties was a much broader cultural trend. So too 24 Quoted in Arnold, QEWU, 192. 25 Arnold, ‘Lost From Her Majesty’s Back’: Arnold’s comment, 9–10; day book quotes, 64, item 270; 76, item 357.

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was the form of Elizabeth’s wardrobe, in which decoration was integral to basic form. What distinguishes her from her contemporaries was the extent of Elizabeth’s adornment and the particularity of some of its design. We can approach this by turning to the most significant of the ways in which she obtained jewellery: by gift. Many items, for instance, were presented to her as New Year´s presents. Although the practice of offering the monarch a New Year´s gift was well established, this had traditionally been in the form of money. During Elizabeth’s reign this was increasingly replaced by gifts of jewels and clothing.26 For example, in 1584 the earl of Warwick gave her an elaborate chain of 24 gold fish, twelve garnished with small garnets and twelve enamelled. Interspersed between the fish were gold knots, some set with small diamonds, some with a pearl, and others with opals. The same year, Lady Howard’s gift was a golden jewel shaped like a dolphin, with slivers of ruby. Sitting on the dolphin’s back was small figure holding a lute.27 In 1587 alone, the gift roll records that she received 80 such pieces of jewellery.28 So significant was Elizabeth’s preference for tokens like this that one of her ladies, Mrs. Wingfield, advised an enquirer that it would be injudicious to send money. Having been approached by the countess of Shrewsbury as to what might best please the queen, Mrs. Wingfield conferred with Lady Cobham, writing back that the latter ‘was much against yow honour givinge money’. She reiterated, ‘truly if yow honour had geven money I feare yt woulde have bene ell liked’. Instead, the ladies advised the purchase of ‘any fine reare thinge’.29 Fine, rare things – curious and beautiful fancies – were given to the queen not just at New Year, but on progresses and visits, by marriage suitors, and by anyone seeking favour and preferment. A purse of gold might have been useful, even desirable, but it lacked the more affective qualities of gifts in kind. Personalised, and costing not only money but time, skill, and ingenuity, such things had immeasurably more emotional purchase than mere bullion. And according to the reciprocity inherent in gift exchange between donor and recipient – the ties of obligation and interest – this worked both ways, binding the queen and her court more tightly than a purely financial exchange.30 The deliberation that could go into these gifts and their layers of pleasure, meaning, and amusement is illustrated by those given by the Norris family to mark Elizabeth’s visit to their estate in 1592. The occasion was orchestrated and the gifts clearly planned well in advance by the family together. When the queen arrived, Sir Henry first of all presented her with a gown. During the stay, she then was given items sent by Sir Henry’s sons, who were all abroad. From the son in Ireland, Elizabeth received 26 Arnold, QEWU, 93. On the practice and records of New Year’s gifting at the Elizabethan court, Lawson, ed., New Year’s Gift Exchanges, 1–29. 27 Lawson, ed., New Year’s Gift Exchanges, 328, item 84.9; 331, item 84.70. 28 QEWU, 71; Scarisbrick, Tudor and Jacobean Jewellery, 14. 29 Quoted in Arnold, QEWU, 97. 30 The classic work on gift exchange is Mauss, The Gift.

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a gold jewel fashioned like an Irish spear, set with diamonds. The accompanying letter carried the motto in Irish: ‘I flye only for my Soveraigne’. Another son sent a golden key from Flanders, also set with diamonds. His letter explained that ‘The wards are made of true Hearts; Treachery cannot counterfeit the Key, nor Treason herselfe picke the locke’. The jewel given by the third brother, who was in France, was shaped like a gold sword, again set with diamonds and also rubies. The motto in French was ‘Drawen onlie in your defence’. A fourth son in this well-travelled family sent a jewel in the form of a truncheon, a symbol of office, and his motto, in Spanish: ‘I do not commanude but under you’. Finally, to mark the queen’s departure, she was given a jewel from Sir Henry’s daughter, wife of the Jersey governor Sir Anthony Paulet. The gift was a daisy in gold, set with rubies. It was delivered to Elizabeth with the message from the sender: ‘it hath no sweetnes, yet manie vertues; her [Lady Paulet’s] heart no tongue, but infinite affections: in you [Elizabeth], she saieth, are all vertues, and towards you all her affections’.31 Gifts like this – fine, rare things, to quote again from Mrs. Wingfield – were clearly tailored to Elizabeth, were layered with possible meanings, were lovely to look at, enjoyable to wear and, it was hoped, would capture her regal fancy. Most likely they were also commissioned especially. While some jewellery was readymade, the majority of high-end items were crafted for clients bespoke. By extension, this also means that clients had considerable input into the design process, at the very least describing to the goldsmith what they wanted, at the most minutely dictating shape and composition. Some will have consulted printed designs, available by then, and some will have turned to emblem books as sources of inspiration.32 The latter, consisting of illustrations and explanatory verses that illuminated the symbolic meaning of motifs, were a feature of sixteenth- and early seventeenth-century cultural life. Consulted for designs also by embroiderers, the influence of emblem books is seen in both the queen’s needlework and jewellery. It is significant that the first English emblem book, Geoffrey Whitney’s A Choice of Emblemes and Other Devises of 1586, was dedicated to the earl of Leicester. Dudley was a shrewd choice: Whitney’s patron, he was not only close to the queen but seems to have exercised a personal creativity. In 1571 Leicester had given Elizabeth a jewel whose bespoke design was not only expressly for her, but almost blatantly aggrandising. In this jewel she is depicted seated on a throne. Mary, Queen of Scots is enchained at her feet; France and Spain are under the waves. ‘Neptune and the rest of them’, the Spanish ambassador further noted, are ‘bowing to this Queen’.33 Gifts like this garnered attention, reflecting favourably on the giver as well as the recipient. Highly personalised, exquisitely crafted, this jewellery declared loyalty and suggested policy. To give it curried favour; to wear it endorsed its claims. 31 Arnold, QEWU, 72–73, 93. 32 On printed designs: Cocks, Courtly Jewellery, 18; Gere, ‘Rings from 1500 to 1800’, 91–94. On emblem books: Arnold, QEWU, 71–76. 33 Arnold, QEWU, 71.

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Queen Elizabeth was not just a recipient. She in turn harnessed the power and symbolism of gifted jewellery, rewarding past service and, through the reciprocity implied in gift exchange, asserting a hold over future loyalties. One of the most famed of her gifts is the Drake Jewel.34 Presented to Sir Francis, this elaborate piece comprises, on one side, a portrait miniature of the queen. It is housed within a gold locket, inside the cover of which is another painting, of a phoenix. On the other side of the jewel is a sardonyx cameo bust of two figures, one African, the other European. The allusions of this tantalising piece are multiple. We will return to the phoenix and the queen’s miniatures shortly, for now merely noting the favour and esteem she expressed in giving her portrait, and the frequency with which the death-defying phoenix was used as her personal symbol. The jewel’s other side is more complicated, and has been understood as both a generalised statement of imperial power and a specific reference to Drake’s military – and piratical – success against Spain, achieved with his mixed-race African allies, the Cimarrons.35 It is difficult to reduce the abundance of Elizabeth’s jewellery to order, whether the pieces depicted in portraits or those that exist for us as inventory entries. They can be classified by type or by theme, although no distinctions can be hard and fast and there is considerable blurring between some of the categories. A quick sketch will illustrate their range and nature. Mottos and initials were a recognised type of Renaissance jewellery, but those given to Elizabeth were far more hyperbolic than the initials or religious monograms more usually worn. In 1574 the earl of Ormond’s New Year´s gift was an elaborate acrostic. A gold jewel with a pendant sapphire and pearls, on the front it was decorated with rubies, emeralds, and diamonds, the whole depicting the story of Neptune. On the back, transparent blue crystal protected the verses beneath, ‘every of them beginning with the lettres: Elizabethe’.36 She also had a collar with the Latin phrase GEMMA PRECIOSIOR INTUS (there is a gem more precious within), interspersed with the Greek letters alpha and omega.37 This, repeating the verses that echo through the Book of Revelation (Rev. 1.8, 1.11, 21.6, 22.13), being tantamount to a claim of divinity. Emblem-inspired jewels have been touched on above, but it is impossible to know where the influence of impresa ended and whimsy began. The design of a gold jewel in the form of two hands, one holding a sword, the other a trowel, was clearly drawn from the former. Garnished with sparks of diamonds and opals, the jewel was given to Elizabeth in the New Year of 1587, and in 1600 was inventoried as still being part of her collection. It clearly matches an illustration in Whitney’s A Choice of Emblemes, the accompanying verse of which references the Jews’ defence of Jerusalem 34 On long-term loan to the V&A Museum, the Drake Jewel can be seen on display in the gallery, though it is not available on the museum’s online catalogue. 35 Dalton, ‘Art for the Sake of Dynasty’; Shields, ‘The Drake Jewel’. 36 Nichols, Progresses and Public Processions, II, 127; Arnold, QEWU, 70. 37 Scarisbrick, Tudor and Jacobean and Jewellery, 54.

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as described in the Old Testament Book of Nehemiah.38 Half the people were set to rebuild the city’s damaged gates and walls, and the other half to arm against further attack.39 The political lesson thus encapsulated in this jewel: ‘That to defende, our countrie deare from harme, / For warre, or worke, wee eyther hande should arme’.40 Or, as we might put it, ‘The best defence is a good offense.’ For every jewel whose design can be traced, however, there are endless others where the symbolism is either lost or never existed in the first place. And we do well to remember here the Tudor and Jacobean delight in the natural world, with motifs drawn from flora and fauna figuring heavily in a range of decorative contexts. Thus Elizabeth owned in abundance jewels shaped like birds, flowers, plants, and animals: ‘Item one Jewell of golde with a flie and a spider in it upon a Rose’; ‘Item one Fearne branche of golde having therin a Lyzarde a Ladye Cowe and a Snaile’.41 We can get an idea of the richness of these by looking at similar extant pieces. Elizabeth owned at least one salamander jewel, described in her wardrobe inventory of 1600 and possibly also in the 1577 New Year’s gift roll.42 The Victoria and Albert Museum contains a salamander jewel from the same period (Figure 5.1). Its body is formed around an irregular pearl, the head, tail, and legs in enamelled gold. In its mouth it holds a pendant emerald. The salamander hangs from two chains; above it is suspended a single pearl. Undoubtedly some of these naturalistic motifs did double service as visual puns. It is well known that a number of Elizabeth’s jewels referenced her suitor, the duc d’Alençon, whom she nicknamed ‘little frog’. She was given several different frog jewels during his courtship, both by him and by others.43 More direct referencing to favoured individuals occurred with the incorporation of their heraldic devices into jewels: noteworthy is the ragged staff and bear frequently used by Leicester, which was crafted into several of his gifts.44 As Catherine Richardson has written of his 1574 New Year´s present – a fan of white feathers set in a handle of gold, with white bears on each side and a rampant lion (Elizabeth) with a muzzled bear (Leicester) at its foot – ‘The interplay between his armorial identity and the personal nature of the gift; the erotic charge of its message and the public arena in which it might have been used, show something of the ritualized, mannered nature of dress, and its engagement with the politics of the realm.’45

38 Arnold, QEWU, 72, 333. 39 Nehemiah 4.16–18. 40 Whitney, A Choice of Emblemes, 66. 41 Transcribed in Arnold, QEWU, 329, 328. 42 See Stowe Inventory, Arnold, QEWU, 331, item 62. On the popularity and significance of the salamander/ lizard in contemporary jewellery, see Forsyth, London’s Lost Jewels, 220–221. 43 Scarisbrick, Tudor and Jacobean Jewellery, 15; Arnold, QEWU, 75–76; 328, item 17; 332, item 10. 44 Arnold, QEWU, 76. 45 Richardson, ‘Status’, 121.

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Figure 5.1: Unknown maker, pendant (salamander), late sixteenth century, enamelled gold set with pearls and an emerald. Victoria and Albert Museum, London.

Of utmost significance when it comes to the relationship between Elizabeth’s imperium and Elizabeth’s jewellery are those pieces that reference, reflect, and reinforce her cultic status. Thanks to the pioneering work by Roy Strong we are familiar with the cult of Elizabeth, the manifestation of which gathered pace as her spinster status became increasingly irrevocable, leaving the kingdom with neither heirs nor marriage alliances.46 Celebrated in art, pageantry, and literature, her mythological personae transcended the limits of the human, in the face of future insecurity asserting an unchanging and golden present. Against dynastic failure, the uncertainty of succession, religious dissension, and military threat from abroad, was marshalled a veritable hymn of state propaganda, a paean to their ruler’s unchanging perfection of youth, beauty, wisdom, and love. Over the course of her long reign, Elizabeth was transformed from woman, to queen, to divinity. 46 Particularly Strong, Cult of Elizabeth and Gloriana.

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There is little point in retreading the detail of Elizabeth’s appearance in her many mythological roles.47 We only need to reiterate that for each of Elizabeth’s allegorical motifs represented in iconography and text, there was also a representation in her ­jewellery collection. Gifts of little jewelled sieves recollected her manifestation as Tuccia the Vestal Virgin, chaste and wise.48 As the Spring goddess Flora, she was adorned with enamelled and gem-studded flowers. In allusion to the variously named Cynthia/Diana/ Belphoebe persona, the chaste moon goddess, waxing and waning forever renewed, she received numerous moon jewels. In 1594 alone, she was given three as New Year’s gifts. One of them, from Sir Thomas Heneage, was a jewel of gold like a cross, with a halfmoon under it. It was decorated with three pearls, ‘one Biger then thother Twoe’, and in conjunction with the cross can be read as a reference to the Trinity. Elizabeth’s symbol is thus conjoined with God’s, a visual metaphor of aggrandisement and piety combined.49 Classical heroine, virgin, goddess: all are represented in the complicated symbolism of Elizabeth’s jewellery. She also harnessed two motifs that had a wider cultural resonance – the phoenix and the pelican – appropriating them as her own personal signs. The significance of the phoenix (Figure 5.2) is self-evident: unique and single, never-dying, consumed in flame to be reborn. With no issue or heir, at a dynastic dead end, Elizabeth as the phoenix yet asserted the completeness and everlasting continuity of the monad. Again, she received multiple gifts embellished with this image.50 The pelican’s symbolism was different. An allegory of self-immolation, the pelican rends its own breast in sacrifice to feed its young. The queen was given or owned at least four pelican jewels,51 gems that coupled her with this traditional evocation of Christ. In the context of the post-Reformation absence of devotional jewellery, Elizabeth’s marked preference for such pieces made a simultaneous statement of personal piety and queenly majesty devoted selflessly to her people. In a jewellery collection so extensive, so dense with potential meaning, there is one apparent thematic absence: memento mori imagery. In early modern adornment as a whole, both mourning jewellery and pieces that overtly reminded the wearer (and viewer) of life’s fleeting nature were common. Rings, for example, were frequently engraved or adorned with skulls: Henry VIII had ‘a Ringe of golde with a deathes hedde’ listed in his inventory.52 Likewise, mottos enjoined the wearer to be mindful of death. Such stark sentiments balanced the frivolity and moral dubiousness of physical beautifying with the serious purpose of spiritual improvement. Memento mori pieces were a reminder to live a Christian life now in readiness for 47 See, in the first place, Strong, Cult of Elizabeth and Gloriana; and as referenced by the queen’s jewellery and decorative dress motifs, Arnold, QEWU, esp. 70–92. 48 Arnold, QEWU, 38. 49 Lawson, ed., New Year’s Gift Exchanges, jewels with moon motifs: 406, item 94.1; 409, item 94.66; 412, item 94.111 (this last being the cross from Heneage). 50 For example, from the earl of Ormond: Lawson, ed., New Year’s Gift Exchanges, 226, item 78.21. 51 Arnold, QEWU, 24–25. 52 Scarisbrick, Tudor and Jacobean Jewellery, 51.

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Figure 5.2: Nicholas Hilliard, Elizabeth I (The Phoenix Portrait), c. 1575, oil on panel. National Portrait Gallery, London. Hard to make out against the gold and pearl embroidery of Elizabeth’s garments, the phoenix jewel hangs from an elaborate collar worn over her shoulders (which itself echoes a smaller necklace above). The phoenix pendant lies just above Elizabeth’s hand.

the life to come, an event whose arrival was as unknown as it was inevitable. This message is the utter opposite of the gold-decorated, gem-set, enamelled declarations of the queen’s collection. These proclaim not the inevitability of the wearer’s death, but its impossibility. The absence here of the memento mori cultural commonplace is eloquent, even in its silence. To complete the picture of the political work done by the jewellery of Queen Elizabeth we need to consider two further types: her garter insignia and jewels that contain her own image. The Order of the Garter, the highest chivalric order in England, was established by Edward III in 1347 and took as its patron the warrior saint, George. Its membership, limited to the sovereign and a favoured few, was elite. The Garter

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Order was in fact the most exclusive of clubs. And like many exclusive clubs there were insignia to show who was out and who was in, including the garter itself, a large collar and pendant (The Great George), and the one that concerns us here, the Lesser George. This was a badge – a medallion or occasionally cameo – worn on a gold chain or blue sash. It depicted St. George on his horse, rearing back forever poised to run the dragon through – or, in other words, perpetually in the act of slaying England’s enemies. For by 1415 the Cappadocian’s foreign origins had been forgotten and his English naturalisation was complete: George had become the patron saint of the nation. As Shakespeare had Henry V so stirringly declare in 1599: ‘Cry “God for Harry! England and Saint George!”’53 Although there had been Ladies of the Garter earlier – not companions but supernumerary members of the order, included on the basis of their relationship to their menfolk – this practice had been discontinued in 1488 by Elizabeth’s grandfather, Henry VII (not to be revived until Edward VII’s appointment of Alexandra in 1901). Despite her gender, like Mary I before her Elizabeth was a full member by right of her sovereignty. Unlike her Catholic sister, however, she emphatically declared her membership, and is depicted wearing the Lesser George in a whole subgenre of her portraits (Figure 5.3). The reason for this likely lies with the Reformation’s dismantling of the intercessory and miraculous role of saints, by which means George reached even greater prominence in England. As the country’s patron he became a semisecularised figure of patriotism, fighting the realm’s Catholic enemies – enemies that, of course, had been Mary’s confessional allies. In a final and very neat iconological twist, Elizabeth herself became identified with George, the English monarch battling the dragon of the papacy.54 As with so much of her jewellery therefore, through the workings of visual metaphor wearing the Lesser George was tantamount to wearing her own portrait. The merging of the two figures – the warrior saint and virgin queen – was even further reinforced by the practice of the Garter knights wearing their own George badges attached to, or along with, an image of Elizabeth.55 This leads us nicely, and inevitably, to jewellery worn not necessarily by Elizabeth but of Elizabeth. The sixteenth-century development of the portrait miniature, an art form that flowered in the Tudor court, has been thoroughly canvassed elsewhere.56 These small and delicate images were painted with infinite care using specialised tools and techniques. Brushes made from the tail hairs of continental squirrels, graded into different sizes and bound into bird quills, were used to apply the finest of ground pigments, much finer than those used in oil painting.57 The most famous of 53 Henry V (1599), III.1, l. 34. On the importance of St. George and the Order of the Garter in Elizabeth’s England: Strong, Cult of Elizabeth, 163–185. On Garter jewellery and elite masculinity, Awais-Dean, Bejewelled, 70–76. 54 Kagan, Gem Engraving, 59–60. 55 Kagan, Gem Engraving, 42, 60. 56 For example: Strong, Artists of the Tudor Court. 57 On the techniques of miniature painting: Murrell, ‘The Art of Limning’.

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Figure 5.3: British School, Elizabeth I, c. 1580–1603, oil on panel. Royal Collection Trust / Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II.

the court miniaturists, Nicholas Hilliard (who, incidentally, had himself trained as a goldsmith and jeweller), developed a special range of methods particularly for rendering the textures and lustre of fabrics and gems. Pearls, for instance, he depicted with droplets of white lead that were raised from the surface of the painting. On top of these he applied a trace of silver, which was then burnished with an animal tooth, the finished result being ‘a three-dimensional surrogate for a real pearl’.58 These exquisite and diminutive artworks were private images, to be held in the hand and close to the eye. They stood therefore as the complete opposite of the largescale, sometimes life-size portraits that hung in that other Tudor development, the 58 Murrell, ‘The Art of Limning’, 16.

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long gallery. These displayed dynastic images for (relatively) public consumption. By contrast, miniatures were housed in decorative boxes and kept for (relatively) private contemplation; Elizabeth kept her collection of portrait miniatures in her bedroom, each wrapped separately and labelled with the sitter’s name.59 Then, in the 1580s, these little paintings began to be taken from their boxes and display cabinets, and, set into lockets and jewelled housings, were transformed into wearable accessories. Their private nature became infinitely more complex and teasing: the image itself usually remained hidden and personal beneath the locket’s protective lid, but the declaration of its existence was not only public, but could be elaborately decorative and eye-catching. This was a kind of ‘have your cake and eat it’ approach to the drawbacks and benefits of image dissemination (Figure 5.4). As such, the wearable miniature was also typical of what has been called the early modern culture of secrecy. Performed through objects and practices that, paradoxically, advertised their own exclusivity, this was a culture in which the existence of a secret was known by many, but access was granted to only a few.60

Figure 5.4: Nicholas Hilliard, Elizabeth I, c. 1600, portrait miniature in a case of enamelled gold set with diamond and ruby. Victoria and Albert Museum, London.

59 Strong, Artists of the Tudor Court, 9. 60 McCall, Roberts, and Fiorenza, eds., Visual Cultures of Secrecy.

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In the form of the portrait miniature then, Elizabeth’s image moved off the walls and onto the body of its wearer. This was not unique to the queen, wearable miniatures being adopted by other members of the elite and, with the establishment of Hilliard’s workshop in Gutter Lane, increasingly available to a non-courtly clientele too.61 But there was a veritable explosion in the number of her portrait miniatures at this time, as part of the propaganda of her reign and a manifestation of her developing cult. These depictions were given to the favoured. As Roy Strong has argued, ‘The gift by Elizabeth of a likeness of herself by Nicholas Hilliard must surely have been one of the ultimate accolades.’62 Although often presented unframed (leaving the recipient to obtain, design, and pay for a suitable box or locket housing), on occasion, as with the Drake Jewel above, Elizabeth’s esteem was reflected additionally in the gift of the portrait’s beautiful encasement. Another thing that marks out Elizabeth’s wearable portraits is that they were given not only by her but to her, like the bodkin of crystal and enamelled gold ‘with a picture of her Matie’, given to the queen in 1581 for her hair.63 Gifts like this presented the queen with a decorative mirror of herself. Or rather, given the increasing disparity between the physical reality of Elizabeth’s aging and the propaganda of the ritualised and idealised images, these were magic mirrors, reflecting to both her and her people an idea of their monarch and her reign. It was not only the scale of portrait production that was new. Along with the explosion in the number of her portrait images was a corresponding surge in the range of their media.64 Particularly pertinent to jewellery was her depiction in cameos and engraved gems. This art form was newly fashionable in the Renaissance, revived in self-conscious imitation of classical models. Compared with the painted miniature, it also made for extremely durable jewellery, the engraved gemstones being both hard and impervious to light. Although popular across Europe, Elizabeth’s use of these outstrips all other monarchs: the quantity of her portrait cameos was ‘unprecedented’.65 All the extant examples are compositionally similar, and Julia Kagan suggests that they were produced at court workshops and thus under official control.66 Like other forms of her image, these engraved donatives were presented as rewards and marks of favour, perhaps their size and quality being correlated with the rank and role of the recipient.67 From those small enough to be made into rings, to those that feature as the central motif in pendant settings, this was a finely tuned calibration of merit, status, and obligation (Figure 5.5). A portrait of Sir Christopher Hatton wearing a large cameo of the queen testifies to the importance of such gifts: he holds it forth as a key part of both his adornment and political importance (Figure 5.6). The will left by Thomas 61 Strong, Artists of the Tudor Court, 12. 62 Strong, Artists of the Tudor Court, 10. 63 Lawson, ed., New Year’s Gift Exchanges, 277, item 81.164. 64 Strong, Artists of the Tudor Court, 10. Also on the ‘wearable’ Elizabeth: Strong, Gloriana, 120–123. 65 Kagan, Gem Engraving, 44, 40. 66 Kagan, Gem Engraving, 52. 67 Kagan, Gem Engraving, 42–44.

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Figure 5.5: Unknown maker, pendant (The Wild jewel), 1590s, central turquoise cameo of Elizabeth I set in enamelled gold with diamonds, rubies and pearls, and pendant pearls. Victoria and Albert Museum, London.

Sackville, 1st earl of Dorset (c. 1536–1608) gives us further insight. Amongst his testamentary bequests was a jewel that he desired become a family heirloom, an inalienable possession to be passed down the family line in perpetuity. It was a ‘picture of the late famous Quene Elizabeth being cut out of an Aggett with excellent similitude ovall fashion’, set in gold with rubies and orient pearls. He himself had been bequeathed the jewel by his sister, Lady Anne Dacre. Although we don’t know how she had come by it, Lady Dacre moved in court circles. Sackville declares in his will that she knew it was a gift that ‘would of all other be most pleasing and acceptable vnto me’, it memorialising the favours and preferment that he had himself been granted by the queen.68 However, these carved images may have had a reach beyond the charmed inner group of favourites and the wider circle of the elite. The presence of an unmounted cameo in the Cheapside Hoard suggests that this ‘wearable’ Elizabeth might have been part of general jewellers’ stock and available to the wider population.69 68 Awais-Dean, Bejewelled, 118–119; will transcribed 129–135, quotes at 130, 131. 69 Forsyth, London’s Lost Jewels, 182.

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Figure 5.6: Unknown artist, Sir Christopher Hatton, probably 17th century based on a work of 1589, oil on panel. National Portrait Gallery, London.

As with her painted miniatures, Elizabeth was herself also given her likeness in engraved gems. In 1588 the earl of Leicester’s New Year’s gift was a carcanet of gold interspersed with his diamond-decorated ragged staves motif and letters. In the centre of the collar was a large sun, the beams also garnished with diamonds, and in the middle of the sun a ruby ‘theareof cut with her Maties picture’: the Virgin Queen at the centre around which all else revolved. Six years later Lord Howard had a headdress made for Elizabeth, which incorporated ‘her Maiesties pycture Cutt vppon A Safyor in the Middest’.70 As Kagan has said of these items, whether given by or to Elizabeth: ‘Made of rare, expensive and extremely hardwearing materials, imbued with rich associations and with a profound symbolic meaning which was easily 70 Lawson (ed.), New Year’s Gift Exchanges, 367, item 88.4; 408, item 94.53.

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comprehensible to contemporaries, such small engraved portraits were the quintessence of the universal cult of the Queen: an emblem of the nation’s unity.’71 Elizabeth, whose dressed image was created with complicated layers of gems and gold, thus herself became jewellery. As ruler by divine right, as head of the English state and church, this gem-encrusted monarch was – according to this political rhetoric – transformed to a Protestant icon, fit to be reverenced. But what of the gap between her cultic and her physical appearance, alluded to above? No amount of propaganda in verse, paint, and jewellery could keep time’s inevitable depredations at bay. For some like Francis Bacon, and many since, the disjunction between the queenly image and her actual physicality was evidence of folly, clouded judgement on the part of both herself and others, and above all of Elizabeth’s vanity. She ‘imagined that the people who are much influenced by externals, would be diverted by the glitter of her jewels from noticing the decay of her personal attractions’. In 1894, quoting this passage at the start of his study of her portraiture, the British Museum keeper of prints and drawings Freeman O’Donoghue waxed patronisingly over ‘her natural vanity and love of admiration’.72 Now we interpret the cult of Elizabeth differently – as a concerted campaign from the centre, an orchestration of pageantry and portraiture, ritual and appearance, in which Elizabeth played her part, just as did the rest of the government, the court, and the nation.73 When it comes specifically to her wardrobe (also, as we now appreciate, a part of her rule and political heft), Arnold has likewise noted that because so much came by way of gift, what she wore in the closing years of her reign to a certain extent ‘reflected her subjects’ attitude towards her and their taste’.74 I would like to push this a little further, and suggest that as far as her jewellery was concerned, what we have is a co-creation – Elizabeth and the elite cooperating in their production of her appearance. For a start, as we have seen, a great deal of Elizabeth’s jewellery was presented by her subjects. Much of this was rich with the elaborate symbolism of the second half of her reign – the beautiful and mannered plays on her cultic identities – but there were also just those decorative pieces made to adorn an old woman with a unique magnificence. Furthermore, rather than keeping it all like an acquisitive narcissist, Elizabeth passed much of it on to others, sometimes immediately.75 This practice did not lessen a gift’s power but paradoxically increased it, as, like a donative snowball, it gained layers of obligation and affective meaning with each exchange. As part of the patronage mechanism, such adornment continued to peddle its propaganda to a wider audience,

71 Kagan, Gem Engraving, 44. 72 O’Donogue, A Descriptive and Classified Catalogue, both quotes, vii. 73 Strong, Gloriana, 42. 74 Arnold, QEWU, 2. 75 Nichols, Progresses and Public Processions, I, 235, 237.

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currying favour as it went. Elizabeth’s jewels, therefore, were rather beautiful political tools, tiny pieces of influence, and whether passed on or kept, the court not only colluded in the crown’s collection, but drove the engine of this acquisition. Between them all they created the most bejewelled monarch ever seen, a head of church and state, timeless and undying, a golden monarch for a self-styled golden age. The government of Elizabeth’s later years, indeed, dealt with uncertainty by dint of the vehement assertion of stability. This is not a technique of governance that is unfamiliar: for those of us present in the UK general election of 2016, Prime Minister Theresa May’s repeated catchphrase ‘strong and stable’ was a pale echo of Gloriana. Such an assertion on the part of the Elizabethan ruling elite did not, of course, blind those involved to the real threats and uncertainty they faced: a monarch with a famed refusal to commit herself to policy, an elderly woman who had left no heir and would not countenance discussion of one. But the cultic claims and the politics of appearances – in which Elizabeth’s jewellery played its part – did provide a surface structure and a story of unity, under the cover of which deals and alliances could be brokered, and future plans laid. In the years after Elizabeth’s death her jewellery collection was dispersed. Some of it she had given away before she died; some of it went in gifts afterwards, or was lost or reset. In 1626 Sir John Eliot bemoaned this loss before Parliament: if only that we then could search for the treasures and jewels that were left by that ever-blessed princess of never-dying memory, queen Elizabeth! O. those jewels! the pride and glory of this kingdom! which have made it so far shining beyond others! Would they were here, within the compass of these walls, to be viewed and seen by us, to be examined in this place! Their very name and memory have transported me.76

As the years passed, judgements soured. By 1894 O’Donoghue was calling the richness of her clothing and jewels ‘an absolutely barbaric display’.77 From our vantage point we make yet a different call. We appreciate their rarity, craftsmanship, cost, and mystical value. We can see their story tied up with the search for wealth, knowledge, and resources, and as a push to the colonising imperative. We can appreciate them in the context of contemporary dress forms and aesthetics, and note the physical discipline that their wear will have demanded. And of course, reflecting our own awareness of the potency of image, we are mindful of the political work done by the extraordinarily bejewelled appearance of Queen Elizabeth I.

76 Cited in Collins, Jewels and Plate of Queen Elizabeth, 3. 77 O’Donogue, Descriptive and Classified Catalogue, vii.

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Acknowledgements In writing this I have relied heavily on the expertise of other scholars, particularly Sir Roy Strong and Janet Arnold. I am indebted to their findings and insights, which I have threaded together, like pearls in a necklace. I would also like to thank the volume’s anonymous reviewer for suggestions and further reading. Any errors and misinterpretations remain my own responsibility.

About the author Susan Vincent is a Research Associate at the Centre for Renaissance and Early Modern Studies (CREMS) at the University of York. Her research interests range widely over dress practices from early modernity to the present day. Her publications include Dressing the Elite: Clothes in Early Modern England (2003), The Anatomy of Fashion: Dressing the Body from the Renaissance to Today (2009), Hair: An Illustrated History (2018), and, as general editor, Bloomsbury’s six-volume publication, A Cultural History of Dress and Fashion (2017).

6. A ‘Cipher of A and C set on the one Syde with diamonds’: Anna of Denmark’s Jewellery and the Politics of Dynastic Display1 Jemma Field

Abstract This chapter discusses how figurative pieces of jewellery could function as statements of identity, allegiance, and belonging for early modern royal women. Focussing on Anna of Denmark (1574–1619), it examines extant jewellery accounts and portraits to establish patterns in her patronage and modes of representation. It thus extends our understanding of the type and frequency of Anna’s jewellery purchases, arguing that she strategically used her bodily display to visualise her dynastic identity and her support for a Stuart-Habsburg marriage alliance. The possibility that this was a practice learnt at her natal court in Denmark is addressed, along with the role that jewellery played for the Stuart queen consort in the highly politicised world of gift exchange. Key words: Anna of Denmark; Stuart court; jewellery; portraiture; gift exchange

The early modern body was not a neutral or natural being, but a sociopolitical entity constructed through the considered use of apparel, accessories, and movement.2 In her influential rethinking of the centrality of the body to subjectivity, the feminist theorist Elizabeth Grosz powerfully argues that ‘the body must be regarded as a site of social, political, cultural, and geographic inscriptions, production, or constitution’, going on to state that ‘it is itself a cultural, the cultural product’.3 Indeed, as scholars commonly recognise, the pieces of clothing and jewellery worn on the elite early modern body were fashioned from costly materials that required expert craftsmanship, thereby making manifest the wearer’s financial and social position. But further, multiple codes of meaning were tied up in bodily adornment, which 1 This essay is part of a larger project for which I have received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under the Marie Sklodowska-Curie Actions [706198]. I would particularly like to thank the anonymous reviewer for their perceptive and engaging suggestions. 2 McCall, ‘Brilliant Bodies’. 3 Grosz, Volatile Bodies, 23.

Griffey, E. (ed.), Sartorial Politics in Early Modern Europe: Fashioning Women, Amsterdam University Press, 2019 doi: 10.5117/9789462986008_ch06

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could give expression to such constructs as gender, sexuality, authority, piety, purity, or networks of belonging. Importantly for royal and elite early modern women, this was a powerful political tool that they could access and control: by making specific sartorial and jewellery choices, they could legitimise a position, visualise political ambition, or show allegiance, favour, or dynastic membership.4 Indeed, the recent turn in early modern dress history, pioneered by cultural historians including Eva Andersson, Sylvène Édouard, Isabelle Paresys, Ulinka Rublack, and Laura Oliván Santaliestra, has underscored the ways in which dress was read as a signifier of the wearer’s identity – whether that be economic, social, national, or religious.5 The same richness of approach, however, is yet to be widely applied to gems and jewellery of the period, although a growing focus on their sociopolitical significance is favourably evidenced by the recent studies of Natasha Awais-Dean, Jack Ogden, and Molly Warsh that build on the slightly earlier work of Renaissance scholars including Leah Clark, Bella Mirabella, Karen Raber, and Evelyn Welch.6 In particular, Timothy McCall’s work on the adornment of the noble male body in northern Renaissance Italy is richly suggestive of the broad, multifaceted meanings to be gained from a multidisciplinary study of the representational and symbolic value of bodily (rather than purely sartorial) display. Approaching the Renaissance body as a social creation, McCall thoughtfully and persuasively argues for the agency of ‘the material artefacts of courtly bodies and their visual representations’, as items that actively produced meaning and fashioned power.7 Drawing on insights from recent cultural history, this chapter seeks to better understand the bejewelled agency and significance of one royal woman: Anna of Denmark (1574–1619), Queen Consort of King James VI and I (1566–1625). As consort, Anna’s body was routinely enclosed in fine linens, sumptuous fabrics, and delicate trimmings, and was weighed down by precious metals and sparkling jewels. Given the political weight of visual display, it is unsurprising that she spent vast amounts of time, money, and attention on her appearance, with the Venetian ambassador in England, Antonio Foscarini, reporting that she ‘takes great pride in her beauty, which she carefully cultivates’.8 Contemporaries never viewed such activities as vanity or frivolity, but interpreted them in highly politic terms. A pertinent example is found in 4 Édouard, ‘The Hispanicization of Elizabeth de Valois’, 240–41; Santaliestra, ‘Isabel of Borbón’s Sartorial Politics’, 227–230. 5 Publications include Andersson, ‘Women’s Dress in Sixteenth-Century Sweden’, 24–38; Andersson, ‘Foreign Seductions’, 15–31; Rublack, ‘Clothing and Cultural Exchange’, 258–289; Paresys, ‘The Dressed Body’, 227–258; Édouard, ‘The Hispanicization of Elizabeth de Valois’, 237–267; Santaliestra, ‘Isabel of Borbón’s Sartorial Politics’, 225–243. 6 Awais-Dean, Bejewelled; Clark, ‘Transient Possessions’; Mirabella, ed., Ornamentalism; Ogden, Diamonds; Warsh, American Baroque. 7 McCall, ‘Brilliant Bodies’, 449. Leah Clark’s work on collecting and gift exchange is similarly important for its use of an anthropological framework to conceive of ‘the object as an active agent’: ‘Transient Possessions’, 188. See also, Clark, Collecting Art; Mirabella, ‘Introduction,’ 1–2. 8 CSPV, vol.15, 386–401, no.658 (19 December 1618).

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the writings of Zorzi Giustinian, the Venetian ambassador who attended the Masque of Beauty in January 1608. Having immensely enjoyed the ‘splendour of the spectacle, which was worthy of her Majesty’s [Anna’s] greatness’ he reports that it was a miracle […] but what beggared all else, and possibly exceeded the public expectation was the wealth of pearls and jewels that adorned the Queen [Anna] and her ladies, so abundant and splendid that in everybody’s opinion no other court could have displayed such pomp and riches.9

Beyond the general magnificence perceived by Giustinian, however, Anna’s accounts and portraits reveal a consort who repeatedly used jewellery for political means beyond economic and social privilege. This is particularly noticeable in regard to her patronage of cipher jewels, for she bought and wore these pieces so often that, not only were they frequently subject to repair, but they also came to form a cornerstone of her visual persona, accompanying almost all printed and painted representations of the queen from 1610 onwards. Using the extensive accounts and vouchers of Anna’s principal jeweller, George Heriot (1563–1624), which survive in Edinburgh and London, in conjunction with easel and miniature portraits of the queen, this chapter examines Anna’s strategic use of representational jewellery, and considers the possibility that her awareness and understanding of the ways in which these pieces could be employed was learnt at the Danish court of her youth.

The Queen’s Jeweller and the Sources In 1593, the Scottish Heriot began work for Anna in an unofficial capacity and was formally appointed as her goldsmith in July 1597.10 On the Stuarts’ remove to England with King James’s accession to the throne in 1603, Heriot left Edinburgh for London, where he was promptly made ‘her Majesties Jeweller’ that same year.11 Remarkably, while almost no extant pieces of jewellery can be associated with Anna, Heriot’s accounts survive in relatively complete form. Those for the periods 1593 to 1616 are housed in the National Records of Scotland in Edinburgh, while those spanning 1605 to 1615 survive in the National Archives in London.12 Furthermore, although there is significant overlap in dates, there are only a couple of bills that are repeated between 9 CSPV, vol.11, 86, no.154 (24 January 1608): italics mine. 10 Juhala, ‘The Household and Court’, 158. 11 TNA, LR6/154/9. 12 With Heriot’s death in 1624, his papers were returned to Edinburgh where they were kept by his charitable foundation until being given over to National Records of Scotland. It is possible that these were Heriot’s personal records, or at least constituted a separate account book to those bills declared for payment by Anna’s privy purse or by Privy Seal and now filed under the Office of the Auditors of Land Revenue at The National Archives in London.

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the two sets. Overall, they offer detailed and invaluable information about the expenditure, consumption, and personal taste of the queen, although they have received surprisingly little attention from historians.13 While mostly detailing items in Anna’s everyday use, they also include inexpensive pieces purchased as gifts and jewels that required repair. Rather than following the expected quarter dates, they cover variable periods of time, from short bills spanning only two or four months, to those covering more than a year. Presumably due to the continual debasement of the Scots pound in this period, Heriot’s Scottish accounts are completed in French crowns, but, on his move to England, they immediately change to using pounds sterling. Heriot’s position as Anna’s jeweller was highly lucrative, and in England he was paid an annual retainer of £50 in addition to the goods and services he provided the queen, not to mention those for other members of the royal family, including James and the Princes Henry (1594–1612) and Charles (1600–1649).14 However, as was the case with most artisans who served the court, his payments were continually in arrears. A document from April 1601, for example, shows that Anna owed Heriot 2,876 French crowns for goods received between 1597 and 1599, and, while it was ‘promit in ye word of ane princes’ that this would be remedied, the debt rose to extraordinary levels in England.15 By 20 February 1615, Heriot had earned more than £42,000 sterling for his services to the queen, which was an astonishingly high sum, but he was owed an equally astonishing sum of £10,948.14s.3d. in unpaid bills.16 Interestingly, in Scotland, Heriot did not just supply Anna with jewellery but acted as a trusted broker for other merchants, whose wares he delivered to the queen. Between 1600 and 1602, for example, he billed Anna for five farthingales, three pairs of ‘bald bodies’, four velvet bonnets, 16 stomachers, two pairs of velvet mittens, a castor (beaver) hat, and a pair of sleeves.17 In England though, the greater number of specialists – or perhaps the easier nature of access – meant that he confined himself to the supply of jewellery. Indeed, while Anna’s Scottish wardrobe was staffed by a master of the wardrobe, a master tailor, four tailors, an attire-maker, an embroiderer, a furrier, a master glover, and a seamstress, her English household accounts reveal a litany of new names and a much larger number of specialisations.18 13 To my knowledge, the only work on these documents is to be found in Juhala, ‘The Household and Court’, 155–173; Packer, ‘Jewels of “Blacknesse”’; Scarisbrick, ‘Anne of Denmark’s Jewellery’, 228–236; Scarisbrick, ‘Anne of Denmark’s Jewellery Inventory’, 193–238. 14 TNA, LR6/154/9. Heriot continued to receive his annual wage until Anna’s death see TNA, SC6/JASI/1646; TNA, SC6/JASI/1653; TNA, SC6/JASI/1655. The term ‘retaining fee’ was first applied in this context by Smuts, ‘The Structure of the Court’, 108. 15 NRS, GD421/1/3/18. 16 TNA, LR2/122, fols.50r-v, 70r. This includes a list of money paid to Heriot on Anna’s behalf and signified by various members of her Bedchamber, together with the eight privy seals ‘Granted by the King for The Queen’s Jewels from His Accession to 20 February 1615’, but it does not include the various payments to Heriot that are scattered throughout the accounts. 17 NRS GD421/1/314; NRS GD421/1/3/21. 18 Juhala, ‘The Household and Court’, 331.

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Further information regarding Anna’s jewellery is found in an extant inventory transcribed and published by Diana Scarisbrick. Begun in 1606, and annotated in three different hands until 1612, the inventory was kept in the Secret Jewel House in the Tower of London and records, what Scarisbrick has termed, Anna’s ‘reserve collection’.19 This was a markedly different set of jewels to those everyday pieces bought from Heriot, many of which would have been stored in her rooms under the charge of the Keeper of the Jewels. From 1603 to 1608, this post was held by Katherine Howard, Countess of Suffolk (1564–1638), and then by Bridget Marrow, Gentlewoman of the Privy Chamber (fl.1603–1608).20 In addition to the Keeper, Anna had a Clerk of the Jewel Coffers in her household, and a number of her female attendants – particularly Margaret Hartside (fl.1601–1607) and Jane Drummond, Countess of Roxburghe (c.1585–1643) ‒ shared the responsibility for ordering and receiving the queen’s jewels from Heriot.21 In general, figurative pieces are found in the accounts and in the inventory, but there is much greater diversity of design in the reserve collection with jewels in the form of swans, sailing ships, fish, suns, keys, birds, bells, spiders, and moons, among other representational figures.22 Gems such as rubies, sapphires, and emeralds occur in both collections, as do crystal pendants, coral beads, and opals. However, the reserve group abounds with pearls and includes items as varied as chains, pendants, bodkins, aglets, pomanders, and fans. In comparison, pearls rarely occur in Heriot’s accounts, which feature an overwhelming number of diamonds, and, unlike the inventory, the most common articles are rings, earrings, pendants, and miniature cases. Indeed, during the 10-year period covered by the English accounts, Heriot charged Anna for 766 items, of which more than half were rings, and the majority of those were diamond rings.23 Far too many rings for one person, they must have been intended as gifts, and gifts for lesser persons at that. Priced between £2 and £6, they pale in comparison to the rich jewels that she bought for herself or those she gave to family members and female members of her household, which cost anywhere between £40 and £400. This high volume of purchases translates into Anna’s body of portraits, where she appears, without exception, wearing a large volume of jewellery in the form of hair attires, earrings, necklaces, and bracelets – although, notably, the majority are pearls 19 Scarisbrick, ‘Anne of Denmark’s Jewellery Inventory’, 194. 20 TNA, LR6/154/9; TNA, SC6/JASI/1646; TNA, SC6/JASI/1648; TNA, SP14/40/50; TNA, SO3/2; Payne, ‘Aristocratic Women’, 60–61. 21 William Bell was Clerk of the Jewel Coffers from 1603 to 1615 when it passed to William Tashe, see TNA, LR6/154/9; TNA, SC6/JASI/1648; TNA, SC6/JASI/1650; TNA, SC6/JASI/1655; TNA, LR2/122, fols.19r, 20v, 24r, 50r, 53r; Payne, ‘Aristocratic Women’, 60–62, 280. 22 Various configurations concerning hands and hearts as well as floral types are found in the accounts, but the inventory other figurative designs, see Scarisbrick, ‘Anne of Denmark’s Jewellery Inventory’, 195–237. 23 The total number is made up of each ‘itm’ charged by Heriot and includes ewers, basins, portions of civet and musk, and repair charges. Sets of buttons, buckles, and pairs of pendants and earrings, are treated as one item. Where several entries relate to one item -- such as a jewelled tablet where the pendant and cover are entered separately, it is counted as only one piece. The total number of purchased rings was 416.

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while there are comparatively few diamonds – and very rarely any rings. It is only in the Woburn portrait, from around 1614, that Anna is shown wearing a ring. Here, it is a diamond on the fourth finger of the left hand, conspicuously tied to her wrist by way of a black string. Interestingly, this paucity of rings in Anna’s body of extant portraits finds echo with a quantity of contemporary portraits of court women, the majority of whom are depicted wearing one ring, or none at all, indicating that the fashion for ring-laden hands had long past.24 Beyond all the pearls in Anna’s portraits are records of some very idiosyncratic diamond pieces, which, interestingly, do find echo in Heriot’s accounts. For example, three very similar miniatures from around 1612 show Anna wearing specific pieces including a cornucopia (Colour Plate 6), and we know that Anna owned at least one example of this type of jewel having bought, in January 1612, ‘a jewell informe of a horne of aboundance sett with 6 rose diamonds and 12 table diamonds’ from Heriot for £36.25 Another miniature of the queen from that year, shows her with a jewelled anchor pinned to her collar, of which she owned at least five.26 In Scotland, on 23 December 1595, Heriot charged her 95 French crowns for ‘ane Jewell in form of ane anker contening […] sextene dyamontis’, and later, in January 1598, delivered ‘ane anker conteining 17 dyamentis’ at a cost of 72 French crowns. Anna continued to favour this form in England and, in July 1609, Heriot charged Anna £5 Sterling ‘for makinge of an anker ye second time sett with 78 diamonds’, and, in April 1610, he twice delivered ‘an Anker set with diamonds’ at a cost of £5 each.27 As a symbol of hope, anchors were a popular choice for jewels in sixteenth-century Scotland and England, and in Europe more generally.28 Elizabeth I, for example, owned jewelled anchors and chose to wear one in her hair for her formal portrait in parliament robes by Marcus Gheeraerts the Younger (1561–1636).29 A later easel portrait of Anna details very particular figurative pieces: a crossbow, a pair of cherries, a bay leaf, and an IHS jewel. Anna’s inventory includes two sacred monograms being ‘A Jewell of gold, being the Sipher of Jesus in Diamonds’ and ‘A Jewell of gold being a Coronett over the Sipher of Jesus’, but there are no references to cherries in either the inventory or the accounts.30 Signifying the piety of the wearer, jewels configured in the monogram of Jesus, ‘IHS’, were extremely fashionable 24 This was a trend readily observed – by both men and women -- at the Tudor courts of Henry VII (1457– 1509) through to Mary I (1516–1558) but had lost popularity by the coming of the Elizabethan period. The only portrait, to my knowledge, of Queen Elizabeth I (1533–1603) wearing an array of rings is that by William Scrots (fl.1537–53) from around 1546 when she was still a princess (RCIN 404444). 25 TNA, LR2/122, fol.37r. 26 National Portrait Gallery, London #4010. 27 NRS, GD421/1/3/9; NRS, GD4211/3/11; TNA, LR2/122, fols.28r, 32v. 28 Wither, A Collection of Emblemes, 39, 72. 29 Arnold, Queen Elizabeth’s Wardrobe Unlock’d, 61. The portrait is reproduced on 60, Figure 102. For a probable Scottish example, see Jobbins, ‘Sources of Gemstones’, 16; [and p.87, cat.no.119 entry is by Anna Somers Cocks], and for a Scandinavian example, see the c.1610 portrait of Kristina of Holstein-Gottorp, Queen Consort of Sweden (Stockholm, Nationalmuseum). 30 National Portrait Gallery, London #127; Scarisbrick, ‘Anne of Denmark’s Jewellery Inventory’, 208, no.163; 211, no.182.

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throughout Europe from the fifteenth through to seventeenth century. Favoured for their prophylactic and comforting qualities, they were not indicative of a specific denomination for, while more commonly associated with Catholics, textual and visual evidence shows a demand for such pieces among Protestants too. Drawings for IHS pieces feature in a book of jewellery designs by Jacob Mores (c. 1540–1612) who worked for ruling Lutheran families in the Baltic area, and in the album attributed to Arnold Lulls (fl.1585–1640) showcasing his London stock from around 1590, while Arnold asserts the ‘Jhus of golde ennamuled’ that Elizabeth I inherited from Katherine Howard, was likely kept and worn by the Tudor queen.31 This cross-confessional applicability may have made the sacred monogram particularly appealing to Anna. Believed to have converted to Catholicism during her time in Scotland, and to have remained a church papist thereafter, Anna, as I have argued elsewhere, maintained a certain equivocacy about her faith for King James’s political benefit. This allowed her scope for politicking in cross-confessional situations – both domestic and international – wherein she visually, verbally, and textually professed the ‘genuine’ nature of her faith to fellow Catholics in order to further the Stuart position without damaging James’s reputation as a Protestant leader.32 Anna’s ownership and wearing of IHS jewels accords with this agency, constructing her body into a physical sign of a faith that could be interpreted by her co-religionists – Catholic and Protestant alike – as the same as their own. Returning to the aforementioned jewels in Anna’s portrait, between August 1604 and July 1605, Heriot noted a cost of £11.10s. for ‘making of a Crosbowe’ that contained some 23 diamonds, which may very well be that in the portrait, although the account makes no mention of the ruby prominently seen on the string.33 Anna also bought a couple of jewels ‘in forme of a baye leafe’, one of which was supposed to be worn on a hat, and another of which opened for a ‘picture’ (miniature) but both could plausibly be pinned to a collar.34 The clear parallels between the mode of Anna’s painted and documented jewellery, suggest that efforts were made to paint the queen in jewels that she did own and wear, thereby enhancing the reality of the portrayal. Yet, while there are plausible links between the written and pictorial evidence, no pieces of jewellery seen in Anna’s 31 Hackenbroch, Renaissance Jewellery, 136–139; Cocks, Princely Magnificence, 65; no.55; 128, no.G35 and illustrated [both catalogue entries are by Cocks]; Hayward, ‘The Arnold Lulls Book of Jewels’, 233–235. The Arnold Lulls album is now in the collection of the Victoria and Albert Museum (D.6.5–1896); Arnold, Queen Elizabeth’s Wardrobe Unlock’d, 70. Elizabeth may, of course, have favoured this jewel for hereditary rather than religious significance. 32 Field, ‘Anna of Denmark’. 33 NRS, GD421/1/3/28. 34 TNA, LR2/122, fols.15r, 27r-v, 47r. The bay leaf may have been worn as a symbol of fortitude, or perseverance, for the bay tree was believed to be impervious to lightening and Elizabeth I had used the bay tree in this capacity on the obverse of the medal commissioned to celebrate the English defeat of the Spanish Armada, see catalogue entry no.248 by Pieter van der Merwe in Doran, ed., Elizabeth, 238. Elizabeth also owned a set of 12 buttons ‘of gold enamelled grene lyke bay leavis’, which she was presented as a New Year´s gift in 1601, see Arnold, Queen Elizabeth’s Wardrobe Unlock’d, 70.

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portraits can be definitively matched with those in the documents, for the written descriptions are generally too vague and the degree of artistic license is impossible to determine. The accounts and portraits do make one thing certain though: cipher jewels were of particular importance to the queen, with the crowned ‘S’ and ‘C’ or ‘C4’ appearing with startling regularity. These letters held pointed personal relevance for Anna, with the ‘S’ referencing her mother, Sofie of Mecklenburg-Güstrow (1557–1631), and the ‘C’ and ‘C4’ referring to her brother, King Christian IV of Denmark (1577– 1648). Worn about Anna’s body, and commemorated in her visual persona, these jewelled letters were more than sentimental trinkets; they potently visualised the power and prestige of the queen’s familial networks to the international court community. Anna’s use of jewellery and apparel to visualise her political aims commenced with the outset of the English reign. It has been argued that the divergent structures of the two Stuart courts saw Anna lose the active political position she had enjoyed in Scotland when the court moved to England in 1603.35 Her turn to visual means to demonstrate her aims and opinions may very well have been an attempt to counter this loss of verbal power. On 8 January 1604, Anna’s first court masque, The Vision of the Twelve Goddesses, was performed at Hampton Court. The Spanish ambassador, Juan de Tassis, Count of Villamediana (1581–1622), was her guest of honour and she accordingly sat him under a canopy on King James’s right.36 Taking advantage of his presence in a relatively public space, Anna made a conscious vestimentary decision to visualise her ongoing verbal politicking for her eldest son, Henry, Prince of Wales, to marry the eldest Spanish Infanta Anna Maria (1601–1666). By the time of the masque, a Spanish delegation, led by Juan Fernández de Velasco, Constable of Castile (c.1550–1613), had been in England for several months in the hope of brokering a peace agreement, and Anna had used this opportunity to inform Velasco of her wish for a marriage alliance between their two kingdoms.37 In fact, she had ‘secretly brought forward a scheme for the marriage of her son’ so ‘many times and the engagements entered upon on the part of that King [James] went so far’, that Velasco had, on his return to Spain, left ‘a secret instruction for Don Juan de Tassis […] if this negotiation were proceeded with, he might understand what were the conditions upon which it could be admitted’.38 It was during this time that Anna performed in Vision, in which she was observed showing visible favour to Spain with the French ambassador, Christophe de Harlay, Comte de Beaumont (c.1570–1615), reporting that she wore ‘a scarf and a red streamer’ as an express honour to the Spanish ambassador, Tassis, who was likewise attired in red.39 For Tassis, this was likely understood in the context of Anna’s marital aims, 35 Barroll, Anna of Denmark, 9, 34–35; Meikle, ‘A Meddlesome Princess’, 127. 36 Sullivan, Court Masques of James I, 14. 37 Loomie, ‘Toleration and Diplomacy’, 24–27. 38 Gardiner, ed., Narrative of the Spanish Marriage Treaty, 103. 39 Sullivan, Court Masques of James I, 16, 194, Appendix 6. My thanks to Dr. Emma Blomkamp for the translation.

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but it may also have been read by the ambassadors and/or wider audience in the context of the proposed Anglo-Spanish peace, which was also under current discussion.40 Read in this way, Anna’s bodily display could be understood to showcase harmonious relations between the two nations, and add weight to the belief that the English were ready to enter formal negotiations. These two readings are not mutually exclusive however, but aptly demonstrate how visual signs could convey a multiplicity of meaning depending on context and recipient. The event also highlights the politicisation of the royal female body through the addition of specific pieces of apparel; a construction that could likewise be achieved through jewellery. In 1608, Anna again took advantage of the elite audience gathered for a courtly performance – the Masque of Beauty – to make an emphatic visual statement of her desire for a Habsburg bride: this time, she chose to wear the magnificent gold-anddiamond collar that had been gifted by Philip II of Spain (1527–1598) to Mary Tudor (1516–1558) on the occasion of their marriage, and had remained among the crown jewels.41 Adorned with their ciphers ‒ ‘P’ and ‘M’ – onlookers were reminded of the previous Anglo-Spanish marriage, and understood that the Stuart queen, and therefore the monarchy, was desirous to repeat the union. The timing was important, for the marriage of the Stuarts’ eldest son, and heir to the throne, Henry, was being hotly discussed at court and there were several suitors: Savoy, France, Tuscany, and Spain. As is well known, James and Anna favoured Spain, but while the queen’s support has been seen as the result of covert Catholic convictions, there was more at stake in a royal marriage than religion; there were dynastic politics and economics.42 In the first instance, all of Henry’s possible brides were drawn from Catholic kingdoms, for James intended to achieve European peace by alternately marrying his children to Catholic and Protestant partners.43 Of those choices, the Habsburgs were of preeminent pedigree, political might, and land mass, and their unparalleled wealth meant the Stuarts could hope to gain a larger dowry than that offered by Savoy, Tuscany, or even France.44 Moreover, it was well known that Anna was proud of her Austrian Habsburg ancestry, which included, on her father’s side, Isabella of Austria (1501–1526), sister of the all-powerful Holy Roman Emperor, Charles V (1500–1558), who had married Christian II of Denmark-Norway (1481–1559) – Anna’s first cousin twice removed. 40 The Venetian ambassador, Nicolo Molin, confirms that ‘the question of the marriage of the Prince of Wales with the Infanta is not only kept on the tapis but is publicly discussed’, CSPV, vol. 10, 208, no. 325 (13 January 1605). 41 Palgrave, ed., Antient Kalendars and Inventories, vol. 2, 301, no. 9; Ungerer, ‘Juan Pantoja De La Cruz’, 156– 157; Scarisbrick, Tudor and Jacobean Jewellery 14, 53, 75–76. 42 Loomie, ‘King James I’s Catholic Consort’, 309. 43 McCoy, ‘Old English Honour’, 133; Redworth, The Prince and the Infanta, 10–14; Strong, ‘England and Italy’, 63. 44 When Sir John Digby (1580–1654) was attempting to finalise the Spanish match in December 1617, James was expecting to receive a staggering two million crowns (£600,000 sterling). By comparison, Tuscany offered 600,000 ducats (£150,000 sterling) during negotiations in October 1611; Savoy offered 800,000 ducats (£200,000 sterling) in September 1613, as did France the following year. See Mackie, Negotiations, 72; Gardiner, Narrative of the Spanish Marriage, 109–112, 137, 139, 155.

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On the other side, Anna’s great-great-great grandmother was Elizabeth of Austria (1454–1492) from the royal house of Habsburg. Anna repeatedly reminded foreign emissaries of her Habsburg blood, and, in his summary of England, in 1618, Foscarini was at pains to point out that Anna ‘is descended on the female side from the House of Austria in which she takes great pride. She has an intimate friendship with the infanta archduchess [Isabella Clara Eugenia] and calls her sister.’45 As she had done in the context of the masque, Anna visualised these verbal claims by wearing a miniature of Isabella Clara Eugenia (1566–1633). Requested on 24 September 1603, Anna was in possession of the miniature by 28 May 1604, when Charles de Ligne, Princely Count of Arenburg (1550–1616) reported to Archduke Albert (1559–1621) that the Stuart queen had promised to wear the portrait as a token of friendship until her death.46 True to her word, Anna’s repeated wearing of the miniature resulted in Heriot being called upon twice for the ‘mendinge of the tablet’ that contained ‘the infantors picture’.47 Later, during a hunt in August 1615, Anna lost the miniature and, much to James’s chagrin, called a halt to the hunt until it was recovered.48 By this time, Anna was well practiced in the art of using jewelled goods to make visual statements about her exalted kinship ties. She had been doing so since her early years in Scotland.

Personalised Jewels: Miniatures and Ciphers George Heriot’s very first account for Anna, of May 1593, includes two entries for ‘hir majesties Sipher’, one of which was adorned with diamonds and rubies and cost more than a third of the entire bill.49 With this, Anna set the precedent for what was to become a marked pattern of her jewellery patronage: familial ciphers in the form of rings, earrings, pendants, and on miniature cases. Throughout the span of Heriot’s bills, Anna purchased no fewer than seventeen jewels bearing her own letters, many of which were gifts, and a further eleven jewels featuring an ‘S’ for her mother Sofie, or a ‘C’ or ‘C4’ for her brother, Christian.50 Not incidentally, one of the most expensive pieces Anna ever bought from Heriot – at a tremendous cost of £300 ‒ combined Christian’s letters with her own: ‘a jewell with an A and two CC Sett with Diamonds’.51 This configuration was also chosen to adorn a miniature case in 45 CSPV, vol.15, 392, no. 658. 46 Vienna, Haus-, Hof- und Staatsarchiv, Belgien, Repertorium P, Abteilung C, Faszikel 44; 45: Arenberg to Archduke Albert, 24 September 1603; 28 May 1604. My thanks to Luc Duerloo for this reference. 47 TNA LR2/122, fols.37r, 42r: May 1611 and November 1613. 48 Vienna, Haus-, Hof- und Staatsarchiv, Belgien, Repertorium P, Abteilung C, Faszikel 51: Ferdinand van Boisschot to Archduke Albert, 12 August 1615. My thanks to Luc Duerloo for this reference. 49 NRS, GD421/1/3/5. 50 NRS, GD421/1/3/5; GD421/1/3/6; NRS, GD421/1/3/10; NRS, GD421/1/3/12; GD421/1/3/14; NRS, GD421/1/3/16; NRS, GD421/1/3/20; NRS, GD421/1/3/28; NRS, GD421/1/3/43; NRS, GD421/1/3/45; TNA, LR2/122, fols.24r, 25r, 32r, 41v, 43r-v, 44r, 46r-v. 51 TNA, LR2/122, fol.24r.

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diamonds, at a cost of £130, which presumably housed Christian’s portrait.52 Anna owned at least four miniatures of her brother, which, as she informed Christian, she proudly wore on her person ‘with the devoted memory of a sister.’53 In addition to the one just mentioned, a further two of these miniatures allowed for the subject (Christian) to have been readily identifiable, for one was set under rock crystal, and another was in a tablet decorated with his initial (‘C’).54 Anna’s fondness for wearing familial pieces exposed them to damage, and, like the miniature of Isabella Clara Eugenia, Heriot was repeatedly charged with repairing Christian’s miniatures and letters.55 A common sight on the queen’s body, this form of jewellery became indelibly associated with Anna, appropriately forming an intrinsic part of her visual persona. Indeed, familial devices appear in almost all of her portraits – in paint, print, and metal – from around 1610 onwards. An unmistakable form of identification, familial badges were not restricted to the queen’s body but abounded throughout her main residences too. Visitors to Somerset House and Oatlands Palace, for example, were greeted with an emphatic display of Oldenburg pride in the form of her cipher – and that of Christian’s – as well as her personal motto, and/or the Danish coat-of-arms, which appeared on a large quantity of pillows, cushions, mattresses, quilts, pieces of tapestry, blankets, carpets, the backs of chairs, canopies, Cloths of State, and even the frames of mirrors, silver andirons, fire shovels, and comb cases.56 Redolent with personal and dynastic significance, goods marked with badges or devices made suitable gifts, and could be given and/ or worn as signs of loyalty and deference. With Anna’s natal pride and her close relationship with Christian well known at court, Lady Anne Clifford (1590–1676) made the calculated choice to give the queen ‘a Cloth of silver Cushion Embroidered richly with the King of Denmark’s [Christian IV] arms, & all over with slips of tentstitch’, for a New Year’s gift, which must have been warmly received.57 Previously, on Anna’s entry into Edinburgh, ‘a faire jewell, of a great price, called the A, was givin to the queene’, by the burgh.58 It may have been this jewel – richly picked out in table diamonds ‒ that was made into a magnificent hat band, and worn by King James in a portrait sitting around 1595, of which there are at least four surviving variants (Figure 6.1). A prominent feature, the crowned initial ‘A’ casts James as paterfamilias paying visual tribute to his wife, and to the success of the Stuart line, with Anna having 52 TNA, LR2/122, fol.43v. The Fitzwilliam Museum (Cambridge) holds an important surviving miniature of Anna by Nicholas Hilliard and his workshop, where the original case bears a similar arrangement of letters in table diamonds (#3855). 53 Scarisbrick, ‘Anne of Denmark’s Jewellery’, 234. 54 TNA, LR2/122, fols.34r, 41r; NRS, GD421/1/3/26; Scarisbrick, ‘Anne of Denmark’s Jewellery Inventory’, 220, no.278; 233, no.369; Birch, The Court and Times of James I, vol. 1, 67. 55 TNA, LR2/122, fols.20v, 34r, 41r, 43r; NRS, GD421/1/3/21; NRS, GD421/1/3/32. 56 Payne, ‘An Inventory of Queen Anne’, 28–29, 31, 34, 36–37. 57 Acheson, ed., The Diary of Anne Clifford, 97. 58 Calderwood, The History of the Kirk of Scotland, vol. 5, 97.

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Figure 6.1: Attributed to Adrian Vanson, James VI of Scotland, 1595, oil on panel. National Galleries of Scotland, Edinburgh.

fulfilled her primary duty as consort, having safely delivered a son some months prior. In securing the succession, Anna also secured her popularity, for the lack of issue had bred discontent among her subjects who were said to have a ‘great disliking of their Queen, for that she proves not with child’.59 However, personalised ciphers in Scotland and England were, of course, not unique to Anna of Denmark. Their use as a decorative design dates back to King Edward III (1312–1377), while later examples include King Henry VIII (1491–1547), who owned two pendants bearing his letter (‘H’); a surviving portrait of Anne Boleyn (c.1500–1536) in the National Portrait Gallery, London, where she wears a necklace with her hanging cipher (‘B’); and an extant locket ring set with Elizabeth I’s (1533–1603) letters (‘ER’), which was a gift from Edward Seymour, Earl of Hertford 59 CSP Scots, vol.10, 574, no.612 (30 September 1591).

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(1537–1621).60 However, when Anna began purchasing ciphers in Scotland in 1593, it is extremely unlikely that she would have had knowledge that these people owned and/or wore their ciphers as jewels. The exception, perhaps, is the famous cipher jewel ‒ the ‘Great H’ or ‘Great Harry’ – belonging to Mary, Queen of Scots (1542–1587). Originally owned by the French crown, Mary was given this piece following the death of her husband, King François II (1544–1560), and took it with her to Scotland.61 It is unknown whether Anna personally knew about this piece, but, even if she did, the volume of her purchases of jewelled letters ‒ and her frequency of their wear ‒ remains without precedent. We arrive, therefore, at the very likely possibility that this was a tradition she had been exposed to in Denmark-Norway.

A Baltic Tradition? By the mid sixteenth century, the unparalleled skill of goldsmiths and jewellers operating in Nuremburg and Augsburg had led to the development of a Baltic fashion for intricate ciphers and monograms, a fashion which likely arose from the pronounced use of symbolic insignia among the Armagnacs and Burgundians.62 Thus, a large number of royal and elite women (many of whom were related to Anna) possessed their own jewelled ciphers, and chose to wear them in their formal portraits. Pertinent examples include Anna’s aunt – Anna of Denmark, Electress of Saxony – who commissioned numerous personalised pieces of jewellery and owned at least one of her own ciphers (‘A’), which is still extant.63 When her husband, Augustus (1526– 1586), became Elector of Saxony in 1553, he chose to commemorate the event with a jewel that referenced them both: a crowned double ‘A’.64 As Yvonne Hackenbroch has 60 Siddons, Heraldic Badges, vol. 2, part 1, 153–155; See entry by Scarisbrick, ‘Queen Elizabeth’s Locket Ring’, in Doran, Elizabeth, 12–13. There are numerous other examples, but these do not match the consistency with which Anna pursued this line of personalised adornment, or the extent to which she became idenitifed with them in her portraits. Two other examples in England, but brought in from Europe, include a portrait of Katherine of Aragon (1585–1536), from around 1500, in which she wears a necklace with several interlocking links of the initial ‘K’, and the cipher necklace that King Philip II had given Mary Tudor, which Anna later owned and wore, as noted above. See Hackenbroch, Enseignes, 271, 272, Figure 257; for Henry VIII, see Arnold, ‘Sweet England’s Jewels’, 39. 61 NRS, E35/4. It is possible that Anna is wearing the ‘Great H’ in the portrait from around 1603, which survives in two variants: one owned by the Ipswich Borough Council (R.1935–306), and the other by the British Government (GAC #3541). The great ‘H’ is first referenced in Scotland in 1561 as having ‘a large diamond and large cabochon ruby below’. Further, while in France, Mary had two headdresses adorned with Francis’s cipher (‘F’) and two pendants in the form of the letter ‘A’. My sincere thanks to Dr. Michael Pearce for the reference, and for the suggestion regarding Anna’s portrait. See also, Robertson, Inventaires de la Royne Decosse Douairiere de France, 7, 192–193, 196–197; Strong, ‘Three Royal Jewels’, 350–353. 62 Hackenbroch, Renaissance Jewellery, 135; Rublack, Dressing Up, 8. 63 The pendant in the style of Etienne Delaune, from around 1576–1580 is in Grünes Gewölbe, Dresden and illustrated in Hackenbroch, Renaissance Jewellery. 64 Hackenbroch, Renaissance Jewellery, 135. On Anna of Saxony, see Keller, Kurfürstin Anna von Sachen, and Arenfeldt, ‘Gendered Patronage’.

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Figure 6.2: Anna of Bavaria, illustrated jewellery inventory. Bayerische Staatsbibliothek München.

determined, both pieces were made in Southern Germany (most probably Nuremburg), where stylistically similar ciphers were also produced for Anna of Bavaria (1528–1590), and Caterina Jagellonica, Queen of Sweden (1526–1583). Caterina wore her cipher in her portrait by Lucas Cranach the Younger (1515–1586) from around 1533 and later chose to be buried with it, while Anna of Bavaria’s illustrated i­ nventory shows that she likewise owned a pendant bearing her letter ‘A’ in diamonds and

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rubies (Figure 6.2).65 In addition, a surviving book of designs by the Hamburg goldsmith Jacob Mores (c.1540–1612), who worked for the Danish court during Anna’s childhood and several other ruling families in the northern Baltic region, contains many drawings for jewelled letters. Among these are a cipher pendant with ‘CHZSH’ for Christine of Hesse, Duchess of Schleswig-Holstein (1543–1604), who was connected to Anna through marriage, and a jewel of the initials ‘GA’, which was likely commissioned by Christine on the birth of her grandson, Gustavus Adolphus, later the King of Sweden (1594–1632).66 Lastly, Christine’s daughter, Kristina of HolsteinGottorp, and Queen Consort of Sweden (1573–1625), chose to be commemorated wearing a very large version of her jewelled cipher ‘C’ in a portrait from around 1610.67 The spread of this trend into the Dano-Norwegian kingdom in the late sixteenth century is to be expected given the close bonds and geographical proximity that it shared with numerous German principalities including Brandenburg, Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel, Holstein-Gottorp, Mecklenburg, Saxony, and Württemberg.68 Connected by blood, marriage, and political alliance, the kingdom also shared a common language with the German territories, a common religion with much of the Northern German kingdoms, and court dress was also heavily influenced by Germanic trends, and within that, the fashion for jewelled letters. By the latter part of the sixteenth century, they had been readily adopted by members of Anna of Denmark’s immediate family. For example, her younger sister Augusta, Duchess of Holstein-Gottorp (1580–1639), chose to wear identifying letters in formal portraits after her marriage, sitting for Jacob van Doordt (1590–1629) in 1601 in a heavy gold chain with a prominent ‘A’ pendant. Anna’s sister-in-law, Christian’s first wife Anna Catherine (1575–1612), owned a bracelet decorated with the letters ‘AC’, which could have referred to her singularly, or to the couple. Certainly, Christian’s second wife, Kirsten Munk (1598–1658), sat for portraits wearing elaborate pendants that signified the married pair with the intertwined letters ‘K’ and ‘C’, and, in earlier portraits, she is seen wearing Christian’s jewelled monogram ‘C4’.69 These may have been gifts from Christian, who was partial to giving family members his jewelled badges, having given his mother a bracelet with his crowned monogram on the interior links (Figure 6.3), and giving his eldest sister, 65 Hackenbroch, Renaissance Jewellery, 129–136, 150. Anna of Bavaria’s illustrated jewellery inventory is in the Bavarian State Library (Munich) Cod. icon. 429. On the jewels of Anna of Denmark, Electress of Saxony, see Watzdorf, ‘Fürstlicher Schmuck in der Renaissance’; ‘Mielich und die Bayerischen Goldschmiedewerke der Renaissance’. 66 ‘Cat. No. G35: Book of Jewellery Designs’ in Cocks, ed., Princely Magnificence, 128. Gustavus Aldophus’s monogram ‘GA’ is set against Christine’s emblem of the winged heart and hourglass. 67 Stockholm, Nationalmuseum. 68 For an overview of some of Denmark’s multiple connections to German duchies and states at this time, see Lockhart, Denmark, 1513–1660, 158–166. 69 The portrait of Augusta is illustrated in Wade, ‘The Queen’s Courts’, 72, Figure 3.4; and the bracelets are in Heiberg, ed., Christian IV and Europe, nos.630, 631. Several versions of the portrait of Kirsten wearing her cipher survive at Rosenborg, Frederiksborg, and in private Danish collections; see those in Heiberg, op. cit., nos. 66, 113.

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Figure 6.3: Danish made (?), (Possibly by Dirich Fyring in Odense), bracelet with interior links bearing crowned “C4” monogram, c. 1593–1600, hinged links of gold with niello, rubies, and diamonds. The Royal Danish Collection, Rosenborg Castle, Copenhagen.

Elisabeth of Braunschweig-Lüneberg (1573–1626), ‘Ett smycke medt idell demanter oc ett C’ (´A piece of jewellery with diamonds all over and a C´) in 1595.70 Later, in 1611, Christian sent Anna herself a jewel ‘of splendid diamonds forming a C. and a 4, C. for the first letter of his name, and a 4 because he is the fourth of that name’. Given on the eve of his invasion of Sweden, Christian expressly intended the jewel to be a memento, and the accompanying letter informed Anna that he was with the army, ready for the march, and as he is going in person he sends the Queen his Band for which he will have no use at the wars; then he enlarges on the successes he hopes for by land and sea, and expresses himself with the greatest tenderness towards his sister. He adds that he sends her some jewels to keep for his sake.71

This is not an exhaustive list of cipher jewels worn and gifted at the Danish court, but they demonstrate the physical and pictorial currency of personalised jewellery among Anna of Denmark’s ancestors and at the courtly community of her childhood, which influenced both the queen and her siblings. Returning to Anna’s patronage and wearing of cipher jewellery in England, however, there are two years that require particular consideration: 1610 and 1611. It is at this point that familial jewels start to appear in her portraits, and when bills for purchases and repairs are very pronounced. 70 DNA (Danish National Archives),  Diverse akter vedr- afregning og kvittance 1588–1660, B223B. Danske Kancelli, Rentekammeerafdelingen, 1595. My thanks to Camilla Luise Dahl for this reference. 71 CSPV, vol. 12, 162, no.250 (9 June 1611).

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According to her accounts, Anna must have regularly worn ciphers of Christian IV and/or Prince Henry, together with miniatures of Christian and/or Isabella Clara Eugenia, Archduchess of the Netherlands. Decorating the royal body, these pieces of jewellery visually reinforced her verbal assertions of ancestral pedigree, Spanish favour, and a desire for Henry to marry into the House of Habsburg. The year 1610 brought with it Henry’s investiture as Prince of Wales, which rekindled the question of his marriage and England’s future allegiances. Possible suitors included Spain, Tuscany, Savoy, and France, but Anna steadfastly favoured the most prestigious of them all: Spain. In the early months of 1610, the possibility of a StuartHabsburg match was hotly discussed at her court, and it was eagerly reported that ‘there was a close understanding […] between England and Spain, thanks to the Queen […] the Prince of Wales would presently be sent to Spain and the Queen was anxious that he should marry the Infanta’.72 Around this time, Anna had purchased yet another pendant ‘Set with diamonds informe of this Lettre C’, and had to pay Heriot ‘for gold and making of a needle and a Screwe for the Kinge of denmarkes picture’.73 A similar pattern is observable the following year. In the first half of 1611, Anna’s opinion as to Henry’s marriage was regularly sought and it was confidently stated that ‘her Majesty inclines to the Spanish Infanta, of whom she thinks very well’.74 It was also noted that Anna spent one ambassadorial audience talking ‘mostly about her mother, her brother, the greatness of her house’.75 At the same time, she purchased one of the only pieces of jewellery ever to reference directly to her own children, spending £38 on ‘the Princes [Henry] Cipher Sett wth 38 table diamonds’, and she paid Heriot £2.10s. for ‘mendinge of the tablet’ of the ‘infantors [Isabel Clara Eugenia] picture’.76 These purchases and repair charges indicate that, throughout 1610 and 1611, Anna chose to wear combinations of ciphers and miniatures referencing her eldest son Henry, her brother King Christian IV of Denmark, and Isabella Clara Eugenia, the Spanish Archduchess of the Netherlands. In so doing, Anna’s politicised bodily display extended her concurrent verbal politicking to a broader courtly audience beyond individual conversations. Court attendees were well-versed in registering and understanding non-verbal forms of communication, for gesture, space, and visual and material culture were an intrinsic part of diplomacy and ceremonial.77 Catching sight of the queen consort’s body arrayed with these figurative jewels, onlookers would have silently registered her ancestral pedigree and her pro-Spanish position 72 CSPV, vol. 11, 436, no.811 (2 March 1610). 73 TNA, LR2/122, fols.32r, 34r. The tablet was mended in May 1610. 74 CSPV, vol. 12, 182, no.280 (21 July 1611). 75 CSPV, vol. 12, 184–86, no.284 (28 July 1611). 76 TNA, LR2/122, fol.37r. 77 See, for example, Sowerby, ‘Material Culture’, 47–55. This is extended across the social classes by AwaisDean, who, in writing on Tudor and Stuart signet rings, contends that ‘understanding visual imagery’ was important for English citizens generally, due to the ubiquity of ‘signs and symbols […] in this period’, Bejewelled, 94.

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on the question of the future Stuart marriage alliance. In these instances, the relationship between jewel and royal female body was symbiotic, for they depended on each other to generate signification. On the one hand, cipher jewels and miniatures inscribed messages onto Anna’s body through their representational qualities, but on the other hand, it was only in conjunction with the consort’s status and virtues that these signs achieved significant sociopolitical meaning. During times of diplomatic delicacy ‒ such as protracted marriage negotiations with Spain – Anna was able to tailor her bodily display to strengthen the Stuarts’ position. The monarchy’s European networks were thus made visually manifest as court officials and attendees were reminded that the multiple Stuart kingdom was joined to the prosperous and powerful Danish-Norwegian kingdom with its myriad connections to many important German courts and, of course, to the Habsburgs themselves.

Gift-Giving and Exchange For Anna of Denmark, as with other royal women, the politicisation of jewellery and apparel extended beyond those which she wore on her own body to those given and received in the heavily ritualised practice of gift-gifting that cemented formal and informal networks. It has long been recognised that the giving and receiving of gifts was a key component in the creation and augmentation of the patron-client relationships and kinship bonds that underwrote many early modern court systems – Denmark, Scotland, and England included.78 Gifts were routinely presented to foreign rulers and their representatives, household and family members, local elites and favourites; they were given away at weddings and christenings; offered as rewards for devoted service; and exchanged on Valentine’s Day, New Year’s Day, and while on Progress. They commonly took the form of jewels and plate but also included money, animals, plants, garments, soft furnishings, and foodstuffs. Exchanged liberally within the Stuart kingdom, the practice extended to foreign diplomats, other rulers, and faraway relatives. In each case, the ‘gift’ was transacted within established repertoires of sociocultural significance as honour, political intimacy, or favour was performed, and complexities of obligation, connection, gratitude, and reciprocity were created.79 Again, like bodily display, this was an important political power play that was open to women and Anna participated as both donor and recipient.80 In 78 For gift exchange in Tudor and Stuart England, see Harris, ‘Women and Politics’, especially 266–268; Peck, ‘Court Patronage and Government Policy’, 27–46, esp. 28–29; Peck, Court Patronage and Corruption, 30–46; Heal, ‘Royal Gifts’, 283–300; Heal, Power of Gifts; Ungerer, ‘Juan Pantoja De La Cruz’, 149–157. 79 This is a vast and rapidly expanding field of study, but key early modern contributions include those cited in n.77; Algazi et al., eds., Negotiating the Gift; Davis, The Gift; Jansson, ‘Measured Reciprocity’; Groebner, Liquid Assets; Clark, Collecting Art. 80 Key publications on the redefinition of traditional concepts of patronage, and on the social and cultural channels open to, and used by, royal and elite women in England in the advancement of political aims include Harris, ‘Women and Politics’, 259–281; Hufton, ‘Reflections of the Role of Women’, 1–13; Hibbard, ‘The Role of

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April 1606, for example, having realised Anna’s ‘great weight with the King [James]’, Spain determined that it would be beneficial to have the consort’s support of the Stuart-Habsburg match and therefore directed the Marquis de San Germano, ambassador extraordinary, to give her ‘large presents’ in order ‘to win her to their side’. It was no surprise that they chose items of jewellery and apparel.81 Later, the Venetian ambassador, Marcantonio Correr (1570–1638), witnessed Anna giving ‘presents of some value’, to the daughter-in-law of the French ambassador, which he interpreted within the topical question of the Stuart marriage as ‘special signs of graciousness’, promptly informing the doge and senate that France was in high favour and that Prince Henry would marry a French princess.82 On a smaller and more intimate scale, Anna customarily gave away pieces of jewellery. Beyond the copious number of diamond rings that she bought from Heriot as gifts, mentioned above, visual and documentary sources show that she gave her family members and female chamberers pieces of personalised jewelled adornment. Between June and September 1607, for example, Heriot was commissioned to make a diamond-encrusted tablet ‘to be sent to her mats mother ye Queene of Denmark [Sofie of Mecklenburg-Güstrow]’, which must have contained a miniature of Anna herself.83 Further, the queen probably gave jewelled lockets, decorated with various configurations of her own letters, to women in her English court circle. Thus, surviving portraits of Anna Montgomerie (née Livingstone), Countess of Eglinton (d.1632); Margaret Seton (née Hay), Countess of Dunfermline (c.1592–1659); and Elizabeth Grey (née Talbot), Countess of Kent (1582–1651), show them all wearing jewelled tablets adorned with either an ‘A’ or with ‘AR’ for Anna Regina (Figure 6.4).84 Anna’s principal lady-in-waiting, Jane Drummond, Countess of Roxburghe also owned a miniature of the queen and when her property was seized and inventoried by Parliament in 1644, she was still in possession of ‘a picture case set full of Diamonds the midle stone like a heart bigger then the rest, in it Queen Anns picture’.85 In addition to economic and material worth, these objects held high cultural, personal, and political value. Worn prominently at court, the miniature stood proxy for the absent queen consort shaping the aristocratic female body into a site of social privilege and royal intimacy. Further, the representational interior and denotative exterior accrued a Queen Consort’, 393–414; ‘Translating Royalty’, 15–28; ‘“By Our Direction and For Our Use”’, 115–139; Griffey ‘Introduction’; ‘Devotional Jewellery in Portraits of Henrietta Maria’, 165–194; On Display, 14–21; Smuts and Gough, ‘Queens’ 1–13. 81 CSPV, vol. 10, 341, no.515; 350, no.522. 82 CSPV, vol. 12, 133, no.202 (1 March 1612). 83 TNA, LR2/122, fol.24r. 84 Anna Livingstone was a Scottish woman of the Bedchamber; Margaret Seton was not a member of Anna’s household, but was well connected to the queen through her husband, Alexander, Earl of Dunfermline (1555–1622), who was Lord Chancellor of Scotland from 1604 until his death. He was one of the councillors appointed to manage Anna’s finances in Scotland, and her choice for Prince Charles’s governor. Elizabeth Grey performed in Anna’s 1610 masque, Tethys Festival, and was made First Lady of the Bedchamber in 1617 when Jane Drummond was expelled from court. 85 Payne, ‘Aristocratic Women’, 140.

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Figure 6.4: Paul van Somer, Elizabeth Grey, Countess of Kent, c. 1619, oil on panel. Tate, London.

identity and memory beyond the initial act of gifting and wear; by choosing to wear the miniature in a formal court portrait, the female owner/sitter preserved her reputation and royal proximity for posterity. Thus, although meanings shift with materiality and time, even now, after the death of both giver and receiver and the loss of the original miniature, the painting of figure and jewel provides insight into female friendships and allegiances at the early Stuart court.86 86 Clark, ‘Transient Possessions’, 188, 196–197.

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Conclusion During her time as queen consort of Scotland and England, Anna of Denmark commissioned a remarkable volume of jewels from her principal jeweller George Heriot. With a patronage relationship spanning most of two decades, Heriot was tasked with fulfilling the queen’s requests for the jewels wanted for personal use and those to be given as gifts as well as mending those pieces that sustained damage. Heriot’s surviving records evidence Anna’s keen interest in jewels of personal and familial value – those pieces formulated to express her identity and her dynastic pride as a member of the House of Oldenburg. More than mere vanity, however, Heriot’s charges for repairs coupled with Anna’s vocal statements indicate that she regularly wore these jewels where they played a key role in visualising her political aspirations and support. Repeatedly seen pinned to the queen’s chest, collar or in her hair, these familial pieces became intimately linked with her and were accordingly translated into her visual iconography, where they appear with startling consistency. Beyond her own body, jewels personalised with her portrait or her letters were repeatedly chosen by Anna as gifts for dignitaries, family members, and women of her English circle. Read and understood as signs of personal favour, they maintained subject loyalty and familial ties, and cemented sociopolitical relationships. Anna’s affection for personal and familial jewellery was shared by her siblings, all of whom grew up in an affluent court of European sophistication and magnificence that was increasingly tied to, and shaped by, its powerful Germanic neighbours. These influences were seen in Denmark-Norway’s official court language, national religion, and court dress – the latter extending to the marked use of jewelled ciphers and monograms. Anna went on to purchase a substantial number of dynastic jewelled devices in Scotland and England and chose to decorate her principal residences with a quantity of familial badges and her personal motto. Together with her verbal declarations, this visual display amounts to pronounced Danish posturing and raises a distinct possibility: throughout her time in Scotland and England, Anna continued to identify first and foremost as a daughter of Denmark.

About the author Jemma Field is the Associate Director of Research at the Yale Center for British Art. A specialist in Jacobean court culture, she was a Marie Skłodowska-Curie Postdoctoral Fellow at Brunel University London from 2016 to 2018. She is particularly interested in Anna of Denmark as a figure of cultural transfer across the courts of Denmark, Scotland, and England, and she has published articles in Costume, Northern Studies, The British Art Journal, and Women’s Historical Review. Her monograph on Anna of Denmark is forthcoming with Manchester University Press.

7. ‘She bears a duke’s revenues on her back’: Fashioning Shakespeare’s Women at Court Robert I. Lublin

Abstract When Shakespeare first staged his history plays and presented the great kings, queens, lords, and ladies from England’s past, he did so using actors who were all commoners and exclusively male. To present these performers as England’s historical elite, Shakespeare skilfully employed theatrical apparel to visually and materially construct his characters’ gender and social prominence onstage. This essay pieces together historical and textual evidence to establish what was originally worn in Shakespeare’s history plays and how it was understood by the English audience that attended the theatre. Such a study reveals that Shakespeare deftly engaged the visual semiotics of the time to establish and manipulate meaning onstage through the donning, doffing, and changing of silks, swords, crowns, and coronets. Key words: Shakespeare; costume; crown; femininity; Henslowe; anti-theatrical

When Shakespeare rendered England’s highly fraught political history into drama on the late sixteenth- and early seventeenth-century stage, he featured and manipulated theatrical apparel to fashion – literally ‒ gender and power in performance. The actors who performed in the early modern English playhouses were all male, and they were all commoners. Although no law prohibited women in England from performing before 1660, it was the accepted and expected norm that only men and boys would act on the professional stages. Some of these actors became wealthy enough to consider themselves gentlemen and a few even became squires (the great tragedian Edward Alleyn became Squire of the Bears), but none ever achieved a title or a place among England’s nobility. And yet, these male commoners regularly played female aristocratic characters and assumed the roles of ladies, duchesses, and queens. One of the primary ways that they assumed these identities in performance was through the costumes they wore onstage. Considering the importance of costume as a marker of elite identity extends the function of clothing, fabrics, and jewellery from simple coverings to embodiments of gender and rank which, when worn, carried with them assumptions about power and privilege that were Griffey, E. (ed.), Sartorial Politics in Early Modern Europe: Fashioning Women, Amsterdam University Press, 2019 doi: 10.5117/9789462986008_ch07

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immediately recognisable to the early modern English public. While this essay focusses on dress within the performance of Shakespeare’s plays on the early modern stage, its wider relevance to the essays of this volume is to reveal costume as a tool of performance offstage as well as on. Theatrical costuming has only recently begun to receive significant critical attention from Shakespeare scholars, but it is difficult to overstate its importance for the creation of meaning on the early modern English stage. With the apparel that they wore in performance, actors established their identities as men or women and as members of particular social stations to a high degree of specificity. Tracts and sermons from the period devote considerable attention to the gendered expectations that widely established the clothes appropriate for men and for women,1 while sumptuary legislation determined the apparel that could be legally worn at each recognised level of society.2 When actors walked onto the stage, they shared a great deal of visual information about their character with the audience before they ever uttered a line of dialogue, similarly to their real-life noble counterparts. Shakespeare was astutely aware of how clothing was understood in English culture and wrote his plays to speak to his audience, not just with words, but visually through the staging and changing of costume – serving to create identity which could be assumed and discarded according to the play’s requirements. Theatrical apparel did more than merely reveal the wearer’s sex and social station. It also had the ability to further the action of the play through the creation and manipulation of meaning. As Russel Jackson has recently argued: costume should be regarded not as a decoration but as an essential part of what Bertolt Brecht describes as the gestus, defined succinctly by David Edgar as ‘an emblem around and through which the action of the scene unfolds.’3

Recognising the critical role costumes played onstage and off, I wish to explore the manner in which Shakespeare’s history plays employed them to establish and comment upon gender and to reveal female characters’ membership in and movement among various social circles. Even though boys played the women’s parts in performance on the early modern English stage, the illusion of aristocratic femininity was likely almost perfect. Women of all social levels at the time typically wore kirtles (dresses) that consisted of two parts, the bodice and the skirt, which were sewn together or connected with points.4 A Lady’s clothing, however, was designed to shape the form of the body that wore it. The upper half of the noblewoman’s body was covered by the bodice, which 1 Fisher, Materializing Gender, 26. 2 See Baldwin, Sumptuary Legislation. 3 Jackson, ‘Brief Overview’, 10–11. 4 Reynolds, ‘Elizabethan and Jacobean’, 133.

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was typically quite rigid, sometimes bolstered by wood, whalebone, or even iron. The lower half of the body was covered by the skirt, under which ladies at the time typically wore a Spanish farthingale, a drum farthingale, or a bum roll. Wearing a stiff, shaped bodice over the torso and a skirt with a farthingale over the legs, a boy actor likely offered a very feminine visual presentation that reached from the feet all the way up to the neck. This same dress would simultaneously cover and standardise the body of a young noblewoman. For the players, the illusion of femininity did not end there. To play the woman’s part, boy actors regularly wore wigs to present long, feminine, styled hair.5 Additionally, women in early modern England almost always wore headdresses, including French hoods, coifs, and hats. Accordingly, the only part of the male actor that might break the illusion of femininity would be the front of the face. But even the face contributed to the illusion, for boy actors playing the woman’s part often wore makeup.6 The illusion of femininity onstage, therefore, was quite thorough. On some level, no doubt, the audience was aware that the person onstage wearing women’s apparel was actually a boy, and quite a bit of scholarship has addressed the degree to which the actual sex of the actor influenced the reception of performance in early modern England.7 I have considered this issue elsewhere and will not address it here except to note that, ultimately, cross-gender casting seems simply to have been accepted in England as the norm of theatrical representation.8 As Juliet Dusinberre insightfully explains: Were [women] there or not? Of course, physically they were not there. But to assert that is, in my view, to say nothing. Because none of the shadows on Shakespeare’s stage are there. There are no kings, queens, murderers, monsters, fairies, politicians, wise counselors, or even fools. There are only actors. Why should it matter that they are not biologically female, any more than it should matter that they are not royal, Roman, Moors, Egyptian, or Italian?9

I agree with Kathleen McLuskie when she concludes that boy actors playing women must simply have been accepted by the great majority of theatregoers as a convention.10 Otherwise, audiences would have been unable to engage in the dramatic narratives that are premised on heterosexual love and the differences distinguishing men from 5 Fisher, Materializing Gender, 87. 6 Garner, ‘“Let Her Paint an Inch Thick”’, 132. 7 Far more scholarship has examined cross-gender casting and cross-dressing than costuming more generally. Some of the best scholarship addressing these issues includes: Howard, ‘Crossdressing’, 418–440; Orgel, Impersonations; Rackin, ‘Shakespeare’s Crossdressing Comedies’, 115; and Shapiro, Gender in Play, particularly the introduction. 8 Lublin, ‘Anxious Audiences’, 66–73. 9 Dusinberre, ‘Women and Boys Playing Shakespeare’, 251. 10 McLuskie, ‘The Act, the Role, and the Actor’, 121.

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women.11 Whenever we work with theatre, we are working with conventions. The illusion of femininity, therefore, is precisely what we wish to explore when we consider the construction of gender in performance. Even if a woman were playing a female character, the gender would need to be established by the actor’s costume and dialogue since she could play a range of female roles or even a male part. The illusion is the essence, and the illusion of femininity on the early modern English stage was methodically constructed and manipulated by both the lines an actor spoke and the theatrical apparel he wore. Illusion, insofar as the world of the play is concerned, constitutes reality. The illusion of social prominence was also very convincing on the early modern English stage. Some of the clothes worn in performances had actually previously belonged to members of the nobility. In 1599, the Swiss traveller Thomas Platter visited England and recorded in his journal: it is the English usage for eminent lords or knights at their decease to bequeath and leave almost the best of their clothes to their serving men, which it is unseemly for the latter to wear, so that they offer them then for sale for a small sum to the actors.12

David Scott Kastan observes, ‘the silk suit that permitted the hireling to look askance at his social betters no doubt belonged to one when new’.13 The theatrical entrepreneur Philip Henslowe kept a diary of his work-related activities that includes an inventory of costumes for 1598. In that inventory, we find a list of the company’s theatrical apparel, including clothing appropriate to the very highest levels of society. The ‘womanes gown of cloth of gowld’ and the ‘yelowe satten gowne ymbradered with sylk&gowld lace, for women’ were reserved in English society for countesses and their social betters but were worn in performance by apprentice boys playing for Henslowe’s company.14 Henslowe’s diary additionally lists the amount he paid for some of the articles of apparel that were worn in his stage productions. What we learn from these payments is that individual costumes frequently cost considerably more than the plays themselves. For a new play, a playwright would typically receive £6. To buy the velvet, satin, and taffeta for Cardinal Wolsey’s robe of office for the lost play Carnowlle Wollsey, Henslowe paid an astounding £21. Jean MacIntyre and Garrett Epp explain, for the ‘Elizabethan men’s companies, their costumes and properties amounted to their most important investment; the accumulated stock might have cost them more than their theaters cost to build.’15 Sometimes copper was used as a cheaper alternative to gold for embellishing theatrical apparel, but the cost of costuming performances was exorbitant.16 Theatrical companies understood that theatrical costuming was critical 11 Howard, ‘Crossdressing’, 435. 12 Platter, Thomas Platter’s Travels, 167. 13 Kastan, Shakespeare After Theory, 161. 14 Henslowe, Henslowe’s Diary, 323. 15 MacIntyre and Epp, ‘“Cloathes Worth All the Rest”’, 279, 284. 16 Jones and Stallybrass, Renaissance Clothing, 190–191.

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to the practice of staging plays in early modern England and devoted their financial resources to guaranteeing they could deliver. Theatre companies demonstrated a commitment to staging actual clothing that previously had been worn by the nobility or nearly identical articles purchased or constructed for the purpose. And yet, it is important to note that the apparel worn onstage at the time did not exactly mirror what was worn in English society. Rather, Shakespeare fashioned an idealised, fictional society onstage with the apparel he prescribed for his plays. This staged sartorial world was indelibly connected to the real one by the rules that applied to both, for they shared visual semiotics that were defined by the historical moment. The visual semiotics of social station, for instance, were well understood by the numerous sumptuary laws passed throughout the reign of Queen Elizabeth, appearing in 1559, 1562, 1566, 1571, 1574, 1580, 1588, and 1597. The frequent passage of sumptuary legislation during Elizabeth I’s reign makes it clear that the laws often were not followed.17 Ann Rosalind Jones and Peter Stallybrass conclude that they were more honoured in the breach than the observance, with English men and women frequently dressing beyond the limits appropriate to their birth and station.18 Onstage, however, it was essential that a character’s social standing be immediately apparent, and the clothes an actor wore guaranteed they would be.19 Characters typically engaged the action of the play from the vantage of their particular social station, and that required costumes that made their place in the body politic immediately apparent. In those dramatic instances when a character appears in clothes that do not accurately represent the wearer’s social status, the dialogue clarifies the situation and the action of the play typically works to correct the impropriety.20 Unlike English society, the world of the stage accurately reflected its social hierarchy in the clothes that people wore. However, such a comparison demonstrates that costume worked as a tool of social presentation in both. Aristocratic femininity, therefore, was staged in early modern England through the wearing of particular articles of apparel that were understood on sight as belonging appropriately to women and to the nobility. Shakespeare’s history plays, although chronologically situated in the past, bear no evidence that they were costumed in anything but contemporary, late sixteenth-century apparel. The clothing worn to personate aristocratic women was appropriate to the moment when the plays were staged, not when they were set. The single most important item of apparel that asserted social prominence both onstage and in English society was the crown. The crown was particularly important for Shakespeare’s history plays, even more than his comedies and tragedies, since the two tetralogies address the War of the Roses, when civil war made the metonymic crown the prize for England’s warring nobility. 17 Benhamou, ‘The Restraint of Excessive Apparel’, 34. 18 Jones and Stallybrass, Renaissance Clothing, 188. 19 Hunter, ‘Flatcaps and Bluecoats’, 25–27. 20 Lublin, Costuming the Shakespearean Stage, 57. 21 Henslowe, Henslowe’s Diary, 320–321.

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Throughout Shakespeare’s history plays, ‘crown’ and variations on the word appear in the dialogue and stage directions with remarkable frequency. Here are the number of times the word appears in the two tetralogies: 1 Henry VI: 16 times

Richard II: 24 times

2 Henry VI: 36 times 3 Henry VI: 73 times Richard III: 24 times

1 Henry IV: 10 times 2 Henry IV: 16 times Henry V: 30 times

In the early modern theatre, crowns were more than literary allusions. They were actual crowns, worn onstage by the actors, and often asserted meaning in performance before they were addressed in dialogue. The crowns worn in the theatres were not of a uniform variety. Henslowe’s diary includes an inventory of his company’s properties, and there we find listed ‘three imperial crowns, one plain crown’, ‘one ghost’s crown, [and] one crown with a sun’.21 The importance of this list of crowns increases when we note that some or all of Shakespeare’s Henry VI plays were performed by Strange’s Men at the Rose Playhouse when it was owned by Henslowe.22 The crowns Henslowe lists may be the very ones worn in performance when Shakespeare’s first tetralogy was originally staged in the early 1590s. The most important types Henslowe mentions are ‘plain crowns’ and ‘imperial crowns’, for the two draw a distinction between monarchs and emperors (also called imperial monarchs). Monarchical crowns are typically open at the top, ending in points. Imperial crowns, on the other hand, have the points of the monarchical crown curve inward and come together in the middle, forming a dome. From textual evidence, we can determine that, throughout the first tetralogy, including 1 Henry VI, 2 Henry VI, 3 Henry VI, and Richard III, characters fought to wear an imperial crown. 2 Henry VI begins with the eponymous king being called ‘your high imperial Majesty’ (1.1.1).23 And, in Richard III, the crown is addressed directly as ‘Th’ imperial metal, circling now thy brow’ (4.4.382). There are no extant images of Shakespeare’s history plays in performance whereby we might see exactly what the imperial crown looked like onstage, but we can get a sense of its opulence from 3 Henry VI, in which King Henry, currently in disguise, describes it: My crown is in my heart, not on my head; Not decked with diamonds and Indian stones, Nor to be seen: my crown is called content: A crown it is that seldom kings enjoy. (3.1.62–3.1.65) 22 Wells and Taylor, William Shakespeare, 113. 23 All Shakespeare quotes are drawn from Evans, The Riverside Shakespeare.

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Although merely a stage prop, the crown worn in Shakespeare’s first tetralogy bore the shape of imperial state and the magnificence of majestic splendor. An imperial crown was also worn when Shakespeare’s second tetralogy was staged, for in 2 Henry IV, Hal sees the crown lying on a pillow next to his seemingly dead father and says ‘My due from thee is this imperial crown’ (4.5.41). The crown, which Hal takes and puts on his head, is almost certainly the one worn in 1 Henry IV, and that is the one Richard II removes from his own head in Richard II before proclaiming ‘God save King Henry’ (4.1.20). None of the actual monarchs depicted in either of Shakespeare’s tetralogies claimed to be an emperor. The practice of calling the English throne an imperial monarchy dates to Henry VIII and his break with Rome. And yet, imperial crowns appear irregularly in images of English monarchs, starting with Henry V in an apparent attempt to visually assert imperial grandeur.24 Staging the War of the Roses near the end of the sixteenth century, Shakespeare raises the stakes by having England’s nobility struggle for a decidedly imperial prize. In addition to suggesting social supremacy, crowns carry gendered implications in Shakespeare’s plays and are worn differently by men and women. Whereas the men fight and die to win and wear a crown, the women in Shakespeare’s history plays do not necessarily lose their life, crown, or title when the monarchy switches hands. Thus, in Richard III, several queens walk the stage and interact with one another.25 Queen Margaret, Henry VI’s widow, retains her title to rail against her husband’s enemies after he has been murdered. Similarly, Edward IV’s widow, Queen Elizabeth, lives on to lament the death of her husband, the murder of her sons, and Richard III’s desire for her daughter. We cannot say with absolute certainty that these queens continued to wear crowns in performance on the early modern stage after their husbands died and the monarchy switched hands, but there is compelling textual evidence affirming that they did. The First Quarto version of Richard III (1597) was most likely a text of a performance of the play reconstructed by memory, and the script bears signs of the play’s theatrical presentation.26 Most significantly for our purposes, Queen Margaret is introduced in the Quarto with ‘Enter Qu. Margaret’ and, throughout the text, her lines are preceded with ‘Qu. Mar.’, ‘Qu. Ma.’, or Qu. M.’ The actual name changes slightly but her title is never excluded. Similarly, Queen Elizabeth is labeled ‘Qu.’ throughout the Quarto. The full significance of the title ‘queen’ for these two women can be appreciated when we note the manner in which the Quarto records Richard’s change in station. Richard, Duke of Glocester, switches from ‘Glo.’ to ‘King’ and ‘King 24 Hoak, ‘The Iconography’, 59–60. 25 The word ‘dowager’ was first coined during the reign of Henry VIII to refer to his sister, Mary Tudor, Dowager of France. The term appears in Henry VIII to refer to Katherine as the princess dowager, referencing her previous marriage to Prince Arthur. If Shakespeare wished, he could have anachronously used the term to weaken the titles of Queen Margaret and Queen Elizabeth in Richard III. By choosing not to, the plays stage several, overlapping female monarchs. Sokol and Sokol, Shakespeare, Law, and Marriage, 168. 26 Siemon, ‘Introduction’, 420.

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Ri’ after he dons a crown. With absolute fidelity, the Quarto records the titles for the characters so that they align with the social stations they occupy, verifying that Queen Margaret and Queen Elizabeth wore crowns on their heads in performance. What is more, these crowns serve as more than mere relic or ornament. The crowns worn by the queens prove a heavy burden to both. Queen Margaret and Queen Elizabeth both suffer the murder of their families. The crowns women wear in Shakespeare’s history plays physically and visibly mark them as targets for great loss. The crown’s association among women with suffering explains why Lady Anne directly references this grief when she is sent for by Richard III to be crowned queen. Like the other queens onstage, she too has suffered the murder of her family, and that pain is visibly referenced onstage by the queen’s crown. She states: O would to God that the inclusive verge Of golden metal that must round my brow Were red-hot steel, to sear me to the brains! (4.1.58–4.1.60)

Lady Anne wants the very crown that would make her a queen to be the instrument of her destruction, since it was desire for the crown that stole from her a husband and a father-in-law (Prince Edward and Henry VI). Noting each of the queen’s powerlessness, misery, and morality, Phyllis Rackin has concluded that, in Shakespeare’s history plays: ‘Helplessness seems to be an essential component of female virtue.’27 As women who wear crowns, these characters prove incapable of changing the future but have a unique vantage point from which to view the horrors of the past. If we look beyond the queens, we find aristocratic women in Shakespeare’s history plays who actually possess agency, but, in an inversion of Rackin’s assertion linking helplessness and virtue, they inevitably pay a high price for exercising power. The apparel these characters wore contributed critically to how they were originally understood in performance. Appearing early in 1 Henry VI, Joan La Pucelle (Joan of Arc) is quite formidable, offering the most significant threat to the English forces in the play. Visually, her identity is defined by the contradiction between her female sex and the armor she wears. In the early modern era, armor belonged exclusively to men. Further, Joan carries and wields a sword. Shakespeare’s cross-dressed women sometimes wore swords, like Olivia (dressed as Cesario) in Twelfth Night, but they were not able to use them – courage and violence at this time fall within the purview of masculinity. Helena states in A Midsummer Night’s Dream, ‘I am a right maid for my cowardice’ (3.2.302). Joan boldly carries a sword, and when the Dauphin challenges her to single combat, she defeats him. Joan breaks with culturally and historically held mores that delineated how men and women ought to appear and act. 27 Rackin, ‘Women’s Roles’, 73.

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How can Joan’s apparent anomaly be reconciled with Elizabethan society’s expectations of correct societal dress? This conflation of masculinity and femininity, in which women dressed and sometimes acted beyond their gender prescribed limits, started to appear more commonly in literary works at the end of the sixteenth century and increased in frequency going into the seventeenth century. In these writings, women were invariably rebuked for their transgressions, being insulted, punished, or satirised for daring to wear men’s clothing or act in manly ways.28 Thomas Dekker’s The Seven Deadly Sins of London (1606) denigrates the prideful women who wear masculine apparel as ‘Mens Shee Apes’.29 William Harrison, in his 1587 survey of London, notes with disdain the tendency of women to appear publicly in men’s clothing: ‘I have met with some of these trulls in London so disguised that it hath passed my skill to discern whether they were men or women.’30 Harrison’s use of the word ‘trull’ to describe women who dress inappropriately reflects the tendency at the time to accuse women who transgress social mores with sexual transgression as well. We find this to be the case again and again in Henry VI. Talbot notes Joan’s distinctive dress when he says that his troops flee and ‘A woman clad in armor chaseth them’ (1.5.3). He follows this by saying ‘But I will chastise the high-minded strumpet’ (1.5.12). Burgundy similarly suggests Joan’s unrestrained sexuality when he calls her a ‘vile fiend and shameless courtesan’ (3.2.45). Talbot is later quoted as calling Joan a ‘giglot wench’ (4.7.41). And Joan’s own father calls her a ‘cursed drab’ (5.4.32). Joan’s decision to wear armor and fight with a sword is repeatedly derided in sexual terms. On the early modern stage, clothing was of the essence, and a woman’s willingness to flout expectations regarding what she is supposed to wear naturally suggests that she is sexually dissolute as well. Which is also to say, Joan’s masculine clothing raises suspicion and concern because her social presentation is at odds with the identity society expected and demanded from her. Because Joan’s costume does not meet the requirements for women in the play (or in Elizabethan England), it follows that her character and actions are naturally subversive and a threat to moral society as well. The antitheatrical writer Philip Stubbes, in Anatomie of Abuses (1583), provides an explanation of why English society was determined to restrict women from dressing in men’s apparel. Our apparel was given us as a sign distinctive to discern betwixt sex and sex, & therefore one to wear the apparel of another sex is to participate with the same, and to adulterate the verity of his own kind. Wherefore these women may not improperly be called Hermaphroditi, that is, monsters of both kinds, half women, half men.31 28 Clark, ‘Hic Mulier, Haec Vir’, 160. 29 Dekker, The Seven Deadly Sins, 36. 30 Harrison, The Description of England, 147. 31 Stubbes, The Anatomie of Abuses, 38.

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Reading Stubbes alongside other anti-theatrical writers, Rackin has argued that, in early modern England, sexual ambiguity came to be understood primarily in terms of the hermaphrodite, ‘a medical monstrosity or social misfit, an image of perversion or abnormality’.32 Stephen Orgel urges caution when reading the work of early modern polemicists: ‘It is necessary to remember that antitheatrical tracts are pathological. They share assumptions with the culture as a whole, but their conclusions are eccentric.’33 And yet, in this quote, Stubbes seems merely to summarise the widely held notion that men and women had clothes and visual signifiers that were appropriate to each and that mixing the two was nothing short of monstrous. It is for this reason that the Witches in Macbeth are visually defined by their juxtaposition of masculine and feminine visual signs. Banquo says ‘You should be women, / And yet your beards forbid me to interpret / That you are so’ (1.3.45–1.3.47). The Witches are perversions of the natural order and their outward appearance mirrors their inner reality. Joan’s outward perversion in dress therefore suggests her inner corruption. Dress signifies inner identity. In 1 Henry VI, Shakespeare actually reifies and reinforces the extremity of Stubbes’s argument linking cross-dressing and monstrosity by presenting Joan as a practising witch who summons fiends and has fed them with her blood. Jean Howard and Rackin have noted that ‘Joan’s witchcraft is closely related to her appropriation of masculine dress and masculine behavior.´ Edward Hall, a major historiographic source for Henry VI, Part I, links Joan’s masculinity with her demonic power when he describes her as ‘this wytch or manly women’.34 But Shakespeare, as is so often the case, outdoes his source material. Hall conflates the term witch and the notion of the manly woman. Shakespeare goes much further by visibly marking Joan with the semiotics appropriate to both men and women and then revealing that this contradiction signifies a range of sins and transgressions. In addition to practising witchcraft, Joan is the daughter of a shepherd, a commoner, who had her out of wedlock. Joan’s father appears onstage and admits ‘She was the first fruit of my bach’lorship’ (5.4.13). Joan derives from base stock and sexual indiscretion, and she carries the mark of her parents’ sin. Moreover, before the play concludes, her father curses Joan himself: ‘Now cursed be the time / Of thy nativity! I would the milk / Thy mother gave thee, when thou suck’st her breast, Had been a little ratsbane for thy sake! […] O burn her, burn her! Hanging is too good’ (5.4.26– 5.4.33). Lastly, Joan proves to be sexually debauched, realising the veracity of the insults levied against her throughout the play.35 Desperate to avoid execution, Joan first claims to be a virgin, and when that fails to deter the English, she admits to being pregnant, demanding the right to a stay of execution until the child is born. Joan’s 32 Rackin, ‘Androgyny, Mimesis’, 29. 33 Orgel, Impersonations, 35. 34 Howard and Rackin, Engendering a Nation, 45; Jackson, ‘Topical Ideology’, 64; Hall, The Union, 157. 35 Sousa, Shakespeare’s Cross-Cultural Encounters, 45–46.

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admission follows one of the play’s sources, Holinshed’s Chronicles, which says that she did ‘confesse hir self a strumpet, and (unmarried as she was) to be with child’.36 For the popular stage, Shakespeare pushes Joan’s immorality further, questioning the paternity of the unborn child, and Joan suggests that several men could be the father. For defying sexually and socially accepted norms, Joan is condemned to death by burning. The action of the play punishes Joan for her transgressions, which are visually signified onstage in the inexcusable incongruity between her female identity and her masculine apparel. On the early modern stage, costumes speak to the wearer’s essence, and for the women in Shakespeare’s history plays, the donning of clothing that contravenes strongly held cultural mores carries grave consequences. In 1 Henry VI, Joan audaciously wears apparel appropriate for men and pays with her life. In 2 Henry VI, Eleanor Cobham, the Duchess of Gloucester, is similarly doomed to fall due to her transgression of sartorial rules, this time the ones that govern social station. Queen Margaret highlights Cobham’s social offence when she proclaims: Not all these lords do vex me half so much As that proud dame, the Lord Protector’s wife: She sweeps it through the court with troops of ladies, More like an empress than Duke Humphrey’s wife. Strangers in court do take her for the Queen. She bears a duke’s revenues on her back. And in her heart she scorns our poverty. Shall I not live to be aveng’d on her? Contemptuous base-born callot as she is, She vaunted ‘mongst her minions t’ other day, The very train of her worst wearing gown Was better worth than all my father’s lands, Till Suffolk gave two dukedoms for his daughter. (1.3.75–1.3.87)

It deserves note that, as a duchess, Cobham could dress as sumptuously as she wished. The laws governing apparel throughout England’s history list the countess at the highest rung of the ladder of control. More elite noblewomen had unrestricted freedom of choice. Thus, Queen Elizabeth’s Royal Proclamation of 1597 reads: ‘For Womens Apparell. Her Maiestie doeth straightly charge and command, That Cloth of Golde or Silver Tissued’ and ‘Silke of coulor Purple’ shall not be worn by those ‘under the degree of a Countesse’ except ‘viscountesses to wear cloth of golde, or silver tissued in their kirtles only’. For the women who hold the rank of countess (wife to an earl), marchioness (wife to a marquis), or duchess, there were no limits to the clothes one could wear. 36 Bullough, ed., Narrative and Dramatic Sources, 77.

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Figures 7.1a-e: Queen Elizabeth’s 1597 Proclamation Against Excess of Apparel. The Queen’s College, Oxford.

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Maria Hayward has argued that ‘The Duchess’ clothes reveal her ambition to all that see her.’37 In performance on the early modern stage, Cobham likely appeared in ostentatious clothing, but it must be noted that she was permitted to wear the most sumptuous apparel, for dukes and duchesses were expected to dress according to their vaunted status as the highest ranking peers of the realm. Shy of the royal crown, a duchess could legally and appropriately don any clothes she wished to wear, up to and including purple silk inlaid with gold and silver tissue. Cobham’s attendants, however, are constrained by limits that do not apply to the duchess. Queen Elizabeth’s 1597 legislation permits ‘Gentlewomen attendant upon Countesses, Viscountesses or Ladies of the like or higher degree’ to wear the same 37 Hayward, ‘The Compass of a Lie’, 39.

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apparel as was appropriate to a knight’s eldest son’s wife. A duchess’ attendants, therefore, could wear kirtles made of velvet or satin but were forbidden from embellishing them with embroidery, gold, or silver, and they certainly could not wear cloth of gold or silver. The sumptuary laws list a range of fabrics and embellishments that easily could be presented onstage as clear violations of the rules governing the apparel appropriate to attendants. The 1597 proclamation actually addresses the issue twice, for, later in the document, we find a separate statement that focusses specifically and exclusively upon attendants serving the most elite noblewomen: ‘Gentlewomen attendant upon {Duchesses, Marquesses, Countesses,} may weare in their Liveries given by their mistresses, as the wives of those that may dispend C.li. [one hundred pounds] by the yeere, and are so valued, vt supes [and above].’ Thus, Cobham may break the spirit of the sumptuary laws by wearing ostentatious apparel, but she could only break the actual letter of the law with her ‘troops of ladies’ whom she dresses at personal expense as an extension of her own preeminence.38 The queen, and the queen alone, should have attendants who dress so extravagantly for hers are typically drawn from the highest ranks of the nobility and could wear finer apparel in their own right. A noblewoman’s rank was therefore visible immediately not only from her own attire, but from the attire of those who surrounded her. The significance of attendants to the staging of monarchy and nobility on the early modern English stage has drawn less attention than it deserves. A survey of Shakespeare’s history plays (and many of his other plays as well) reveals that ‘attendants’ who have no lines quietly appear in the stage directions preceding a great many scenes. There is every reason to believe that actors performed these roles when the plays were originally staged. Examining the acting profession in early modern England, John Astington has found that theatrical companies in the last two decades of the sixteenth century regularly used doubling (and tripling, quadrupling, and more) as well as hired men (non-shareholders) to fill the stage.39 When Shakespeare’s plays are performed in the 21st century, non-speaking attendants are frequently excluded, likely for financial reasons, but that constitutes a significant break with original practices.40 Attendants are particularly important to the history plays with their casts of noble and royal characters for, as Stephen Greenblatt explains, ‘the hallmark of power and wealth in the sixteenth century was to be waited on by others’.41 The men and women that attend upon the nobility and monarchy serve as the visual signs of the individual’s social prominence, and they were a regular feature on the early modern English stage.42 38 Starkey, ‘The Age of the Household’, 255. 39 Astington, Actors and Acting, 126–127. 40 Brown, Shakespeare and the Theatrical, 169–170. 41 Greenblatt, Shakespearean Negotiations, 29–30. 42 Anderson, A Place in the Story, 65. Jones and Stallybrass argue that the livery system was entering into a state of crisis in English culture at the end of the sixteenth century, but that crisis does not figure into Shakespeare’s history plays, which quietly and unquestioningly present attendants alongside their masters. Jones and Stallybrass, Renaissance Clothing, 18.

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In 2 Henry VI, Cobham exceeds the limits of her social station with her entire visual presentation, which includes her own apparel as well as that worn by her many attendants. Shakespeare compounds the sinfulness of her sartorial transgression by presenting it as the visual cognate to her pursuit of witchcraft, for which she is convicted of treason. As punishment, the duchess is stripped of the signifiers of nobility. As Hayward writes, ‘Cobham’s spectacular fall was presented to the audience visually. Denied the symbols of power that she had assumed illegitimately, she appeared barefoot, dressed in a penitential white sheet, with verses pinned to her back and a taper in her hand.’43 We can take this one step further by noting that Cobham was additionally shamed publicly by being presented alone. As a duchess, she typically was sumptuously dressed and surrounded by followers. Now, undressed and unattended, Cobham has been visually divested of her social self. It is not extravagant to surmise that, in a theatrical world dependent on the power of representation, she now occupies the role of an entirely different character. In a dramatic culture that stages attendants and recognises their importance, their absence proves highly significant. The queens in Richard III continue to wear the crowns that bespeak their connection to the monarchy, but they lack the attendants that are crucial to social prominence. Queen Margaret notes Queen Elizabeth’s fall in status when she scornfully asks ‘Where be the bending peers that flattered thee? Where be the thronging troops that followed thee?’ (4.4.95–4.4.96). The visual signs of majesty include more than just a crown. Queen Margaret and Queen Elizabeth occupy a specific social category as queens who are no longer married to the ruling monarch, and the absence of liveried followers coupled with their crowns visually marks their complex place in the body politic. The importance of one’s entire visual presentation proves to be particularly significant to the circulation of power in Richard II, a play that is often respected most for its use of language and not so much for its spectacle.44 The play opens with King Richard entering the stage wearing a crown, carrying a sceptre, and attended by numerous nobles and attendants. Through the course of the action, he is divested of all three, until, at the end of the play, he appears crownless, empty-handed, and alone (5.5). Henry Bullingbrook follows a diametrical visual trajectory. Both the first Quarto and the first Folio list Bullinbrook entering onto the stage without any attendants (1.1.20).45 Later in the play, when he enters to receive the crown and sceptre from Richard (4.1), Bullingbrook is accompanied by a retinue of lords and ecclesiastical leaders. When he dons the crown and receives the sceptre, Bullingbrook becomes Henry IV by adding the final pieces to a multifaceted image of monarchy. 43 Hayward, ‘The Compass of a Lie’, 39. 44 Bolam, ‘Richard II’, 141. 45 Some modern versions, including the Riverside Shakespeare, list attendants along with Bullingbrook. The practice of listing attendants began with Edward Capell’s 1768 edition of Shakespeare’s works. There is no evidence before that date that Bullingbook was accompanied by attendants.

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The visual impact of Richard II reaches a particular pitch near the end of the play when Richard, bereft of his crown and accompanied only by a guard, appears before the queen. The gendered rules that we saw in the first tetralogy’s Richard III regarding crowns maintain in the second tetralogy as Richard II’s queen appears wearing her crown and, for the moment, attended by her ladies. The deposed king is doomed to death, but the queen will live on to endure the pain that befalls the crowned women in Shakespeare’s history plays. Shortly, she will leave her attendants behind and go to France, mirroring the social progression made by Queen Margaret and Queen Elizabeth after their husbands were killed. In his last history play, Henry VIII (1613), Shakespeare again invoked the distinctive visual signifiers of female monarchy, including the crown and royal attendants, but deployed them in a new way.46 Queen Katherine appears throughout Henry VIII as a noble queen and virtuous wife. The Duke of Norfolk praises her as one ‘That, like a jewel, has hung twenty years / About [King Henry’s] neck, yet never lost her lustre’ (2.2.31–2.2.32). Even Queen Katherine’s rival for the king’s affection, Anne Bullen,47 affirms her noble nature and laments her fall: So good a lady that no tongue could ever Pronounce dishonor of her – by my life, She never knew harm-doing – O, now after So many courses of the sun enthroned, Still growing in a majesty and pomp, the which To leave a thousandfold more bitter than ‘Tis sweet at first t’ acquire. (2.3.3–2.3.9)

Queen Katherine’s majesty appears visually in the crown she wears as well as in the retinue of women who attend her. When the scheming Cardinal Wolsey urges her to withdraw into her private chamber to discuss privately her possible divorce, Katherine, like a true monarch, demands that the issue be addressed publicly before her women who now serve as her royal court: ‘Speak it here; / There’s nothing I have done yet, I’ my conscience, / Deserves a corner’ (3.1.29–3.1.31). With her words and actions, Queen Katherine shows herself worthy of the crown she wears and the court she keeps. Moreover, Katherine recognises her own worthiness and refuses to abdicate when urged to do so, saying that only death can take from her the crown or her husband: ‘I dare not make myself so guilty / To give up willingly that noble title / Your master 46 Henry VIII was co-written with John Fletcher. The particulars of their collaboration are not a significant concern to this essay since it is the production that appeared onstage and how it was seen by those in attendance that I wish to explore. 47 The name Boleyn was spelled several different ways before, during, and after the reign of King Henry VIII. “Boleyn” is the spelling typically used in modern histories, but there is nothing extraordinary about Shakespeare spelling the name “Bullen.” Parsons, “Some Notes”, 386–405.

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wed me to. Nothing but death / Shall e’er divorce my dignities’ (3.1.139–3.1.142). When her crown is taken from her, Katherine shows her greatness by falling sick: her majesty (and its material visual representation) is connected to and equated with her life – the removal of one naturally destroys the other. Shakespeare further strengthens this connection by changing the date of Katherine’s death to before Queen Elizabeth’s birth.48 In Shakespeare’s play, Katherine does not linger as princess dowager, wife to Henry VIII’s deceased older brother Prince Arthur. Rather, both her position as queen and her life are visually manifested and connected onstage by the queen’s crown, which she can be parted with only in death. Katherine’s tragic fall serves to reify the power of theatrical apparel to signify one’s true essence onstage. Her vision, in which six Spirits of Peace enter in white robes and three times hold a garland of bays over her head, suggests that she has lost her earthly crown but achieved salvation and earned a crown in heaven.49 With her last, extended speech, Katherine further reinforces the visual signifiers of female monarchy. Divested of the crown, her final concerns before she dies are for the women and men that have served her and attend her still. She asks Lord Capuchius, lord ambassador from the Emperor, to ‘have some pity / Upon my wretched women, that so long / Have follow’d both my fortunes faithfully […] The last [concern] is for my men (they are the poorest, / But poverty could never draw ‘em from me)’ (4.2.139–4.2.149). Although bereft of her crown, Katherine is determined to die a queen. Her final words address her funeral, which she asks to be carried out in royal fashion: ‘Although unqeen’d, yet like / A queen, and daughter to a king, inter me’ (4.2.171–4.2.172). Katherine’s death strengthens the visual signifiers of female monarchy in Shakespeare by once again showing the mortal consequences of breaking the rules that append to them. In addition to its staging of female monarchy, Henry VIII also presents scenes of particular pomp and ceremony, beyond what appears in Shakespeare’s earlier history plays. The production’s visual splendor is mentioned in the earliest reference to the play, written by Sir Henry Wotton after he saw the Globe burn down during a performance of Henry VIII: The King’s players had a new play called All Is True, representing some principal pieces of the reign of Henry 8, which was set forth with many extraordinary circumstances of pomp and majesty, even to the matting of the stage; the Knights of the Order, with their Georges and Garter, the guards with their embroidered coats, and the like: sufficient in truth within a while to make greatness very familiar if not ridiculous.50 48 Foakes, ‘Shakespeare’s Other Historical Plays’, 225. 49 The issue of Katherine’s death and vision are complicated by her Roman Catholicism. Judith Anderson has gone so far as to suggest that, for the play’s overwhelmingly Protestant audience in 1613, the vision, while appealing, is ‘at the very least ambivalent’. Visually, however, the scene ignores the nuances of religious controversy and quite decisively asserts Katherine’s salvation. Anderson, Biographical Truth, 134. 50 Quoted in Evans, The Riverside Shakespeare, 1022.

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The ‘extraordinary circumstances’ to which Wotton alludes include the trial of Katherine, the coronation procession for Anne Boleyn, and the christening of the infant Elizabeth. All three scenes draw directly, although with creative revision, from Holinshed and include extensive details of the individuals involved and how they appeared. In addition to many carefully dressed and accoutered men, several women figure prominently in the coronation procession for Anne Boleyn and in the christening of Elizabeth. The Duchess of Norfolk appears in both, and the manner of her appearance is noted in the stage directions describing Queen Anne’s coronation: ‘The old Duchess of Norfolk, in a coronal of gold wrought with flowers, bearing the Queen’s train.’ The duchess’ coronet represents a virtually new accoutrement in Shakespeare’s plays. A single coronet appears in King Lear but is never worn, and very few references are made to coronets in other plays. Otherwise, this distinctive headwear is entirely absent from Shakespeare’s works. In this one scene in Henry VIII, however, they are worn by all of the elite noblemen and noblewomen in attendance, including the Marquess Dorset ‘crowned with an earl’s coronet’; the Duke of Soffolk ‘in his robe of estate, his coronet on his head’; the Duke of Norfolk, ‘a coronet on his head’; and ‘Certain Ladies or Countesses, with plain circlets of gold without flowers’ (4.1.36–4.1.37). The dialogue that follows these stage directions addresses the coronets, confirming that they were worn in performance and clarifying what they mean: 2. Gentleman: I take it, she that carries up the train Is that old noble lady, Duchess of Norfolk. 1. Gentleman: It is, and all the rest are countesses. 2. Gentleman: Their coronets say so. (4.1.51–4.1.54)

The presence of coronets in this scene is made more significant by the fact that the headwear is entirely absent from Holinshed’s description of the coronation, which otherwise provides a visually expansive description of the event and often details the rich apparel that individuals wore. The use of various coronets represents an innovative choice for Henry VIII and provides a way to manifest materially the different levels of nobility that attend the new queen, who is dressed in a manner that visually asserts her social superiority over all others: ‘the Queen in her robe, in her hair, richly adorned with pearl, crowned’ (4.1.36–4.1.37). Magnificently attended and appearing in the most sumptuous apparel, including a crown, Anne Bullen assumes her position as queen in familiar yet spectacular fashion. In this manner, Henry VIII embellishes, even as it reinforces, the visual signifiers for nobility and monarchy that maintain in Shakespeare’s other history plays. By way of conclusion, I must acknowledge that this study of Shakespeare’s women at court makes virtually no mention of several of Shakespeare’s history plays, including 1 Henry IV, 2 Henry IV, Henry V, and 3 Henry VI. The reason lies in the

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severely limited number and size of female roles in many of Shakespeare’s histories. As Rackin explains, ‘of all the dramatic genres that were popular on the Elizabethan stage, the English history play was the least hospitable to women’.51 In the plays that go unaddressed, the few female characters that appear demonstrate no clear signs of breaking or even bending the visual expectations that append to one’s social or sexual role. In Henry V, for instance, Katherine fulfills her socially and sexually prescribed obligation to marry the man that conquered her father’s kingdom and killed her countrymen.52 No mention of her apparel appears for she speaks, acts, and appears as she ought to according to the expectations of the time and the drama. In Hamlet, Polonius says ‘Apparel oft proclaims the man’ (1.3.72). In Shakespeare’s history plays, apparel unequivocally proclaims the woman, for female characters are confined to strict social and sexual roles which have cognates in the clothes they wear that were well understood by the English men and women that attended the theatre. Proper apparel and appropriate actions, however, do not guarantee that female characters will prosper. Shakespeare’s aristocratic women who dress and act according to the expectations of their gender and social station cannot assure themselves a happy ending, for their fates are indelibly tied to the fathers, husbands, and sometimes sons who govern them. King Richard II’s queen dresses, speaks, and acts like unblemished royalty, and yet she lives to see her star fall due to no fault of her own. On the other hand, when Shakespeare’s women at court exercise agency beyond the strict limits of their sex and station, they reflect that power in the apparel they wear, which visually marks them for their certain downfall. When the women in Shakespeare’s history plays break with the visual expectations appropriate to their gender or their social station, tragedy inexorably follows and they are doomed either to die or live on wearing the apparel that visually proclaims their fallen state.

About the author Robert I. Lublin is Professor of Theatre Arts and former Chair of Performing Arts at the University of Massachusetts, Boston. His scholarship focusses primarily on early modern English visual and material culture, and he is the author of Costuming the Shakespearean Stage and contributing co-editor of Reinventing the Renaissance: Shakespeare and His Contemporaries in Adaptation and Performance. He additionally publishes widely in theatre and film history.

51 Rackin, ‘Women’s Roles’, 73. 52 Altman, ‘“Vile Participation”’, 32.

8. How to Dress a Female King: Manifestations of Gender and Power in the Wardrobe of Christina of Sweden Julia Holm

Abstract Christina Vasa (1626–1689) was crowned King of Sweden in the middle of the seventeenth century, an era in which sartorial politics and manifestations of power in clothing were a part of life. This article deals with the importance of clothes for Christina of Sweden and her strategies to present herself in a manner that legitimized her as a sole regent, in the context of gender and royal power and seen through the accounts of the Royal Wardrobe. By systematising and analysing the content of these accounts, it becomes apparent that Christina used her clothes to create a royal persona that had a given place on the royal scene, not only in a Swedish context but also in a European one. Key words: Christina Queen of Sweden; sartorial politics; the Swedish court; the Royal Wardrobe; gender; dress history

Christina Vasa of Sweden was crowned with the official title King of Sweden on 20 October 1650, after already having ruled as monarch for six years.1 At her coronation, she was dressed in white and silver garments and a purple cloak lined with ermine, which together connected traditional values with modern ones. The appearance and design of Christina’s garments would have been instrumental for her to legitimise and assert her power despite being a woman, and to create the persona of a successful monarch of a powerful nation.2 They would also have been a way for her to connect herself to desirable social and cultural contexts, such as an heiress of the Vasa family line or a participant in the European court scene. Many historians and art historians have studied Christina’s life – her childhood as the only heir of the Vasa dynasty, the years between 1644–1654 when she was a reigning monarch, and the last and longest part of her life, which she spent in Rome 1 In most historic research about Christina, her name is spelled Kristina which is the more usual Swedish spelling. I have chosen to spell it ´Christina´, since that was how she herself spelled it. 2 Hayward, ‘Dressed to Impress’, 81; Vincent, Dressing the Elite, 79.

Griffey, E. (ed.), Sartorial Politics in Early Modern Europe: Fashioning Women, Amsterdam University Press, 2019 doi: 10.5117/9789462986008_ch08

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after abdicating the throne in favour of her male cousin Karl X Gustav (1622–1660).3 When it comes to her clothing habits, the combined sources on Christina’s clothing are contradictory. Most research conducted tends to rely on portraits and other types of written sources discussing her as a person and her clothing, such as personal and diplomatic letters. While in Swedish national propaganda Christina was presented as a forerunner of culture and cultivation, and likened to a Minerva of the North, some eyewitness accounts suggest that she did not always follow conventional women’s dress habits.4 Some even say that she liked to wear men’s clothing or that she dressed carelessly.5 She has also been accused of being wasteful and frivolous with the state funds, accusations that modern research has started to question.6 However, a lot of the research on Christina and her life does also tend to highlight her clothing as divergent from seventeenth-century concepts of gender and power. Therefore, a discussion on her clothing based on primary sources are of vital importance for the understanding of Christina as a monarch and as a person, but also to grasp the seventeenth-century understanding of the relationship between gender and clothing, queens and politics. The most direct approach would be to study the remaining garments, but since there are none, except for her coronation cloak, one of the most direct sources on Christina’s clothing are the accounts from the Royal Wardrobe. Most of these remain in the Royal Palace Archives, itself a part of the Swedish National Archives. The Royal Wardrobe was the part of the royal court responsible for the procurement and maintenance of Christina’s clothing, both for special occasions and everyday wear. Since the accounts are structured according to the timeline in which Christina acquired her garments, and in addition contain detailed information about these items, a systematic analysis of their content can be made. The information given for each garment can vary in terms of the amount of detail and the type of descriptive factors since the notes were not made to provide full descriptions but rather short, helpful notes to keep track. Some details, such as date, type of garment, colour, costs, and the kind and amount of the used materials, are almost always present. Other details such as fabric patterning, quality of the material, and notes on construction frequently occur. By comparing these descriptive factors and their occurrence, this essay aims to show how such an analysis of the wardrobe accounts from 1644 to 1654 can answer questions about Christina’s sartorial strategies, something which has not been done before. It will show how the factors and their occurrence played a part in Christina’s sartorial strategies to present herself as a legitimate king of Sweden, despite being a woman. 3 Grundberg, Ceremoniernas makt, 15; Rodén, Drottning Christina, 17–18. 4 Aurelius, ‘Den stora föreställningen’, 40–41; Österberg, ‘På samhällsstegens högsta topp’, 342. 5 Nilsson, ‘Tankar om kvinnokönet’, 16. 6 Grundberg, Ceremoniernas makt, 170.

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Figure 8.1: David Beck, Christina of Sweden, 1650, oil on canvas. Nationalmuseum, Stockholm. The portrait incorporates the four elements, of which the queen supposedly symbolises the element of fire.

A Coronation with a Touch of French Fashion On 20 October 1650, Christina was crowned King of Sweden in Storkyrkan in Stockholm; David Beck painted this portrait the same year (Figure 8.1).7 The fact that a woman was crowned king might seem odd, but the title was just that, a title that came with a specific position in society. It also signified a higher legitimate authority than ‘queen’, which referred only to the king’s spouse. In the early seventeenth century, the law was changed so that women could inherit the Swedish throne if there was no suitable male heir. Crowning Christina ‘king’ instead of ‘queen’ indicated that her position was equal to that of a male monarch.8 This, however, was only a formality; in documents and speech, 7 Grundberg, Ceremoniernas makt, 178. 8 Falkdalen, Kungen är en kvinna, 133.

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she seems to have been called a queen.9 In order to avoid confusing the reader, for this essay I will use the term monarch for a male or female person who rules the country in his or her own right, except for when it discusses kingship specifically.10 Christina was born in Stockholm in 1626 as the daughter and only child of Gustav II Adolf (1594–1632) and Maria Eleonora of Brandenburg (1599–1655). During this time, Sweden was right in the middle of what was later known as the Thirty Years’ War, in which Gustav II Adolf played a great part as the leader of one of the most powerful nations and a major player in the Protestant side of European politics. Just like a lot of other nations in Europe during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, Sweden also went through a process of solidifying the government and creating a modern state. When Christina was only a few years old, the possibility that he would not produce a male heir became clear to Gustav II Adolf, partly due to the queen’s high number of miscarriages, and partly because he spent a lot of time away from home due to the ongoing war.11 He decided that his young daughter would be raised to become a monarch instead of having a traditional upbringing for noble and princely females. By doing so, he made sure that the throne would stay in the Vasa family line.12 For Christina, this meant that she would have a rather unconventional childhood, considering the contemporary view on gender, which was firm in its belief of the separate nature of men and women and their respective societal roles. She was raised, not to be a mother and wife, which was the norm for women of her standing, but rather to become the king of Sweden, as she was eventually crowned. This did not mean that Christina was raised like a boy, but there was no female equivalent to the knowledge and skills considered necessary for a monarch to possess, so, in these aspects, she received the same education a male child would have had. Because of this, she was taught some of the same subjects as a male heir to the throne would have been, such as rhetoric and languages.13 This is, however, likely one of the things that has led to some of the controversies surrounding her gender. Christina’s coronation did not occur in connection to her coming of age and inheriting the throne in 1644. Instead, it took place in 1650.14 Originally, the coronation was planned to take place in 1647, but it was postponed until after the formal end of the war, which ended in 1648–1649. Postponing a coronation in this manner was not considered unusual, but rather practical because of the time and effort it took to organize such an event. To follow Swedish tradition, the coronation should have taken place in Uppsala Cathedral where Christina’s predecessors in the Vasa family were crowned. But because she wanted to invite guests from other parts of 9 Falkdalen, Kungen är en kvinna, 132. 10 Falkdalen, Kungen är en kvinna, 16. 11 Rodén, Drottning Christina, 48. 12 Grundberg, Ceremoniernas makt, 147. 13 Rodén, Drottning Christina, 58. 14 Grundberg, Ceremoniernas makt, 174..

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Europe, it was decided that it would be easier for them to travel to and to find proper accommodation in Stockholm, and so it was instead decided that the coronation would take place in Storkyrkan.15 For the monarch and the court to be able to stage a coronation worthy of the European court scene, two delegations were sent to Paris to purchase clothes, fabrics, and goods that would suit the monarch and her royal household. These were no mere shopping trips, but serious state matters, with several dignitaries leading the 50 representatives, who were ordered to dress properly so that the French would not consider them as savages.16 Both delegations were led by the nobleman Magnus Gabriel de la Gardie (1622–1686), the monarch’s close friend and Colonel of the Life Guards, while Christina stayed at home. Johan Holm, Christina’s personal tailor, also took part in both visits. The first group of representatives went in 1646, in time for what was to be the original date of Christina’s coronation.17 When the coronation was postponed, another delegation travelled to Paris in spring 1650. Meanwhile, the clothing from the first visit seems to have been used or put into storage in the Royal Wardrobe, awaiting the actual coronation. Unfortunately, the accounts from the 1646 delegation are lost, but the ones from 1650 have been preserved to this day. According to the accounts from 1650, the purchases from the excursion to Paris were extensive. Furniture and interior decorations were bought for the royal palaces, as well as huge amounts of fabrics and garments, mainly from the French tradesmen Monsieur Bidal and Monsieur Guerin.18 Examples from the wardrobe accounts include a bed coverlet in silk satin decorated with gold and silver lace, and an unspecified amount of grey velvet patterned with incarnadi (carnation) and green flowers intended for, among other things, nine chairs. The obtained goods also included decorations for the coronation chariots.19 The dress material purchased for Christina has been divided into three groups in the accounts. The first group contains finished garments consisting of six klädningar (a unified suite of clothes), one överkjortel (‘gown’), one nattkjortel (comparable to an överkjortel, a short discussion about this garment will follow), and five bodices made of perfumed leather. Matching accessories came with the garments, but only three sets of garters and shoe decorations were specified as decorated with beadwork to match the garments they accompanied. It should be noted that a klädning was a unified suite of clothes that, for women, always contained either an överkjortel or a nattkjortel and included various accessories. This means that the six klädningar listed contained either an överkjortel or a nattkjortel, but the accounts do not reveal which one. Two of these garments were also lined with ermine, something that, by tradition, was part of royal ceremonial dress.20 15 Rodén, 106. 16 Pylkkännen, Barokin pukumuoti Soumessa, 19. 17 The accounts from the wardrobe for the first delegation in 1646 have unfortunately been lost, but the accounts for the second delegation in 1650 still exist and are located at the Royal Palace Archives. 18 Rangström, ´Tre pfalziska lejon’, 118. 19 Tydén-Jordan, Kröningsvagnen, 30. 20 Pylkkännen, Barokin pukumuoti Soumessa, 126.

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Figure 8.2: Samples of black ribbons bought by the delegation in 1650.

The next group includes material kits for eighteen sets of clothing that were to be constructed in Paris and subsequently sent to Sweden. The garment kits contained a specified amount of outer fabrics as well as lining and decorations but lacked the

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other kinds of material usually used for this kind of garment such as thread and structuring materials. These materials were to be bought by the tailor when the assembly was to take place. Notes in the accounts show that some of the garments from both groups were partly remodeled to fit their recipient upon arrival in Sweden.21 Another reason for changing the garments was so that they were better suited to the current fashion among the Swedish nobility, which had its own ideals even if it took inspiration from France.22 The main change seems to have been the addition of a waistband created from scraps of fabric or lace. These changes were not made by Johan Holm, but by another tailor at the Royal Wardrobe named Olof Vontein. No explanation as to why is given in the accounts, but the reason may be that Johan Holm at that time had been given other, more significant assignments within the court structure.23 These first two groups show a strong theme of colour and material in the outer layer of fabric. In the first group, four klädningar were black, one was grey, and one was described only as a dunkel-färgad (‘a dark shade’).24 The överkjortel was blemorent (a light blue shade) and the nattkjortel incarnadi (a red shade). In the second group of garments, black continues to be a dominating colour: no less than fifteen of the eighteen klädningar were black. The last three were in color defeu (an orange shade), incarnadi, and blemorent. Most garments were made either in velvets or other qualities of pile weaves, or in glossy-surfaced silk fabrics such as taffeta, moiré, and satin. A few were created out of fabrics, such as grosgrain, which could have a mixed or unspecified fiber content. Two of the outer fabrics are described as being either new or having a checkered surface, which would have implied that they were patterned, but there are no comments in the accounts regarding their material composition or weave. One of the klädningar from the last group was made in brocade. The final group contains large amounts of fabrics, bobbin lace, decorative ribbons, smaller accessories, and sewing materials (Figure 8.2). In this group, the materials range from very fine with high-quality velvets and silks to more modest everyday fabrics, for example, ‘32 aln fint svart hållandskt kläde’ (32 aln of fine black Dutch cloth), ‘80 aln Incarnadi silks knyttning’ (80 aln of incarnadi silk bobbin lace), and ‘12 par hjortläderhandskar med svarta band garnerat’ (12 pairs of deer leather gloves decorated with black ribbons).25 Due to its size, this group of material was likely bought as stock for the Royal Wardrobe to be used in the coming years.26 Not everything in this group would have been made into garments for the monarch herself but would have been utilized for others within the court. 21 SLA, Klädkammaren, Reviderade Räkenskaper II, B 35, 31–40. 22 Aneer, ‘Elsa Beata Brahes Begravningsdräkt’, 31 23 Aneer, Skrädderi för kungligt bruk, 118. 24 ‘Dunkel’, Svenska Akademiens Ordbok, accessed 6 May 2018 at https://www.saob.se/artikel/?seek=dunkel-f% C3%A4rgad&pz=6#U_D2173_212982 25 The ‘aln’ was the standard measure of length for fabrics. At the time, it measured 0.5938 metres. Aneer, Skrädderi för kungligt bruk, 57. 26 SLA, Klädkammaren II, Reviderade Räkenskaper, B 33:2, 4 R.

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Figure 8.3: Henrik Münnischhofen, Magnus Gabriel De la Gardie and Maria Eufrosyne av Pfalz-Zweibrücken, 1653. Nationalmuseum Stockholm.

Several of the garments from the two first groups stand out as extravagant and display extraordinary details. There are, for instance, garments covered in beadwork, a detail which is absent in the garments from the rest of her rule. The bead-covered dresses can be compared to the burial dress of Elsa Beata Brahe (1629–1653), a Swedish noblewoman at the very top of society who was the daughter of Per Brahe the Younger, seneschal of the realm, and married to Adolf Johan, the younger brother of Karl X Gustav, who was to inherit the throne after Christina’s abdication.27 An examination of her burial dress in 2011 revealed that the överklädning was completely covered in beadwork. Studies of the production of the embroiderers in Stockholm indicates that these kinds of garments were not made in Sweden at the time but had to be ordered from abroad.28 The dress is much like the beadwork-covered dresses that 27 Aneer, ‘Elsa Beata Brahes Begravningsdräkt’, 311. 28 Aneer, ‘Elsa Beata Brahes Begravningsdräkt’, 321.

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were acquired for Christina in Paris, with a cut matching the mid-century style and a waistband added to it like the ones added to Christina’s garments as described in the wardrobe accounts. It is likely that this garment was not made solely for the burial, which renders it possible that this was something Magnus Gabriel de la Gardie, who was Elsa Beata Brahe’s sister-in-law’s husband, brought with him from the delegations’ visits to the French capital.29 The burial dress also shares a strong resemblance to the dress worn by Maria Eufrosyne of Pfalz-Zweibrücken in the portrait of her and her husband, who was none other than Magnus Gabriel de la Gardie, painted in 1653 (Figure 8.3). According to Swedish tradition at that time, the monarch-to-be should be dressed in white and silver clothes and a purple cloak during the coronation ceremony. The garments were to be designed in a way that was true to tradition, but there would also be room for personal or fashionable touches.30 Eyewitness reports from the ceremony stated that Christina accordingly wore a white klädning with silver decorations that had been purchased in Paris.31 She had rejected the cloak worn by both her father Gustav II Adolf, made for one of his predecessors Erik XIV (1533–1577), the monarch of Sweden 1560–1568, in favor of a new one, which had also been brought home by the Paris delegation.32 The cloak Christina wore at the coronation was made of purple silk velvet, lined with ermine and decorated with several crowns in beadwork. It was later used by several monarchs and somewhat remodeled to fit the tastes of the new wearers. It is now kept by the Royal Armoury Museum in Stockholm as one of Christina’s few surviving garments (Colour Plate 7).33 After the ceremony, she redressed for the various festivities that lasted for several days. For instance, a white satin klädning was created for her to be worn during a ballet held after the coronation. However, the wardrobe accounts reveal that the materials for this dress were bought in Stockholm and not in France like the coronation klädning.34 There is no mention of the coronation klädning in white and silver or the purple cloak in the wardrobe’s accounts, maybe because these garments were purchased during the delegation’s first visit to Paris in 1646 at the time of the first estimated coronation date and were simply placed in a storeroom awaiting the coronation. This explanation is supported by notes in the accounts from 7 October 1650 about materials used for remodeling the (already existing) coronation klädning, such as silk thread used to fasten the skirt, canvas used to support the sleeves and the collar, and a considerable amount of white ribbons in silk taffeta used as fastening devices. Up to the coronation date, an array of various small items, such as gloves, ribbons, and stockings, 29 Aneer, ‘Elsa Beata Brahes Begravningsdräkt’, 311 and 322. 30 Ekstrand, ´1600-talets vita kröningsdräkter i Livrustkammaren’, 227–229, 247. 31 Tydén- Jordan, Kröningsvagnen, 49. 32 Ekstrand, ‘1600-talets vita kröningsdräkter i Livrustkammaren’, 232. 33 Rodén, Drottning Christina, 108; Livrustkammaren, Inventarie nr: 6213 (3447). 34 SLA, Klädkammaren, Reviderade Räkenskaper II, B 35, s. 51

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appear in the accounts, which suggests that there were continuous preparations and last-minute arrangements. There is nothing in the accounts from the purchases in 1650 or any other year that matches the purple cloak, and, even if there are garments that could possibly match the eyewitness accounts of Christina’s coronation klädning, nothing is marked as such. Considering the amount of detail in the notes on the identifiable factors of the garments in the overall accounts, and the importance such a garment would have had, it therefore seems unlikely that the coronation garments were among the garments acquired in 1650. Before the coronation, Christina also had to choose between two crowns, something that is worth including even if it is not clothing, strictly speaking, and therefore was not included in the wardrobe accounts. One was the crown made for Erik XIV, which was also used by Christina’s father, Gustav II Adolf. The second one was made for her mother, Maria Eleonora of Brandenburg, at the time of her coronation. The queen’s crown had been remodeled to fit a monarch, but Christina nevertheless chose Erik XIV’s crown.35 The choice of clothes and other regalia such as the crown for the coronation ceremony would have been very important for Christina. It would also be an opportunity to show that the king’s title and power, as well at the social order of society, was determined by a higher power and incorporated into the fabric of nature.36 In Sweden and the rest of early modern Europe, this ceremonial act was central for understanding the rules and structures of one’s society.37 The coronation had the purpose of a transitional ceremony in which royal power was transferred from the past king to the next in line and of legitimizing this transition as part of a divine and natural order. In the case of Christina, the previous context of male royal power was now going to incorporate a female ruler and it was therefore much more important for her to present a strong image than it would have been for a man, because of the prejudices surrounding women in positions of power.38 In the coronation ceremony, the monarch’s function was expressed in relation to his or her person and legitimized through socially accepted rituals. For such a ritualistic interaction to take place, a gathering of people were needed as participatory spectators who, as a group, would agree upon the legitimacy of the ritual. Material objects, such as coronation clothes and regalia, were associated with royal power and were expected to be utilized on occasions like this for the ritual. An individual’s function in this setting was identifiable through his or her clothes, accessories, and attributes, such as the regalia. By tradition, these attributes were part of a male context, since the context of royal power was considered male.39 The way in which Christina used clothing to present herself would have been vital to be accepted as a legitimate monarch, but, after a childhood at court, she would have been familiar with 35 Grundberg, Ceremoniernas makt, 176. 36 Grundberg, Ceremoniernas makt, 23. 37 Grundberg, Ceremoniernas makt, 17. 38 Hayward, ‘Dressed to Impress’, 92. 39 Hayward, ‘Dressed to Impress’, 81–82.

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the connection between clothing, royal power, and wealth.40 Her choice of garments suggests that she was well aware of what was required of her, considering the white and silver colour of the klädning as well as the design of the cloak, which had strong similarities with the coronation robes of previous male monarchs. By using Erik XIV’s crown, she marked her function as a king and a legitimate heir in the Vasa dynasty. Christina also placed herself in a European fashion and cultural context by purchasing the klädning and the cloak in Paris. This strategy seems to have been successful since the cloak was used by several male monarchs after her. This suggests that the cloak remained a successful symbol of royal power, despite being made for a woman.41

The Swedish Royal Wardrobe and the Everyday Clothes of Christina as a Monarch The staff of the Royal Wardrobe sewed, mended, remodeled, and bought clothes and accessories for the princely family members, and they also took care of interior textiles used to furnish the royal castles and palaces. The wardrobe also collected and cared for pieces of clothing and interior textiles that were considered important as symbols of the Swedish monarchy, such as garments of past kings and queens, which is one of the reasons a lot of these clothes have been preserved to this day.42 Specialists from other parts of the court or external contractors, such as embroiderers, shoemakers, and skinners, were brought in when necessary, which is why the parts of clothing and accessories that were handled by these groups cannot be found in the wardrobe accounts.43 To maintain the order of its operations, the Royal Wardrobe kept books of its work in the form of annual account ledgers. From Christina’s nearly ten years of rule, eight of the yearly account books are still extant. This means that the account books can be used for a comparative analysis of Christina’s clothing, both for special occasions and for everyday wear. The collection of garments that appear in the accounts is quite similar to what one would have expected from a woman of Christina’s stature during the seventeenth century. For princely and noble women of seventeenth-century Sweden, it was common to have separate klädningar for everyday use and more festive occasions, with these having the same basic cut and model. The differentiating factor was found in the material and decorations of the garments. Fashion changes in women’s dress were usually rather subtle and affected mainly the length of the bodice and the shape and decorations of the neckline and the sleeves.44 40 Reynolds, In Fine Style, 21. 41 Ekstrand, ´1600-talets vita kröningsdräkter i Livrustkammaren’, 232. 42 Aneer, Skrädderi för kungligt bruk, 45. 43 Aneer, Skrädderi för kungligt bruk, 44–45. 44 Pylkkänen, Barokin pukumuoti Soumessa, 268.

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Figure 8.4: A page from Queen Christina’s wardrobe account book of 1647.

A sample page (Figure 8.4) helps to clarify how the accounts are structured and what kind of information they can provide. Since the posts in the ledgers are sorted

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in chronological order, it is possible to follow the production of garments during the years covered. The posts are sorted by klädningar in lists stating the type of material used for each specific garment and the amounts of material needed. The klädning was, as already stated, a unified suit of clothes that was worn every day and consisted of an överkjortel or a nattkjortel and an underkjortel (a waist skirt). Since the överkjortel or the nattkjortel was the main garment, the frequency with which these appear in the accounts gives an idea of how many sets of clothing Christina acquired throughout the year. The total number of överkjortlar and nattkjortlar over the period, including the eight finished garments and the eighteen material kits purchased from Paris in 1650, amounts to 203. Split over the eight years covered by the accounts, this equals about 25 sets of clothing per year, even if the actual numbers vary slightly. The klädning would also include various accessories called tillbehör (‘accessories’), which included smaller garments like socks, gloves, and garters, and decorative accessories for hats, shoes, gloves, and various parts of the dress. Some of the accessories were reused and paired up with different garments, but most of them seem to have been made to match a specific klädning by coordinating colours and materials. Gloves and stockings, except for linen stockings, were not made by the wardrobe’s tailors but were bought from various traders and kept in a stockroom until they were needed. Silk stockings were occasionally dyed to match a particular klädning. Another part of the klädning was the favörer. These were separate decorations created by ribbons and bobbin lace arranged as elaborate bows and bunches. Favörer were fastened on hats, gloves, överkjortlar, underkjortlar, and nattkjortlar as decorative elements. Wearing conspicuously arranged favörer became popular in France during the 1630s, and the decorations were given many different names such as favor, galant moderne, or petit oye. The trend caught on in Sweden and became immensely popular among the nobility in the decade before the middle of the century, when favörer were considered an important part of dress for both men and women.45 These bunches soon grew to include large amounts of materials, and the extravagance became a focus of critique and ridicule.46 In the wardrobe accounts for Christina, favörer follow almost every klädning, matching the other garments in extravagance and colour schemes. They are sometimes marked for a specific piece of clothing such as an överkjortel or a hat, but they are mostly included in a klädning as a separate accessory. Shoes and hats were not considered part of the klädning, but hats appear in the accounts in the same way as gloves and stockings. Hats were not commonly used by women during the middle of the seventeenth century, according to portraits, but considering the amount of hats and decorations for hats noted in the accounts, it seems that Christina considered them an important part of her overall outfit.47 Shoes 45 Aneer, ‘Elsa Beata Brahes Begravningsdräkt’, 313. 46 Pylkkänen, Barokin pukumuoti Soumessa, 95. 47 Aneer, ‘Elsa Beata Brahes Begravningsdräkt’, 313.

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were made by the court’s shoemaker, who operated as a separate part of the court and not within the wardrobe. Decorations for shoes and hats follow almost every klädning in the accounts.48 Even though no significant difference existed between indoor and outdoor clothing, there were occasions when additional clothing was required, such as for travelling or rainy weather. This was also true for Christina, who travelled a lot between the royal castles and palaces. Three to nine garments, such as jackets, coats, vests, and cassocks, were made for her for these purposes every year. They would be entered in separate posts after the klädningar. For example, on 5 July 1649, a klädning marked for travelling was made for Christina out of dunkelfärgad serge, with the överkjortel and the underkjortel decorated with a fair amount of gold and silver lace and ribbons, as well as perfumed leather for the bodice of the överklädning. With this came a pair of gloves, some shoe decorations, hat decorations, a cassock in scarlet cloth, a pair of stockings, and an underklädning (‘under dress’). Later the same year, a coat in scarlet cloth and a red jacket were made for Christina specifically for travelling.49 There were also some matching decorations for a hat and a pair of stockings. The coat and the jacket were both decorated with an abundance of gold and silver buttons as well as some gold and silver ribbons. The socks for both these occasions were made in wool or silk and wool blend tabby fabrics and they were sewn by the wardrobe staff, which was unusual, since stockings were usually bought in bulk from traders. Both pairs had also been dyed to match the rest of the garments. These were apparently not only practical garments but clothing with a purpose: to be seen in an outdoor context. The entry on the sample page (Figure 8.4) is from 21 December 1647, and shows a klädning consisting of an överkjortel, an underkjortel, gloves, and favörer. Black uncut velvet, patterned with flowers and lined with black silk tabby, was used to make the överkjortel. It was decorated with two kinds of black silk lace and two kinds of ribbons, as well as gold and silver favörer. Baleen and various qualities of linen and wool fabrics were used for constructive purposes. The överkjortel is followed by the underkjortel. It was also black and the same uncut velvet was used for its construction, but it was lined with black taffeta and decorated with some ribbons and silk buttons. According to the accounts, Christina also received a pair of gloves and some gold and silver fabrics for favörer for the hat and gloves, as part of the klädning. As for colours, Christina seems to have preferred dark colours such as black, since slightly more than half of the överkjortlar and nattkjortlar are black. No other colour comes even close to that dominance. In fact, there is an array of different colours both in the överkjortlar and the nattkjortlar. Grey and brown colours such as grått (‘grey’), dunkelt (a dark brown-grey shade), silverfärgad (‘silver coloured’), and musk (a brown shade) are prominent, but there are also others like blemorent, incarnadi, and citronfärgad (‘lemon coloured’). In about 90 percent of cases, the underkjortel 48 Aneer, Skrädderi för kungligt bruk, 42. 49 SLA, Klädkammaren, Reviderade räkenskaper II, B 33:2, 22 H.

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had a colour matching the överkjortel or nattkjortel and would then be sewn with the same outer fabric, but usually with a different, less expensive lining. In the few cases in which an underkjortel has a colour different from that of the överkjortel or nattkjortel, it was also made in a different outer fabric. In these cases, the överkjortel or nattkjortel, for the most part, was black, and the underkjortel had a colour in a strong contrast, such as blemorent or incarnadi. The colour of a few of the garments cannot be determined since they are only described as being made in nytt (‘new’), colört (‘coloured’), or blommerat (‘floral patterned’) fabric. The lining of the garments was almost always in the same colour as the outer fabric. The cost of the garments varied widely, mainly depending on the quality of the fabrics and the amount of decorations. The outer layer of fabric for Christina’s överkjortlar and underkjortlar came in a wide range of different qualities, while the lining fabrics were of an even greater range of colours and qualities. Smooth-surfaced silk fabrics like moiré, taffeta, and serge, together with various qualities of piled fabrics such as uncut and cut velvet, were heavily favored as outer fabrics, and amount to almost 75 percent of the total. Only nineteen of the 203 överkjortlar or nattkjortlar were made of wool fabrics. As with the accounts for the purchases in Paris, a couple of klädningar were made in fabrics that are described only as new or patterned. During this period, Sweden did not have much of a national production of either wool or silk, which meant that a lot of fabrics and other materials for tailoring would have to be imported from countries like England, the Dutch Republic, and France.

Manifestative Changes in Fashion When analyzing the wardrobe accounts, it becomes apparent that the amount of material did not change very much between the separate garments. An överkjortel from 1645 used approximately the same sorts and amounts of fabrics as one from 1652, which suggests that the general model of the garments was probably more or less the same. This is also the case for materials used for lining and construction purposes, including baleen. Instead, the main differences between Christina’s individual överkjortlar and underkjortlar lie mainly in the colour, the surface decorations, the texture and quality of the outer fabric, and the colour and quality of the lining fabric. This is not unexpected since, as previously stated, the main varying factor in a seventeenth-century woman’s clothing was fabric and decorations rather than in the cut and construction. Despite this, there are some noticeable fashionable changes in the cut and construction that can be found when analyzing the material overall. These are rather revealing changes, displaying Christina´s ability to adapt her dress and fashion to her advantage. The first change appears almost immediately, between the years of 1644 and 1645, in relation to her eighteenthh birthday in December. This was when

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Figure 8.5: Jacob Heinrich Elbfas, Christina as a young regent under guardianship, 1637, oil on canvas. Nationalmuseum, Stockholm.

she was considered of age and started to rule as a monarch without guardians, and it seems that she wanted to mark the occasion with some fashionable changes. The main difference seems to lay in the structuring functions of the garments. All the överkjortlar from before 1644 lack the baleen that was later used, but instead material

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for three snörliv (‘separate bodice’) was noted.50 The material listed would not have been enough for a complete snörliv, as it consisted only of some silk atlas and some lace and ribbons. More likely, this was either material for remodelling an older snörliv, or for decorating a snörliv that was sewn elsewhere. The portrait from 1637 by Jacob Heinrich Elbfas (1600–1664) of the young queen gives an idea of her clothing before this change in fashion (Figure 8.5). The function of the snörliv as a shaping piece of clothing was transferred to the överkjortlar with the introduction of baleen into the garment at the start of 1645. The later version of överkjortlar, with baleen, was continuously used during the remainder of Christina’s reign, with no further snortliv noted. It seems that this was an occasion for her to manifest her new status and present herself as an adult monarch, and used her dress to help her do so, a practice not uncommon for monarchs.51 Another fashionable change in Christina’s dress habits becomes noticeable in the accounts from 1648, when a completely new garment is introduced. The garment in question was called a nattkjortel, sewn in cloth of gold and with 37 sable furs as a lining – it is the most expensive garment throughout the ten years’ worth of accounts including the accounts for the 1650 delegation to Paris.52 The exact appearance and function of this garment is not known, since there are no reliable sources connecting the word nattkjortel to an actual garment or a picture. At first glance, the name suggests that it could have been used in less formal contexts, since the first part of the word, natt (‘night’), tended to be used for garments that were meant to sleep in, but, because of the exclusivity of the materials it consists of, it can be assumed that this was a garment meant for representational use and public appearances.53 Norah Waugh mentions something she calls informal wear, by which she means a loose gown called a nightgown in England. The garment started to be used in informal contexts during the beginning of the seventeenth century and grew in popularity towards the middle of the century. In France, this kind of informal dress was called a robe de chambre, something that should be compared to a robe de nuit, which would have been more like a dressing gown than the former.54 Waugh’s informal wear would also have had some sort of lining and would not have included any boning such as baleen, but would have had a waist skirt in addition to the robe.55 Construction-wise, this corresponds to the nattkjortel, but an exact match is hard to make. That this garment was new to the tailors at the wardrobe can be understood from the fact that a toile, or a shamplum på nattkjortel, as it was called in the accounts, was made just before the nattkjortel.56 The toile was made of a relatively cheap wool 50 SLA, Klädkammaren II, Reviderade Räkenskaper, B 29, 15 R. 51 Field, ‘The Wardrobe Goods of Anna of Denmark’, 22. 52 SLA, Klädkammaren, Reviderade Räkenskaper II, B 32, 77 R. 53 Aneer, ‘Elsa Beata Brahes Begravningsdräkt’, 313 54 Waugh, The Cut of Women’s Clothes, 26. 55 Waugh, The Cut of Women’s Clothes, 34. 56 SLA, Klädkammaren, Reviderade Räkenskaper II, B 32, 77 V.

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fabric of about the same usage as the nattkjortel, and was to be used as a base model or pattern for future garments, which was common in tailor practices.57 The fact that a toile was used before making the nattkjortel suggests that the garment was new to tailor Johan Holm. No other toiles can be found during the ten years of accounts, but there may very well have been others made earlier. Both överkjortlar and nattkjortlar were made during the following years and seem to have been used parallel to each other. They were both made together with an underkjortel and tillbehör, such as stockings and gloves.58 Even if the later nattkjortlar were not as expensive as the first one, they were on par with the överkjortlar, considering the choice of fabrics and decorative elements such as ribbons, favörer, and lace. The main difference when it comes to materials seems to lie in the absence of baleen in the nattkjortlar and that they occasionally, as opposed to överkjortlar, were lined with fur. They still contained other materials for structuring, such as various qualities of linen and wool fabrics.

The Importance of French Fashion Until the first half of the seventeenth century, Sweden had been an undeveloped, rural country on the very edge of Europe. It had a small and decentralized population, as well as a small nobility and royal court compared to countries such as Denmark, England, and France.59 During the late sixteenth century, Sweden had already begun to show some interest in expanding its borders, an attitude strengthened during the first half of the seventeenth century.60 This was also a period during which the central Swedish state increased its power through a process of military, economic, and administrative mobilisation, much in the same way as happened in other parts of Europe at this time.61 The decades leading up to the middle of the seventeenth century were deeply affected by the Thirty Years´ War (1618–1648), in which Sweden, at least initially, had many military successes. This war turned the small country in the north of Europe into a powerful nation when the Treaty of Westphalia was signed in 1648, which greatly impacted Swedish society. According to contemporary propaganda, one of the main reasons for the war was the battle between Protestants and Catholics, and Sweden’s need to defend Protestantism in Europe, something which was a great cause for Christina’s father, Gustav II Adolf.62 Sweden emerged victorious and a lot larger from the war, mainly geographically but also culturally.

57 Arnold, Patterns of Fashion, 4.. 58 SLA, Klädkammaren II, Reviderade Räkenskaper B 37, 64–65. 59 Rodén, Drottning Christina, 33–34. 60 Grundberg, Ceremoniernas makt, 13. 61 Stadin, Stånd och genus i stormaktstidens Sverige, 15. 62 Rodén, Drottning Christina, 25.

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King Gustav II Adolf spent almost his entire adult life at war and was known to be a great warrior.63 As a woman in the seventeenth century, there was no way for Christina to follow in his path. To be able to assert her power, she therefore needed other strategies to present herself as a legitimate holder of royal power in a broad European context. After becoming a monarch in her own right in 1644, Christina wanted to develop and shape the Swedish court to become a center for culture and cultivation, and to present herself as a queen of cultural refinement.64 At the time, the French court was generally considered to be the forerunner of European fashion and style, and French fashion was very popular amongst the nobility of Sweden. The rest of the participants of the delegations to Paris most likely purchased goods and clothes of their own, as can be seen in the burial dress of Elsa Beata Brahe. The Wardrobe accounts for the delegation of 1650 specify that Queen Dowager Maria Eleonora of Brandenburg and Chief Court Mistress Maria Sofia de la Gardie were also each equipped with several pieces of clothing. The latter was married to the leader of the group of representatives, Magnus Gabriel de la Gardie. Christina’s coronation would have been an opportunity for noble families to manifest their own wealth, status, and power, and their wish to model their own wardrobes according to current fashion discourse is understandable.65 After all, they were an active part of the European cultural context and the social order that was to be legitimized at the coronation. During the first half of the seventeenth century, largely as a result of the Thirty Years’ War, contact with other parts of Europe increased and fashion spread at a higher pace through people’s travels, contacts on the continent, and the popularization of fashion prints.66 The long wars and the politics surrounding them influenced the population’s identity as a nation of warriors and changed the habits of the Swedish nobility, men and women alike.67 Women’s fashion changed to a looser style compared to the earlier Spanish influences towards the middle of the century, and started to incorporate some accessories and elements that had previously been reserved for fashionable male dress.68 Military clothing became considered appropriate as representational dress and it became socially acceptable to use it as formal wear. This development was not a fashionable trend just in Sweden but in other parts of Europe as well, and it influenced both men’s and women’s clothing.69 The wars also led to an increased mobility that a lot of noblewomen experienced as they joined their husbands on journeys abroad. More men and women travelled over national borders than before, which led to an increased awareness and circulation of fashion.70 This 63 Grundberg, Ceremoniernas makt, 144. 64 Rodén, Drottning Christina, 34; Tegenborg Falkdalen, Kungen är en kvinna, 147. 65 Field, ‘The Wardrobe Goods of Anna of Denmark’, 4. 66 Aneer, Skrädderi för kungligt bruk, 131–132. 67 Swann, History of Footwear, 102. 68 Pylkänen, Barokin pukumuoti Soumessa, 268. 69 Waugh, The Cut of Women’s Clothes, 31. 70 Pylkkänen, Barokin pukumuoti Soumessa, 15.

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did not only happen in Sweden but was a trend that included large parts of Europe.71 Personal contacts became an increasingly important way of getting information on the latest national and international fashion trends, especially for those who could not travel themselves.72 Pictures and fashion dolls depicting the latest fashion trends were sent home, and relatives or acquaintances would be asked to carefully write down what they saw, or even to bring pieces of clothing, fabrics, or accessories home with them.73 Additionally, trading relations had an influence on dress, and both the Dutch Republic and England, but also, most importantly, France, had a great influence on all things cultural in Sweden. In light of this, it was not surprising that one of Christina’s strategies to create a modern and powerful court was to invite people from abroad: learned men like the philosopher René Descartes and the librarian Gabriel Naudé, artists such as painters David Beck and Sébastien Bourdon, as well as various artisans such as gardeners and book binders came to stay, work at, or visit the Swedish royal court.74 It was also no coincidence that Christina chose Paris as the place where she could look for clothing, furniture, and other items that would accurately represent Sweden as a great power and a cultural center of northern Europe.75 The remodelling of all the other överkjortlar and nattkjortlar purchased in Paris according to Swedish fashion clearly shows that Swedish fashion itself was important to her, and that simply following French fashion was not an option.76 At the same time, in purchasing and using these garments, she connected herself with the modern context of French court fashion. The overall impression of the garments purchased from Paris is that they, considering comparative factors such as colour, choice of fabric, and cost, do not diverge that much from the garments that the Swedish Royal Wardrobe made for Christina during the other years of her reign. This shows that one of the major reasons for attaining French clothing and materials was, for Christina, the connection to French cultural discourses. Using strategies like these helped her in her attempt to shape the Swedish court into a northern European culture hub using the French court as a model, but still maintaining her relation to Swedish fashion discourses. Manifesting national identity in choice of dress was a widely adopted strategy during the early modern era in Europe. It gave people the opportunity to present themselves as connected to a desired context, both national ones and contexts that belonged to other regions, especially for the royalty and the nobility.77 It seems clear that the connection to Paris 71 Pylkkänen, Barokin pukumuoti Soumessa, 131. 72 Dahrén, Med kant av guld och silver, 151. 73 Waugh, The Cut of Women’s Clothes, 58. 74 Rodén, Drottning Christina, 85. 75 Pylkkänen, Barokin pukumuoti Soumessa, 4. 76 Aneer, ‘Elsa Beata Brahes Begravningsdräkt’, 320. 77 Hayward, ‘Dressed to Impress’, 90.

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Figure 8.6: Pierre II Mariette, Christina on horseback, 1656, engraving. Nationalmuseum, Stockholm.

was one of the most important aspects of Christina’s purchases and had a valuable function, since, according to the accounts, the goods purchased by the delegations to France do not seem to depart to any large extent from the materials normally used by the wardrobe.

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The Abdication The expectation was for Christina to get married to someone whose alliance would strengthen her power. A possible match was her cousin, Karl Gustav, but she resisted every attempt to find a suitable husband. In 1649, she was forced by the Swedish Royal Council to explain why she would not marry. Christina told them that she would make Karl Gustav her successor without marrying him, and that she simply could not bear the idea of having to obey anyone she considered beneath her in power.78 As a woman in the seventeenth century, she would have had to obey her husband, even if her social standing overshadowed his.79 Christina had ruled Sweden for almost ten years when she gave up the throne in favour of her cousin, who became Karl X Gustav. She left Sweden soon after the ceremony in June 1654, and brought with her many objects that would be needed to keep up the appearance of a former monarch, such as art, furniture, and books.80 She also brought with her almost all of her clothes, which is one reason why not much is left of her wardrobe today. After travelling around Europe, she settled down in Rome where she was welcomed by the papacy. It soon became known that she had converted to Catholicism, something that was not well received in Protestant Sweden, considering the recent wars, but was likely another reason for her wanting to abdicate.81 The portrait of her by the French artist Pierre II Mariette (1634–1716) was probably made in 1656, and shows Christina on horseback highlighting her former regency (Figure 8.6). Christina lived the rest of her life in Rome and died in 1689. She was buried with great ceremony, the first woman ever to be buried in St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome.

Conclusion The early modern era in Sweden as well as Europe was a time when power, gender, wealth, and status manifested in clothing as a part of the royalty and nobility’s everyday life. Nobles were acutely aware of the political and social effect dress could have, and that society expected their choice of clothes to match their rank.82 The content of the accounts from Christina’s time as an adult monarch shows that she was aware of this and had strategies for using it to her advantage. For example, by adapting her dress to a more modern style at the beginning of her reign, she marked her coming of age and presented herself as a self-reliant and modern monarch. At her coronation a couple of years later, she used her clothing to mark her connection to the previous 78 Rodén, Drottning Christina, 97–98 79 Rodén, Drottning Christina, 96. 80 Rodén, Drottning Christina, 133. 81 Rodén, Drottning Christina, 139. 82 Vincent, Dressing the Elite, 79.

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monarchs of the Vasa dynasty by following dynastic traditions in the design of her coronation garments and cloak colour, while at the same time associating herself with modern contexts such as the French court. In choosing to wear the crown of a past king instead of that of the queen, she reinforced the image of herself as the legitimate heir and king of Sweden, despite being a woman. This image would have been vitally important for her to be able to rule successfully, and even more so since she wanted to rule without marrying and being subjugated to a man to continue the family line.83 The comments about Christina dressing sloppily or like a man seems, in light of this study, to be grounded in something else than her actual clothing. The information from the accounts is a piece of a bigger puzzle, but the issues surrounding her dress habits needs further reconsideration. She lived a long and eventful life, becoming one of the most well-known kings in Swedish history. Despite being a woman.

About the author Julia Holm is a lecturer and seamstress with a Master’s degree in Textile Studies from Uppsala University. Her thesis focussed on a systematic review of the Royal Wardrobe accounts that dealt with Queen Christina of Sweden’s clothing compared to contemporary discourses of fashion, gender, and royal power. Her research interests include early modern fashion, clothing, and textile production in the Nordic countries.

83 Vincent, Dressing the Elite, 2.

9. Clothes Make the Queen: Mariana of Austria’s Style of Dress, from Archduchess to Queen Consort (1634–1665)1 Laura Oliván-Santaliestra

Abstract This chapter analyses the outfits worn by Mariana of Austria (1634–1696), archduchess and queen consort of Spain, as depicted in portraits. Archduchesses were political figures whose marriages strengthened the Viennese court’s relations with other European powers. This chapter charts Mariana´s portraits from her engagement portrait in Germanic attire, which symbolised her dynastic capital at the Spanish court of Baltasar Carlos. His sudden death led to his father, Felipe IV, becoming a suitor and another strategically staged portrait. Her move to Madrid in 1649 led to radical changes in her dress, with the adoption of the farthingale. Mariana ultimately made the farthingale her own, endowing it with new meaning and turning it into an expression of her authority as queen consort. Key words: Mariana of Austria; image; dress; fashion; farthingale

Mariana of Austria, daughter of Holy Roman Emperor Ferdinand III and Empress María Ana of Austria, married her uncle King Felipe IV by proxy in 1648, and arrived in Spain in November 1649. Madame d’Aulnoy, a French noblewoman, noted the following event in Mariana’s journey to the Madrid court: in a town near Madrid, a hosier approached the young Mariana to offer her some tights. The First Steward found the gift so unseemly that he threw them to the ground, shouting ‘You should know that Queens of Spain have no legs!’, meaning they were of such high standing that they floated above everyone else.2 According to the Countess d’Aulnoy, Mariana of Austria interpreted the words of her steward literally and began to sob, believing her legs would be removed when she arrived at the Spanish court. 1 This research has been founded by the Ramón y Cajal programme of the Ministerio de Economía, Industria y Competitividad de España (RYC-2014–16033). This chapter has been translated into English by Clare Gaunt. 2 D’Aulnoy, ‘Memoires de la cour d’Espagne’, 1105.

Griffey, E. (ed.), Sartorial Politics in Early Modern Europe: Fashioning Women, Amsterdam University Press, 2019 doi: 10.5117/9789462986008_ch09

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Madame d’Aulnoy recorded this anecdote in the memoirs of the trip to Spain she made in 1679 and wrote this text in 1690, four decades after this supposed episode took place. The historians Gabriel Maura and González de Amezúa concluded that the French lady did visit Madrid on those dates but that the truth of the events recorded in her memoirs is highly questionable.3 Madame d’Aulnoy probably heard this anecdote in Madrid and transcribed it literally eleven years later, without considering whether it was true. It is highly likely that this story was part of the myths told about the Austrian wives in Spain. It is difficult to believe that a future queen would try to purchase tights from a simple hosier in the street, and it is even less credible that she believed that her lower limbs would be removed on arrival. However, irrespective of its questionable veracity, this scene highlights the change of image young Mariana would need on becoming the spouse of Felipe IV. Obviously, when Mariana arrived at her destination, she did have to adapt to new clothes: the guardinfante, or farthingale (a frame of iron or whalebone hoops, ribbons, and cords worn beneath a skirt or basquiña to extend the hips), and chopines (cork platform shoes worn by married or eligible women to hide their feet). Showing an ankle or toe was considered indecent in the Spanish Golden Age, so much so that male theatre audiences waited anxiously for actresses to reveal this part of their bodies.4 But, before studying her change of attire and the dresses Mariana wore for her portraits as queen consort, it is necessary to analyse the archduchess’ body and image from her birth in 1634 until her marriage in 1648.

Mariana of Austria’s Style as Archduchess (1634–1648) Mariana of Austria was born in the royal palace in Vienna on 23 December 1634. Her brother, Archduke Ferdinand, had been born a year earlier. Mariana was destined to marry a Spanish Habsburg prince from birth. This destiny is symbolised in her first portrait by Frans Luycks (Figure 9.1). The double portrait of Mariana and her brother Ferdinand, now in the Kunsthistorisches Museum, dates to late 1637. In this image, Ferdinand looks about four while Mariana would be around three. The archduke gazes at the viewer from an estrado (podium). Mariana is seated and wears a white doublet and skirt embroidered in gold, with Germanic slashed sleeves. The sleeve openings reveal a white blouse with lace collar and cuffs. The lightness and whiteness of the blouse symbolise purity and the cleanliness of the child’s soul, a noble soul in keeping with her high rank.5 Mariana of Austria wears two belts adorned with protective amulets, which Gemma Cobo suggests indicate that she was still breastfeeding.6 One of these belts crosses her chest and is strung with the following pendants, described and 3 Maura and González Amezúa, Fantasías y realidades, VII-XXI. 4 Deleito, La mujer, la casa y la moda, 153, 160; Covarrubias, Tesoro de la lengua castellana, 291. 5 Vigarello, Le propre et le sale, 75. 6 Cobo, ‘Entre Viena y Madrid’, 152.

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Figure 9.1: Frans Luycx, Ferdinand with his sister, Mariana of Austria, as children, 1637, oil on canvas. Kunsthistorisches Museum, Wien.

analysed in detail by Sabine Weiss: a coral fig, a medallion bearing the figure of Christ, a cross, a little pomander, an amber medallion for teething, and another unknown object; while the belt around her waist is made of precious stones and strung with an apple, a bell to frighten off malicious spirits, and an amethyst (a good luck stone) containing a carob seed. As Weiss points out, carob seed symbolised strength and vital energy.7 The amulets on these belts protected children from the fascinación or evil eye, as they were considered most vulnerable to this threat. Their soft, limp bodies were more likely to receive the malign vapours emitted by fascinador’s eyes.8 Mariana is seated, perhaps because of her lack of skill in sitting for portraits or perhaps 7 Weiss, Zur Herrschaft geboren, 135. 8 AHN, Fernán Núñez, D. 2045, D. 9. D. Diego Antonio Mendez de Robledo, Tratado de la fascinación y diversas relaciones o pareceres míos, 1663.

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Figure 9.2: Frans Luycks, Mariana of Austria, 1639, oil on canvas. Museo Nacional del Prado.

in reference to her future as a queen consort. She carries a crown of red and white flowers that could herald a royal destiny. Cobo recently identified another portrait of Mariana of Austria as a child.9 It is also by Frans Luycks and dated to 1639 (Figure 9.2). In this image, Mariana is coming into the age of reason, at five years old.10 She wears a golden outfit including a full doublet slightly slashed on the left side of her chest and long slashed sleeves.11 The openings 9 Cobo, ‘Entre Viena y Madrid’, 152. 10 Llorente, ‘Portraits of Children’, 33. 11 Puerta, ‘La moda civil’, 72.

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on the chest reveal the child’s white bodice, an act of ‘daring’ more in keeping with adult subjects. The dress matches the colour of her locks, which are longer than in the previous portrait. A heavy jewel adorns her chest and a gold chain has replaced the belt of amulets. The skirt is supported by an incipient farthingale, underlining Mariana’s development: she has learnt to wear this contraption, which royal and noble women wore in the early seventeeth century when walking or appearing in public. Her skirt is made of silk brocade (damascos), featuring floral and botanical decorations.12 It is trimmed with a geometric motif of two concentric circles that overlap the edging, imitating flowers. Her doublet is decorated with the same elements, as is the lacing on the sleeves. Her collar and cuffs are finished in perfect white lace, the colour of purity. The little archduchess wears bracelets and a pearl necklace. Her left hand holds a white fan with red floral motifs and tiny green leaves. Mariana rests her right hand on a table covered with a red tablecloth, home to a glass vase containing flowers, in reference to the child’s beauty and future reproductive ability. She stands on a podium and hides her feet, as was customary for women in court portraits. The background shows rich drapery revealing a majestic, steep staircase, a symbol of ascent and physical and emotional development. Both the stairs and her clothing – which was suitable for young women rather than children – allude to Mariana’s ripeness. Her attire may have been designed to show her ‘maturity’, given the plausibility of marriage to Baltasar Carlos – son and heir of Felipe IV and Isabel of France (also called of Bourbon) – who was around ten years old at that time. The age difference between the two required the archduchess to look as old as possible, and the portrait was sent to Madrid for Felipe IV to see how well his niece was developing. The next portrait of Mariana used a very similar composition. The archduchess carries a half-open fan in her left hand and rests her right on a sideboard near a vase of flowers. This portrait was also by Frans Luycks and destined for the Spanish court.13 Mariana is shown aged eleven years and two months (February 1646).14 She wears an outfit with slashed sleeves, lace cuffs and neckline, and a full doublet and skirt. The dress is made of silk brocade featuring vertical geometric waves and an encircled floral trim. Mariana also wears a turquoise and pinkish-white feather headdress held in place by a jewelled flower. A set diamond hangs from her hair. Her diamond necklace and earrings match the spectacular jewels at her chest, which is attached to another jewel on her left arm by a luxurious chain. Her earrings are two turquoise ribbons that match the bow at her waist. The archduchess rests her hand on a table covered in a velvet tablecloth beside a vase of tulips, which symbolise her future fertility. Red drapery is used to offset the figure and the background reveals a palace accessed by stairs, which are a little less steep than in the previous portrait. Mariana was about to 12 On damascos, see Llorente, ‘Novedades textiles’, 174. 13 See the image here: https://www.museodelprado.es/coleccion/obra-de-arte/mariana-de-austria/12b0da285a56-487a-a6c8-2427b137d346?searchid=801222d8-20d1-62c1-41f2-f634ef2d1a38 14 Biblioteca Nacional de España (BNE), MSS. 2080, 145–146.

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reach the age of marriage ‒ twelve.15 As already mentioned, Mariana was a candidate to marry Prince Baltasar Carlos, son of Felipe IV and the deceased Isabel of France. The widowed king had decided not to remarry in 1645. Instead, he intended to marry off his fifteen-year-old son.

Figure 9.3: Frans Luycks, Mariana of Austria, 1646, oil on canvas. Museo Nacional del Prado.

15 Llorente, ‘Portraits of Children’, 32.

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However, the Habsburg dynasty was struck by two deaths shortly after this portrait was painted: Mariana of Austria’s mother, Empress María Ana, died in Vienna in May that year. This sad event had no impact on Baltasar Carlos’s wedding negotiations: Mariana of Austria was chosen to be his bride. The proceedings to arrange the archduchess’ journey to Spain were begun that summer. Nevertheless, preparations were interrupted by the sudden death of her fiancé on 9 October 1646. At the time, Felipe IV was 41, a widow, and had only one remaining daughter, María Teresa, who was eight years old. Women could inherit the Spanish Monarchy, making the infanta Felipe IV’s only hope unless he were to remarry and produce more offspring. The king decided on the second option. Again, there were several candidates. Emperor Ferdinand III immediately understood the opportunity for his children and offered Mariana’s hand to Felipe IV, with the offer of his son Ferdinand for the infanta. Therefore, if Felipe IV and Mariana were to have no offspring, Ferdinand would become king of the Spanish Monarchy through his marriage to María Teresa. This strategy led to separate portraits of the archdukes being sent to Madrid towards the end of 1646 because, in October, the only portrait of Mariana in Madrid was the painting made in February 1646. In January 1647, the marriage between Mariana and Felipe IV was sealed.16 The portraits sent by Ferdinand III at the end of 1646 show the young archdukes in mourning for their mother’s recent death (Figure 9.3). Interestingly, contrary to the custom, the archduchess is positioned to the right of her brother in both portraits, suggesting that the emperor wanted to give precedence to Mariana. In the portrait of Mariana, the archduchess is dressed in German mourning attire: a full skirt in black velvet with black silk (the silk prevented fleas), an apron featuring silver brocade, slashed sleeves, a transparent shirt, a velvet hood lined in silk, and a white lace collar and cuffs.17 Mariana wears two devotional jewels, a cross in her hair, and a medallion of the Virgin and Child at her chest, as a sign of her Austrian piety (Pietas Austriaca) and to comply with her mourning. She carries a little dog on her left arm, a guarantee of her marital fidelity, and crosses her hands over her waist to protect her belly, alluding to her fertility. A chair is positioned beside her, indicating her future as queen consort. Mariana wears the same hairstyle as her mother in the 1635 portrait sent to Madrid.18 Perhaps Ferdinand III wished to show his daughter’s physical and spiritual resemblance to the deceased Empress María Ana, in the hope that Felipe IV (the empress’ brother) would decide to marry her, which is what happened.19 Nevertheless, the suggested alliance between Archduke Ferdinand and María Teresa failed to prosper. The king wanted to wait to see how the Peace of Westphalia negotiations and how the war with France progressed, and he could always offer the infanta in exchange for a peace deal.20 16 17 18 19 20

Martínez, ‘“La infanta se ha de casar”’, 86. On silk and fleas, see Llorente, ‘Novedades textiles’, 170–171. María de Austria, Queen of Hungry. Around 1635. Museo del Prado. Oil on canvas, 215 x 147 cm. P001272. On this resemblance, see Cobo, ‘Entre Madrid y Viena’, 155. Tercero, ‘La jornada de la reina’, 647; Martínez, ‘“La infanta se ha de casar”’, 90.

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Mariana of Austria’s Style as Queen Consort (1649–1665) Mariana of Austria entered Madrid in November 1649. According to a chronicle from the period, she wore a ‘Spanish dress with a full skirt […] in silver and mother of pearl, priceless jewellery, an airy hat and white feathers’.21 It noted that she was wearing a Spanish farthingale and had abandoned her Germanic style. Adapting to Spanish attire must have been difficult for the young queen as a guardainfante required

Figure 9.4: Workshop of Velazquez (attributed to Martínez del Mazo), Mariana of Austria in a Light Red Dress, 1651–1661, oil on canvas. Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna.

21 Rizi, Noticia del recibimiento, 104.

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training, movements had to be slow and ceremonious, and the wearer needed a strong ability to measure distances.22 One of the first portraits of the queen in Madrid focusses on her farthingale. It was sent to Vienna at the end of 1652 to satisfy a request Ferdinand III made to Felipe IV in July 1650.23 Giulietta Beaufort recently identified the portrait of Mariana of Austria dressed in a light-red and silver farthingale with a monkey on the left, now held at the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna, as the portrait Ferdinand III requested (Figure 9.4). Previously, it was thought that the portrait sent to the Viennese court at that time was a copy of the Velázquez portrait from 1652, in which Mariana wears a black velvet dress with silver embroidery and stands against a background showing a clock.24 Beaufort has demonstrated that this copy of Mariana with a black velvet dress was sent by Marquis Mattei to Brussels, where it became part of the collection belonging to Archduke Leopold Wilhem of Austria. This painting is described in Leopold Wilhem’s 1659 inventory as: ‘A standing portrait of the Queen of Spain showing a clock in the background.’25 Beaufort also argues that the portrait of Mariana in a silver and light-red farthingale is not an official portrait as there are no copies, suggesting it was made to satisfy the queen’s father’s personal commission. She also demonstrates that this portrait cannot date from 1661, as Buschbeck argued in 1928 – stating it showed Mariana of Spain pregnant with the future Carlos II – as the vertical waves of the hair worn by the queen were fashionable in 1651–1652, whereas, in the 1660s, they would have been worn at an angle.26 I agree with Beaufort’s dating as, in addition to her reasons, there would be no motive to send a portrait of the queen to Vienna in 1661, when relations between Felipe IV and Leopold I (Ferdinand III’s successor) were poor.27 In 1660, the emperor recalled his ambassador to Spain, the Count of Lamberg. The reason for their diplomatic feud was Felipe IV’s refusal to marry María Teresa (daughter of Felipe IV) to Leopold, and her subsequent marriage to the emperor’s rival, Louis XIV.28 I also believe that this portrait (Mariana in a silver and light-red farthingale) is one of the first depictions of Mariana at the court of Madrid, which would date it to 1650–1651, not ten years later, as it uses the same composition as one of the first unofficial portraits of her predecessor Isabel of France29 (by ‘unofficial portrait’, I mean an image that was destined for the king’s sole use). In this portrait, Isabel holds a fan in her right hand and a handkerchief in her left hand; she also wears the Joyel Rico, a magnificent 22 Wunder, ‘Women’s Fashions and Politics’, 143. 23 Morán and Rudolf, ‘Nuevos documentos’, 289–302. 24 Beaufort, ‘Velázquez ‘Werkstätte Maria Ana’’, 216. 25 Beaufort, ‘Velázquez ‘Werkstätte Maria Ana’’, 216. For this portrait, see http://www.khm.at/objektdb/ detail/2396/?offset=1&lv=list (accessed 14 March 2018). 26 Portús, ‘Mariana de Austria’, 106. 27 Oliván-Santaliestra, ‘Two Imperial Ambassadresses’, 104. 28 ÖStA, HHSta, Diplomatische Korrespondenz, Spanien, Kt. 44, fasc.5, Akt Nr. 65. 29 Anonymous, Isabel de Borbón, reina de España, primera esposa de Felipe IV, around 1620, Museo del Prado, P01037.

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symbol of the Spanish branch of the Habsburg family, comprising a diamond known as the Estanque (which Felipe II had purchased in Antwerp) and a huge pearl known as La Peregrina, which came from Panamá. Mariana is depicted in an identical manner – closed fan in her right hand, handkerchief in her left, except for the fact that she wears the Joyel Rico in her hair, which Isabel of France wore on her chest. In support of Beaufort’s thesis, I would add that original paintings, and not copies, were usually sent to the Viennese court, making it implausible that Ferdinand III would receive a copy to satisfy his request for a portrait of his daughter. It is much more likely that he would receive an original (the portrait of Mariana in a light-red dress) than a copy of the Velázquez (Mariana with a black velvet dress), which, as Beaufort has demonstrated, was initially sent, not to Vienna but to Brussels, as it was not for the emperor. Javier Portús also argues that the portrait of Mariana in the lightred dress is an original by Martínez del Mazo, as Velázquez was in Italy and returned to Madrid in the summer of 1651, and Mazo had painted the queen in the spring of 1651.30 Beaufort supports this attribution, noting the ‘cameleon-esque’ nature of Martínez del Mazo, who was capable of creating works in a variety of styles, as well as the sustained presence of animals and gardens in his work, and that the monkey and panorama of the ambassadors’ garden are key elements in this portrait.31 Having demonstrated that the portrait discussed above (Mariana in the light-red dress with a monkey) was the first portrait of the queen sent to Vienna following her marriage to Felipe IV, and that it may have been painted by Mazo around 1651, I can proceed to its analysis. In this painting, Mariana wears a full doublet with pockets (sayo), allowing her to adjust the farthingale if it moved or came loose.32 The light-red of the dress was the colour of the crown of Castile, symbolising the queen’s assimilation into the new court.33 Pearls, which were only worn by royalty or nobility, play a starring role in this painting.34 The sovereign wears three double strings of pearls around her neck, and numerous brooches and jewels on her sleeves are also made of pearls to match the bracelets around her wrists. Five little pearls hang from each of Mariana’s ringlets, making a total of 61 pearls, plus two large pearls that hang from the central ringlets. The Joyel Rico hangs in her hair. Wearing the jewel demonstrates Mariana’s membership in the Spanish branch of the Habsburgs through her marriage to Felipe IV. Pearls were a symbol of both virginity and conception and her bulky waist could indicate that she was pregnant with the infant Margarita María, who was born in July 1651, and the devotional medallion she wears on her chest could be to protect her pregnancy. The queen holds a closed fan in her right hand and a handkerchief in her left; fans were luxury items that when open suggested coquetry, and 30 Portús, Velázquez y la familia de Felipe IV, 108. 31 Beaufort, ‘Maria Anna in Hellrotem Kleid’, 220. 32 Bandrés, ‘La moda en la pintura’, 337. 33 Ramón, ‘Retratos de la infanta María Teresa’, 50–51. 34 On pearls, royalty, and nobility, see Cea, ‘Tiento para un estudio de las joyas’, 98.

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when closed suggested decency.35 The white handkerchief was a symbol of politesse and of a pure soul. The background allows viewers to contemplate the emperor’s gardens, indicating that the queen’s portrait was created in the court painters’ workshop located in the gallery that used to belong to Prince Baltasar Carlos (the same room in which Velázquez would paint Las Meninas four years later). A red curtain hangs behind the queen and to her left is a stool with a monkey, an animal from the Indies pointing to the exoticism and luxury of the Spanish court. The shade of the dress, farthingale and Joyel Rico are designed to show Ferdinand III that his daughter had adapted to the court of Madrid and metamorphosed from archduchess of Austria to queen consort of the Spanish monarchy. Mariana’s attire indicates that she has been ‘conquered’ and will now watch over the interests of her new crown. Nevertheless, this was also an unofficial portrait (for intimate use), sent to Vienna for a father worried about how his daughter was adapting to her new situation. Velázquez painted Mariana’s official portrait (destined for distribution) in 1652, after his return from Italy in mid 1651 (Colour Plate 8). This portrait acted as Mariana’s official image as queen consort for many years. In it, she rests her hand on a chair and holds a handkerchief, as in the first official painting of Isabel of France by Rodrigo Villandrando, demonstrating that the composition of the portraits of Felipe IV’s first wife were always used as a reference.36 Mariana of Austria wears loose sleeves, a sayo (or full doublet) and basquiña (skirt) in black velvet decorated with silver braids.37 The skirt is supported by a farthingale. Her hair falls in vertical ringlets decorated at the tips with red floral ornaments. She wears a white ostrich feather with red highlights on the right of her hair and her chest features a golden jewel. Her wrists are covered in silver bracelets with red floral ornaments. A red curtain frames her figure. The clearly symbolic palette of white, black, gold, and red goes with the portrait of Felipe IV in armour with a lion.38 The white feather recalls the outfit Mariana of Austria wore when she made her royal entrance to Madrid and black is a symbol of Spanish gravitas, worn by both the queen (in her dress) and Felipe IV (in his armour). Gold was a symbol of wealth: Mariana carries it in her jewels and Felipe IV on his breeches, boots, spurs, and gloves; the red colour of the flowers in Mariana’s hair and at her wrists allude, as I have mentioned, to the colour of the Castilian crown, which, in Felipe IV’s portrait, is represented by the imposing lion resting at his feet (the symbol of Castile), and the red sash worn by the king. Red was also considered to be beneficial to health.39 A clock rests on a sideboard in the background; this ‘machine’ replaces the visceral monkey from the other painting. Mariana loved clocks.40 The 35 Núñez, ‘Representando a la mujer de élite’, 36. 36 Rodrigo de Villandrando, Isabel de Borbón, oil on canvas, Museo del Prado P07124. 37 Lafuente, Velázquez, 284. 38 Portús, ‘Felipe IV’, 113. See https://www.museodelprado.es/coleccion/obra-de-arte/felipe-iv-armado-conun-leon-a-los-pies/ (acessed 14 March 2018). 39 Sorapán, Medicina española, 200. 40 Llorente, personal commnication, September 2017.

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queen rests her hand on a chair, indicating her right to sit on specific occasions, as Spanish queen consorts normally sat on cushions in the Moorish fashion.41 Mariana of Austria seems more serene than in her previous portrait, her position at court was more established after the birth of Margarita María and there was hope of a male heir. The queen had survived a very difficult birth; Felipe IV had believed that Mariana and his child would die in his arms, but his fears were unfounded.42 This portrait shows the queen’s physical strength and her political evolution. The age difference between Felipe IV and Mariana is not visible when the paintings are observed as a pair ‒ Velázquez painted the 18-year-old Mariana’s maturity and Felipe IV’s vigour at 47. In this portrait, Mariana of Austria defines her identity as a queen and mother of the infanta Margarita, a condition that strengthened her position as queen consort at court.

The Farthingale and Mariana of Austria The farthingale was the most distinctive feature of women’s fashion in seventeenth-century Spain. Amanda Wunder recently studied this garment in a magnificent article published in Renaissance Quarterly, which is why this section is restricted to an analysis of how Queen Mariana of Austria used farthingales to define her image as a consort at court. Queen Mariana of Austria inherited and continued the style from Isabel of France, who had worn an early version of the farthingale.43 Farthingales continued to widen after the queen’s death, until they reached the dimensions shown in the two portraits of Mariana of Austria which I have discussed.44 Like rigid doublets, which squeezed the chest, or chopines, which prevented large steps, farthingales limited women’s movements.45 However, the ‘pains’ of Spanish women’s fashion also provided many advantages that the queen and her ladies exploited. Wide farthingales allowed the queen to create her own space, preventing indecorous ‘invasions’ or interruptions.46 They also exaggerated the female figure, highlighting its curves and creating a highly sophisticated image. By wearing the farthingale with ease, the queen demonstrated her physical grace, elegance, and majesty, earning admiration from the court, which knew how difficult it was to move in such clothes. Farthingales were only worn on public occasions, when the queen stood before a large number of courtiers, so it is important to highlight its inherent exhibitionism. In her private quarters, the queen dressed for greater comfort, 41 Llorente, ‘Imagen y autoridad’, 222. 42 ES. Sevilla. AGA., LEG. 4834, Nº 11–29. Carta de Felipe IV a la condesa de Paredes, 25 July 1651, cited in Vilela, Felipe IV y la Condesa de Paredes, 129. 43 Bernis, ‘La moda en los retratos de Velázquez’, 294. 44 Wunder, ‘Women’s Fashions and Politics’, 134. 45 Bernis, ‘La moda en los retratos de Velázquez’, 301. 46 Wunder, ‘Women’s Fashions and Politics’, 143.

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farthingale-free: In a letter to the Countess of Harrach dated August 1663, Mariana of Austria confessed that she enjoyed the opportunity to remove her farthingale when she went down to the Summer Quarters where no one could see her.47 The Summer Quarters (cuarto bajo de verano) were a set of palace rooms to which very few people had access.48 The introduction of the farthingale at court in Madrid coincided with the ‘liberation’ of women’s necklines, as the ruff, which was replaced by a valona cariñana: a ‘white starched linen collar placed over the chest’ that revealed the neck.49 Mariana of Austria wears these linen collars in the last two portraits discussed. The disappearance of bulky ruffs moved attention from the upper to the middle part of the female body where farthingales were attached. Hairstyles also ‘grew outwards’ to maintain proportions. Hairpieces, ribbons, and beads created volume at the head to ensure a harmonious silhouette.50 Farthingales not only had advantages at court, such as conveying greatness and creating visual impact, but they were also good for politics. The origins of this garment speak to its political functions. The Spanish term for farthingale: guardainfante came from guardar el infante or ‘protect the infant’. This can be interpreted as meaning ‘to conceal’ a pregnancy or ‘to protect’ the foetus from any impact. Moralists and clerics in the 1630s and 1640s accused the garment of allowing indecent women to hide unwanted pregnancies, and they were unsuccessfully banned as unseemly in Spain in 1636 and 1639.51 In the sixteenth century, verdugados (rings of wire, arranged from the smallest to the largest to produce a conical form) had been accused of the same sin.52 It is not known exactly why the farthingale was created, but it seems certain that it was associated with maternity from the outset, either as a visual demonstration of wide, fertile hips, or as a way of concealing (legitimate or illegitimate) pregnancies, or of ensuring the safety of the foetus.53 The few defendants of farthingales argued that babies were safer under the protection of this structure, as Giovanni Andrea Moniglia, an Italian playwright exposed.54 On the other hand, detractors argued that farthingales actually pressured the body of the expectant mother, causing miscarriages, or that they even inhibited conception.55 In fact, as Wunder has demonstrated, many women used farthingales not to demonstrate their procreative abilities, but simply because they liked them.56 Farthingales went on to become a 47 ÖStA, Allgemeines Verwaltungsarchiv (AVA), Harrach Familie in specie 321. Letter from Mariana of Austria to Johanna Theresia von Harrach, 29 August 1663. 48 Rodríguez-Rebollo & Martínez Leiva, El Inventario del Alcázar de Madrid de 1666, 122. 49 Bernis, ‘La moda en los retratos de Velázquez’, 275. 50 Bandrés, ‘La moda en la pintura’, 320. 51 Bernis, ‘La moda en los retratos de Velázquez’, 292; Puerta, ‘Las leyes suntuarias’, 220. 52 Oliván-Santaliestra, ‘The Representational Strategies’, 218. 53 Wunder, ‘Women’s Fashions and Politics’, 160. 54 Castro, ‘Discurso acerca de las costumbres’, 101. 55 Castro, ‘Discurso acerca de las costumbres’, 101. 56 Wunder, ‘Women’s Fashions and Politics’, 153.

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symbol not only of fertility but also of maturity. The infantas began wearing them at the age of five to symbolise the end of their infancy.57 It has been widely and rightly stressed that one of the main political functions of the queen consort was to provide royal heirs. Mariana of Austria was even more aware of this responsibility given the succession crisis in the Spanish monarchy at that time. When Mariana arrived in Madrid, Felipe IV was over 40 years old and had no male heir. María Teresa of Austria, his sole heir, was 14 years old, only two years younger than Mariana. As I mentioned earlier, Mariana brought Margarita María into the world in 1651, despite a very difficult birth. Her arrival filled Felipe IV with happiness, but it did not guarantee a male succession. In 1651, Spain was at war with France and Emperor Ferdinand III wanted to marry his son Ferdinand to María Teresa, because she was the eldest daughter of Felipe IV and could inherit the Spanish throne. But there was a problem: the union between the emperor’s son and the Spanish infanta could reproduce the empire of Carlos V, which did not please Felipe IV.58 However, the Spanish king knew that their union could provide something he urgently needed: imperial contributions to the war against France.59 The best solution was for Mariana to have a son. Felipe IV would then not have to declare (jurar) his daughter heir, or marry her to the Empire. He could consider other options such as an alliance with Louis XIV to seal the peace with France.60 In this situation, the entire court had its eyes on the queen’s body. Whether or not Felipe IV would decide to declare his daughter heir or to marry her off depended on Mariana’s pregnancies or miscarriages. It is not a wild supposition to imagine that a farthingale would initially help the queen consort in this situation, allowing her to create confusion, and be more relaxed during a period of intense pressure to become pregnant.61 In October 1652, there is documentation of a potential miscarriage. The first woman to know of Mariana’s potential pregnancy was her First Lady of the Bedchamber, the Countess of Medellín, who informed the queen’s closest circle, including the governess of the infanta Margarita, the Countess of Salvatierra, of the good news. On 18 October 1652, the governess wrote to Mariana of Austria to convey her happiness and wish her good health during her pregnancy.62 But her happiness was short-lived as the queen replied a few days later: ‘I am well, except for the fact that yesterday afternoon I had pains in my belly, disappointing my hopes. I was heartbroken, but as our Lord didn’t will it this time, it will happen on another occasion. Also 57 Llorente, ‘Portraits of Children’, 40. 58 If the son of the emperor married the Spanish infanta and they had children, their heir would inherit the Empire and the Spanish monarchy (the territories ruled by Charles V). 59 Martínez-López, ‘“La infanta se ha de casar”’, 79. 60 Martínez-López, ‘“La infanta se ha de casar”’, 98. 61 This idea about the use of guardainfante to create confusion was suggested by Amparo Pedregal. Pedregal, ‘Debate’, 184. 62 Letter from the Countess of Salvatierra to Mariana of Austria, 18 October 1652. Private archive. Correspondence of the countess of Salvatierra. Transcriptions of the dukes of Almazán.

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because I feel they will all say it was a miscarriage, like in Aranjuez when they blamed me.’63 Mariana of Austria was referring to an earlier miscarriage that a number of courtiers in her circle had known about, and had accused her of losing the baby. She had been very affected. In spite of the care she received and the king’s ‘visits’ to her bedchamber, Mariana failed to become pregnant in 1653. In June 1654, faced by the lack of heirs, Felipe IV decided to make María Teresa his heir and marry her to Archduke Ferdinand, who had been crowned King of Hungary as Ferdinand IV the previous year. His plans were interrupted by Ferdinand’s sudden death in July 1654. So Felipe IV offered to marry his daughter to Ferdinand IV’s brother, Leopold Ignaz, who would be a good suitor if he turned down the opportunity to become Holy Roman Emperor and travelled to Madrid to marry María Teresa. Felipe IV sent this proposal to Ferdinand III in April 1655, but the emperor did not want his son to renounce the Imperial throne, much less to abandon Vienna, and so he rejected the offer.64 This was the situation when Mariana of Austria became pregnant again in May 1655. But, chastened by her previous experiences, the queen kept a missed period to herself. I have no information about her use of the farthingale on this occasion, but the fact that her official image continued to be that of Velázquez’s portrait showing a predominant farthingale suggests that she remained faithful to the garment. The king soon became aware of the pregnancy and rumours spread quickly around the city and court of Madrid. In June, the courtier Jerónimo de Barrionuevo wrote in his Avisos (´advertisements´) that, ‘The king is delighted because the queen is said to have missed two periods and is keeping things quiet.’65 This new was unconfirmed by the king, therefore the farthingale could have helped conceal the queen’s stomach. Finally, Felipe IV announced the news to the court in July and the queen’s pregnancy had immediate political repercussions: the king suspended his daughter’s swearing-in as heir and matrimonial negotiations with the empire. It would be more useful to marry María Teresa to France if a boy were to be born. In December 1655, Mariana gave birth to an infanta who died 15 days later, ending all hopes of a male heir. Las Cortes (the Spanish parliament) asked Felipe IV to declare María Teresa his heir. The king rejected this option and again offered his daughter to the emperor’s son in March 1656.66 Rumours of a new pregnancy in August 1656 were unconfirmed.67 63 Letter from Mariana de Austria to the Countess of Salvatierra, 19 October 1652. Private archive. Correspondence of the countess of Salvatierra. 64 Martínez-López, ‘“La infanta se ha de casar”’, 89–90. 65 Ríos, Mariana de Austria, 41–42. 66 Martínez-López, ‘“La infanta se ha de casar”’, 93. 67 BNE, Mss 2397. Jerónimo de Barrionuevo, Cartas escritas a un Deán de Zaragoza con noticias de la Corte de Madrid y de todas partes, especialmente de los dominios españoles, desde el 1º de agosto de 1654 hasta el 24 de julio de 1658, 271.

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As the queen’s body was scrutinised in Madrid, the farthingale was adopted at court. There is no greater proof of this than Las Meninas, which Velázquez painted in 1656, and in which the infanta Margarita María and two meninas (little ladies-inwaiting) wear splendid farthingales created by the queen’s tailor, Mateo Aguado.68 Margarita María was still Felipe IV and Mariana’s only daughter and, at five years old, she had reached the age of reason, when infantas could start wearing farthingales as a symbol of their transition from infancy to childhood,69 and of their value as potential mothers to future heirs. Queen Mariana is reflected in the mirror wearing inclined ringlets, the hairstyle fashionable between 1653 and 1654.70 The painting does not reveal whether or not Mariana is wearing a farthingale, but it is likely that she would have worn it as the queen’s ladies (and the meninas belonged to her household) wore farthingales to accompany her. Farthingales were supposed to match the queen’s.71 Political events continued. On 2 April 1657, Emperor Ferdinand III died. Contrary to his father’s wishes, his successor Archduke Leopold I was inclined to renounce the Imperial crown and travel to Madrid to marry María Teresa. He seemed to prefer being king of Spain to being Holy Roman Emperor.72 These plans were suspended with a new confirmed pregnancy in June. Felipe IV changed his mind, and supported Leopold’s candidacy for the position of Holy Roman Emperor, against Leopold Wilhem. According to Rocío Martínez, this new proposal was not only due to the queen’s pregnancy, but also because of Felipe IV’s disagreement with Leopold Wilhem’s policies in Flanders, which he believed made him a poor candidate for the imperial throne.73 As the fate of the Empire was discussed, the queen’s pregnancy came to a happy conclusion: Felipe Próspero – the sought-after heir, was born on 28 November 1657. Another boy, Fernando Tomás, was born in the following year, but unfortunately he died in 1659. The queen continued to wear farthingales during this period. In 1660, the garment had become an idiosyncratic icon of Spanish women’s fashion, so it is not surprising that travellers visiting the court in Madrid were immediately struck by the breadth of women’s skirts. The first thing the secretary of the Dutch diplomat, Lodewijck Huygens, mentioned upon meeting Mariana of Austria was her farthingale. His travel journal notes that ‘the queen wore a pollera [the skirt covering the farthingale] measuring six feet wide and a long dark grey dress adorned with silver lace’.74 Her imposing silhouette surprised Huygens, who was used to other proportions. 68 García, ‘Quién vestía a los reyes’, 117. 69 Llorente, ‘Portraits of Children’, 40. 70 Portús, Velázquez y la familia de Felipe IV, 106. 71 García, ‘Quién vestía a los reyes’, 117. 72 Martínez-López, ‘“La infanta se ha de casar”’, 98. 73 Martínez-López, ‘“La infanta se ha de casar”’, 90. 74 Ebben, Un holandés en la España, 176.

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Figure 9.5: Workshop of Velázquez, Mariana of Austria praying, 1655–1661, oil on canvas.

Between 1655 and 1660, Mariana’s rate of reproduction was impressive: three pregnancies and three births, an infanta who died shortly after coming into the world (María Ambrosia) and two infantes of whom only the first survived (Felipe Próspero and Fernando Tomás). A portrait of the praying queen held in the El Escorial monastery could depict these crucial years (Figure 9.5). She is positioned on a prayer kneeler, her hair loose, wearing a voluminous farthingale.75 This portrait could reproduce the image of the Virgin of the Expectation, also known as Our Lady of O, who was 75 Taller de Velázquez, Mariana de Austria orante, Monasterio de El Escorial (Madrid). https://commons. wikimedia.org/wiki/File:La_reina_Mariana_de_Austria,_orante_(Monasterio_de_El_Escorial).jpg (accessed 1 February 2018).

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worshipped in the hope of good pregnancies and births. Her feast day was celebrated on 18 December in the Queen of Alcazar’s Oratory.76 Friar Simón de Rojas, the confessor of Isabel of France, had introduced the cult of this virgin to the court.77 That queen’s inventory mentions a sculpture of the Virgin of the Expectation, which was inherited by Mariana of Austria as a ‘Life-size image of Our Lady kneeling and pregnant with her hair loose […] and her hands in prayer’.78 This description coincides with Mariana of Austria’s posture in the El Escorial painting. It was unusual for queens to be portrayed with their hair loose, but in this painting Mariana wears her long hair down, like the Lady of O. Loose hair signified virginity, which is why it was worn by maids. During her pregnancies, Isabel of France probably tended to pray kneeling, holding her hands together beside the life-size statue of the Virgin of the Expectation, so as to become her alter ego. It is very possible that Mariana of Austria would have continued this devotion. As the painting shows, the queen would let down her hair and wear a farthingale to pray beside the Virgin, hoping to emerge victorious from the trance of birth. Therefore, Mariana of Austria praying could be a portrait of the queen’s divine nature, continuing the use of a format that had already been used by her predecessor Margaret of Austria, Queen of Spain in her position as wife of Philip III. Margaret of Austria was portrayed as Saint Elizabeth in a canvas representing the birth of the Virgin, and as the same Virgin in an Annunciation scene that showed her daughter, infanta Ana, as the Archangel Michael, both painted by Juan Pantoja de la Cruz in 1603 and 1605.79 Mariana of Austria was certainly returning to this type of portrait in order to represent her commitment to the cause of dynastic succession. It is surprising that the queen used a farthingale in her representation as the Virgin when this garment had begun life in Madrid as something worn by prostitutes.80 The farthingale had unquestionably taken on new meaning at court. At the end of February 1661, the queen became pregnant again. Felipe Próspero died just as she was about to give birth. The entire court prayed for a boy. Four days later, the infante Carlos, the future Carlos II, came into the world. The news was received with great rejoicing. Wagging tongues in Madrid said that Felipe IV conceived the infant in his final coitus with the queen.81 And it is true that, after 1662, there is no news of any other miscarriage or pregnancy for Mariana of Austria. The reasons for this brusque interruption of reproductive activity were not only due to Felipe IV’s premature ageing, but also to more practical questions: the king was likely to die relatively soon ‒ he felt tired and sick ‒ and the possibility of a regency 76 Carlos, ‘Una propuesta devocional femenina’, 84, 89. 77 Carlos, ‘Una propuesta devocional femenina’, 85. 78 Carlos, ‘Una propuesta devocional femenina’, 89. 79 Kusche, Juan Pantoja de la Cruz, 118–120. Carlos, ‘Giving Birth at the Habsburg Court’, 157–158. Aichinger, ‘Juan Pantoja de la Cruz’, 44. 80 González-Cañal, ‘El lujo y la ociosidad durante la privanza de Olivares’, 74. Wunder, ‘Women’s Fashions and Politics’, 139. 81 Alcalá-Zamora, El hombre y el reinado, 63.

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was becoming increasingly real. If the queen became pregnant again, she may have another child, but she also ran the risk of dying during pregnancy or birth or shortly after giving birth, as maternal mortality was so high at that time that the first thing noblewomen did upon becoming pregnant was to write their will. The king would die sooner or later, but the queen’s death could be avoided. If Mariana were to die suddenly, the monarchy would be in a difficult position with a king who felt the hand of death approaching and an heir barely a few months old. So it is likely that Felipe IV himself decided to stop having sexual intercourse to protect the queen and guarantee his wife’s survival while his son was underage, in case of a regency.82 In 1663, Mariana of Austria received new dresses in her new position at court as mother of a male heir. Dresses were commissioned by queens under the supervision of the first lady of the bedchamber and the infant’s governess. The First Steward of the Queen (Mayordomo mayor) complained on several occasions as these orders were not issued in writing and he was not informed of them, which demonstrates that the queen had authority over her attire.83 The tailor would normally visit the queen in her chambers to receive instructions about the garments he was being commissioned to make.84 The Keeper of the King’s Jewels (Guardajoyas) would pay him once the clothes were completed. The wardrobe would carry several dresses into the queen’s quarters every morning, to allow her to select the one she would like to wear. Velázquez had been assistant of the king’s wardrobe until 1643, giving him considerable knowledge of the fabrics used by the royal family, as well as of the importance of dress at court.85 This can be seen in his deep sensibility in portraying clothes. The 1663 accounts of the Keeper of the King’s Jewels show that the queen continued to wear a farthingale, as Mateo Aguado, the tailor, made her a pollera.86 This document also reveals that black was not the only colour worn by Spanish queens, they wore an abundance of colours and patterns, including red and floral designs.87 A portrait of the queen that can be dated to between 1661 (when Prince Carlos was born) and 1665 (when Felipe IV died) may allude to her future as regent. This miniature by an artist in the school of Velázquez depicts Mariana of Austria’s face.88 The queen wears a dress featuring silver ornamentation and a joyel on her chest, but it is her unusual hairstyle that catches the eye: The queen has half of her hair loose and a braid on the other side. This peculiar hairstyle refers to an episode in the life of Semiramis, Queen of Assyria.89 Semiramis ruled as regent following the death of 82 I would like to thank Silvia Mitchell for her conversations about the ‘protection’ of Mariana of Austria. 83 Archivo General de Palacio, Madrid (AGP), Administrativa, leg 904. Consulta a Su Majestad remitiéndole un capítulo de las instrucciones del Guardajoyas, 10 September 1664. 84 García, ‘Quién vestía a los reyes’, 116. 85 García, ‘Quién vestía a los reyes’, 128. 86 AGP, Administrativa, leg 904. 10 September 1664. 87 AGP, Administrativa, leg 904. Cargo de vestidos de la reina nuestra señora, 1663. 88 Taller de Velázquez, Retrato de la reina Mariana de Austria, Museo Lázaro Galdiano, Madrid. Inv. 4788. Oil on copper 76 x 63 mm. http://database.flg.es/ficha.asp?ID=4788 89 Oliván-Santaliestra, ‘Mariana de Austria en la encrucijada’, 41.

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her husband, while her son Adad-Narari was underage. Semiramis strengthened the power of the Assyrian empire, conquering Ethiopia and reaching as far as India. The story goes that a messenger broke into her chamber with news that one of the kingdoms had rebelled against her as her ladies were combing her hair. She immediately got up and swore that no ladies would finish her braid until that state paid its tribute to her again.90 All images of Semiramis show her with one braid completed and the other pending, as in this miniature of the queen. Mariana of Austria became the Semiramis of the Spanish monarchy when Felipe IV died on 17 September 1665, leaving behind a king child aged only four. The queen removed her farthingale and started to wear mourning clothes. However, far from disappearing from court, farthingales grew even wider. Mariana of Austria renounced her farthingale on state grounds, but allowed her ladies-in-waiting and the other women at court to continue wearing theirs, or perhaps they no longer wished to do without this garment, which, as Wunder has shown, had become a weapon of female empowerment.91 German fashion made the archduchess, the farthingale made the queen, and the queen gave new meaning to the farthingale.

About the author Laura Oliván Santaliestra is currently ‘Ramón y Cajal’ research fellow at the University of Granada. Her research focusses on power, image, diplomacy, and culture of women at the European Courts in the seventeenth century. From 2014 to 2016, she was IEF Marie Sklodowska-Curie Fellow and worked on the project Imperial Ambassadresses between the Courts of Madrid and Vienna (1650–1700): Diplomacy, Sociability and Culture. Her most recent article, ‘Gender, Work and Diplomacy in Baroque Spain: The Ambassadorial Couples of the Holy Roman Empire as Arbeitspaare’, has been published in the journal Gender & History.

90 Pizán, La Ciudad de las Damas, 94–95. 91 Wunder, ‘Women’s Fashions and Politics’, 180

10. ‘The best of Queens, the most obedient wife’: Fashioning a Place for Catherine of Braganza as Consort to Charles II Maria Hayward

Abstract Catherine of Braganza and those around her used her role as Charles II’s wife to fashion a very specific image for her: that of the good wife. In this role, she served as a model for other women to follow that was in marked contrast to the king’s mistresses, who traded on being bad. Her Portuguese roots were both appealing in terms of her links to exotic goods coming into the country, and negative in marking her out as a foreigner, while her piety was both admired and feared. Fashionable dress, furnishings, and a range of commemorative objects were exploited to promote the queen and the royal marriage both at the time of her wedding and throughout the reign. Key words: Catherine of Braganza; mistresses; Portugal/Portuguese; Catholicism; clothing; furnishings

Introduction By the end of her life, Catherine of Braganza (1638–1705) (Figure 10.1) was under no illusions about the nature of royal marriage. She bitterly resented being sent to England in 1662 ‘solely for the advantage of Portugal, & for this cause & for the interests of our House I was Sacrific’d’.1 While her family might have sacrificed her, Charles II (1630– 1685) hurt her more by his infidelity in spite of his intentions to be a ‘good’ husband.2 The firm rebuke that Charles received from his sister Henriette Anne, otherwise known as Minette, is telling. She wrote ‘Here people say that she is in the deepest distress and to speak frankly I think she has only too good reason for her grief.’3 While Catherine 1 Rau, ‘Letters from Catherine of Bragança’, 567. 2 Bryant, ed., The Letters, 128. 3 Norrington, My Dearest Minette, 56.

Griffey, E. (ed.), Sartorial Politics in Early Modern Europe: Fashioning Women, Amsterdam University Press, 2019 doi: 10.5117/9789462986008_ch10

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Figure 10.1: Wenceslaus Hollar, Catherine of Braganza, 1661, etching. Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.

came to forgive her husband, as a Catholic bride from Portugal, she received a mixed reception in England, ranging from Lancelot Reynolds’s description of her as a ‘blest soul’ and ‘a gracious queen’ to an anonymous poet’s far less flattering ‘Ill-natured little goblin’.4 In keeping with her image as ‘a gracious queen’, Catherine has traditionally been presented as politically and personally passive. However, this chapter offers an alternative view of Catherine, arguing that she played the part of a ‘good wife’ to assert – quietly but firmly ‒ her position as queen and thereby came to represent normative, virtuous, women at court and in the country at large.5 Using clothing, furnishings, portraiture, and other material goods, Catherine fashioned her legitimate place as queen consort, a role that others were keen to promote on her behalf. 4 Reynolds, A panegyric, and anonymous, The Queen’s ball (1670), 412. Most biographies of Catherine are quite old. For example, Strickland, Lives of the Queens of England, vol. 5; Davidson, Catherine of Bragança; and Mackay, Catherine of Braganza. Also see Wynne, ‘Catherine [Catherine of Braganza …]’. 5 Zwicker, ‘Virgins and Whores’, 85–110.

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This argument builds on the work of three individuals. First, Edward Corp, who explored Catherine’s successful patronage of Italian culture to create her own identity at Charles’s Francophile court.6 There are clear parallels between the ‘cultural politics’ identified by Corp and the ‘sartorial politics’ under discussion here. Second, Sonia Wynne, who has shown how the king’s mistresses used high-status items such as jewellery, clothes, and carriages to engage in ‘the politics of display’ and so challenge the rightful position of the queen consort.7 Catherine took part in similar types of material display but with a different agenda. Third, Rachel Weil, who stressed the political significance of being visible for the king’s mistresses.8 The queen’s visibility was equally, if not more, important in the complex environment in which Catherine found herself. This chapter considers how Catherine’s role as queen consort made her a legitimate role model for respectable women to follow. In the context of the Restoration court, she derived valuable influence by promoting her normative role and behaviour as a loyal wife, a status that she shared with many women across the social spectrum. As Joan W. Scott has noted, female sexual conduct was highly political, especially when the woman involved was the queen consort.9 In contrast, the mistresses might be elegant, but their illicit, sexually derived influence challenged social, religious, and political norms, while also placing a financial burden on king and country.10 Catherine was the poster girl for good behaviour with the added virtue that a queen consort was a legitimate expense that parliament could regulate. Indeed, when limited funds meant that she could not compete with the mistresses, Catherine either chose not to engage in a struggle that she could not win or, more importantly, she subtly changed the rules of the game in order to give herself a fighting chance.

The Significance of Marriage Marriage was central to creating and defining Catherine as a queen consort and this religious ceremony gave her a spouse, enhanced status, property, a household, an income, and a designated role in court ceremonial. Catherine was brought up, like most women, expecting to marry, so it is not surprising that her first portraits were all painted with marriage in mind.11 She married by proxy in Portugal with two more wedding ceremonies in England ensuring the marriage was legal and binding. As Edward Hyde, first earl of Clarendon, reminded Charles, ‘you must have a bishop 6 Corp, ‘Catherine of Braganza’, 53–74. 7 Wynne, ‘The Mistresses’, 172–175, which draws on S. M. Wynne, ‘The Mistresses of Charles II and Restoration Court Politics, 1660–1685’ (PhD dissertation, University of Cambridge, 1997). 8 Weil, ‘The Female Politician’, 177–191. 9 Wallach Scott, Gender, 23. 10 Mendalson and Crawford, Women, 369. 11 MacLeod et al., Painted Ladies, 82.

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with you and he must marry you before you go to bed’.12 With the marriage successfully achieved, there were three threats to Catherine’s position as queen during her 25 years of married life: first, ill health led to rumours of her imminent demise in 1663; second, divorce on the grounds of infertility; and third, execution, if she was found guilty of conspiring to poison the king, a charge that was raised against her during the Popish Plot of 1678 to 1679. Yet, Catherine survived these challenges, proving more resilient than any of the mistresses who came and went. Being a wife and a queen consort were central to Catherine’s self-presentation because she had two things the mistresses did not. She had a king for a husband and a legitimate, honourable place in European society that she intended to keep. The Restoration court offered many possibilities for women to step into the limelight in ways that had not been possible prior to the Wars of the Three Kingdoms and the Commonwealth. It was a very different world compared with the court of Charles I and Henrietta Maria, which promoted the royal couple’s love and devotion.13 Instead, this court prized female beauty and celebrated the power that beautiful women could wield.14 By necessity, the king’s mistresses were very adept at self-fashioning, as Susan Shifin has demonstrated in her analysis of the career of Hortense Mancini, Duchess of Mazarin.15 Their successful self-promotion as beautiful, desirable, and essential was central to how the mistresses lived and supported themselves. While most of the women who became seventeenth-century queens consort were not brought up to project themselves in this way, the role of consort had its own merits and strengths that could be exploited. Catherine did not outshine the king’s mistresses in a court culture predicated on sex and beauty, but she was the one constant presence and she learnt how to make the best of the position that she found herself in. She had to coexist within this group, creating a ‘circle’ around her consisting of immediate family, leading female courtiers, and the mistresses, because she could not exclude them.

Living the Part of a ‘good wife’ Seventeenth-century wives were expected to be modest, chaste, obedient, quiet, and fertile.16 This stereotype was central in Thomas Gataker’s 1624 wedding sermon. Taking as his theme, ‘A good wife Gods gift’, Gataker followed Solomon’s teaching that ‘as a good name, so a good wife, a wise and discreet woman is better than wealth; her price is far above pearls’.17 Gataker was not alone in using the phrase ‘good wife’ – indeed the term, and the underlying qualities embodied in it, was used throughout 12 Bryant, ed., The Letters, 125. 13 Griffey, On Display. 14 Dolman, with Soulden and Fryman, Beauty, Sex and Power. 15 Shifrin, ‘“Subdued by a famous Roman dame”’, 141–174. 16 Eales, Women in Early Modern England, 25–30; George, ‘From ‘goodwife’’, 161–163. 17 Thomas Gataker, ‘A good wife Gods’ gift’, in Two Marriage Sermons, 1624; Fraser, Weaker Vessel, 9–10.

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the seventeenth century as can be seen in Henry Smith’s A Preparative to Marriage (1591), Sir Thomas Overbury’s A Wife (1614), Thomas Fuller’s The Good Wife (1642), and, in 1694, The Ladies Dictionary by N. H.18 These writers, and others like them, prepared the script for the part that Catherine chose to play. John Dryden stressed the importance of female fecundity in his coronation poem dedicated to Charles by declaring that ‘A queen, from whose chaste womb, ordained by Fate, /The souls of kings unborn for bodies wait.’19 With Catherine’s arrival, Dryden’s comments became more specific, praising her as ‘The best of Queens, the most obedient wife, His life the theme of her eternal prayer.’20 After the brief struggle over the presence of Barbara Villiers in her bedchamber, Catherine exemplified the obedient wife and Dryden was not the only man to extol her virtues. Edward Weston recorded that ‘I have sene the young Quene who is the very picture of modesty.’21 Charles echoed these sentiments when he wrote to Catherine’s mother on 23 May 1662 claiming that ‘I am the happiest man in the world […] seeing close at hand the loveliness of her person and her virtues […] simplicity, gentleness and prudence’.22 Of these, her virtue was paramount and this idea was stressed by the sixteenthcentury Spanish educationalist Juan Luis Vives and other writers who advised on the subject of being a queen.23 Chastity was a queen’s most prized quality, ensuring as it did the royal bloodline; further, if she was not chaste, then she was a whore, a parallel all too obvious at the Caroline court. While Charles was not faithful, he, like Pepys, watched men who spent too much time with his wife and, in spring 1664, Edward Montagu was sent from court for that very reason.24 Indeed, it may well have been her chaste behaviour that led Pepys to contemplate going ‘to bed, sporting in my fancy with the Queen’.25 The lack of female virtue embodied by the mistresses was targeted by a mock advertisement in 1673 for a sale at the Royal Coffee House near Charing Cross. Desirable commodities on offer included ‘One whole peece of the Duchess of Cleveland’s honesty’ and ‘Two Ells of Nell Gwin’s Virginity’.26 In contrast, a range of texts emphasised Catherine’s positive qualities. The author of Englands vanity: or The voice of God against the monstrous sin of pride, in dress and apparel (1683) asked: […] who is ignorant that the Royal Robe is buttoned on the shoulders of kings, by the Divine hand, and the Richest Jewels hang by authority, in the ears of his Royal Consort.27 18 See Keeble, ed., Cultural Identity, 165–185. 19 Dryden, To His Sacred Majesty; see Hammond, ed., The Poems of John Dryden, 117–120. 20 Dryden, The second part of Absalom and Achitophel; Scott, ed., The Works of John Dryden, 321. 21 Quoted in Uglow, A Gambling Man, 164. 22 Bryant, ed., The Letters, 127. 23 Vives, The Education of a Christian Woman, 180. 24 Uglow, A Gambling Man, 267. 25 Pepys, Diary, IV, 232. 26 Newton (Lady), ed., Lyme Letters, 85–90. 27 Folger Shakespeare Library (hereafter Folger) E3069 (London: John Dunton, 1683), 2.

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This statement emphasises the paradoxical position of the queen consort. She was very much the junior partner in the marriage but essential all the same. While Catherine’s Catholicism prevented her from being crowned, she was painted in her formal robes and with the regalia in a pre-1667 portrait in the collection of Clarendon.28 The value of a duchess’ robes, coronet, and title, one step down from those of a queen consort, are made evident by the lengths that Barbara Villiers and Louise de Kérouaille went to get them. Louise also wanted and got a tabouret, a low stool permitted to French duchesses allowing them to sit at court, but neither woman became queen, a position Catherine successfully defended against all comers.29 Queens consort were expected to become mothers as indicated by the last line of a speech made before the king and queen in 1663 in St. John’s Library, Oxford, ‘Kings are Immortal, but Queens make them so’.30 One of the largest challenges for Catherine was her lack of children in contrast with the very obvious fecundity of the king’s mistresses. Yet, there was possibility of a royal heir and, during her pregnancy in July 1663, she dressed the part and was radiant in ‘a white laced waistcoat and a crimson short petty-coate and her hair dressed a la negligence, mighty pretty’.31 On 19 May 1669, Pepys noted that ‘I waited upon the king and queen all dinner-time in the queen’s lodgings, she being in her white pinner and apern, like a woman with child.’32 While Catherine used clothing to stress pregnancy and her hopes for a child, this was not to be and she came to enjoy the company of the king’s sons and daughters, most notably James Scott, the future Duke of Monmouth. Catherine also had a reputation for piety as Mary, Lady Tuke noted on the court’s visit to Newmarket in 1683 where ‘our good Mistres entertaines better thoughts in her solitude, being retired most part of the day at her devotions and reading’.33 While none doubted the strength of the queen’s faith, this caused anxiety in those opposed to Catholicism, turning one of her key virtues into a threat. Even when under intense criticism during the Popish Plot, Catherine remained dignified and Charles informed Dom Pedro of Portugal in January 1679 that ‘instead of favouring the accusation the time was spent only in magnifying of her virtues’.34 Catherine was curvaceously attractive but she was excluded from the various sets of paintings depicting court beauties. While this was in part a snide comment on her looks, placing the queen alongside the king’s mistresses would have blurred social and political hierarchies too far, even for the Restoration court. Indirectly, her absence from these groups helped to reinforce her position as different from these 28 MacLeod, Painted Ladies, 195. 29 Forneron, Louise de Keroualle, 253; Louise shows off her tabouret in Pierre Mignard’s portrait from 1682, MacLeod, Painted Ladies, 148–149. 30 Folger I295; Speeches spoken to the King and Queen. 31 Pepys, Diary, IV, 229–230. 32 Pepys, Diary, IX, 557. 33 Quoted in MacLeod, Painted Ladies, 40. 34 Bryant, ed., The Letters, 304.

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women. Yet, her portraits draw the male gaze as is apparent from Pepys’s comment when he observed that ‘the Queene is drawn […] like St Katharin, most like and most admirably’.35 However, as noted above, his thoughts were not always so chaste and it was important to ensure the correct level of public admiration for the queen’s looks. With a man like Pepys in mind, Sir William Sanderson advised husbands that a wife’s portrait would: […] best become your discretion, and her modesty, (if she be faire) to furnish the most private, or Bed Chamber; lest, (being too publique) an Italian-minded Guest, gaze too long on them, and comment the worke for your wive’s sake.36

Absence from the paintings of court beauties served as an important safeguard for Catherine’s good name, although her virtue may have been part of what encouraged Pepys’s amorous ‘Italian’ thoughts.

Dressing and the Queen’s Image The size and social standing of the queen’s household set her apart from other women even though key mistresses were placed within its walls and others were recruited from there. While the queen did not have complete control over her household, as the incident with Villiers demonstrated, she could counter such developments. Catherine gradually reorganised her household and reduced the social status of her bedchamber staff. In addition, she increased the number of dressers to eight in 1671, ten by 1677, twelve by 1682, and fifteen by 1684. As Corp asserted, this gave the queen more authority but equally important was the emphasis it placed on the queen’s clothes and the processes of her dressing and undressing. Pepys saw the queen dressing on 4 July 1663 noting that he: […] found the queen under the dresser’s hands and had been so long ‘I wonder your majesty’ says she ‘can have the patience to sit so long a-dressing’, ‘oh’ says the queen ‘I have so much reason to use patience that I can very well bear with it.37

While this is often interpreted as an example of the queen’s passivity, the observation of the dress historian, Diana de Marly, that wearing ‘undress in the presence of others was a means of displaying […] superiority’ offers another way of reading it.38 However, by mid 1663 at the latest, the queen was utilising this as a way of quietly asserting 35 Pepys, Diary, V, 254. 36 Sanderson, Graphice, 27. 37 Pepys, Diary, IV, 216. 38 Marly, ‘Undress in the oeuvre of Lely’, 749.

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power, and it was a pattern of behaviour that spread across society. Where she led, others followed and Pepys, not surprisingly, took pleasure in this habit, noting his visit in January 1667 to ‘Michell and his wife, which in her night linen appeared as pretty almost as ever to my thinking I saw woman’.39 In the following year, he recorded his visit to ‘my Lady Peterborough’ who ‘loves to be taken dressing herself’.40 While some of the royal mistresses used dressing as a means of asserting their appeal, others like Margaret Hughes did the opposite, like the queen. Margaret was Prince Rupert’s mistress and Sir Peter Lely captured their very settled relationship in her portrait of c.1670 when she wore a nightgown to stress her respectability.41 The king’s mistresses took informality in dress one step further by flaunting their underwear. This was displayed on the washing line where men could see it, as Pepys did on 21 May 1662. Samuel noted that, while in the private garden, he had seen ‘the finest smocks and linen petticoats of my Lady Castlemaynes, laced with rich lace at the bottomes’.42 Or on the mistress’ body as on 1 May 1667, when Pepys saw ‘pretty Nelly standing at her lodgings door in Drury Lane in her smock-sleeves and bodice’.43 And it was not just men who were interested. When Nell Gwynn visited Hortense Mancini, the other women present wanted to see the actress’ underwear, having heard so much about it. Courtin commented ‘I never in my life saw such thorough cleanliness, neatness and sumptuosity.’44 Clean, neat, and sumptuous undoubtedly were the words to describe the queen’s underclothes and, as contemporaries noted, she changed style of dress around 1663: […] exposing her breast and shoulders without even the glaze of the lightest gauze, and her tucker, instead of standing upon her bosom was, with licentious boldness, turned down and lay upon her stays.45

This change reveals that Catherine realised the truth of Margaret Cavendish’s comment that men ‘love the company and conversation of wanton and free women’.46 While the queen could not ignore the mistresses, she could emulate aspects of their style to gain the approving gaze of her husband, and conduct literature noted that it was permitted for wives to dress to please their husbands. In doing so, Catherine made this a suitable look for chaste married women, while also playing an essential part in making the dressing process fashionable. 39 Pepys, Diary, VIII, 20. 40 Pepys, Diary, VIII, 589 and Pepys, Diary, IX, 38. 41 MacLeod, Painted Ladies, 113. 42 Pepys, Diary, III, 87. 43 Pepys, Diary, VIII, 193. 44 Forneron, The Court of Charles II, 178. 45 Quoted in Mackay, Catherine, 111. 46 Fitzjames, ed., Margaret Cavendish, 48 (letter 36).

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Setting a Fashion for Women to Follow What was female fashion like? Pepys provides some clues. Late in December 1662, he noted that the ladies of the court were ‘all well dressed in velvet gowns’.47 By June 1663, wearing a mask or vizard to the theatre had ‘become a great fashion among the ladies’.48 Two years later, in May 1665, he reported ‘my wife very fine in a new yellow birds-eye hood as the fashion now is’.49 The following October, ‘she tells me the ladies are to go into a new fashion shortly; and that is to wear short coats above their anckles – which she nor I do not like, but conclude this long trayne to be mighty graceful’.50 By February 1667, the ladies had their ‘locks done up with puffes’. He added ‘I do not like it; but my wife does mightily – but it is only because she sees it the fashion.’51 Pepys was more approving in March 1669 when he observed that ‘my wife this day put on first her French gown, called a sac, which becomes her very well’.52 As this selection indicates, French styles were influential and female fashion, whether it was for clothes, hair, or accessories, was constantly changing, carefully observed, and diligently followed.53 If Pepys’s observations are anything to go by, the middling and upper strata of London society felt that the driving force behind female fashion was the court. On 4 May 1662, Pepys noted that ‘my wife and I walked to Grayes Inne to observe fashions of the ladies because of my wife’s making some clothes’.54 Harder to answer, is the question of who led fashion. This might be because no one woman could, or if she did, her influence was only fleeting. One contender was Elizabeth Hamilton, whose brother described her as ‘the original after which all the ladies copied in their taste and air of dress’.55 Decorum suggested that a queen should not be a fashion leader but she could, and did, influence taste as the following example indicates. On 20 October 1666, the rumour was that ‘the Queen hath a great mind to alter her fashion’.56 The timing was significant because it coincided with Charles II’s adoption of the vest in a move against French fashion. While the vest dropped out of favour quite quickly, Catherine may have had a more lasting influence. French fashions were very popular in England, but English court dress for women was less formal than at Louis XIV’s court. Having cast off the cumbersome court dress of Spain and Portugal, Catherine’s views on the French king might well have ensured her reluctance to embrace rigid French court styles. By the mid 1680s, Catherine’s clothes were made by her tailor, Peter Lombard; Ann Morgan, her petticoat maker; and Mrs. Mary Mandou.57 The following items made by Mary late in 1684 hint at her wardrobe: a ‘brown Manto flowerd with blew and 47 Pepys, Diary, III, 299. 48 Pepys, Diary, IV, 181. 49 Pepys, Diary, VI, 102. 50 Pepys, Diary, VII, 325. 51 Pepys, Diary, VIII, 44.

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white and gold Couller lined with Crimson and white’ and a ‘white and gold Coullerd flowerd morning Gown lined with Crimson and white Velvett’.58 In other years, there were orders for waistcoats of Indian satin.59 As such, Catherine’s clothes were elegant, expensive, and fashionable, and other wealthy women were able to emulate her style by commissioning her tailor to make their clothes. A degree of anonymity was possible by dressing down and periodically the queen made use of this. It could be for her personal freedom, as on 31 August 1669, when Robert Francis reported that ‘the Queen has been abroad incognito with Lady Arlington all day and has not yet come in’.60 However, there was always a danger of being recognised, as happened during her visit to Saffron Walden Fair in 1671. Catherine could also go incognito so as not to distract attention from the king, as in 1673, when she went with Mary of Modena and her brother to watch as Charles touched for the king’s evil (scrofula), thereby demonstrating his royal powers of healing. They were seated to the side and entered from the back so ensuring that neither Catherine’s clothes nor her presence would distract the audience’s attention from her husband, the king.61 Court women, including the queen, flouted convention by wearing masculine styles. As John Evelyn noted, ‘The Queen was now in her Cavaliers riding habite, hat & feather & horsemans Coate, going to take the aire’.62 It was a look that attracted male approval and, in the summer of 1665, Pepys enthused over ‘the young pretty ladies dressed like men’.63 If the queen was fashionably daring, other women, such as Margaret Cavendish, Duchess of Newcastle, pushed the boundaries too far. In April 1667, Pepys ‘met my lady Newcastle’ who wore a ‘velvet cap, her hair about her ears, many black patches because of pimples about her mouth, naked neck, without anything bout it, and a black juste-au-corps’.64 Catherine could also affect fashion inadvertently as was the case when rumours circulated of her imminent death on 22 October 1663. Pepys wrote anxiously that ‘this morning, hearing that the queen grows worse again, I sent to stop the making of my velvet cloak, till I see whether she lives or dies’.65 However, Catherine rallied and, 52 Pepys, Diary, IX, 464. 53 Ribeiro, Fashion and Fiction, 240–241. 54 Pepys, Diary, III, 77. 55 Quoted in Dolman, with Soulden and Fryman, Beauty, Sex and Power, 33. 56 Pepys, Diary, VII, 335. 57 It is likely that Ann Morgan was English but there is not much information on the backgrounds and careers of Catherine of Braganza’s tailor and other craftsmen and women. 58 The National Archives (hereafter TNA) LR5/76, unnumbered bill. 59 TNA LR5/79, unnumbered bill. 60 CSPD 1668–69, 466. 61 Keay, The Magnificent Monarch, 117. 62 Evelyn, Diary, 500. 63 Pepys, Diary, VI, 172. 64 Pepys, Diary, VIII, 186–187. 65 Pepys, Diary, IV, 344.

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on 10 November 1663, Pepys noted with approval that to celebrate ‘she hath bespoken herself a new gown’.66 Etiquette demanded that the court and country went into mourning for members of the queen’s family. On 28 March 1666, news broke of the death of Catherine’s mother, the Queen of Portugal.67 The visual impact on the queen’s rivals was significant with Pepys observing on 21 April that he ‘was sorry to see my Lady Castlemaine; for the mourning forcing all the ladies to go into black with their hair plain and without spots, I find her to be a much more ordinary woman than I durst have thought’.68 The only event to cause mourning to be temporarily suspended was Catherine’s birthday ball, further stressing her ability to influence the dress of all other women at court.69 Catherine also used her right to wear mourning attire to assert her place after Charles II’s death. Unlike the king’s mistresses, Catherine mourned Charles as a wife should. Evelyn described the scene on 5 March 1685: Now came over divers Envoyes & greate Persons to condole the Death of the late King. The Q: Dowager received them on a bed of mourning, the whole Chamber seiling & floore hung with black, tapers lighted: so as nothing could be more Lugubrous & solemn.70

While not a fashion leader, Catherine was at the forefront of elegant rather than excessive dress and her status as queen ensured that, in times of mourning in particular, her position was visible and dominant.71 Indeed, it was a time when she could pull rank on the mistresses and win.

Being a Portuguese Wife Catherine was chosen to be Charles II’s bride because of what her family could offer the king and his country.72 Her dowry included Tangier, Bombay, free trade with Brazil and the East Indies, and half a million pounds in coin. As one anonymous Scottish writer noted, there was the added inducement that, if the ‘mairiag should not hold they have given hime the promontorie of nova guinea to wit capdegamba, 66 Pepys, Diary, IV, 378. 67 Pepys, Diary, VII, 84. 68 Pepys, Diary, VII, 106. 69 Pepys, Diary, VII, 341. 70 Evelyn, Diary, 794. Catherine’s clothing orders in 1685 were predominantly black but when her tailor submitted his bill, dated Michelmas 1686, there was a petticoat of sad colour stuff with a black fringe at the bottom, in addition to the black items, suggesting that this is when she started to move into the second phase of mourning, TNA LR5/78, unnumbered bill. 71 Unlike Anna of Denmark and Henrietta Maria, both of whom were painted wearing mourning attire, there are no portraits of Catherine in mourning dress. 72 Boxer, ‘The Anglo-Portuguese Marriage Treaty’, 556–563.

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capdeprespoint wher ye best gold mynds in Portigall ar’ (‘marriage should not hold they have given him the promontory of Nova Guinea […] where the best gold mines in Portugal are’).73 In addition to the wealth she brought, the distance Catherine had to travel added to the sense of excitement at her arrival.74 Public awareness of Catherine being on her way can be seen in Archibald Campbell’s letter to the laird of Glenorchy at Balloch, Scotland, on 12 April 1662. His postscript noted that ‘the quenn is at sea and expected shortly’.75 Catherine had an exotic quality that was expressed most noticeably in her Portuguese dress. Her clothes served as an expression of her nationality and stressed her difference when compared to her husband and his people. As she processed from the royal palace in Lisbon to the harbour to embark onto the Royal Charles, Catherine wore Portuguese court dress similar to that recorded in Dirck Stoop, c. 1660. She wore this for her arrival in England to less than rapturous enthusiasm. Evelyn described how: The Queene arrived, with a traine of Portugueze Ladys in their mo(n)strous fardingals of Guard-Infantas […] Her majestie in the same habit, her foretop long & turned aside very strangely.76

Her clothes were problematic because of their similarity to Spanish court dress and because they were not English.77 Indeed, Charles had sent her gifts of gowns in the English style allowing her to change to the dress of her husband and his people.78 At court, Catherine quickly discarded her Portuguese dress but this image remained in the popular imagination via the print versions of the portrait which were available for sale.79 It was also perpetuated in the miniatures appearing on the queen’s own warrants (Figure 10.2).80 As such, these portraits were important in shaping the ongoing image of the queen. They were especially influential away from court where her unfashionable dress was less important than stressing the benefits of her Portuguese links in terms of trade and prosperity. As Anne-Marie Linnell has observed, the nuptial texts for Catherine’s wedding made her body synonymous with Portuguese wealth.81 John Crouch summed this up with the words ‘Hast good queen England with impatience waites / Till Charles Have Tangeers and possess the Straits’.82 73 National Records of Scotland (hereafter NRS) GD16/58/39. 74 Linnell, ‘Becoming a Stuart Queen Consort’, 154, 160–162. 75 NRS GD112/39/108/8. 76 Evelyn, Diary, 438. 77 Breward, The Culture of Fashion, 83. Ribeiro, Fashion and Fiction, 240. 78 Mackay, Catherine, 48. 79 For example, William Faithorne, Catherine of Braganza, after Dirck Stoop, 1662, engraving on paper, BM P.5–38. 80 For example, a warrant signed by the queen in 1667, V&A E.522–1911. 81 Linnell, ‘Becoming a Stuart Queen Consort’, 164. 82 Crouch, Flowers strowed by the Muses, B3v.

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Figure 10.2: Royal warrant signed by Catherine of Braganza, 1667, on vellum. Victoria and Albert Museum, London.

However, while Catherine shed formal Portuguese court dress, she did not cut all ties with her homeland. Indeed, she used her wardrobe of the robes to acquire goods that provided her with the taste and scent of home. In his account for Michaelmas of 1685, David Rowlands paid £1 in customs duty on unspecified goods out of ‘ye Hunter from Lisbon’, and 3s for a chest of oranges.83 In the Christmas account, Rowlands paid duty worth £3 13s 6d and £4 12s 6d on two shipments of Portuguese wine.84 In the following year, he paid 19s 6d owing on a large case of sweet water from Lisbon.85 Being Portuguese was central to Catherine’s identity, but looking Portuguese was not. She needed to dress like an English women to assert her position as queen consort and buttress it against the challenges from the king’s English mistresses and Louise de Kérouaille, who promoted all things French, including French fashion.

Furnishing the Queen’s Apartments The queen’s apartments provided Catherine with space to entertain, dine, worship, and sleep. They were decorated to reflect her taste while also serving as a background for displaying her clothes and those of the individuals that worked there 83 TNA LR5/78, unnumbered bill. 84 TNA LR5/78, unnumbered bill. 85 TNA LR5/79, unnumbered bill

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or visited her there. Catherine had apartments at Whitehall, St. James’s, Windsor, and, after the death of Henrietta Maria, at Somerset House, while Charles rented Audley End for her when he visited Newmarket.86 Her apartments were an integral part of the new palace planned for Winchester. After the king’s visit in June 1684, a green damask travelling bed and a Dutch mat were ordered for Catherine prior to her arrival in August.87 Her position as queen ensured that she was provided with apartments in other people’s houses too, such as the state apartments at Ham House, home of the duke of Lauderdale. Decorated for her visit in 1673, the furnishings included summer and winter hangings for her closet, which had an alcove for a daybed or sleeping chair.88 Socially and politically, the queen’s apartments offered a middle ground between those of the king and those of the mistresses, something which, as Simon Thurley noted, could be exploited by king and queen alike.89 This is evident when work began in 1668 on the new apartments for the king in the Volary building, Whitehall. His new bedchamber was closer to that of the queen, making it easier for him to use her apartments, which offered a less formal setting than his own. Both Charles and Catherine met ambassadors there, including one meeting with the French ambassador, and four with the Venetian ambassador.90 Her first apartment at Whitehall stressed her role as the royal bride with furnishings given by her husband and her mother-in-law: […] The Queenes bed was an Embrodery of silver on Crimson Velvet & cost 8000 pounds, being a present made by the states of Holland, when his Majestie returned, & had ben formerly given by them to our Kinges sister, the Princesse of Orange, & being bought of her againe, now Presented to the King: The greate looking-Glasse & Toilet of beaten & massive Gold was given by the Q: Mother.91

Significantly, Catherine was not given a new bed but one stressing the Stuarts’s Restoration. More interesting was the gift from Henrietta Maria demonstrating Catherine’s legitimate place in the family. Anne Hyde had not received such a warm welcome when she married James, Duke of York and Albany in 1660. However, Catherine also made her mark because ‘The Queene brought over with her from Portugal, such Indian Cabinets and large trunks of Lacaar [lacquer], as had never before ben seene here.’92 While Evelyn considered these cabinets to be an 86 Bryant, ed., The Letters, 226. 87 TNA LC5/67, pp. 26–27; Thurley, ‘A country seat’, 228. 88 Willes, Historic Interiors, 112. 89 Thurley, Somerset House, 65. 90 CSPV, vol. 35, 227–230; CSPV, vol. 36, 57, 78, 87, 154; Weiser, Charles II and the Politics of Access, 35–36. 91 Evelyn, Diary, 439. 92 Evelyn, Diary, 439.

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innovation, they soon gained in popularity once they had been seen in the queen’s apartments.93 Termed ‘Indian’ by contemporaries, these lacquered items were actually from Japan, and had been imported into Portugal in the 1570s.94 On 17 April 1673, Evelyn visited the London home of Lady Tuke, one of the queen’s dressers, where he saw ‘vases, cabinets and other so rich furniture as I have seldom seen; to this excess of superfluity were we now arrived, and that not only at Court but almost universally’.95 Catherine also placed regular orders for Portuguese rush mats for her apartments via the Great Wardrobe.96 These rush mats, made at Lisbon from esparto, must have reminded her of home.97 Their popularity spread beyond her apartments and rush mats from North Africa, Holland, and Portugal continued to be imported after Catherine’s departure in 1692. Indeed, in 1707, Portuguese mats were listed as part of the furnishings in William III’s drawing room and private chamber at Kensington palace.98 During the course of her married life, Catherine’s apartments continued to combine furnishings in the French and Dutch style, alongside pieces with a more exotic feel, although none in the Portuguese style. Leading craftsmen including Jean Poictevin, a French Huguenot who came to England in 1671, worked for her.99 Commissions included work on ‘a sleeping Chaire neatly Carved and the Irons all gilt with gold’ costing £6 for ‘her Mats Bed Chamber’ at Whitehall and two great armchairs for the ‘queenes Great Bed Chamber at windsor’ costing 50s each and covered ‘with fine greene Japan’, meaning lacquer.100 These objects provided the backdrop for displaying gifts from her husband. Prominent in April 1673 was the queen’s ‘rich Toylet in her Dressing roome, which being all of Massie Gold, & presented her by the King’ having cost him £4000.101 The Whitehall apartments of Barbara and Louise were notable for their opulence.102 In September 1675, Louise’s apartments were ‘luxuriously furnished, & with ten times the richnesse & glory beyond the Queenes, such massy pieces of Plate, whole Tables, Stands &tc: of incredible value’.103 While some admired this luxury, in June 1682, critics included members of the House of Commons.104 Louise’s extravagance continued and, in 1683, Evelyn described ‘her prodigal and expensive pleasures’. These were 93 See Mitchell, ‘A Passion For the Exotic’, 69–82. 94 See, for example, a cabinet, c. 1630, made in Japan on a stand made in the Netherlands, c.1690, V&A FE.38–1978; Snodin and Childs, Design and the Decorative Arts, 134–135. 95 Evelyn, Diary, II, 86; Corp, ‘Catherine of Braganza’, 65. 96 Beawes, Civil, Commercial, Political and Literary History, 414. 97 L’Evéque, Costume of Portugal, n.p. 98 Fairchild, ‘Floor Coverings’, 435. 99 Beard, Upholsterers and Interior Furnishings, 85. 100 TNA LC9/275, 20 December 1677 and LC9/276, 12 June 1679. 101 Evelyn, Diary, 585–586. 102 Wynne, ‘The Mistresses’, 174. 103 Evelyn, Diary, 618. 104 Wynne, ‘The Mistresses’, 122.

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undeniable and made the queen look quite modest in comparison. While the French furnishings proclaimed Louise’s nationality and political allegiance, she also had ‘Japon Cabinets’ showing she too could not resist the Portuguese influence of Catherine’s apartments and the wider fashion for the exotic promoted by the queen.105 As this example suggests, Catherine did not surrender her position to the mistresses and quietly made her mark within their homes and apartments.

Celebrating the Royal Bride Catherine of Braganza’s departure from Lisbon was recorded in a painting that captured the bride, her ship, and the ceremony prior to her embarkation.106 Her arrival in England and her marriage to Charles was celebrated in a variety of ways, many of which were less formal but nonetheless significant. People wanted to see her, and such an occasion required new clothes as an expression of their sartorial joy at the occasion. Evelyn recorded details of his ‘journey to Hampton-Court to see the new Queene, being now landed at Portsmouth, & married to the Kinge a weeke before’.107 On 17 May 1662, Pepys went ‘on foot to Paternoster row to buy a petticoat against the queen’s coming for my lady of plain satin and other things’.108 One day later, he admired his wife Elizabeth ‘in her new suit of black sarsenet and yellow petticoat, very pretty’.109 Members of high society also wished to see the queen as the accounts of Anna, countess, later Duchess of Buccleuch reveal. She made payments ‘to the man that brought seats to see the queen’s entry to London’.110 There was a large demand for wedding souvenirs that catered to all tastes. Buttons with references to the marriage of Charles II and Catherine of Braganza were popular, with examples made in base and precious metals to suit all pockets. Three types survive: with two hearts conjoined and crowned, with joined hands above two hearts surmounted by a crown, and a single flaming heart pierced with two crossed arrows.111 Other wedding mementoes included a blued-steel snuffbox with profile busts of bride and groom on the lid, and block-printed wall paper with half-length portraits of the king and queen surrounded by cherubs (Figure 10.3).112 While demand for objects marking the marriage in 1662 was not surprising, it continued for the next 23 years. Popular responses to Catherine as queen were positive and resulted in a 105 Evelyn, Diary, 618. 106 Unknown artist, Royal cortege for the departure of Catherine of Braganza, for England, c.1662, Museu de Lisboa, Palacio Pimenta. 107 Evelyn, Diary, 438 108 Pepys, Diary, III, 83. 109 Pepys, Diary, III, 85. 18 May 1662. 110 NRS GD224/906/59, no. 8. 111 Awais-Dean, Bejewelled, 43. 112 V&A M.26–1964; V&A E.1258–1933.

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Figure 10.3: Fragment of wall paper or lining paper with half-length figures of Charles II and Catherine of Braganza, c. 1662, woodblock print on paper. Victoria and Albert Museum, London.

demand for mementoes such as the beautiful, bespoke gold and painted enamel perfume bottle, c. 1670, with carved agate cameos of the king on the front and the queen on the reverse.113 Less expensive, mass-produced items offered the consumer choice in terms of their patriotic purchases. These ranged from lengths of printed cloth depicting a man and women beneath an oak tree that might be Charles and Catherine, to playing cards printed by Robert Morden in 1676.114 Charles II featured as the king of each suit, and Catherine of Braganza as the queens. All of these examples demonstrate how entrepreneurial craftsmen sought to profit from the royal couple. 113 National Museum of Scotland; illustrated in Marshall, Dynasty, 77, no. 92. 114 For the printed cloth, see V&A T.17–1914. With very grateful thanks to Rosie Waine for drawing this example to my attention. For the playing cards, see Uglow, Gambling Man, 390.

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Figure 10.4: Mirror frame, with a border of satin embroidered with silk and metal thread, and framed in wood painted to imitate lacquer, 1660–80. Victoria and Albert Museum, London.

Kings and queens were a popular subject with late seventeenth-century embroiderers who drew on a tradition of depicting Biblical and classical heroines as models of female virtue.115 Royal figures on raised work mirror frames, pictures, and boxes have traditionally been identified as Charles and his queen but more recently this has been challenged.116 Examples include a mirror frame of cream satin embroidered with silk and metal thread, c.1660–1680, with standardised figures of a king and queen (Figure 10.4).117 While these embroidered figures are of a ‘type’ rather than a portrait, 115 Geuter, ‘Embroidered Biblical Narratives’, 57–59. Also Geuter, ‘Reconsidering’, 97–111. 116 See Snodin and Styles, eds., Design and the Decorative Arts, 107. Brooke, The Lady Lever Art Gallery, 17, 89, 190–191. 117 V&A 351–1886.

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it does not detract from the fact that the monarchy was seen as an appropriate choice of subject for domestic embroidery. The Basing House embroidered picture dates to 1661–1665 and offers a more bespoke image of Charles II and Catherine of Braganza in front of a large country house, accompanied by the motto of the Paulet family who owned the property.118 More ambitious was the beadwork basket that Jonathan Tavares considers to depict Charles II and Catherine of Braganza, with allegories of the four continents that hint at the wealth contained in her dowry (Colour Plate 9).119 The inclusion of the peacock on the latter, as a symbol of the Restoration, reveals part of the maker’s motivation. This time-consuming, expensive project was a statement of loyalty to the crown. For those with less skill, money, or inclination, there was a healthy market in mass-produced goods too, including commemorative ceramics. Thomas Toft and others produced Staffordshire slipware dishes with portraits of Charles II and Catherine of Braganza in the 1680s (Figure 10.5).120 There was also a market for printed material in the years after their marriage that stressed the legitimacy of her position and the

Figure 10.5: Dish with portraits of Charles II and Catherine of Braganza, c. 1662–85, tin glazed earthenware, Brislington pottery. Victoria and Albert Museum, London.

118 Willis Museum, Basingstoke. 119 Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, 39.13.1; Morrall and Watt, English Embroidery, 135, no. 13. 120 Cooper, English Slipware Dishes. Other examples include an earthenware dish showing Charles II and Catherine of Braganza, c.1662–1685, from the Brislington pottery, V&A 3869–1901.

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importance of the restored monarchy. Two well-known examples, the mezzotint by Abraham Blooteling (c.1678) and the full-length engraving by Edward Le Davis, after John Baptist Gaspars (1682), present the viewer with formal, regal images of Catherine.121 In the former, she is seated with her crown on a table to her right, while, in the latter, she is dressed in robes of state, wearing her crown and holding the orb. The regalia in both instances stress her position as queen even though none was made for her because she was not crowned.122 The latter, after being sold between 1682 and 1684 as part of a set of images of the royal family, was reused as the frontispiece of the second volume of Pitt’s English Atlas (1682).123 While Pepys might describe Barbara’s most recent portrait in 1662 as ‘a most blessed picture […] that I must have a copy of’, none of the mistresses or the print-sellers exploiting their celebrity status could rival the long term appeal of the queen.124 Well after her death, Charles’s loyal, Catholic queen was celebrated by Jacobite audiences who bought reissued prints of the Stoop portrait to stress their loyalty to the Stuart cause in the eighteenth century.125 Their choice recognised her rightful place as a member of the Stuart family.

Being Queen Clarendon advised to Charles to ‘style her your wife, and that she be reputed as married before she come thence’ and this concept was something that Catherine took to heart.126 Throughout her marriage, she took every opportunity to assert her position and the social power associated with being queen. She did this through the use of the textiles permitted to her as Charles’s consort. For instance, in August 1675, she received a new crimson velvet chair of estate, two high stools, two cushions, and a footstool, all embroidered for her private chamber at Whitehall.127 Unlike the mistresses, Catherine received an annual allowance of linen from the Great Wardrobe for her sheets costing £240, while two of her dressers received 50 ells, each worth £35.128 Catherine also ensured that her arms or monogram were placed on her moveable goods, including two silver chamber pots engraved with the king´s and queen’s arms, a silver gilt apple roaster, and a set of eighteen knives.129 This continued after 121 Abraham Blooteling, after Peter Lely, Catherine of Braganza, mezzotint, c. 1678 and Edward Le Davis, after John Baptist Gaspars, Catherine of Braganza, 1682. 122 In contrast, Sir Robert Viner made with a diadem (RCIN 31708), ivory rod with a dove (RCIN 31716), and sceptre with a cross (RCIN 31715), made for Mary of Modena in 1685. 123 MacLeod, Painted Ladies, 195. 124 Pepys, Diary, III, 230. 125 National Library of Scotland, 75242111. 126 Bryant, ed., The Letters, 125. 127 TNA LC5/141, 245. 128 Folger MS X.d.76, f. 2r. 129 TNA LC5/143, p. 138, LR5/79 unnumbered bills of Thomas Fowles and Richard Hoare. 130 TNA LR5/79, unnumbered bill.

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Charles’s death, when William Emmet carved a chimney piece with fruits, flowers, and an imperial crown for Somerset House.130 As queen consort, Catherine had her own council and their chamber was kept well supplied with coal, candles, and sweet-strewing herbs.131 More importantly, Catherine used her apartments to emulate Henrietta Maria’s ‘circle’. Her drawing rooms and the gatherings that took place there were some of the most influential social occasions at court.132 Men and women met freely in the queen’s apartments, but they needed to be well dressed and the Grand Duke of Tuscany changed his clothes before making his entrance.133 Managing the household well, and within budget, was a wifely duty that Catherine did well. She also used her household to make a public display through the livery she issued. This was most important for those who went out of doors with her, such as her bargemen. On 4 November 1676, Robert Hill, master of the queen’s barge, was supplied with caps and shirts for the watermen.134 Her ‘troop’, commanded by Sir Philip Howard, was equipped in suitable style in June 1677 when Mr. Allen, his majesty’s tailor, made a velvet coat trimmed with silk and silver lace stuff for the kettle drummer.135 Celebrating the queen’s birthday was not new in the 1660s, but the bonfires lit for the birthday of Henrietta Maria were not always greeted with much enthusiasm. In contrast, Catherine’s birthday on 25 November was an important point in the social calendar. There were official salutes such as firing the guns in the Tower in 1663.136 This was matched by a court ball with the focus very much on the queen. However, these balls also provided an opportunity for other women to show off, so much so that, in 1666, Catherine opted to stand out by wearing no jewels and upstaging the mistresses by a display of plainness.137 However, in November 1681, religious tensions in London saw rioting break out after the queen’s lace maker lit ‘a popish bonfire to celebrate her birthday’.138 Once these tensions had subsided, the queen’s birthday was celebrated with even greater public displays with fireworks alongside the traditional bonfires as part of the nighttime entertainments planned for 1684.139 New clothes to mark the special day were important and for her last birthday ball as queen, she wore ‘the Birth Day Green Petticoat’.140

131 For example, see TNA LR5/79, undated bills. 132 Keay, The Magnificent Monarch, 128. 133 Magalotti, Travels of Cosmo the Third, 290–291; Keay, The Magnificent Monarch, 128. 134 Folger MS X.d.679, no. 2. 135 Folger MS X.d.679, no. 18. 136 Pepys, Diary, IV, 382. 137 Pepys, Diary, VII, 371. 138 Miller, After the Civil Wars, 82. 139 Cressy, Bonfires and Bell, 185. 140 TNA LR5/78, unnumbered bill.

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Catherine’s social image was partially shaped by others. Ships were named after her and, after the launch of the Royal Catherine in October 1664, Prince Rupert assured the king that ‘you will say she is the finest ship’.141 She also had her own yacht. In 1670, ‘The Queen was entertained this day by the duchess of York at Deptford where she went on board her ship, gave it a Portuguese name and fired a gun.’142 Catherine also had her own troops as a mark of her royal status. On their return from Tangier, the secondd regiment of foot were named for ‘our dearest consort, the Queen’s Regiment’. They were not just for show. On 11 July 1671, the two companies under Colonel Russell were ordered to march down to Hampton Court to attend the queen there and look after her safety.143 Being queen meant that Catherine performed a number of social engagements, some with her husband and some on her own. Together, they visited St. James’s park in 1668 and Richard Partington, woollen draper, supplied 24 yards of blue cloth, at 12s per yard, to lay upon the stairs as they went into St. James’s park.144 Mr. Dixon noted after his attendance at the Commemoration Feast in 1670 at The Queen’s College, Oxford, that he saw a painted window recently put up with the figures of the king and queen.145 Catherine also made visits alone as was the case of her trip to Sandwich, Kent, in May 1672; this event was recorded in a series of four paintings.146 While the mistresses undeniably had an unofficial role that could rival that of the queen, and yachts were named for them too, Catherine was the focal point for official female royal ceremony inside and outside the royal palaces. She harnessed all the traditional queenly trappings to counter the challenges posed by the mistresses and, while she could not outshine them, she was never eclipsed by them.

The Ups and Downs of Being a Pious Wife When the Puritan, Dorothy Leigh, wrote her Mother’s Blessing in 1616, she urged her son to seek out a godly wife, as well as a good wife, but she would not have considered a Catholic bride to be a suitable choice.147 Consequently, while Catherine’s Catholicism was very important in shaping her public persona, it was her piety that people most admired and feared. However, when the match was first considered, the only parliamentary objection to Charles II’s marriage to a Catholic was made by the earl of Cassilis, but his motion was not seconded.148 The official view from the court was that Catherine’s faith was to be celebrated as a virtue and this theme was emphasised 141 Bryant, ed., The Letters, 168. 142 CSPD 1670, 163. 143 CSPD 1671, 380. 144 TNA LC9/271, f. 25v. 145 CSPD 1670, 376. 146 These paintings are in the collection of Sandwich Town Council. 147 Keeble, ed., Cultural Identity, 165. 148 Mackay, Catherine of Braganza, 39.

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in the silver medal designed by Jan Roettier in c. 1662. He placed an image of St. Catherine of Alexandria on the reverse with the words PIETATE.INSIGNIS (´eminent for piety´) so linking the saint with the portrait of the queen on the obverse. While this small-scale image might have had a fairly limited audience, the impact of Jacob Huysmans’s full-length portrait of the queen as St. Catherine reached further. Pepys saw the painting in the artist’s studio and engraved versions were produced. The portrait reinforced the queen’s reputation for chaste piety. Her own behaviour compounded the effect, with Pepys noting on 25 November 1666, ‘this being St Katherines day, the Queene was at masse by 7 a-clock this morning’.149 The marriage treaty made provision for Catherine to worship at St. James’s Palace. Prior to her journey to England starting, the king ordered the royal coffer maker to cover chests with red velvet and decorate them with the arms of England and Portugal to transport Catherine’s chapel goods.150 In the year after their marriage, Charles was keen to give his wife religious gifts. In April 1663, he begged a favour of Minette: I send you here the title of a little book of devotion in Spanish, which my wife desires to have […] pray you send two of them by the first conveniency.151

In December of that year, Charles wrote: Pray send me some images, to put in prayer books. They are for my wife who can get none here. I assure you it will be a great present to her, and she will look upon them often.152

Catherine also held her own Maundy ceremony.153 In March 1687, Matthias Cupper supplied 41 yards of Brussels cloth and 12 yards of Holland damask for her Maundy.154 Catherine may have suffered indirectly from the negative image of Henrietta Maria, whose return to England pleased ‘very few’.155 On the death of her mother-inlaw in 1669, Somerset House passed to Catherine and her chapels were a focal point for political debate. By the 1670s, they became contested spaces even if Catherine did not actively use her chapels in this way. English Catholics could attend and worship there, while Anglicans such as Pepys were able to visit to satisfy their curiosity. What he saw was opulent and it is reflected in Catherine’s expenditures. In 1671–1672, her annual income was £40,000, of which she spent £5680 on the chapel.156 More 149 Pepys, Diary, VII, 384. 150 Beard, Upholsterers and Interior Furnishings, 82. 151 Norrington, My Dearest Minette, 65. 152 Norrington, My Dearest Minette, 72. 153 TNA Works 5/23. f. 294, Works 5/32, f. 200; Thurley, Somerset House, 71. 154 TNA LR5/79, unnumbered bill. 155 Pepys, Diary, 1, 282; Harris, ‘“There is none that loves him”’, 41. 156 Corp, ‘Catherine of Braganza’, 59.

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significantly, the habits and cassocks worn by the queen’s monks and priests, and the vestments used within her chapel, were highly distinctive. An indication of the value can be gauged from the payment of £1200 made by Sir Robert Long to Abbot Montague, almoner to the late Queen Mother, in recompense for the plate and ornaments of her chapel.157 The linens required for the chapel were made within the queen’s household.158 The queen also governed what the maids of honour wore when attending mass, thereby managing the visual impact of her church attendance on those who witnessed it. Pepys reported on 24 June 1664 that he had ‘met the Queen coming from chapell with her maids of honour all in silver lace gowns again’.159 Catherine’s piety was not confined to her chapel. Pepys described Catherine’s bedchamber at Whitehall in 1664 as decorated with ‘nothing but some pretty pious pictures and books of devotion. And her holy water at her head as she sleeps, with a clock by her bed-side wherein a lamp burns that tells her the time of night at any time’.160 However, to dismiss the room on the ground of its simplicity, as Pepys did, misses the point. As Sasha Handley has shown, this was a carefully orchestrated display of Catherine’s faith. The furnishing of the queen’s bedchamber was designed to aid her spiritual well-being through meditation before sleeping.161 Catherine’s piety was undeniable, but, in a country where Catholics were regarded with suspicion in some quarters, it was a quality that could be turned against her.

Rejecting the Idea of the Good Wife According to John Wilmot, secondd earl of Rochester, virtue was suffocated by vice at the Restoration court. The social and moral order was inverted, creating an environment in which ‘Mean prostrate bitches, for a Bridewell fit, with England’s wretched queen must equal sit’.162 Mocking the queen was not enough and Rochester contemplated abducting Catherine, thereby ruining her reputation, or sending her incognito to America as ways of getting rid of her.163 More importantly, the value the queen placed on marriage was challenged by the mock marriages of Frances Stuart and Barbara Villiers and that between Charles II and Louise in October 1671 at the home of the earl and countess of Arlington. According to Evelyn, ‘It was universally reported that the faire Lady – was bedded one of these nights, and the stocking flung, after the manner of a married Bride […] she was for the most part in her undresse all day’.164 157 CSPD 1671, 400. 158 Lincolnshire Record Office, I-Worsley 6, n.p. [9 May 1664]. 159 Pepys, Diary, V, 188. 160 Pepys, Diary, V, 188. 161 Handley, Sleep, 102. 162 Wilmot, An Imitation, ll. 19–20; The Works of the Earls, 63. 163 Mackay, Catherine of Braganza, 168. 164 Evelyn, Diary, 589.

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Catherine’s wifely image was also under attack. Several years after Huysmans painted the queen as St. Katherine, Barbara Villiers was depicted in the same guise. Catharine MacLeod has interpreted this as a sign that, by taking the queen’s image, Villiers wanted to be seen as the king’s fertile consort and ready to step into Catherine´s place.165 Many considered that the king undermined the sanctity of wedlock through the marriages he arranged for his illegitimate children. The most important Scottish heiress, Anne Scott, Duchess of Buccleuch, married James Crofts, Charles II’s son with Lucy Walter, in 1663. More provocative was the marriage of Isabella Bennet to Henry Fitzroy, later Duke of Grafton, the son of Villiers. They were married in 1672 when Isabella was five and Evelyn described the bride as the ‘sweetest, hopfullest, most beautifull child, & most virtuous to’ before adding that she ‘was Sacrific’d to a boy, that had ben rudely bred’.166 Yet, through the efforts of the queen and those who promoted her cause, virtuous women and good wives were celebrated and their admirable qualities were promoted. For many, especially men of the middling sort, the queen’s image as innocent bride and honourable wife was very attractive. Pepys was delighted with the portrait of his wife who was being painted like St. Katherine, as Lady Peters had been in February 1666. This flattering emulation of royal style was probably Pepys’s choice.167 However, there is no reason to think that Mrs. Pepys was unhappy at having her wifely virtues recognised, while also paying homage to the queen. Single women such as Jane Widdrington also adopted the pose. By making this choice, Jane, who was a Catholic and a maid of honour to Catherine of Braganza, demonstrated her loyalty to the queen and the image that the queen presented. The artist a woman chose, or her husband chose for her, said a lot about the sitter. As Diana Dethloff has said, John Michael Wright presented his female sitters as modest, while Lely painted women whose bold looks and behaviour did not conform to the advice given in conduct books.168 John Michael Wright summarized what he could offer respectable female sitters in a letter to Sir Walter Bagot on 27 July 1676: ‘I have begun […] diverse ladyes who are all sufficiently satisfied and judge me moderat comparatively to Mr. Lilly’.169 Indeed, this struggle between virtue and vice was a theme that featured in court entertainments and portraiture and one which women on both sides of the divide could exploit. Margaret Blagg, who was praised by Evelyn for her virtues, was perfect for the role of the virgin goddess Diana in John Crowne’s court masque Calisto: Or, The Chaste Nymph in 1674–1675, while another young innocent, Princess Mary, took the title role.170 Dryden dedicated his opera The State of Innocence and Fall of Man, 165 MacLeod, Painted Ladies, 129–130. 166 MacLeod, Painted Ladies, 198; Evelyn, Diary, IV, 184. 167 Dethloff, ‘Portraiture’, 24–25. 168 Dethloff, ‘Portraiture’, 33. 169 Smith, ‘Letters’, 233–236. 170 MacLeod, Painted Ladies, 42.

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(1677) to Mary of Modena. Frances Stewart, another symbol of virtue, was praised in the poetry of Edmund Waller and Andrew Marvell and painted by Lely holding the bow of Diana, the virgin huntress.171 Catherine and her husband’s mistresses all sought the upper hand at court, and, while the mistresses might outshine her on occasion, they never displaced her.

Conclusions Catherine of Braganza was a good wife to Charles II. She was modest, chaste, biddable, pious, and loyal. She promoted this honourable persona throughout 23 years of marriage, while maintaining her husband’s affection and loyalty on the things that really mattered. He refused to divorce her and he protected her against her attackers. While rejecting her national court dress in 1662, Catherine continued to promote Portugal’s specific furnishing style and the furnishings associated with the Portuguese empire. Yet, Catherine’s relationship with Portuguese dress was complex. On her return to Portugal, Catherine’s style caused a stir. The king wanted her to ‘dress herself in the Portuguese garb’ while ‘all the Portuguese ladies have entreated her and the Queen of Portugal to join them in a petition to Dom Pedro for permission to dress in the French mode’.172 The women won this sartorial battle and a French tailor was requested from Paris. Just as Catherine had learnt how to play and win the sartorial game at the English court, she also gradually learnt how to live with her husband, as a good wife should. So much so that, by the end of Charles II’s reign, Lady Sunderland observed that Catherine ‘is a mistress now, the passion her spouse has for her is so great’.173

About the author Maria Hayward is Professor of Early Modern History at the University of Southampton and her main research interests are sixteenth- and seventeenth-century textiles and clothing. Her publications include Dress at the Court of King Henry VIII (2007); Rich Apparel: Clothing and the Law in Henry VIII’s England (2009); The Great Wardrobe Accounts of Henry VII and Henry VIII (2012); with Philip Ward, The Inventory of King Henry VIII: vol2 – Textiles and Dress (2012); and with Ulinka Rublack, The First Book of Fashion: The Book of Clothes of Matthaeus an Veit Konrad Schwarz of Augsburg (2015). 171 MacLeod, Painted Ladies, 30–31, 42. 172 Quoted in Davidson, Catherine of Bragança, 478. 173 Blencowe, ed., Henry Sidney’s Diary, 86.

11. Chintz, China, and Chocolate: The Politics of Fashion at Charles II’s Court Juliet Claxton and Evelyn Welch

Abstract This essay examines the role of female merchants and consumers at the court of Charles II. It explores the complex, commercial interface between courtiers and their suppliers, particularly with regard to acquiring newly fashionable, East-Indian luxuries. The essay examines the 1682 inventory of an unnamed ‘china-woman’ and the valuable range of goods itemized in her warehouse, which included silks, cottons, expensive jewellery, porcelain, teapots, lacquer, and other exotica. The goods held by the merchant reveal a complex supply chain, created and nurtured by merchants, maritime networks, and retailers; further, this challenges the traditional narratives surrounding the introduction of these products into British domestic practices, and the role played by women both at court and in the city. Key words: Louise de Kérouaille; Barbara Villiers; Catherine of Braganza; ChinaWomen; East India Company; Ben Johnson

In 1687, the East Indies Company wrote to their factors in Bombay asking for, ‘chintzes of all sorts, whereof some to be grave and cloth-coloured, with the greatest variety you can invent, they having become the wear of ladies of the highest quality’ (Figure 11.1).1 Such requests suggest that the lightweight, colour-fast cotton weaves were rapidly becoming fashionable, and had been easily absorbed into the English market. As Maria Hayward has already shown in the previous chapter, the ladies at the court of Charles II were integral to this trend, as they competed against each other in its observance in the name of fashion. But how did ‘ladies of the highest quality’ agree that these new fabrics were desirable? Who defined and spread these fashions, particularly when supplies might be difficult to obtain? This chapter builds on Hayward’s work to show how the fashions that court ladies wore and propagated were determined, not only by the court, but also by structures of colonial exchange, 1 Douglas, ‘Cotton Textiles in England’, 32. For a more recent discussion, see Nierstrasz, Rivalry for Trade in Tea and Textiles.

Griffey, E. (ed.), Sartorial Politics in Early Modern Europe: Fashioning Women, Amsterdam University Press, 2019 doi: 10.5117/9789462986008_ch11

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Figure 11.1: Fragment of seventeenth-century Indian, cotton chintz. Victoria and Albert Museum, London.

which involved female merchants such as the deceased ‘Testatrix’, whose inventory forms the basis of this study, taking a greater role in sartorial trade than ever before. In theory, the trajectory should have been straightforward. In a hierarchical society that was supposedly centred on the court, styles should have been set by the elites, facilitated by mercers, haberdashers, and other specialists, before moving out into the countryside and down the social ladder. In his essays for the seventeenth-century French gazette Mercure Galant, the editor Jean Donneau de Visé explained how new

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fashions shifted from the pinnacle of the court at Versailles to working-class Frenchwomen, the grisettes. The downward cycle of imitation and adaption encouraged mimicry across social lines using ever-cheaper cloth: And it was then said that Fashions pass from the Court to the Ladies of the City, from Ladies of the City to rich Bourgeois women, from Bourgeois women to Grisettes, who imitated them with lesser cloth.2

Figure 11.2: A fashionable man’s attire, published in Mercure Galant, Paris, October 1678. Bibliothèque Nationale de France.

2

Cited in Crowston, Fabricating Women, 48.

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In this narrative, wearing the right fabrics at the right moment in time defined one’s status, both at court and in lower social ranks. Donneau de Visé, a staunch monarchist and advocate of Louis XIV, reinforced this sense of ‘what to wear and when’ at court by printing images of what was required for the summer and winter seasons, complete with detailed indications of colours and accessories.3 His foldout plates, which first appear in special editions of the Mercure Galant during the late 1670s, were accompanied with very specific instructions; in October 1678, for example, the text gave precise details of the fabrics and ribbons needed for the coming winter, along with the names of the shopkeepers or specialists whom buyers needed to visit to obtain the right supplies. The descriptions invited the reader to imagine that they were seeing these figures in the flesh, and in the case of the gentleman he explained, ‘His suit is in the grey I described before and is sold in the shop of sieur Gaultier’ (Figure 11.2).4 Potential buyers were thus encouraged to conform to the styles that were in trend, not only for the sake of keeping up-to-date, but to maintain the status which their birth had afforded them.

Figure 11.3: A fashionable couple visiting a shop, published in Mercure Galant, Paris, January 1678. Every item of clothing and fashionable accessory is marked by a number or letter, keyed to commentary in the text describing the male and female attire, while new textiles available hang in front of the counter, similarly marked. Bibliothèque Nationale de France.

3 Tépaut-Cabasset, ed., L’Esprit des modes, 100 and 103. 4 Tépaut-Cabasset, ed., L’Esprit des modes, 110. ‘Son habit est de ces draps gris dont je vous ai déjà parlé, et qui se vendent chez le sieur Gaultier.’

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Amongst his plates for a supplement published in January 1678, the Extraordinaire du Mercure Galant, Donneau de Visé not only continued to recommend materials that could be purchased at François Gaultier’s shop, but also provided an image of the boutique itself, complete with an index indicating what was currently on sale from wigs to the latest silk designs (Figure 11.3). The editor flattered his readers by saying that the information that he was circulating was for women and came from women, ‘To the Ladies […] I am sending you a work that comes from you yourselves’.5 He was careful to emphasise to his female readers that the styles he was promoting were determined by the Court. In volume no.10 (published in January 1678), for example, the print and accompanying text stressed that, ‘The king currently wears brown leather boots for hunts’, making it clear that this was the colour that should be purchased that year.6 While the Mercure Galant’s compilation issue was aimed primarily at women, sales in both Paris and other European cities were often made by and to men, even if the ultimate recipients of the goods were female. While England did not have an equivalent periodical to the Mercure Galant until the advent of The Tatler and The Spectator in the early part of the eighteenth century, copies of the French publication were circulated and read by London’s elite.7 With such well-established European literary tropes regarding shopping and fashion, it is often challenging to track how early modern men, and particularly women, actually decided what to buy or wear. A surviving late seventeenth-century English inventory that is examined in this essay, however, provides considerable insight into the relationship between court and urban fashions that challenges the notion that merchants simply followed royal tastes when selecting stock. Although incomplete, and lacking the personal details of the deceased, the inventory records the contents of both the private house and warehouses of an unidentified female merchant, termed in the manuscript as the ‘Testatrix’. The goods recorded in the inventory, and the list of significant aristocratic debtors at the end, reveal that the merchant supplied Chinese, Asian, and other luxury commodities to the court of Charles II. This essay seeks to identify the merchant and examines the methods she employed to retail these goods to her customers. This enquiry gives considerable insight into the social networks and commercial techniques exploited by the ‘Testatrix’ to promote the sale of luxury Asian 5 Fuhring, Marchesano, Mathis, Selbach, eds., A Kingdom of Images, 256: ‘Aux Dames ….c’est vous render un ouvrage qui vient de vous’. 6 Tépaut-Cabasset, ed., L’Esprit des modes, 90. ‘Le Roi porte aujourd’hui des bottes pour la chasse, qui sont de cuir brun’. 7 An extant issue of the Mercure Galant translated into English is held by the British Library, and copies of the periodical appear in several contemporary auction catalogues; for example, in 1687, ‘A catalogue of the libraries of Mr. Jer. Copping, late of Sion Colledge, Gent., and Anscel Beaumont, late of the Middle Temple, Esq. with others containing large collection and great variety of English books in divinity, history, law, physick, travels, romances, poetry, &c.: as also French, Italian, Spanish and Dutch books, which are to be exposed to sale by way of auction at Jonathan’s Coffee-House in Exchange-Alley in Cornhil, London on Monday the 21st day of March, 1686/7’, lot no. 95 on page 4 lists a 1673 copy of the Mercure Galant. For The Tatler and The Spectator, see Mackie, The Commerce of Everyday Life (1998).

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goods to her aristocratic clientele. In doing so, it challenges the perceived notion that fashions were established in and emanated from the court and then entered wider society though a ‘trickle-down’ effect. The research presented in this essay will show how fashioning at the Restoration court did not happen through personality-driven whim or fancy, but was the product of complex and sophisticated commercial networks, which serviced very specific financial and commercial interests. This demonstrates how the new Asian products that entered seventeenth-century London encouraged innovative forms of merchandising. Finally, the inventory highlights the relationships between access to novel Asian goods, new forms of consumption, and the role that women played in either setting or in promoting Restoration fashions. It poses the question of how fashion was constructed when sartorial authority itself was disputed amongst the influential women at the court of Charles II. *** In Paris, François Gaultier, whose name regularly appeared in royal accounts from 1670– 1686, promoted novel colours and fabrics, often imported from Asia such as painted calicoes, alongside his more traditional brocades and silks.8 An investor in the French East India Company, he relied on their deliveries to service his clients with novel weaves.9 In England, the key figures in this supply chain were not only traditional mercers or haberdashers like Gaultier, but also a new type of female merchant. Akin to the French marchande mercier, she features in Ben Jonson’s comic play Epicene, first performed in 1609 or possibly early 1610. In this work, Jonson introduced his audiences to the character of Mrs. Otter, who he termed ‘the rich china-woman that the courtiers visited so often, that gave the rare entertainment’.10 She was not an ethnic Chinese woman, but rather a dedicated retailer of imported luxury Asian goods such as silks, porcelain, fans, and tea. In his play, Jonson establishes Mrs. Otter as a convincing, if somewhat grotesque, character whose wealth is derived from selling Asian goods to Jacobean courtiers. As a consequence of her commercial success, she rules over her husband and aspires to a more prestigious social position. Although Jonson is not explicit, he implies that Mrs. Otter operated one of the new ‘china-houses’, which were becoming established at the New Exchange in London’s Strand. In 1614, for example, a reference in East India Company records shows that the Company itself invested £25 for the purchase of paper, fans, ink boxes, and porcelain to furnish a china shop in the New Exchange.11 In Epicene, the foppish knight Sir Amorous La Foole even lives in this location: He has alodging in the Strand for the purpose, or to watch when ladies are gone to the china-houses or the Exchange, that he may meet ‘em by chance and give ‘em presents, some two or three hundred pounds’ worth of toys, to be laughed at.12 8 Tépaut-Cabasset, ‘A Glittering Reputation’, 172. 9 Tépaut-Cabasset, ‘A Glittering Reputation’, 175. 10 Jonson, Epicene, 136–137. 11 Irwin, ‘Origins of the Oriental Style’, 113. 12 Jonson, Epicene, 134.

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The women whom Amorous watches become the object of Jonson’s satire; termed ‘the Collegiate Ladies’, they are presented as a promiscuous group who live apart from their husbands, inhabiting the china-houses and the New Exchange. ‘Haughty’, one of these ladies, entreats the newly married Epicene to: ‘go with us to Bedlam, to the china-houses and to the Exchange’.13 The play indicates that ‘china-houses’ were a unique location in which both female seller and female buyer could come together. That fact that women came together to buy and sell exotic, imported materials is made more significant by the highly fashionable nature of these goods at the time. ‘China goods’ feature extensively in another early seventeenth-century masque attributed to Ben Jonson, The Key Keeper, A Masque for the Opening of Britain’s Burse, or the New Exchange, as it was more commonly known. This play opens with the cries of the shop boy itemising a long list of all the available exotic wares: What do you lack? What is’t you buy? Very fine China stuffs of all kinds and qualities? China chains, China bracelets, China scarves, China fans, China girdles, China knives, China boxes, China cabinets, caskets, umbrellas, sundials, hourglasses, looking-glasses, burning glasses, concave glasses, triangular glasses, convex glasses, crystal globes, waxen pictures, ostrich eggs, birds of paradise, musk-cats, Indian rats, China dogs and China cats, Flowers of silk, mosaic fishes? Waxen fruit and porcelain dishes? Best fine cages for birds, billiard balls, purses, pipes, rattles, basins, ewers, cups, can voiders, toothpicks, targets, falchions, beards of all ages, vizards, spectacles? See, what you lack?14

While Jonson satirised the tendency to put ‘China’ in front of every item, from girdles to cabinets, there was indeed an upsurge in interest in ceramics, lacquerware, and other new goods ranging from silk flowers to stuffed birds of paradise in this period.15 But the market for these luxuries depended on unpredictable private-trading arrangements rather than the annual East India Company shipments, which emerged during the eighteenth century. Instead, with only intermittent supplies available, obtaining and displaying these luxury goods was as much a sign of knowledge and connections as it was of wealth. The unpublished probate inventory this essay considers is dated to 1682 and lists the private house and warehouses of a female merchant who is referred to as ‘the Testatrix at her Decease’. The inventory made of this woman’s goods following her death appears to be associated with a key intermediary in this highly personalised supply chain, one who sourced and satisfied the demand for exotic ceramics, chintzes, teapots, and chocolate.16 The ‘Testatrix’ herself must have had 13 Jonson, Epicene, 216. 14 Jonson, The Key Keeper, 6–8. 15 Claxton, Tralucent as Amber, 120–122. 16 The inventory is from the Prerogative court of Canterbury, and is held by the National Archives in Kew, hereafter TNA PROB: 4/25866. The catalogue entry states that the inventory belonged to a ‘court-dresser’, but this is almost certainly erroneous. The position of court-dresser was performed by a high-ranking courtier who

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some form of official status at court as all royal tradesmen had to be sworn in to the Lord Chamberlain, and an entry in the inventory under the heading ‘Ready money’ notes that ‘£383.0.5’ had been lodged ‘in Mr Chamberline hands’, presumably as money she was owed for either goods or services provided to the court. It is probable that the money deposited with the Lord Chamberlain was recorded by means of a tally stick. Notches cut into a wooden stick were used to record the amount of money involved in the transaction (the size of the notches indicated the sum), and the tally stick was then split lengthways. Both parties to the transaction would retain a piece of the stick as proof of the debt and when it was repaid, the two pieces were put back together to check the amount. In 1671, for example, the seamstress Elizabeth Bell’s will refers to a tally stick recording ‘money due unto me from his Majestie’, which she bequeathed her son.17 The inventory also makes it clear that the merchant’s courtly connections would have been obvious to anyone visiting her lodgings. Her dining room was furnished with a portrait of ‘Generall Monck’, probably George Monck, the first Duke of Albermarle, whose image was painted by Peter Lely in the mid 1660s.18 Originally a Cromwell loyalist, General Monck had been instrumental in the Stuart Restoration. In recognition of his services, he had become Charles II’s Gentleman of the Bedchamber and Master of the Horse before his death in 1670.19 Another image in the same room, of ‘Madam Lenox’, may be related to the title of Earl of Lennox that Charles II bestowed upon his illegitimate son Charles Lennox with Louise de Kérouaille, Duchess of Portsmouth (Colour Plate 10).20 While Louise was referred to by her full title in the list of debtors (she owed the merchant £100, making her the principal debtor by a considerable margin), she may have been referenced here more informally. In the parlour, there was a portrait of ‘Prince Rupert’, son of the Winter Queen, Charles II’s sister, Elizabeth of Bohemia. Rupert was a founding member of the Royal Society, had supported his uncle in battle, and was eventually awarded the title of Duke of Cumberland.21 There were no portraits of either the king or queen themselves, and the images that are included suggest a more personal link to the court rather than a generic homage to the Stuart dynasty. Prominently displayed within her home, these pictures signalled the merchant’s connections to elite circles, and may have even been received as gifts from clients themselves.22 handed clothing to the monarch at the ceremonial levé, or dressing, a custom that originated in the French court and was adopted by Charles II on his restoration. See: Weiser, Charles II and the Politics of Access, 34. 17 TNA PROB 11/337 Will of Elizabeth Bell. 18 Hutton, ‘Monck, George, first duke of Albemarle (1608–1670)’, www.oxforddnb.com. 19 Hutton, ‘Monck, George, first duke of Albemarle (1608–1670)’, www.oxforddnb.com. 20 Bevan, Charles the Second’s French Mistress, 66. 21 Roy, ‘Rupert, prince and Count Palatine of the Rhine and Duke of Cumberland (1619–1692)’, www. oxforddnb.com. 22 Corinne Thepaut-Cabasset speculates that Gaultier received portraits from his royal clientele. See Thepaut-Cabasset, ‘A Glittering Reputation’, 182.

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A further connection between the merchant and notable female courtiers is found on the final page of the inventory. This lists 29 aristocratic debtors, 23 of whom were female, and a number of whom were or had been Charles II’s mistresses. These included, amongst others: Barbara Villiers, Duchess of Cleveland; Louise de Kérouaille, Duchess of Portsmouth; Mrs. Davis; Madam Austin; Lady Hunt; Lady Apsley; the Duchesses of Richmond, Southampton, and Monmouth; Madam Howard, who may have been Mary Howard, Countess of Arundel or her more infamous relative and lady-in-waiting, Mall Howard, who was satirised for her easy distribution of sexual favours; the painter Sir Peter Lely; and the Portuguese ambassador.23 No particulars are given for the debts and only one entry for ‘Mr Taylor’ details two sums that were owed for rent. However, a further reference to a ‘Mr Taylor’ amongst the invoices for costumes ordered for the Masque of Calistho or the chaste Nymph, performed at court in 1672, establishes another potential link between the merchant and the Restoration court.24 The debts recorded in the 1682 inventory were very substantial, but may not have been unusual. Charles II’s court had a reputation for extravagance and Louise de Kérouaille was known for her expensive tastes, as demonstrated by an invoice for the elaborate outfit she wore to perform the Masque of Calistho ‒ the total bill for this costume came to £59.15s.09d.25 De Kérouaille had supplanted Barbara Villiers as the royal mistress in 1671, and the sum would have been added to the king’s account. This notwithstanding, in the inventory, she had a personal debt to the merchant that was slightly less than twice the cost of the costume. As this suggests, appointment as a royal supplier was a great honour, but it could also leave the merchant in acute financial difficulties.26 Clare Haru Crowston has observed that merchants rarely received the full price for the garments they supplied, and payments were often made in instalments recorded by simple bookkeeping methods.27 However, the wardrobe accounts for Charles II testify to the willingness of court suppliers to extend credit arrangements to the monarch and his courtiers. Indeed, these lengthy financial arrangements even had positive aspects, creating ties of patronage and moral obligation that could benefit the tailor or seamstress, allowing them to appeal to their well-connected clients in times of need.28 From the 1682 inventory, we can get a better sense of what the court clients, particularly the noblewomen amongst them, could have purchased. It provides a snapshot of a home that could be considered a showcase for the wares available from India, Asia, 23 Wilson, Court Satires, 253. The ‘Mrs Davis’ referred to in the inventory may be Mary or Moll Davis (c. 1651–1708), who was an actress and mistress to Charles II. See Baldwin, and Wilson; see: ODNB online edition, www.oxforddnb.com. 24 The British Library (hereafter BL): Add MS 27588, f.2v. 25 BL: Add MS 27588, f.2r. 26 Marley, ‘Fashionable Suppliers’, 335. 27 Crowston, Fabricating Women, 164. 28 Crowston, Fabricating Women, 168.

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Figure 11.4: Detail of a room with chintz hangings from the Dolls’ House of Petronella Dunois, 1678. Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam.

and the New World. With its colourful cotton quilts, curtains, seat cushions, carpets, teapots, and silverware, as well as a globe, Flemish paintings, ‘India Pictures’, and an image of a Turk on the wall, these domestic spaces would have looked more like the chintz chamber of Petronella Dunois’s 1676 Dutch doll’s house in the Rijksmuseum than most traditional London homes (Figure 11.4).29 The inventory begins by itemising the contents of ‘Mrs Elizabeth’s Chamber’ and ‘Mrs Mears Chambers’, a passage containing a valuable pendulum clock, a dining room, a china room, parlour, kitchen, hallway, and cellar. There were also three separate entries under the category, ‘warehouse’. The ‘Upper Warehouse’ was in the merchant’s home and contained a wide variety of relatively low-value items, including a box of candles, a ream of paper, three brushes, and an old piece of matting. There was also a quantity of modest furniture: for example, ‘one Elbow Cane Bottom chayre one Spanish Table’, ‘one sea chest’, and ‘A broken Cabinett with some earthenware’.30 The second warehouse was situated between the dining room and the passage or hallway. This too held relatively modest items, some of which suggest that the room may have had a commercial purpose; for example, there was ‘A 29 ‘Indian’ was used as a generic term in this period and could be used to refer to objects both from the Indian subcontinent and from China, Japan, or indeed almost any area of Southeast Asia. On dollhouses, see Moseley-Christian, ‘17th century Pronk Poppenhuisen’, 341–363; and for London merchants’ houses, see Turpin, ‘Furnishing the London Merchant’s House’, 55–68. 30 TNA PROB: 4/25866, f.1.

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Beame and pair of brass scales and eight pound of Leaden weights’, ‘an old long Table’, and ‘several Remnants of silks and callicoes’.31 The largest amounts of commercial goods were listed as being ‘In the Warehouse’, which may have been part of the house or a separate building. Here, the majority of the stock was stored in eleven boxes and cases that were identified alphabetically (A, B, C, D, G, H, E, I, L, K) with a single chest that was labelled ‘No.iii’. In contrast to the two previous storage rooms, the items listed were of significant value, amounting to a total of £1269.18s.9.5d, and consisting of mainly clothing and textiles. There was a chest of high-value linens or ‘Hollands’, but the bulk of the goods were Asian imports such as: ‘one bundle cont nineteen pieces of several sorts of fflower’d Atlas’s and Gaws stript with silver’, valued at £65.32 Mixed in with the cloth, there were also readymade garments. Chest No. C contained ‘three Callico shirts two petticoes and three waistcoats’, and Chest No.D included ‘five Gownes ordinary; seauen silke Gowns’ and ‘four paire of Jerusalem Garters’ as well as black bone lace and gold and silver lace.33 Calico quilts, curtains, and bed-hangings were listed in several chests as were pillowcases, napkins, and towels. Other boxes held jewellery, including ‘a Diamond Pendant with a Dropp’; ‘A Rough Diamond weighing about three Carratts’, valued at £13; and ‘forty two Rough Diamonds weighing twenty seauen carratt’, valued at £40.10s.34 There were large quantities of porcelain and lacquer, including lacquer boxes, screens, and tableware. The range of porcelain packed away in these chests was similarly wide, from syllabub dishes to chamber and flower pots, platters, plates, and cups. In Box No.H, for example there were: Item four small Lackerd boxes, eight and twenty small China ffigures. one lackerd Standish, five small Lackerd Tea Plates, twelve small Bottles, Six small Dyshes, two Aggatt Cupps, two wooden Bowles, two small square China Dishes, seauen China sawcers, three small Bowles with Couers, two Little white figures, four little china boxes and six Lackerd Dishes.35

Here, the ‘white figures’ were probably so-called blanc-de-chine, which were porcelain wares from a small group of kilns in Dehua, a district of Xian province of Fujian on China’s southeast coast. Only very small amounts of this ceramic had reached Europe 31 TNA PROB: 4/25866, f.1. 32 TNA PROB: 4/25866, f.3. 33 TNA PROB: 4/25866, f.4. Jerusalem garters were mementoes of a seventeenth-century journey to the Holy Land, but very few examples survive. One of the few known contemporary references to them comes from the diary of Judge Samuel Sewell of Boston, USA (1652–1730): in 1688, he refers to a pair of Jerusalem garters given to him as thanks for money sent to aid colonial American prisoners held by pirates in Algerian jails. He writes ‘Gee presents me with a pair of Jerusalem Garters which cost above 2 pieces 8 (Spanish mille dollars) in Algier; were made by a Jew’. See Sewall, Diary of Samuel Sewall, 199. 34 TNA PROB: 4/25866, f.6. 35 TNA PROB: 4/25866, f.5.

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Figure 11.5: Seventeenth-century blanc-de-chine figures in European dress. Victoria and Albert Museum, London.

in the seventeenth century, where its creamy white, somewhat glassy glaze was greatly admired and was considered to be a very superior kind of porcelain (Figure 11.5).36 More dishes and cups of both porcelain and lacquer were found in four additional chests: E, I, L, and K.37 Case No.E contained ‘thirteen Tee potts some full some with Remnants with course Towells to sett the Tea potts’, which indicates that they had been carefully stuffed with remnants of material.38 In another section, loose items were valued together, including ‘ninety and nine India Babies’, which may have been dolls used to display new fashions, along with 38 brushes, and a ‘Jappan Cabinett with a frame and one small India gowne’.39 The one exception to the alphabetically labelled chests is chest No.iii, which held a mixture of ‘diapers’ (or table napkins), other items 36 Kerr and Ayers, Blanc-de-Chine, 19. 37 TNA PROB: 4/25866, f.5. 38 TNA PROB: 4/25866, f.6. 39 Nachman, ‘The Queen of Denmark’, 135. Many examples of fashion dolls exist in paintings, and there are several extant examples in museums and private collections, but there are few primary sources documenting their existence, and this reference is unique for giving their provenance of ‘Indian’.

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of domestic linen, and ‘fifteen papers of chacolate’, which were small paper envelopes used for storing drinking chocolate.40 The assessor valued groups of goods rather than single items, so prices for individual objects are difficult to ascertain. The only valuation for a single item was for the pendulum clock in the hall that was worth a substantial £8.41 Bundles of fabric had the highest value, followed by the jewels. The largest group of textiles, estimated at a remarkable £305, were cuttanees from India, a glazed silk and cotton chintz mix. There were also checked silk longees, and 35 pieces of ‘rich Atlas’, a type of Indian satin from Surat. These sat alongside pelongs (women’s calico gowns) and striped neck-clothes. These were all extremely valuable and relatively rare types of fabric. To put this into context, in 1699, almost two decades after the inventory was taken, the House of Commons surveyed the East Indian textile imports, which recorded over 350,000 pieces of calico that had entered the Port of London between 1697 and 1699. In terms of Indian silks, only 743 pieces of ‘Atlas’ had been imported, 404 plain cuttannees, 17 neck-clothes, and an even smaller number of pelong gowns.42 The extensive amount of Asian fabrics coupled with the earlier date of the 1682 inventory indicates that the merchant in question clearly had access to a significant quantity and variety of the most desirable, luxury textiles from Bombay and the Coramandel Coast.43 This extraordinary range of goods prompts two immediate questions: Who was the deceased and how did she acquire her stock? The fragmentary survival of the inventory means that a definitive identification of the ‘Testatrix’ is almost impossible. The pronouns make it clear that the deceased merchant was female, but, although it records the chambers of ‘Mrs Elizabeth’ and ‘Mrs Mears’, it is not clear that the inventory belonged to either. They may have been dependant relatives, servants, or even lodgers.44 Goods belonging to ‘Mrs Mears’ such as a ‘Quilt sent as a present’ were specifically singled out, presumably so it would be recognised as hers, rather than belonging to the deceased.45 What is clear is that the merchant’s official position combined with her aristocratic clientele and the high monetary value of the inventory, points to an extremely well-connected individual, someone with considerable capital reserves. The merchant must have been someone who held an intimate position within the king’s household, but who also had significant connections to London’s overseas trading networks. One of the few women to meet these criteria was Dorothy Chiffinch (born Dorothy Thanet of Merioneth). 40 TNA PROB: 4/25866, f.4. 41 TNA PROB: 4/25866, f.2. 42 Journals of the House of Commons, 1699, 176–179. 43 Douglas, ‘Cotton Textiles in England’, 28–43. 44 One wealthy female merchant with a similar name, Mary Mead, had interests in the East India Company (TNA PROB 11/376/498 Will of Mary Mead or Meade, 8 July 1684) and the will of Elizabeth Bell makes a reference to ‘money due unto me from his Majestie’, (TNA PROB 11/337/438, 20 December 1671). It is difficult, however, to further reconcile these women with the 1682 probate inventory. 45 TNA PROB: 4/25866, f.6.

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From 1660 to 1680, she was both the monarch’s official Seamstress and Laundress as well as the wife of an important court official, Thomas Chiffinch. The Chiffinch family had initially entered courtly employment in 1641 under the patronage of Brian Duppa, Bishop of Salisbury, who was tutor to the young Prince Charles. Thomas Chiffinch became an intimate and trusted companion to the prince, following him into exile after his father’s execution in 1649.46 At the Restoration, Thomas Chiffinch then became Keeper of the King’s Jewels and Keeper of the Royal Closet. The diarist John Evelyn noted that his house in St. James’s Park was ‘full of good pictures’.47 Chiffinch died in April 1666, possibly a victim of bubonic plague. The diarist Samuel Pepys recorded that the royal court had been shocked by the event: The Court full this morning of the newes of Tom Cheffin’s death, the King’s closett-keeper. He was well last night as ever, flaying at tables in the house, and not very ill this morning at six o’clock, yet dead before seven: they think, of an imposthume in his breast. But it looks fearfully among people nowadays, the plague, as we hear, encreasing every where again.48

Thomas Chiffinch was interred in Westminster Abbey, where his wife Dorothy was later buried beside him in 1680. After his death, his widow retained her position as the king’s Seamstress and Laundress while the role of Keeper of the Royal Closet also remained within the family, passing on to Thomas’s younger brother, William Chiffinch.49 This position involved close contact with the king and the services involved ranged from organising meetings with ministers in the king’s bedchamber to creating a rota for walking the royal dogs.50 Although disparagingly dubbed as ‘the little people’ by Lord Essex, the brothers’ proximity to Charles II meant that the Chiffinch family held great influence within the royal household.51 Both Thomas and later William Chiffinch occupied the lodgings adjoining the royal closet sited on the backstairs of Whitehall Palace, which led directly to a private river entrance to the palace. From here, the king could slip away from the court undetected and successions of young women, often ambitious actresses, were ushered in for clandestine assignations.52 Both the Chiffinch brothers’ respective wives also performed key roles within the royal households. In 1666, William Chiffinch’s wife Barbara became the official Laundress to Queen Catherine, and Dorothy Chiffinch, who had followed her husband into service in the king’s household, submitted her first invoice to the Great Wardrobe accounts for the year ending at Michaelmas 1661.53 46 Fernie, ‘Chiffinch [Cheffin], Thomas (1600–1666)’, www.oxforddnb.com. 47 Fernie, ‘Chiffinch [Cheffin], Thomas (1600–1666)’, www.oxforddnb.com. 48 Pepys, Accessed 18 November 2017. https://www.pepysdiary.com/diary/1666/04/08/. 49 Allen, ‘The Political Function’, 277. 50 Uglo, A Gambling Man, 449–450. 51 Allen, ‘The Political Function’, 278. 52 Uglo, A Gambling Man, 449–450. 53 Wardle, ‘“Divers necessaries”’.

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Item to Dorothy Chiffinch for making one hundred and eight shyrts fifty foure halfe shirtes twelve dozen of pocket handkerchers eighteene night Cappes eighteen pillowbeeres twelve payre of great sheets three payre of tennis sheets eighteene payre of Lace Stockings three Truncks to carry it in and for the first washing of all his Lynnen one hundred and twenty pounds nyne shillings.54

Later, in 1668, she appears in the wardrobe accounts as ‘his Majesties Sempstress’, providing ‘Thirteen ells and halfe of fine Holland to make foure dozen of Socks for his Ma[jestie]’.55 She also appears at the end of the 1668 volume, where she is conspicuous as being the only female supplier to the Great Wardrobe accounts. At that point, she was listed amongst the king’s creditors and was owed the sum of £25.10s.56 Regular invoices from Dorothy Chiffinch appear in the royal accounts up until her death in November 1680, when it was noted: ‘of Dorothy Chiffinch, deceased, of three yards of picke for a gown at 16s’.57 The Chiffinches were an established but not aristocratic family, and it seems unlikely that either Thomas or William Chiffinch would have been satisfied with their respective salaries of £100 and £200 per annum.58 They both sought and received further sources or revenue: for example, in 1663 Charles II granted Thomas Chiffinch, jointly with Thomas Ross, the role of Office of Receiver-General of the income of the foreign plantation in America and Africa. He also became a commissioner for the seizing of forbidden wares, goods, and commodities, something that would have given him access to exotic imports.59 Thomas Chiffinch ensured that his son, also named Thomas, was appointed as the principal searcher at the port of Gravesend until the latter’s death in 1681.60 His responsibilities in this role included the supervision of the export and import trade at the port, and, if necessary, the re-export of colonial goods.61 Situated in the lower reaches of the Thames, the port of Gravesend was a major dock for East India Company shipping. As searcher, Chiffinch would have had privileged access to the sort of luxury commodities listed in the inventory The inventory itself, which even refers to monies found in the deceased’s pocket, would probably have been taken very soon after the merchant’s death. While there is a two-year discrepancy between Dorothy Chiffinch’s death and the probate inventory’s date of 1682, this may have been due to the administrative procedures that accompanied the registering, storing, and indexing of wills and their relative probate 54 Cited in Wardle, ‘“Divers necessaries”’. TNA LC 5.39 f. 65. 55 TNA AO 3/917. f.39.v 56 TNA AO 3/917.f.44.v 57 CSPD, Charles II, 1680-81, 74-97. 58 Allen, ‘The Political Function’, 289. At his death in 1691, William Chiffinch left an estate valued at over £20,000, confirming that his revenues were not solely dependent on his official salary. 59 Fernie, ‘Chiffinch [Cheffin], Thomas (1600–1666)’, www.oxforddnb.com. 60 Hasted, The History and Topographical Survey, 312. 61 Stephens, The Seventeenth-Century Customs Service, 10.

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inventories.62 Although it can only be speculated, her official position as the king’s Seamstress and Laundress, the access enjoyed by both her husband and brother-inlaw to the king, and her family’s commercial and maritime connections make Chiffinch a very credible contender for the ‘Textatrix’. She would have been ideally situated to order, acquire, and supply courtiers with the type of expensive linens, chintzes, porcelains, jewellery, and luxury items that are recorded in this merchant’s home and warehouses. Importantly, the Indian goods listed in the inventory were not new in the 1680s but were increasingly in demand. Calicoes and chintzes had been arriving at English ports since the mid sixteenth century, often on Portuguese ships whose primary cargo was spices.63 By the late seventeenth century, much of this trade was under the control of the great livery companies such as the Mercer’s Company and the East India Company, formed in 1604. In 1660, the diarist Samuel Pepys recorded drinking his first cup of tea and, a year later, he bought an Indian gown, an informal dressgown or banyan, for 34 shillings.64 Two years later, he noted how Mr. Creed, the Duke of Montagu’s secretary, had ‘sent him a token, viz. a very noble parti-coloured Indian gowne for my wife’ and that he had also bought a set of chintz hangings for his wife’s room.65 With the acquisition of Bombay through the dowry of Catherine of Braganza in 1662, trade between India and England increased, particularly after 1668 when the region was handed over to the East India Company for its own use.66 Competition and even war with the Dutch resulted, but, by 1684, over a million pieces of Indian cloth were being shipped to England and while its use was not yet widespread, tea could be purchased in a number of coffee shops.67 Although pleased with the distribution of its basic cotton fabrics, the East India Company also wanted to make its more valuable textile products fashionable. They did so, in part, by offering gifts and discounts to aristocrats who could promote their imports. The Company’s minutes recorded the delivery of ‘calicoes to be delivered free to Lady Alder on payment of one-third the fine’ and seventeen free pieces of calico for the sisters and relatives of one Edward Winters.68 62 The relatives, creditors, and/or reputable neighbours were responsible for drawing up inventories immediately after the death of those with personal estates of value. In the 1682 inventory, there is a short Latin text at the end of the document, which is in a different hand to the list of all moveable goods. It is signed ‘Ffan Nixon, 11 August 1682’; legal challenges, however, by disgruntled relatives or creditors could have extended the process. Typically, this was expensive and drawn out, particularly in long and complicated cases; an average of 18 months to complete the process was regarded as unexceptional in this period. See Arkell, Evans, Goose, When Death Do Us Part, 10–11. 63 For an overview of the consumption of cotton cloth in Britain, see Lemire, Fashion’s Favourite (1991). 64 Pepys, ‘Tuesday 25 September 1660’, accessed 15 February 2018, https://www.pepysdiary.com/ diary/1660/09/25/. 65 Pepys, ‘Monday 6 July 1661’, accessed 15 February 2018, https://www.pepysdiary.com/diary/1661/07/01/; Pepys, ‘Saturday 21 November 1663’, accessed 15 February 2018, https://www.pepysdiary.com/diary/1663/11/21/. 66 Ogborne, Indian Ink, 67. 67 Lemire, ‘Second-hand Beaux’, 397. 68 Douglas, ‘Cotton Textiles in England’, 30.

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As discussed above, it tended to be men who bought and sold exotic goods. The import and export of textiles undertaken by the members of London’s leading trading companies was beyond the reach of most women, although it was not uncommon for women to obtain the services of a male relative or agent to make purchases on their behalf.69 However, while textiles remained under the control of the trading companies, this was not the case for the other ‘Indian’ items listed in the Testatrix’s inventory; for example, the porcelains listed in the deceased’s chests were still relatively unusual in the 1680s. The East India Company’s seventeenth-century calendars reveal that there were only three official Company sales that included porcelain: in 1615, 1646, and 1679.70 Instead, these goods entered London’s retail market via much more informal means. These included imports from Holland and, more importantly, East India Company sailors acting independently, using their private-trade allowance. Permission to undertake a certain amount of private trade was the basic form of remuneration for the officers and sailors of an East Indiaman, as their wages were nominal and the private-trade privilege was used as the safest and most expedient way of paying the ship’s officers and crew.71 In 1671, for example, the sailor Edmund Barlow hoped his service on the Indiaman Experiment would bring him ‘a small venture in some sort of goods’, which would allow him to ‘live ashore and leave the sea before I came to be old’.72 A mariner who survived the voyage could usually rely on his private trade to give him a pension and if a sailor died at sea, the value of his goods were passed to his wife or next of kin. In her work, Beverley Lemire has argued that some seamen’s wives specialised as petty dealers, using their seafaring networks to move goods through retail channels.73 There is very little archival evidence of this type of commercial arrangement in the seventeenth century, but, by the eighteenth century, it was a well-established method for obtaining luxury Asian goods such as porcelain, fans, and lacquer. An eighteenthcentury trade card for two china-women, known as the Baker Sisters, stated that ‘merchants and captains of ships may be supplyed’, indicating that the sisters had a list of trading networks from where they obtained their supplies of porcelain.74 The unofficial supply chain for acquiring Asian goods, outside the control of the livery companies, and the financial stability offered by the retail profession meant that selling these luxury commodities was particularly attractive to women. It would have been especially so to a widow such as Dorothy Chiffinch who needed to earn her own living. Traditionally 69 McIntosh, Working Women, 124. 70 See BL IOR/B/5, BL IOR/b/21 and Foster and Sainsbury, A Calendar of the Court Minutes, 295. The first sale in 1615 appears to have been limited to a small number of Company Directors; the second sale was larger and itemised 13 tubs of porcelain although the style is unspecified, but the final sale only records the sale of teapots. 71 Pritchard, ‘The Private Trade’, 109. 72 Barlow, Barlow’s Journal of His Life at Sea, 204. 73 For sailors’ inventories, see Lemire, ‘“Men of the World”’. 74 Toppin, ‘The China Trade’, 51.

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excluded from public life, such as government affairs, law courts, and the church, retail was one of the few respectable professions open to women. In London, where a higher proportion of women were wholly or partly dependent on their own earnings for a living, there was a particularly high incidence of female retailers.75 These informal routes did not, however, ensure reliable supplies, and the hazards of the sea voyage, or the potential damage that might occur during a pirate attack, are highlighted by Ben Jonson in his masque Britain’s Burse. In the play, the owner of a china-house cautions the audience against presuming that the return of the fleet will affect or reduce the cost of his goods: But, I assure you, my factors from Leghorn have advertised that Ward, the man of war (for that is now the honourable name for a pirate) hath taken their greatest hulk and in their second, with a cross-bar shot, hath made such a spoil in the porcelain as it is thought they will come home very much dissolved.76

Inconsistent supplies from abroad meant that a stock kept at home or in external warehouses would ensure availability, even when there was ‘such a spoil in the porcelain’. If porcelain was rare, other Asian products, regularly found in Holland and France, were even more difficult to obtain in England. Until the late seventeenth century, tea itself was rarely included in major East India Company consignments.77 This meant that the relatively small English market for tea was heavily reliant on Dutch imports or, as with porcelain, private trade. Similarly, chocolate imported from Mexico via Spain had to be obtained through personal contacts or drunk at a small number of urban outlets in London.78 The inventory indicates that the ‘Testatrix’s’ own rooms and her stores held all the paraphernalia required for preparing hot drinks, from tea tables to china cups and kettles, which would have been needed not only to display novel goods, but also to consume them. This indicates that this woman was a highly specialised dealer. Her domestic spaces included a ‘china room’ with two glass-fronted wainscots or cupboards that may have resembled the cabinets in Petronella Oortman’s doll’s house in the Rijksmuseum (Figure 11.6). The merchant’s china room contained a wrapped ‘parcell of Chinaware’. The adjacent parlour was furnished for entertaining with an oval table, ‘turkey chairs’, and numerous pictures on the wall and a stove. Her dining room had a fireplace with a fender and grate, oval tables, chairs, and ‘one tea-pott’.79 The ability to offer hospitality to her clients in the form 75 Earle, ‘The Female Labour Market’, 132. 76 Knowles, ‘Cecil’s Shopping Centre’, 136–137. John Ward was an English pirate who gained great notoriety through a series of pamphlets including News from the Sea of Ward the Pirate, and his capture and execution in 1609 was widely reported, see Oxford Dictionary of National Biography and Jowitt, The Culture of Piracy (2010). 77 Ellis, Coulton, Mauger, Empire of Tea, 57–60. 78 Ellis, Coulton, Mauger, Empire of Tea, 37. 79 PRO 4/2566, 2.

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Figure 11.6: Detail showing glass-fronted porcelain cupboards, from the Dolls’ House of Petronella Oortman, 1686. Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam.

of a novel hot drink, such as tea or chocolate, may well have been part of the merchant’s sales strategy. Serving her customers one of the new hot drinks in porcelain cups created an ambience of both gentility and fashion that allowed the dresser to introduce her customers to new products such as porcelain through personal example, signifying through her actions that these goods were fashionable, difficult to obtain, and highly desirable. The paraphernalia of tea and chocolate-drinking would have been used as part of her business equipment, serving the dual function of her personal pleasure and as an advertisement to customers. Lorna Weatherill’s analysis of inventories shows the ownership of porcelain amongst tradesmen was relatively high, suggesting that the ability to offer this type of hospitality was a necessary part of a successful sales strategy.80 This constellation of imported items and the long list of elite court debtors at the end of the inventory offer the tantalising suggestion that this woman acted as a key intermediary in the introduction of exotic goods and textiles to the court of Charles II, supplying and, in some ways, initiating the fashions, which the elite women then 80 Cox and Dannehl, Perceptions of Retailing, 156–157.

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promoted as their own personal tastes. If she was Dorothy Chiffinch, her responsibility for Charles II’s linens may have led her to appreciate the qualities of lightweight, dyed Asian cottons that were colour-fast even when washed multiple times.81 Moreover, she would have had the connections to source these items both through formal and informal contacts. Equally importantly, this woman could afford to extend credit to a range of key figures, whose patronage and standing might lead to further orders, contacts, and connections. The fact that the merchant was owed such significant sums by the Lord Chamberlain suggests that she was supplying the court with expensive products, and not just with laundry and seamstress services. What these were can only be speculated on, but one of the merchant’s other main male debtors was the painter, Sir Peter Lely (who owed her £15). While it is impossible to know if Lely’s debt was for expensive fabrics, either for a banyan for himself or for materials for his studio, his paintings were particularly noted for their draperies. His studio props included swathes of expensive fabric and pieces of cloth loosely tacked together to form costumes for his sitters.82 Two of the women listed amongst the aristocratic clients of the Testatrix also appear in a celebrated series of his paintings known as the ‘Windsor Beauties’. Frances Stuart, later Duchess of Richmond, appears as the goddess Diana and Barbara Villiers, Duchess of Cleveland, was painted as Minerva.83 Lely’s portraits show these ‘beauties’ as a homogenised group of pale-skinned, dark-haired women in softly draped satin robes, and indeed they were a continual source of collective fascination, public scrutiny, and satire. But, in reality, they were far from the harmonious collective that Lely promoted. They were rivals with each other as well as with the Queen Catherine, a figure who was regularly and publicly belittled for her barrenness.84 The challenge that Barbara Villiers, mother of many of the king’s illegitimate children, posed the queen when she was forced to accept the latter as a lady-in-waiting in 1662 has been well-documented. Villiers’s subsequent anger at her own displacement, first by Frances Stuart, La Belle Stuart in 1663, then by numerous actresses such as Nell Gwynn, Louise de Kérouaille, and eventually Hortense Mancini, the Duchess of Mazarin, was also carefully noted by courtiers and commentators.85 Nonetheless, happily or unhappily, all these women lived in close proximity; even Nell Gwyn and the Duchess of Portsmouth gambled at the same table.86 The mutual debts of many of these women to this merchant of luxury Asian goods imply both common interests and a complex relationship between court and urban women when determining the popularity of new products such as cotton chintzes, china, and chocolate. 81 Riello, ‘The Globalisation of Cotton Textiles’, 266. 82 Ribeiro, Fashion and Fiction, 270. 83 MacLeod, ‘The Windsor Beauties’, 103. 84 Boxer, ‘Three Sights to Be Seen’, 77–83. 85 Uglo, A Gambling Man, 449–463. 86 Williams, Rival Sultanas, 175.

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As Hayward demonstrates in this volume, Queen Catherine of Braganza, who brought both Tangiers and Bombay as part of her dowry, had a taste for Asian luxuries. When she arrived, John Evelyn wrote in his diary that ‘The Queen brought over with her from Portugal such Indian cabinets as had never before been seen here.’87 Catherine was also known for her fondness for tea and her chapel was furnished with Indian porcelain; given Chiffinch’s sister-in-law’s role as Catherine’s laundress, the queen herself may well have had some connection to Dorothy Chiffinch as well.88 Likewise, there is evidence that Louise de Kérouaille shared the queen’s taste for the exotic. In describing the duchess’ rooms in 1681, Evelyn remarked on the French tapestries, silver, and paintings, but also picked out her ‘Japon cabinets’ and ‘Screens’.89 Including a small amount of exotic goods amongst a larger number of luxuries was not uncommon. Even Charles II had a dedicated supplier of ‘Indian Gowns’, the kimono-like banyans that were worn as informal attire, although he does not appear to have actively encouraged the use of these imported fabrics at court.90 Gaining access to prestigious clients was one of the East India Company’s main ambitions after it established itself in Bombay. In 1664, having failed to import some unusual animals to present to Charles II, the Company decided to offer him some cinnamon oil and ‘good Thea’ instead.91 Despite the queen’s habit of tea-drinking, it was not widely popularised at court, and the king himself appears to have been more fascinated by chocolate. Kate Loveman describes how Charles II paid over £200 for a recipe that would preserve the chocolate paste and then allow it to be whipped into a frothy drink to which expensive items such as perfumed sugar, musk, and ambergris could be added.92 He passed on the recipe to the Earl of Sandwich, a close associate and off-and-on rival of General Monck, who included it as ‘the King’s receipt’ along with a lengthy discussion of chocolate-making in his own journal.93 Sandwich, like Prince Rupert, was a member of the Royal Society and his recorded conversations with the king on the relative merits of claret, coffee, or chocolate in curing colds had a serious as well as entertaining edge. Following on from the success of coffee houses, ‘chocolate houses’ began to appear in London during the late seventeenth century. But, unlike coffee-drinking, which was largely a male preserve, chocolate appealed to both men and women alike. Lady Anne Fanshawe, for example, took careful notes on chocolate-making when she went to Madrid in 1665. Clearly, Lady Fanshawe was intrigued by the procedure, and 87 Evelyn, The Diary of John Evelyn, 399. See also: Maria Hayward, ‘“The best of Queens, the most obedient wife”: Fashioning a Place for Catherine of Braganza as Consort to Charles II’ in this volume. 88 For Catherine of Braganza, see Flor, ‘“Richer than Spice”’, 141–148. 89 Flor, ‘“Richer than Spice”’, 144. 90 Robert Crofts was listed in the accounts of 1678–1679 as the king’s ‘Indian gown man’, see Hayward, ‘Dressing Charles II’, 29. 91 Ellis, Coulton, Mauger, Empire of Tea, 36. 92 Loveman, ‘The Introduction of Chocolate’, 32. 93 Loveman, ‘The Introduction of Chocolate’, 32–33.

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Figure 11.7: Recipe for making chocolate, with an illustration of a chocolate pot, by Lady Ann Fanshawe (1625–1680). Wellcome Library, London.

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it is evidence that only a decade or so before our merchant began selling the ceramics that would hold hot drinks and the much more unusual chocolate papers, making these drinks was still something rare enough to warrant close observation and enquiry. Tucked in amongst her linen napkins, the Testatrix’s chocolate papers suggest that she was able to offer private and privileged access to one of the city’s newest products (Figure 11.7). China and chocolate, as well as chintz, indicate that the fashions that the court wore and consumed held greater significance than mere trends. They signified England’s expansion into global trade and the entrepreneurial skills of certain English china-women.

Conclusion Traditional narratives have identified a fairly straightforward route to the success of fashionable exotic imports such as coffee, tea, chocolate, chintz fabrics, and porcelain by the mid eighteenth century, but, from the perspective of someone making sales in the 1680s, this linear progression was far from assured. China-women and other retailers of imported Asian luxuries faced the dilemma of how to introduce these new goods into traditional markets and gain the patronage of elite as well as wealthy consumers. As historians such as Margot Finn and Kate Smith, building on the earlier work of Giorgio Riello and Robert Du Plessis, remind us, […] the popularity of these Asian commodities in Europe and the Atlantic World was not inevitable. Rather, their domestication required processes of appropriation and embedding. Consumers needed to learn to desire and deploy goods such as cotton, integrating them into sartorial and furnishing practice and using them as their own before their wider popularity was able to grow.94

Fashion was (and remains) a complex business. In the late seventeenth century, there were real tensions between the desire to wear and consume imported Asian goods, and the patriotic need to promote English fabrics such as wools and linen. At the same time, the colonial projects of some of Charles II’s most ambitious subjects specifically sought the court’s visible support, highlighting the entrance of exotic goods into elite fashion. However, as this essay has shown, fashioning a taste for luxury goods, in particular products of Asian provenance, was not simply dependent on the spread of shared or even competing tastes between elite courtiers. The evidence from the 1682 inventory reveals a complex supply chain, which in turn supported the commercial networks created and nurtured by urban merchant communities, 94 Cited in Finn and Smith, The East India Company, 12. See also: Lemire, Global Trade and the Transformation of Consumer Cultures; Riello, Cotton; Plessis, The Material Atlantic.

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both male and female. The acquisition, circulation, and distribution of new goods depended on a complex network of merchants, maritime networks, and retailers, as well as the provision of credit to courtiers and aristocratic elites. Far from being the result of court fashions that spread to the provinces, the china-woman’s stock came from the selections made by sailors such as Edmund Barlow, who hoped to sell silks, porcelain, or fans to provide for his pension. In the unsettled and often unsettling world of the late seventeenth-century court, women were able to demonstrate their prestige and knowledge of new styles, products, and tastes but only if they had access to such stock. Educating each other in how to drink tea and chocolate as well as how to use chintz quilts and wear Asian silks was a collaborative effort that brought women from the city into the court, and the elite into the debt of an urban merchant. Both profited from the symbiotic and sophisticated nature of the exchange even as the interchanges were swiftly erased from the official histories of court fashion.

About the authors Juliet Claxton combines her work as an independent lecturer and scholar with a research role at King’s College, London. She completed her PhD at Queen Mary University of London, where her research concentrated on Asian porcelain within the visual and material culture of pre-eighteenth-century Europe. Juliet is a member of the joint Wellcome Trust/King’s College, London project, Renaissance Skin, and is researching objects used to protect skin in the early modern period. Evelyn Welch is Professor of Renaissance Studies, King’s College London. A specialist in Renaissance and Early Modern European visual and material culture, she is the editor of Fashioning the Early Modern: Dress, Textiles and Innovation in Europe, 1500–1800 (Oxford University Press, 2017) and, with Michelle O’Malley, The Material Renaissance (Manchester University Press, 2007), and the author of Shopping in the Renaissance (Yale University Press, 2005). She is currently a Wellcome Trust Principal Investigator on the Project, Renaissance Skin, which is exploring the understanding of bodily surfaces in Europe between 1500 and 1700.

12. Henrietta Maria and the Politics of Widows’ Dress at the Stuart Court Erin Griffey

Abstract Mourning dress was one of the most pervasive sartorial symbols at the early modern court. This essay examines Henrietta Maria’s adoption of such dress after the execution of Charles I and the political agendas and social ideals that informed it. Analysing portraits of the queen in mourning, this chapter argues that these works were carefully calibrated to showcase her virtuous character and piety while also functioning as public reminders of her husband’s ‘martyrdom’ and her son’s claims to the throne. As such, her representation as a widow was tailored both to the expected social and visual conventions of dress and comportment for royal widows, but also as a part of a strategic campaign for the restoration of the Stuart dynasty. Key words: Henrietta Maria; Charles I; Stuart court; widows; dress; history of emotions

Introduction Death was omnipresent at the early modern court. The threats were all too visible – the constant dangers of disease, plague, and war meted out mercilessly to the young and old, the most powerful and most lowly. However, despite death’s impartiality, there were high stakes at play in royal deaths. Royal death was both political and personal, portending the loss or weakening of a dynasty and the renegotiation of power at court as well as the emotional loss of a loved one. Dying and dead kings and queens remained at court as they had in life, attended by elaborate rituals, their embalmed bodies displayed in state to be glorified and mourned, and then buried with due respect and pomp.1

1 On early modern English royal death rituals, see Llewellyn, The Art of Death, 60–72; Woodward, The Theatre of Death, 15–36; Fritz, ‘From Public to Private’, 61–79; Gittings, Death, Burial and the Individual, 166–187; Litten, The English Way of Death, 173–194; and Houlbrooke, Death, Religion and the Family, 220–254.

Griffey, E. (ed.), Sartorial Politics in Early Modern Europe: Fashioning Women, Amsterdam University Press, 2019 doi: 10.5117/9789462986008_ch12

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This tableaux – the highly visual, material performance of the monarch’s dead body and legacy – was carefully presented and observed by mourners. The optics and materials of mourning were carefully mapped out – the number of mourners, the huge outlay for mourning cloth, the measured display of emotion, and the retirement of the family of the deceased from everyday activities.2 With royal mourning, the affective was very much linked to the political. Mourning rituals and materials offered the opportunity to assert bonds of kinship and continuity with the deceased king while also showcasing the king’s widow and heirs’ ongoing political relevance. For direct male heirs to the throne whose succession was secured, such staging of dynasty was relatively straightforward: they were presented as mourning the loss but seamlessly fulfilling the role destined for them. Rooms were hung in black cloth and mourning clothing worn for a set period. Other relatives, too, could stage their kinship and grief through mourning garments and accessories, such as portrait miniatures and black bands or ribbons that could be worn on the wrist or arm. This is seen, for example, in a portrait of Elizabeth of Bohemia of 1613, the band commemorating the death of her brother, Henry Prince of Wales, the previous year (Figure 12.1). She also wears an oval miniature pinned near her heart which may depict her brother. Kings and queens also mourned the loss of children, their precious heirs, and although often recounted in correspondence and accounts of court ritual, such mourning does not appear to have been regularly commemorated in portraits. One interesting exception is Anna of Denmark’s portrait in mourning dress (Figure 12.2), which has been interpreted as commemorating the death of Prince Henry. It is certainly remarkable that this outfit does not show the humility of typical widows’ weeds. This may have been because such sartorial choices were particularly potent for a royal widow, but they were less so for the mother of a deceased – notwithstanding dynastically important – child. Anna died before her husband James I, but the situation was complex for queens consort who did not predecease their kings and became widows.3 Queens consort, whose traditional power was based on their natal and marital bonds as well as children born from their marriage, typically embraced the performance of widowhood to their political and financial advantage.4 This involved wearing one of the most 2 On mourning dress, see Vincent, Dressing the Elite, 63–71; Houlbrooke, Death, Religion and the Family, 248– 252; Taylor, Mourning Dress, esp. 65–91; and Cunnington and Lucas, Costume for Births, Marriages and Deaths, 145–155. For an example of mourning clothing needed for the whole family and ‘suite’, see Henrietta Maria’s letter to Charles I at the death of her mother, Marie de’ Medici, in which she states, ‘You must put on mourning, and all your suite also, and all the children’; letter of 9/19 July 1642; Green, ed., Letters of Queen Henrietta Maria, 89. 3 On early modern widowhood, see Gibson, Women in Seventeenth-Century France, 88–96; Cavallo and Warner, eds., Widowhood in Medieval and Early Modern Europe and Levy, ed., Widowhood and Visual Culture in Early Modern Europe. 4 For this notion of a performance, see Helt, ‘Memento Mori’, 39. For a recent view of the legal status of widows in the Tudor and Stuart period, see Stretton, ‘Widows at Law’, 193–208. For a seventeenth-century explanation of dower and widows’ legal status, see The Lawes Resolutions of Women’s Rights. On the political inflection of widows’ weeds at the Habsburg courts, see Wyhe, ‘The Making and Meaning of the Monastic Habit’, 251–289, esp. 267.

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Figure 12.1: Unknown artist, Elizabeth of Bohemia, 1613, oil on panel. National Portrait Gallery, London.

pervasive sartorial symbols at the early modern court: widows’ dress, with its black garments and head covering.5 During a 40-day period after her husband’s death, a widow was secluded in rooms hung with mourning cloth, where she received visitors.6 During the official mourning period, which typically lasted one year, widows were expected to wear mourning dress.7 The queen’s public staging of grief served to 5 Black was the most pervasive colour for mourning, although in the early modern period sometimes other colours might be worn, including white and purple; however, in widows’ portraits, the convention is to wear black. See Cunnington and Lucas, Costume for Births, Marriages and Deaths, 145–148 and 241–424. Charles I and Charles II both had purple mourning garments. On the colour black becoming a symbol of piety at the Burgundian court, see Colomer, ‘Black and the Royal Image’, 77–112, esp. 78. 6 Gibson, Women in Seventeenth-Century France, 88. Henrietta Maria’s niece, Montpensier, refers to this practice in her Mémoires, 432. See also Crawford on Catherine de’ Medici in this respect, Perilous Performances, 30. 7 Houlbrooke, Death, Religion and the Family, 249, explaining that this can be traced to Roman civil law. See Pepys’s comment about his wife needing to wait a year to wear a new dress because of his mother-in-law’s death; Diary, IX, 134, 26 March 1668; cited in Vincent, Dressing the Elite, 70.

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Figure 12.2: Unknown artist, Anna of Denmark, 1628–44, oil on panel. National Portrait Gallery, London.

embody the public grief of the nation.8 Grief, like other royal emotions, necessitated an audience, whether through ambassadorial visits of consolation, written letters of consolation from friends and relatives, or, indeed, in the material manifestation of mourning through dress.9 For some queens consort, this distinctive sartorial look was worn not only during the formal period of mourning, but was embraced as part of a long-term visual and political persona to maximise their status, income, and opportunities for their children. A number of queens across Europe deliberately cultivated the visual persona of a widow as a means to ongoing political relevance and entitlement. Susan Broomhall and Katherine Crawford have shown how Catherine de’ Medici (1519–1589) achieved 8 See Sadlack’s analysis of writings about Mary Tudor after the death of Louis XII in The French Queen’s Letters, 96. 9 For Henrietta Maria’s strategic navigation of public emotion and its political impact, see Griffey, ‘Express Yourself’.

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political prominence as a widow in France by foregrounding her roles as loving wife, grieving widow, and devoted mother.10 This extended to strategic decisions in terms of her clothing after the death of her husband, Henry II, in 1559, when she was consistently portrayed in mourning. As Sheila ffolliott has pointed out, mourning black linked her with the black worn often by Henri himself as well as by other ‘strong minded Catholic rulers of the period’.11 Comparisons have also been drawn with Marie de’ Medici and Anne of Austria for being savvy in their deployment of this visual iconography of widowhood.12 In the Habsburg context, Magdalena S. Sánchez has examined the ongoing political agency of Empress Maria of Spain as a widow and Cordula van Wyhe has explored the connection between widows’ weeds and monastic dress in portraits of Empress Maria, Mariana of Austria, and Isabella Clara Eugenia.13 If early modern queens’ agency as widows at the French and Habsburg court have been the subject of scholarly interest, less attention has been given to the English context. Here, as at the European courts, there were foreign queens who married into the Tudor and Stuart dynasties, but one was particularly significant in terms of developing and sustaining a strong iconography of widowhood for political reasons: Henrietta Maria (1609–1669), whose husband King Charles I, was executed on 30 January 1649. For Charles, unlike his brother Henry, his father James, and son Charles, there were no mourning cloths hung at the palaces, no state funeral. As a powerful living reminder of Charles I, Henrietta Maria was presented visually and materially as a widow as part of a campaign for the restoration of the Stuart dynasty. This essay positions Henrietta Maria as a particularly potent widow in the early modern period, especially as the wife of an executed king. Although Karen Britland has analysed the construction of her widowhood in her letters and in royalist drama and writing, and I have briefly examined her visual persona as a widow, there has not been any focussed discussion of her dress or indeed a wider comparative study of early modern royal widows’ strategic deployment of mourning dress.14 Henrietta Maria cultivated the widow persona through clothing, rhetoric, and acts of piety to advance her political agenda, namely, to remind the public of her husband’s death 10 Broomhall, ‘Feelings for Powerful Women’; Crawford, Perilous Performances, 24–58, and ‘Catherine de Médicis’. 11 ffolliot, ‘Catherine de’ Medici as Artemisia’, 228. 12 See Crawford, Perilous Performances, on Marie: 59–97, and Anne: 98–136. On the role of portraits in constructing widowhood, see the following essays in Levy, ed., Widowhood and Visual Culture: Joyce de Vries, ‘Casting Her Widowhood: The Contemporaneous and Posthumous Portraits of Caterina Sforza’, 77– 92; Elizabeth McCartney, ‘A Widow’s Tears, a Queen’s Ambition: The Variable History of Marie de Medici’s Bereavement’, 93–108, and ‘Conceptualising the Kaiserinwitwe: Empress Maria Theresia and Her Portraits’, 109–125. 13 Sánchez, The Empress, the Queen, and the Nun, 62–71; Wyhe, ‘The Making and Meaning of the Monastic Habit’, esp. 266–275. 14 Britland, ‘“Tyred in her banished dress”’, 1–39; Griffey, On Display, 172–177.

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and ‘martyrdom’, her son’s ongoing claims to the throne, and her own royal status.15 She seems to have modelled herself on other contemporaneous relatives who were also royal widows and had shown the potential for mourning – both materially and rhetorically – as a political strategy for elite women.

The Rituals and Materials of Mourning: Rules and Representation Widows were marked by their black clothing and head covering, clothing with links to monastic dress. Vestimentary rules governed the wearing of mourning attire and were concerned above all, as with sumptuary legislation more generally, in the clothing being suitable to one’s rank.16 Mourning clothing was, according to the Archbishop John Whitgift, a mark of ‘civility and order’ as well as a reminder of the wearer’s own mortality.17 In the seventeenth century, the College of Arms continued to use the orders regulating the mourning apparel of ladies at court established around 1493 by Henry VII’s mother, Margaret Beaufort, during his reign.18 The organising principle of the ordinances was that the wearer’s ‘degree and estate’ determined the quality and amount of fabric.19 As such, the queen, ‘because she is the greatest Estate’, was allocated a surcoat with a train, a hood and ‘a tippet at the hoode lyeinge of a goode length’, whereas others had shorter trains and tippets.20 Widowed queens wore far more fabric and richer materials than other mourners, cues of their social and affective significance. But this clothing was still more modest than other court dress in fabric, cut, and ornamentation owing to its sombre purpose. Attention was also focussed on the wearing of head coverings, which were adapted from conventual dress. While depictions of chief mourners in sixteenth-century English funeral processions include deeply enveloping hoods, the head covering worn in seventeenth-century widows’ portraits is often a small black cap fashioned 15 John Evelyn recorded in his diary ‘The Villanie of the Rebells proceeding now so far as to Trie, Condemne. & Murder our excellent King, the 30 of this Moneth, struck me with such horror that I kept the day of his Martyrdom a fast, & would not be present, at that execrable wickednesse’. Beer, ed., The Diary of John Evelyn, II, 547 (30 January 1649). 16 Italian Renaissance widows’ dress was similarly governed by sumptuary legislation, and the ideal was a plain, unpatterned, high-necked dark dress with a veil. Girolamo Savonarola recommended such attire, stipulating further that widows should not wear jewellery. See Vries, ‘Casting Her Widowhoood’, 79, and Levy, ‘Framing Widows’, 228. 17 Cited in Vincent, Dressing the Elite, 66; Whitgift, The Works of John Whitgift, 368–371. Whitgift, 368, also refers to the ‘great antiquity’ of wearing such garments. 18 Vincent, Dressing the Elite, 63, citing The College of Arms’s seventeenth-century version in Vincent MS 151, fols 105–108. 19 This was typical of mourning dress for both noblemen and noblewomen; as quoted in the heading determining the number of mourners for the deceased, BL Harley MS 6064, fol. 26r. Other versions are found in Harley MS 1776, fols. 7v-9v, and Harley MS 1354, fols. 10v-13r. 20 BL Harley MS 6064, fols 27r, under the heading ‘The order and manner for greate Estates of women in tyme of mourning’. The full list runs from 27r-28r.

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with a peak at the forehead, and a translucent black veil worn on top of the hair, usually long.21 These peaked caps were often so small so as to appear to be more like a band than a cap and were likely fixed to the hair with pins.22 Some elite women wore elaborate wired veils, including Marie de’ Medici and Christine of France, but Henrietta Maria is shown in a simple combination of small peaked black cap and unwired veil.23 This is comparable to Anna of Austria, the widow of Louis XIII. Lou Taylor has explained that mourning rituals and clothing were divided into different stages: the first stage of deepest mourning for 40 days, the second stage of full mourning for one year, and another year of half mourning when grey and mauve and patterned silks could now be introduced into the mourner’s wardrobe. Sartorial restrictions were severe for the first stage, with the mourner meant to eschew jewellery and shiny surfaces, opting instead for dull silks.24 The courtier and diarist Samuel Pepys spotted Anne Hyde, the Duchess of York in December 1667 wearing what he identified as a second mourning ensemble, a fine black dress edged in ermine.25 If these conventions do not appear to have been always strictly followed, there was an understanding that the initial stage of widowhood should be mirrored in the most severe clothing, and this became more relaxed with time.26 We do not know precisely what Henrietta Maria wore in her earliest days as a widow or indeed in the 20 years she continued to live as such. Although extensive accounts survive for her clothing in the 1630s, there is very little that sheds light on her later clothing beyond portraits. Only a few portrait types can be identified with certainty, and, with only one exception, show her in black clothing, a black veil, a widows’ peak, accents of white linen collar and cuffs, and in some cases jewellery and other embellishments, especially after the restoration of Charles II in 1660. The images will be discussed later in the essay, but it is notable that the earlier images of Henrietta Maria as a widow, when she was in exile in France struggling with financial problems and her son’s claims to the throne, are more modest than the 21 See the depiction of the funeral procession Lady Lumley, in which the Countess of Surrey is shown as the chief mourner in a deep hood, along with a mantle with a long train and a surcoat with her girdle holding up her front train; BL Add. Ms. 35324, volume of Funeral Processions 1557–1603, fol. 21. See also Vincent, Dressing the Elite, 63, and Cunnington and Lucas, Costume for Births, Marriages and Deaths, 208–212. 22 This is particularly apparent in a number of portraits of Marie de’ Medici, including Nicholas Viennot’s engraving of c. 1630–1635 in the Bibliothèque Nationale de France, Départment des Estampes et Photographie, Paris (hereafter BNF). 23 For wired widows’ veils, see, for example, Frans Pourbus the Younger’s portrait of Marie de´ Medici in the Prado, Madrid, c. 1630 and the engraving of Christine by Jean Frosne at Versailles (there are three different versions which all show the same wired veil). A portrait at the Walters Art Museum in Baltimore, accession number 37.259, has been identified as Henrietta Maria as a widow, but it is almost certainly a depiction of Christine. 24 Taylor, Mourning Dress, 74–76, 82, 102. 25 This must have been mourning for her mother, Frances Hyde, Countess of Clarendon, who died on 8 August 1667. 26 Taylor, Mourning Dress, 82–83, states that Mary Queen of Scots’s 1562 inventory shows she had coloured dresses before the completion of full mourning.

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later ones. Nonetheless, none show a queen in full mourning, completely bereft of all decoration. Even as a widow, Henrietta Maria needed some concessions to her magnificence.

Widowhood: Memory, Monasticism, and Morality Images of widowed queens consort seem to have been strategically calibrated in both painted portraits for court audiences and in more widely disseminated prints. They enabled the queen to be identifiable but also showcased her qualities as an ideal widow: devoted to the memory of her husband but also pious, chaste, humble, and serene. Given that portraits of queens were typically commissioned to accompany a pendant portrait of the king, the visual representation of a widow was marked by both absence and presence. Susan Vincent has described such apparel as a ‘sartorial duty’ in the sense of being suitable or appropriate and as a ‘sartorial witness’ to the deceased.27 These portraits conform to what Allison Levy has coined ‘widow portraiture’ in reference to early sixteenth-century Florentine examples, portraits bound by conventions of representation and deployed as ‘marker[s] of masculine memory’.28 Indeed, the widow portrait type itself insists on an absent other, akin to the traditional pendant portrait of husband and wife but, in this case, with the king as imagined by his widow and the viewer.29 Cesare Vecellio’s Habiti Antichie e Moderni (Venice, 1590), makes the connection between widowhood and the husband’s memory by stating in his inscription for ‘A Modern Roman Widow’: ‘they dress in a way that shows great chastity and sorrow for their dead husbands, so that, considering their demeanor, one would say they seem more like nuns than laywomen’.30 Vecellio also provides a physical description of a widow’s clothing and behaviour in his image of the Venetian widow, explaining that With the death of their husbands, widows in Venice embrace the death of all vanity and bodily ornament. For in addition to wearing black, they cover their hair, fasten a very thick veil over their breast, wear their cappa low on their foreheads, and go through the streets sadly, and with lowered heads.31

This description points to widows as nun-like, pious, in both their appearance and behaviour. If in portraits widowed queens did not follow Vecellio’s ideal fully, they are, on the whole, far less extravagantly dressed than in other court portraits. 27 Vincent, Dressing the Elite, 70, 68. 28 Levy, ‘Framing Widows,’ 224, 230. 29 This notion of the widow as a type of living memory of her husband is explored in Helt, ‘Memento Mori,’ 39–54. See also Vries on Caterina Sforza in ‘Casting her Widowhood’, 77–92, esp. 83. 30 Rosenthal and Jones, Cesare Vecellio, 81; Vecellio, Habiti Antichi et Moderni, 29. 31 Rosenthal and Jones, Cesare Vecellio, 186; Vecellio, Habiti Antichi et Moderni, 134.

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Indeed, the imagery and clothing that foregrounded widowhood was politically expedient, but it also conformed to widespread female ideals of chastity, humility, and piety. Conduct books including Juan Luis Vives’s Instruction of a Christian Woman, upheld the ideal of the chaste widow.32 Vives dedicates the Third Book to the comportment of the good widow, who ought to suppose that her husband is not utterly dead, but liveth both with life of his soul, which is the very life, and beside him with her remembrance […] Also let her take him for her keeper and spy, not only of her deeds, but also of her conscience. Let her handle so her house and household and so bring up her children that her husband may be glad, and think that he is happy to leave such a wife behind him.33

This understanding of widowhood which reflects the ongoing presence of the husband is comparable to Vecellio’s description of the Roman widow and the Venetian widow. In essence, widows were expected to withdraw to a life of chastity and prayer, dedicated to the memory of her earthly husband as well as to his soul that now lived on in heaven.34 This concept of the virtuous widow is visualised in an engraved portrait of Anne of Austria, who served as regent for her son, the future Louis XIV (Figure 12.3). The goddess Minerva is shown presenting Anne with her reflection in a mirror, and the accompanying inscription locates the regent queen as a paradigm of virtue. Significantly, this virtue is materialised in her black widow’s dress, and in this case she is shown completely without jewellery, with no lace on her collar or cuffs, and her dress appears to be matte rather than a glossy silk. However, if this was the ideal widow, it was not how the regent queen was consistently portrayed, for, more often, she combined widows’ dress with jewellery and lace embellishments. For Anne, as with other widows, virtue and magnificence needed to be delicately combined. Jewelled crosses helped to satisfy this dual need, and they feature in several portraits of Anne as a widow as well as other royal widows. Naturally, religious beliefs were central to attitudes toward death and the performance of mourning, as Ralph Houlbrooke has shown.35 There were close connections between nuns and widows in terms of both dress and expectations of behaviour. The palette worn by widows was based on the black, grey, and white worn by nuns, as were the enveloping shapes of garments, the covering of the head and the inclination for 32 For advice to widows, see Owen, An Antidote against Purgatory; Vives, De institutione, translated into English by Richard Hyrde as The Instruction of a Christian Woman; Advice to the Women and Maidens of London. See also Overbury, A Wife on the virtuous widow. 33 Vives, The Education, Bk 3, Ch. 3. On the widows’ dress and morality in a Spanish court context, see Édouard, The Hispanicization of Elisabeth de Valois, 252–253. 34 See, for example, De Grenaille’s L’Honnête Veuve, Liv. 1, Ch. 1, p. 18, on the widow’s dedication to Christ as her celestial husband; cited in Gibson, Women in Seventeenth-Century France, 91. 35 Houlbrooke, Death, Religion and the Family.

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Figure 12.3: Michel Lasne, Anne of Austria, 17th century, engraving. Grand Palais (Château de Versailles).

more timeless, old-fashioned shapes.36 Thus, despite the quantity of fabric and the inherent signifiers of status in it, humility was an essential aspect of both mourning dress and the ideal widow that aligned with monastic dress and ideals, blurring the lines between a secular and a devotional image. In fact, contemporaries might confuse the two, as Charles I’s surveyor of pictures, Abraham van der Doort did, in 36 Taylor, Mourning Dress, 66–68.

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Figure 12.4: Workshop of Bernard van Orley, Margaret of Austria, c. 1519, oil on panel. Royal Collection Trust / Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II.

identifying a portrait of Margaret of Austria, Duchess of Savoy ‘in a white Nuns dressing habitt’, when this was her widow’s dress.37 The official image of Margaret in mourning by Bernard van Orley was widely copied and circulated. Margaret is depicted in a white coif and barbe with a black dress; however, like other royal widows, she does not completely disband with royal finery: her black dress is lined in rich fur (Figure 12.4).38 Many early modern elite Catholic women maintained a strong connection to nunneries, whether boarding for periods or acting as founders and patrons. Instead of taking full monastic vows and becoming cloistered nuns, widowed queens tended to become members of a tertiary order or to patronise and spend time in a specific 37 Millar, ed., ‘Abraham van der Doort’s Catalogue of the Collections of Charles I’, 29, no. 37. 38 The Royal Collection version pictured here seems to be the one acquired by Henry VIII, which shows the dress lined in brown fur. Another version in Brussels depicts the fur as ermine. See Eichberger, Women of Distinction, 83–84, nos. 18–19.

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convent.39 In 1581, Empress María of Spain, widow of Maximilian, entered the Third Order of St. Francis, a tertiary order where poverty was not required, and Isabella Clara Eugenia also became an Observant Franciscan tertiary when her husband, the Archduke Albert of Austria, died in 1621.40 Magdalena S. Sánchez has demonstrated that Empress María’s move to the monastery ‘signified much more than a retreat into a life of prayer; it was an act guaranteed to bring greater freedom and independence to a woman who was accustomed to having political influence’.41 These Habsburg women were portrayed in clothing that was closely linked to monastic attire in the choice of colour (black and white), matte texture, and style (veil, coif, high neckline, and loosely structured dress). But, as van Wyhe has shown in reference to Isabella, the garments had ‘elements of courtly styles’.42 Their eschewal of full religious vows does not reflect any lack of piety but a way to continue to engage in political affairs on behalf of their families and children. Thus, clothing that had ‘the monastic look with several fashionable elements’ enabled widows, like Henrietta Maria, to proclaim not just their piety, but their ongoing courtly status and political agency.43 Henrietta Maria elided her widowed status with monastic life and religious patronage. While she purportedly claimed after Charles I’s execution that she would ‘retire with only two maids, my secretary, and confessor, to private life’, she maintained a public presence that combined religious retirement and ongoing royal duties.44 In 1651, just two years after the king’s death, she founded a convent for the Sisters of the Visitation, Sainte Marie, at Chaillot in Paris. This was a fashionable order espousing the work of St. Francis de Sales and it offered wealthy widows an opportunity to balance religious retreat with familial commitments. As I have previously argued, this was not a withdrawal from public life but quite the opposite. It was a highly visible means for Henrietta Maria to draw attention to her widow status, her deep piety, and her favour with God, if not the French court.45 She furnished the convent herself, participated in the first mass, and spent extensive periods at the convent and, at her death in 1669, had apartments there which were relatively modestly decorated for a queen. But Henrietta Maria maintained, at the same time, a lavishly appointed château at Colombes and, in the mid 1660s, renovated and refurbished Somerset House to a magnificent standard. The public face of the queen was the pious widow, but she also needed to maintain the courtly display of 39 On the role of elite widows as founders and patrons of religious institutions, see Baernstein, ‘In Widow’s Habit’, 787–807. 40 One princess who took full vows was the Archduchess Margaret, daughter of Philip II of Spain, Margaret of the Cross, who had her investiture in the Franciscan Order of St. Clare in 1584. On Margaret and Isabella’s orders, see Wyhe, ‘The Making and Meaning’, 261–275. 41 Sánchez, The Empress, the Queen, and the Nun, 67–68. 42 Wyhe, ‘The Making and Meaning’, with the quote on 271 in reference to Isabella; see 270–274 for the full analysis. 43 Wyhe, ‘The Making and Meaning’, 269, in describing Mariana of Austria’s clothing. 44 Griffey, On Display, 170; Green, ed., Letters of Queen Henrietta Maria, February (?) 1649, 358. 45 Griffey, On Display, 170.

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magnificence. Portraits show the tensions between these two key aspects of widowed queens: on the one hand, devotional objects and/or clothing that mirrors monastic attire; and on the other, crowns, jewellery, and elements of fashionable dress. But the deployment of these elements was not consistent, as they needed to be carefully negotiated based on how long the queen had been widowed, the intended audience, and the political situation. One aspect of courtly display that needed to be staged in widows’ portraits was emotional restraint. This was the quality of serenity so lauded in queens. Crucially, while in real life many widows were reported to have shown strong emotional reactions to their loss, especially in the early days of widowhood, the long-term image of the widow was expected to be one of serenity, dignity, and control.46 It was deemed indecorous to indulge in emotional histrionics.47 Archbishop Whitgift condemns such ‘immoderate mourning’.48 On first hearing of the execution of her husband, Henrietta Maria was said to have responded with stunned silence while the courtiers around her wept and sighed.49 She regularly recounted her misery and sufferings to her priest, Cyprien de Gamache, Madame de Motteville, and the sisters of the convent she founded. But this is not displayed in her portraits as a widow, where she is shown with her lips gently closed, her eyes without tears, her face free from tension. Thus, while Henrietta Maria embodies grief in her mourning dress, this was dignified, honourable grief. In this sense, clothing became a signifier of grief when emotional expression could not be.

The Politics of Royal Widowhood in Early Modern Europe: Henrietta Maria’s Precedents Widowhood was inherently political for widowed queens’ consort whose status was validated both by their royal husbands but also their dynastic ambitions for their children. For some queens, widowhood afforded the opportunity to rule as regent until her son reached the age of majority, and for many others widowhood meant ongoing political relevance because of their marital and natal ties, in particular children who might rule or secure a dynastically advantageous marriage. These relationships were all both affective and political, and mourning became a powerful vehicle in articulating these shared claims to dynastic power and social status. For Henrietta Maria, widowhood enabled her to maintain continuity between her ‘martyr’ husband and 46 Crawford, for example, has shown this in reference to Catherine de’ Medici, Perilous Performances, 37. On grief and mourning in early modern England, see Houlbrooke, Death, Religion and the Family, 220–254, esp. 222–225. 47 Gibson, Women in Seventeenth-Century France, 88. 48 Whitgift, The Works of John Whitgift, 370–371. 49 See Cyprien de Gamache’s account in Birch, ed., The Court and Times, vol. 2, 382.

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her son’s claim to the English throne; it also helped her negotiate her royal status and entitlement with her ongoing commitment to the piety expected of a royal widow. Given the number of elite widows active as regents at European courts in the seventeenth century, it could be argued that there was a community of royal widowhood. Most of them were related by blood and/or marriage, and would have looked to their widowed relatives as models for how to be a virtuous and politically effective widow. Painted and engraved portraits of widows were produced, the latter circulating widely. Some, like Henrietta Maria, spent extended periods in close proximity with other widows, and could closely observe their behaviour, clothing, and political activity. If widowed queens typically played a strong devotional hand as religious patrons wearing quasi-monastic clothing, this does not mean that they were sequestered from ceremonial appearances at court or in portraits. Precedents were essential in constructing a legible visual persona and knowing the rules of political and sartorial engagement. When Henrietta Maria was widowed in 1649, there were no recent English precedents. Henry VIII’s final wife, Katherine Parr, remarried just months after his death and died a year later. Mary Queens of Scots, who was shown in white mourning in a 1560–1561 portrait by François Clouet, was widowed in 1561 but would remarry twice.50 More recently, Anna of Denmark died a few years before James I. Henrietta Maria would need to look elsewhere for powerful royal role models, both in life and in art, of widowhood. There were five contemporaneous relatives by birth or marriage who provided models of widowhood: her mother, Marie de’ Medici; her sister, Christine; her cousin, Isabella Clara Eugenia; and two sisters-in-law, Elizabeth Stuart and Anne of Austria. All adopted mourning in their portraits, both in paintings and in prints. Henrietta Maria was keenly aware of these models in developing her own visual persona as a widow. With her French heritage and close links to the French court, it was natural for Henrietta Maria to look to the exemplars of her mother, widow of Henri IV (Figure 12.5); her sister, Christine, Duchess of Savoy by marriage to Victor Amadeus and later regent of Savoy (Figure 12.6); and her sister-in-law, Anne of Austria, widow of Louis XIII and later regent of France (Figure 12.3). Marie de’ Medici was widowed in May 1610, less than a year after Henrietta Maria was born, and played the roles of widow, regent, and queen mother with great flourish, if not mixed results. Henrietta Maria experienced the political impact of her mother’s widowhood directly – Marie based herself at the English court in 1639–1640, living at St. James’s. She also enjoyed a close relationship with her older sister Christine, with whom she maintained correspondence throughout her life despite never seeing each other after Christine left for Turin in 1619 for her marriage. Christine was widowed in 1637 and remained regent of Savoy under two of her sons until her death in 1663. Her regency was marked by struggles for power that led to the Piedmontese Civil War from 1638–1642, in which she was victorious. 50 Displayed at the Palace of Holyroodhouse; Royal Collection inventory number 403429.

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Figure 12.5: Pierre I Firens, Marie de’ Medici, 1610, engraving. The British Museum, London.

Both Marie and Christine regularly appear as widows in their painted and engraved portraits. Some depict the widowed queens in more sombre attire (as in Figure 12.5) and others in widows’ dress with fashionable flourishes and jewellery (as in Figure 12.6). Clearly, the depiction of the royal widow was not consistently sober. Marie’s mourning clothing (Figure 12.5), dated to 1610 and thus the year of her husband’s assassination, is quite distinct from the relatively richer attire she wears in later portraits as a widow. Even in 1610, however, Marie’s dress is not completely ascetic: there is a wired veil and her sleeves are voluminous and bristle with texture.

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Figure 12.6: Nicolas Pitau the Elder, Christine de France, 1663, engraving. The British Museum, London.

The contrast with Christine’s dress (Figure 12.6) is, however, marked, with Christine’s abundance of jewels, including dramatically large earrings with three pear-shaped pearls, ermine-trimmed sleeves, translucent wired veil, and a refined, subtle texture to her dress that suggests a fine fabric. Moreover, her flat lace collar sits atop another one, as well as a substantial pearl necklace similarly tucked under the top collar. Her hair, too, is not hidden under a veil, but neatly curled into perfect ringlets. Thus, the negotiation of royal status and widowed status is played out in these portraits. Anne of Austria would have been another immediate exemplar. She had, after all, been there to greet Henrietta Maria in 1644 in Paris when the English queen arrived in exile at the French court, where she stayed until the Restoration in 1660. Anne of Austria had only just been widowed after the death of Louis XIII the previous year. She emerged from the requisite period in seclusion wearing a ‘grand dueil’ with a ‘crêpe noir qui lui descendait sur le visage et lui couvrait le front’.51 But Anne does not 51 Cited in Gibson, Women in Seventeenth-Century France, n. 24, 294–95, citing Michel de Marolles, Mémoires et Suite des Mémoires (Sommaville, 1656–7), 1re Partie, 138.

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seem to have worn such full mourning consistently, for her portraits as a widow (as in Figure 12.3) show her face fully exposed but with a black veil, widows’ peak, and, as with Marie and Christine, simpler garments (without lace, without a pattern woven into the silk, without jewellery) in some portraits and quite lavish garments and jewellery in others. Because Henrietta Maria found out about her husband’s execution while based at the French court, her aunt would have had an obvious role model. Thus, in the case of Marie de’ Medici and Anne of Austria, these were close relationships with Henrietta Maria, both in terms of kinship and in terms of shared court spaces. Visually and ceremonially, Henrietta Maria had seen and experienced the practices of two widowed French queens. Significantly, there were political dimensions of uncommon import attached to all of these influential widows: Marie as a regent whose infamous struggles with her son led to prolonged periods of political exile; Anne herself a regent to Louis XIV. Christine, although based in Savoy, provided another powerful example of the widow as regent. This helps to explain the importance of double portraits of all three of them as regents to their young son-kings.52 Another influential widow and relative with an ongoing political role was Isabella Clara Eugenia, formerly archduchess and later governor of the Southern Netherlands, who was portrayed as a widow in her monastic habit by Peter Paul Rubens and Anthony van Dyck.53 But perhaps the most immediately relevant exemplar for Henrietta Maria was Elizabeth of Bohemia. Sister of Charles I and widow to Frederick, King of Bohemia since his sudden death in 1632, she spent a long period of exile in The Hague, vigorously campaigning for the restitution of the Palatinate. Henrietta Maria exchanged portraits and gifts with her and was certainly aware of her financial and political plight; they met during the queen’s trip to Holland in 1642, when she delivered her daughter, Mary, to her new husband, William, and attempted to sell jewels to fund the royalist cause.54 Elizabeth of Bohemia was herself campaigning for her husband’s cause and children’s inheritance of the Palatinate. 52 For Anne of Austria, see the engraving, French School, Anne of Austria with the Dauphin Louis of France and Phillippe I, Duke of Orleans, 1643, BNF; for Marie de’ Medici, see French School, Marie de’ Medici and Louis XIII, c. 1610, BNF; for Christine, see the gold doppia worth four scudi depicting Christine with her son Hyacinth, 1637–1638; another gold coin with the same double portrait format was issued in 1641, but Christine is shown with her son Charles Emanuel II. 53 See Rubens’s portrait, 1625, now in the Palatine Gallery, Florence, and van Dyck’s portrait based on it, in the Galleria Sabauda, Turin. 54 On Elizabeth of Bohemia’s keen tracking of Henrietta Maria’s trip to Holland, see Akkerman, ed., The Correspondence, Letters 576, 579, and 604. For Henrietta Maria’s correspondence during her time in Holland, see Green, ed., Letters of Queen Henrietta Maria, for the following letters to Charles I: March 1643, 57; Undated, 60–61; May 1642, 63–65. The need to pawn her and her husband’s jewels seems to have caused her no small anxiety, both for its symbolic significance and the personal attachments she harboured for them because of their familial associations. She notes that she gave up her husband’s pearl buttons ‘with no small regret’ and that ‘My great chain, and that cross which I had bought from the queen my mother is only pledged’ (May 1642, cited in Green, Letters, 63–65). On the queen’s trip and intention to sell royal jewels, see Humphrey, ’To Sell England’s Jewels’, http://journals.openedition.org/erea/3715; DOI: 10.4000/erea.3715.

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With the fraught situation in England in 1642, Henrietta Maria must have been acutely aware of how Elizabeth negotiated the political situation from exile, as a widow, and seen both in her clothing and her portraits how she foregrounded her widowhood. In Gerrit van Honthorst’s portrait of 1642 (Colour Plate 11), Elizabeth is not shown in deepest mourning: she has an intricate lace collar and prominent jewels, and the sheen of her silk dress also points to the luminous fabrics that were intended to be avoided during initial mourning. However, at this stage, Elizabeth had been a widow for ten years and needed to highlight two aspects of her political value: her royal status as a queen with the appropriate materials of magnificence and her widowed status to remind people of her ongoing exile and the rights of her sons to the Palatinate. Elizabeth is a particularly resonant comparison, since her role was not to rule as a regent or archduchess, but to shore up support for her children’s cause in a way that is comparable to Henrietta Maria’s goal for the restoration of the Stuart dynasty and her son’s claim to the throne. Moreover, the visual performance of widowhood enabled queens to promote both specific political agendas and dynastic claims and to showcase the widow’s virtues. One characteristic of all of these widows was the importance placed on the display of piety within the context of widowhood. Thus, the decision to portray widowed queens in mourning dress enabled them to make a number of confessional and political claims. For Catholic royal women who could safely showcase their Catholicism, such as Marie, Christine, Anne, and Isabella, piety was staged in the prominent appearance of jewelled crosses in some of their widow portraits. But, for Henrietta Maria, the political situation was simply too delicate for her to do this in the 1650s, when her husband had just been executed, her son’s political future uncertain, and her Catholicism was seen to have played a role in his downfall. She needed to play the ‘living martyr’ as John Crouch (fl.1660–1681) calls her in his 1660 poem through more subtle means, and one way this was achieved was through her widows’ dress.

Portraits of Henrietta Maria as a Widow There are only three securely identifiable portrait types of Henrietta Maria as a widow: the first is the bust-length portrait established by Pierre Daret (Figure 12.7), which provided the model for William Faithorne’s engraved frontispiece portrait of her for The Queen’s Closet Opened published in 1655 and numerous subsequent editions. This type shows the queen at the time of her greatest political vulnerability and financial pressure: the 1650s. Daret included this in his Tableaux historique (1652), a portrait series of illustrious subjects. Her sister, Christine, and her sister-in-law Anne of Austria, were also included, but Henrietta Maria’s portrait is bereft of jewellery. Moreover, such a relatively modest image in terms of material magnificence helped to promote her misery at her husband’s death, as well as depict her need for both

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Figure 12.7: Pierre Daret, Henrietta Maria, 1652, engraving. Royal Collection Trust / Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II.

financial and political support for her son’s claims to the throne. The same portrait of Henrietta Maria appeared in subsequent editions and it was also used as the model for other engravings of the queen that circulated in the 1650s.55 The wide circulation of images of the widowed queen in the 1650s suggests that such works could operate to bolster her financial and political support at a time when she, and indeed her son, were particularly vulnerable. The other two types date to the Restoration, one known 55 Such as the print by Theodorus Merlen in the National Portrait Gallery, NPG 16475, and François Mazot in the BNF, Département des Estampes et Photographie, D164528. The image also circulated as an independent engraving, e.g., BNF, D164535.

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in prints and the other displayed on her matrix seal, and show the now-queen mother wearing a crown on top of her veil and widow’s peak. Playing the widow was essential to her ongoing political relevance at the Restoration court of her son. But there is also one unusual depiction of the queen mother without her identifying widows’ weeds at The Feast of the States of Holland for Charles II at The Hague in 1660. The more generic courtly sartorial persona presented in this picture could be attributed to the queen’s lack of involvement in the production of the image. Daret’s engraving, a bust-length oval portrait, was published in 1652 by the artist in his series, Tableaux Historiques ou sont Graves les François et Etrangers de l’un et l’autre sexe. The image was included in subsequent editions of the book published with Louis Boissevin in 1656 and was widely circulated in France in the 1650s. It was produced just after Henrietta Maria founded the convent at Chaillot, and, as such, the portrait promotes the queen’s piety as both a virtuous widow and a religious patron. She is depicted facing her right, as if in correspondence with a pendant of her husband, with a strong light source coming from this direction, from above, as if the king is looking down on her to remind viewers of his presence. This portrait was often positioned alongside portraits of Charles I in sets of royalty and statesmen, as if to highlight her political relevance as a widow campaigning for her husband’s cause. Henrietta Maria wears a black bodice with voluminous black sleeves that have a subtle woven pattern. The use of print helps to present a ‘matte’, dull appearance in her clothing quite distinctive from the polished silks, often pinked and brightly hued, that she wears in the portraits van Dyck painted in the 1630s. Her cape collar appears to be simple, starched, translucent white linen without lace trimming and tied simply with a small ribbon at her neck. This seems to protect her modesty by covering up the top of her chest, since she seems to have another collar underneath that hugs the top of her shoulders and has undulating curves that suggests lace. This outfit may appear to be very modest, but the patterns suggest it was not a simple, matte garment associated with full mourning. There are also some adornments: a small rosette at her chest and two delicate little decorations on her collar. While remarkably less lavish than her portraits of the 1620s and 1630s, it subtly points to her status, as if to validate her political claims and financial needs as a queen. Her hairline is marked by her widows’ peak, her hair smoothed under it, pushing out into tight curls that cover her ears. Her black veil cascades behind her and is rendered to suggest it is a lightweight, translucent silk. Her expression is serene, her eyes unflinching. There is no question of her status as a widow, nor is there any doubting her royal pedigree. The portrait is accompanied by a coat of arms and inscription that trumpets Henrietta Maria’s royal status, positioning her as a virtuous princess who, suffering ‘aflictions’, founded the convent at Chaillot as a retreat for her ‘consolations eternelles’. This visual commemoration of the queen just a year after the founding of Chaillot, and the significance attached to the new convent in the inscription, underscore her active role in the construction of her persona as a widow and her decision

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to foreground her ‘aflictions’, that is, the execution of her husband the king. The absence of any pearls, so dominant in the portraits of her as Charles I’s queen at the Stuart court, or any overt symbols of religious piety, suggests a need not to draw overt attention to her Catholicism or material magnificence. But for an English audience, for a book produced to promote the queen’s domestic virtue, such details were added. William Faithorne adopted Daret’s type for the engraved frontispiece (Figure 12.8) of W. M.’s compilation of ‘the queen’s’ recipes: The Queens closet opened. Incomparable secrets in physick, chirurgery, preserving, candying, and cookery; as they were presented to the Qveen by the most experienced persons of our times, many whereof they were honoured with her own practice, when she pleased to descend to these more private recreations. Never before published. / Transcribed from the true copies of her Majesties own receipt books, by W.M. one of her late servants. Faithorne may well have known the engraving from the few years in Paris in

Figure 12.8: William Faithorne, Henrietta Maria, 1655, engraving from Walter Montagu, The Queen’s Closet Opened. Royal Collection Trust / Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II.

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exile, returning to London around 1652.56 Here, pearls have been added in the form of both a hanging pendant and large pear-shaped pearl earrings. Henrietta Maria now faces to her left, subverting the king’s place, as if to state her own importance in the claims of her son. Just as with the Daret image, this image is highly political given that the likely author of the book, Walter Montagu, was her Grand Almoner and the insistence in the dedication to the importance of sovereignty and truth.57 As with the Daret portrait, there is no reference to her Catholicism, but this portrait also lacks any reference to her French heritage, as if recognising that this could be a liability for Henrietta Maria. The author, who stresses that this book would not be published ‘without her Royall assent’, must have had the queen’s full endorsement for this portrait of her as a widow. At the Restoration, the queen capitalised on her new status as no longer solely Charles I’s widow, but now also as Charles II’s mother. Richard Gaywood’s etching (Figure 12.9) combines elements of widows’ dress with courtly flourishes. She wears a comparable cape collar to the Daret type, with cuffs that match the collar, and she is fitted with a widows’ peak and veil. Being a three-quarter length image, more details of her dress are displayed: a fashionable bodice with a deep v, a row of buttons of clasps along the middle of the bodice and skirt, a jeweled rosette, a pearl necklace, pearl earrings, and, in her left hand, a fashionable accessory: a fan. Her veil is long, and she holds it as if to suggest that she is moving, even active at court. A black mourning band adorns her left arm and seems to have a jeweled attachment. Most notable of all is the crown on her head. This is not a retired royal widow of Chaillot, but Charles I’s triumphant widow and Charles II’s empowered mother; just as the inscription explains, she is ‘HENRIETTA MARIA Mother Queene’.58 An anonymous engraving from around the same time similarly shows ‘Queen Mary’ both crowned and in dress that negotiates widows’ weeds and courtly attire. She was positioned in a 1660 engraving alongside five other notable Stuart figures: Charles I, Charles II, the Duke of York, the Duke of Gloucester, and George Monk. With Henrietta Maria positioned between Charles I and II, the engraving draws attention to her central role in the dynasty.59 Henrietta Maria’s arrival back at the English court in 1660 occasioned the commission of a new matrix seal (Figure 12.10). The obverse shows the queen mother wearing some of the same elements as in the Gaywood portrait, most notably the

56 He had produced an engraved portrait of the queen in a similar format in the 1640s. See NPG D22775. Faithorne’s engraving may in fact have been one of the illegal portrait copies that Daret refers to in the preface of the 1656 edition of the Tableaux Historiques. 57 For my analysis of the political backdrop of this publication and portrait, see Griffey, On Display, 176–177. 58 This image is also close to the engraved initial letter portrait of the queen on a letter patent dated 6 May 1661; sold Bonham’s, London, 23 March 2004, lot 368. 59 Sunderland Collection, Ashmolean Museum, Oxford.

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Figure 12.9: Richard Gaywood, Henrietta Maria, c. 1649–60, etching. National Portrait Gallery, London.

crown, the veil, and the widows’ peak. But her dress is also distinctively royal: it is adorned with far larger jewels (presumably pearls) in greater quantity, both on her bodice, and as a necklace and earrings. Her bodice is cut low, laced, and long-waisted, all fashionable features of dress in the 1660s. She wears a mantle, which does not appear before this date in her widow portraits. But, most markedly, this mantle is lined in ermine fur, which is carefully rendered. The insistently royal material suggests a coronation, and she is indeed shown holding an orb and sceptre, parading

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Figure 12.10: Henrietta Maria’s matrix seal, 1660, obverse. Royal Collection Trust / Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II.

under a richly embroidered canopy. This is Henrietta Maria as a reigning queen, and if she had never been crowned as queen to Charles I for religious reasons, she would crown herself through her iconography now that she could announce her authority at the court of Charles II. There is just one depiction of Henrietta Maria produced during her widowhood in which she is not shown in widows’ dress (Figure 12.11). Here, in an engraving depicting the feast of the States of Holland for Charles II in 1660 to mark his restoration to the throne, she is shown under a canopy next to her son. She is depicted wearing a collar that sits low on her shoulders, the top of her chest and neck exposed. There is no veil, no widows’ peak, and her dress is lightly hued. This could suggest that Henrietta Maria’s portrayal in widows’ weeds in her portraits did not mirror what she wore in real life. Or it could suggest that the queen did not need to be portrayed in widows’ weeds to be recognisable or indeed politically relevant in an image such as this in which the Stuart dynasty is so clearly promoted.

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Figure 12.11: Jacob Toorenvliet and Pierre Philippe, The Feast of the Estates of Holland for Charles II, 1660, engraving. The British Museum, London.

Conclusion Mourning cloth and clothing played an integral role in commemorating death, at funerals, during mourning periods, and as an ongoing signifier of the widow. Henrietta Maria publicly adopted a visual persona of perpetual mourning and seems to have been involved in the construction of her visual persona as widow. Her public, material investment maintained the memory of her husband, perpetuating the Stuart dynasty and securing her own sanctification. The emotional links to this persona, reflecting her miserable state of mourning, helped to remind the public of the historical circumstances of her husband’s death, a violent ‘martyrdom’, and to highlight her political and financial plight as well as that of her children. Her exile from England also positioned her as persecuted for her religion amongst the English Catholics and indeed other Catholics, both amongst her Bourbon family and in Europe as a whole. This exile placed the Catholic, French queen’s ‘miseries’ as a widow akin to that of a

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martyr, highlighting the inherent links between monastic habit and widows´ weeds. Thus, the widow persona served multiple political and religious agendas for the queen, the papacy, and for Stuart claims to the throne. These portraits, along with Henrietta Maria’s actions as a foundress of a nunnery, her charitable works, and religious devotions, positioned the queen in an established tradition of chaste and pious Christian widowhood. Crucially, this also enabled her to present herself as a model of good widowhood in the sense of enacting an idealised bond to her husband through grief but also in the sense of being deserving, meriting sympathy, protection, and restitution.60 This was an ideal visual presentation of widowhood, a model for queens’ mourning and Christian mourning. But it does not necessarily reveal the full picture of Henrietta Maria’s lived experience, as the engraving of the new queen mother at the Feast of the Estates of Holland in 1660 seems also to suggest. What is clear is that the queen’s image had an affective purpose, designed to elicit a response from viewers. For an apparently powerless and exiled queen, her image, bolstered and made recognisable by her dress, became a tool in the public campaign for the Stuart Restoration.

About the author Erin Griffey is Associate Professor of Art History at the University of Auckland. She is a specialist in early modern visual and material culture and has published widely on the Stuart court, including the edited collection, Henrietta Maria: Piety, Politics and Patronage (Ashgate, 2008) and articles in The Burlington, Studi di Memofonte, and the Journal of the History of Collections. Her monograph, On Display: Henrietta Maria and the Materials of Magnificence at the Stuart Court, was published by Yale University Press in 2015.

60 On this inflection of widowhood in the context of legal representations of widows in court, see Stretton, ‘Widows at Law’, 205.

Works Cited Abbreviations AGA Archivo General de Andalucía (General Archive of Andalusia) AGP Archivo General de Palacio, Madrid (General Palace Archives, Madrid) AHN Archivo Historico de la Nobleza, Toledo (Historical Archive of the Nobility, Toledo, Spain) ANF Archives Nationales de France (National Archives of France) ASMn Archivio di Stato di Mantova (State Archives of Mantua) BNE Biblioteca Nacional de Espana (National Library of Spain) BNF Bibliothèque Nationale de France (National Library of France) BL British Library CSPD Calendar of State Papers, Domestic Series CSP Scots Calendar of State Papers relating to Scotland and Mary Queen of Scots, 1457-1603 CSPV Calendar of State Papers, Venice DNA Rigsarkivet (Danish National Archives) Folger Folger Shakespeare Library IDEA Isabella d’Este Archive NRS The National Records of Scotland ÖStA Österreichisches Staatsarchiv (Austrian State Archives) SLA Slottsarkivet, Riksarkivet (Swedish National Archives, Royal Palace Archives) TNA The National Archives, Kew

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Index aglets 111, 120, 122, 143 Albrecht Achilles of Brandenburg (elector) 81, 85 allegory 128 Amalie of Bavaria (duchess) 81–82 amber 102, 105, 209 amulets 102, 208–209, 211 animals 112, 120, 126, 131, 156, 216, 217, 273 Anna of Brandenburg/Anna of Saxony (electress) 81, 151 Anna of Bavaria (duchess consort of Albert V) 152 Anna of Denmark (queen consort of James VI/I) 23–24, 139–159, 237, 278, 280, 290 Anna of Denmark (electress of Saxony) 151 Anne of Austria (queen consort of Louis XIII) 61, 64, 66, 69, 71, 74, 281, 285–286, 290, 292–294 Anne Boleyn (queen consort of Henry VIII) 150, 179, 181 Anne of Brittany (queen consort of Charles VIII and Louis XII) 64–66, 96 Anne of Cleves (queen consort of Henry VIII) 78–79 Asian imports 112, 257–276 Avis, House of 96, 100 baleen 163, 196–200, 208 banyans 268, 272–273 Barbara of Brandenburg (queen consort of Ladislaus II) 85 Battle of Pavia (1525) 99 Beatrice d’Este (duchess consort of Ludovico Sforza) 34, 36, 38–39, 41, 43, 49–50, 52 Beatrice of Naples (queen consort of Matthias I and Ladislaus II) 79 beauty 35, 56, 59–60, 102, 107, 127, 140–141, 147, 211, 230 Beck, David 185, 202 belts 25, 105, 108, 111, 208–209 Bembo, Pietro 47 bezoar stone (see also amulets) 120 Bianca Maria Sforza (queen, archduchess consort and empress) 43, 47, 79, 80, 84 bodice 35, 107–108, 162–163, 187, 193, 196, 199, 211, 234, 296, 298–299 Bona of Savoy (duchess consort of Galeazzo Maria Sforza) 84 Bonsignori, Francesco 53–54 Borgia, Cesare (duke) 34, 45 Borgia, Lucrezia (duchess consort) 36, 38–39, 42, 50, 52 bracelets 25, 47, 100, 106, 116, 120, 143, 153, 154, 211, 216–217, 259 Brahe, Elsa Beata (countess and duchess) 190–191, 201 brocade 40–41, 52, 59, 63, 89, 107, 189, 211, 213, 258 Bronzino 63 brooches (see also pendants) 102, 105–106, 108, 216 Bourbon, House of 27, 57–74, 211, 301 Burgundy, House of 19, 76, 78, 82–83, 87, 89–90, 94, 121 buttons 47, 56, 102, 105–106, 111, 116, 120, 122, 143, 145, 196, 231, 242, 298 calico 258, 263, 265, 268 cameos 120, 125, 130, 133–134, 243

caps 80, 247, 283 carcanets (see also collars) 116, 135 Castiglione, Baldassare, The Book of the Courtier 47–48 Caterina Cibo Varano (duchess) 49 Caterina Jagellonica (queen consort of John III) 152 Caterina Sforza (countess) 52 Catherine de’ Medici (queen consort of Henri II) 49, 59–63, 65–70, 279, 281, 289 Catherine of Aragon (queen consort of Henry VIII) 22, 151 Catherine of Austria (queen consort of John III) 97–98 Catherine of Braganza (queen consort of Charles II)  29–30, 227–252, 268, 273 Cecil, William, 1st Baron Burghley 120 Cellini, Benvenuto 111 changing clothes at marriage 27, 76–78, 85, 101, 108–109, 214–218, 238 Charles I (king) 19, 31, 42, 230, 279, 281, 286, 288, 293, 296–298, 300 Charles II (king) 30, 227–276, 279, 281, 283, 296, 298, 300–301 Charles the Bold (duke) 82, 87–89, 121 Charles V (emperor) 49, 69, 70, 95–99, 101, 103, 107, 147 Charles VIII (king) 50, 66, 96 Charles IX (king) 62–63, 66 Charlotte of Savoy (queen consort of Louis XI) 64 Chaucer, The Canterbury Tales 17 Cheapside Hoard 120, 134 chemise 35, 74 Chiffinch, Dorothy 265–273 chintz 30, 259, 262, 265, 268, 272, 276 Christine of France (duchess consort of Victor Amadeus I) 283, 290–294 Christina of Sweden (king) 29, 183–205 Christine of Hesse (duchess consort of Adolf) 153 Christine of Lorraine (grand duchess consort of Ferdinando I) 63 Christus, Petrus 102 chopines 208, 218 Claude of France (queen consort of François I) 47, 111 Clouet, François 63, 66, 70, 290 Clouet, Jean 69 coazzone (see also hairstyles) 39 coffee 231, 268, 273, 275 coifs 163, 287–288 collars (fabric) 18, 64–65, 68–69, 89, 96, 144–145, 159, 191, 208, 211, 213, 219, 283, 285, 292, 294, 296, 298, 300 collars (gold and/or jewelled) 95, 108, 115–116, 125, 129–130, 135, 147 coronation robes and regalia 21, 29, 63–65, 181–193, 201, 204–205, 299 cosmetics 35, 47, 50 Cranach the Younger, Lucas 152 Christian IV (king) 146, 149, 155 crosses (see also devotional jewellery) 209, 213, 285, 293–294 crowns 16, 29, 60, 62, 64–65, 67, 80, 84, 89, 117, 165–168, 176, 178–181, 191–193, 205, 210, 242, 246–247, 289, 296, 298–300

334  Da Montefeltro, Emilia Pia 47 Daret, Pierre 294–298 Dekker, Thomas, The Seven Deadly Sins of London 169 De la Gardie, Magnus 187, 190–191, 201 De la Gardie, Maria Sofia 201 devotional jewellery 144–145, 213, 216, 289 Diana (goddess) 128, 251–252, 272 diamonds 60, 63–64, 87, 101, 105–106, 111, 116, 118–119, 121, 123–125, 134–135, 143–145, 148–149, 152, 154, 157, 166, 263 dolls 27, 36–37, 46, 52, 68, 71, 95, 202 dowries 42, 78–82, 85, 99–103, 105, 147, 237, 245, 268, 273 Drake Jewel 125, 133 Drake, Sir Francis 121, 125 Drummond, Jane, Countess of Roxburghe 143, 157 Dudley, Sir Robert, Earl of Leicester 124 East India Company 253, 258–273 Eleanor of Austria (queen consort of Manuel I and François I) 28, 60, 63, 66, 68–70, 93–114 Elizabeth of Bohemia (queen consort of Frederick V)  23, 260, 278–279, 293–294 Eleonora of Toledo (duchess consort of Cosimo I de’ Medici) 18, 63 Eleonora of Aragon (duchess consort of Ercole I d’Este) 36, 38–39, 52 Elisabetta Gonzaga (duchess consort of Guidobaldo da Montefeltro) 47, 50–51 Elizabeth I (queen) 18–21, 23–25, 28–29, 68, 115–138, 144–145, 150, 165, 167–176, 180–182 Elisabeth of Austria (queen consort of Charles IX of France) 63, 66 emblems 21, 124–125, 162 embroiderers 49, 122, 124, 142, 190, 193 embroidery 16, 59, 129, 177, 215, 245 emotion 93, 95, 99, 110–111, 114, 119, 123, 211, 277–278, 280, 289, 301 enamel jewellery 96, 101, 105, 113, 116–117, 120, 126–129, 132–133, 145 engraved gems 119, 133, 135–136 ermine fur 64–65, 89, 183, 187, 191, 283, 287, 292, 299 Erik XIV (king) 191–193 Ernest of Saxony (elector) 78 exotica/exoticism 97, 100, 103–106, 112, 118–120, 217, 227, 238, 241–242, 253, 259, 267, 269, 271, 273, 275 Faithorne, William 294, 297–298 fans 117, 126, 143, 211, 215–216, 258–259, 269, 276, 298 farthingales 16, 30, 65, 68, 74, 142, 163, 207–208, 211, 214–226 Federico Gonzaga (duke) 39, 42, 46–47, 49, 54 Field of the Cloth of Gold 22 Flemish dress 70, 101 fleurs-de-lys 33–35, 39, 56, 64–65, 74, 116 Florentine dress 52 Francesco II Gonzaga (marquess) 33–35, 40, 42–43, 45, 49–56 François I (king) 28, 46, 68, 70, 96, 99, 108–112 François II (king) 151 Frederick III (emperor) 78, 87–89, 96

SARTORIAL POLITICS IN EARLY MODERN EUROPE

French dress 29, 34–35, 39, 63–74, 81–83, 108, 163, 185–187, 200–201, 235, 239, 252, 255 Fugger, Jacob 121 fur (see ermine fur and lynx fur) Galeazzo Maria Sforza (duke) 39–40, 48, 84 garnets 119, 123 Gaywood, Richard 298–299 George of Bavaria (duke) 78, 84 German dress 27, 70, 75–91, 213–214 gift giving 18, 20, 28, 35, 45, 49, 52, 61–62, 97, 103–107, 117, 123–128, 133, 137, 142–143, 148–149, 153, 156–159, 238, 241, 249, 260, 268, 293 gloves 36, 47, 49, 115, 189, 191, 195–196, 200, 217 goldsmiths 25, 87–88, 101–102, 111, 120, 124, 131, 141, 151 Gonzaga, House of 27, 33–56 Gustav II Adolf/Gustavus Adolphus (king) 153, 186, 191–192, 200–201, 204 Habsburg, House of 27–28, 47, 62, 70, 93–114, 139, 147–148, 155–157, 207–226, 281, 288 hairstyles 35, 39, 45, 50, 69, 74, 84, 107–108, 116, 163, 181, 213, 215, 217, 219, 222–226, 232, 236–237, 283–284, 292, 296 Hartside, Margaret 143 Hawkins, Richard 121 headdresses 22, 35–36, 46, 48, 50, 68–70, 80, 84, 102, 105, 108, 116, 118, 151, 163, 211 Hedwig of Bavaria/Hedwig of Poland (duchess consort of George of Bavaria) 78, 80, 83–84, 86 Henri II (king) 49, 66, 281 Henri III (king) 59, 66 Henri IV (king) 57, 60–61, 64–65, 71 Henrietta Maria (queen consort of Charles I) 19, 31, 230, 237, 240, 247, 249, 277–302 Henry VII (king) 144 Henry VIII (king) 70, 121, 129, 150, 180 Henry, Prince of Wales 142, 146–147, 155, 157, 278 Heriot, George 141–145, 148–149, 155, 157, 159 Henslowe, Philip 164, 166 Hey, Jean 96–97 Hilliard, Nicholas 116, 129, 131–133, 149 Holbein, Hans 78–79 Hollar, Wenceslaus 78–79, 228 Holm, Johan 187, 189, 200 Howard, Katherine, Countess of Suffolk 143, 145 ‘Indian objects’ and garments 30, 31, 69, 100, 105, 112, 166, 236, 240–241, 253–254, 259, 262, 264–265, 268–269, 273 Isabella d’Este (marchioness) 23, 27, 33–56 Isabella of Castile (queen) 21, 96 Isabella Clara Eugenia (archduchess) 23, 148–149, 155, 281, 288, 290 Italian Wars (1499–1559) 33–34 James VI of Scotland, James I of England (king) 140, 150, 157, 278, 281, 290 Joanna of Castile and Aragon (queen) 96–98, 110 John Frederick I (elector) 86–87

335

Index

Joyel Rico (jewel) 215–217, 225 Julius II (pope) 43, 51 Karl X Gustav (king) 184, 190, 204 Katherine Parr (queen consort of Henry VIII) 63, 290 Kristina of Holstein-Gottorp (queen consort of Charles IX of Sweden) 144, 153 knots 35, 43, 123 lacquer 240–241, 244, 253, 259, 263–264, 269 ladies in waiting 38, 48–49, 58, 71, 79–80, 84, 122, 157, 222, 226, 261, 272 Ladislaus II (king) 85 Lely, Sir Peter 234, 251–252, 260–261, 272 Leo X (pope) 112 Leonardo da Vinci 43 Leopold Wilhelm (archduke) 215 Limosin, Léonard 108 Lodovico Sforza (duke) 34, 40–41, 43 Lorenzo de’ Medici 39 Louis XIII (king) 34, 71, 283, 290, 292 Louis XIV (king) 23, 64, 215, 220, 235, 256, 285, 293 Louise de Kérouaille (duchess) 232, 239, 241–242, 250, 260–261, 272–273 Louise of Lorraine (queen consort of Henri III) 59, 66, 68 Louise de Savoie (duchess) 47, 99 Loyet, Gérard 87–88 Luycks, Frans 208–212 lynx fur 63, 107 magnificence 15–25, 36, 58–60, 62, 66–67, 72, 116–118, 136, 141, 159, 167, 284–285, 294, 297 mantles 35, 61, 64–65, 70, 74, 82, 299 Manuel I (king) 28, 98, 100–101, 103–104, 108, 112 Margaret of Austria (duchess, regent, governor) 70, 94–97, 99, 113, 224, 286 Margarita María (empress, queen and archduchess consort of Leopold I) 216, 218, 220, 222 Margherita Paleologa (marchioness) 36, 55–56 Marguerite de Valois (queen consort of Henri IV) 65, 68 María Ana (empress, queen and queen consort of Ferdinand III) 207, 213 Maria Eleonora of Brandenburg (queen consort of Gustavus Adolphus) 182, 192, 201 María Teresa of Spain (queen consort of Louis XIV)  213, 215, 220–222 Mariana of Austria (queen consort of Philip IV) 29–30, 207–226, 281 Marie Antoinette (queen consort of Louis XVI) 23–24, 74 Marie de’ Medici (queen consort of Henri IV) 23, 59–60, 62–67, 69, 70–74, 281, 283, 288, 290–291, 293–294 Marrow, Bridget 143 Mary of Burgundy (duchess) 83, 101 Mary of Hungary (queen consort of Louis II and governor) 112 Mary Stuart/Mary Queen of Scots 61, 66, 69, 124, 151, 283, 290

masques 17, 29, 141, 146–148, 157, 251, 259, 261, 270 Mathilde of Hesse (duchess consort of John II) 80 Matthias I (king) 79 Maximillian I (emperor) 43, 80, 82–84, 87, 95–96, 101 memento mori 128–129, 278, 284 miniatures 21, 36, 47, 108, 125, 130, 132–133, 135, 141, 143–145, 148–149, 156–158, 225–238, 278 Mirror of Portugal (jewel) 121 mirrors 105, 149, 244, 285 Mor, Anthonis 108–109, 113 mourning 19–20, 31, 33, 35, 52, 62, 66–67, 71, 128, 213, 226, 237, 277–302 Munk, Kirsten (countess) 153 necklaces 25, 69, 95, 100–101, 104, 108, 115–116, 143, 151, 211, 292, 298–299 Oldenburg, House of 149, 159 Oliver, Isaac 21 Order of the Garter 129–130, 180, 187 pawning 17, 25, 51–52, 120–121, 293 Peace of Westphalia 213 pearls 35, 51, 59–64, 81, 84, 87–88, 101–108, 115–118, 122, 125, 127–128, 131, 134, 141, 143–144, 216, 230, 292, 297–299 Pelican Jewel 116, 128 perfume 47, 56, 187, 196, 243, 273 Philip IV (king) 207–208, 211–213, 215–218, 220–226 piety 30–31, 52, 128, 140, 144, 213, 227, 232, 248–250, 277, 281, 285, 288, 290, 294, 296–297 Pollaiuolo, Piero del 39–40 Polish dress 78, 80, 83 Popish Plot (1678–1679) 230, 232 porcelain 253, 258–259, 263–264, 268–271, 273, 276 Portuguese dress 69–70, 108, 238–239, 252 Pourbus, Frans the Younger 63, 65, 71, 283 pregnancy 170, 215–216, 219–225, 232 religious devotion 31, 51–52, 105, 114, 128, 213, 216, 224, 232, 249–250, 286, 289–290, 302 ribbons 35, 39, 62, 69, 80, 122, 188–189, 191, 195–196, 199–200, 211, 219, 256, 278, 296 rings 101, 105, 108, 111, 115, 128, 133, 143–144, 148, 155, 157 Romano, Giulio 551 rosary (see also devotional jewellery) 51, 96 rubies 96, 101, 106, 108, 111, 123, 132, 135, 145, 151 Rudolph II (emperor) 121 Sackville, Anne, Lady Dacre 134 Sackville, Thomas, Earl of Dorset 134 sapphires 105, 108, 116, 118–119, 143 scent 21, 47, 105 sceptre 21, 178, 246, 299 shopping 36, 52, 59, 187, 256–259, 268 Sibylle of Cleves (electress) 86 Sibylle of Brandenburg (duchess consort of William IV)  80, 82, 85

336  sleeves 18, 22, 35, 46, 63–65, 68–69, 87, 101, 107–108, 116, 122, 142, 191, 193, 208, 210–211, 213, 216–217, 234, 291–292, 296 soft power 21–22 Spanish dress 22, 30, 35, 39, 63, 69–71, 74, 82, 107–108, 163, 207–226, 238 sprezzatura 48 Stuart, House of 30, 139–159, 227–302 Stubbes, Philip, The Anatomie of Abuses 169–170 sumptuary laws 37, 58, 162, 165, 177, 282 tailors 68, 71, 81–82, 85–86, 142, 187, 189, 195, 199–200, 222, 225, 235–237, 247, 252, 261 tea 258–259, 262–264, 268, 270–271, 273, 275–276 theatre 15, 23, 28, 161–182, 208, 235 theft 121 Thirty Years’ War (1618–1648) 186, 200–201 Three Brethren (jewel) 121–122 Throckmorton, Sir Nicholas 120 Titian (Tiziano Vecelli) 35–36, 43, 48, 51, 103–104, 107 trade 19, 103, 118, 120–122, 237–238, 253–275 Treaty of Cambrai (1529) 99 Trissino, Giangiorgio 35 trousseaux 42, 77, 80, 85, 96 Tudor, House of 25, 62, 67, 70, 117, 126, 130–131, 145, 147, 281 underclothes 48, 234 undress 48, 74, 78, 233, 250

SARTORIAL POLITICS IN EARLY MODERN EUROPE

Valois, House of 27, 47, 57, 61, 71, 96, 99, 112 Van Cleve, Joos 69, 107–108, 110 Van Eyck, Jan 78 Van Dyck, Sir Anthony 67, 293, 296 Van Honthorst, Gerrit 294 Van Orley, Bernard 287 Van Somer, Paul 158 Vanson, Adrian 150 Vasa, House of 186, 193, 205 Vecellio, Cesare, Habiti Antichie e Moderni 284–285 veils 31, 52, 66, 79, 84, 116, 122, 282–284, 288, 291–293, 296, 298–300 Velázquez, Diego 214–225 Venus 102–103, 107 Villiers, Barbara (duchess) 231–233, 250–253, 261, 272 Virgin Mary 102, 213, 223–224 Virgin of the Expectation 223–224 virtue 15, 22, 31, 35, 41, 48, 100, 102, 106, 119, 156, 168, 229, 231–233, 244, 248, 250–252, 285, 294, 297 Visconti, Antonia 80 weddings 43, 49, 51, 62, 65, 75–91, 101, 105, 156, 213, 229–230, 238, 242 whalebone (see baleen) Wierix, Jan 72 William IV of Jülich-Berg (duke) 80, 82 Woolley, Hannah, The Gentlewoman’s Companion 15, 30, 32 zazara (see also headdresses) 36, 48, 50–51, 55–56