Courtney Herber, Ph.D. – Historian
Politics, gender, performance, and theatre in the early modern world
Howdy! I’m super excited to get this up and posted! The second series on HistoryPop – in this first episode we will explore a bit of the motivations behind the show and do a bit of a historical prologue to where the show begins. Stay tuned! Next week, I’ll be talking about some of the events and characters from the first couple seasons of Victoria!
The last time that Giles Tremlett wrote a biography, it brought new life to the story of Katherine of Aragon, first consort to Henry VIII. Tremlett’s extensive use of Spanish archives and his obvious investigative and writing talents made for both enlightening and entertaining reading. This time, he turned his attention to a figure whose story is even more shrouded in myth and legend – Isabel of Castile- so this massive tome is as much about what Isabel did as much as what she didn’t do.
Generally, and this is speaking from my midwest American schooling experience both as a student and as a teacher in the classroom, Isabella was only taught as part of a dynamic duo – Isabella and Ferdinand. That duo was responsible for giving Christopher Columbus money and ships so he could sail and ‘discover’ the New World.
And… that was it. I don’t even remember talking about the Spanish Inquisition or anything related to Isabel y Fernando in K-12 aside from Christopher Columbus at all. We did a lot of American history (great men and wars, huzzah…) and did some Western Civ. in high school, so it is possible that my wonderful high school history teacher, Dot, did cover it and I just don’t remember it.
Regardless – most Americans aren’t going to get a grounding much better than mine in Isabella and Ferdinand’s contribution to history. This book, though, seeks to rectify that omission. Unabashedly intellectual while still eminently approachable, Tremlett masterfully walks the line between scholarly/academic and popular press-worthy. He elevates the art of biography – and I only hope that when I get to write a biography (it will happen! after the PhD. Eventually.) that it is half as good as Tremlett’s.
Most of the text is chronological, which makes complete and utter sense, but he brings us into the narrative at a key, highly dramatic, point and then pulls back to give context. He starts at Isabella’s coronation procession. In Castile, monarchs typically didn’t have the same sorts of coronation ceremonies as in other kingdoms. For Isabella, there was no Te Deum sung, no anointing by the highest churchman in the land, etc (In Castile, there was a coronation ceremony, but it typically happened in Toledo and there was anointing, but the actual crowning of the new monarch didn’t happen very often.). There was The Walk and the Sword.
The sight was shocking. Gutierre de Cardenas walked solemnly down the chilly, windswept streets of Segovia, the royal sword held firmly in from of him with its point towards the ground. Behind him came a new monarch, a twenty-three-year-old woman of short to middling height with light auburn hair and green-blue eyes whose air of authority was accentuated by the menace of Cardenas’s weapon. This was a symbol of royal power as potent as any crown or sceptre. Those who braved the thing, wintry air of Segovia to watch the procession knew that it signified the young woman’s determination to impart justice, and impose her will, through force. Isabella of Castile’s glittering jewels spoke of regal magnificence, while Cardenas’s sword threatened violence. Both indicated power and a willingness to exercise it.
Tremlett, Isabella of Castile, pg. 1
I love this snippet because not only is it the first paragraph of the whole book, it also gives you the significance of Isabella’s actions. Afterward, Tremlett gives a further introduction and brief overview of Isabella’s life and accomplishments and the difficulty of writing a biography of just one half of the dynamic duo as their lives, after marriage until her death, were lived jointly. They were medieval Spain’s power couple. Their marriage brought together the kingdoms of Castile and Aragon, as well as through their descendants, the Netherlands, the Holy Roman Empire, and much of the discovered lands in the New World. It was a heady inheritance – which began with Isabella’s choice of husband.
Tremlett continues to take us through Isabella’s life from her earliest days to her death in a balanced way. As much as you have to really put yourself into the shoes of the person you’re working on, Tremlett doesn’t shy away from Isabella’s horrific choices when it came to the Inquisition, the Reconquista, and the expulsion of the Jews. He explains why Isabella would have made those choices using, whenever possible, her own words. Through this, Isabella becomes a thoroughly complex individual who is torn, trying to honor her faith but having to do violent acts to do so. But, she does order those violent and cruel acts – which today seem beyond the pale, and (depending on which you’re talking about, there’s plenty to choose from) were somewhat iffy in her lifetime too.
But she did what she set out to do – she united Hispania under one monarchy and spread her Christian faith. She did so through her own military and political campaigns, through the counsel of her confessors, in partnership with her husband, and through marrying her children off in foreign dynastic matches. Even though she and Ferdinand had 5 children who lived until adulthood, at Isabella’s death, only three of her children still survived, Juana, Maria, and Catalina. She had to endure heartache with the deaths of her eldest daughter, Isabella, in childbirth, when her son, Juan, contracted illness and expired quickly after his marriage, and when her beloved grandson (Isabella the younger’s son), died just before his second birthday. But as Tremlett reminds his readers…
“It would be wrong to take pity on her, though, for Isabella did not view life in terms of self-fulfillment or the quest for personal satisfaction. Of all the current measures of success, the only one she would have recognised would be the quest for fame- which she certainly achieved. Apart from that, hers was a world of duty, obedience and fear of God. That explains why, in her final days, she did not fret about the obvious cruelty of expelling the Jews, forcibly converting the Muslims or torturing the conversos. The aims – of pursuing heresy and purifying Castile- were clearly ones that her God must approve of.”
Tremlett, Isabella of Castile, 486.
This book is great for anyone from the armchair historian to the serious academic. It’s filled with wonderful sources and stories from Isabella’s life and times. For anyone interested in American history, European history, or the lives of powerful figures, this would be a fantastic addition to your library.
Have you read it? What did you think? Leave your comments below or tweet with the hashtag, #tuesdayreviewday.
So I finally (well, finally in this age of Amazon prime shipping means a week later) have my hands on Margaret Sanders’ Intimate Letters of the Queens of England (London: Museum Press LTD, 1957), which is the source Patrick Williams pointed to for his version of Katherine of Aragon’s final letter to Henry VIII.
I wanted to follow the clues like a good detective and see where Sanders found HER copy of the letter which she printed in Intimate Letters.
First off – this is a gorgeous old book and you can tell it is meant for a general audience – it says so in the preface. 🙂 Sanders meant to give readers an introduction to these queens as human beings with complicated emotional lives that can’t be distilled down to ‘divorced, beheaded, died…’ and tried to choose letters that display those relationships with others. “Historians must inevitably be prejudiced, either from religious, political, or personal attitudes,” Sanders notes, and then goes on to say that in her introductions to each of the queens and their letters that she just tried to give the bare minimum of factual information, but, like those aforementioned historians, she exhibits her own bias and personal opinions (apparently Henrietta Maria was “the loveliest of all England’s Queens” and Anna of Denmark had “no great pretensions to beauty” but she had a great personality).
This is particularly evident in Katherine’s introduction where she takes at face value Katherine’s virginity going into her second marriage (which, let’s face it, every historian who works on the Tudor period has their own opinion, but it’s far better as a scholar to present it as a complex unknown full of messy political, personal, and religious meanings rather than “In the meantime, this young widow of an unconsummated marriage…” which, technically, if it were unconsummated, it wouldn’t have been a complete marriage, but that’s beside the point).
Sanders includes helpful footnotes to explain who people are and to provide further context when it’s needed for the general audience who may not know who “My Lady of Salisbury” was… although reading through the footnotes, if I didn’t know that Lady Salisbury was Margaret de la Pole, the countess of Salisbury, I’d be further confused – “state-governess to Mary” and “Mary’s best friend next to her mother” are all that’s used to describe who she was. Another confusing point is that Mary I was “brought up in her mother’s Faith as a strict Roman Catholic.” This is certainly true, but it neglects the important consideration that it was also her father’s faith at the time, if you were a practicing Christian at the time, it most likely was your faith as well because the Roman Catholic church was the dominant church in western Europe.
Anywho, after taking the time to peruse the book and finding other fun tidbits that I may post later, I want to give you the transcription of the Final Letter as put in Intimate Letters and then share with you her citation.
My Lord and Dear Husband,
I commend me unto you. The hour of my death draweth fast on, and my case being such, the tender love I owe you forceth me, with a few words, to put you in remembrance of the health and safeguard of your soul, which you ought to prefer before all worldly matters, and before the care and tendering of your own body, for the which you have cast me into many miseries and yourself into many cares.
For my part I do pardon you all, yea, I do wish and devoutly pray God that He will also pardon you.
For the rest I commend unto you Mary, our daughter, beseeching you to be a good father unto her, as I heretofore desired. I entreat you also, on behalf of my maids, to give them marriage-portions, which is not much, they being but three. For all my other servants, I solicit a year’s pay more than their due, lest they should be unprovided for.
Lastly, do I vow, that mine eyes desire you above all things.
Sanders, Intimate Letters, 12.
And there’s one last bit that I’ve been saving for the end. I had to order another book to dig into this mystery. Most of the documents that Sanders brings together are from the royal archives at Windsor Castle, the Strickland sisters’ work The Lives of the Queens of England, or other letter collections. As a historian, one needs to be a good detective – even though it can take forever and lead you down rabbit holes that go nowhere, at least for the project you’re currently working on – and to be a good detective, one needs to follow the clues.
In Sander’s bibliography, The Final Letter wasn’t cited as from an archival source – it’s from another letter collection.
“Chatterton: Royal Letters” is all we get in Sander’s bibliography to note where SHE got this letter from. So I used my Googlefu and found that this citation refers to Royal Love Letters by E. K. Chatterton, originally published in 1911.
After a little more searching, I found a hardcover copy that will be winging its way to me from England soon. As soon as it does, I will update with more information.
The game is afoot!
“It is noteworthy that the model for the King’s action is Greek. Luminalia also had a Greek component in that one of the minor themes dealt with the expulsion of the Muses from Greece and their eventual settlement in Britain. Greece signified culture in contrast to Rome with its associations with military and imperial might.”
– Graham Perry, The Golden Age Restor’d: The Culture of the Stuart Court 1603-42, Manchester University Press, Manchester, 1981, p. 202-203.
Upon reading the above quote in Graham Perry’s work on the Stuart masques, it really got me thinking of Queen Anna’s first public masque, The Vision of the Twelve Goddesses by Samuel Daniel and designed by Inigo Jones. Even though the quote is in reference to the Caroline masques and not the Jacobean ones, it is an interesting framework to examine the assignment of roles in the masque. Performed in 1604, it was the first masque of Anna’s career as Chief Masquer (not Blackness by Ben Jonson in 1605 as Perry asserts). Below I have compiled a chart of who danced with Anna in the masque and what persona they embodied. This is an appendix taken from a paper I wrote up as a thesis of sorts to complete a directed study. In the scope of this post, I’ll just be looking at the role that Anna took, rather than the ones that were assigned to her Ladies of Honour. I hope to, at another juncture, have the opportunity to look even deeper at the masque and analyze the iconography and symbolism in the text and device.
| The Vision of the Twelve Goddesses, by Samuel Daniel | |
| Name/Rank | Role |
| Queen Anna | Pallas Athena |
| Countess of Suffolk | Juno |
| Countess of Hertford | Diana |
| Countess of Bedford | Vesta |
| Countess of Derby | Persephone |
| Countess of Nottingham | Concordia |
| Lady Rich | Venus |
| Lady Hatton | Macaria |
| Lady Walsingham | Astraea |
| Susan de Vere | Flora |
| Dorothy Hastings | Ceres |
| Elizabeth Howard | Tethys |
I’ve gone through and done a simple sorting scheme – Red = Roman, Green = Greek. The role that Anna chose for herself was quite significant in terms of how she wanted to be perceived and was an effort in self-fashioning her public identity. Instead of choosing the role of the Roman Queen of the Goddesses (well, Queen Consort!), Juno, she gave that role to Catherine Howard, the Countess of Suffolk. Suffolk had served Queen Elizabeth for many years and was a person Anna respected and trusted, as is evidenced by the fact that Suffolk had been chosen to be godmother to Anna’s daughter, Sophia. Anna accorded Suffolk with a very high honor in placing her as the queen of the goddesses. Her choice for herself was Athena, the Greek goddess of wisdom, battle, and the arts.
Athena was also the patroness of the City of Athens, which was named for her. An ancient cosmopolitan centre, Athens was home to a bustling arts and culture scene and has typically been regarded as the birthplace of western civilization as we know it.
Perhaps Anna’s motive was to seize a new image for herself, one that reflected virtues that she wanted others to think she possessed, or ones to which she did lay rightful claim? Perhaps her choice of Athena was a chance to scintillate and titillate the English and to show that she was a very different sort of Queen consort? The last queen consort, Katherine Parr, was also a very literary woman who published popular works in her own name while she was Queen. Anna didn’t create written works on her own, she was more of an idea lady who directed the works of others. It was through those works though, that the image that Anna wished to portray comes out clearly. In Vision of the Twelve Goddesses, as Athena, her persona was of a strong, wise female who held dominion over Athens. Her costume included a short tunic (that bared her legs below the knee) and a helmet with a spear.
Anna’s husband, James, dearly held to the ideal of pacifism and detested using force and military might. With her act of appropriating the weaponry and tools of war, Anna took on a more traditionally masculine role in their perceived relationship and set herself up as a worthy successor of Elizabeth I. Which was a prudent act to take as the costumes were also from Elizabeth’s wardrobe. As a cost saving measure, the Late Queen’s wardrobe was raided for her sumptuous gowns and the garments altered to be fit into appropriate costumes for the masque.
(“I know I have the body of a weak, feeble woman; but I have the heart and stomach of a king, and of a king of England too, and think foul scorn that Parma or Spain, or any prince of Europe, should dare to invade the borders of my realm; to which rather than any dishonour shall grow by me, I myself will take up arms, I myself will be your general, judge, and rewarder of every one of your virtues in the field.” ~excerpt from Elizabeth’s speech at Tilbury, 1588)
Looking to the quote at the start of the post, however, it is interesting that Anna chose Athena instead of Minerva. Minerva, Athena’s Roman counterpart, would have more exemplified the Early Modern interpretation of the Roman empire, one of peace loving imperialism, instead of the Greeks, who demonstrated the aforementioned arts and sophistication. Anna, then, presented a dual image. With choosing the Greco-interpretation of Athena, she sided herself with the perception of culture that was generally accepted to have belonged to the Greeks. Perhaps she was trying to conflate the new dynasty with a rebirth of Athens. With choosing Athena, though, she also personified the militaristic might of the Goddess of War, tempered, of course, with Wisdom.
In so doing, Anna managed to display both the sophistication of the Greeks with the imperialistic might of the Romans, subtly reminding the attendees of the virtues of Pax Romana and the olive tree of Athens.
In light of the fantastic experience I had at Kings and Queens 3, I come away with an even greater appreciation for the act of research and the necessity of sharing said research with others. I was inspired by the many fantastic papers I heard and would like to work on some more projects of my own in the near future.
First project? I will continue the work I presented at the conference. I still have a few more masques of Anna’s to analyze and I have even more ideas thanks to comments and questions at the panel to inform my current work. I’ll work on adding in ideas from Samuel Daniel’s work, “Tethys Festival or The Queen’s Wake” and then the final Anna-produced masque, “Love Freed from Ignorance and Folly.” I’ll continue to focus on the political use of the masques as well as a literary analysis in terms of how Anna used them to self-fashion her own public image.
I was also particularly inspired by the work presented by Estelle Paranque, “Jezabel d’Angleterre”: Queen Elizabeth I through French eyes” and how she used French sources to chart and analyze the reaction of the royalty and aristocracy to Elizabeth’s rise and reign. I think it may be particularly interesting to analyze the French (or others) reaction to Anne Boleyn’s meteoric rise and catastrophic fall. The French perspective would be, I think, the richest to focus upon because of Anne’s early ties to the French royalty. This will also make me work on learning French, which, after this conference, I’ve learned is a necessity. This site is one that Estelle said she used quite a bit, and I hope it’ll aid me in my research: Gallica.
Another particularly inspirational paper, for my research, was “Scotland’s Royal Children: 1371-1528″ by Amy Hayes. She worked on researching the lives of the children of monarchs who were not expected to inherit the throne. This was difficult research for her as there is scant documentary evidence available. It doesn’t seem to exist. What I would like to do, though, is look for threads on the curriculum taught to these children and to piece together the educational programme established for the royal broods. England will be far easier than either Scotland or Ireland, and I’d also like to add in the Danish royal family. There are not that many (read: basically none) sources in English on the Danish royal family, but with the work I’ve done on Anna of Denmark, I would really like to see what I can do to piece together her early childhood and that of her siblings. One key way to understand the reigns of monarchs is to understand what was taught to them as children. I’d like to do that with Anna and her siblings to start off with and then move on to other royal broods.
This is in addition to studying for the GRE (again… ugh) and getting applications in line for graduate programs!
(Image Courtesy of Wikipedia) Statue of Matilda of Flanders
This biography is well researched and draws upon a variety of sources. The author, Tracy Borman, does an excellent job of taking what could otherwise be dry, lifeless text and makes it into a relatable and accessible work of prose. The work sets up Matilda in context of her relations to her natal family as well as some of the political climate of the time. There are plenty of examples of other ruling females from the time, which I would be keen to know more about. However, this work seem to, at least at this point, have one major flaw: even though it is a work centered around Matilda, much of it is a revisit of historical thought on the men in her life, not on her. This may be due to scant evidence, but I was honestly excited to find out more about her, not William, not the Bayeux Tapestry, not the Battle of Hastings… her. While it is fascinating to see more work done on William that paints him in a more sympathetic light (instead of only a warlike and cruel invader), this central focus on this work is purportedly Matilda, not her husband. And while the author’s gift of prose is shown in describing the Battle of Hastings in detail (as well as setting up the context of the battle, in terms of Harold, the Oath, and the battles he’d fought against Tostig just before) that brings the battle to life and helps the reader to connect with the important event… where is Matilda? Oh, she’s at home, ruling Normandy. Doing a bang up job of it too, which Borman does a fantastic job of relating to the reader. Also interesting that while the Tapestry was rightfully mentioned in the book, there are other volumes that do a better job of describing in detail and research the various theories of where it was created, who commissioned it, and for what reasons. Andrew Bridgeford’s 1066: The Hidden History of the Bayeux Tapestry is one such work. Borman, after discussing the various origin stories of the Tapestry concludes that it most likely wasn’t Matilda, after all, who commissioned it or worked on it. So, then, why spend so much time and valuable space to bring it up?
Without the filler of work on William, Matilda’s family or the Tapestry, the book would probably be 3/4 of its final length. However, especially for a casual reader, this book is still a valuable and engaging read. As an introduction to the world of Anglo-Saxon and Norman England, this does a fantastic job of making the peoples, ideas and political climate of the time and place relatable and interesting.
Rating: 4.5/5 Owls
Why Owls? Because everyone is fond of owls, and they’re wise.
