BRITISH CULTURE AND CIVILISATION

Seminar 4 The Renaissance in England

The image of the monarch during the Renaissance

Towards the end of the fifteenth century, a major change was articulated and became the driving
force behind the arts for the next two centuries: the monarchy and the image of the monarch. In his
Governance of England (1470), Sir John Fortescue wrote about the monarch in the following terms:
() it shall need that the king have such treasure, as he may make new buildings when he will, for
his pleasure and magnificence; and as he may buy him rich clothes, rich furs () rich stones,
baldricks, jewels and other ornaments convenient to his estate royal. And oftentimes he will buy rich
hangings and other apparel for his houses, vessels, vestments and other ornaments for his chapels.
Also to buy horses of great price, trappings, and do such other noble and great costs as befits his
royal majesty.
Magnificence and grandeur had thus become the key words of the Renaissance monarchs. Lavish
displays became synonymous with the successful application of political power and they took the
forms of palaces and gardens, tapestries and jewels, stately portraits and miniatures, festivals,
literature and music all these elements combined in an artful manner as to transform the royal
court of the Tudors into the ultimate arbiter of fashion and style: Tudor magnificence was all
about showy effect. Externals of any form had to look expensive, had equally to be seen to have
called for high skill in their creation, and finally, their success was also measured by their ability to
astonish and amaze those who saw them. These criteria applied as much to a pageant as to a palace.
At his death, the first Tudor monarch, Henry VII, left a staff household which reflected the new spirit
brought about by the Renaissance: a royal librarian, a portrait painter, a chronicler, as well as
musicians, poets and players. His son, Henry VIII, the typical Renaissance monarch, is well known
for having spent his fathers treasures on lavish displays of power as part of his political
propaganda. When Henry VIII was crowned in 1509, he inherited thirteen palaces and houses. In
1547, when he died, he left fifty-six residences, two thousand tapestries, a hundred and fifty
paintings and over two thousand books. Magnificence reached its climax at Henry VIIIs court on the
occasion of the greatest pageant during his reign, the Field of Cloth of Gold (1520), when he met the
French king Francis I. A temporary palace was built for the king and queen and over 6000 pounds
was spent. During one masque in which Henry VIII himself took part in, the costumes were of cloth
of gold garnished with white silks and lined with green sarsenet and visors were worn with beards
fashioned of pure gold wire. It was decorated with Tudor badges and rich tapestries, while the
gateway was flanked by the statues of two legendary heroes, Alexander and Hercules, while the front
of the palace showed two fountains dedicated to Bacchus and Cupid.
Hans Holbein the Youngers portrait of Henry VIII has forever fixed our impression of the king,
whose bullish aggression is intertwined with his political body, an image which became the standard
for all his representations. The royal gaze is powerful, outfacing the viewer, reminding of the coins
made during his reign, where the Roman profile was abandoned for the arresting frontal view. The
persisting image of Henry VIII over the ages has been imprinted with his image of a monster, a wifekiller and a tyrant who changed his subjects religion. The image has endured because it is not
entirely false, yet it fails to do justice to the complexity of this great monarch.
In medieval and modern Europe, the fortune of a state depended upon the fertility of the monarchs
and their queens, hence royal marriages were very important contracts and their main purpose was
the birth of male heirs; however, daughters were also valuable diplomatic assets, because their
further marriage could have created important political ties. Children of royal families were therefore
pieces waiting to be moved in the diplomatic game, which more often than not began when they
were still in their cradles. During the Renaissance, royal marriages were political arrangements;

similarly, aristocratic marriages were business arrangements. A queen was not supposed to object to
her kings infidelities; if she had an adventure of her own, she risked repudiation, imprisonment or
death. Henry VIIIs matrimonial life is one of whims and weaknesses, of manipulation and political
rivalries. He divorced his first wife, Catherine of Aragon, occasion which triggered the Reformation
in England, as Henry declared himself Head of the Church and broke any ties with the Roman
Catholic Church. The divorce allowed him to marry the woman he had become besotted with, Anne
Boleyn.
In order to mark the 500th anniversary of Henry VIIIs accession to the throne, one of his letters to
Anne Boleyn was displayed at a British Library exhibition. The handwritten letter may be said to
mark the moment when British history changed, as it contains the kings declaring to Anne his
intention to marry her, hence precipitating the annulment of Henrys first marriage to Catherine of
Aragon and the subsequent break with the Catholic Church of Rome. From a catholic country,
England began its voyage into a completely new direction. The letter, written by Henry in 1527, was
the effect of his receiving from Anne a warm love letter and a gift, a jewel depicting a solitary damsel
in a boat tossed by a tempest. Having spent seven years in France helped Anne master the game of
courtship; therefore the allusion made with her gift was clear. Henrys passionate response is the
letter exhibited in London centuries after it was written:
For so beautiful a gift, I thank you right cordially, chiefly for the good intent and too-humble
submission vouchsafed by your kindness. To merit it would not a little perplex me, if I were not
aided therein by your great benevolence and goodwill. The proofs of your affection are such that they
constrain me ever truly to love, honour and serve you, praying that you will continue in this same
firm and constant purpose, ensuring you, for my part, that I will the rather go beyond than make
reciprocal, if loyalty of heart, the desire to do you pleasure, even with my whole heart root, may
serve to advance it. Henceforth, my heart shall be dedicate to you alone, greatly desirous that my
body could be as well, as God can bring it to pass if it pleaseth Him, Whom I entreat once each day
for the accomplishment thereof, trusting that at length my prayer will be heard, wishing the time
brief, and thinking it but long until we shall see each other again.
Written with the hand of the secretary who in heart, body and will is your loyal and most ensured
servant.
H. autre AB ne cherche R. (Henry the King seeks no other than Anne Boleyn. Around Annes
initials the King drew a heart).

The art of painting during the English Renaissance

The portrait became the new genre most to obsess the British monarch during the Tudors reign.
The most famous royal painter at the English court was the German Hans Holbein the Younger
(1497-1543), whose depiction of Henry VIIIs court members still formulates our visual perception
of them. Through his paintings, Holbein showed that a portrait could capture the very essence of a
human being. His greatest work is the one depicting a life-size image of Henry VIII, legs astride, his
posture suggesting authority, confidence, Holbein capturing the very essence of a slightly threatening
monarch.
During Elizabeth Is reign, the visual arts became verbalized, as they contained a series of symbols
through which the viewer was invited to decipher the idea behind the work. Thus, the stately portraits
depicting the queen can be perceived as texts which need the viewers reading and further
decoding.
The role of images as triggering deep philosophical meanings was enhanced by the discovery, in
1419, of a book, supposedly written by an Egyptian priest, and containing the hidden meanings of
hieroglyphs. Hieroglyphica was first translated in 1505 and by the end of the century it had run
through thirty editions. The Renaissance reader learned, for example, that the Egyptians used the
phoenix to represent the soul and the eternal renewal of things. This silent vocabulary was applied
to the depiction of the queen herself, whose imagery contained globes, sieves, eyes, mouths, the
phoenix and the pelican, roses, the rainbow and the moon. For instance, in the famous Armada
portrait, painted by George Gower, Elizabeth is depicted surrounded by symbols of imperial majesty
(the crown, the globe) in the context of the defeat of the Spanish Armada in 1588.

Humanism
Elizabeth grew up in a period in which the humanist values of learning were extended to women, at
least within the social elite. The young princess shared her early instruction with her brother Edward,
and later she had her own tutors: William Grindal and Roger Ascham. Her sister, Mary, had also
received a fine education, as her mother, Catherine of Aragon, had commissioned a plan for her
education from the leading Spanish humanist, Juan Luis Vives, author of The Instruction of a
Christen Woman (1523). However, the opportunities for education for young women rarely extended
beyond these elite circles, as they were not admitted to the universities of Oxford or Cambridge, or
the Inns of Court in London, where lawyers were trained, since education for women was
considered an accessory, as described by humanist teacher Richard Mulcaster in his book on
education, Positions (1581). Other examples of Elizabethan women who got access to education and
achieved great things include Mary Herbert, countess of Permbroke, Sir Philip Sidneys sister, who
was the leading literary patron of the age; Mary Herberts daughter, Lady Mary Wroth and the
gentlewoman Amelia Lanyer who were both poets; Jane Seagar wrote in 1589 a book, Prophecies of
the Ten Sibyls, dedicated to Elizabeth I; Esther Inglish created beautifully decorated calligraphy
books, reminding one of the great illuminated manuscripts.
According to a historian, in 1500 only 1 or 2 percent of women in England were literate, but a
century later it was 10 percent. Humanism, the preeminent intellectual movement of the Renaissance
era, offered access to womens participation in intellectual life. However, one should also note the
fact that humanist education was meant for men rather than for women, unless the latter were
born in a royal family. Education books written by men advised that women had to be chaste, silent
and subservient to their husband. Therefore Renaissance humanism did encourage womens
education, but in terms of a social adornment, an accessory, and not as a means to step out of the
private sphere into the public one.
Elizabeths letters and speeches show the training she had received by the finest humanist minds in
the relations between politics and rhetoric, sayings and social wisdom, religious meditation and
government, constructing ample, formal sentences.
Read the following fragment from Queen Elizabeth Is famous speech in front of her troops during
the war with the Spanish Armada. Identify her purpose and analyze how she uses language to
achieve that purpose. How does the queen relate to her people?
My loving people,
We have been persuaded by some that are careful of our safety, to take heed how we commit our
selves to armed multitudes, for fear of treachery; but I assure you I do not desire to live to distrust my
faithful and loving people. Let tyrants fear. I have always so behaved myself that, under God, I have
placed my chiefest strength and safeguard in the loyal hearts and good-will of my subjects; and
therefore I am come amongst you, as you see, at this time, not for my recreation and disport, but
being resolved, in the midst and heat of the battle, to live and die amongst you all; to lay down for
my God, and for my kingdom, and my people, my honour and my blood, even in the dust. I know I
have the body but of a weak and 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. I know already, for your forwardness you have deserved rewards and crowns; and We do
assure you in the word of a prince, they shall be duly paid you. In the mean time, my lieutenant
general shall be in my stead, than whom never prince commanded a more noble or worthy subject;
not doubting but by your obedience to my general, by your concord in the camp, and your valour in
the field, we shall shortly have a famous victory over those enemies of my God, of my kingdom, and
of my people.