Abstract
The Anglo-Spanish court of Philip, king consort of England, and his wife Queen Mary I has traditionally been depicted as one that was characterized by mistrust and violence between the two nationalities as well as lacking in ceremonies and entertainments. This negative image of the court, and Philip’s role in it, is not entirely accurate, however, and more recently has begun to be challenged. From his arrival in England, Philip made attempts to smooth relations between the two nations, worked to amalgamate the two courts into a functioning whole, and presided over ceremonies that allowed him to both forge ties with the English courtiers while establishing himself in a position of leadership. From the fall of 1554 through spring 1555 by all indications the Anglo-Spanish marriage was a resounding success. Philip had taken a leading role in the return of Catholicism to England, succeeded in providing the realm with an heir (although unbeknownst to everyone at the time, Mary’s pregnancy would later be confirmed to be false), and started to define his unprecedented role as king consort to a ruling queen. In particular, his assumption of the ceremonial role of king in a number of court revels, including a series of tournaments and martial sports that were staged during this time period, helped to highlight his prowess in matters of religion, matrimony, and dynasty-building, as well as to establish his ability to rule.
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See Judith M. Richards, Mary Tudor (London and New York, 2008);
Anna Whitelock, Mary Tudor: England’s First Queen (London and New York, 2009);
Linda Porter, The Myth of “Bloody Mary”(New York, 2007);
Charles Beem, The Lioness Roared: The Problems of Female Rule in English History (New York, 2006), ch. 2, “Her Kingdom’s Wife: Mary I and the Gendering of Royal Power,” pp. 63–100. For a discussion of other revisionist works on Mary, see my historiographical essay, “ ‘Bloody Mary’?: Changing Perceptions of England’s First Ruling Queen,” in The Name of a Queen: William Fleetwood’s Itinerarium ad Windsor, eds. Charles Beem and Dennis Moore (New York, 2013);
see also Susan Doran and Thomas S. Freeman, “Introduction,” in Mary Tudor: Old and New Perspectives, eds. Susan Doran and Thomas S. Freeman (New York, 2011), 1–17.
Judith M. Richards, “Reassessing Mary Tudor: Some Concluding Points,” Mary Tudor: Old and New Perspectives, 206–24, p. 224 for quotation. See also Richards, “Examples and Admonitions: What Mary Demonstrated for Elizabeth,” in Tudor Queenship: The Reigns of Mary and Elizabeth, eds. Alice Hunt and Anna Whitelock (New York, 2010), 31–45.
Harry Kelsey, Philip of Spain, King of England: The Forgotten King (London and New York, 2012).
See Sarah Duncan, Mary I: Gender, Power, and Ceremony in the Reign of England’s First Queen (New York, 2012), esp. ch. 2 for a discussion of how Mary was crowned as both king and queen, and ch. 7, 142–7, for the question of Philip’s coronation.
David Loades, “Philip II and the Government of England,” in Law and Government under the Tudors, eds. C. Cross, D. Loades, and J. Scarisbrick (Cambridge, 1988), 194;
David Loades, The Reign of Mary Tudor: Politics, Government, and Religion in England, 1553–1558, 2nd ed. (London, 1991), 397;
Glyn Redworth, “‘Matters Impertinent to Women’: Male and Female Monarchy under Philip and Mary,” English Historical Review 112 (June 1997), 611.
See, for example, Alexander Samson, “Power Sharing: The Co-Monarchy of Philip and Mary,” in Tudor Queenship: The Reigns of Mary and Elizabeth, eds. Alice Hunt and Anna Whitelock (New York, 2010), 159–72;
John Edwards, Mary I: England’s Catholic Queen (New Haven and London, 2011); Duncan, Mary I. A discussion of the degrees to which opinions differ on how, and in what ways Philip and Mary were corulers, is beyond the scope of this essay. David Loades, in his more recent work on the court, Intrigue and Treason: The Tudor Court 1547–1558 (Harlow, England: Pearson, 2004), has revised his earlier dismissal of Philip as a “failure”, see ch. 7, “King Philip.” Another debate concerning Philip’s role in the government revolves around the question of his establishment of the “Select Council” while he was in England: see Loades, “Philip II and the Government in England;” Glyn Redworth, “ ‘Matters Impertinent to Women;’”
D. E. Hoak, “Two Revolutions in Tudor Government: the Formation and Organization of Mary I’s Privy Council,” in Revolution Reassessed: Revisions in the History of Tudor Government and Administration, eds. C. Coleman and D. R. Starkey (Oxford, 1986), 87–115; John Guy, “The Marian Court and Tudor Policy-Making,” undergraduate lecture, www.tudors.org/undergraduate/the-marian-court-and-tudor-policy-making/.
Alexander Samson, “Images of Co-Monarchy in the London Entry of Philip and Mary (1554)” in Writing Royal Entries in Early Modern Europe, eds. Marie-Claude Canova-Green and Jean Andrews, with Marie-France Wagner (Brepols, 2013), vol. III, 113–27, 113 for quote.
The imperial ambassadors had previously, in January, had a similar experience when they journeyed to England to conclude the marriage negotiations on Philip’s behalf, and were treated to a lavish reception complete with banquets, dancing, and the performances of masques and plays at the English court. See CalStP-Spanish, 12:10–11, 14, 22–3, 252–3; John G. Nichols, ed., The Chronicle of Queen Jane and of Two Years of Queen Mary, and Especially of the Rebellion of Sir Thomas Wyat, Camden Society Publications 48 (London, 1850), 34;
Henry Machyn, The Diary of Henry Machyn: Citizen and Merchant-Taylor of London from A.D. 1550–1563, ed. John Gough Nichols (London: Printed for the Camden Society, 1848), 50;
John Gough Nichols, ed., The Chronicle of the Grey Friars of London, Camden Society Publications 53 (London: Printed for the Camden Society, 1852), 85–6.
Alexander Samson, “A Fine Romance: Anglo-Spanish Relations in the Sixteenth Century,” Journal of Medieval and Early Modern Studies, 39:1 (Winter 2009), 65–94, see pp. 72, 66 for quotes.
The entertainment “was more after the English than the Spanish fashion,” Chronicle of Queen Jane and Queen Mary, 170; CalStP-Spanish, 13:10, 31. The type of dance referred to as “strutting or trotting about” may have referred to one of the most popular dances in England, the Basse dance, known as the measures, which was “a slow, sedate procession,” and “progressed at a deliberate and dignified pace.” See Skiles Howard, The Politics of Courtly Dancing in Early Modern England (Massachusetts Studies in Early Modern Culture) (Amherst, MA, 1998), 6, 14–5.
Machyn, Diary, 69. See also CalStP-Spanish, 13: 51, Renard to Charles V, September 18, 1554. While the royal couple was at Windsor, “the 7 of August was a general huntinge at Wyndsore forest, where was made a great toyle of 4 or 5 myles longe,” William Douglas Hamilton, ed., A Chronicle of England during the Reigns of the Tudors from A.D. 1485–1559, by Charles Wriothesley’s (New York, 1965), 2:121. See Duncan, Mary I, 99–102 for my discussion of the ceremony inducting Philip into the Order of the Garter.
Machyn, Diary, 73. This was John Lyon who in 1554 replaced the previous mayor, Thomas Whyte. See Valerie Hope, My Lord Mayor Eight Hundred Years of London’s Mayoralty (London, 1989), 185.
Machyn, Diary, 73; A Relation, or Rather a True Account of the Island of England: With Sundry Particulars of the Customs of These People and of the Royal Revenues Under King Henry the Seventh, About the Year 1500, ed. and tr. Charlotte Augusta Sneyd, Camden Society Publications 37 (London 1847) 44; Margaret R. Kollock, The Lord Mayor and Aldermen of London during the Tudor Period (Philadephia, 1906), 30–3.
Albert Feuillerat, ed., Documents Relating to Revels at Court in the Time of King Edward VI and Queen Mary (The Loseley Manuscripts) (Louvain, 1914), xiv, 159–79.The mask of Hercules with mariners was probably performed November 30, 1554.
Alan R. Young, Tudor and Jacobean Tournaments (Dobbs Ferry, NY: Sheridan House, 1987), 30.
Richard C. McCoy, “Communications. From the Tower to the Tiltyard: Robert Dudley’s Return to Glory,” The Historical Journal, 27, 2 (1984), 429.
CalStP-Spanish, 13:104–5; John Gough Nichols, ed., Narratives of the Days of the Reformation, Chiefly from the Manuscripts of John Foxe (1859; repr., New York and London, 1968), 289. This was the same parliament at which “they said laboure was made to have the kinge crowned, and some thought that the quene for that cause dyd lay out her belly the more,” ibid.
For examples see Juan Cristóbal Calvete de Estrella, El Felicísimo Viaje del muy alto y muy poderoso Príncipe Don Felipe (Madrid, 1930), vol. I, 137, 189, 202, 307–11; vol. II, 404–9.
See also Henry Kamen, Philip of Spain (New Haven, CT, 1997), 41.
Quoted in Geoffrey Parker, “The Place of Tudor England in the Messianic Vision of Philip II of Spain: The Prothero Lecture,” Transactions of the Royal Historical Society, Sixth Series, 12 (2002), 167–221, 185 for quotation.
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Duncan, S. (2014). “He to Be Intituled Kinge”: King Philip of England and the Anglo-Spanish Court. In: Beem, C., Taylor, M. (eds) The Man behind the Queen. Queenship and Power. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137448354_4
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