University of Warwick institutional repository: http://go.warwick.ac.uk/wrap A Thesis Submitted for the Degree of PhD at the University of Warwick http://go.warwick.ac.uk/wrap/2672 This thesis is made available online and is protected by original copyright. Please scroll down to view the document itself. Please refer to the repository record for this item for information to help you to cite it. Our policy information is available from the repository home page. James I and the Performance and Representation of Royalty by Jane Rickard L A thesis submitted for the degreeof Doctor of Philosophy in RenaissanceStudies University of Warwick, Centre for the Study of the Renaissance December 2002 For James(Mardock not Stuart) with thanks. Contents Introduction 1 Chapter 1: The Performance and Representation of Royalty of James VI 27 The Scottish Political Context 28 The Performance of Royalty in Scotland 37 James's Representation of Royalty: Poetry and Scriptural Exegeses 42 James's Representation of Royalty: Basilikon Doron and The Trew 55 Law of Free Monarchies Elizabeth I: A Contrasting Style of Representation 68 Conclusion: English Expectations 78 Chapter 2: James I's Performance of the Role of King: Magnificence and 81 Extravagance Civic Performance 82 Royal Magnificence in the Court 94 Royal Magnificence on the European Stage 98 Reinforcement or Threat? The Magnificence of those around the King 107 Magnificence as Extravagance 117 James's Verbal Re-Presentation of Royal Magnificence 131 Chapter 3: The Royal Author in England: James's Literary Strategies 139 The Word of God and The Word of the King: James's scriptural exegeses 140 and the King James Bible Royal Authorship: from James's Workesto his manuscript poetry 150 James'sanxieties about interpretation and representation 167 Chapter 4: The Problem of the Reader and the Risk of Royal Self- 176 Demystification James'stextual responsesto his anxieties about textual authority 179 James'stextual responsesto his anxieties about public exposureand 188 political authority .. The problems of being a Poet-King 194 Manuscript and textual malleability; print and royal self-exposure:public 200 ownership of the royal text Conclusion 216 Bibliography 233 Acknowledgements I wish to thank the Arts and Humanities ResearchBoard for their financial support. I would like to thank Bernard Capp and Carol Rutter for generously reading drafts of my work and offering suggestions and guidance, and Kevin Sharpe for general advice and support. My friends, fellow thanks also to all of my especially those who are PhD students - Chris Campbell, Jane Poyner, Juliette Taylor, Lucy Frank, et al - for providing encouragement, sympathy, and distraction, and particular thanks to Chris for last minute checking of my bibliography and for making me laugh during the final formatting and printing. I would like to thank my family, specifically for looking after me so well, and with such understanding, in the final weeks before submission, and more generally for the love, support and joy they have given me for my whole life. Finally my thanks to James Mardock, for unfailing enthusiasm and encouragement, for being a thoughtful and intelligent listener and reader, and a sensitive critic, for devoting so much time to reading drafts of my work, and, most of all, for helping me to believe in myself. Declaration This thesis is my own work. It has not been submitted for a degree at any other university. Abstract This thesis explores how James I performed and represented his royalty in two key areas. The first is his engagement with the European tradition of magnificence, which was a central aspect of Renaissance court culture, in such areas as public appearance and liberality. The second is his self-representation in his writings. James prioritised verbal over visual forms of self-representation and portrayed himself as a Writer-King, and these are amongst the most distinctive aspects of his kingship. The thesis examines a range of primary sources, principally James's writings but also contemporary responses to the king's self-representation, such as letters and ambassadorial reports, and engages with other critical and historical studies. The gaps and misapprehensions in accounts of James that this thesis contributes towards rectifying derive from several general tendencies. There has been an over- reliance on the early historiography of James, a lack of work on the Scottish and European contexts for his self-representation in England, and little attention paid to his writings. This thesis combines the close reading of the `literary' approach with the attention to context of the `historical' approach, placing the discussion of James's self- representation within the cultural and political contexts of Scotland and England, and considering his cultural and political engagement with continental Europe. It has four main chapters, one on James's background in Scotland, one on his performance of the role of magnificent king in England, and two on the writings he wrote or republished in England. The discussion reveals that in Scotland James developed tendencies, strategies, and anxieties that would continue into his English reign, and argues that negative perceptions of him in England derived largely from a clash between the style he had developed and the expectations of his new subjects. It examines James's attempts to combine authorship and authority and reveals their problematic relationship. The discussion suggests that James was aware of the importance of effective self- representation, but his style, the clash of expectations, and problems inherent in the representation of royalty, meant that his attempts to reinforce his image risked undermining and demystifying the king. A note on texts All references to James's prose works, including speeches, refer to James I, The Workes (1616), facsimile reprint (Hildesheim; New York: Georg Olms, 1971) unless otherwise specified. Page numbers will follow in parentheses. This reprint includes at the end two meditations, A Meditation vpon the Lords Prayer and A Meditation vpon Saint Matthew or a Paterne for a Kings Inavgvration, which were both written in 1619 and first included in the 1620 edition of James's Workes.This reprint is continuously paginated. 1 Introduction At a banquet on 4 August 1621 James I, King of England, engaged in an idiosyncratic and controversial act of royal self-representation, an incident which raises many of the issues that this thesis will illuminate. In August 1621 James was being entertained by his favourite, George Villiers, Lord High Admiral, Earl of Buckingham (and later Duke), during a visit to Buckingham's newly acquired home, Burley-on-the- Hill. This visit took place during the summer recess of the parliament of 1621, a parliament in which the king was seeking backing for his unpopular foreign policy of negotiating for marriage between his heir Prince Charles and the Catholic Spanish princess and of non-intervention in the war in Europe. The first session of the 1621 parliament had dealt with the matter of monopolies. This constituted an indirect attack on Buckingham, but he had emerged triumphant. He then provided for James at Burley- on-the-Hill entertainment that included Ben Jonson's masque, The Gipsies Metamorphosed, on 3 August. Buckingham played the leading gypsy and was given 3 lines in which he praised the king. At the banquet on the next day James praised Buckingham in return by reading out the following `Vow or Wish for the felicity & fertility of the owners of this house' to Buckingham and his wife: If euer in the Aprill of my dayes ' James's foreign policy in this period will be discussed in more detail in subsequent chapters. 2 Buckingham, who was newly married, had moved into Burley-on-the Hill, a great estate in Rutland, during the early summer of 1621 (Roger Lockyer, Buckingham [London; New York: Longman, 1981 ], p. 63). This masque was also performed at Belvoir on 5 August and at Windsor, probably early in September, in a revised version (Ben Jonson, ed. by C. H. Herford, and Percy and Evelyn Simpson, 11 vols [Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1925-52], VII, 541). For a discussion of the masque in the context of the 1621 parliament, see Martin Butler, "'We are one mans all": Jonson's The Gypsies Metamorphosed', Yearbook of English Studies, 21 (1991), 253-73. For an account of the 1621 parliament, see Conrad Russell, Parliaments and English Politics 1621-1629 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1979). 3 See chapter two. 2 I satt vpon Parnassusforked hill: And there inflam'd with sacredfury still By pen proclaim'd our great Apollo's praise: Grant glistringe Phoebus with thy golden rayes My earnest wish which I present thee heere: Beholdinge of this blessed couple deere, Whose vertues pure no pen can duly blaze. Thow by whose heat the trees in fruit abound Blesse them with fruit delicious sweet & fayre, That may succeed them in theyr vertues rare. ffirme plant them in theyr natiue soyle & ground. Thow Joue, that art the onely God indeed, 4 My prayer heare: sweet Jesu interceed In 1621 it was thirty-seven years since he had published his first collection of poetry as 5 an eighteen year old King of Scotland. The sonnet makes not only the explicit claim that the service James did the gods in his earlier poetry enables him to make a wish to them now, but also the implicit claim that his earlier poetry forms the basis for his continuing ability to write sonnets such as this. He is presenting himself in the poem as a poet, through both reference and demonstration, and significantly, despite the context of the parliamentary recess, he is not explicitly portraying himself in the poem as a king and makes no mention of the current political situation. 4 The Poems of James VI of Scotland, ed.