Towards Consortship: Performing Ritual, Intercession, and Networking in Tudor and Early Stuart England
Total Page:16
File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb
University of Nebraska - Lincoln DigitalCommons@University of Nebraska - Lincoln Dissertations, Theses, & Student Research, Department of History History, Department of 11-2020 Towards Consortship: Performing Ritual, Intercession, and Networking in Tudor and Early Stuart England Courtney Herber University of Nebraska-Lincoln Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.unl.edu/historydiss Part of the European History Commons Herber, Courtney, "Towards Consortship: Performing Ritual, Intercession, and Networking in Tudor and Early Stuart England" (2020). Dissertations, Theses, & Student Research, Department of History. 96. https://digitalcommons.unl.edu/historydiss/96 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the History, Department of at DigitalCommons@University of Nebraska - Lincoln. It has been accepted for inclusion in Dissertations, Theses, & Student Research, Department of History by an authorized administrator of DigitalCommons@University of Nebraska - Lincoln. TOWARDS CONSORTSHIP: PERFORMING RITUAL, INTERCESSION, AND NETWORKING IN TUDOR AND EARLY STUART ENGLAND by Courtney Herber A DISSERTATION Presented to the Faculty of The Graduate College at the University of Nebraska In Partial Fulfillment of Requirements For the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy Major: History Under the Supervision of Professor Carole Levin Lincoln, Nebraska November, 2020 TOWARDS CONSORTSHIP: PERFORMING RITUAL, INTERCESSION, AND NETWORKING IN TUDOR AND EARLY STUART ENGLAND Courtney Herber, Ph.D. University of Nebraska, 2020 Advisor: Carole Levin Historically, the study of consorts has largely focused on how women performed the role – generally analyzing how a particular queen acted as a royal wife, mother, and manager of her household. While this makes sense as most of the consorts in English history were women, this is not the whole picture of the varied political roles of a consort. Looking at all of the foreign-born consorts in the Tudor and early Stuart years, one can clearly see that while the duties of a wife were important for the majority of individuals who took on the mantle of consort, that description does not fit all who sat at the side of the sovereign. That is because the majority of foreign-born individuals who took on the role of consort in those years, Katherine of Aragon, Anna of Denmark, and Henriette Marie de Bourbon, were all indeed royal wives, in addition to being royal consorts. Philip of Spain, though, was a consort but was certainly not a royal wife. In this dissertation, I argue that a consort’s duties, while encompassing their role as a royal wife or husband, were largely political in nature and were facets of peaceweaving. Children were never a guarantee, but a foreign-born consort brought the possibilities of peace and prosperity to England through their marriage, their capacity for intercession, the crafting and utilization of domestic networks of obligation, and the maintenance of their natal and friendship networks abroad. For Geoff – my partner in everything iv Acknowledgements I am so humbled and so grateful for all of the love, support, and swift kicks to the rear that I have gotten over my years in higher education. “You’re killing me, smalls,” is still my favorite comment to have ever received on a paper from a professor, but it was exactly what I needed when I needed it. My experiences over my eleven years in undergraduate, post-baccalaureate, and graduate study have been much like that - filled with incredibly kind and helpful people who sometimes also ripped off the bandage and encouraged me to get back to the work at hand. There is no way that I can possibly thank all of them by name… so thank you. I have been lucky enough to have had three fantastic mentors along my journey who all gave generously of their time, care, and expertise. David Nordmann, at Coe College back at the dawn of the twenty first century, was the first person to encourage me to think about graduate study in history. I was an education major at the time and not sure where I was going after I graduated. I had studied under him my entire four years at Coe, learning all about Japan, China, Korea and some European Renaissance and Reformation, and I loved every minute of it. It was even he who first mooted the possibility that I study Tudor & Stuart England. I’m not sure if he was prescient or if my interest in the period was that plain, but his suggestion planted the seed in my mind. His enthusiastic approach to teaching helped me to become confident in my own research capabilities. He treated me as a colleague long before I realized it myself. Thank you. After taking a few (or more than a few…) gap years, I ended up at Northern Michigan University, on the beautiful shores of Lake Superior. I told myself I was only following Geoff, who had been accepted as a fully-funded MA student in NMU’s English v department. I attended courses as well, to finish the history major I’d started all those years ago at Coe. On our first Vango’s night, an annual pizza-filled tradition, I met Chet DeFonso, chair of the department. He was excitedly talking about a class he wanted to offer in the Winter Term on Tudor history. Naturally, I joined the course and had an amazing time sharing with my classmates my theories on the Princes in the Tower and on how Anne Boleyn was executed with a sword and not an axe. After the course, I asked Chet if we could set up a directed study as I wanted to continue studying early modern England – it was he who fortuitously suggested I work on Anna of Denmark and masquing. It was also Chet who secured full funding for me to travel to present my work on Anna at Kings and Queens in Winchester, where I met Carole. Chet- I’ve loved getting to travel with you and I hope that we’ll get to meet up at conferences or whenever you end up flying through. Thank you, and I look forward to many more get togethers over coffee and tea. None of this would have been possible without the unflagging and fervent support of Carole Levin. She’s been so supportive and helpful ever since I met her at Winchester six years ago. From giving me feedback on that first conference presentation to gently letting me know I should probably redo a paper on Macbeth to reading every piece I send her, she’s helped me to grow as a writer, a researcher, and as a historian. Carole’s worked tirelessly for all of her students, but I have been especially demanding. I am so grateful that she saw something in me back in Winchester and that I can count myself as one of her students. I can only hope that one day I’ll get to share my love, passion, and hard-won expertise with others as she has. Carole, you are a gift. Thank you. vi In addition to my brilliant mentors who set me on, supported, and dragged me along this path towards a PhD, I have also benefitted from the care, expertise, and time shared by so many other wonderful professors. Some of the research that I presented as part of my MA portfolio was incorporated into this behemoth of a dissertation, and it was certainly made all the better because of their thoughtful feedback. To my MA committee: Alexander Vazansky, Julia Schleck, Jessica Coope, Ian Borden, and Carole, who gave me so many wonderful suggestions and helped me to think ahead for the dissertation; thank you. I have learned so much from the individuals who make up my doctoral committee – I have been lucky enough to do directed studies or work one-on-one in some capacity with each of you and have been humbled by your generosity and kindness. If academia were entirely made of professors like you, the world would be all the better for it. You each are a credit to your field with your exemplary scholarship, and each of you are kind, wonderful human beings. Thank you for sharing your time and expertise with me: Ian, Kelly, Jeannette, Amy, Carole, and John. I have also benefitted from the friendship and generosity of other scholars and colleagues that there are far too many to name here individually. I will, however, mention two brilliant scholars who took the time to share their unpublished work with me which helped during the writing of this dissertation. Charles Beem – you are always a delight to talk with and I cannot wait until we get to meet up again, hopefully at SCRC or K&Q! Thank you so much for sharing your pre-publication Queenship in Early Modern Europe with me, it was pivotal in pulling together my own ideas about the differences and similarities between queenship and vii consortship. I will make sure to bring my copy of the book to our next meetup to get you to sign it! Joanne Paul – you have been one of my best friends since I met you in Winchester back in 2014. I still do not quite understand what an English pudding is supposed to be, but I learned a lot from your impromptu masterclass on wine tasting at the conference dinner! You have been unfailingly kind, supportive, and amazingly generous with sharing your home, your thoughts, and your work with me. I have been honored to get to help even a little bit on your Dudley book with bits and bobs of research. Thank you for sharing your unpublished chapters where the themes intersected with my own research. Thank you also, for sharing some of your archival research with me, it informed my understanding of how Katherine of Aragon crafted her domestic network and how she used that network abroad.