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The ‘Melancholy Pompous Sight’: Royal Deaths and the Politics of Ritual in the Late Stuart Monarchy, c. 1685-1714 Mark Walker A Thesis Submitted for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy Department of History University of Essex March 2016 This thesis is dedicated to my parents, my brother and to Stephen. They lived through this with me but they will not get a degree for their efforts. !3 Contents Thesis summary 4 Acknowledgements 6 Abbreviations and Notes 9 Introduction 10 1 ‘The General Misfortune of these Kingdoms’: Reconstructing the 52 Royal Funerary Rituals of 1685-1714 2 ‘Without any manner of pomp’: Charles II and the Origins of the 107 ‘Private’ Royal Funeral 3 ‘A very melancholy pompous sight’: The Meaning of Mary II’s 148 Funeral, March 1695 4 ‘The ill-natured, cruel proceedings of Mr. Caliban’: Avoiding Public 188 Rituals on the Death of James II, 1701 5 ‘Those dire Impressions this Loss will attempt upon her Majesty’s 226 spirit’: Gender, Politics and the Grief of Queen Anne, 1708-1710 6 'In the Protestant Line’: Death and the Protestant Succession after 273 the Glorious Revolution Conclusion 317 Bibliography 328 !4 Thesis Summary This thesis explores the deaths, funerals and other associated rituals given at the deaths of British monarchs and royals in the late Stuart period (1660-1714) with a focus on those occurring between the death of King Charles II in 1685 and the death of Queen Anne in 1714. This topic has lacked in-depth archival study and the existing historiography has often focused on larger cultural forces. This thesis presents a series of case studies structured around one or two deaths in particular, examining the ritual response as planned by the Royal Household and Privy Councillors within the wider and immediate political context which shaped their decisions. The first chapter reconstructs the process of a royal death at this time by drawing off a large amount of primary material and examples from across the period being studied. Subsequent chapters explore the political motivations and reasons behind the ‘private’ funeral for Charles II in 1685, the opposite decision for a larger heraldic or ‘public’ funeral for Mary II in 1695 and the decision to hold neither a funeral nor a ritual response beyond the familial obligation of mourning for James II in 1701. Another chapter explores the act of court mourning and how its relationship to gendered ideas about monarchy and grief underpinned the political responses to Queen Anne’s two years of mourning after her husband’s death in 1708. The final chapter explores two deaths and their relationship to the Glorious Revolution’s pursuit for a secure and defined Protestant Succession which ultimately overshadowed the rituals performed at their deaths. Together these demonstrate how politics, ritual !5 and culture were interlinked and how immediate circumstances made rituals malleable and thus changes to them occurred, if somewhat inconsistently, over time." !6 Acknowledgements "Don’t make fun of graduate students, they just made a terrible life choice." -Marge Simpson As with many things in the modern world The Simpsons offers the best observation about graduate studies, but in making those terrible life choices and following them through we collect many debts and owe many more people than we can remember thanks for what they did to help us. These are mine. Firstly, I must thank the Department of History at the University of Essex for admitting me back in 2011. They gave me a scholarship which covered my first three years without which I would never have been able to conduct this work. They then agreed to hire me for three successive academic years as a Graduate Teaching Assistant (2012-2015) which allowed me the flexibility to continue working on this thesis and cover some of the costs while also indulging my interest in U.S. history. I must thank all the department’s staff for their assistance over time. There are a few individuals at Essex whom I must single out for thanks: I owe an incredible debt to my supervisor Amanda Flather. Without her advice and guidance, and her incredible patience with me as the last year wore on, this thesis would simply not exist. When I outright abandoned this project as little more than a burden during the final two years of this project she remained its committed champion and believed in its value. Her editing and proof-reading, particularly what she did in the summer of 2015, makes this so much more readable than anything I could have done alone. I also owe a large debt to my first supervisor Clodagh Tait who steered me through the initial stages of the degree and agreed to continue acting as my supervisor despite leaving Essex and the UK to return to Ireland. I am thankful that she continued to provide suggestions and help throughout all this. In addition to my two supervisors, my supervisory board’s other members have provided me with interesting critiques and suggestions on early ideas and chapter drafts. Together with my supervisors they contributed advice and ideas in board meetings about overcoming challenges, research ideas, potential sources, reading suggestions and more. For this I thank James Raven (2011-2013), Neil Younger (2013-2014) and David Rundle (2014-2015) for agreeing to serve on the board at different times. I am also incredibly grateful for the generosity of Professor Hugh Brogan, an academic I already had a deep admiration and respect for, but who added to this when his hardship fund for PhD students covered the last of my tuition fees freeing me of the worry of finding the extra money at a difficult time. !7 Outside of Essex I have collected a few debts to specific academics who kindly responded to my queries when many others simply ignored me. The first is Robert Bucholz from Loyola University, Chicago, who was kind enough to meet with me twice, first in London and then again in Chicago to discuss my project and his work on the court of Queen Anne. He then read over a paper I wrote and offered a range of advice which I later integrated into the sixth chapter of this thesis. The original idea for a chapter on the relationship between Anne’s death and the Protestant Succession was his and he kindly let me have it. I wish to thank two other American academics for responding to my emails and offering guidance on the historiography: first was Charles Beem, who also gave me a copy of his journal article on Prince George of Denmark when I could not find it, and second was Scott Sowerby who offered advice on James II. I also want to thank Eamonn O’Ciardha for talking on the phone with me and answering some questions I had about the Jacobites in Ireland. This thesis really owes its existence to my work at Old Dominion University in 2009-2010. The difficulties, frustrations and complaints of many of my fellow ODU History MA students enrolled on an early modern European module during Spring 2010 forced me to confront the fact that I knew a lot more about early modern European history than I thought and planted the seed for switching my focus area from American history to this subject. The growth of this seed is down to my working relationship with Professor Douglas Greene, whose enthusiasm for European, but particularly for British history, really forced me to confront whether I should reconsider my choices. The meetings and discussions I had with him over 2009-2010 were important in shaping my decision to apply for this PhD in the first place. Michael Carhart also offered some informal advice on this project idea when I was applying for this degree. I want to also acknowledge the contribution of Professor Lorraine Lees who didn’t help with the subject matter but my time studying with her really helped develop my academic writing style to the extent that I still use her writing ‘laws’ in my work and she kindly wrote one of the references that gained me admission to Essex. I must also acknowledge and thank my two examiners: Alison Rowlands, who was the internal from Essex, and Sara Wolfson, from Canterbury Christ Church University, who served as the external. They both believed this thesis was worth passing. If I convince no one else of the its worth, then convincing just these two was good enough. Their comments and suggestions have subsequently improved the overall quality of this work. This project would not have been possible without the services and staff of a number of institutions, libraries, universities, and archives. Perhaps the most important of these was the National Archives of the United Kingdom and their wonderful staff. I must also acknowledge their fantastic online resources which made finding what I needed and accessing them incredibly easy and efficient. I would never have got so much done if it were not for them. !8 There are several other institutions I must thank for making their resources available to me. In particular I must thank Senate House Library, the Institute of Historical Research, Royal Holloway and Queen Mary, all in the University of London, the British Library and the Perry Library at Old Dominion University in Virginia. I also appreciate being granted access to the collections at The Society of Antiquaries and All Souls College Oxford as well as the assistance of their staff for making copies of images available for me. I wish to thank Robert Noel and Lynsey Derby at the College of Arms for helping me find, access and use the material held in the College’s archive.