1 WRITING THE ROYAL CONSORT IN STUART ENGLAND Submitted by Anna-Marie Linnell to the University of Exeter as a thesis for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in English in July 2016. This dissertation is available for Library use only on the understanding that it is copyright material and that no quotation from the thesis may be published without proper acknowledgement. I certify that all material in this dissertation which is not my own work has been identified and that no material has previously been submitted and approved for the award of a degree by this or any other University. (Signature)…………………………………………………………………………………… 2 Abstract This dissertation examines the literature of royal consorts in Stuart England. Critics and historians have devoted considerable attention to the creation of the monarch’s image during this tumultuous period, which witnessed two revolutions and the explosion of print. We know that the Stuart monarchs embraced different forms of visual media – including pageantry, portraiture and print – to disseminate their image within the court and to a broader public. However, the extensive literature about the royal consorts remains under-examined. My thesis makes an original contribution to scholarship by exploring what texts were written about the royal consorts, by whom, and how these writers constructed images of the royal consorts that participated in broader debates over the status of the monarchy. The dissertation is divided into two main parts. Part 1 comprises six chapters that analyse succession writing, when a new monarch came to the throne and established their iconography for the new reign. I draw on hundreds of texts that were printed about the Stuart consorts at these moments. These writings span a variety of genres, from poems and plays to sermons and political pamphlets. I investigate the literature of each succession in turn, analysing the main themes and motifs that emerged. This approach enables me to uncover a swathe of anonymous and under-utilised literature, but also re- interpret works by more canonical writers such as Aphra Behn. I ask how the royal consorts themselves, their spouses and members of the public could influence the creation of the royal consorts’ images at these moments. Critically, I also compare the conventions that were used to describe the consorts across the century. Part 2 analyses how writers re-constructed ideals for the royal consorts in Restoration England, as debates about the structure of the monarchy came to be more explicit. Chapter 7 concentrates on images of Henrietta Maria when she returned to England as Queen Mother. Chapter 8 asks how writers adapted former models of representation to praise Catherine, the infertile queen, when it became clear that she would not bear an heir. Finally, Chapter 9 examines the numerous secret histories and romances that were authored about Mary Beatrice’s purported behaviour during her exile in the 1690s. These chapters highlight the continued importance of these women and examines how writers constructed their legacies. As a whole, the literature about the royal consorts reveals a dynamic project as part of which authors engaged with and adapted earlier models of writing. This enabled them to address broader questions about changes in the nature of the Stuart monarchy and political life. 3 Acknowledgements This dissertation would not have been possible without the generous support provided by the AHRC for my studentship. I am incredibly lucky to have had the opportunity to work with the Stuart Successions team. Professor Andrew McRae is a patient and thoughtful supervisor, whose support over the whole period and during the last year in particular has been invaluable. Professor Paulina Kewes is an exemplary second supervisor. Her enthusiasm for early modern history, generosity and unmatched vocabulary are both encouraging and inspiring. Working alongside John West and Joseph Hone has also been a pleasure, and my research has benefitted hugely from our conversations and their insights. Many colleagues and academic advisors have also assisted my research and generously contributed their ideas along the way. Both Susan Doran and Tracey Sowerby read early drafts of this material and provided helpful feedback. Adam Morton and Helen Watanabe O’Kelly invited me to participate in their conference for the excellent Marrying Cultures Project, and I am grateful to them both for offering me the opportunity to publish an essay in the Marrying Cultures edited collection. I was also very fortunate to meet Sara Wolfson on the day of my interview for the Stuart Successions Project. I owe many thanks to Sara, along with Louise Wilkinson and Liz Oakley-Brown, for inviting me to speak at the Queenship & Diplomacy conference and then editing the resulting article for Women’s History Review. I am also very grateful to Professor Mark Knights and Professor Karen Edwards for agreeing to examine this project, and for making the viva a constructive and enjoyable experience. Working at Exeter University I have had the opportunity to meet and collaborate with many great colleagues and friends. Callan Davies and Nora Williams were excellent co-founders and role shares on the community history project Staging Exeter. I learned a great deal from working with both of them, and owe many thanks to Callan for proof-reading a large part of this dissertation as well as to Nora for her advice and support. I am also indebted to the wonderful Peter Knowles and Isabelle Cosgrave, who put up with sharing an office with me for three years and both commented on a draft of this dissertation at a late stage. Isabel Galleymore and Sharanya Murali have also provided key friendship and trusted counsel. Final and special thanks are due to my family: my incredible sisters, Jenny and Kathryn, and my parents, Carole and David Linnell. They have given me more support and encouragement than I could ever have deserved over the last few years. This project could only be dedicated to them. 4 A note on the texts Many of the contemporary writings that I cite in this project include irregular spellings and unusual typography such as random italic type and capitalisation. Quotations in the thesis retain irregular spelling and the use of italic type or capitalisation. If the original quote was in italic type, I have reversed the use of italic in my quotes. I have also modernised the long ‘s’, and silently modified archaic spelling that substituted ‘i’ for ‘j’ or ‘u’ for ‘v’. These modifications should not affect the ease with which readers can find texts through online databases such as the ESTC, but are designed to make the quotations easier to read within the context of the thesis. 5 Contents Introduction 6 Part One: Literature at moments of succession 19 Chapter One: Queen Anna in 1603 20 Chapter Two: Queen Henrietta Maria in 1625 39 Chapter Three: Queen Catherine in 1662 53 Chapter Four: Queen Mary Beatrice in 1685 69 Chapter Five: Queen Mary II in 1689 82 Chapter Six: Prince George in 1702 96 Part Two: The Royal Family after 1660 112 Chapter Seven: Maternity and Henrietta Maria’s role as Queen Mother 113 Chapter Eight: Fertility and succession in the 1670s 137 Chapter Nine: Royal romance at the court of Saint-Germain 157 Conclusion 170 Appendices 174 Works Cited 210 6 Introduction An unprecedented number of writings was produced about the monarchs and their royal consorts during the Stuart century, a creative and turbulent era. The Stuart period started with the accession of King James VI and I in 1603 and closed with his great granddaughter Queen Anne’s accession one hundred years later. The intervening years witnessed a formative time for English politics, during which the constitutional status of the monarchy was transformed and new forms of political communication emerged. In particular, the growth of print changed the opportunities for royal representation. While there have been a number of recent scholarly enquiries into the creation of the monarch’s image in Stuart England, the royal consort’s public image remains under-examined. What sorts of texts were produced about the royal consorts? By whom and to what ends? What codes and conventions were associated with the royal consorts at moments of succession, and how did these change across a period in which the meaning of the monarchy shifted? How can these succession texts provide an entry point to understand the construction of the royal consort’s image more generally? In what follows, I concentrate on the representation of the five Stuart consorts: Anna, Henrietta Maria, Catherine, Mary Beatrice, and George. I also compare their representations with that of Mary II, who was queen in her own right but to all intents and purposes represented as a royal consort. I combine the perspectives of history and literary studies, making extensive use of online archives to map different kinds of writing about the royal consort. These diverse sources include works we would define as literature in modern terms, including masques, poems and romances. They also encompass non- imaginative writings, which can also be seen as forms of literature, such as sermons and short polemic pamphlets. My aim is to create a history of writings about the royal consort that is alive to both literary conventions – by which I mean the generic templates, images and themes that writers used – and the historical conditions within which these writings were produced. Across this material, I argue, polemicists and panegyrists make repeated efforts to forge a model for writing about the royal consort. It is only by analysing the full spectrum of material that we can understand the function of the royal consort’s image during this period. By doing so, we can learn a great deal about perceptions of the monarchy more widely.