Tudor Queenship: The Reigns of Mary and Elizabeth (18 page)

English queens and princesses could use foreign styles of dress politically. For example, Henry VIII ensured that his sister Mary had French, English, and Italian gowns in her trousseau for her marriage to Louis XII. Similarly, in 1582, Elizabeth sent her portrait to France during the discussion over whether she would accept the duke d’Alençon, Catherine de Medici’s son, as her husband. Reports from France stated that “The ladies…noted with satisfaction that she was attired all over 
à la Française
.”
⁶⁸
However, on occasion the choice of style is at first sight harder to explain. Elizabeth, for example, selected French court dress and a French style headdress for the Armada portrait of c. 1588 that celebrated the English victory over the Spanish fleet.
⁶⁹
One possible explanation for her choice is that French styles were regarded as the most formal and so would be suited to a portrait recording a great English victory. As such, dress did not always denote nationalism.

VI

On September 7, 1553 Henri II of France was advised that Mary would appreciate gifts of clothing “because she is…one of those ladies who takes the greatest pleasure in clothes.”
⁷⁰
Elizabeth was equally fond of clothes and both sisters had inherited this trait from their father, a fact that was understood and exploited by those around them. The value of clothing can be seen in the way that it was given as gifts to the monarch, chiefly at New Year but also at other times including during the summer progresses. Henry VIII had received doublets, shirts, bonnets, and jewelry on quite a regular basis as New Year gifts, but plate and money were more popular.
⁷¹
However, by the middle of Elizabeth’s reign, clothing was the leading gift, with donors making careful enquiries with her ladies and gentlewomen of the privy chamber and bedchamber about her preferences.
⁷²
In 1584 clothes or accessories formed 51.8 percent of her gifts, money accounted for 26.9 percent, and jewelry came to 7.4 percent, while plate was a mere 0.4 percent.
⁷³

Gifts given at New Year or at other times could significantly augment a princess’s or queen’s wardrobe. In 1543 Mary received a number of gifts including a gown “of Carnation Saten of the Venice fashion” from Lady Margaret Douglas.
⁷⁴
Elizabeth’s haul in 1584 was significant: she received seven foreparts, five doublets, and four petticoats, as well as six ruffs, two pairs of cuffs, and a pair of slippers. These items were sumptuous and chosen with care, as in the case of Baroness Lumley’s present of “a mantle of white striped Lawne set with Tufts and Spangells of black silke.”
⁷⁵
Five years later the baroness presented “a wastcoate of white taffety, imbrodered all over with a twist of flowers of Venis gold, silver and some black silke.”
⁷⁶

Gift giving was supposed to be a reciprocal process, as indicated by a skirt of crimson satin that Mary Queen of Scots had sent to Elizabeth in 1574, one that she had embroidered herself. The aim of the gift was made clear in a letter sent by the French ambassador who noted that “the present was very agreeable, for she found it very nice and has prized it much; and she seemed to me that I found her much softened towards her.”
⁷⁷
Although the skirt did not have the desired effect, both Mary and Elizabeth used gifts to seek favor with their father and his later wives. They also exchanged gifts with each other. Perhaps not surprisingly, Mary usually had the upper hand as the older sibling. In 1537 her privy purse accounts reveal that she spent 12s on silver thread to embroider a box for Elizabeth, while on January 1, 1543 she received a little chain and “a payr of housen gold & silke” from “my lady Elizabeth.”
⁷⁸

Perhaps more telling is the way in which the Tudor monarchs regularly gave their clothing away as perks to members of their households, friends, and foreign visitors to court. This pattern is most evident during the reigns of Henry VIII and Elizabeth because both of them have left relatively large amounts of documentation including the wardrobe books of James Worlsey and Mary Scudamore.
⁷⁹
Although the recipient could have worn the clothing with royal permission, preserving the item as a record of royal favor or recycling the cloth were more likely, thus making the gender of the recipient less significant. For example, in 1578 Elizabeth gave Sir Francis Walsingham four gowns including “One Frenche Gowne of carnacyon clothe of golde tyssewed with golde & silver lined with crymsen sarceonet.”
⁸⁰
Taking the specific garments out of the equation, which were naturally dictated by the wearer’s gender, the Tudor queens regnant used their clothes in ways very similar to how their male counterparts did. Dressing magnificently was essential for any monarch, but more so for Mary and Elizabeth because of the negative contemporary view of female monarchs. Their clothes proclaimed clear messages of magnificence, authority, and religious devotion. While Mary presented a stately and elegant image throughout her reign, Elizabeth’s attitude to clothes changed over time.
⁸¹
Although she favored sumptuous, fashionable dress during her father’s reign and her own, she adopted much simpler styles during the reigns of her brother and sister. Equally, while the quality of her wardrobe was important for much of her life, by 1603 Giovanni Scaramelli noted that she was less conscious of fashion and “her skirts were much fuller and began lower down than is the fashion in France.”
⁸²
Even so, in 1600 gaining an audience with Elizabeth I was the highpoint of the well-connected traveler’s visit to England. Baron Waldstein was left with a lasting impression of the queen “glittering with the glory of majesty,” an image in which her clothes were synonymous with her authority, wealth, and right to rule.
⁸³

Notes

1. Thomas Elyot, 
   The Book Named the Governour
   , ed. H. H. S. Croft (London: Kegan Paul, Trench and Co., 1880), 188, 201.
   
2. For example, Thorstein Veblen and Georg Simmel. See M. Carter, 
   Fashion Classics from Carlyle to Barthes
    (New York and Oxford: Berg, 2003).
   
3. Sir John Fortescue: The Governance of England
   , ed. C. Plummer (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1885), 125.
   
4. For example, Judith M. Richards, “To promote a woman to beare rule: Talking of Queens in Mid-Tudor England,” 
   SCJ
   , 28 (1997): 101–21.
   
5. Charles Wriothesley, 
   A chronicle of England during the reigns of the Tudors from A. D. 1485 to 1559
   , 2 vols. (London: Camden Society, 1875–77), I: 93.
   
6. Judith M. Richards, 
   Mary Tudor
    (London: Routledge, 2008), 135–7.
   
7. See J. Ashelford, 
   A Visual History of Costume: The Sixteenth Century
    (London: Batsford, 1983).
   
8. Janet Arnold, “The Coronation Portrait of Queen Elizabeth I,” 
   Burlington Magazine
   , 120 (1978): 727–41.
   
9. TNA LC 2/4/3, fol. 7.
   
10. BL Egerton MS 985, fols. 58v–59v.
    
11. Maria Hayward, 
    Dress at the Court of Henry VIII
     (Leeds: Maney, 2007), 47.
    
12. E. Auerbach, 
    Tudor Artists
     (London: Athlone Press, 1954), 96–101.
    
13. TNA KB27/1168 and KB27/1172.
    
14. Janet Arnold, 
    Queen Elizabeth’s Wardrobe Unlock’d
     (Leeds: Maney, 1988), 59.
    
15. TNA SP12/1, fol. 74r; A. Harvey and R. Mortimer, 
    The
     
    Funeral Effigies of Westminster Abbey
     (Woodbridge: Boydell, 1994), 55.
    
16. TNA SP12/1, fol. 75v.
    
17. TNA 315/3145, fol. 25.
    
18. Harvey and Mortimer, 
    Funeral Effigies
    , 156.
    
19. Richards, 
    Mary Tudor
    , 135–7.
    
20. Robert Tittler, 
    The Reign of Mary I
     (London and New York: Longman, 1983), 87.
    
21. Richards, 
    Mary Tudor
    , 154, 224.
    
22. Arnold, 
    Queen Elizabeth
    , 65–6.
    
23. Hayward, 
    Dress
    , 129–41.
    
24. LP
    , II.ii: 4481.
    
25. Illustrated in M. Perry, 
    Elizabeth I: The Word of a Prince
     (London: Folio Society, 1990), 153.
    
26. A. Carter, “Mary Tudor’s Wardrobe,” 
    Costume
    , 18 (1984): 16.
    
27. The Chronicle of Queen Jane and Two Years of Queen Mary…
    , ed. J. G. Nichols (London: Camden Society, 1850), 167.
    
28. TNA E101/427/11, fol. 38.
    
29. For example, TNA E101/417/3, no. 68; Hayward, 
    Dress
    , 178–9.
    
30. BL Stowe MS 557, fols. 8r and 9v; Arnold, 
    Queen Elizabeth
    , 254–5.
    
31. BL Harley MS 1419, fol. 398r; 
    The Inventory of King Henry VIII: The Transcript
    , ed. David Starkey (London: Harvey Miller, 1998), entries 14177–8.
    
32. Hayward, 
    Dress
    , 195–7.
    
33. BL Harley MS 419, fol. 132; 
    CSPVen
    , VI: 174. However, when she was painted by Antonis Mor, he made no reference to her condition even though she was rumored to be with child. See 
    Dynasties: Painting in Tudor and Jacobean England 1530–1630
    , ed. Karen Hearn (London: Tate Publishing, 1995), 54.
    
34. The
     
    Lisle Letters
    , ed. M. St Clare Byrne (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1981), IV: 880.
    
35. Karen Hearn, “A Fatal Fertility? Elizabethan and Jacobean Pregnancy Portraits,” 
    Costume
    , 34 (2000): 39–43.
    
36. Carole Levin, “‘We shall never have a merry world while the Queen liveth’: Gender, Monarchy and the Power of Words,” in 
    Dissing Elizabeth: Negative Representations of Gloriana
    , ed. J. M. Walker (Durham: Duke University Press, 1998), 89.
    
37. J. Ashelford, 
    Dress in the Age of Elizabeth I
     (Avon: Bath Press, 1988), 34.
    
38. Roy Strong, 
    Elizabeth R
     (London: Secker and Warburg, 1971), 42.
    
39. Fiona Kisby, “‘When the king goeth a procession’: Chapel Ceremonies and Services, the Ritual Year and Religious Reforms at the Early Tudor Court, 1485–1547,” 
    Journal of British Studies
    , 40 (2001): 44–75.
    
40. Hayward, 
    Dress
    , 130–31.
    
41. J. Adamson, “The Tudor and Stuart Courts 1509–1714,” in 
    The Princely Courts of Europe: Ritual, Politics and Culture under the
     Ancien Régime 
    1500– 1750
    , ed. J. Adamson (London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1999), 102–3.
    
42. Queen Elizabeth and Some Foreigners
    , ed. V. von Klarwill (London: John Lane, the Bodley Head, 1928), 329.
    
43. Hearn, 
    Dynasties
    , 121.
    
44. Hayward, 
    Dress
    , 132–3. For example, TNA E101/428/10, unfoliated.
    
45. TNA E101/418/6; Hayward, 
    Dress
    , 133.
    
46. Trustees of the late countess Beauchamp; see 
    Elizabeth
    , ed. Susan Doran (London: Chatto & Windus and the National Maritime Museum, 2003), 74, 110.
    
47. Privy Purse Expenses of the Princess Mary, Daughter of King Henry the Eighth, Afterwards Queen Mary,
     ed. F. Madden (London: William Pickering, 1831), lxvi.
    
48. John Foxe, 
    Acts and Monumentes
    , ed. S. R. Cattley, 8 vols. (London: R. B. Seeley and W. Burnside, 1837–9), VIII: 603.
    
49. Foxe, 
    Acts and Monumentes
    , ed. Cattley, VIII: 603.
    
50. LP
    , XIII.i: 647.
    
51. J. Harington, 
    Nugae Antiquae
    , 2 vols. (London: Vernor & Hood, 1804), I: 170–1. The exact date of the service is unknown.
    
52. Agnes Strickland, 
    Lives of the Queens of England
     (Chicago: Belford, Clark and Co., 1885), II: 555.
    
53. Hayward, 
    Dress
    , 179.
    
54. Madden (ed.), 
    Privy Purse
    , 4, 12, 17, 73, 75, 89, 153.
    
55. Viscount Strangford, 
    Household Expenses of the Princess Elizabeth During her Residence at Hatfield
     (London: Camden Society, 1853), 31–3.
    
56. Hayward, 
    Dress
    , 25–8, 143–5; Carter, “Mary Tudor’s Wardrobe”: 9; Arnold,
    Queen Elizabeth
    , 163–76.
    
57. M. A. Hayward, “Luxury or Magnificence? Dress at the Court of Henry VIII,” 
    Costume
     30 (1996): 37–46.
    
58. CSPVen
    , V: no. 934.
    
59. H. Norris, 
    Costume and Fashion: The Tudors 1485–1547
     III: bk I (London: J. W. Dent and Son, 1938), 610.
    
60. Arnold, 
    Queen Elizabeth
    , 251–350.
    
61. The warrants for Mary I’s clothing orders survive for April 27 and October 16, 1554 (TNA E101/427/11, nos. 34 and 38) and March 27 and October 31, 1558 (TNA E101/427/18, nos. 1 and 21).
    
62. C. Hibbert, 
    The Virgin Queen: The Personal History of Elizabeth I
    (Harmondsworth: Penguin Books, 1990), 100.
    
63. Norris, 
    Costume and Fashion
    , 616.
    
64. Arnold, 
    Queen Elizabeth
    , 7.
    
65. W. Devereux, 
    Lives and Letters of the Devereux, Earls of Essex
    , 2 vols. (London: John Murray, 1853), I: 73–4.
    
66. Hayward, 
    Dress
    , 178–9.
    
67. Norris, 
    Costume and Fashion
    , 438.
    
68. TNA SP 78/7, no. 12; J. Ashelford, 
    The Art of Dress: Clothes and Society 1500–1914
     (London: National Trust, 1996), 37.
    
69. Ashelford, 
    Visual History
    , 108.
    
70. Ambassades de Messieurs de Noailles en Angleterre
    , ed. R. A. de Vertot (Paris, 1763), II: 146.
    
71. Maria Hayward, “Gift Giving at the Court of Henry VIII: An Analysis of the 1539 New Year’s Gift Roll,” 
    Antiquaries Journal
     85 (2005): 139–40.
    
72. Arnold, 
    Queen Elizabeth
    , 94–8.
    
73. BL Egerton MS 3052.
    
74. Madden (ed.), 
    Privy Purse
    , 96. Hayward, 
    Dress
    , 206.
    
75. BL Egerton MS 3052; J. Nevinson, “New Year’s Day Present List 1584,”
    Costume
     9 (1975): 28.
    
76. Strong, 
    Elizabeth
    , 27.
    
77. M. Swain, 
    The Needlework of Mary Queen of Scots
     (London: Van Nostrand Reinhold Company, 1973), 82–3.
    
78. Madden (ed.), 
    Privy Purse
    , 50, 96.
    
79. BL Harleian 2284, published as Hayward, 
    Dress
    , 369–411; TNA C/115/L2/6697 published as J. Arnold, 
    Lost from Her Majestie’s Back
     (London: Costume Society, 1980).
    
80. Arnold, 
    Lost from Her Majestie’s Back
    , no. 252.
    
81. Carter, “Mary Tudor’s Wardrobe”: 9–28, Richards, 
    Mary Tudor
    , 240–42 and Arnold, 
    Queen Elizabeth
    , 110–62.
    
82. Perry, 
    Elizabeth I
    , 316.