Untitled

Super alta perennis
Studien zur Wirkung der Klassischen Antike
Band 7
Herausgegeben von
Uwe Baumann, Marc Laureys und Winfried Schmitz
Christof Ginzel
Poetry, Politics and Promises
of Empire
Prophetic Rhetoric in the English and Neo-Latin Epithalamia
on the occasion of the Palatine Marriage in 1613
Mit 27 Abbildungen
V&R unipress
Bonn University Press
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Titelbild: “Fishing for Souls”, Adrian van der Venne, 1614;
Collection Rijksmuseum Amsterdam, SK-A-447
Gedruckt auf alterungsbeständigem Papier.
Preface
The following study Poetry, Politics and Promises of Empire: Prophetic Rhetoric in the English and Neo-Latin Epithalamia on the Palatine Marriage in 1613
was accepted as a doctoral thesis by the Faculty of Philosophy of the University of
Bonn in the winter term 2007/08.
It analyses the festive/nuptial poetry written on the occasion of the StuartPalatine marriage in 1613. In a series of events leading to the Thirty Years’ War
(1618–1648), the marriage of Count Frederick V (1596–1632) and Princess Elizabeth Stuart (1596–1662) marks one of the rare occasions when the newly formed
court of “great Britain” evokes and spreads the idea that the country is a Protestant
stronghold. In the throes of religious and political conflicts on the Continent, it
was envisaged that Elizabeth Stuart’s nuptial union with the Count Palatine Frederick V would fulfil the hope of the creation of a future “Britanno-Germanic”
empire. It was interpreted as forging the awaited pan-Protestant bulwark against
the imminent threats of Catholic Habsburg. It was maintained that the marriage of
Frederick and Elizabeth followed the course of a heavenly plan. The focal point of
this study will be to elucidate the propagandist efforts to turn this heavenly plan
into reality. Priority will be given to the exploration of the politico-religious, social and cultural means by which the news of this marriage was spread, taking into
consideration the numerous poets who contrived and fashioned the marriage and
the methods they employed to communicate its political/religious credo. More
precisely, such an inquiry entails the scrutiny of courtly representational modes
used to convey the manifold messages of the marriage between these two paragon
figures. It aims to provide an alternative perspective on Britain, Europe and militant pan-Protestantism.
My thanks are due to my PhD supervisors Prof Dr Götz Schmitz and Prof Dr
Uwe Baumann. Their academic passion and encouragement have been a rich
source of inspiration for my project. My intellectual debt to Götz B. Schmitz is
palpable throughout this study. I have always benefited from conversations and
discussions with this gentleman of letters. I would also like to express my gratitude to Prof Dr Uwe Baumann and the members of the editorial board of the BUP
series Super alta perennis. Studien zur Wirkung der Klassischen Antike for the
invitation to add my title to their series.
I feel extremely grateful to a number of academic teachers, polymaths and colleagues, who extended the hand of friendship during three enjoyable years on the
academic circuit. Their criticism, support and vast knowledge helped this study to
mature. I had the privilege of being able to rely on the support and criticism of
Prof Dr Howard Hotson (Oxford), Prof Dr David Norbrook (Oxford), Prof Dr
5
Preface
John Manning (Lampeter), Prof Dr Susanne Scholz (Frankfurt), Dr Steve Murdoch (St Andrews), Dr Andrew Mackillop (Aberdeen), Dr Andrew Williams
(Cardiff), Dr Jessica Lynn Winston (Idaho), Dr Tanja Kohl (Bonn) and Dr Heiner
Gillmeister (Bonn). I would like to express my gratitude to Prof Dr Bart Westerweel and Prof Dr Rolph Bremmer of the Sir Thomas Brown Institute at the University of Leiden, who provided me with an early opportunity to present my research project to an international audience in 2002.
My thanks are also due to the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD),
which endowed me with a generous scholarship and travel grant to pursue my
early print and manuscript research work in Scotland in 2004. I am also deeply
grateful to Prof Dr Friedrich Lenger and Prof Dr Horst Carl (Giessen), who welcomed me as an associate member of their graduate seminar “Transnationale Medienereignisse von der Frühen Neuzeit bis zur Gegenwart” in 2005. Enthusiastic
and hard-working colleagues like Dr Matthias Georgi and Dr Thomas Weißbrich
have always been generous in providing intriguing insights. A special thank you
must go to Holger Altenwerth, Christoph Borghoff, Thomas Brüggemann, Meike
Madsen, Marion Graulich, Dominique Huth, Holger Tintelott, Dr Frank Fischer,
Dr Hermann Hoppenkamps and Dr Michael Mause.
For permission to reproduce texts and illustrative material I should like to thank
the trustees of the British Library, London, the Society of Antiquaries, London,
the Rijksmuseum Amsterdam and the Herzog August Bibliothek, Wolfenbüttel.
I gratefully acknowledge the help of my proofreaders, namely Dr Tanja Kohl,
Dr John F Davis, Karin Gartshore MA and Ute Reusch MA, Dip Trans.
Finally, I must thank my wife, Vanessa, who has helped me to love this book
again and attended its completion with humour, curiosity, patience and love. It
remains to be mentioned that this study would have been impossible without the
great moral, social and financial support of my family.
This book is dedicated to my caring grandmother and my most loving parents.
Arnsberg-Neheim, November 2008
6
Christof Reinhard Ginzel
Table of Content
ABBREVIATIONS .................................................................................................... 11
A NOTE ON THE TEXT ............................................................................................. 15
LIST OF ILLUSTRATION........................................................................................... 17
GENERAL INTRODUCTION ...................................................................................... 21
1. “Destroy thou them, O God, …”....................................................................... 21
2. Method and research ......................................................................................... 26
3. Scope................................................................................................................. 29
PART ONE
Prophetic Contexts: The Historic and Cultural Setting
of the Palatine Marriage
CHAPTER 1
OF SAINTS, SOLDIERS AND HEROES REVIVED: THE CREATION OF USABLE
HISTORY AND THE POLICY OF HEROIC NOSTALGIA ............................................... 35
1. “And there appeared a great wonder in heaven …” .......................................... 35
1.1 “Fredericus Britannicus, Eliza rediviva”: History, Myth and a
Marriage.............................................................................................................. 40
1.1.1 Desires for Yesteryear: Teleological History and the Elizabethan
Memory Cult ......................................................................................................... 46
1.2 The Order of St George and its Tudor and Stuart Appropriation:
From Garter Knights to Protestant Heroes.......................................................... 57
1.2.1 Tracing the Original George and the “Georgian Cause” ......................... 57
1.2.2 The Militant George: King Edward III and the Garter Knights............... 61
1.2.3 A Symbol of True Religion: St George in Tudor Propaganda................. 64
1.2.4 Elizabethan Modifications: The “Georgian” Compromise ...................... 70
1.2.4.1 The Protestant Gentleman-Hero: Pursuing The Warrior Saint ........... 75
1.2.4.2 Ideological Keystones: Maiden Queen, Fortunate Isles,
and The Nation Elect...................................................................................... 81
1.2.4.3 The Maiden Queen ............................................................................. 81
1.2.4.4 The Fortunate Isle............................................................................... 83
1.2.4.5 The Elect Nation................................................................................. 88
7
Table of Content
1.3 James VI and I and the Hope of a British State-Formation:
St Andrew, St George and Magna Britannia .......................................................89
1.3.1 Heroic Nostalgia: Prince Henry’s Barriers (1610) and the
Reworking of the Tudor Myth ..........................................................................93
1.4 Synopsis: The Garter, Frederick V and the “British” Legacies .....................99
CHAPTER 2
“AND I HEARD A VOICE FROM HEAVEN”: THE CONTEMPORARY NEXUS OF
POLITICAL PROPHECY AND RELIGIOUS PROPAGANDA..........................................105
2. Myth and Marriage ..........................................................................................105
2.1 A Marketplace of Strange Beliefs: Prophecy and Superstition in
1612...................................................................................................................107
2.2 From Prophet to Poet: Soothsayer, Mantic, Poet-Prophet ...........................118
2.2.1 The Making of Imperial Myth and Epic Reality: Virgil as PoetProphet ............................................................................................................119
2.3 From Poet to Prophet: Joachim, Savonarola, and English
Apocalypticists ..................................................................................................122
2.3.1 The Abbot Joachim ................................................................................125
2.3.2 The Prophet and Poet Jerome Savonarola of Florence...........................127
2.3.3 English and Scottish Apocalyptic Thinkers – A Survey of
Visionary Views..............................................................................................130
2.4.1 The Making of the National Bard in Early Modern England .................133
2.4.2 Edmund Spenser: Elizabethan Poet and Protestant Prophet...................138
2.5 Synopsis: The Prophetic Voice of 1613 and Millenarian Echoes................140
PART TWO
Toward a Rhetoric of Empire:
The Poetic Architecture of the Palatine Marriage
CHAPTER 3
“A TRUE RELATION OF A MAGNIFICENT UNION …” – NETWORKS OF
JACOBEAN COURT COMMUNICATION ...................................................................153
3. Manifesting Marriage: The Literary Reception ...............................................153
3.1 THE EARLY STUART COURT IN 1612–13 ...................................................158
3.1.1 The Popular Muse, the Public’s Voice: John Taylor and William
Fennor .............................................................................................................161
3.1.1.1 Waterman, Poet and Adventurer: John Taylor..................................164
3.1.1.2 Taylor’s Early Rival: The Soldier-Poet William Fennor ..................166
3.1.2 A Jacobean Proto-Journalist: Anthony Nixon........................................169
3.1.3 Satirist, Fanatic, Poet-Prophet: George Wither ......................................172
3.1.4 The Puritan Voices of Augustine Taylor and RobertAllyne ..................175
8
Table of Content
3.1.4.1 Puritan Preacher and Puritan Poet: Augustine Taylor ...................... 175
3.1.4.2 Thomas Erskine’s Preacher-Poet: Robert Allyne ............................. 178
3.2 Foreign Muses: Aureli, Petrucci, Genochi and Weckherlin........................ 180
3.2.1 The French Protestant Pastor: Abraham Aureli ..................................... 180
3.2.2 Ludovico Petrucci and Giovanni Bathola Maria Genochi ..................... 184
3.2.3 George Rudolph Weckherlin ................................................................. 188
3.3 Loyal Scots: David Hume and Alexander Julius ........................................ 192
3.3.1 The Unionist: David Home of Godscroft............................................... 193
3.3.2 Poeta Edinburgensis: Alexander Julius.................................................. 194
3.3.2.1 Scottish Calls from Abroad: A Brief Survey .................................... 195
3.4 Cambridge, Oxford and The Inns of Court ................................................. 198
3.5. William Basse, Bathsua Makin and John Mott .......................................... 203
3.5.1 The Oxford Shepherd: William Basse ................................................... 203
3.5.2 The Woman of Letters: Bathsua Makin................................................. 205
3.5.3 The Goldsmiths’ Wordsmith: John Mott ............................................... 206
3.6 Synopsis: Henry Peacham – The Citizen “Vatis” ....................................... 207
CHAPTER 4
THE EARLY STUART EPITHALAMIUM: A POETIC MONUMENT AND MIRROR
OF ORDER – EKPHRASIS, PROSOPOPEIA, AND THE FESTIVE ALLEGORY ............... 213
4. A Quest for Order and Unity........................................................................... 213
4.1 The Stuart Epithalamium as a Poetic Monument........................................ 217
4.1.1 The Poetics of Communicating the Future ............................................ 225
4.1.2 The Nuptial Dream ................................................................................ 230
4.1.3 Epithalamico-Epical Transformations ................................................... 235
4.2 Transcendental Forms, Heroic Forms: The Contours of the Formal
Effigy ................................................................................................................ 236
4.2.1 The Wedding Inscription: The Epigram ................................................ 240
4.2.1.1 The Nuptial Chronogram.................................................................. 241
4.3 The Wedding Panegyric: The Nuptial “Epyllion” ...................................... 242
4.3.1 The Panegyric Configuration................................................................. 243
4.3.2 Monumental Verse and the Visual Arts: Ekphrasis ............................... 244
4.3.3 Prosopopeia ........................................................................................... 251
4.3.4 Metonymy.............................................................................................. 259
4.4 Synopsis: The Festive Allegory – Pyramid, Obelisk and the Poetic
Monument......................................................................................................... 261
9
Table of Content
CHAPTER 5
EMPIRE, TRUTH AND THE NEW ISRAELITES: THE OCCASIONAL
REWORKING OF ELIZABETHAN COMMONPLACES IN A JACOBEAN
IMPERIAL CONTEXT..............................................................................................267
5. A Rhetoric of Empire and Imperial Majesty ...................................................267
5.1 “By Gods Grace accomplished” – The Prophetic Frame ............................268
5.1.1 Building the House of Israel – The Outlines of a GermanoBritannic Utopia..............................................................................................270
5.1.1.1 The Overseas Component .................................................................274
5.1.1.2 The Continental Component .............................................................278
5.1.2 Imperial Implications in Topographical Propaganda .............................283
5.1.2.1 The Body Metaphor: Rivers as Life-lines.........................................284
5.1.2.2 Isis, Cam and Nicer: On the Banks of Truth.....................................287
5.1.2.2.1 Topography and the Rise of panProtestant Identity.....................289
5.2 True Faith and The Innate Sense of Mission ...............................................290
5.2.1 Fashions of the Pious Prince ..................................................................291
5.2.1.1 From Pious Prince to Epic Hero: The Advent of Aeneas
Britannicus....................................................................................................295
5.3 The New Israelites: Of “Hyperborei” and “Teutonici” ...............................298
5.3.1 De Nova Hierosolyma............................................................................302
5.4 The Apocalyptic Prince: The Charismatic Aura of Frederick V .................304
5.4.1 The Messiah Already Come: The Protestant Aeneas, Palatinus
Atlas ................................................................................................................305
5.4.2 The Imperial Scipio and Prince Maurice of Nassau...............................306
5.5 The Apocalyptic Princess ............................................................................310
5.5.1 The Creation of a Heroic Persona ..........................................................313
5.5.2 Astraea Palatina......................................................................................314
CHAPTER 6
CONCLUSION ........................................................................................................317
Epilogue ............................................................................................................321
From Prophetic Metaphor to Real Battle Action...............................................321
CHRONOLOGY ......................................................................................................331
Macroscopic: 1568–1618................................................................................331
Microscopic: 1610–1614 (OS)........................................................................333
ILLUSTRATIONS ....................................................................................................335
BIBLIOGRAPHY .....................................................................................................349
Manuscripts .......................................................................................................349
Editions, Sources and Analogues ......................................................................349
Studies and Reference Works............................................................................365
10
Abbreviations
Abrams
AC
ACNLA
ACNLB
Acts
ADB
AJP
Ambix
ANGLIA
ARCHIV
Athenae
AUR
BA
Bible
BL
Bod
CJ
CSPD
DAPHNIS
DMFS
DNP
EC
ed.
ELH
EMLS
FDG
HAB
HerJ
HJ
A. H. Abrams, A Glossary of Literary Terms, 6th ed. (Orlando,
1993).
Acta Comeniana (Prague).
Acta Conventus Neo-Latini Abulensis (2000)
Acta Conventus Neo-Latini Bariensis (1998)
John Foxe, The Acts and Monuments. Ed. George Townsend.
(New York, 1965).
Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie
The American Journal of Philology (Baltimore, Mad.)
The Journal of the Society for the History of Alchemy and
Chemistry (Cambridge, UK)
Zeitschrift für Englische Philologie (Halle/Saale; Tübingen).
Zeitschrift für das Studium der neueren Sprachen und Literaturen (Berlin).
Anthony A. Wood’s ‘Athenae Oxonienses’, ed. Philip Bliss,
vol. II (rpt. Hildesheim, 1969).
Aberdeen University Review (Aberdeen)
Bibliographia Aberdonensis, 1472–1640 (Aberdeen, 1929).
New Cambridge Paragraph Bible, with the Apocrypha, King
James Version, ed. David Norton (Cambridge, 2005).
British Library (London)
Bodleian Library (Oxford)
Classical Journal
Calendar of State Papers: Domestic, various editors (London,
1860–1939).
Zeitschrift für mittlere deutsche Literatur und Kultur der frühen
Neuzeit, 1400–1750 (Amsterdam).
Dictionary of Mythology Folklore and Symbols, ed. Gertrude
Jobes (New York, 1962).
Der Neue Pauly, Encyclopädie der Antike, eds. Hubert Cancik
and Helmut Schneider (Stuttgart, 1998).
Essays in Criticism
edited
Journal of English Literary History
Early Modern Literary Studies
Forschungen zur Deutschen Geschichte
Herzog August Bibliothek
Hermetic Journal
Historical Journal
11
Abbreviations
HL
HLQ
HS
HSCP
HWJ
HZ
Ill.
ISIS
ISLL
Nichols
JHG
JHS
JDSG
JES
JPC
JEGP
JMRS
JNLLL
JWCI
LATOMUS
Lusus
MLN
MLR
N&Q
NEB
NEOPHILOLOGUS
no.
OCD
1970).
ODNB
OED
OS
PHS
PMLA
PR
QJS
RAC
RAMUS
RARITAN
12
Humanistica Lovaniensia
Huntington Library Quarterly
Hungarian Studies – A Journal of the International Association
of Hungarian Studies
Harvard Studies in Classical Philology
History Workshop Journal
Historische Zeitschrift
Illustration
Journal of the History of Science
Illinois Studies in Language and Literature
John Nichols, The Progresses, Processions … of King James I,
vol. ii (London, 1828; rpt. 1966).
Journal of Historical Geography
Journal of Hellenic Studies
Jahrbuch der Deutschen Shakespeare-Gesellschaft
Journal of European Studies
Journal of Popular Culture
Journal of English and Germanic Philology
Journal of Medieval and Renaissance Studies
Journal of Neo-Latin Language and Literature
Journal of the Warburg and Courtland Institute
La Revue d’ Études Latines
Epithalamia sive Lusus Palatini (Oxford, 1613)
Modern Language Notes
Modern Language Review
Notes and Queries
New Encyclopedia Britannica
An International Journal of Modern and Medieval Language
and Literature
Number
Oxford Classical Dictionary, eds. N. G. L. Hammond and H. H.
Scullard (Oxford,
Oxford Dictionary of National Biography
Oxford English Dictionary
Old Style
Proceedings of the Huguenot Society
Publications of the Modern Language Association
Paulys Realenzyklopädie der klassischen Altertumswissenschaft
Quarterly Journal of Speech
Reallexikon für Antike und Christentum
Critical Studies in Greek and Roman Literature
A Quarterly Review
Abbreviations
RD
RES
RhbCM
rpt.
RQ
RS
SAQ
SAR
SB
SC
SP
SPECULUM
SS
STC
(Wing-)STC
TRI
Wilpert
WS
ZBLG
Journal of Renaissance Drama
Review of English Studies
Rukovet humanistického básnictví v Cechách a na Morave, in
five volumes
(Prague, 1966–1982).
reprinted
Renaissance Quarterly
Renaissance Studies
South Atlantic Quarterly
South Atlantic Review
Studies in Bibliography
Seventeenth Century
Studies in Philology
Journal of Medieval Studies
Journal of Shakespeare Studies
A Short-Title Catalogue of Books Printed in England, Scotland
and Ireland, and of English Books Printed Abroad, 1475–1640.
First compiled by A. W. Pollard and G. R. Redgrave. Second
edition, revised and enlarged by W. A. Jackson and F. S. Ferguson. Completed by Katharine F. Pantzer (London, 1976–91), in
three volumes.
Short-Title Catalogue of Books Printed in England, Scotland,
Ireland, Wales, and the British America and of English Books
Printed in other countries, 1641–1700, compiled by Donald
Wing of the Yale University Library, in three volumes (New
York, 1948; 1951).
Theatre Research International
Gero von Wilpert, Sachwörterbuch der Literatur, 8. verbesserte
und erweiterte Auflage (Stuttgart, 2001).
Wiener Studien (Vienna)
Zeitschrift für Bayerische Landesgeschichte
13
A note on the text
1. Modernisation and standardisation have been kept to a minimum. The spelling
and punctuation of occasional poems have not been brought into line with
modern practice: Where I quote from primary sources, I adhere to original
spellings, including unmodified i/j and u/v spellings.
Quotations from secondary sources reproduce the spellings given therein. In
line with this conservative editorial policy, I do not provide translations.
2. The dates in this thesis are all, unless specified otherwise, Old Style (OS).
Scotland, England and Denmark-Norway did not use the Gregorian Calendar at
that time.
3. I have used recognised English versions of foreign place-names (Munich, Vienna, Brussels, Cologne, Rome etc.)
4. Illustrations and quotations from Die Beschreibung der Reiß (Heidelberg, 1613)
have been taken from the paginated copy made available on the internet by the
Herzog-August-Bibliothek-Wolfenbüttel: http://digibib.hab.de/drucke/197-15hist/start.htm
15
List of Illustration
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
10.
11.
Die Kirch Christi.
Source: Petra Roettig, Reformation als Apokalypse (Bern, 1991), pp.
158–159, fig. 74.
St George and the dragon.
Source: Lucas Heinrich Wüthrich (ed.), Das Druckgraphische Werk von
Matthaeus Merian dem Älteren, vol. iv (Hamburg, 1996), fig. 133.
Nuptial Procession to Whitehall.
Source: Peter Bilhöfer, Nicht gegen Ehre und Gewissen“ Friedrich V,
Kurfürst von der Pfalz – der „Winterkönig” von Böhmen (1596–1632)
(Mannheim Diss. 2000; Heidelberg, 2004), p. 45.
William of Orange as St Goerge.
Source: James Tanis and Daniel Horst (eds.), ‘Images of Discord’ A
Graphic Interpretation of the opening decades of the Eighty Years’ War
(Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania, 1993), p. 33.
Queen Elizabeth as St George.
Source: Margaret Aston, The King’s Bedpost. Reformation and Iconography in a Tudor Group Portrait (Cambridge, 1993; rpt. 1996), p. 147.
The destruction of the Egyptian Army and the Pharaoh.
Source: Lucas Heinrich Wüthrich (ed.), Das Druckgraphische Werk von
Matthaeus Merian dem Älteren ,vol. iii (Hamburg, 1996), Ill. no. 26.
The royal line of Kings, Queen, and Princes, from the uniting of the two
royal Houses of, York and Lancaster
Source: Anon. [STC 10020.5; Lemon broadside no. 133]. Reproduced by
permission of the Society of Antiquaries.
Cabala
Source: Joscelyn Godwin, Robert Fludd Hermetic Philosopher and Surveyor of Two Worlds (London, 1979); p. 30.
Sphaera Civitatis.
Source: John Case, Sphaera Civitatis. Oxford: Joseph Barnes, 1588 [STC
4761; BL 1485.g.2.], frontispiece verso. Reproduced by permission of the
British Library.
Globe.
Source: James Martin, Primula Veris London: William Stansby for
John Budge, 1613. [STC 736; BL 1213.l.11.(2.)], A3r.
Reproduced by permission of the British Library.
Frederick V and Elizabeth Stuart
Source: James Maxwell, An English-royal pedigree: common to the most
noble princes lately married, Frederick … and Elizabeth. London: Ed-
17
List of Illustration
12.
13.
14.
15.
16.
17.
18.
19.
20.
21.
22.
18
ward Alde for H. Gosson, 1613 [STC 17699.5; Lemon broadside no.
133]. Reproduced by permission of the Society of Antiquaries.
Statue of Frederick V
Source: Salomon de Caus, Hortus Palatinus, Ill. no. 20. Frankfurt: John
Theodore de Bry, 1620; rpt. Wüthrich (ed.), Das Druckgraphische Werk
von Matthaeus Merian dem Älteren, vol. ii (Basle, 1972), Ill. no. 104.
A Monument of Remebrence.
Source: James, Maxwell, A Monument of Remebrence erected in
Albion in honour of the hopeful Marriage. London: Nathanial Oakes,
1613 [STC 17703; BL MS 1070.l.10.(4.)], frontispiece. Reproduced by
permission of the British Library.
Columna poetica.
Source: William Cheeke, Anagrammata et Chron-Anagrammata
Regia. London: William Stansby, 1613 [STC 5107; BL HMNTS
1213.k.19. (2.)]. Reproduced by permission of the British Library
(Quotation from Alsted’s Encyclopaedia, vol. I, p. 555).
Triumph Arch.
Source: Beschreibung der Reiss (Heidelberg: Gotthard Vögelin, 1613).
Reproduced by permission of the Herzog August Bibliothek, Wolfenbüttel.
King Phlilipp II.
Source: Arthur Wilson, The History of Great Britain, Being the Life and
Reign of King James the first, relating to what passed from the first Access to the Crown, till his Death. London: Richard Lowndes, 1653
[Wing-STC 2888; BL 599.i.11.], p. 253. Reproduced by permission of
the British Library.
Gloria de Prencipi.
Source: Cesare Ripa, Nova Iconologia. Padua: Tozzi, 1618; ed. Stephen
Orgel (New York, 1979), p. 205.
Pyramid Poem.
Source: William Drummond, Poems: amorous, funeral … . Edinburgh:
Andrew Hart, 1616 [STC 7256; ed. L. E. Kastner, The Poetical Works of
William Drummond of Hawthornden, vol. I (Edinburgh, 1913), p. 84].
Life in the Golden Age.
Source: Wüthrich (ed.), Das Druckgraphische Werk von Matthaeus Merian dem Älteren, vol. iii (Hamburg, 1993), Ill. no. 67.
Adam in Paradies.
Source: Wüthrich (ed.), ibid. , vol. iii (Hamburg, 1996), Ill. no. 12.
Landing of the English.
Source: Wüthrich, ibid., vol. iii (Hamburg, 1993) Ill. no. 171.
Hortus Palatinus.
Source: Peter Wolf et al. (eds.), Der Winterkönig – Friedrich von der
Pfalz: Bayern und Europa im Zeitalter des Dreißigjährigen Krieges
(Augsburg, 2003), p. 85, catalogue, no. 3.23.
List of Illustration
23.
24.
25.
26.
27.
Britannia.
Source: Michael Drayton, Works, ed. J. William Hebel, vol. iv (Oxford,
1939), p. ii
The Arrival of Frederick V and Elizabeth Stuart in Flushing on 29
Source: Peter Wolf et al. (eds.), Der Winterkönig – Friedrich von der
Pfalz: Bayern und Europa im Zeitalter des Dreissigjährigen Krieges
(Augsburg, 2003), p. 261, catalogue, no. 2.31.
The New Jerusalem
Source: Wüthrich (ed.), ibid., vol. iii (Hamburg, 1993), Ill. 35. b.) no. 21.
Hortus Palatinus
Source: Comp. 22.
Scipio
Source: Ludwig Krapf and Christian Wagenknecht, Christian, Stuttgarter
Hoffeste: Texte und Materialien zur höfischen Repräsentation im frühen
17. Jh. (Tübingen, 1979).
19
General Introduction
1. “Destroy thou them, O God, …”1
In 1613 the triumphant cause of militant Protestants2 in Britain was the Apocalypse.3 There was a strong popular view that the “eschaton” was near. It was
hoped that Christ would return, that he would break the rule of the Antichrist and
establish a thousand-year reign of terrestrial felicity and fulfilment. A series of
meaningful events in the Low Countries, France and Germany seemed to indicate
the entry of the last stage of God’s sacred play. There was reason to believe that
Heaven had cast the British to play the part of a protagonist. In the view of militantly Protestant Apocalypticists, Britain was the new Israel. According to Bathsua
Makin, the formula could not be more unequivocal: “Pro nobis Deus est.”4
Accordingly, London would be the New Jerusalem and the newly constituted
Magna Britannia would equate with the blessed island of prelapsarian pleasure,
where the “True Church” eagerly awaited the advent of Christ.5 In contrast, from a
more patriotic perspective, (nurtured by excessive reading of prophetic literature),
1 Psalm 5:11 [Quoted from William Leigh, Great Brittaines Great Deliverance (London,
1609), front.]
2 In analogy with Ian Green’s recent study, “Protestant is used here to cover all shades of
opinion, from radical to conservative, which rejected papal supremacy and other crucial
tenets of the Church of Rome.” [Ian Green, Print and Protestantism in Early Modern
England (Oxford, 2000), p. x].
3 For a survey in this context: Bryan W. Ball, A Great Expectation: Eschatological
Thought in English Protestantism to 1660 (Oxford, 1966); Paul Christianson, Reformers
and Babylon: English Apocalyptic Visions from the Reformation to the Eve of the Civil
War (Toronto, 1978); Howard Hotson, Paradise Postponed. Johann Heinrich Alsted and
the Birth of Calvinist Millenarianism (Dordrecht, 2000); Susanne Rupp, “From grace to
glory” Himmelsdeutungen in der englischen Theologie und Literatur des 17. Jahrhunderts (Heidelberg, 2001).
4 Bathsua Makin (née Rainolds), “Ad Fridericum V.G.D. comitem Palatinum longe
maximum et illustrissimum”, eds. Jane Stevenson and Peter Davidson, Early Modern
Women Poets (Oxford, 2001), p. 220; l. 29. Bathsua Makin was the product of a highly
educated family. At the age of 16 she co-published a book of poetry, Musa Virginea, in
five languages (Latin, Greek, French, Hebrew and Italian) together with her father. The
book was written under the direction of her father, who was a schoolmaster in Stepney
[Frances Teague, Bathsua Makin, Woman of Learning (Lewisburg, 1998), Chap. 1, p.
7–8].
5 Susan Bridgen, New Worlds, Lost Worlds: The Rule of the Tudors, 1485–1603 (London, 2000), p. 241.
21
General Introduction
Catholic Spain and its ally, the pope, who was slandered as the second beast of
Revelation 13,6 were the living embodiments of evil in a world that kept threatening the “children of God” (Fig. 1). Together they would be denounced as the Antichrist(s) of the Book of Revelation to John.7
Even though the chimera of millenarian mirth can be reduced to the more sensible and practical issue of earthly dreams of a new religious and civil order in
society,8 there were still radical ideas and high hopes in circulation that propounded an acerbic vision of a forthcoming Armageddon. 9 The adherents to such
crude thinking hoped that Frederick V (1596–1632), the young leader of the Protestant Union in Germany, would be the agent of this apocalyptic eschatology.10
They also hoped that he would sooner or later eradicate the personified evil in the
world. With militant imagination at work, occasional poets employed cultural
images and rhetoric to provide the Count Palatine with an identity that would meet
the self-generated, almost delirious, vision of an apocalyptic leader under God’s
protection.11 Historically, the visionary stimulus was nurtured by two events. The
6 Joseph Mede, “De Bestia Altera Bicorni sive Pseudopropheta”, The Works of the Pious
and Profoundly Learned Joseph Mede, B. D. (London, 1677), Book III, pp. 505–10.
7 There is an infinite number of sermons and pamphlets which make the pope and the
Antichrist their hourly theme: Thomas Mason, A Revelation of the REVELATION
wherein is contained a most true, plain, and brief manifestation of the meaning and
scope of the Revelations, and of every Mystery of the same: Whereby by the Pope is
most plainly declared and proved to bee Antichrist (London, 1619); Andrew Penny,
“John Foxe, The Acts and Monuments and the Development of Prophetic Interpretation”, ed. David Loades, John Foxe and the English Reformation (Aldershot, 1997), p.
255: “Protestants in the Elizabethan era were flexible in naming everybody Antichrist. It
did not concern that sometimes a whole group would be scornfully referred to being Antichrists.”
8 Marjorie Reeves, “English Apocalyptic Thinkers (c. 1540–1620)”, Storia e figure
dell’Apocalisse fra ’500 e ’600. Atti del 4 Congresso internazionale di studi gioachimiti,
ed. R. Rusconi (Viella, 1996), p. 270.
9 “It will be Christ’s privileged act to bind Satan and to throw him into a bottomless pit
where he will remain for a thousand years. This thousand-year period constitutes the
glorious millennium from which the term millennial belief is derived as a synonym for
Christian apocalyptic belief.” [Robert C. Fuller, ‘Naming the Antichrist’ The History of
an American Obsession (New York, 1995), p. 7].
10 “The name Frederick […] was still a portent word with which to conjure, for the legend
of a resurrected Frederick or Third Frederick had been kept alive during preceding centuries by folk tradition and fanatical claimants. Always he appears with the enhanced
stature of one who in the programme of Last Things is either a chastiser or renovator of
Christendom” [Marjorie Reeves, “Joachimist Influence on the idea of Last World Emperor”, ed. C. West Delno, Joachim of Fiore in Christian Thought. Essays on the Impulse of the Calabrian Prophet, vol. II (New York, 1975), pp. 525–529].
11 Ian Atherton, Ambition and Failure in Stuart England the Career of John, first Viscount
Sundamore (Manchester, 1999), p. 50: “An image helps much to mould and determine
22
General Introduction
appearance of celestial signs sparked a sheer frenzy about things to come.12 Simultaneously, this visionary flame was fanned by the havoc caused by the untimely
demise of the Prince of Wales, shortly after the Palatine entourage arrived in London in late October 1612. The Prince of Wales, Henry Frederick Stuart (1594–
1612), had been regarded as a promising candidate to lead a militant panProtestant movement. His death created a temporary vacuum until the emotional
and national pathos of the circumstances was fully absorbed in the marriage of
Elizabeth and Frederick.
There suddenly appeared to exist a continuation of the sacred play.13 There was
a cosmic relation between the arrival of the future Elector Palatine and the decease
of the promising heir apparent. A chronogram marks the significance of the hour
in verse:
NobILIs est Consors LeCtI FreDerICVs ELIzae
HIC LVCtVs nobIs erIpVItqVe graVes
FeCerVnt trIstes heV nVper fVnera* fratrIs
Laeta at nos Laetos ELIsabetha faCIs.14
the very action or person it seeks to represent. Self-fashioning was almost moulding the
person as well as the perception of that person in the world.”
12 In a sermon, William Leigh gives trenchant evidence by the testimony of strange occurrences in nature: “Nor can I pass without passion, what fell out in the summer before
Prince Henry died, at Chatham. Where and when a swarm of Bees knit upon the main
mast of the Royal ship, he had made for England’s defence, telling us, that ere long Angels soothe from heaven, more sweet then Honey, or the honey Comb should fill the
soul of this Saint to glory and Immortality: yea and swarms of Gods holy Angels should
come down to fetch him from the main mast of this earthly kingdom above the heaven
of heavens, there to reign with God and Christ for ever.” [The Drum of Devotion (London, 1613), pp. 48–49] With regard to the Palatine Prince see: Susanna Akerman, “The
Rosicrucians and the Great Conjunctions”, eds. John Christian Laursen; Richard H.
Popkin, Continental Millenarians: Protestants, Catholics, Heretics (Dordrecht, 2001),
pp. 1–9.
13 An intelligent and readable approach to understanding nation/natio in the early modern
era has been provided by Krista Zach, Konfessionelle Pluralität, Stände und Nation
(Münster, 2004); especially pp. 5–16 and pp. 17–48. “Nation” is used to describe two
phenomena in this context: 1. the imagined community of a proto-British Protestant empire; 2. the imagined community of all those (militant) Protestants who dreamed of
breaking the hegemony of Roman Catholicism and Spanish/Austrian Habsburg.
14 James Martin [pseud. Jacobus Aretius], Primula Veris Seu Panegyrica Primula Veris
Seu Panegyrica ad excellentißimum Principem Palatinum … in Nuptias Illustriß. Principp. Frederici et Elisabethae Meletemata. London: William Stansby for John Budge,
1613 [STC 736], D4r. The asterisk refers to a gloss, printed along the chronogram,
which says in Latin: “Vivat io vivat Princeps caelestis & olim mortuus, e tumulo fulmen
iaculetur in hostes.” It is a standard explanation in the consolation poetry of 1612/13 to
stress that God had decided to allow Prince Henry to rule among the saints while Frederick and Elizabeth were obliged by heaven to pursue their earthly duties.
23
General Introduction
The addition of the capital letters produces the number of the year in which the
marriage was celebrated in London:15
I L I C L C I D I C V L I / I C L V C V I I V I V V / C V I V V V I / L L L I C I = 1613
The secrets which lay hidden in numbers and letters were believed to outline
the universal dimension of this marriage. Recent scholarship has shown that
Prince Henry was one of the driving forces of the diplomacy behind marriage
arrangements with the Palatinate. Originally, Henry was involved in the planning
of the pageants and festivals on the occasion of the union.16 Frederick and Henry
were nearly the same age, and the latter seemed to be quite taken with the former
when they first met on the day of the Count’s arrival in London. They shared an
equal passion for plays and tilts;17 they agreed on domestic affairs as well as on
Protestant supremacy and a military equilibrium on the Continent.
But in November 1612 Protestant Europe bewailed the loss of Henry, who had
embodied the living guarantee of future success.18 All of a sudden, the numerous
similarities in personality urged many to come to the strange conclusion that the
Count Palatine, husband-to-be of Henry’s doting sister Elizabeth, could instantly
fulfil those heart-aching Germano-Britannic hopes and expectations.
The Germano-Britannic empire was reckoned to be still at hand. Popular rumours maintained that the Palatine Prince was a heaven-sent hero who would fill
the gap left by Henry’s passing: “Alter surge HENRICUS”.19 Francis Rainsford
drew a comforting conclusion.
15 The seventeenth century in England shows an “impulse towards encrypting” as “appropriate responses to contemporary exigencies.” [Ann Geneva, Astrology and the Seventeenth Century Mind William Lilly and the Language of the stars (Manchester, 1995),
pp. 17–54; Brian Vickers (ed.), Occult and Scientific Mentalities in the Renaissance
(Cambridge, 1984)].
16 Michael Brennan, Literary Patronage in the English Renaissance: The Pembroke Family
(London, 1988), p. 127.
17 G. E. Bentley, The Jacobean and Caroline Stage, vol. 1 (Oxford, 1941), p. 136: Frederick’s love for the stage resulted in his taking Prince Henry’s Men under his patronage,
which was then called the Palsgrave’s Company.
18 In a letter to William Trumbull on 26 November, 1612 David Buwinchhausen of Stuttgart remarked “that news of the death of the prince stunned us all. It is a very great loss
to us Germans also. God preserve us from many such accidents and save for us the king,
queen, and the rest of your royal house, which we consider as a bridle to the Spaniard.”
[Hist. MSS. Comm. Marq. Of Downshire, iii, p. 417] H. Bilderbeck from Cologne explained on 2 December that “the well-affected here are lamenting the death of the prince
of Wales; the others rejoice at such news.” [Hist. MSS. Comm. Marq. Of Downshire, iii,
p. 415].
19 David Hume (of Godscroft), Illustrissimi Principis Henrici Iusta. Ubi et sponsorum
Epithalamium. London: William Hall for R. Boyle and William Jones, 1613 [STC
13952], p. 5.
24
General Introduction
Anglia cur doleas Frederico Principe rapto?
Ecce novus Princeps hic FREDERICUS adest.
Hos simul vna duos Iuvenes Europa ferebat,
Hos simul vna duos non tulit illa viros.20
It is therefore hardly surprising that the wedding was proclaimed the most important event of the decade. The Stuart-Palatine marriage evoked spectacular responses not only in Britain, but all over Europe, ranging from flat poetic effusions
to verbal shell-bursts of Protestant propaganda.21 The wedding poems correspondingly reveal a distinctive melding of representational forms and figures of panegyric rhetoric. Apart from being modelled on the prevailing fashions of Protestant
dynastic marriages, the poems, epithalamia and nuptial songs convey a figuratively colourful image of bride and groom by oscillating between fantasy and fact.
In this process, they draw upon classical and contemporary myths alike. Because
of the apocalyptic train of thought and the apocalyptic language, both of which are
visually evocative enough to bear comparison with present-day cinema,22 the occasional verse, under scrutiny, exhibits a peculiar form of verbal and visual spirituality. This pseudo-religious feature is dramatically characteristic of the sequence
of fatal events leading to the Thirty Years’ War.
In early modern Europe “text and image were interdependently conjoined in a
number of prominent social and cultural contexts”, as Kevin Sharpe and Steven N.
Zwicker have remarked,23 it is not surprising either that the poetry collected here,
for obvious reasons, has a strong (pseudo-)visual power which comes close to that
of symbolism and allegory. It is no accident that the prince appears as the living
embodiment of virtue and truth. At the same time, he is introduced as an almost
spiritual figure, certain to achieve his sacred goal. Accordingly, this process develops into a form of imagination, which made it difficult not to mistake what was
represented for reality. And this was indeed the case. This is the crucial moment
when mythical propaganda either fails or succeeds. As far as the Palatine Marriage
is concerned, one might venture to hypothesise that ideological, mythical poetry,
or myth-making, proved convincingly effective in giving the prince the semblance
of a prophetic gentleman-warrior. In late October 1612, Frederick V had arrived as
20 Lusus. no. 144 (K2v).
21 Alexander Heintzel, Propaganda im Zeitalter der Reformation (St. Augustin, 1998),
Introduction.
22 Adela Yarbo Collins, Crisis & Catharsis. The Power of the Apocalypse (Philadelphia,
1984), p. 144: The psychological dynamics of apocalyptic language must not be overlooked. The Apocalypse itself essentially uses the language of commitment: “The primary purpose of the book is not to impart information. It is rather to call for commitment to the actions, and feelings uttered. […] It is expressive and evocative language. It
makes no attempt to report events or to describe people in a way that everyone could accept. […] It creates a virtual experience for the hearer or reader.”
23 Kevin Sharpe and Steven N. Zwicker (eds.), Politics of Discourse: The Literature and
History of Seventeenth-Century England (Berkeley, 1987) , p. 9
25
General Introduction
an unpopular count, a “Palsgrave”, as the critics of the marriage would scornfully
call him. Almost six months later, he left Britain as a messianic “would-be king”
on a continental mission.
Go […] and let the Rhine augment,
What Thames hath now so gloriously begun,24
2. Method and research
Occasional poetry and prose created a substantial image of the Stuart-Palatine
couple that would instantly change in response to Britain’s political uncertainties
and religious anxieties about the near future in the aftermath of death and marriage. Within a rich web of allusion, it is therefore the principal aim of this study
to unravel the coherent threads25 “spun” between the specific events, a courtly
wedding and a funeral, in early modern British history and some of the more
threatening cultural processes dominating the early part of the seventeenth century.26
As a product of court communication, the material in print assumed the role of
spreading courtly and public propaganda.27 The mass of festive literature articulates contemporary views and aspirations relating to the event itself as well as to
the people participating in it. Using interdisciplinary methods, this study aims to
investigate the political scope and significance of this unique festive occasion in
the Jacobean court calendar, which heralded the emergence of a Protestant Empire
24 Robert Allyne, Tears of Joy shed at the happy departure from Great Britain/ Of … Frederick and Elizabeth. London: Nicholas Oakes for Thomas Archer, 1613 [STC 385], sig.
Bv.
25 Roland Barthes, “The Death of the Author”, in R. B. Image – Music – Text. Essays
(New York, 1977), pp. 142–148; esp. p. 146.
26 Anton Kaes, “New Historicism: Literaturgeschichte im Zeichen der Postmoderne?”, eds.
Eggert et al., Geschichte als Literatur (Stuttgart, 1990), p. 58; J. G. A. Pocock, “Texts as
Events: Reflections on the History of Political Thought”, eds. Kevin Sharpe and Stephen
N. Zwicker, Politics of Discourse (Berkeley, 1987), p. 21–34; Kenneth Burke, Counter
Statement, 2. ed. (Berkeley, 1953), pp. 123–183; esp. p. 164: “all subject matter is categorically charged, in that each word relies for its meaning upon a social context, and this
possesses values independently of the work in which it appears.”
27 Throughout the study, “(political) propaganda” relates to the deliberate use of “techniques of influence in order to achieve goals which are clearly distinguished and quite
precise”; on the other hand, it implies a sociological notion of propaganda as “persuasion from within, which results when an individual has accepted or assimilated the
dominant economic and political ideologies of his society and uses them as a basis for
making what he/she regards as spontaneous choices and value judgements.” [Jaques Ellul, Propaganda: The Formation of Men’s Attitudes, trl. Konrad Kellen and Jean Lerner
(New York, 1973), pp. 61–87; A. P. Foulkes, Literature and Propaganda (London,
1983), pp. 10–11].
26
General Introduction
in Europe.28 Festive literature lent this future empire the contours of an earthly
Paradise, governed by heroic and spiritual leaders. More precisely, literature alone
has preserved for posterity both this image and the tremendous importance of this
moment in time. The result was a translation of the historic event into the ambiguous realm of occasional panegyric and spiritual illusion. The poetic modification
and representation of “reality” resulted in the production of lifelike illusions which
met the aesthetic standards of the time.29 Affective realism was regarded as one of
the mainstays of a successful work of art. The primary aim was hypotyposis, or in
the words of Henry Peacham the Elder, “a description so vivid that it seems rather
painted in tables than expressed in words.”30
Sadly, modern literary scholars have only sporadically devoted their expertise
to such complex matters, namely Frances A. Yates,31 Sir Roy Strong,32 Jerry
Wayne Williamson, Graham Parry,33 Helen Watanabe-O’Kelly, David Norbrook,
34 George Gömöri,35 Jochen Goetz36, Götz B. Schmitz and Magnus Rüde37. Altogether their research has brought peculiar aspects of the marriage into the academic focus. Frances Yates has specified some of the political aspects of the un28 Kevin Curran, “James I and fictional authority at the Palatine wedding celebrations”, RS
20,1 (2006), p. 51: “[F]or many the Protestant dimension of the Palatine wedding presented an opportunity to refashion British national identity as religiously interventionist;
to move away from a form of national rhetoric narcissistically focussed on the internal
cohesion of Great Britain.”
29 Martin Butler and David Lindley, “Restoring Astraea: Jonson’s Masque for the Fall of
Somerset”, ELH 61 (1994), p. 807. Butler and Lindley’s introductory remarks on Benjamin Jonson’s masque The Golden Age Restored (1616) point in the same direction:
“The translation of present occasions into more removed mysteries may sometimes have
been straightforward, but most often it involved complicated trade-offs between what
could and could not be said, between what was explicit and what had to be implied,
suppressed, or cast according to the exigencies of the moment.”
30 Henry Peacham, The Garden of Eloquence … set forth in English, by Henry Peacham
Minis London: Printed for Hugh Jackson, 1577 [STC 19498; rpt. Ann Arbor, 1966, p.
134].
31 Frances A. Yates, The Rosicrucian Enlightenment (London, 1972), pp. 27–42.
32 Roy Strong, Henry Prince of Wales and England’s Lost Renaissance (London, 1986).
33 Graham Parry, “The Wedding of Princess Elizabeth”, The Golden Age restor’d: The
Culture of the Stuart Court, 1603–1642 (Manchester, 1981), pp. 95–107.
34 David Norbrook, “‘The Masque of Truth’: Court Entertainments and International Protestant Politics in the Early Stuart Period ”, S C 1 (Manchester, 1986), pp. 81–110.
35 George Gömöri, “‘A Memorable Wedding.’ The literary reception of the wedding of the
Princess Elizabeth and Frederick of Pfalz”, JES 34 (London, 2004), pp. 215–224.
36 Jochen Goetz, “Traumpaar der Reformierten: Friedrich V and Elisabeth Stuart”, ed.
Sigrun Paas, Liselotte von der Pfalz. Madame am Hofe des Sonnenkönigs (Heidelberg,
1996), pp. 1–5.
37 Magnus Rüde, England und Kurpfalz im werdenden Mächteeuropa (1608–1632). Konfession – Dynastie – kulturelle Ausdrucksformen (Tübingen, 2007), pp. 273–280.
27
General Introduction
ion, especially the controversial issue of a religious and military alliance of European Protestants. Roy Strong has added further insights into the court of Prince
Henry and the Prince’s future visions of domestic and foreign policies in terms of
his sister’s marriage. Strong has rightfully insisted that it is tenable to argue that
the Prince of Wales was clearly convinced about going to war with Catholic
Europe. The prince would have welcomed a new order in Europe. With regard to
Henry Stuart, more debatable points in this study will materialise in response to
the impressive research work of Jerry Wayne Williamson, who has succinctly
analysed the contemporary process of mythologising the Prince of Wales. Williamson’s academic interest is directed at the personation of the prince as a future
hero:
The quality of Protestant symbology, as it is applied to Prince Henry, was
usually relentless. It was clear from the beginning that the baby Henry would
be a special sort of prince, the focus of an increasingly emotional personation,
the player of a national role which Scotsmen, and later Englishmen, fashioned
for him. His special task in life would be to fulfil the great labour which the
people and the times seemed to demand of him. That mighty feat was no less
than the destruction of Catholicism.38
Williamson relates the “Conqueror Myth” to some of the propagandist legacies
of the Elizabethan era. Various aspects of the political framework of Palatine
Marriage have been discussed in previous studies: Graham Parry’s short chapter
on “The Wedding of Princess Elizabeth” has presented a pioneering interpretation
of the political content of the marriage festivals. David Norbrook has referred to a
court masque which had not been staged because it was feared that it would spark
a controversy. Broad evidence for imperialistic aspirations has also been produced
by Goetz Schmitz.39 In terms of representational forms, Helen WatanabeO’Kelly’s exploration of the festivals of the Protestant union not only provides
valuable insights into the planning and proceedings but also into the understanding
of early modern court culture.
38 Williamson, Jerry Wayne, The Myth of the Conqueror: Prince Henry Stuart (New York,
1978), p. 2.
39 Götz B. Schmitz, “Et penitus toto divisos orbe Britannos: Ein geographischer Topos in
der höfischen Literatur der frühen Stuartzeit”, Archiv 144 (1993), pp. 277–89; idem,
“Die Hochzeit von Themse und Rhein. Gelegenheitsschriften zur Brautfahrt Friedrich
V. von der Pfalz”, Daphnis 22 (1993), pp. 265–309; idem, “Of Apples, Orbs and Globes: Heraldic Devices in the Poems written on the Palatine Marriage”, ed. Norbert Lennartz, The Senses’ Festivals – Inszenierung der Sinne und der Sinnlichkeit in der Literatur und Kunst des Barock [Festschrift zum 65. Geburtstag von Rolf P. Lessenich] (Trier,
2005), pp. 233–252.
28
General Introduction
3. Scope
Despite the many compatible approaches to this subject, this study will not
work towards a via media, but explores a number of possible paths, viae incognitae, to reassessing the image that is presented by the literature of the time while
discussing the difficulties and problems involved. In this an effort will be made to
give plausible answers to the questions raised by Williamson, Strong and Schmitz,
who have provided invaluable points of departure. However, it is wrong to assume
that this study attempts at oversimplifying the subject. It is not the aim of this
thesis to present the early Stuart court as a united front of imperialists. It is clear
that James I did not share the expansionist and imperialist views of his son: “Like
the Union of England and Scotland, James viewed the Anglo-German match as
one step in a larger process of achieving domestic and European concord. The
king’s long term plan was to balance off Elizabeth’s Protestant marriage with a
Catholic match for Prince Henry (and after Henry’s death for Prince Charles).”40
Because of James’s disparate view on Britain’s role in Europe the verification of
my hypothesis seems to be an unattainable goal. Yet, as Kevin Curran has recently
stressed, “for many, the Protestant dimension of the Palatine wedding presented an
opportunity to refashion British national identity as religiously interventionist; to
move away from a form of national rhetoric narcissistically focused on the internal
cohesion of Great Britain.”41 Curran’s view is tenable since numerous poems on
the Palatine Marriage resonate with this idea. For many, internal cohesion was not
the aim, it was just a prerequisite for the fulfilment of a different imperial dream.
As a consequence, the scope has to be widened. For this reason, I will refer to
the Palatine Marriage not as a period of intense festivities but as a process42 – this
cultural and historic process then lasts from the early forging of wedding plans in
1608 until the birth of the Germano-Britannic heir apparent in Heidelberg in 1614.
Historically, apart from the widely criticised peace truces of 1604 and 1609,43
Protestant Britain experienced the Julich-Cleve-Berg conflict over succession,
40 Kevin Curran, “James I and fictional authority at the Palatine wedding celebrations”, RS
20, 1 (2006), p. 51; Steve Murdoch, Britain, Denmark-Norway and the House of Stuart,
1603–1660 (East Linton, 2003), ‘Denmark-Norway, Great Britain and the Protestant
Cause 1609–1625’, pp. 45f.
41 Ibid.
42 This is not a dissertation on the Palatine Marriage itself but rather on its visualisation
and its symbolic depth. As for history, Peter Bilhöfer has presented an excellent casestudy on the historic (politico-diplomatic) circumstances before and after the actual
wedding: Peter Bilhöfer, “Nicht gegen Ehre und Gewissen“: Friedrich V., Kurfürst von
der Pfalz – der „Winterkönig” von Böhmen (1596–1632) (Mannheim, Diss. 2000; Heidelberg). Pursell’s study is equally readable: The Winter King: Frederick V. of the Palatinate and the coming of the Thirty Years’ War (London, 2003).
43 James I made peace with Spain in 1604 and forged the plans of a peace deal between
Spain and the Low Countries in 1609 (see chronology, macroscopic).
29
General Introduction
during which the Continent had drifted into total war.44 The atmosphere was electric in the aftermath of the assassination of the French King Henry IV in 1610. The
crude murder had been committed by a Catholic zealot, and Catholics came under
suspicion of being involved in the passing of another promising lodestar, Prince
Henry of Britain, who died in 1612. From a cultural perspective, one of the most
noticeable characteristics of the early Stuart era is the (neo)chivalric revival and
the ubiquitously traceable Elizabethan nostalgia in literature and literary practice:
in 1609 the first folio of The Faerie Queene appeared in print (Edmund Spenser’s
complete works appeared in 1611), John Speed’s History was published in 1611,
Michael Drayton’s Poly Olbion, William Warner’s Albions England and the sixth
and revised edition of John Foxe’s Book of Martyrs were put on the market the
following year. More crucial titles could be added to this list which provides the
cultural and literary backdrop of early Stuart wedding propaganda.
Given the complexity and rich nuances of such an event, the argument needs a
structure. Since logic must prevail, this study falls into two parts. Part One, which
can be considered as a series of related case studies, will open up two heterogeneous cultural perspectives on topics which clearly indicate the controversies of the
time:
Chapter 1 begins with an exploration of myth-making and historiography in the
late Elizabethan and early Jacobean era: propagandist literature on the StuartPalatine union is concerned with the construction of a genealogical, pseudohistorical, almost mythical relation between the marrying parties, the House of
Stewart and the older line of the House of Wittelsbach. The instalment of Frederick V as Knight of the Order of the Garter is a highly significant occasion in this
endeavour. As a national symbol, the garter correlates with various traits which
dominate the Stuart cosmos: Elizabethan nostalgia, Tudor myth, the crusades, the
revival of chivalry, etc. Accordingly, the chapter sums up the creation of usable
history and the politics of heroic nostalgia – a history that in its mythical capacity,
is used deliberately for propagandist ends as the legacies resulting for the Count
Palatine underscore. Special attention is devoted to the predominance of the ideologically charged commonplaces of the Elizabethan era which materialised strongly in response to death and marriage.
In a subsequent attempt to outline the cultural setting, chapter 2 tries to sketch
the complex series of connections between the dominant theological, philosophical and early scientific discussions that allowed the occasional poets to create and
cloak their poetry and the event in this quasi-mythical, quasi-prophetic atmosphere. Again, it is hardly surprising that a great number of poets carefully adopt
the position of Jacobean poet-prophets in accordance with the “rules”, set by con44 Axel Gotthard, “Protestantische Union und Katholische Liga”, eds. Volker Press et al.,
Alternativen zur Reichsverfassung in der Frühen Neuzeit? (München, 1995), pp. 81–
112; Heinz Ollmann-Kösling, Der Erbfolgestreit in Jülich-Kleve (1609–1614): Ein Vorspiel zum Dreißigjährigen Krieg (Regensburg, 1996).
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