Alice Hunt

The drama of coronation: medieval ceremony in early modern England

The coronation was, and perhaps still is, one of the most important ceremonies of a monarch’s reign. This book examines the five coronations that took place in England between 1509 and 1559: those of Henry VIII, Anne Bolyen, Edward VI, Mary I and Elizabeth I. It considers how the sacred rite and its related ceremonies and pageants responded to monarchical and religious change and charts how they were interpreted by contemporary observers. Hunt challenges the popular position that has conflated royal ceremony with political propaganda and argues for a deeper understanding of the symbolic complexity of ceremony. At the heart of the study is an investigation into the vexed issues of legitimacy and representation which leads Hunt to identify the emergence of an important and fruitful exchange between ceremony and drama. This exchange will have significant implications for our understanding both of the period’s theatre and of the cultural effects of the Protestant Reformation. The book will be of great interest to scholars and students of late medieval and early modern history and literature.

Les mémoires républicaines des guerres civiles anglaises dans les années 1650

En 1649, apres sept annees de guerre civile, l’execution de Charles i er conduisit a l’etablissement d’une republique puis a l’initiative de Cromwell, d’un Protectorat. En 1660, l’experience republicaine echoua et Charles ii fut retabli sur le trone. A partir de la Restauration, la plupart des memorialistes soulignerent le caractere detestable de la decennie precedente – « un chaos sauvage et informe » – mais d’autres avancerent des interpretations plus favorables. Si les discours autour de la commemoration des « troubles » pendant la Restauration ont fait l’objet d’une historiographie recente, nous savons en realite peu de choses sur ce que les hommes et les femmes de la decennie 1650 ont ecrit sur leurs souvenirs des affrontements sanglants. Au-dela des histoires officielles des guerres commanditees par le gouvernement republicain, il convient de preter attention a d’autres recits, notamment les nombreux poemes et propheties de la periode. Les officiels de la nouvelle Republique comme les citoyens ordinaires etaient confrontes a la difficulte de vivre avec le souvenir entetant de la guerre, son cortege d’horreurs et de disparus.

Introduction: “Partners both in throne and grave”

Mary and Elizabeth, England’s first crowned queens, share the same tomb in Westminster Abbey. In 1606, James I dug up Elizabeth’s body from its place in the tomb of Henry VII and his queen, Elizabeth of York, moved it to the left-hand side of Henry VII’s chapel where Mary was buried, and commissioned a monument heralding the reign of his predecessor. But the plaque on the tomb (see Figure 1.1) also acknowledges the presence of Elizabeth’s half-sister, Mary. It reads: Partners both in throne and grave, here rest we two sisters Elizabeth and Mary, in the hope of one resurrection.