Hall's Rhetoric of Performance

Abstract

Hall's Rhetoric c j Performance dward Hall's account of the first year of Henry VIII's reign is a sequence of spectacles. Following half a folio page on the political situation following the death of Henry VII, Hall moves directly to a fillpage description of Henry VII's funeral, four pages on the coronation of Henry VIII, and two on the coronation jousts. A single short paragraph follows, encompassing the ravages of plague in Calais that year, the summoning of Henry VIII's first parliament, and the attaint of Thomas Empson and Edmund Dudley for treason. Then Hall turns to the Christmas revels at Richmond, an impromptu Robin Hood disguising in the Queen's Chamber at Westminster soon after, and a full page describing the entertainments for the ambassadors on Shrove Sunday. A one-sentence paragraph notes the restitution of money wrongly taken by Empson and Dudley before a final half-page concludes with an account of the entertainment of the Spanish ambassadors and this summation: "In this yere from divers Realmes and Countreys came many Ambassadours, of Fraunce, Denemarke, Scotlande, and other Realmes, which were highly enterteyn[ed]" (p. 34; Ellis, p. 515). ' The first year of a reign is especially likely to be dominated by spectacles and revels. One king's funeral and his successor's coronation are events belonging to such a year, yet Hall's account of the next year opens with a relatively small-scale May-Day revel incorporating an anecdote of no apparent political significance other than to show the King displaying himself to, and mixing graciously with, his court and people: I wish to thank the Arts and Humanities Research Board for research support and Greg Walker for comments on an earlier draft. I . Text is quoted from my edition of selected extracts from Hall's Chronicle, Perfomanre and Spectacle in Hull's Chroniclc (London, ZOOZ), to which the first cited page number refers. For ease of reference, the second citation is to Henny Ellis, Hull's Chronicks (1809). 5 0 2004 English Litrrary Ilenaissance Inc. Published by Blackwell Publishing Ltd. 9600 Gani~igton Road, Oxford OX4 zDQ. UK and 350 Main Street. Malden. MA oz14X. USA.English Literary Renaissance to fetche May or grene bows, hym self fieche and rychely appareyled, and clothed all his Knyghtes, Squiers and Gentelmen in whyte Satyn, and all hys Garde and Yomen ofthe Croune in white sarcenet: and so went every man with his bowe and arrowes shotyng to the wood, and so repaired againe too the Courte, every man with a grene bough in his cappe, and at hys returnyng, many hearynge of his goynge a Maiyng, were desyrous to see hym shote, for at that tyme hys grace shotte as strong and as greate a length as any of his garde. There came to his grace a certain man with bowe and arrowes and desyred his grace to take the muster of hym, and to se hym shote: and at that tyme hys grace was contented, the man put his one fote in his bosome, and so did shote, and shot a very good shote, and well towardes his marke, wherof not onely his grace but all other greatly nier...

Queens Consort, Gender and Diplomacy: Catherine of Aragon, Claude of France and the Field of Cloth of Gold

“…On this, Janet Dillon remarks: Hall 'must therefore have been totally reliant on the sources to which he had access, so that the bias of his sources must form part of the equation in our assessment of Hall's own bias'. 60 Thus, Hall's account of the Field was shaped by his views on Henry's kingship and the anonymous eyewitness account.…”