Henry VIII's Greeting of Anne of Cleves and Early Modern Court Protocol

Abstract

The elaborate pageantry and festivities of grand public processions have proven to be of great interest to historians writing on late medieval and early modern Europe. The more limited ceremonies and protocol at court have attracted somewhat less attention, although on occasion they have been adopted as evidence of a monarch's personal feelings about his attendants and family members. A study of royal protocol and the social and political framework in which rulers fulfilled their roles as sovereigns is timely, for it will surely lead to a new and fuller understanding of how monarchs's public roles, such as those of the Tudors, related to their private motivations.Greeting ceremonies, which were one aspect of the “law of hospitality,” require special attention, because they offer insights into the interactions of people of varying status who were of fundamental importance to the hierarchical communities of Europe. As Esther Goody points out, “Greeting becomes a mode of entering upon or manipulating a relationship in order to achieve a specific result.” How monarchs privately greeted their brides, the topic of this essay, not only offers insights into the complexity of the relationship of individuals who were wed by proxy before they had become acquainted, but also offers evidence of how the greeting ritual performed by monarchs differed from that enacted by their royal and noble relatives.

‘Riding like Alexander, Hunting like Diana’: Gendered Aspects of the Medieval Hunt and its Landscape Settings in England and France

“…more sophisticated court protocol', along the lines of Henry VIII's first incognito meeting with Anne of Cleves at Rochester in 1540, in which Henry appeared in Anne's chamber along with five courtiers, all 'disguysed with clookes of marble with hoodes', before startling his new queen with a sudden embrace. 110 Retha Warnicke points out that while this renaissance and early-modern ritual of surprise nuptial meetings was being formed its setting could be fluid, and the hunt was a relatively frequent feature. In 1503 James IV of Scotland met his bride for the first time with his attendants, disguised as a hunting party, and in 1514 Louis XII (d.1515) 'unexpectedly' encountered his betrothed, Henry VIII's sister Mary Tudor, near Abbeville while pretending to hunt along with 200 friends.…”

“…In 1503 James IV of Scotland met his bride for the first time with his attendants, disguised as a hunting party, and in 1514 Louis XII (d.1515) 'unexpectedly' encountered his betrothed, Henry VIII's sister Mary Tudor, near Abbeville while pretending to hunt along with 200 friends. 111 It is clear that sixteenth-century seigneurial women actively hunted. The Game Roll of Framlingham Park, Suffolk (1516), records that a buck was killed by the same Mary Tudor (d.1533), now remarried but still known as 'the queen of France', and later that year, 'the Quene cam agayn and kyllyd iiii bukys'.…”

Queenship: Politics and Gender in Tudor England

“…Called relative impotence, this was the problem of Henry, who divorced Anne, on the spurious grounds that an earlier marriage contract made her the legal wife of Francis of Lorraine.As Henry admitted to having night dreams, indicating some physical sexual capacity, he may have suffered from psychological impotence the syndrome that doctors only began to recognize in the nineteenth century. 22 Relying on papal support, Katherine of Aragon had rejected Henry's Biblical authority for invalidating their marriage.While scholars agree about her adherence to Catholicism, they have not yet reached a consensus about the religious views of three later consorts,Anne Boleyn and Katherine Parr, often identified as reformers, and Jane Seymour sometimes labeled a devout Catholic.…”