Tudor Queenship: The Reigns of Mary and Elizabeth (16 page)

CHAPTER 5

DRESSED TO IMPRESS

Maria Hayward

I

According to Sir Thomas Elyot, in his 
Boke Named the Governor
 (1531), the imperial crown was the most potent symbol of Tudor authority. Second in importance were the monarch’s coronation robes because “we be men and nay aungels, wherefore we knowe nothinge but by outwarde significations.” He went on to state that “reporte is nat so commune a token as apparayle.”
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With these words, Elyot preempted the ideas of a range of more recent theorists who have seen clothes as signifying power, authority, and the right to rule.
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He also echoed ideas about clothes and the ways in which they could be used to emphasize royal magnificence that were expressed by writers such as Sir John Fortescue.
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Equally significant, but not touched upon by either writer, was the way in which the monarch could exploit the changing sixteenth-century fashions to set themselves apart from the rest of their court.

Studies of Mary and Elizabeth often stress how they differed from each other: different mothers, different religions, different reputations as monarchs, different attitudes to clothes. However, recent research has emphasized the things they had in common, notably the issues of gender and queenship.
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This essay examines how both women used clothes to create their identities before and after their accessions, and it considers how their use of clothes as queens regnant compares to the ways in which the Tudor kings used clothes to assert their place at the forefront of English society, their right to rule, and their individual identity. In order to establish what clothes reveal about female royal power in sixteenth-century England, the essay focuses on five themes: clothing for occasions of estate; clothing and the female life-cycle; clothing as an expression of religious beliefs; everyday dress; and the use of clothes as gifts, both given and received.

II

Both Mary and Elizabeth participated in formal court occasions during their father’s reign so they would have had first-hand experience of how Henry VIII exploited these occasions to wear purple silk, cloth of tissue, and sables that were reserved for the use of royalty (see Figure 5.1). As such they knew how a monarch was expected to dress on occasions of state and they closely echoed the royal style used by their grandfather, father, and brother. Even though Henry VIII had declared his daughters illegitimate, he acknowledged their right to rule after him, and they did. For their first entry into London after becoming queen in 1553 and 1558 respectively, Mary and Elizabeth both chose purple, the archetypal royal color. Mary’s entry on August 3, 1553 is recorded best; Wriothesley stated in his chronicle that she was dressed “in rich apparell, her gowne of purple velvet French fashion, with sleves of the same, her kirtle of purple satten all thicke sett with gouldsmithes worke and greate pearle.”
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In addition to some colors and fabrics being associated with royalty, Mary and Elizabeth wore certain clothes that were specifically linked with monarchical power: namely their coronation robes, their parliament robes, and their garter robes. These robes, consisting of a mantle (an overgarment with a train), a kirtle (a gown), and a hood (a loose covering for the head), were generally listed first in inventories of royal clothing, indicating their political significance and their financial value. Prior to their coronation, three sets of robes were made for each of the male Tudor monarchs (crimson velvet worn en route to the coronation, cloth of gold worn during the anointing, and purple velvet for afterward). Those made for both Tudor queens regnant followed the traditional model, asserting their role as England’s sovereign, but they were worn in a different sequence, with the white cloth of gold robes chosen for the pre-coronation procession.
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In addition, the neckline, sleeves, and waistline of the kirtle made for female wearers reflected the fashionable line for women.
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These formal robes were very expensive and this at least partially explains why the gold robes and the crimson velvet parliament robes that were made for Mary in 1553 were remade and lengthened for Elizabeth to wear at her coronation in 1559.
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Walter Fish, Elizabeth’s tailor, was paid 13
s
 4
d
 for translating or remodeling “a mantle surcoat and kirtle of cloth of gold tissue with gold and silver of the queen’s majesty’s store.”
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This recycling of ceremonial robes was unique amongst the Tudor monarchs and it was reflective more of economy than of sisterly feeling.

This point also holds true when the Tudor queens’ consorts are considered. Although Anne Boleyn took Catherine of Aragon’s jewelry, her barge, and the christening robe that she had brought from Spain, she did not take her coronation robes. Taking the barge, for example, indicated Anne’s ascendancy over Catherine and the degree of her influence over the king. However, taking her predecessor’s coronation robes would only serve to emphasize her place as the second wife. Preparations for Anne’s coronation included orders being placed for a kirtle and mantle of cloth of gold furred with ermine, a lace of silk and gold with tassels for the mantle, a circlet of gold garnished with precious stones, and a kirtle and mantle of purple velvet furred with ermine with a lace for the day of the coronation.
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In terms of quality and style these robes echoed those made for her stepdaughter and passed to her daughter. However, there was one very significant difference: Anne’s robes were cut to emphasize her pregnancy with the hoped-for male heir.
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Figure 5.1 Mary I by Hans Eworth (1554), Society of Antiquaries, London

The crimson robes made for the coronation served as the monarch’s parliament robes. Parliament played an important part in the political lives of all the Tudor monarchs and this was reflected by the monarch being depicted dressed in their robes in the formal portraiture on the plea rolls and, in Elizabeth’s case, in a number of portraits.
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The Michaelmas roll for 1553 depicted Mary in her gold robes, while others including that for 1554 show her wearing the scarlet parliament robes.
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As such, Mary chose to continue the imagery associated with her coronation for the rest of the year, before switching over to the model used by the male Tudors. Although the crimson robes were a mark of status, accounts reveal that Elizabeth struggled with the weight of her parliament robes as she got older and that she had the fur lining removed.
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The same crimson robes were used to dress the dead monarch’s funeral effigy. Mary’s effigy was “appareled in robes of Estate with a crowne on her hed the ball and scepter in her hand as her fingers being richly sett with ringes.”
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The hearse was “garneshed and sett with Angelles morners and Qwenes in their Robes of Estate” and this imagery reflected both her religious conformity and her status as queen.
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Elizabeth’s effigy was also dressed with the level of care thought appropriate for the monarch.
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Although the formal descriptions of the funeral indicate that the effigy was dressed in the “clothe of golde and silver tissue kirtle” used for Elizabeth’s coronation and the crimson velvet mantle of her parliament robes, the costly robes were then returned to the royal wardrobe for safe storage.
¹⁸

The relationship between the half-sisters was sometimes cordial, sometimes competitive. Once queen, two of the ways in which Mary asserted her authority over Elizabeth involved clothing. First, although Mary included her sister at key occasions such as her coronation or when Philip left England on August 23, 1555, the clothes selected for Elizabeth were intended to emphasize her inferior position. When Mary entered London on September 30, 1553 for her coronation she wore white cloth of gold.
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The sources are unclear on whether Elizabeth and Anne of Cleves wore red velvet, like the ladies, or cloth of silver, which would have marked them out as superior to the ladies but still of lesser status than Mary.
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Second, Mary could elevate other women, including Frances Grey, countess of Suffolk, and Margaret Douglas, countess of Lennox, into her sister’s rightful position.
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One way in which Elizabeth could counter this competitive use of clothing was by dressing simply. She did this by adopting dark colors worn with little or no jewelry.

As monarchs, Mary and Elizabeth were both head of the Order of the Garter as their father had been. Although the surviving Great Wardrobe accounts of Henry VII, Henry VIII, and Mary make no reference to their garter robes being altered, Elizabeth’s accounts demonstrate a deep concern with the fashionable cut of her garter kirtle with alterations to the sleeves, bodice, and skirt being made in 1564, 1571, 1575, 1577, 1578, 1580, 1583, 1587, and 1595.
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As such it was possible for the monarchs to modify their formal robes to reflect changes in taste and fashion and for Elizabeth to stamp her own identity on these otherwise very traditional garments. While Mary adopted a magnificent style of dress, Elizabeth tempered magnificence with fashion to set herself apart.

III

For a queen to produce a legitimate heir, she would have experienced betrothal, marriage, pregnancy, childbirth, and, prior to the Reformation, churching. Each event would have been marked with specific ceremonies, festivities, and special clothes.
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By marrying, Mary followed the accepted female path that her mother, Catherine of Aragon, and her maternal grandmother, Isabel of Castile, had followed before her. Her experiences, therefore, differed from those of her unmarried sister, Elizabeth. From her early childhood, Mary’s hand in marriage had formed a key part of Henry VIII’s foreign policy. For example, on October 5, 1518 Mary, aged two, was betrothed to the dauphin under the terms of the Universal Peace with France. She was dressed royally “in cloth of gold, with a cap of black velvet on her head, adorned with many jewels.”
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In contrast, although Elizabeth toyed with the idea of marriage in 1560 and 1579, none of the negotiations came to anything. Even so, there are glimpses of how she presented herself as a prospective bride. In the portrait sent to Eric XIV of Sweden in 1560 she was dressed in scarlet velvet and cloth of gold.
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When Mary married Philip of Spain in 1554 her gown and round kirtle were made from cloth of tissue, the costliest of the cloths of gold. As was appropriate on such a significant occasion, the gown was in the French style that was often used for formal events: “one frenche gowne of riche golde tissue with a border of purple satten allover enbrodered with purles of damaske golde and pearle lined with purple Taphata.”
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Mary dressed her husband in her own image for their wedding: “His breeches and doublet were white, the collar of the doublet exceeding rich, and over all a mantle of rich cloth of gold, a present from the queen, who wore one of the same.”
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After her marriage, Mary used her wardrobe warrants to order gifts of clothing for “our moste dere and most enteirlie beloved housbande,” including a gown of purple tissue and another of crimson tissue.
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In this Mary emulated her father, who had ordered clothing for Catherine of Aragon on his warrants.
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Elizabeth preserved these mementos of her sister’s marriage and in 1600 they were listed amongst the “Gownes late Queene Maries” and a group of kirtles.
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In spite of their high financial value, it is surprising that Elizabeth kept this gown and kirtle in her wardrobe of the robes. However, since she had opted to wear the coronation robes of the first Tudor queen who demonstrated that a woman could rule England, it is possible that Elizabeth had also considered wearing Mary’s wedding garments for her own wedding, which was much discussed in the early years of her reign. In addition, keeping this reminder of her sister’s marriage is reminiscent of Henry VIII preserving the garter robes of his elder brother Arthur.
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On November 28, 1554 Mary announced her pregnancy at court visually rather than verbally by using her clothing to emphasize her condition.
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She sat under her cloth of estate in the great chamber at Whitehall “richly apparelled, and her belly laid out, that all men might see that she was with child.”
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This description compares closely with the accounts of Jane Seymour’s developing pregnancy in 1537. For instance, on May 23 the Lisles were informed that “The Queen’s Grace is great with child, and shall be open-laced with stomacher betwixt this and Corpus Christi Day.”
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Later in the century there was a short-lived vogue in England for pregnancy portraits that stressed the fecundity of the sitters and contrasted it with Elizabeth’s virginity.
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When rumors circulated about Elizabeth being pregnant, it was, however, linked to her flirtation with Robert Dudley rather than any change in her style of dress. Indeed, if there had been any truth in the view promoted by Henry Hawkins in 1581 that Elizabeth went on progress “to be delivered” then she would have actively selected clothes that disguised rather than emphasized her pregnancy.
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