Tea at Trianon: Mary Tudor's Wardrobe

John Wilson Croker on Marie-Antoinette

"We have followed the history of Marie Antoinette with the greatest diligence and scrupulosity. We have lived in those times. We have talked with some of her friends and some of her enemies; we have read, certainly not all, but hundreds of the libels written against her; and we have, in short, examined her life with– if we may be allowed to say so of ourselves– something of the accuracy of contemporaries, the diligence of inquirers, and the impartiality of historians, all combined; and we feel it our duty to declare, in as a solemn a manner as literature admits of, our well-matured opinion that every reproach against the morals of the queen was a gross calumny– that she was, as we have said, one of the purest of human beings."

~from History of the Guillotine by John Wilson Croker, 1844

Edmund Burke on Marie-Antoinette

"It is now sixteen or seventeen years since I saw the queen of France, then dauphiness, at Versailles; and surely there never lighted on this orb, which she hardly seemed to touch, a more delightful vision. I saw her just above the horizon, decorating and cheering the elevated sphere she had just begun to move in, glittering like a morning star full of life and splendor and joy. Oh, what a revolution....Little did I dream that I should have lived to see such disasters fall upon her, in a nation of gallant men, in a nation of men of honor and of cavaliers! I thought ten thousand swords must have leaped from their scabbards, to avenge even a look which threatened her with insult. But the age of chivalry is gone; that of sophisters, economists, and calculators has succeeded...."

~Edmund Burke, October 1790

Monday, January 2, 2012

Mary Tudor's Wardrobe

A new work.

Now there is a new study and one available online. It’s Hilary Doda, ‘Of Crymsen Tissue: The Construction of a Queen. Identity, Legitimacy and the Wardrobe of Mary Tudor’, MA thesis, (Dalhousie University, 2011). According to the abstract:

‘Clothing, together with other bodily adornments, is a valuable tool for communicating loyalty, identity and status. The coded messages inherent in the interplay between garments, bodies and society play a fundamental role in political culture, and the early modern era was no exception. The example of Mary I of England and her wardrobe choices demonstrates precisely how useful this tool could be. Through examination of previously-unpublished warrants, information from Privy Purse records, contemporary accounts and portraiture, this thesis analyzes the contents of and changes in Mary I’s wardrobe through the course of her adult life. By examining what the queen wore and when, patterns emerge that correlate with important parts of her political strategies. The first queen regnant, Mary used her wardrobe as a vital tool in the construction of her identity and self-representation, and as a means of navigating through the political and domestic upheavals that threatened her authority.’ (p. ix)
You read the work here.

(Image - Design for a medallion with a representation of the Trinity by Hans Holbein the Younger, c.1532-43. Pen and black ink with green and red wash. Inscribed ‘TRINITATIS GLORIA SATIABIMUR’ (‘We will be filled with the glory of the Trinity’). The British Museum.

The inclusion of marigolds may indicate that the item was intended for Princess Mary. The 1542 inventory of jewels belonging to Mary recorded that she possessed ‘a grene Tablett garneshed with golde havyng the Picture of the trinite in it’). (Read entire article.)