Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Preface
- Note on style and dates
- List of abbreviations
- Introduction: the ‘idol’ ceremony of coronation
- Chapter 1 Why crown a king? Henry VIII and the medieval coronation
- Chapter 2 ‘Come my love thou shalbe crowned’: the drama of Anne Boleyn's coronation
- Chapter 3 ‘But a ceremony’: Edward VI's reformed coronation and John Bale's King Johan
- Chapter 4 ‘He hath sent Marye our soveraigne and Quene’: England's first queen and Respublica
- Chapter 5 ‘A stage wherin was shewed the wonderfull spectacle’: representing Elizabeth I's coronation
- Epilogue: ‘Presume not that I am the thing I was’
- Notes
- Bibliography
- Index
Chapter 2 - ‘Come my love thou shalbe crowned’: the drama of Anne Boleyn's coronation
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 22 September 2009
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Preface
- Note on style and dates
- List of abbreviations
- Introduction: the ‘idol’ ceremony of coronation
- Chapter 1 Why crown a king? Henry VIII and the medieval coronation
- Chapter 2 ‘Come my love thou shalbe crowned’: the drama of Anne Boleyn's coronation
- Chapter 3 ‘But a ceremony’: Edward VI's reformed coronation and John Bale's King Johan
- Chapter 4 ‘He hath sent Marye our soveraigne and Quene’: England's first queen and Respublica
- Chapter 5 ‘A stage wherin was shewed the wonderfull spectacle’: representing Elizabeth I's coronation
- Epilogue: ‘Presume not that I am the thing I was’
- Notes
- Bibliography
- Index
Summary
The crowning of the visibly pregnant new queen, while contentious, contributed to the establishment and legitimation of the new Tudor supremacy and to constructions of imperial England. It was, in many ways, a second coronation for Henry. Shortly before the ceremony, Henry redrafted his own coronation oath – a manuscript copy of which is still extant. Contrary to expectation, perhaps, this key royal ceremony of the Reformation period did not triumphantly usher in the new religion; to argue that it did so conflates the supremacy with doctrinal reform. But neither was Anne's coronation a straightforward opportunity or excuse for Henry to promote and enforce his new supremacy. The accounts of this coronation are suggestive of a more complex and sincere belief in the necessary legitimising power of ceremony and pageantry. The day before the coronation in Westminster Abbey, Anne participated in an elaborate procession through London whose accompanying dramatic pageants constituted an important counterpart and response to the sacred rite. The contemporary descriptive account, The noble tryumphaunt coronacyon of quene Anne, wyfe unto the moost noble kynge Henry the viii, published by Wynkyn de Worde, and the English and Latin pageant verses composed by Nicholas Udall and John Leland, indicate that a dynamic existed between court and city which meant that important state ceremonies were not one-way affairs, and hence presented opportunities for cultural invention and interpretation.
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- Information
- The Drama of CoronationMedieval Ceremony in Early Modern England, pp. 39 - 76Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2008