Court Scandal Flashcards
Evidence of popular perceptions of the Jacobean Court:
Anonymous libel written on the overbury affair
Published 1614
- Corruption and conspiracy: ‘Nor dare we say why Overbury died’
- ‘And that her greatness and the law consent/to prove my weapon insufficient
- ‘Some are made great at birth, some have advance/Some climb by wit, some are made great by chance/I know a Lord made great for his face
Alisar Bellany, The Politics of Court Scandal
A cynical reading of the Jacobean court
‘a pattern not of godliness but of disorder, of sexual corruption, of murder.’
The Overbury Affair: an overview of the key events
- countess of Somerset, Frances Howard, daughter of earl of Suffolk, annuls marriage to third Earl of Essex in 1613
- Robert Carr, earl of Somerset after marrying Howard (replacing Essex).
- Overbury disapproved of the affair, wrote the poem ‘A Wife’ about the virtues of being a wife, which was an attach on the adulterous Howard. Overbury refuses to go to be an ambassador to the court of Michael of Russia and is imprisoned by James I, where he dies in September 1613
- Later becomes apparent that Howard had Richard Weston, of whom it was ominously said that he was “a man well acquainted with the power of drugs,” made jailer in the Tower, and that he poisoned Overbury
Lawrence Stone on the relationship between scandal and Court - Country in the Crisis of the Aristocracy
- One of the most striking features of Early Stuart society was the growing cleavage in outlook between the Court and Country. An aspect of this development which attracted much contemporary attention and criticism was the sexual licence at the Jacobean Court,
Lawrence Stone on sexual licence at the Jacobean court
- combination of power, time and lack of inhibition led to sexual promiscuity in both genders since the 1590s.
Lawrence Stone on sexual promiscuity in the court of James I
Quote from Stone
Evidence
QUOTE
- ‘The real breakthrough with promiscuity at Court only occurred under James I
EVIDENCE
- Lady Anne Clifford, 1603, ‘all the ladies about the Court had gotten such ill names that it was grown a scandalous place’
- J. Marston, The Malcontent, ‘Do your husbands lie with ye? That were country fashion, i’ faith.’
Which scandal occurred shortly after the poisoning of Overbury?
Lake-Roos affair
- Daughter of Sir Thomas Lake and Lady Mary Lake, Lady Roos, accuses William Cecil Lord Roos of impotence, he goes abroad
- Lady Roos accuses Frances Cecil of affair with Lord Roos, and of trying to poison Lady Roos
Stone on the change that came with the court of Charles I
- ‘far more respectable place’ but still troubled
- Puritan, country gentry appalled by court
EVIDENCE
- 1633, Elanor Villiers has child of Henry Jermyn, who refuses to marry her on the grounds that she had already been the mistress of himself, Lord Newport, and Lord Fielding
Stone on the significance of the public sphere for scandal and the court-country distinction
- ‘Once rooted in the public mind, this association of sexual depravity with the Court took a long time to wear off.’
- scandals ‘heavily written up in the correspondence of the professional letter writers and so gave the appearance of a general collapse of sexual standards
—> the discrepancy between the generally enforced moral code and the licence of the Court became an established part of public belief.
The weaknesses of Stone’s commentary on Court Scandal
OWN VIEW
- when the scandals led to prosecution, the principals usually escaped with little more than loss of office and royal favour. - Bellany sees this as far more significant
Quote on the importance of court scandal to the breakdown of the 1640s
Stone, The Causes of the English Revolution
‘The most important cause, and symptom, of the decay of any government or institution is the loss of prestige and respect among the public at large
What does Stone make of the reputation of the Duke of Buckingham?
Stone, The Causes of the English Revolution
- State expansion meant court held a lot of power and money, and continued to be a place where patronage was dispensed
- 1618-1629, Patronage given to George Villiers, Duke of Buckingham –> frustrated nobles and Parliament, who refused to dispense taxation
Stone on conceptualising the ‘Court’ and the ‘Country’
AN IDEAL
- Country was ascetically, morally and religiously superior to the court
A CULTURE
- Countrymen had responsibilities (as a landowner, head-of-house), and the courtier in his rented accommodation was just a ‘hedonist’
- Conservative and pure lifestyle choices, opposed to extravagance of the Court
A PLACE AND AN INSTITUTIONAL STRUCTURE
- Bench of justices, ancient houses
- Localism
How have historians countered Lawrence Stone’s equation of Court-Country differences with Court- Country political opposition?
Kevin Sharpe, Criticism and Compliment
- Deconstructs certain court-country divides
- Charles I ordered gentry to remain in the country, and so understood the importance of locality
- Many Courtly poets commented on the virtues of the country
- Charles I carried out a moral reformation of his court
- ‘The caree[r] of Johnson make[s] nonsense of the labels of ‘court’ and ‘country’ as terms explanatory of cultural and political divisions.
–> ‘the ideology of the ‘country’ was not the preserve of a distinct political group, let alone a political party’
What is Bellany’s view of the existing historiography of the court scandal?
- Value of scandals under appreciated.
-Stone’s comments more ‘suggestions’ than
‘conclusions’
- Morril creates a ‘heirarchy’ of political news.
Scandal not treated as ‘real’ news - Scandals could not have accumulated for the breakdown of the 1640s, as Charles’ court was less scandalous than James’
- Sharpe minimises the language of conflict. Court and Country may have been spoken about in the court and the country, but still capacity for conflict
What are Bellany’s main arguments for the significance of Court Scandal?
1) Scandals played a key role in factional politics
2) A court affair became a ‘scandal’ when it entered the public sphere
3) Court-county distinction, and the resulting overemphasis on localism, obscures the fact that there was a national political culture, and scandals attracted a national following.
4) What happened to Overbury less significant than how his death was perceived
David Smith: The History of the Modern British Isles
The Court of James I
Revisionism
James’ Court
- ‘for many years it was fashionable to dismiss James’ Court as a place of decadence, immorality and corruption.
homosexuality, ‘extravagance’, ‘lurid’ scandals
Overbury murder in 1613
debauchery at Theobalds in honour of Christian IV of Denmark 1606
- Excess
Pensions of £30 000 a year, gifts of £68 153
906 knighthoods in first four months; Elizabeth I did less than that in 43 years
Corrupt individuals, ‘not isolated incidents’
Lord Treasurer Suffolk, father of Frances Howard, and his wife convicted of embezzlement of funds in 1619
Later that year, Suffolk’s client Secretary Lake and Son Lord Warden convicted of sexual and financial offensives and go to tower
‘the public image of the court fell to a low ebb in these years.’
Idea that an ‘impoverished Court would bring dishonour on the whole nation’
BUT
–>- Scandalous aspects of the court were ‘not the whole story’, also a ‘nerve centre of political activity’ and a ‘point of contact’
David Smith, The History of the Modern British Isles
The Court of Charles I
Charles’ Court
‘quite unlike the relaxed, permissive and readily accessible milieu which James had created.’
‘A determined campaign was launched to curb waste and corruption’
heads of departments made responsible for arrears
more efficient accounting
‘Charles wanted the court to be “a place of civility and honour”’; anyone ‘so vicious and unmannerly that he be unfit to live in virtuous and civil company’ was removed
Lucy Hutchinson: ‘the face of the Court was much changed in the change of the king
Allistair Bellany: What can the case of Anne Turner tell us about court scandal
Bellany, Mistress Turner’s deadly sins
(Accused of sourcing poison for the case of thomas overbury )
ONE: The importance of MANUSCRIPTS
- The circulation of manuscripts detailing the Overbury affair and other court scandals
- By 1620s, many in popular circulation
- Letters from Frances Howard read at Anne Turner’s trial later circulated under title ‘A discourse of the poysoninge of Sir Thomas Overbury’
- Cheap ‘gallows literature’ was abundant after her execution
- Includes details also of ‘inevitably lost’ discussion, singing of ballads, aural communication
What does the vilification of Anne Turner tell us about attitudes to the court and its implication in scandal?
‘Much more than an accomplice in a particularly nasty poisoning of a defenseless man, she became the embodiment of a dark and dangerous conglomeration of potent interconnected sins, all of which could be linked to the master-sin of her acknowledged popery. Through her, we can see how the Overbury scandal could lead to public perceptions of a court peopled by deviant women and corrupted by luxury, sartorial excess, lust, sorcery, and popery…’
THREE: The importance of faction
Who led the campaign of vilification against Anne Turner?
Not libellers, but Sir Edward Coke, Lord Chief Justice of the King’s Bench, head of the commission investigating the murder
Intentionally portrayed the court as a place of corruption
Vindicated James I, and improved his image by playing James as a victim rather than an ‘abettor’ of the popish plot
How has the castlehaven scandal been viewed in the past, and how has it been newly interpreted?
Cynthia Herrup A House of Gross Disorder: Sex, Law, and the 2nd Earl of Castlehaven (1999)
TRADITIONAL
(1) Castlehaven committed sodomy with several of his servants, he helped one of them to rape his wife the Countess and another to sleep with his adolescent daughter-in-law, and he intended to disinherit his son in deference to lowborn favorites.
(2) In 1631, when his outraged heir reported this behavior, Castlehaven and two of his minions were tried, convicted, and executed for rape and sodomy.
(3) Castlehaven was immoral, and/or mentally ill, and/or a victim of the prejudices of his time.
REVISIONIST
- Trial records show concern for family and betrayal more than the crime of sodomy
- Why was such an embarrassing incident tried publicly?
- **Trial part of the picture of the compromised elite of the 1630s, but not studied on its own terms!
- Rethinking Castlehaven’s story in this way allows us also to see beyond its central character; it makes more visible some of the temptations and vulnerabilities of SERVANTS in great establishments and some of the constraints and freedoms of ARISTOCRATIC WOMEN.
ARGUMENT
- I believe that the plot or the sexiness should be all that we can see. We should also see cultural presumptions and legal priorities, social concerns and forms of narrative, contingency and abuse and mischance and commercialism
The association between print culture and the castlehaven scandal
Cynthia Herrup A House of Gross Disorder: Sex, Law, and the 2nd Earl of Castlehaven (1999)
LIKE BELLANY, Herrup emphasises the importance of libel and manuscript circulation
‘Like more modern scandals, this one rips through veils of privacy and privilege, leaving a haughty and rich family subjected to public scrutiny and ridicule.’
Volatile political culture –> Where the manuscript narratives worked toward a fragile closure, their printed counterparts dexterously revisited and exploited the uncertainties of the trial. Pamphlets about the case appeared in 1643, 1679, 1699
The Arraignment and Conviction of Mervin, Lord Audley … (1643)
“An Epitaffe on the Earle of Castelhaven Mervine Touchett. set on his Tombe. after his beheadinge. 1631.”
- Who will take such a Countess to his bedd
that firste gives hornes, and then cutts off his head:
An Answere:
- Its true you need noe trophees to your hearse/Your life beinge odious farr beneath all verse/ Nor wast your wife who came chast to your bedd/ which did you horne, your owne hands horn’d your head;
What were the events of the castlehaven scandal?
- On 25 April 1631, Mervin Touchet, 2nd Earl of Castlehaven, was tried before a jury of his peers assembled at a specially convened Court of the Lord High Steward. He was charged with horrific crimes.
- The prosecution claimed that Castlehaven had arranged for his second wife—Anne Stanley, daughter of William Stanley, Earl of Derby, and widow of Grey Brydges, Baron Chandos—to be raped by a servant, Giles Broadway.
- The prosecution also contended that Castlehaven had committed sodomy with another of his manservants, Florence (or Lawrence) Fitzpatrick.
—> the jury of twenty-seven peers of the realm found Castlehaven guilty on both charges. He was executed for his crimes on 14 May 1631, beheaded on Tower Hill.
Overbury scandal: the Pembrooke-Abbot faction
1)
By the summer of 1615, Somerset’s relationship with the King had begun to deteriorate. Since 1614, the year in which Somerset’s power and personal favour with the King seemed to all to have reached new heights, a rather nebulous court faction led by the Earl of Pembroke and
Archbishop Abbot–and possibly encouraged by Queen Anne–had been determined to destroy that power and favour
2)
That faction promoted George Villiers. Somerset unwilling to cooperate with Villiers –> clashes, and loss of favour
3)
His fall was in many ways the consequence of an already impending court-factional defeat…But on the advice of Somerset’s enemies, and in the face of protests from Somerset and his father-in-law, Lord Treasurer Suffolk, James appointed Lord Chief Justice Edward Coke to investigate the allegations concerning Overbury’s death.
How did the Overbury Murder become the Overbury Scandal?
- Public Trials, at Three Locations across seven months in London
- Public Hangings, with crowds of an ‘infinite’ number
- News culture:
Places - Paul’s Walk
People - ‘News mongerers’
Scandal and The Isle of Pines? Stillman ?
George Pines is also like the contemporary ruler of England, Charles II, and his brother and heir apparent, James II.
Charles II lacked a legitimate child as heir; he took on many mistresses, including a French countess who was a known spy for that country; he fathered at least seventeen illegitimate children; and he was accused of being more interested in his mistresses and illegitimate children than in affairs of state.
Charles’s brother and heir, the future James II, was no better. He collected mistresses too; he scandalously
married his first wife when she was eight months pregnant; and he was seemingly no more likely than Charles II to be serious about statecraft. Like Charles II, George is more concerned with his multiple wives, with sex, and with counting his children than he is with the well-being of his isle.
George’s misrule, or failure to rule, leads the Isle of Pines to internal breakdown.
Libels against George Villiers: sexual promiscuity
Charles Tregion imprisoned in 1627 for “profane song, in the foot of which…in
scandal and disgrace of the name of the Duke of Buckingham, he
would sing him by the name of the duke of fuckingham.
Bellany on the significance of libels against Buckingham
The identification of Buckingham and his family with various forms of sexual transgression is a constant theme in the verse libels, gossip and rumour that circulated during the 1620s, and like similar allegations made during the Overbury affair,
these sexual transgressions were clearly more than just a laughing matter.
Popular perceptions of Sodomy in the court of James I
Why was Sodomy bad
What links did people draw between sins and politics?
How were they presented?
Sodomy a ‘heinous’ crime, James I said it must never be pardoned
- Sir Francis Bacon, lyrics posted near his house
- Fears that James I was committing sodomy with Buckingham
Implications
- Fear of punishment from God. Simon D’Ewes’ diary: “we could not but expect some horrible punishment for
| it.”
Libels
- Jove and Ganymede: Ganymede became Jove’s cup bearer on mount Olympus. Ganymede became a synonym for a sodomite
- Buckingham had first been James I’s cup bearer, so this was the perfect language with which to discuss suspicions of sodomy
Implications for politics: - Each planet's course doth alter, The sun and moon Are out of tune The spheres begin to falter
How did people associate sexual behaviour with politics?
Inability to rule
Bellany, The Poisoning of Legitimacy
This sexualised image of political neglect should be read I in the context of popular anxiety about English foreign
policy.
EVIDENCE
- Still Jove with Ganymede lies playing
/Hears no Triton’s sound
—> deliberate
allusions to the King’s rejection of popular
calls for war against Spain to save his Protestant son-in-law, the Elector Palatine
Peter Lake on Sodomy and Popery
Peter Lake has commented, “for many Protestants buggery became an archetypically popish sin, not only because of its proverbially monastic provenance but also because, since it involved the abuse of natural faculties and impulses for unnatural ends, it perfectly symbolized the wider idolatry at the heart of the popish religion”
How did people associate sexual behaviour with politics?
James could be misled by one of his councillors
Bellany, The Poisoning of Legitimacy
IMPLICATIONS FOR POLITICS: Inability to rule, divine judgement.
Thou wilt be pleased great God to save
My sovereign from a Ganymede
Whose whorish breath hath power to lead
My sovereign which way he list,
How did people associate sexual behaviour with politics?
Divine Wrath
Bellany, The Poisoning of Legitimacy
Politics - Each planet's course doth alter, The sun and moon Are out of tune The spheres begin to falter
Judgement
And Babylon’s proud whore once more defile
Albion’s white cliffs.
How did people associate sexual behaviour with politics?
Association with Spain
Bellany, The Poisoning of Legitimacy
For great King James would not have us complain That he intends to match the Prince with Spain. Thus Buckingham and Arundel combine And many others to the sort incline.
