Painting the Armada at the House of Lords

by Kathryn Hadley,

A press reception was organised this morning at the House of Lords to mark the completion of a project begun in January 2008 to recreate six paintings of the Armada tapestries, which were destroyed in the fire at the Palace of Westminster almost 200 years ago. The tapestries were originally commissioned to record one of the greatest episodes of British history; but the story of the tapestries themselves is equally great, and fascinating.

It begins 418 years ago, in 1592, when Lord Howard of Effingham, who had served as Lord High Admiral at the time of the Spanish Armada, commissioned the Dutch naval artist and first seascape painter, Hendrick Cornelisz Vroom (1566-1640) to create a series of ten tapestries to commemorate the British victory. The tapestries were woven in Brussels by Francis Spieringx. They cost £1,582, the equivalent of 87 years wages for a workman in 1590. They are believed to have measured 14 feet in height and between 17 and 28 feet in width and were interwoven with gold and silver thread. When they were completed, in 1595, they initially hung in Lord Howard’s Chelsea manor. They were then moved, in 1616, to his new London residence, Arundel House, before being sold to King James I for £1,628.

In the early 1650s, the tapestries were transferred to the Royal Palace of Westminster, where they hung in the then House of Lords Chamber, known as the Parliament Chamber. In 1801, when the Peers moved to the Court of Requests, a larger chamber which suited the need for increased seating after the Act of Union with Ireland, the tapestries followed suit. They hung in the Court of Requests until the fire on October 16th, 1834, in which all ten tapestries perished.

The significance and influence of the tapestries had been considerable. They were mentioned in debate on several occasions and were used as propaganda. In 1798, for example, when concern over a possible French invasion was being debated, they were used to arouse patriotic popular support against the French forces. The artist James Gillray was commissioned to produce images that ‘might rouse all the People to an active Union against that invasion’. In a series of satirical prints entitled Consequences of a successful French Invasion, he depicted a French Admiral ordering his men to destroy the tapestries in the Lords Debating Chamber.

House of Lords Researcher, Julian Dee, whose research formed the basis of the proposal for the recreation of the tapestries, underlined the changing historical significance of the tapestries:

‘These recreated images will tell us something about every generation that has
risen since Elizabethan times. James I displayed them in the Banqueting
Hall to receive the Spanish Ambassador. It has been suggested that in so doing
perhaps he could pursue dialogue with Spain without the appearance of
weakness. By contrast, his son Charles I folded these martial images away
for much of his reign. Cromwell's men had "The Story of '88" displayed in
Parliament so that generations of peers - most notably the Earl of Chatham -
would evoke the memory of the heroes commemorated in the tapestry
borders. When it was said that Napoleon wanted to put the Bayeux Tapestries
on a pre-invasion tour of France, it was suggested the same be done in Britain
for the Armada ones.’

Seven years after the fire, in 1841, during the construction of the New Palace of Westminster, a Fine Arts Commission chaired by Prince Albert was established in order to oversee the production of artwork for the interior of the palace. It was decided that the Prince’s Chamber would be illustrated with subjects from Tudor history and a space was designed to hang six paintings of the original Armada tapestries. The paintings were to be based on a series of engravings of the tapestries created in the 1730s by the artist John Pine. Pine’s engravings were the only surviving record of the tapestries.

However, when Prince Albert died, in 1861, only one of the paintings had been completed. It was not until 1907, that it was proposed, once again, to recreate the Armada tapestries. But once again, the Armada Tapestry proposal failed to be realised. One hundred years later, in 2007, it was proposed, for the third time, that a generous donation by Mark Pigott OBE should be used to recreate in painted format the 16th-century Armada tapestries. Anthony Oakshett, the lead artist on the project, began his work to recreate the tapestries the following year, using Pine’s 18th-century engravings and the only completed painting in the series The English Fleet pursuing the Spanish Fleet against Fowey as his key historical sources.

The result is spectacular. On Monday, June 21st, members of the public will be able to see the paintings on a tour of parliament for the first time. In the autumn, they will be permanently moved to the Prince’s Chamber where they were originally designed to be hung. Try to spot Anthony Oakshett’s depiction of Mark Pigott as a 16th-century nobleman on horseback in the right-hand corner of the last painting in the series!

Images (Palace of Westminster Collection):

- Richard Burchett, The English fleet pursuing the Spanish fleet against Fowey

- James Gillray, Consequences of a successful French Invasion

- Anthony Oakshett, Drake takes De Valdes's galleon; the Lord Admiral pursues the enemy

What if Arthur Prince of Wales had been king?

by Kathryn Hadley

In the light of this year’s widespread commemorations of the 500th anniversary of Henry VIII’s accession to the throne, the publication at the end of last month of Arthur Tudor, Prince of Wales edited by Steven Gunn and Linda Monckton about the life, death and memory of his younger brother may have been somewhat overlooked. Nonetheless, to a large extent, Henry VIII’s reign cannot be dissociated from, and was arguably shaped by, the death of his brother. I interviewed Steven Gunn to uncover the main aims and arguments of the book.

Arthur Prince of Wales died, aged 15, in April, 1502, at Ludlow shortly after his marriage to Katherine of Aragon in November 1501. Dying at such a young age he appears quite an insignificant figure, so why was the book written and what are the main arguments of its contributing authors?

According to Steven Gunn, Arthur was largely forgotten by his contemporaries and became increasingly forgotten as time moved on. Two aspects related to the commemoration, or rather to this lack of commemoration, of Arthur Tudor in the aftermath of his death are particularly interesting.

First of all, the fact that Arthur Prince of Wales was so quickly forgotten stands in marked contrast to the celebration of the young prince during his lifetime. Arthur Tudor was celebrated, from the day of his birth, as the first heir to the throne and ‘the visible token of a new age’, which marked the end of decades of intermittent civil war between the Lancastrians and Yorkists, and numerous poems were notably written in his honour. His marriage to Katherine of Aragon was a further cause for celebration. The marriage had been arranged when Arthur was two years old with the signature of the Treaty of Medina del Campo in March 1489. When the day finally came twelve years later, lavish celebrations were organised in London and many books were printed commemorating the event. Arthur also left a significant imprint on art and architecture with many churches carved with the emblems of the newly-wed couple. The importance of his heraldry is highlighted in the introduction of the book:

‘[it] summed up what mattered most about him, his Tudor and Yorkist blood, his
marriage to the well-connected Katherine and his link to the great princes of
Wales of earlier generations’.

In the aftermath of his death, however, Arthur appears to have been almost deliberately forgotten. The reasons why he was forgotten by contemporaries provide valuable insights into Henry VIII’s rule. Arthur’s death, shortly after that of his younger brother Edmund Tudor, threatened the dynastic position of the Tudors. Indeed, why had two of Henry VII’s sons died if it was the destiny of the Tudors to govern? According to the book, the desire to push aside this threat to the Tudor dynasty may have been one of the reasons why Arthur was buried at Worcester rather than at Westminster.

Moreover, Arthur’s death was significant in terms of the effects that it had on the reign of Henry VIII. Steven Gunn argued that his brother’s death may explain the overconfidence of Henry VIII forged by a strong view of divine providence. The idea of Henry VIII’s divine right to rule was reiterated by the propagandist Sir Richard Morison in his Remedy for Sedition in 1536. He is quoted in the introduction of Arthur Tudor, Prince of Wales:

'God took away Prince Arthur and would Henry VIII to be our head and governor. Will we be wiser than God? ... Let us content ourselves, that he rule whom God made our king, whom God preferred in taking away Prince Arthur, his Grace's elder brother.'

Henry's overconfidence may have been a direct consequence of his brother's death. In what other ways may Arthur Tudor's death have directly impacted English rule at the time and changed the course of English history?

Gunn argued that the specificities of Henry VIII’s rule were twofold. Firstly, Henry VIII directly shaped the relations between the English crown and the papacy. Although the English Reformation might have happened anyway, it would have been different under Arthur Tudor, bearing greater resemblance to the Dutch or French reformations which were more driven from below. Arthur would also have been less confrontational and may thus not have launched the same large-scale money-raising enterprises, which included the dissolution of the monasteries and debasing the coinage in the 1540s.

However, just how useful is this ‘what if’ counterfactual writing of history? According to Steven Gunn, counterfactual history is useful because it forces historians to identify the important factors in shaping the reign of Henry VIII and those that could be directly attributed to Henry’s personality. How much was Henry’s reign about his own personality and how much was about the dynastic situation at the time? Steven Gunn ended, however, with a word of warning: it is key to carefully define the questions posed in order to avoid attributing too much importance to certain factors.

For further information about the reign of Arthur’s father Henry VII, read our article Henry VII: Miracle King

Mary Queen of Scots’ last letter on display

by Kathryn Hadley

Mary Queen of Scots’ last letter, dated 1587, went on display in the George Bridge Building at the National Library of Scotland on Tuesday, September 15th, to mark the official launch of the library’s new visitor centre. The 422-year-old manuscript is the farewell letter which Mary wrote to Henri III, King of France, just six hours before she was executed. The letter will remain on show until Monday 21st September. It will thereafter be replaced by a facsimile.

Eleven other treasures are also on display in the new visitor centre, including a copy of the Gutenberg Bible, one of the first books ever printed with moveable type, the manuscript autobiography of David Hume and the Forman Armorial, a reference book depicting coats of arms compiled around 1562. These exhibits will remain on display until November 8th.

For further information visit, http://www.nls.uk/

George IV Bridge Building

National Library of Scotland
George IV Bridge

Edinburgh EH1 1EW

Picture: Mary Queen of Scots' execution warrant

Elizabethan Garden Flowers Again

by Kathryn Hadley

A reconstruction of the pleasure garden created by Robert Dudley, earl of Leicester, to impress Queen Elizabeth I will open to the public at Kenilworth Castle, Warwickshire, tomorrow, on Saturday May 2nd. The garden includes an aviary with pheasants and canaries, carved arbours and obelisks, wild strawberries, perfumed plants and pear trees. The centrepiece of the garden is a carved marble fountain which stands over 18ft (5m) high.

The reconstructed garden was inspired from a detailed 16th-century description of the garden by Robert Langham, an official in Leicester’s household. Although the garden was designed as a ‘privy’, a private garden, closed to all but the queen’s closest companions, one day the gardener allegedly allowed Langham to enter the garden. He subsequently described what he saw in a letter chronicling the 1575 Kenilworth festivities, providing one of the longest and most detailed eyewitness accounts of an Elizabethan garden.

In Langham’s words, the garden was an ‘entire delight unto all senses’ and he went on to describe these sensations:

‘the pleasant whisking wind above, or delectable coolness of the fountain-spring beneath, to taste of delicious strawberries, cherries, and other fruits… to smell such fragrancy of sweet odours, breathing from the plants, herbs, and flowers, to hear such natural melodious music and tunes of birds…’.

In 2004 and 2006, archaeological excavations also uncovered the foundation and white marble fragments of the original fountain, confirming Langham’s description and enabling the garden’s lay-out to be accurately mapped.

Kenilworth Castle
Warwickshire
CV8 1NE
Telephone: 01926 852078
www.english-heritage.org.uk/kenilworth

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