Plates 3.18-3.24: The Funeral Procession of Queen Elizabeth
Objects: A pen and ink drawing, depicting Queen Elizabeth I’s funeral procession on April 28, 1603, executed on a paper roll composed of glued sheets and half-sheets of different lengths. The total dimensions are 205 by 8390 millimeters, or roughly eight inches by twenty-seven and a half feet. As indicated in the caption to the first plate, the drawing was “supposed to be by the hand of William Camden,” the famous historian and antiquary whose life (1551-1623) spanned the reigns of both Elizabeth and James I. The attribution to Camden has never been definitively proven but no other source has been proposed. The end of roll is missing, and the final image (though not the last on the roll in its original condition; there would have been enough material for another plate) is a fragment, patched with an additional length of paper.
Transcription:
[3.18, Caption]
This and the Six following Plates contain The funeral Procession of Queen ELIZABETH, from a Drawing of the time, supposed to be by the hand of WILLIAM CAMDEN, then Clarencieux King at Arms, which was in the Possession of John Wilmot Esqr, F.R.S. & by him deposited in the British Museum.
[The remaining text as reproduced from the roll consists of hand-lettered headings above the individual figures and figure-groups in the procession. Standards of punctuation are very unstable in the early modern period, and possibly some of the pointing is simply the tip of the pen touching the paper of the roll, so the transcription of punctuation marks here represents a “best guess.” The engravings also contain some periods that are not on the original roll.]
[3.18, bottom panel]
Knight Marshalls Men to make Way.
Poore men of Westminster in nomber. XV.
Poore Women to the number of . 266
Servants of
· Gentlemen
· Esquires
· Knights
Two porters.
4. Trompettors.
[3.18, top panel]
Phillipp Holland Rose Pursuyvant of Armes.
2 Sergeants of Armes.
The Standerd of The Dragon borne by Sr George Bourchire.
The Horse Ledd by 2 . Querries.
Messengers. of the Chamber.
Children of the
. Almondry.
· Woodyard.
· Skullery.
· Turners of the pastry.
Children of the
· Skuldiny [Scalding?] House
· Larder.
Gromes
· Wheat Porters.
· Cowpers. [Coopers]
· Wyne porters.
· Conducts in the Bakehouse
Gromes
· Belringer.
· Maker of Spice baggs.
· Cart takers chosen by ye bord
· Longe Carts.
Gromes
· Cart takers.
· of the Almery.
· of the Stable.
· of the Woodyard.
[3.19, bottom panel]
Gromes
· of the Skullery.
· of the Pastery.
· of ye Skaldinghouse.
· of the Poultrey.
Gromes
· of ye Caterie.
· of ye Boylinghouse.
· of the Larder.
· of the Kitchin.
Gromes
· of the Laundrie.
· of the Ewry.
· of the Confectionary.
· of the Wafery
Gromes
· of the Chaundry.
· of the Pitcherhouse.
· of the Buttrie.
· of the Seller.
Gromes
· of the Pantry.
· of ye Bakehouse.
· of the Comptinghouse.
Officers to the Lord Maior of London.
Servants of Noblemen.
Servants of Embassadors.
Gromes of the Chamber.
4. Trompettors.
[3.19, top panel]
Mercury Patten Blewmantle officer of Armes.
A Sergeant at Armes.
The Standard of ye Greihound borne by Mr Herbert brother to the Erle of Penb. [i.e., Pembroke]
Yeomen Servitors in the Hall.
Yeomen
· Cart takers.
· Porters.
· of ye Almondry.
· Herbengers.
Yeomen.
· of ye Woodyard.
· of ye Skullery.
· of ye Poultrey. &
· of ye Skaldinghouse.
Yeoman [sic]
· Purveior of the Poultrie.
· Purveior of the Achatrie.
· of the Staple.
· of the Boylinghouse.
Yeomen.
· of the Larder.
· of the Kitchin.
· of the Ewry.
· of the Confectionarie.
Yeomen
· of the Waferie.
· Purveior of ye Wax.
· Tallow Chandlr.
· of the Chaundry.
Yeomen
· of ye Pitcherhouse.
· Bruers.
· of the Buttrie.
· Purveiors.
[3.20, bottom panel]
Yeomen
· of ye Seller.
· of the Pantry.
· Garneter.
· of ye Bakhouse, [i.e. Bakehouse]
Yeomen
· of ye Countinghouse.
· of the Spicery.
· of the Chamber.
· Robes & Wardrob.
Erles and Countesses · Servants.
Fower Trompettors.
Samuell Tomson. Portcullis, officer. of Armes.
A Sergeant at Armes.
The Standerd of the Lion borne by Mr Thomas. Somersett.
The Horse Trapped wth Velvet, Ledd by two Querries.
The Sergeant of the Vestrie.
[3.20, top panel]
Children of the Chapell.
Gentlemen of the Chapell.
Clarks
· Deputie Clark of the Markett.
· Clarks Extraordinary.
· Coferer.
· Dyett.
Clarks
· Mr Cooke for ye Houshold.
· of the Pastrie.
· of the Larder.
· of the Skullery.
Clarks.
· of ye Woodyard.
· of the Poultrie.
· of the Backhouse.
· of the Achatrie.
Clarks of ye Stable. Gentlemen Harbingers.
Sergeants of the
· Woodyard.
· Poultrie.
· Skullery.
· Pastrie.
Sergeants of ye
· Caterie.
· Larder.
· Ewry.
· Seller.
[3.21, bottom panel]
Clark Marshall and Avenor.
Cheiff Clark of ye Wardrob. Cheiff Clark of ye Kitchin.
Two Clarks Controllers.
Clark of ye Greene Cloth. Mr of the Houshold.
Cofferer Sr Henry Cock
Wm Smith Rouge: Dragon officer of Armes.
2. Sergeants at Armes.
The Banner of Chester borne by ye Lord Zouche.
Clarkes of ye Counsell.
Clarkes of ye Privy Seale Clarkes of the Signett.
[3.21, top panel]
Clarks of Parliament Doctors of Phisick.
Chaplains to ye Quene.
Secretaries of ye Latin and French tongues.
Thomas Knight Rougecroix Pursuivante [the roll has the following, crossed-out: Officer of Armes. Pursuivante has been written in as a correction at a later time. The engraving omits the canceled title, leaving a blank space. The number 2 . appears above the head of the Thomas Knight figure; what this signifies is unclear.]
2. Sergeants at Armes. [Likewise, an unexplained number . 1. appears above the heads of these two figures.]
The Banner of Cornwall, borne by ye L. Herbert sonne & heire to ye Erle of Worcester.
Aldermen of London. & The Recorder.
The Quenes
· Sollicitor.
· Attorney.
· Sergeant.
[3.22, bottom panel]
Mr of ye Revells. Mr of ye Tents.
Knights Batchelors.
Lord Cheiff Baron and L: Cheiff Justice of ye comõ [i.e., common] pleas.
Mr of the Jewell House. Sr Edward Carey.
Knights wch have byn Embasadors. And Gentlemen Agents.
Esquires
· for the Quene.
for the Body.
[The roll shows crossed-out Servers for each of these two entries, with Esquires written above as a correction. The engraving leaves a blank space where these cancellations would have been.]
Esquires for ye Body. Gentlemen of ye Privy. Chamber.
Frances Thinne Lancaster Herold of Armes.
The Banner of Wales borne by ye Viscount Bindon:
The Lord Maior of London.
[3.22, top panel]
The Masters of the Requests. Julius Caeser & Roger Wilbram.
Agents for Venice And the Estates.
The Lord Cheiffe Justice of England Sr John Popham. The Channcelor of ye Exchequer. Sr John Fortescue.
The Principall Secretary. Sr Robt Cicell.
Controller of ye Howshold. Sr Edward Wotton. Treasoror of ye Howshold. Sr William Knowles.
Richard St George Windsor Herold of Armes.
The Banner of Ireland borne by the Erle of Clanricard.
Barons.
Bishopps.
Erles Eldest Sonnes.
[3.23, bottom panel]
Viscounts & Dukes Second Sonnes.
Erles and Marquesses.
Doctor Anthony Watson Bishopp of Chichester the Quenes Almoner, preacher,
[The next two headings extend over two pairs of mourners. The mourner walking on the right in each pair is unidentified.]
The Lord Keeper, Sr Tho: Egerton.
The Archbishopp of Canterbury, Doctor John Whitgift
The French Embassador [followed by an unnoted footman]
Fower Sergeants at Armes.
The Great Embrothred Banner of England borne by ye Erle of Penbroke, assisted by ye L: Howard of Effingham.
Robert Treswell Somersett & John Raven Richmond Heralds of Armes.
The Helme & Creast borne by Raffe Brooke York Herald of Armes.
[3.23, top panel]
The Targett borne by James Thomas Chester Herald of Armes.
The Sword borne by William Seger Norroy Kinge of Armes.
A Gentleman Usher wth a white rodd.
The Cote borne by William Camden Clarencieux Kinge of Armes,
A Gentlemen [sic] Usher wth a white rode,
The Charrett Drawne by .4. Horses uppõ wch Charrett stood the Coffin Covered wth purple velvet, & uppõ that the representation, The Canapy borne by 6. Knights.
[The following three groups accompany the hearse.]
Gentlemen Pentioners,
Gentlemen Pentioners,
footemen
[3.24, top panel]
The Erle of Worcester Mr of the Horse Leading the Palfrey of Estate. 2 . Esquires & a groome attending to Lead him away.
A Gentleman Usher of the Privy Chamber. William Dethick Garter Principall Kinge of Armes
The Lady Marchiones of Northampton Principall mourner asisted by the Lord Buckherst Lord Thresorer & the Erle of Nottingham Lord Admirall.
Her Trayne Assisted by two Countesses & Sr John Stanhop Vicechamberlaine.
Countesses Assistants. xiiii.
Countesses and Viscountesses.
[3.24, bottom panel]
Erles Doughters and Baronesses.
Maydes of Honor and of the Privy Chamber.
The Capitaine of the Guard, Sr Walter Rawleigh.
Th [fragmentary]
Original Explanatory Account: Click here to read the original explanatory account for Plates 3.18-3.24.
Commentary by David Read: Most references to this object note that it is the first pictorial rendering of the funeral of an English monarch. For this reason alone, it would be of interest to the SAL and a suitable candidate for inclusion in Vetusta Monumenta. It is not, of course, the only depiction of a noble English person’s funeral in the period. The manuscript (British Library, Add MS 35324) from Ferdinand de Rothschild’s bequest to the British Museum provides sufficient evidence of the interest in such projects, containing as it does drawings of the funeral processions of Anne of Cleves, Henry VIII’s fourth wife (1515-1557); Sir Christopher Hatton, Lord Chancellor under Elizabeth (c. 1540-1591); Mary Queen of Scots (1542-1587); Lady Jane Lumley (1537-1578), daughter of the longtime Tudor courtier Henry Fitzalan, Earl of Arundel (1512-1580) and first wife of the patron and collector John, Lord Lumley (c. 1533-1609); the military and civic official Henry Radcliffe, Fourth Earl of Sussex 1533-1593); an unidentified Knight of the Garter and an unidentified Duchess; all of these in addition to the colored drawings of Elizabeth I’s procession. The distinction of Add MS 5408 is not only due to its being the first such representation of an English royal funeral—moreover the funeral of perhaps the most celebrated of all English rulers—but, also to the choice of medium, a panoramic “ribbon” rather than a series of separate drawings. Yet the idea of portraying an important historical event in this form was not new. An example from earlier in the Tudor period, the Westminster Tournament Roll (Plate 1.21-1.26), appears in Volume 1 of Vetusta Monumenta. The most striking and probably most studied instance is from 1588, the so-called Lant’s Roll illustrating the very elaborate 1587 funeral of Sir Philip Sidney (1554-1586), drafted by Thomas Lant (c. 1556-1600), a herald in the College of Arms, and engraved by Theodore de Bry or de Brij (1528-1598). The term “roll” is something of a misnomer in this case, as the engraved plates were originally published, probably as an unbound set, under the Latin title Sequitur celebritas & pompa funeris (abbreviated here; the full title takes up a paragraph). However, surviving examples indicate that the plates were often mounted on some type of backing to form a roll. 1 the surviving example of Lant’s Roll in this form is actually owned by the SAL. A complete series of the separate plates belongs to Christ Church College in Oxford, and it has been digitized for viewing.
Elizabeth I’s funeral roll, on the other hand, presents a continuum, with the drawings overlapping the various sutures in the paper of the roll. Housed in the British Library’s Western Manuscripts collection under the shelfmark Add MS 5408, it has also been digitized and all of its sections can be viewed online. It is apparently rolled up in storage, as indicated by one of the images in the digitized series. In its present state it is edged with cloth tape along the perimeter as well as reinforced with a vellum-like backing. Attached at the end is a label with this text: “This Funeral Procession of Queen Elizabeth, by the hand of Will. Camden, is Presented to the British Museum, that Noble, Useful, & well regulated Repository of whatever relates to the Laws, History, and Antiquities of Great Britain. by John Wilmot Esqr. April, 1791.” On the first sheet at the upper left is a handwritten inscription, apparently from Wilmot himself: “To be deposited in the British Museum_John Wilmot 1783.” The manuscript has multiple stains and creases, but is intact except for the very last section. Further injury is in the form of the red British Museum crown stamp applied liberally throughout the roll, along with numbering in light pencil at the corners of the “joints.” Most of the condition issues, though, would date from before 1791. Basire II did not reproduce these, or Wilmot’s inscription, on the plates.
An intriguing companion piece exists. Of obscure provenance, it is also pen and ink, but vividly hand-colored and surviving as cardboard-framed pages in a collection of drawings of (mostly) sixteenth-century funeral processions, Add MS 35324, which is part of the massive 1899 bequest of Renaissance artifacts to the British Museum from the estate of Baron Ferdinand de Rothschild (1839-98). Several of these illustrations are available on the British Library website. The attribution here is also to Camden, but both the drawing and the lettering are distinctly more polished, suggesting the work of a different illustrator who was probably copying (with embellishment) from the original roll. In any case, the history of the colorized version falls outside the scope of this discussion. The focus here will be on Add MS 5408 as reproduced in Vetusta Monumenta in 1791.
Even if one considers Add MS 5804 to belong to a contemporary genre of sorts, overstating its rarity and historical value would be exceedingly hard to do. That this fragile artifact managed to survive relatively intact until its placement in the British Museum in 1791 is something of a mystery, and probably one that will never be fully explained. Its reproduction in Vetusta Monumenta was most likely the direct result of John Wilmot’s decision to loan the roll to the SAL for a period of time in 1790, as indicated in the Society’s minutes for January 21 of that year, which thank Wilmot for “this curious communication” (SAL Minutes XXIII.258). A barrister with family connections in Derbyshire and Warwickshire, Wilmot (bap. 1749, d. 1815) was one of a long line of distinguished lawyers. His full name was John Eardley Wilmot, after his father; the elder Wilmot (1709-1792), himself a fellow of the SAL since 1745 (SAL Minutes V.10, 12), was knighted for serving with great skill in various judicial offices associated with the crown, including Chief Justice of the Common Pleas from 1766 to 1771. In consequence, the family must have spent considerable time in London while maintaining its ties to the Midlands. As a second son, John the younger did not inherit the father’s title, though with the death of his older brother Robert in 1770 he did become heir to the estate. Late in life he was granted permission to change his surname to Eardley-Wilmot, perhaps to give the longstanding middle name a more secure status in the legal and genealogical record. The title revived with his first son, Sir John Eardley Eardley-Wilmot (1783-1847), also a lawyer, best known for his troubled four-year stint as Lieutenant-Governor of Van Diemen’s Land (later Tasmania) during its years as a penal colony. The mother of this Sir John was Frances “Fanny” née Sainthill (1759-1838), whom John Wilmot married in 1776, when she was sixteen. She is important to this commentary because it was through the marriage that the funeral roll eventually came into Wilmot’s hands.
The only reasonably detailed source of information on the Sainthills is a short genealogical study published in 1938, The History of the Sainthill Family, by Ammabel St. Hill (d. 1949), who actually married into the family. Her husband had died in combat in World War I and she may have compiled the book by way of tribute to him. The family had multiple branches, including a London branch to which Fanny belonged. Fanny’s father was Samuel Sainthill (1727-67), who died fairly young and left little trace in the historical record. St. Hill notes that “he does not appear to have followed any profession” (Saint-Hill 1938, 45). He did marry well, to the daughter of a prosperous cooper who was also a London alderman. As the only child of the marriage, Fanny came into a generous inheritance when Samuel died, and the inheritance—as a mark of “good family,” apart from its other uses—was perhaps a factor in her marriage to Wilmot about a decade after her father’s death. The crucial relative in connection with the funeral roll, though, was not her father but her grandfather, Peter Sainthill (1690-1775). In a letter from Wilmot to the SAL, read into the Society’s minutes for January 26, 1790, he described Peter Sainthill as “that excellent man, and eminent Surgeon, whose granddaughter I married” (SAL Minutes XXIII.271). Unfortunately, this is about as extensive a witness to his life and his career as seems to exist. St. Hill does hint in her book that Peter had serious antiquarian interests, observing that he “was evidently a man of erudite tastes” who owned “a wonderful collection of old coins” (44).
Wilmot’s marriage to Fanny ended in divorce. When exactly the divorce occurred is unclear, though not before Fanny had given birth to four daughters in addition to the son mentioned above. St. Hill has included a photograph in her book of a “charming” miniature portrait of Fanny, once owned by J. Pierpont Morgan,2 that came up for auction at Christie’s in the 1930s; the sale catalog description speaks of Fanny as intensely devoted to the hunt, prompting this startling and wholly unverifiable comment from St. Hill: “Possibly it was the sporting element that led to her tragedy, as she ran away with her groom” (45). Whatever the actual cause, Wilmot’s tie to Fanny and the Sainthills was broken at some point in the 1780s or early 1790s. He remarried in 1793 and had no other children who reached adulthood. Educated at Oxford and the Inner Temple, he appears to have had wide-ranging interests, as suggested by his membership in the Royal Society since 1779. His career in the law was nearly as illustrious as his father’s, and in later life he wrote several books as well. For the purposes of this commentary, though, there is little need to review his life history after his election as an SAL fellow in 1791.
The opening paragraph of the explanatory account that accompanies the engravings in Vetusta Monumenta states that Wilmot found the roll “among the papers of his wife’s grandfather Peter Sainthill, esq.” Otherwise there is no explanation of how, when, or where Sainthill acquired it, and in his January 1790 letter to the SAL Wilmot is silent on this score. Were other old and historic documents included in Sainthill’s papers as well? We have only the suggestion from Ammabel St. Hill that Peter Sainthill was a collector of antiquities. Probably, Wilmot was sorting through personal effects in Sainthill’s estate some time after his death, as a family member or a lawyer, or perhaps in both roles at once, but the specific context of Wilmot’s involvement is apparently lost. It is possible to be at least somewhat more definite about chronology based upon the inscription on the first sheet of the actual roll (“To be deposited in the British Museum_John Wilmot 1783.”). This inscription provides evidence of two things: first, that Wilmot must have come into possession of the roll some time between 1775, i.e. the year of Peter Sainthill’s death, and 1783; second, that the roll was in Wilmot’s hands for at least eight years before it actually reached the museum. Why the long interval? Wilmot’s letter to the SAL offers no clues, though he makes his plan for the roll quite clear: he has provided it to the members for their “inspection” and agrees to their request “to retain it for a few weeks . . . and to make any use of it they please consistent with my intention of depositing it in the British Museum, a place I think peculiarly calculated, both by its Safety and Facility of access, for the Monuments of British History and Antiquities.” The letter indicates that Wilmot had previously shown the funeral roll not only to his father but to the writer Horace Walpole (1717-1797) and the naturalist and antiquarian Daines Barrington (1727/28-1800), both SAL fellows; all thought it “a great curiosity” (SAL Minutes XXIII.271). Presumably, Wilmot’s purpose in loaning the roll was both to edify the Society’s members and to draw on their expertise by way of confirming the roll’s authenticity. Almost certainly there was some self-interest involved as well, since this interaction in 1790 likely influenced Wilmot’s election to the Society in the following year.
The draftsmanship of the roll is fairly simple and unornamented, though not to the extent of being crudely done. Little effort went into giving distinguishing features other than clothing to individuals in the procession. Most of the faces depicted are generic and interchangeable, with largely identical beards and mustaches on the men who composed the vast majority of participants. Within its limits the work is careful and methodical. The engraving of the roll in Vetusta Monumenta faithfully captures the economy of the original work, though it is not what one would describe as “photographic” reproduction. Basire II or a copyist working with him made some editorial decisions, omitting the minor corrections in the original as well as John Wilmot’s inscription at the beginning of the roll. Apart from capturing the sequence of the procession, the main consideration in the drawing appears to be rendering the heraldic elements (standards, banners, equestrian trappings, escutcheons, livery on the short coats called tabards) with decent accuracy. The crucial role of heralds in the basic organization of the procession can be gathered from the fact that the only named individuals on the roll other than those in the inner circle of Elizabeth’s court are officers in the College of Arms, and every one of these officers is identified.
Founded by Richard III in 1484 and still alive and well, the College of Arms supervises and regulates English armorial bearings and pedigrees. In his weighty Heralds of England: A History of the Office and College of Arms (published by Her Majesty, no less), Sir Anthony Wagner describes the College as “an institution unique not only in England but in the world” (Wagner 1967, xxiii). Evolving out of the chivalric practice of attendants ceremonially announcing the entrance of knights into tournaments, it gradually became, and continues to be, an omnibus organization dealing with all aspects of the awarding and maintenance of coats of arms. It operates both as an important genealogical organization and a living relic of the feudal past, reflecting as well as affirming the existence of the aristocracy as an institutional reality in British life. The College has frequently interacted with the SAL over the years. One of its responsibilities continues to be the proper organization and deployment of heraldic devices at state funerals (though no longer at the funerals of the nobility at large, as was the case in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries). While the College’s officers now undertake this type of work voluntarily, in the seventeenth century they were entitled to collect various fees known as droits (i.e., rights). This included shares in the furniture—the decorative goods, often quite valuable, left over at the end of a noble person’s funeral (Wagner 1967, 106-19). All of the offices represented by the heralds marching in the procession (designated as Pursuivant of Arms, Herald of Arms, and King of Arms in ascending order of seniority) are still in existence, and most are actively occupied today, though they are now honorary rather than remunerative. On the roll, the respective holders in 1603 of Bluemantle, Portcullis, Dragon, Rougecroix, Lancaster, Windsor, Richmond, York, Chester, Norroy, Clarenceux, and Garter can be seen interspersed throughout the procession, becoming more concentrated just in front of Elizabeth’s hearse.
The most significant of these officers in terms of the roll is William Camden, Clarenceux King of Arms in the College at the time of the funeral. Camden’s foundational role in the development of English antiquarianism would naturally attract the fellows of the SAL to objects associated with him, and the roll has a double claim: not only is Camden featured prominently on it, he is also allegedly its creator. This attribution has persisted without any serious debate since Wilmot’s day, yet the question of authorship will have to remain open absent more concrete evidence. Camden’s presence in the procession immediately preceding the hearse (Plate 3.23) could be used as an argument either for or against his being the source of the drawings. The object itself offers few clues about provenance beside the resemblance—noted in the British Library’s online commentary on the roll—of the handwriting above the figures to Camden’s. Wyman Herendeen is fairly sanguine about the attribution in his biography of Camden but refrains from stating it absolutely, suggesting that the roll might have been a sort of off-hours project, a creative extension of the official work that Camden performed as a herald: “I suspect that the drawing was undertaken with a combination of personal pride and professional commitment. The roll is interesting as a personal document . . . it is a bit like finding that the train dispatcher, after leaving work, goes home to play with model trains” (Herendeen 2007, 394).3 The key phrase in this remark is “I suspect.” There is little to link Camden to the roll other than common knowledge, so to speak: in the early seventeenth century he was perhaps the most prominent authority on the kingdom’s history, as well as the second-ranking officer in the College of Arms and closely associated with the court. He is pictured on the roll carrying the royal coat and accompanied by two ushers, as the formal precursor to the passage of the hearse—an obvious sign of his important role in the proceedings. Circumstantially, at least, he figures as the roll’s plausible author, but plausibility is not the same as certainty.
The roll raises a number of other still-open questions. How was it produced, and when? How long after the funeral? How much was it based on other records and testimonies about the procession? Is it completely second hand, based on accounts compiled by others? One question about sources is easy to answer: the roll must have relied on a list of participants prepared in advance, at some time between Elizabeth’s death on March 24 and the funeral on April 28. There was nothing extemporaneous about the procession: the sequencing reflected a careful design, presenting “a microcosm of the social unit of the kingdom, hierarchically organized according to status and degree” and a “statement of continued order and stability,” as Jennifer Woodward has noted of heraldic funerals in general (Woodward 1997, 17). A reasonably comprehensive list would have been necessary to the process of completing the arrangements. Moreover, any eyewitness to the procession as it passed would have needed to possess superhuman powers of observation in order to identify and then record all of the groups and individuals involved, considering that they numbered in the hundreds and in many cases were wearing identical black mourning garments.4 In any event, if Camden was in fact the roll’s author he was also a participant in the procession, and would not have been able to view it as if he were standing along the route; instead he would see the backs of the two heralds and the usher marching in front of him. For him the roll would have to be a reconstruction after the fact, and a list would be a necessity here as well.
Such a list did make its way into print more than once in 1603, as writers and publishers sought to profit from the momentous passing of the queen. One iteration appears with the plate series (see the “Original Explanatory Account” above), excerpted from a short tract titled Expicedium—silently corrected to Epicedium by one of the many fine Latinists in the SAL. As is true of many hastily printed books in the period, the contents of Expicedium were cobbled together from different materials bearing on the same topic: the first two items consist of "A Funerall Oration" in prose and poem, "A true Subjects sorowe, for the loße of his late Soueraigne," both attributed to the poet and editor Richard Niccols (1584/4-1616); the funeral list is included as a sort of makeweight.5 The same list with a few minor variations also appeared in a similar setting in England’s Mourning Cloak, the work of a printer and playwright named Henry Chettle (d. 1603x7), which went through two editions in 1603; the title page of the second edition advertises “many new additions” that in fact amount to one more page, describing the “twelve bannerols” being “caried by twelve Barons” alongside of the hearse. In both editions the list is sandwiched between a pastoral prose-and-verse dialogue celebrating Elizabeth’s virtues, and “The Shepheards Spring Song,” commemorating James I’s “royall, happy, and flourishing Entrance, to the Majestie of England” ([Chettle] 1603, F4r).
A comparison of the roll with this list will show that the correspondence is not exact. The roll’s creator typically employed the space-saving technique of substituting a small group for a large one, as, for example, when he depicted twelve rather than 260 “poore women” near the beginning of the procession.6Whether deliberately or accidentally, he also omitted a cluster of functionaries and contractors (including musicians, apothecaries, and “chirurgions” or surgeons) who, had they been depicted, would be placed after the various sergeants at the end of the top panel of 3.20 and before the “Clark Marshall & Avenor,” the first group on the bottom panel of 3.21.7 Thus the roll should be regarded as a generally but not totally accurate representation of the procession. Discrepancies aside, even a cursory look at either the list or the roll reveals that a primary consideration of the procession’s organizers was to present the royal household as a massive and permanent institution, one that would continue in all of its manifold functions and duties no matter who occupied the throne. The sheer range of departments in the household is made obvious: the procession seems to include representatives from every one of these, as well as different ranks of servants from within each one. The names and purposes of several departments have become obscure after four centuries, but clearly even the most mundane has its function in the grand machinery of the household, and accordingly a place in the symbolic representation of that household.8
The procession registers, then, as both a grateful public tribute to the departed queen and a statement of the eternal, impersonal character of the monarchy—an edifice inhabited for a time by one or another mortal being, but standing regardless. As in other heraldic funerals of the period but on a much grander scale, “the emphasis,” in Clare Gittings’s words, “was on continuity rather than loss, on strength rather than bereavement” (Gittings 1984, 166). Creating this emphasis was obviously important to the officials on the Privy Council, particularly to the Secretary of State, Robert Cecil (1563-1612), seen marching in the top panel on Plate 3.22. His foremost concern was to present the funeral ceremonies as one major phase in the orderly transition of power—surely the standard approach to the ritual of royal succession during the years of Tudor rule, but made more urgent given Elizabeth’s childlessness and the lack of a direct heir to the throne. James VI of Scotland, soon to be crowned as James I of England, understood the need to project and maintain the idea that his assumption of the throne was inevitable—in the course of nature, so to speak—and not merely because his claim as Elizabeth’s first cousin twice removed was declared to be better than those of several potential rivals. He was closely interested in the funeral plans, approving the extraordinary expenses involved (over £10,000, or more than ten times that amount in a present-day valuation), and postponing his arrival in London until after the event so as to be able to make a decorous public entrance without interfering with the period of public mourning for Elizabeth (Woodward 1997, 93 n.31, 97-100).
The College of Arms provided the procession with the material symbols of royal stability. The various heralds wore colorful tabards embroidered with Elizabeth’s coat of arms.9 Most of the other flashes of color in what was otherwise a fairly monochromatic event (mainly in black but also in purple, which nobles were entitled to wear for mourning) were the standards that portrayed heraldic beasts—the dragon, the greyhound, and the lion, all described by the contemporary commentator John Clapham (1566-1619) as “supporters of the Arms of England”—and the banners displaying the coats of arms of regions that, as Clapham observes, “had been annexed to the crown of England either by conquest or by escheat,” i.e., acquisition of unclaimed property (Clapham 1951,111). The hearse itself was more colorful than one might expect, with a polychrome wooden effigy of the queen atop the casket, “all very exquisitely framed to resemble the life” (Clapham 1951, 112). Flanking the hearse were twelve barons, six to a side and ordered from youngest to oldest, each with a “bannerol” or banderole, a type of square flag. The dozen bannerols bore the emblems of royal couples in the Plantagenet dynasty beginning with Henry II and Eleanor of Aquitaine. It would take an eyewitness well-versed in the subtleties of heraldry to notice that this figurative representation of the Plantagenet succession left out the bannerols of problematic cases like Richard II (deposed) and Richard III (slain in battle, among other issues). The Lancastrian interruptions of Henry IV, Henry V, and Henry VI also had no place, in keeping with the generally Yorkist bias of this version of the royal line. Henry VII’s claim, as such, to the royal Plantagenet heritage was by virtue of his marriage to Elizabeth of York, uniting the white rose of York with the red rose of Lancaster and inaugurating the House of Tudor. The bannerol of Henry VII and Elizabeth of York led, of course, to the final bannerol representing Elizabeth I’s parents, Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn. The meaning of this final piece of the procession would perhaps be appreciated best by heralds like Camden: Queen Elizabeth was being commemorated emblematically as the last heir of the Plantagenets, ending a line of great rulers that extended back more than four centuries into the past.
In respect of the royal bureaucracy, however, Elizabeth’s death was no ending at all—and this idea was also implied in the procession, though perhaps only subliminally. Most of the Elizabethan high officials who marched in its later stages remained in exactly the same roles under James. For example, Robert Cecil (often referred to as Salisbury after James re-created that earldom for him in 1605) served continuously as Secretary of State until his death in 1612. There would be several exceptions to this general rule: two of them, the Marchioness of Northampton (1548-1635) and Sir Walter Raleigh (1554-1618), appear in fairly close proximity following the hearse (Plate 3.24), the former as principal mourner and the latter as Captain of the Guard “with all the guard following, five and five in a ranke, holding their holberds downeward,” according to the list of participants. (The first rank of this guard troop can just be seen at the damaged end of the roll; neither the roll nor the list indicates the troop’s size.) Raleigh’s contemporary celebrity—as courtier, soldier-adventurer, and colonial entrepreneur—far exceeded that of the Marchioness, but the two were curiously connected through a person who was absent from the funeral proceedings, Lady Arabella or Arbella Stuart (1575-1615). Lady Stuart was slated to be the principal mourner in the procession, since the rules of heraldry dictated that this position was occupied by the closest female relative to the departed. Like James, she was Elizabeth’s first cousin twice removed—and, like James, this gave her a legitimate claim to the English throne, a claim that the Privy Council under Cecil’s leadership had dismissed in favor of that of her male cousin. She herself prevented the awkwardness of having a potential rival for the crown marching in the procession by declining to participate (Woodward 1997, 102). Instead, the position of chief mourner went to the Marchioness, who was no relation whatsoever to Elizabeth—she was Swedish, and had come to England originally in the train of Princess Cecilia of Sweden (1540-1627)—but had risen to become one of the queen’s favorite maids of honor and eventually a gentlewoman of the privy chamber. As her title indicates, she also married very well, but James apparently regarded her as a less than useful holdover from Elizabeth’s reign, and her privileges at court were withdrawn. Her change in status was mild compared to Raleigh’s; not long after the funeral he was implicated, whether rightly or wrongly, in the so-called Main Plot, a scheme among several disenchanted nobles to raise an army using Spanish funds in order to depose James and place Lady Stuart on the throne. Convicted of aiding the conspiracy, Raleigh spent the next thirteen years imprisoned in the Tower of London. For James, the concern with maintaining continuity from one royal regime to another did have its limits.
Notes:
[1]: Goldring provides a useful discussion of the extant copies of Sequitur celebritas, both complete and incomplete, mounted and unmounted (Goldring 2007, 229-31). See also Goldring 2002, as well as her modern edition of Sequitur celebritas in Goldring, Eales, Clarke, and Archer 2014, Vol. 3 283-340.
[2]: This sole visual record of Frances Sainthill was part of a large and valuable collection of miniature portraits, including one of Elizabeth I, that J. P. Morgan’s son Jack sold through Christie’s in 1935, presumably to improve his financial position in the depths of the Depression (Chernow 1990, 384).
[3]: Herendeen’s comments on the roll are unfortunately marred by a serious error: in his description of the contents he has mysteriously reversed the order of marchers in the procession, placing Sir Walter Raleigh (Plate 3.24) at the beginning and the 260 poor women (Plate 3.18) at the end. He refers to Woodward’s book in an endnote (Herendeen 2007, 514, n. 60) but apparently never consulted the appendix in which she reprints the list of participants from Henry Chettle’s England’s Mourning Garment (Woodward 1997, 210-13).
[4]: Writing later in the seventeenth century, Francis Sandford (1630-94), like Camden a herald in the College of Arms, provided the figure of 1600 total participants (Sandford 492).
[5]: The number 266 on the roll must be in error. Every other source indicates 260 women, which would allow the women to march “foure and foure” in sixty-five ranks.
[6]: The OED defines the avener as “A chief officer of the stable, who had charge of the provender for the horses.” The word for oats in Latin is avena.
[7]: Below is a brief account of the terms and titles that are probably least familiar, with much credit to the OED for assistance. The almonry or almery was an office charged with distribution of alms to the poor (likewise, the almoner was the officer who supervised this distribution). The scullery was for storage and maintenance of dinnerware and other kitchen gear. The scalding-house was for preparation of meats and other items in boiling liquid, as opposed to the boiling-house, which was for items like soap that required boiling in the production process. The catery was the general office for supplying provisions to the royal household. The ewry was for storage of water-jugs (ewers), towels, and table linen. The wafery, as one might guess, baked wafers and similar types of cake. The chaundry or chandry was the chandlery, for manufacture and storage of candles. The staple was a designated place (Bruges during Elizabeth’s reign) where a group of merchants had royal authorization to control the sale of English export goods, mainly wool. The pitcher-house and buttery were both for storage of alcoholic beverages, mainly wine in the former and mainly ale in the latter (“buttery” comes from the Anglo-Norman and late Latin terms for casks and has nothing to do with butter). The acatry or achatry was for provisioning and storage of foodstuffs like fish that needed to be purchased from vendors outside the household. The garneter was the supervisor of a granary. The cofferer was a treasury officer, in charge of the coffers. The Clerk of the Green Cloth was an officer of the Board of Green Cloth, the accounting office of the royal household, which made the general arrangements for royal journeys such as progresses through the countryside. Harbingers were the agents that did the advance work on these journeys, locating and negotiating for appropriate lodging and provisions.
[8]: This was actually a restoration of Henry IV’s coat of arms, consisting of two quarters arranged diagonally opposite one another, both picturing three lions in gold on a red background, and likewise two quarters picturing three fleur-de-lis in gold on a blue background; the lions went back to the reign of Richard I (the Lionheart) in the twelfth century, and the fleur-de-lis symbolized the English monarch’s claim to the French throne, which originated with Edward III in the fourteenth century and was pressed at least ceremonially through Elizabeth’s reign.Works Cited:
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