Gender, Power and Privilege in Early Modern Europe by Richards Penny;Munns Jessica;

Author:Richards, Penny;Munns, Jessica;
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Taylor & Francis Group
Published: 2003-08-15T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER SEVEN

Queen Anna bites back: Protest, effeminacy and manliness at the Jacobean court

MICHAEL B. YOUNG

Marriage

This is the story of a marriage. The husband was King James VI and I (so called because he was the sixth king of Scotland but the first king of England named James). The wife was Princess Anna of Denmark. Their marriage defies easy generalizations and forces us to reconsider some of today's commonly held assumptions about gender and power in early modern Britain.

James and Anna did not meet, fall in love and marry in the way that modern western couples are supposed to. Rather, they were both members of a small and privileged sector of society, the royalty of northern Europe, and they both needed spouses from that very select group in the year 1589. James was twenty-three years old. Originally placed on the throne of Scotland as a baby when the nobility drove his mother, Mary Queen of Scots, out of the country, he had just reached the point in life where he was genuinely beginning to take charge of his country. He was under increasing pressure to marry and start producing heirs, all the more so because he had shown no previous interest in women. Thomas Eowler, an English informant, reported that James 'never regardes the company of any woman, not so muche as in any dalliance'.1 In fact, the one major love affair in his life up to this point involved his male cousin, the Duke of Lennox and that affair ended disastrously when the nobility drove Lennox out of the country and temporarily held James captive. It was a pattern that would repeat itself throughout James's life. Although he became an adept ruler in many respects, time and again he undermined his authority by becoming involved with these male 'favourites'.2 As a French observer expressed it, 'he loves indiscreetly and obstinately despite the disapprobation of his subjects'.3

Figure 7.1 Anna of Denmark, oil on panel, attributed to Marcus Ghecraerts the Younger c. 1612

By courtesy of the National Portrait Gallery, London.

By 1589 James was secure on the throne but still precariously alone in the world.4 In the absence of any immediate family, he had been raised by guardians.5 He had no brothers or sisters. His father had been murdered. His mother had remained both geographically and emotionally remote during her exile in England and was executed in 1587. If James should suddenly die, there were no heirs waiting in the wings to take over the reins of government and prevent Scotland from slipping into chaos. James himself wrote a fascinating, open letter to his subjects explaining his predicament. He acknowledged that 'I was generally found fault with by all men for the delaying so long of my marriage'. The 'want of hope of succession bred disdain'. More than that, 'my long delay bred in the breasts of many a great jealousy [suspicion] of my inability, as if I were a barren stock'. This and other considerations drove James into marriage for the good of the state, 'for, as to my own nature, God is my witness I could have abstained longer'.

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