Narratives of Dynastic Continuity in
Early Modern Europe:
The Use of Myth and Propaganda in Communicating the Legitimacy of
the Vasa and Tudor Dynasties
Master thesis proposal
Author: Elisabeth Michelsson
Supervisor: Henrik Ågren
Introduction to early modern studies, 7,5 credits
Spring 2016
HISTORISKAINSTITUTIONEN
Contents
Introduction .................................................................................................................................................. 3
Purpose........................................................................................................................................................... 3
Questions ....................................................................................................................................................... 4
Constructing legitimacy in early modern Europe .................................................................................... 5
Methodology ................................................................................................................................................. 9
Bibliography ................................................................................................................................................ 11
Primary Sources .......................................................................................................................................... 11
Swedish primary sources ....................................................................................................................... 11
English primary sources ........................................................................................................................ 12
Literature ...................................................................................................................................................... 13
Web pages .................................................................................................................................................... 14
Introduction
Gustav Vasa and Henry VII, the founders of the Vasa and Tudor dynasties respectively, were
both seen as usurpers. In order to compensate for the breaking of the royal continuum caused by
their seizure of the throne, both kings had the ambition to create a dynastic continuity. This
continuity was based, among other things, on the appropriated legacy of famous
mythic/historical ancestors/forerunners. Placing themselves in between these forerunners and
their future heirs, they constructed their dynasty as founded on a prestigious historical legacy
reaching into the future. But since the true test for the new dynasties would begin at the death of
the dynastic founders, it was crucial that their male heirs be given the best possible conditions to
prepare for the day of their succession to the throne. Because of this it was of great importance
that the legitimacy of the dynasty was publicly manifested through different means of power
display and propaganda such as ceremonies, portraiture and writing.
This thesis compares the way Henry VIII and Erik XIV dealt with this heritage and these
challenges.
Purpose
My purpose is to compare how Henry VIII and Erik XIV attempted to consolidate their royal
power and claim legitimacy for their dynasties with the help of myth and historical (or pseudohistorical) writing, as well as by means of visual display, for example in portraiture. Both had
ambitions to win renown for courtly as well as martial accomplishments; they had the best
teachers in classical humanist education, were well versed in languages and the liberal arts, and
knew how to joust and hunt. Last, but not least, they aspired to becoming national heroes like
their fathers. The Reformation was of importance for both of them because the pope’s power
over the national church had been declared illegitimate. It was possible, with the new creed, to
view the king himself as the representative of God. However, it is conceivable that the
Reformation affected them in different ways since it had different features and took different
paths in the two countries. In addition, Erik XIV inherited the Reformation while Henry
introduced some of its aspects tentatively in order to serve his overriding aim of securing the
3
dynastic continuity of the Tudors. So although the similarities between these two princes are
perhaps obvious, my question is whether there were any significant differences between their
presentations as legitimate rulers? Apart from the question of whether the different paths of the
Protestant Reformation in the two countries affected the legitimation narratives of their
dynasties, another question is to what extent the two kings sought the support of the common
people, and how this affected the general acceptance of their legitimacy as hereditary rulers. As I
discussed in my thesis on Gustav Vasa and Henry VII,1 taking my lead from Peter Burke’s article
on the style of kingship in Scandinavia as more “demotic” than in the rest of Europe, I will argue
that it may perhaps also be possible to find this difference between Erik XIV and Henry VIII,
and whether their representations should be seen as a form of political theatre or not.2 By
comparing the dynastic presentation as communicated in historical writing and in images of royal
portraiture, it would, hopefully, be possible to see differences in the communication of legitimacy
by these rulers. One such difference may be their style of kingship. Of course, the similarities
between them will also be discussed even if the discrepancies may turn out to be of more interest.
And, since people around these kings, such as advisors, courtiers, artists, and historians, must
also have influenced the manner of their representation, these ancillary people were probably an
important part of their construction of legitimacy. A comparative discussion of these two
dynasties from this point of view has not been done before to my knowledge.
Questions
•
What were the differences and/or similarities between Erik XIV’s and Henry VIII’s
prerequisites to succeed in claiming their legitimacy as hereditary rulers and to
consolidate the power of their young dynasties in early modern Europe?
•
Were their rules modelled after either a demotic style or a dignified one or something
in between?
1
Elisabeth Michelsson 2015, “Descriptions of Power and Legitimacy in Early Modern Europe: A Comparison between the
Portrayal of the Sovereign in Tudor England and in Sweden of the Vasa Dynasty”, unpublished thesis, Uppsala University.
2 Peter Burke 2008, ”State-making, king-making and image-making from renaissance to baroque: Scandinavia in a European
Context” in Scandinavian Journal of History, 22:1, 1-8
4
Constructing legitimacy in early modern Europe
In the article by Peter Burke referred to above, he talks about the “repertoire of images” available
for constructing legitimacy in the early modern period. This repertoire was used by the kings to
broadcast the power and greatness of their rule in a display of their images in busts, royal tombs
and ‘state’ portraits. These images were also made available to the common people through
reproductions of different kinds, such as copperplates, woodcuts and coins.3 A well-known
example of this is Holbein’s portrait of Henry VIII where the king is rendered (or reinvented)
posing as a monumental image of potent power, far from the more realistic image of the ailing
middle-aged man that he was beneath all the pomp of dress and setting.4
A well-known example of the intention of communicating royal power and legitimacy through
images is the famous mural portrait of Henry VIII with his wife Jane Seymour and his parents on
a wall of the Privy Chamber of Whitehall made by Holbein in 1537. This mural painting has been
called “the best piece of propaganda ever” because of it’s the overwhelming effect of the mythic
power of the king.5 In her book Art and Communication in the Reign of Henry VIII (2008), Tatiana
String stresses the historical context of Henrician art and its interconnectedness with other forms
of visual media and “non-visual communication”6 Commenting on the mural portrait she says
that this “must have been part of something called Henrician propaganda.”7 She particularly
refers to images produced on royal commission, communicating “princely magnificence or
informative propaganda.” Other “communicative acts” disseminating from the court of Henry,
were books and sermons with the aim to “persuade Henry’s subjects of the importance of the
king’s position of authority when the Royal Supremacy was instituted.” 8
The ability to ‘read’ images was nothing new in early modern England, especially not among
members of the elite, who were used to interpret for example religious and heraldic art.9 This also
included ornaments and images that, according to a contemporary, “ought to be in the house of a
noble man [ . . . ] wherby other men in beholdynge may be instructed, or at the least wayes, to
3
Burke 2008, 2.
Roy Strong 1967, Holbein and Henry VIII. See also Sidney Anglo 1992, Images of Tudor Kingship.
5 Derek Wilson, 2009, ”Was Hans Holbein’s Henry VIII the best piece of propaganda ever?” http://www.telegraph.co.uknews/
Access 160316.
6 String 2008, 1.
7 Tatiana String 2008, Art and Communicationin the Reign of Henry VIII,
8 String 2008, 2.
9 String 2008, 3.
4
5
virtue persuaded.”10 Art should not only be decorative or didactic, but also serve as a model for a
virtuous life.
Although the original of the Whitehall mural was destroyed in a fire in 1698 a surviving copy
made in 1667 gives a good idea of the main message communicated by the motif, which is that of
“dynastic continuity”.11 Presenting his (dead) parents and his (not yet born) “hoped-for heir”, and
himself, in an image of potent masculinity, “Henry VIII stares out from the illusionistic space
[ . . . ], clothed in ostentatious costumes so as to express ideas about wealth, power and stability.”
The message of the Latin inscription at the centre of the mural, in interaction with the image,
communicates the continuity and legitimacy of the Tudor dynasty. In translation the first lines
say,
If you enjoy seeing the illustrious figures of heroes,
Look on these; no painting ever bore greater.
......
The great question is whether the father
Or the son is the victor . . . .12
The image of Henry VIII on this mural has become one of the most famous royal portraits not
only because of the dress and pose of its central character but also because of the discernible
underlying palimpsest of the historical context of dramatic change. It was painted in the 1537, the
year after Henry’s marriage to Jane Seymour, who died the same year after giving birth to Henry’s
only legitimate male heir, the future Edward VI.
In The Fabrication of Louis XIV (1992), Peter Burke writes about the myths and propaganda
employed in building the royal image of Louis XIV of France. Representing the king as an
omnipresent supreme being while paying tribute to him in writing, painting, sculpture and
architecture, his legitimacy was acknowledged in spite of his expensive habits and capriciousness.
Ubiquitously communicating the greatness of the king was an important part of building his
image as the foremost prince of Europe. This was in the seventeenth century but already in the
preceding century kings like Erik XIV and Henry VIII made use of similar rhetorical means to
communicate their potency as the legitimate rulers of their realms. Since legitimacy has to be
constantly negotiated in an interactive process between ruler and subjects, it was not enough that
they had inherited the crown, they both had to find additional ways to authorize and legitimize
their rule.
10
See Sir Thomas Elyot’s The Book named the Governour (1531). Quoted in String 2008, 3.
String 2008, 5.
12 String 2008, 5.
11
6
To this end the dynastic appropriation of history, or pseudo-history was a popular way of
claiming legitimacy through ancient lines of heroically famous ancestors, often of doubtful or
mythic origins. In England King Arthur had been popularly seen as the king of the round table of
chivalric romance since the twelfth century but he was also described by early British
historiographers as a pre-historic, messianic king who conquered Rome and who would one day
come back to free Britain (Wales) from its foreign yoke. This double legacy was appropriated by
the Tudor kings in different ways to boost their legitimacy; Henry VII had his genealogists trace
his Welsh heritage from his father’s side to the last king of the Britons and baptised his first born
son Arthur. His second son, who became Henry VIII, made political use of Arthur’s alleged
conquest of Rome as narrated in Geoffrey of Monmouth’s History of the Kings of Britain (1136),
which he had presented as proof of Britain’s Imperial past to justify his detaching himself and
England from the “bishop of Rome”, making himself Supreme head over the Anglican Church.
For Sweden and the Vasa dynasty the History of all Kings of Goths and Swedes (1554), written by the
exiled Catholic arch-bishop Johannes Magnus served the same purpose; it provided a useful
narrative of conquest on which to construct an ancient heroic past and a mythical people, who
were supposed to have originated in Sweden.
In his writing about charisma, the anthropologist Clifford Geertz says that “all polities are
ordered and governed by ‘master fictions’ . . .” Taking the divine right of kings as an example of
such master fictions, he means that “they operate as the unchallenged first principles of a political
order, making any given hierarchy appear natural and just to rulers and ruled. By exploring how
such fictions, and the rhetoric that sustains them, are invented and perpetuated [ . . . ] the
ideological lineaments of authority and consent in a particular historical context” may be
discerned. Geertz adds that the master fiction must be sustained also by “the threat of official or
sanctioned force.” 13 Although I will not specifically examine the use of violence by the first
Tudor and Vasa heirs, in the case of both dynasties, their master fictions about the heroic and
divinely attributed victories of their founders could not be questioned without fear of retribution.
Also, since he combines an anthropological methodology with a study of rhetoric or semiotics to
explain the meaning of human practices, Geertz will be useful for my comparison of the
legitimizing processes of the early modern dynasties in Sweden and England.14 Marc Bloch’s
seminal work on the “royal touch,” popularly conceived as a magical condition of a legitimate
king being able to give miraculous healing power, will also be of interest.15
13
Geertz ”Centers, Kings and Charisma: Reflections on the Symbolics of Power”, in ”Introduction” to Sean Wilentz ed.1985,
Rites of Power: Symbolism, Ritual and Politics Since the Middle Ages, 4. See also Geertz, (1973) the Interpretation of Cultures.
14 Joseph Maximilian Gonzales III 1999, Reality and Representation: Myth, Ritual and Royal Power in Sweden and France 1560-1610, Diss
UCLA, 12.
15 Marc Bloch, 1989, The Royal Touch: Monarchy and Miracles in France and England.
7
Machiavelli, in his book Il Principe, written in the early sixteenth century, gives advice to the
prince about how to gain and maintain authority and power with different strategies depending
on the situation at hand. One of his conclusions is that it is better for a prince to be feared than
loved, since fear stops people from attempting to replace their prince, with someone who
promises relaxation of taxes or other improvements for the people. In retrospect however, a
prince who was feared may have been loved and respected for having, for example, achieved
peaceful stability and prosperity, even if this was the result of otherwise unacceptable methods.
Also important for the prince’s historical reputation was the opinion of his successors. This can
be seen for example in the way Gustav Vasa always referred to himself as Sweden’s saviour from
the tyrannical Christian II, and in the way Johan III vilified his brother Erik XIV after having
replaced him on the throne. Even if such rhetoric was seen as necessary to be accepted as
legitimate in the eyes of one’s contemporaries, it could lead to absurdly one-sided propaganda
being accepted as historical ‘truth’.16
In her book Ceremoniernas makt. Maktövergöring och genus i Vasatidens kungliga ceremonier Malin
Grundberg writes about the ceremonies accompanying the deposing of Erik XIV and the
ascendance to the throne of his brother Johan. After Erik’s questionable death Johan was faced
with the delicate task of having to legitimate his break in 1568 with the hereditary nature of the
Swedish crown as stipulated by Gustav Vasa and the diet in 1544. At the same time as the person
or “body natural” of the king had been forcefully deposed through a revolt among the
aristocracy, the hierarchical order of the hereditary principles, that is the “body politic” of the
realm, had to be maintained intact and transferred to Johan, the next heir in line.17 This inherited
“political theology” had its origin in medieval Europe where the seamless transference of royal
power was surrounded with liminal rituals at royal funerals and coronations.18 This phenomenon
is discussed by Joseph Gonzales, in Reality and Representation: Myth, Ritual and Royal Power in Sweden
and France, 1560-1610 (1999), where he compares the rituals deemed necessary to accompany the
legitimate transition from one ruler to his heir in early modern Europe. Gonzales’ comparison of
the dynastic rituals in early modern Sweden and France will be of use for my thesis about the
legitimization and representation of the successors of the founders of the Vasa and Tudor
dynasties.
Like Grundberg, Gonzales emphasizes the importance of the funeral rituals for Gustav Vasa
for the legitimate accession to the throne of his first-born son and successor Erik XIV. These
16
Gustav Vasa and Erik XIV have both been seen as ruthless Machiavellian rulers and the same can also be said about Johan
III. See for example Lars Olov Andersson 2000, Gustav Vasa, landsfader eller tyrann, 361, Michael Roberts 1969, Sverige och Europa.
Studier i svensk historia, 28.
17 Malin Grundberg 2005, Ceremoniernas makt. Maktöverföring och genus i Vasatidens kungliga ceremonier, 111-112. For the concept of the
two bodies of the king, see Ernst Kantorowicz 1957, The King’s Two Bodies: A Study in Medieval Political Theology.
18 Gonzales 1999, Reality and Representation: Myth, Ritual and Royal Power in Sweden and France 1560-1610, Diss UCLA.
8
rituals had been designed and closely orchestrated by Erik who made the royal funeral into a
stage for his self-presentation, not only as a worthy successor of the dynastic founder of the Vasa
dynasty, but more than that; as a full-fledged Renaissance prince, as other contemporary princes
like Henry VIII. Henry’s daughters Mary and Elizabeth were also well educated but both of them
had been declared illegitimate by their father at different times and were then barred from
legitimate succession to the throne by their brother, Edward VI and his advisors. But both of
them, in turn, overcame these obstacles and became the first two crowned English queens.19
Between them, as stated by Francis Bacon in his essays, they managed to secure a “continuum of
Tudor monarchs” in England for fifty years.20
The idea of the world as a stage as famously used by Shakespeare, was a classical concept from
ancient Greece, popular in the early modern period and often used to refer to the transience of
human existence, but it also “suggested a unity between representation and reality and therefore
the possibility to control reality itself” which is interesting in the historical context of the
representation of royal dynastic legitimacy of the Tudor and Vasa dynasties.21
Methodology
My method will be a comparison of the strategies used when presenting Erik XIV and Henry
VIII, and, if feasible to their immediate successors, Johan III, Edward VI, Mary I and Elizabeth
I, as representatives of the Vasa and Tudor dynasties, in some of the media available in the
sixteenth century, such as letters, print and portraiture.
Concerning the primary sources their genesis is often complex and ambiguous or prejudiced
as to their authors’ attitude to their objects of study, depending on by whom they were
commissioned and for what purpose. Because of this, an awareness of the historical contexts of
contemporary issues is of importance for understanding the representation of the upholders of
the dynastic legitimacy and the continuum of the Vasa and Tudor dynasties. This is also
important when reading and analysing the rhetoric impact of the sources on those readers who
came afterwards, in the near future or within living memory of the creation of the dynastic
narratives.
19
See Tudor Queenship. The Reigns of Mary and Elizabeth, 2010, eds. Alice Hunt and Anna Whitlock.
See Susan Doan and Thomas Freeman, 2010, The Myth of Elizabeth.
21 Gonzales, 1999, 9.
20
9
I will primarily examine the written texts of contemporary (or near-contemporary)
historiographers, to find out how the early Vasa and Tudor kings/queens were presented in
historical writing and portraiture, looking for differences/similarities. When possible, I will also
use, for example diplomatic and private letters, and images presented in royal portraits. To some
extent I may also be looking at royal ceremonies and public pageants. I have not yet had time to
examine all of the sources but I think they will contain useful information about how the kings
were represented. Although the chronicles were written on different initiatives for different
reasons their main intention was either to justify the legitimate rule of these kings or to dispute
their legitimacy. When assessing the interaction of images with the written sources I will use
Tatiana’s Art and Communication in the Reign of Henry VIII and also Roy Strong’s book on Holbein
and Henry VIII. For the Vasa dynasty’s royal portraiture, Kurt Johannesson’s chapter “The
Portrait of the Prince as a Rhetorical Genre” in Allan Ellenius book on propaganda and
legitimation will be helpful.22 The discussion of how royal images were used in the representation
of these dynasties will have the purpose of adding an extra dimension to the written sources,
which are the main objects of my study.
22
For Strong, see note 5; for Johannesson see the bibliography, see also his article 1980, “Gustav Vasa and the renaissance”, in
Journal of the Royal Armoury, Livrustkammaren, vol. 15, no. 7-8, 197 – 261.
10
Bibliography
Primary Sources
Swedish primary sources
•
Per Brahe’s continuation of Gustav Vasa’s Chronicle by Peder Svart which ends with
the birth of prince Erik in 1533. Brahe’s continuation goes from 1532 until 1541 and is
heavily influenced by Brahe’s position as the king’s nephew. He was a member of the
king’s council from 1544 and knighted by Erik XIV in 1561. His history was edited
and published by Otto Ahnfelt in 1896. This volume is available at Carolina (91 pp).
Although the chronicle is mainly about Gustav Vasa, Brahe’s chronicle may give
insights or notes of interest about Erik. (Ca. 90 pages.)
•
Rasmus Ludvigsson was educated in Rostock and became a secretary in the royal
offices’ of Gustav Vasa in the 1540s and continued as such under Erik and Johan. He
later wrote chronicles about Gustav I, which are said to be incomplete or mere
collections from different manuscripts that he came across while making genealogical
investigations for the nobility from the early 1560s. His Chronicle about Erik XIV was
also written at this time and published in 1825 according to Hasse Petrini 1942,
Källstudier till Erik XIV:s och Nordiska sjuårskrigets historia [Source studies for the
history of Erik XIV and the Nordic seven years war]. This book is available at
Carolina.
•
Erik Jöransson Tegel’s Konung Erik XIV:des historia [the History of King Erik XIV],
published in 1751 by Anders Anton von Stiernman. Tegel was the son of king Erik’s
secretary Jöran Persson who was executed by Johan III. Tegel was educated in
Germany under the auspices of the future Karl IX and later became the king’s
secretary. Apart from this, he wrote a history of Gustav Vasa on commission by Karl
11
IX, printed in 1671. Available at Handskriftsavdelningen Carolina.
•
Relevant texts selected from Palmsköldska samlingen [the Palmsköld collection], for
example Johan III’s “Defence for the deposition and imprisonment of Erik XIV.
Printed in January 1569” (Vol. 27). Elias Palmsköld was a secretary of the State
archives from 1702, who collected and copied manuscripts, letters as well as printed
books and booklets. Available at Handskriftsavdelningen at Carolina.
English primary sources
•
Edward Hall, The Union of the two noble and illustre families of Lancashire [and]
York, London, 1548 Available online from the British Library.
•
John Foxe, Actes and Monuments of these latter and perilous dayes, touching matters
of the church, London, 1570. Available online from https://www.johnfoxe.org
•
James Gairdner, ed., Letters and Papers, Foreign and Domestic, of the Reign of Henry
VIII, 1887. Available at Carolina.
•
Tudor Royal Proclamations, vol. 1, The Early Tudors (1485-1553), ed. Paul L.
Hughes and James F. Larkin, 1964. Available Carolina.
•
Holinshed’s Chronicles, 1587, or The Histories of England by Raphael Holinshed, 8
vols. Available online from Project Gutenberg
12
Literature
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Band IV.
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English Negotiations of King Erik XIV of Sweden. Studies in Swedish diplomacy and Commercial Politics.
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-------------, 1942, “Erik XIV och europa. Svenskt och europeiskt femtonhundratal. Fynd, forskningar och
essäer, 11-28.
-------------, 1963, Erik XIV.
Beetham, David, 2013, 2nd ed., The Legitimation of Power.
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Bourdieu, Pierre, 1991, Language and Symbolic Power, ed. John B. Thomspson.
Burke, Peter, 1992, The Fabrication of Louis XIV.
Ekedahl, Nils, (red.) , 2010, En dynasti blir till. Medier, myter och makt kring Karl XIV Johan och
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Ellenius, ed., Iconography, Propaganda and Legitimation, Introduction, 1-7.
Geertz, Clifford, 1973, The Interpretation of Cultures.
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Loades, David, 2012, The Tudors: The History of a Dynasty.
13
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Machiavellli, Niccoló, 1513, The Prince (printed 1532).
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------------, 2015, “Descriptions of Power and Legitimacy in Early Modern Europe: A
Comparison between the Portrayal of the Sovereign in Tudor England and in Sweden of the
Vasa Dynasty,” unpublished thesis, Historiska institutionen, Uppsala University.
Nordquist, Margaretha, 2015, A Struggle for the Realm. Late-medieval Swedish rhyme chronicles as
ideological expressions.
Petrini, Hasse, 1942, Källstudier till Erik XIV:s och nordiska sjuårskrigets historia.
Rankin, Mark, et.al. 2009, Henry VIII and his Afterlives: Literature, Politics and Art.
Sharpe, Kevin 2009, Selling the Tudor Monarchy: Authority and Image in Sixteenth-Century England.
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Wortman, Richard, S., 2000, Scenarios of Power. Myth and Ceremony in Russian Monarchy. Vol. I.
Web pages
Wilson, Derek 2009, ”Was Hans Holbein’s Henry VIII the best piece of propaganda ever?”
http://www.telegraph.co.uknews/ Access 160316.
14