Hall’s Rhetoric of Performance

Hall’s account of the first year of Henry VIII’s reign is a sequence of spectacles. Following about half of a folio page on the political situation following the death of Henry VII, Hall moves straight into a full page description of Henry VII’s funeral, and from there without pause into four pages on the coronation of Henry VIII and two on the coronation jousts. There is then a single short paragraph encompassing the ravages of plague in Calais that year, the summoning of Henry VIII’s first parliament and the attaint of Thomas Empson and Edmund Dudley for treason, before Hall moves on to describe the Christmas revels at Richmond, an impromptu Robin Hood disguising in the Queen’s Chamber at Westminster soon after and the entertainments for the ambassadors on Shrove Sunday, the last item comprising a full page of description. A one-sentence paragraph notes the restitution of money wrongly taken by Empson and Dudley before a final half-page concludes with an account of the entertainment of the Spanish ambassadors. The narrative for the year ends thus: ` In this yere from divers Realmes and Countreys came many Ambassadours, of Fraunce, Denemarke, Scotlande, and other Realmes, which were highly enterteyn[ed]’ (fol.vii^v; p.515).

The first year of a reign, one might argue, is atypically dominated by spectacles and revels. One king’s funeral and his successor’s coronation are events belonging to such a year by definition, and an unusually high number of ambassadors will visit precisely to pay their respects to a new king, who in turn will need to entertain them royally to create a desirable first impression. This is undeniably true; yet Hall’s account of the next year opens with a relatively small-scale May-Day revel incorporating an anecdote of no apparent political significance other than to show the king displaying himself to, and mixing graciously with, his court and people:

On May daye, then next folowyng in the .ii. yere of his reygne, hys grace beyng yonge, and wyllyng not to be idell, rose in the mornynge very early to fetche May or grene bows, hym self freche and rychely appareyled, and clothed all his Knyghtes, Squiers and Gentelmen in whyte Satyn, and all hys Garde and Yomen of the Croune in white sarcenet: and so went every man with his bowe and arrowes shotyng to the wood, and so repaired againe too the Courte, every man with a grene bough in his cappe, and at hys returnyng, many hearynge of his goynge a Maiyng, were desyrous to see hym shote, for at that tyme hys grace shotte as strong and as greate a length as any of his garde. There came to his grace a certain man with bowe and arrowes and desyred his grace to take the muster of hym, and to se hym shote: and at that tyme hys grace was contented, the man put his one fote in his bosome, and so did shote, and shot a very good shote, and well towardes his marke, wherof not onely his grace but all other greatly merveyled. So the kyng gave hym a rewarde for his so doyng, whiche persone afterwardes of the people and of them in the courte was called fote in bosome. (fol.vii^v; p.515)

Hall himself was aged about 10 or 11 when Henry VIII came to the throne and was thus not old enough to have been present at the spectacles of the earliest years of the reign. He must therefore have been totally reliant on the sources to which he had access, so that the bias of his sources must form part of the equation in our assessment of Hall’s own bias. While postponing the fuller discussion of sources for the moment, it may suffice to note that any historian has the choice of how to handle his sources, just as later historians using Hall as a source had a similar choice to make (as I will also discuss further below with reference to Holinshed); and it becomes more difficult here in Hall’s account of 1510, with significant space devoted to a relatively small-scale event, to resist the impression that Hall finds the real focus of the reign in Henry’s public performances, whether to his people as a whole, to visiting foreign ambassadors or, as here, to the knights, squires, gentlemen, guards and yeomen of his own court. It is as important to Hall, possibly to Henry, and almost certainly to Hall’s readers, that Henry clothes himself and the high-ranking members of his court in uniform white satin and the lower members in white sarcenet on this occasion, as it is that the band of gentlemen who run at the ring for the Spanish ambassador in the previous revel described are ` all appareyled in clothe of golde, chekered with flatte golde of Damaske, and poudered with Roses’ (fol.vii^v; p.514). Making a good show and dressing to highlight class distinction, at the same time as to signal occasional cross-class alignments, are features of every revel of the reign, whether domestic or international in scale. The difference in outlay of expenditure, however, marks the distinction between impressing the rank and file of the English court and making an impression on the international stage. The Spanish ambassadors, who ask for some of the badges displayed on the king’s trapper, find, on being granted their request, that they are real, not fake, gold.

If Hall’s historiographical practice is organised around spectacle, the first question that arises is what common features his accounts of different kinds of spectacle share. I propose to select for discussion here seven different spectacles from the reign of Henry VIII, two from the first year of the reign, and five from later years. The extracts are numbered and printed chronologically in Appendix 1 as follows: (1) the funeral of Henry VII in April 1509; (2) the entertainment for the ambassadors on Shrove Sunday 1510; (3) the pageant of the Rich Mount, selected as characteristic of the revels of the first half of the reign, and included here as one of the briefest possible models for the structure of an entire evening’s entertainment; (4) the taking of Tournai in October 1513; (5) the pardon of the May Day insurgents in May 1517, immediately followed by (6) the jousts for the ambassadors in June 1517; and (7) the arraignment of Queen Katherine in May 1529. Three of these (2, 3, 6) are consciously recognised by Hall as recreational (`for solace’ (6)), while the other four represent very different kinds of ceremonial events; and the events of 1517 have been selected partly on the grounds that they form one unbroken sequence of narrative, which allows the reader of these extracts to form an impression of some of the ways in which a reader of Hall may experience his narrative of events.

To begin with the model offered in little by the pageant of the Rich Mount (3): this single paragraph includes within it many of the elements characteristic of Hall’s descriptions of both revels and other ceremonial events. The date, place and time are carefully noted: the evening of Twelfth Night, 1514 in the hall at Greenwich. The beginning of the event is clearly marked by a formal entry, the entry of the pageant wagon into the hall; and its ending is equally clearly marked by the closing of the Mount and its conveyance out of the hall. Rich, bejewelled costumes are described in detail, as is the specially constructed wheeled pageant with its prominent source of light (the `goodly Bekon’). Both pageant and costumes have symbolic significance (the Rich Mount signalling Richmond, in honour of Henry VIII’s father, and the golden broom flowers signifying the house of Plantagenet, Henry’s ancestral line). Participants are specified by rank (king and queen, lords and ladies) and number (six lords, six ladies, four woodhouses, or wodwos). Movements are scripted, formal, orderly and symmetrical, as are costumes, which organise the participants in groups identified by shared costume. The event as a whole comprises several elements (disguising, dancing, banqueting), but incorporated into the careful arrangement and orderliness of its entirety is an element of suddennness and novelty, marked here by the sudden opening of the Mount.

These features are widely shared across the other six occasions offered for comparison, as can be seen more fully by consulting the tabular summary in Appendix 2. In each case except the joust (6), which is dated only by month and year, Hall gives a specific day or days on which the event took place and some indication of duration. Only in regard to that same joust is Hall also unspecific about place, though of course the kind of place and its broad architectural layout (a tiltyard) are clear. Elsewhere, the importance of place, and the specific negotiation or setting up of ceremonial space, is evident. In Hall’s account of Henry VII’s funeral, for example, we see not only the progress through topographical space, from Richmond, through St George’s Field, into the city over London Bridge, to St Paul’s and finally to Westminster, but also the move through different areas of interior space at Richmond, from the most private to the most public and finally the most sacred: privy chamber; great chamber; hall; and chapel. It is clear that certain areas of London are recurrent ceremonial focus points (Westminster features in three of the narratives reprinted here (1, 2, 5)); while the entry into Tournai (4), a city whose layout will be unfamiliar to most of Hall’s readers, clarifies the way in which certain spatial `hotspots’ of any city (gate, church and market place) will always by definition attract formal and ceremonial practices to themselves. Hall’s interest in architectural and decorative detail, furthermore, calls attention to the way particular locations may be adapted to host the events taking place in them: in Westminster Hall the upper end is set out with hangings of arras and a `clothe of estate’ for the scene of public pardon, while Blackfriars Hall is fitted out to provide solemn ceremonial settings for each of the king, the queen and the legates.

Beginnings and endings are clearly marked, often by the king’s arrival at the designated place, sometimes by a formal processional entry in hierarchical order. Even where Hall does not give details of the sequence or ceremonial of entry, it is often evident that he takes it for granted, as indicated in remarks such as that the participants in the 1510 entertainments `folowed in ordre’ (2) or that the legates arrived at Blackfriars `with all the Ceremonyes belonginge to their degrees’ (7). Departure from the place is, predictably, a frequent marker of ending, as is the transition to feasting (1, 6). Revels in particular are marked by repeated entrances and exits to and from the given space, but the final exit remains clearly signalled. If we look at extracts (4) and (5), where the the sequence runs unbroken from one to the next, we can see how a clear ending to (4) is signalled by symbolic action (the taking down of the gallows), a broadening of perspective (the saying of prayers and the effect on future vigilance) and the structure and rhythm of the sentence (a group of three actions building to a climax) before the next beginning is made evident through a change of date and personnel.

Hall gives most consistent and lavish attention of all to costumes (which in tournament descriptions include the horses’ trappings), props and interior decoration. The same rich fabrics (velvet, damask, silk, cloth of gold), the same jewels and ornamentation, the same emphasis on intricacy and curiosity of design, permeate every text, whether Hall is describing masking costumes, the settings constructed for the legates and monarchs at Blackfriars, or the image of the dead king on its elaborate hearse. And the care to put on a good show seemingly permeates every level of society, so that it is not merely kings, queens and nobles whose clothing is a part of the performance, but the citizens of London `in their best livery’ to attend the trial of the May Day rioters (5), and `every person . . . in his best apparell’ on entering Tournai (4).

Symmetry and uniformity of costuming are also notable on several occasions. The collective black worn at Henry VII’s funeral is demanded by the occasion of mourning (1), and the costuming of opposing bands in matching costume at tournaments (6) is at least partly a way of helping the spectators to identify which knight belongs to which party; but England was out of line with continental Europe in costuming maskers in identical apparel.

It is clear too that costume carries messages, as mourning black continues to indicate today; and Hall frequently picks out notably symbolic or significant details, such as the letters C and M adorning the Duke of Suffolk’s band (6) or the display of coats of arms (1, 6). Even unwilling participants may be costumed symbolically and symmetrically, as are the prisoners stripped to their shirts with halters round their necks. These same prisoners, tied together with ropes in a `blacke Wagon’ (5), even mimic the pageant-car, which is so regular a feature of revels events and is paralleled too in the horse-drawn chariot that bears the corpse of Henry VII (1).

Effects of light are most elaborately described in the decoration of the hearse for Henry VII, where the candles have virtually no functional light-giving role, but are entirely decorative and symbolic. The same is true of the `long torches and shorte’ carried in the procession, which takes place in daylight (1); and the daylight processional entry into Tournai similarly displays every citizen with a `staf torche’ in his hand (4). Torchbearers in entertainments combine functional and decorative roles, providing light for indoor evening revels, while dressing as participants in the conceits of the occasion (2), and indoor lighting effects for more splendid revels described in other years by Hall are often notably curious and highly wrought. Description of lighting effects is, on the other hand, notable by its absence from both outdoor tournaments (6) and from the two sets of legal proceedings (5, 7), and it may be that lights, while appropriately foregrounded in sacred or triumphant ceremonial, are more properly absent from the description of events where the ceremonial aspect is subordinate to another function.

Participants are regularly named, ranked and/or numbered, and their movements within the event are as hierarchically structured as their entries (`the Quene with the ladyes toke their places in their degrees’ (2)). Hall’s care to specify the order of precedence in Henry VII’s funeral procession is meticulous, especially when the court group reaches the city and is joined by a new set of city groups, at which point the city clergy take precedence over the king’s Chapel (1); and while Hall may be taking this detail from whatever source he is following, he could choose to condense or omit it. When Hall chooses not to name participants, he sometimes thinks it necessary to mention the fact, as at the end of his description of the 1510 revels: `Of these foresayed .vi. ladies, the lady Mary, syster unto the kyng was one, the other I name not’ (2). Movements are scripted, ordered, formal, ceremonious; ranked groupings follow or encounter one another according to a linear and/or symmetrical plan; speech, where it occurs, is equally scripted and formulaic in shape, even if not in content. Queen Katherine, for example, even as she challenges the legates’ right to hear the cause, frames the oppositional content of her speech within an exceptionally careful observation of ritual forms of deference with `her obeysaunce, sadly and wyth greate gravitie done’ (7). And music continuously shapes the structure of all these formal events, whether in the form of masses and anthems, trumpet blasts or dance-music.

Given the parallels between the performance of revels and of other ceremonial events, then, what more can be said about both the parallels and the differences between these types of performance, as mediated through Hall’s rhetoric? First, it is worth calling attention to a specific element in the performance of revels that differentiates them from other kinds of scripted drama, and aligns them with non-recreational, ceremonial performance, namely the fact that the boundary between performers and spectators is so fluid. It is precisely because the `actors’ and `spectators’ are both better described as `participants’ that revels are available for analysis within the same paradigm as other kinds of formal public events. On the other hand, revels differ significantly from other kinds of showpiece events in that there is a paradox inherent in their ceremoniousness, a paradox located in the very fact that the boundary between actors and spectators is breached, for when spectators become participants in recreational performance they risk compromising their dignity and their given place in the social hierarchy. This paradox is evident in the first lines of Hall’s description of the Shrovetide revels of 1510, which moves from the carefully paced entry of the court (`the Kyng leadyng the Quene, entred into the Chambre, then the Ladies, Ambassadours, and other noble menne, folowed in ordre’) to the sudden disruption of this expected and familiar ceremonial pacing by the king’s withdrawal and re-entry: `Sodaynly the kyng was gone. And shortly after, his grace with the Erle of Essex, came in appareled after Turkey fashion’ (2). Variants on the word `suddenly’ are a distinctive feature of Hall’s descriptions of Henry VIII’s revels, and the very sentence structure, which changes abruptly from a slow, paratactic rhythm to a simple, brief statement (subject plus verb, and no adjectives or adverbs except the word `Sodainly’) mimics the change. The disguised entry retains some element of hierarchy, marking a clear sequence of entry that starts with the king, but the pairing of the king with the Earl of Essex makes an equation between a superior and an inferior, and the Turkish garb puts the king into role, so that he is no longer purely `king’ (a status which is also partly a role) but simultaneously performing two roles, as king and Turk. Something similar happens when the king takes part in a tournament, since he is by definition paired with an opponent who is his social inferior. This makes difficulties for the judges, since the king cannot be seen to be beaten in the field. Thus the king is either declared the victor, or, as here, the decision is hung: `it was harde to saie who did best’ (6). When the king is disguised, as he sometimes is at other tournaments, the risk is double: first, he may be seen to be beaten, and second, the physical risk to his own person is greater than it would be if the opponent knew him to be the king. When, as at the Field of Cloth of Gold, another king is present, the opportunity for an equal pairing of opponents is passed up on account of the sheer impossibility of allowing one king to beat and thus humiliate the other. Henry and Francis I therefore competed as brothers in arms on the same side in these jousts.

***

Following the work of Hayden White, it is now widely recognised that historical narrative is not, and cannot be, a neutral record. Narrative by definition has an origin and an agenda, even if neither of those elements is acknowledged by the narrator. The need to understand history as having the shape of stories, bound by beginnings and endings, White argues, is something we must ask questions about rather than take for granted. Historiography is a place `where our desire for the imaginary, the possible, must contest with the imperatives of the real, the actual’. If we look at Hall’s Chronicle from this angle, we find that the narrative form can be segregated into successive layers. The full title of his Chronicle outlines the conscious overarching shape of what has come to be known as `the Tudor myth’; The Union of the two noble and illustre famelies of Lancastre and Yorke, beyng long in continuall discension for the croune of this noble realme, with al the actes done in both the tymes of the Princes, both of the one linage and of the other, beginnyng at the tyme of Kyng Henry the fowerth, the first author of this devision, and so successively proceedyng to the reigne of the high and prudent Prince Kyng Henry the eyght, the indubitate flower and very heire of both the saied linages. Within this shape, each reign has a characteristic narrative shape with a beginning, an ending and a title (`The triumphant reigne of Kyng Henry the VIII’, `The politique governaunce of Kyng Henry VII’ and so on); and within each reign, individual events have their beginnings and endings, from the single short paragraph to the lengthy Field of Cloth of Gold (twenty-eight folio pages).

Dominant within this layered narrative structure, however, is the recurrent shape of performance, which is a matter of both form and content. In simple terms, it is a matter of form, for example, in the sense that beginnings and endings are so often presented as entrances and exits, and a matter of content to the extent that the events selected for narration are so regularly shows of some description. But the larger question to be asked is why this shape is so recurrent in Hall’s writing. `What wish is enacted, what desire is gratified,’ White asks, `by the fantasy that real events are properly represented when they can be shown to display the formal coherency of a story?’ So, in reading Hall, where so unusually specific a fantasy is visible, one that predominantly shapes action as performance, we must ask where this shape comes from and what desires it answers. Is it new at this time? Is it peculiar to Hall? What forces, collective and individual, determine the emergence of precisely this desire, in this writer, in this place and at this time?

Two features of Hall’s Chronicle are particularly pertinent here. First, Hall’s account of the reign of Henry VIII vastly overshadows in length and detail his accounts of all earlier reigns; and second, the dominance of performance is much more evident in Hall’s account of that reign than in any other (his chronicle begins with the reign of Henry IV). Hall (c.1498/9-1547) was a close contemporary of Henry VIII (1491-1547). The events of that reign were the events he lived through and the events which must therefore have shaped the desires and fantasies underpinning his narrative form and method, besides providing him with the raw material of part of his narrative. By the time he came to maturity, the conventions of the reign of Henry VIII, and the characteristic practices of his court, were well established. It is thus worth looking at which aspects of spectacle and performance may be seen as specific to this reign.

Display on the grand scale was nothing new in early sixteenth-century England. Medieval Europe had long adhered to the view that kings and noblemen properly demonstrated their magnificence through lavish ceremonial and entertainment. Henry VII, though noted rather for his tendency to accumulate money than to spend it, understood the importance of spending large amounts on magnificence. Kings who did not spend enough money on spectacle, like Henry VI, were despised, and Henry VII, as the first of the new Tudor dynasty, was likely to be especially sensitive to the need to impress his royal status both on his own countrymen and on foreign powers. The celebrations for the marriage of his eldest son, Prince Arthur, with Katherine of Aragon were a case in point. The festivities were planned on an unprecedented scale, and the Spanish ambassador’s dispatches attest to the high degree of perceived magnificence about the proceedings.

One feature in particular, however, distinguishes the spectacles and entertainments of Henry VIII from those of his father, and that is his own active participation in them. Henry VII, though willing to pay for spectacle when the occasion required it, remained a passive spectator of the jousting and disguising which formed the bedrock of Tudor revels. His son, on the other hand, a young man not quite eighteen when he came to the throne, made the move to direct involvement in the first year of the reign and thereafter revelled with a passion for most of the next two decades. Within three months of his accession he was writing to his father-in-law, Ferdinand of Aragon, informing him of the enthusiastic public reception of his and the queen’s coronation, and assuring him that he was not neglecting affairs of state while he jousted and indulged in other entertainments. He first took part in public jousting on 12 January 1510, and first participated in court revels on Shrove Sunday the following month, on the occasion excerpted as extract 2 in Appendix 2 to this paper.

From the start of Henry VIII’s reign, therefore, it is clear not only that he takes great pleasure in revelling, but that revels provide an opportunity for the breaching of otherwise fixed protocols. When the king disguises himself amongst a group of lords, he becomes indistinguishable from them. That is precisely the point of the disguise. When he takes part in jousting (where he is, again, often disguised) he presents himself as one more competitor like all the others. Though there will always be a select few who know him to be the king even in disguise, the event presents him as parallel with courtiers who are in fact by definition his inferiors. In role as a participant in revels, Henry’s role as king is bracketed and the single most rigid class distinction in a very hierarchical society becomes fluid. This, I would suggest, is an important factor in shaping the desires and fantasies of Hall and his readers. Such a significant breach of protocol surely contributes to releasing the collective imagination from a previously naturalised and unquestioned model of social thinking and creates the space for conceiving of monarchs and their subjects in hitherto inconceivable ways. And if it is the case that the implications of Henry’s active involvement in revels were really so ideologically challenging, then it is hardly surprising that Hall, even if he did not fully register that challenge at a conscious level, found Henry VIII’s revels a compelling subject of historical narrative.

Henry’s active participation, moreover, as noted above, also breaches another boundary, the boundary between performers and spectators, thereby facilitating the use of the same rhetoric to describe both recreational and non-recreational performances. This has the effect of bringing revels-based shows of magnificence closer to different forms of display that might more commonly be described as ritual or ceremonial. Hence describing the king at play, when he is at play so ostentatiously, so lavishly and so extravagantly, comes to seem comparable with descriptions of him putting himself on public view on all kinds of state occasions in a way that describing him passively viewing some entertainment, however grand, could never do. The revels thus come to play a much more prominent part in depicting the magnificence of the Tudor court than they have ever done before. So, while there is nothing new about magnificence and spectacle at court, the degree to which they are demonstrated through the king’s own active participation in revels, and the level to which those revels are thereby elevated, are specific to the reign of Henry VIII. As W. R. Streitberger has shown, Henry’s appointment of Henry Guildford, a personal friend, as Master of the Revels further makes the case for the elevation of the status of revels during his reign. Guildford, knighted in 1512 and Comptroller of the Household by 1522, was `the most distinguished public figure ever to hold the Mastership of the Revels on a regular basis’.

There is a further factor, moreover, which probably contributes to the prominence of revels in Hall’s Chronicle, and that lies in his sources, though not in other historiographical writings. Hall’s major historical sources were fifteenth-century chronicles, especially some of the London chronicles, and Polydore Vergil’s Anglica Historia. Though Hall derived so much from Vergil, including above all the broad narrative shape of the `Tudor myth’, his tendency to narrate entertainments in detail is not a tendency derived from Vergil. Nor is it really very much influenced by the London chronicles, which, though they occasionally make much of ceremonial spectacle when it occurs in London or Westminster, show no interest in the more private revels of the court. The source which really shaped Hall’s focus in this respect appears to have been the series of accounts kept by Richard Gibson, who was actively involved in the production of court revels from 1510 to 1534, the year of his death. Gibson’s accounts, so far mainly unpublished, are no bare records of figures, but include extremely detailed narratives of revels. While no scholar has yet properly demonstrated Hall’s debt to Gibson, Sydney Anglo long ago indicated its likely extent, noting that there can be little doubt about Hall’s access to these records, since he sometimes uses Gibson’s precise wording. Gibson had been one of the King’s Players in the reign of Henry VII and had held posts in the Great Wardrobe under Henry VII. He continued to hold these offices under Henry VIII, and may well have been assistant to Henry Guildford as Master of the Revels from the start of the new reign. While his interest in the detail of the revels evidently stems directly from his practical responsibilities over them, it is also the case that the loving narrative detail of his accounts may perhaps also function as an index of the increasing importance of the revels under Henry VIII. Thus, while it could be argued that the reason we have few such detailed accounts of revels for the reign of Henry VII is that there was no Gibson recording them, it might equally be suggested that the presence or absence of a Gibson is itself indicative.

Having argued thus far, then, that Hall is the first historian to show this level of interest in revels, that his interest is linked to the fact that one of his sources is an unusually detailed set of revels accounts, and that the detail evident in both Hall’s descriptions and Gibson’s accounts can be ascribed to a change in status in the revels beginning with the accession of Henry VIII, we should also ask whether this argument is backed up by any further evidence from writers contemporary with Hall. Were there other observers sharing Gibson’s interests during the reign of Henry VIII? An obvious work for purposes of comparison is George Cavendish’s Life of Wolsey, which does indeed show something of the same interest in the detail of revels and ceremony. Again, one might argue that, as with Gibson, Cavendish’s occupation helped to determine his interests. As a gentleman-usher to the Cardinal, it was precisely his job to participate in the ritualising of everyday acts, and to cry with the other gentlemen-ushers, for example, `On, my lords and masters! Make way for my Lord’s Grace!’ as Wolsey passed from his chamber through the hall to the hall door, where there waited for him a mule `trapped altogether in crimson velvet and gilt stirrups’. And he is keen to assure his readers that when the king came to visit Wolsey `for his recreation . . . as he did divers times in the year . . . such pleasures were then devised for the King’s comfort and consolation as might be invented or by man’s wit imagined. The banquets were set forth with masks and mummeries in so gorgeous a sort and costly manner that it was an heaven to behold’. Roger Lockyer, the editor of Cavendish’s Life, calls him `a lover of pomp and ceremony’; but it may be that what Cavendish is manifesting is not so much a personal characteristic as a concern of the moment, more widely shared. The despatches of Sebastian Giustinian, resident Venetian ambassador, for the years 1515-19 manifest the same interest in lavish display on the occasion of revels, together with some surprise at the level of magnificence, as, for example, when writing of a joust in 1515: `the show was most beautiful, and I only regret not having time to describe it in full. I never should have expected to find such pomp’.

Comparing these despatches with those for the reign of Henry VII printed in the calendar of Venetian state papers (or indeed, the calendars of Spanish and Milanese state papers) reveals no comparable interest in describing either revels or state occasions. Reports of the reception of Katherine of Aragon in 1501 only draw attention to this relative lack of interest by their conspicuous isolation. As Gordon Kipling comments in his edition of the fullest English manuscript record of the 1501 celebrations, the fact that this account was written, `probably as an official memorial’ of the festival, indicates the special importance attaching to it in contemporary England. Writers of more comprehensive histories of England don’t include a detailed description of even this festival in their narratives. Polydore Vergil merely mentions the festivities in passing, noting the flight of Edmund and Richard de la Pole while all the nobility `were occupied in the games and knightly tournaments of this marriage feast’; and Hall opts for a highly conscious and rhetorical refusal to describe the events rather than a full description of the sort he delights in for the next reign.

Returning to observers in the reign of Henry VIII, I have elsewhere compared contemporary responses to the pardoning of the May Day rebels in 1517, and noted two reports sharing Hall’s view of the ceremony of pardon as a great spectacle. Nicolò Sagudino, secretary to Sebastian Giustinian, gives a fairly full description, and says: `It was a very fine spectacle and well arranged, and the crowd of people present was innumerable’ (Dicto spectacul fu belissimo et ben ordinato con uno populo infinito che si atrovava lì). Francesco Chieregato, the papal nuncio, gives rather less detail, but also notes that the event was conducted with great ceremony. It would seem, then, that an interest in the detail of court performances of all kinds was part of a collective mindset at this time.

It remains to ask what the legacy of this kind of focus was for later historical writing. Here I take Holinshed as representative for two reasons: first, he is heavily dependent on Hall; and secondly, `his’ history is in fact the work of several contributors, including the other most prominent historian of the later sixteenth century, John Stow. Holinshed cites huge chunks of Hall verbatim for the reign of Henry VIII, including Hall’s complete accounts of virtually every revel and ceremonial event for the first decade of the reign. When he reaches the Field of Cloth of Gold in 1520, however, he cuts Hall’s account by half, and is thereafter much more selective, keeping more or less full text of a few events (the coronation of Anne Boleyn, the Great Muster, the reception of Anne of Cleves), but more characteristically reducing extensive description in Hall to a few summative sentences assuring the reader that the splendour or festivities were as great as may be imagined. More significantly, in recounting non-recreational events, he is much less likely than Hall to conceive of them primarily as performances, as comparison of their accounts of the trial of the duke of Buckingham, for example, illustrate. Though Holinshed’s account is longer than Hall’s and follows Hall verbatim in many places, the changes are instructive. He omits, for example, the moment dramatising the Duke’s realisation of the danger he is in, when, en route to the Tower, he drinks and immediately changes colour when `no chere’ is made to him. Where Hall, following this moment, moves swiftly from the point of Buckingham’s imprisonment to the laying out of Westminster Hall for the scene of the trial, Holinshed introduces a lengthy account of the charges against him between the two, thus diverting attention away from the developing drama of the trial to the narrative of events leading up to it. Even the most seemingly minor grammatical change to his source can be revealing. Thus, though Holinshed reproduces much dialogue word for word from Hall, an occasional change from direct to reported speech highlights the difference between their approaches: so, Hall’s `And when thenditement was openly redde, the duke sayd, it is false and untrue and conspired and forged to bryng me to my death, and that will I prove’ becomes Holinshed’s `Then was his indictment read, which the duke denied to be true’.

Given this reduction of the performative emphasis of his source in his own narrative of the reign of Henry VIII, it is hardly surprising to find that Holinshed rarely introduces such an emphasis where it is not in his source, so that his accounts of later reigns, broadly speaking, do not tend to construct narrative as performance; only lavish detail on events which are performances by definition; and choose to describe significant performances in detail much less frequently than Hall. In his entire account of the reign of Edward VI, for example, there is nothing to compare with the descriptions of revels or ceremonies for the reign of Henry VIII, and he passes over Edward’s coronation in a single short paragraph. This must be partly a matter of accident as well as design of course: Edward VI, as a child monarch, could not have participated in revels as his father did, and Hall may not have had sources giving detail for his coronation. But where Holinshed’s method may be compared with Hall’s, and Hall is not a source, the difference is often telling. Holinshed’s description of the pardon of those involved in the Kett rebellion of 1549, for example, by comparison with his description of the pardon of the May Day rebels in 1517, borrowed almost verbatim from Hall, is narrative rather than performative in emphasis, and his account of a muster at Greenwich in 1552 is similarly distinct from Hall’s account of the Great Muster of 1539 in overall length as well as in rhetorical strategy. It is notable, too, that where Holinshed introduces lengthy descriptions of ceremonies, they tend to be public, civic events, such as coronations, Queen Elizabeth’s progress to Norfolk in 1579, or the entry of Francis, the French king’s brother, into Antwerp in 1581. He shows no interest in (or has no sources for?) private court revels. The lacuna, whether it is to be explained by Holinshed’s own lack of interest, or an absence of sources, is conspicuous, as it is in historians before Hall; though in the later period it may perhaps be linked to the growth of a culture in which ceremony is suspect and needs to be defended against an implicit charge of idolatrousness. Holinshed’s narrative of Elizabeth’s coronation, for example, with its careful reporting of the moment when Elizabeth kisses the English bible handed to her, describes a ceremony incorporating its own defence against that charge.

In conclusion, then, the performative emphasis which is so marked a feature of Hall’s Chronicle is not an evident feature of historical writing either before or after Hall, but neither is it individual to Hall. It seems rather to be a characteristic shared by some other writers during the reign of Henry VIII. Since some of the writers noted above as sharing it are Italian, it seems likely that it may be a characteristic more widespread across Europe, but such an investigation is beyond the scope of this paper. In England, its prevalence is particularly marked in the reign of Henry VIII. The lesser significance of revels in later as well as earlier English reigns, together with the more passive role in revels of later as well as earlier English monarchs, seems likely to be a dominant shaping factor in the emergent and fading prominence of the performative rhetoric so notable in Hall.

1. Year 1 (1509-10) (ff.i^v-ii^r; pp.506-7)

After that all thynges necessary, for the enterment and funeral pompe of the late kyng, were sumpteously prepared and done: the corps of the said defunct was brought out of his privie chambre, into the great chamber, where he rested thre daies, and every daie had ther Dirige and Masse song by a Prelate mitered: and from thence he was conveighed into the halle, where he was also thre daies, and had like service there, and so thre daies in the Chapel, and in every of these thre places, was a hearce of waxe, garnished with banners, and .ix. mourners gevyng there attendance, all the service tyme: and every daye they offered, and every place hanged with blacke clothe. Upon Wedinsdaie, the .ix. daie of Maye, the corps was putte into a Chariot, covered with blacke clothe of golde drawen with .v. greate Corsers, covered with blacke Velvet, garnished with cusshions of fine gold: and over the corps, was an Image or a representacion of the late kyng, laied on Cusshions of golde, and thesaied image was appareled, in the kynges riche robes of estate with a croune on the hed, and ball and scepter in the handes: and the chariot was garnished with banners, and Pencelles of tharmes of his dominions, titles and genealogies. When the chariot was thus ordered, the kinges chapell, and a gret nombre of Prelates, set forward praiyng: then folowed all the kynges servauntes, in blacke, then folowed the Chariot: and after the Chariot .ix. mourners and on every side wer caried long torches and shorte, to the nombre of .vi. C. and in this ordre they came to saincte Georges felde, from Richemond. There met with theim all the Prestes and Clearkes, and religious men, within the citee, and without (whiche went formoste, before the kynges Chapell) the Maior and his brethren, with many commoners, all clothed in blacke, met with the corps at London Bridge, and so gave their attendaunce on thesame through the citee: and in good ordre, the compaignie passed thorough the citie, wherof the stretes on every side, wer set with long Torches, and on the stalles stode young children, holdyng tapers, and so with greate reverence, the Chariot was brought to the Cathedral Churche of sainct Paule, where the body was taken out, and caried into the Quire, and set under a goodly Herce of waxe, garnished with Banners, Pencelles, and Cusshions, where was soung a solempne Dirige, and a Masse, with a Sermon, made by the Busshoppe of Rochester: duryng whiche tyme, the kynges houshold and the mourners, reposed theim in the Busshoppes Paleis. The nexte daie, the corps in like ordre was removed, toward Westminster, sir Edward Haward, bearyng the kynges banner, on a courser trapped, in the armes of the defunct. In Westminster was a curious herse, made of .ix. principalles, full of lightes, whiche, were lighted at the comming of the corps, whiche was taken out of the Chariot, by sixe Lordes, and set under the Herse, the Image or the representacion, liyng upon the Cusshyn on a large palle of golde. The herse was double railed: within the firste railes, satte the mourners, and within the seconde raile, stoode knightes bearyng banners of sainctes, and without thesame, stoode officers of armes. When the mourners were set, Gartier king at Armes, cried, for the soule of the noble prince kyng Henry the .VII. late kyng of this realme: then the quire beganne Placebo, and so song Dirige, whiche beyng finished, the mourners departed into the Palaice, where they had a voyde, and so reposed for that night.

The next daie, wer three Masses solemply song, by Busshoppes, and at the last Masse was offered, the kynges banner and courser, his coate of armes, his sworde, his target, and his helme, and at thende of Masse the mourners offered up, riche Paulles of cloth of gold and Baudekin, and when the quire sang, Libera me, the body was put into the yearthe, and then the lorde Treasorer, lorde Stewarde, lorde Chamberlein, the Treasorer, and Comptroller of the kynges houshold, brake their staves and caste theim into the grave. Then Gartier cried with a loude voyce, Vive le Roy Henry le hutiesme, Roy Dangliter, et de Fraunce, sire Dirland. Then all the mourners, and all other that had geven their attendance, on this funerall Obsequie, departed to the Palaice, where they had a greate and a sumptuous feast.

2. Year 1 (1509-10) (ff.vi^v-vii^r; pp.513-14)

On Shrove Sunday thesame yere, the kyng prepared a goodly banket, in the Parliament Chambre at Westminster, for all the Ambassadours, whiche, then wer here, out of diverse realmes and countreis. The [b]anket beyng ready, the Kyng leadyng the Quene, entred into the Chambre, then the Ladies, Ambassadours, and other noble menne, folowed in ordre. The Kyng caused the Quene, to kepe the estate, and then satte the Ambassadours and Ladyes, as they were Marshalled by the kyng, who would not sit, but walked from place to place, makyng chere to the Quene, and the straungers: Sodaynly the kyng was gone. And shortly after, his grace with the Erle of Essex, came in appareled after Turkey fashion, in long robes of Bawdkin, powdered with gold, hattes on their heddes of Crimosyn Velvet, with greate rolles of Gold, girded with two swordes, caIled Cimiteries, hangyng by greate bawderikes of gold. Next, came the lorde Henry, Erle of Wilshire, and the lorde Fitzwater, in twoo long gounes of yelowe satin, travarsed with white satin, and in every ben[d] of white, was a bend of crimosen satin after the fashion of Russia or Ruslande, with furred hattes of grey on their hedes, either of them havyng an hatchet in their handes, and bootes with pykes turned up. And after them, came, syr Edward Haward, than Admyral, and with him sir Thomas Parre, in doblettes of Crimosin velvet, voyded lowe on the backe, and before to the cannell bone, lased on the breastes with chaynes of silver, and over that shorte clokes of Crimosyn satyne, and on their heades hattes after dauncers fashion, with feasauntes fethers in theim: They were appareyled after the fashion of Prusia or Spruce. The torchebearers were appareyled in Crymosyn satyne and grene, lyke Moreskotes, their faces blacke: And the kyng brought in a mommerye. After that the Quene, the lordes and, ladyes, such as would had played, the sayd mommers departed, and put of the same apparel, and sone after entred into the Chamber, in their usuell apparell. And so the kyng made great chere to the Quene, ladyes and Ambassadours: The Supper or Banket ended, and the tables avoyded, the kyng beeyng in communicacion with the Ambassadors, the Quene with the ladyes toke their places in their degrees. Then began the daunsyng, and every man toke muche hede to them that daunsed. The kyng perceyving that, withdrewe hym selfe sodenly out of the place, with certayn other persons appoynted for that purpose. And within a litle whyle after there came in a drumme and a fife appareiled in white Damaske and grene bonettes, and hosen of thesame sute, than certayn gentelmen folowed with torches, apparayled in blew Damaske purseled with Ames grey, facioned lyke an Awbe, and on their heddes hodes with robbes and longe typpettes too thesame of blewe Damaske visarde. Then after them came a certayne number of gentelmen, wherof the kyng was one, apparayled all in one sewte of shorte garmentes, litle beneth the poyntes, of blew Velvet and Crymosine with long slyves, all cut and lined with clothe of golde. And the utter parte of the garmentes were powdered with castels, and shefes of arrowes of fyne doket gold. The upper partes of their hoses of lyke sewte and facion, the nether partes were of Scarlet, poudered with timbrelles of fyne golde, on their heades bonets of Damaske, Sylver flatte woven in the stole, and thereupon wrought with gold, and ryche fethers in them, all with visers. After them entred .vi. ladyes, wherof twoo were apparayled in Crymosyn satyne and purpull, embrowdered with golde and by vynyettes, ran floure delices of gold, with marveilous ryche and straunge tiers on their heades. Other two ladies in Crimosine and purpull, made lyke long slops enbroudered and fret with gold after antyke fashion: and over that garment was a short garment of clothe of golde scant to the kne facioned like a tabard all over, with small double rolles, al of flatte golde of Damaske fret with frysed golde, and on theyr heades skay[n]s and wrappers of Damaske gold with flatte pypes, that straung it was to beholde. The other two ladies were in kirtels of Crymosyne and purpull satyn, enbroudered with a vynet of Pomegraneltes of golde, all the garmentes cut compasse wyse, havyng but demy sleves and naked doune from the elbowes, and over their garmentes were vochettes of pleasauntes, rouled with Crymosyne velvet, and set with letters of gold lyke Carettes, their heades rouled in pleasauntes and typpers lyke the Egipcians, enbroudered with gold. Their faces, neckes, armes and handes, covered with fyne pleasaunce blacke: Some call it Lumberdynes, which is marveilous thinne, so that thesame ladies semed to be nigrost or blacke Mores. Of these foresayed .vi. ladies, the lady Mary, syster unto the kyng was one, the other I name not. After that the kinges grace and the ladies had daunsed a certayne tyme they departed every one to his lodgyng.

3. Year 4 (1513-14)(fol.xxii^r-xxii^v; p.535)

The kyng after this Parliament ended, kept a solempne Christmas at Grenewiche to chere his nobles, and on the twelfe daie at night came into the hall a Mount, called the riche Mount. The Mount was set full of riche flowers of silke, and especially ful of Brome slippes full of coddes, the Braunches wer grene Sattin, and the flowers flat Gold of Damaske, whiche signified Plantagenet. On the top stode a goodly Bekon geving light, round aboute the Bekon sat the king and five other, al in cotes and cappes of right Crimosin velvet, enbroudered with flatt gold of Dammaske, their coates set ful of spangelles of gold, and foure woodhouses drewe the Mount till it came before the quene, and then the king and his compaignie discended and daunced: then sodainly the Mounte opened, and out came sixe ladies all in Crimosin satin and plunket, embroudered with Golde and perle, with French hoodes on their heddes and thei daunced alone. Then the lordes of the Mount toke the ladies and daunced together: and the ladies reentred and the Mount closed, and so was conveighed out of the hall. Then the kyng shifted him and came to the Quene, and sat at the banquet which was very sumpteous.

4. Year 5 (1514-15) (ff.xlv^r; pp.565-6)

Thus the kynge of Englande by conquest came to the possession of the citie of Tournay: on Sondaye the .ii. daye of October the kinge entered the citie of Tournay at porte Fountayn, and iiii. of the chiefe of the citie over him bare a cannapye wyth all the armes of Englande, every person was in hys beste apparell, the Ladies and Gentlewomen laye in the wyndowes beholdinge the kinge and his nobilitie, everye Citezen had in his hande a staf torche, the kynge hym selfe was richelye appereilled in ryche armure on a barded courser, his henxmen bearynge his peces of warre, as axe, spere and other, their coursers were barded with the armes of Englande, Fraunce, Irelande, and other the kinges dominions all of ryche embrawdery, thus the kinge with his nobilitie al rychely apparelled with his swerde borne before him, his herauldes and serjantes of armes with trumpettes and mynstrelsy entered the citie and came to oure Ladye Churche, and there Te deum was songe. Then the kinge called to his presence, Edwarde Guldeforde, William Fitzwilliam, Jhon Dauncye, William Tiler, Jhon Sharpe, William Huse, Jhon Savage, Christopher Garnishe, and diverse other valiant esquiers, and gave to them the order of knighthode, and then went to his lodgynge, and at after none he came to the market place, where was prepared for him a place: then he caused a proclamacion to bee made in his name king of England and of Fraunce that no man shoulde greve the citizens, during which proclamacion the Turnesins scace loked up, nor shewed once to him any amiable contenaunce which was much marked, the Cry finished, the king departed to hys campe levynge the citie in safe kepynge.

5, 6 Year 9 (1517-18) (ff. lxiii^r- lxiii^v; pp.591-2)

Thursdaye the. xxii. day of May the kynge came into Westmynster hall, for whome at the upper ende was set a clothe of estate, and the place hanged with Arras, with him was the Cardinall, the dukes of Northfolke and Suffolke, the erles of Shrewsbury, of Essex and Wilshyre, of Surrey, with many lordes and other of the kynges counsail. The Mayre and Aldermen, and al the chief of the citie were there in their best livery (according as the Cardinall had them apoynted) by .ix. of the clock. Then the kynge commaunded that al the prisoners should be brought foorth. Then came in the poore younglinges and olde false knaves bounde in ropes all along, one after another in their shertes, and every one a halter about his neck, to the number of .iiii. C. men and. xi.women. And when all were come before the kinges presence, the Cardinal sore layed to the Mayre and comminaltie their negligence, and to the prisoners he declared that thei had deserved death for their offence: Then al the prisoners together cryed mercy gracious lord, mercy. Then the lordes altogether besought his grace of mercy, at whose request the kyng pardoned them al. And then the Cardinal gave unto them a good exhortacion to the great gladnes of the herers. And when the generall pardon was pronounced, all the prisoners shouted atonce, and altogether cast up their halters into the hal roffe, so that the king might perceave thei were none of the discretest sorte. Here is to be noted that diverse offenders which were not taken, hering that the king was inclined to mercy came wel appareled to Westmynster, and sodeynly stryped them into their shertes with halters, and came in emong the prisoners willingly, to be partakers of the kynges pardon, by the whiche doyng, it was well knowen that one Jhon Gelson yoman of the Croune, was the first that began to spoyle, and exhorted other to dooe thesame, and because he fled and was not taken, he came in the rope with the other prisoners; and so had his pardon. This compaignie was after called the blacke Wagon. Then were all the galowes within the citee taken doune, and many a good praier sayed for the kyng, and the citezens toke more hede to their servauntes.

In June the kyng had with hym diverse Ambassadors, for solace of whom he prepared a costly Justes, he hymself and. xii. agaynst the duke of Suffolk and other. xii. his base and bard was the one halfe clothe of silver, and the other halfe blacke Tinsell. On the silver was a curious lose worke of white velvet embraudered with Golde, cut on the Silver and every cut engrayled with golde, so that that side was golde, Silver and velvet. On the blacke tynsell syde was blacke velvet enbroudered with golde and cut, and every cut was engrayled with flat gold of Damaske. The base and barde wer broudered with greate letters of massy golde Bullion, full of pearles and stones, merveylous riche: al his compaignie wer in like suite, saving that they had no juelles. The kyng had on his hed a ladies sleve full of Diamondes. On the kyng attended gentlemen, Armourers, and other officiers to the nomber of. Cxxv. persones all in white Velvet and white Sattyn, horse and harneis for horsemen, Cappes and Hosen for footemen, all white at the kinges cost. Th[u]s royally the kyng and his compaignie with his waiters came to the tiltes ende[.]

Then entered the Duke of Suffolke with the Marques Dorcet, the Erles of Essex and Surrey, and .viii. other of his bande, in bardes and bases of white Velvet and crimosin sattin losenged, set full of letters of. C. M. of gold, for Charles and Mary, and thei toke the other ende of the tilt. Then the Trompettes blewe, and the Kyng and the Duke ranne fiercely together, and brake many speres, and so did all the other, that it was harde to saie who did best: but when the courses were ronne, they ranne volant one at another, so that bothe by the reporte of sir Edwarde Gylforde Master of the Armury, and also of the Judges and Heraldes, at these Justes wer broken five hundred and sixe speres: and then the kyng thesame night made to the Ambassadors a sumpteous banket, with many ridelles and muche pastyme.

7 Year 21 (1529-30) (ff.clxxxi^v -clxxxii^r; pp.756-7)

In the beginning of this yere, in a great Hal within the black Friers of London, was ordeined a solempne place for the two legates to set in, wyth two cheyers covered with cloth of gold, and cushyons of thesame, and a Dormant table railed before, lyke a solempne courte, al covered with Carpettes and Tapissery: on the right hand of the court was hanged a clothe of estate, with a chayer and cushyons of ryche Tyssue, for the kyng, and on the left hand of the courte was set a ryche chayer for the quene. When the place was redy, the kyng and the quene wer ascited by docter Sampson, to appere before the legates, [at] the fornamed place, the twentie and eyght day of May, beyng then the morow after the feast of Corpus Christi, in proper person, or by their Proctors. At the daye assigned, the Legates came to the forenamed place, with Crosses Pillers, Axes, and al the Ceremonyes belonginge to their degrees, and after that thei wer set (the Cardinal of Yorke sitting on the right hand) their Commission was redde, and the cause of their comming thyther openly declared, the effect wherof was, that the Courte of Rome was informed, that great Clerkes and learned men, had enformed the king that his mariage with his brothers wife was unlawful, dampnable and directly against the Law of God, wherfore they wer directed and appoynted by thesayd Court, to be judges in the cause, and to hear what on both parties could be alledged: after this was done the kynge was called by name, for whom two procters appered, then the Quene was called, which wythin short space, beyng accompaignied wyth the foure Bishoppes and other of her counsaill, and a greate compaignie of Ladies and gentle women folowing her, came personally before the Legates, and after her obeysaunce, sadly and wyth greate gravitie done, she appeled from them, as Judges not competent for that cause, to the court of Rome, and after that done she departed againe. Notwithstanding this appele, the Legates sat wekely, and every day wer argumentes on both partes, and nothing els done.

A tabular analysis of the `performance features’ of each of the seven events selected in Appendix 1. Because this table requires a `landscape’ layout, I have not been able to incorporate it satisfactorily into this document, and it is supplied as a separate document.

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