On This Day in Elizabethan History: The Coronation of Elizabeth I

The Coronation Portrait of Elizabeth I. Image public domain through Creative Commons licensing, NPG, London.

On this day in Elizabethan history in 1559, Elizabeth Tudor was crowned at Westminster Abbey at the age of twenty-five. Elizabeth had officially succeeded to the throne of England on November 17th of the previous year, upon the death of her sister, Mary I, who had left no issue. Elizabeth consulted her astrologer, Master John Dee, to determine the ideal date for her coronation (Resh Thomas, 77).

The ceremonies that took place in the weeks leading up to the coronation were planned by Elizabeth's childhood friend and Master of the Horse, Robert Dudley. As was customary, Elizabeth stayed for several nights in the Tower of London before she was crowned. With her entourage in tow, Elizabeth processed through the decorated streets of London, stopping periodically to enjoy elaborate entertainments, and to receive gifts and praises from her subjects. One gift that we know Elizabeth accepted was a bouquet of rosemary, given to her by a poor woman. She kept the sprigs of the sweet-smelling herb at her side all day (Resh Thomas, 78). 

The coronation procession of Queen Elizabeth I, circa 1559. Picture acquired through Wikimedia Commons. Image public domain.

Elizabeth's gratitude towards her subjects was genuine; she understood that she owed her preservation throughout the reign of her sister to the people of England. The weeks that proceeded Elizabeth's coronation were the first of many instances during her reign in which she she spent time with the common people. An observer documented Elizabeth's natural ability to attend to her subjects, writing,

"If ever any person had either the gift or the style to win the hearts of the people, it was their Queen. All her faculties were in motion and every motion seemed well guided action: her eye was set upon one, her ear listened to another, her judgement ran upon a third, to a fourth she addressed her speech; her spirit seemed to be everywhere and yet so entire in herself, as it seemed to be nowhere else."

Indeed, we have many charming accounts from Elizabeth's progress through London. In one, we learn that Elizabeth spied the brother of her late stepmother, Queen Katherine Parr, watching her  from a window; the Marquess of Northampton was sick and therefore indisposed. Elizabeth immediately stopped her palfrey to talk with the Marquess about his health, a conversation which lasted for quite some time (Neale, 58). 

A sketch of William Parr, Marquess of Northampton. By Hans Holbein the Younger. Picture acquired through Wikimedia Commons. Image public domain.

It had been very difficult to secure a bishop to perform the coronation ceremony due to an incident that had transpired in December in Elizabeth's private chapel; the bishop performing the service had defied Elizabeth's request by raising the host for adoration, which was a Catholic practice. Elizabeth, as a Protestant, rejected the belief of transubstantiation, in which the sacrament was literally transformed into the blood and body of Christ. For Elizabeth and other Protestants, the act was symbolic, not literal. Enraged, Elizabeth had stormed out of the service. Her rash action greatly angered the Catholic clergy (Resh Thomas, 79). Owen Oglethorpe, Bishop of Carlisle, was the only bishop who would (reluctantly) agree to officiate the ceremony.

On January 15th, Elizabeth was crowned wearing a cloth-of-gold gown*, immortalized in The Coronation Portrait, and a cape made of crimson velvet, which was lined with ermine, the fur of royalty. To emphasize her virginity and purity, Elizabeth wore her auburn hair loose around her shoulders, like all other English queens before her had at their coronations. 

A detail of The Coronation Portrait of Elizabeth I, showing her free-flowing hair. Image public domain through Creative Commons licensing, NPG, London.

The Bishop of Carlisle recited the rites in Latin. Thus, Elizabeth refused to take the sacrament, and she insisted that the bishop read the oath from a Bible written in English, which was held by William Cecil. Reportedly, when the bishop anointed Elizabeth's forehead with holy oil, she sneered, "thy ointment stinks". 

After the tense ceremony, the Queen left Westminster, and her adoring subjects cut up seven hundred yards of blue carpet, on which the Queen of England had walked, to keep as souvenirs (Resh Thomas, 80). Despite England's grim financial state upon the death of Queen Mary, more than sixteen thousand pounds were spent on Queen Elizabeth's coronation; it was critical that she demonstrate power and majesty to those who questioned her legitimacy and right to rule.

Though Elizabeth had caught a cold during her travels through London, she attended her coronation banquet at Westminster Hall before retiring late in the evening (Neale, 63). After she left, the banquet continued until one o'clock in the morning.

Queen Elizabeth I would go on to arguably become the greatest monarch in English history.

*Recently, I have noticed an alarming amount of pins on Pinterest claiming that a replica movie dress from a costume website is the original coronation dress of Elizabeth I, ( I assume the pinners didn't actually read the website the image is from) so I find it necessary to set the record straight here that Queen Elizabeth I's coronation dress, unfortunately, does not survive.

Sources:

Neale, J.E. Queen Elizabeth I. Chicago: Academy Chicago Publishers, 2001. Print.

Resh Thomas, Jane. Behind the Mask: The Life of Queen Elizabeth I. New York: Clarion Books, 1998. Print.

Elizabethan Fact of the Day: John Dee's Home Set on Fire

A 16th century portrait of John Dee in the Ashmoleon Museum collection, Oxford University. According to Charlotte Fell Smith, this portrait was painted when Dee was 67 years of age. Picture acquired through Wikimedia Commons. Image public domain.

In September of 1583, a mob set fire to Master John Dee's home in opposition to his academic pursuits, which some deemed as dubious. Dee and his associate Edward Kelley left London in that same year to travel with a Polish nobleman abroad (MacKay). Upon Dee's return to London six years later, he found much of his personal property in his estate of Mortlake ruined or stolen (MacKay). Queen Elizabeth I agreed to help him financially, appointing him Warden of Christ's College, Manchester in 1595, a position he would hold until his death in 1609 (EB).

The Kitchner Portrait of Queen Elizabeth I, circa 1580. Picture acquired through Wikimedia Commons. Image public domain.

John Dee was a complicated man of many interests and talents; he was an astrologer, prophesier, alchemist, navigator, and mathematician. He was also known to dabble in the occult. Dee collected one of the largest libraries in England so that he could study these topics with ease. Although he was mostly a hermetic scholar, preferring to spend his days in relative seclusion consulting angels and demons, Dee was married twice and had eight children. He also formed close bonds with a few fellow scholars, chief among them Edward Kelley. The associates had a falling out shortly after Kelley informed Dee that an angel had told him that they should share their wives (Roberts). 

"John Dee and Edward Kelley, a Magician, in the Act of Invoking the Spirit of a Deceased Person." An engraving by Ames of Bristol, from an 1806 edition of Astrology, A New and Complete Illustration of the Occult Sciences by Ebenezer Sibly. Picture acquired through Wikimedia Commons. Image public domain.

Queen Elizabeth I valued Dee's abilities, often consulting him on matters of astrology (which was deemed a real science in the 16th century) and prophesy. By 1577, Queen Elizabeth and her administration had proven so competent that Dee saw fit to predict the formation of an "incomparable British Empire" encompassing most of the Northern Hemisphere, and conquered and maintained by sea power. Dee's foresight of England as Empire came to pass; the foundations for England as we know it today were indeed established in the Elizabethan era.

Instruments used by John Dee in his academic studies, which sometimes crossed over into the occult. These artifacts reside in the British Museum, London. Picture acquired through Wikimedia Commons. Image public domain.

Dee was also held in high regard by Robert Dudley, the Earl of Leicester, William Cecil, Lord Burghley, Sir Francis Walsingham and other prominent figures at Queen Elizabeth's court.

John Dee's "Seal of God", an intricately carved stone platform to support the "shew-stone", or crystal ball that was used for scrying. British Museum London. Picture acquired through Wikimedia Commons. Image public domain.

Sources

Mackay, Charles. Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds. London: Office of the National Illustrated Library. 1852. Print

"John Dee". Encyclopædia Britannica (11th ed. ed.). London: Cambridge University Press. 1911.

Julian Roberts, ed. (2005). "A John Dee Chronology, 1509–1609". Renaissance Man: The Reconstructed Libraries of European Scholars: 1450–1700 Series One: The Books and Manuscripts of John Dee, 1527–1608. Adam Matthew Publications. Retrieved 27 October 2006.