Lady Mary to Queen of England: Transformation, Ritual, and the Wardrobe of the Robes

Abstract

In early modern politics, as in modern times, the art of the image was all part and parcel of the art of persuasion. Mary Tudor, born in 1516 to Henry VIII and the first of his six queens, was intimately familiar with the complex process of image making. Her survival within her father’s court in the latter years of his reign depended on earning and keeping his notably capricious pleasure. During his lifetime, and the reign of her brother Edward VI which followed, Mary created a persona for herself that displayed the public face of an ideal royal daughter. She changed that image upon inheriting the throne and shifted her self-presentation to embody the appearance of a trueborn English queen, using and manipulating the signs and symbols encoded in contemporary fashion to create a consciously directed set of impressions, aimed at specific viewing audiences.

I would like to thank Dr. Krista Kesselring, Dr. Cynthia Neville, and Dr. Lynn Sorge, all of Dalhousie University, for their invaluable comments on and assistance with the original drafts of these arguments.