The Face of Queenship: Early Modern Representations of Elizabeth I (Queenship and Power)

T HE FACE OF QUEENSHIP

QUEENSHIP AND POWER Series Editors: Carole Levin and Charles Beem This series brings together monographs and edited volumes from scholars specializing in gender analysis, women’s studies, literary interpretation, and cultural, political, constitutional, and diplomatic history. It aims to broaden our understanding of the strategies that queens—both consorts and regnants, as well as female regents— pursued in order to wield political power within the structures of male- dominant societies. In addition to works describing European queenship, it also includes books on queenship as it appeared in other parts of the world, such as East Asia, SubSaharan Africa, and Islamic civilization. Editorial Board Linda Darling, University of Arizona (Ottoman Empire) Theresa Earenfight, Seattle University (Spain) Dorothy Ko, Barnard College (China) Nancy Kollman, Stanford University (Russia) John Thornton, Boston University (Africa and the Atlantic World) John Watkins (France and Italy) Published by Palgrave Macmillan The Lioness Roared: The Problems of Female Rule in English History By Charles Beem Elizabeth of York By Arlene Naylor Okerlund Learned Queen: The Image of Elizabeth I in Politics and Poetry By Linda Shenk The Face of Queenship: Early Modern Representations of Elizabeth I By Anna Riehl Tudor Queenship: The Reigns of Mary and Elizabeth (forthcoming) By Anna Whitelock and Alice Hunt Renaissance Queens of France (forthcoming) By Glenn Richardson

THE FACE OF QUEENSHIP EARLY MODERN REPRESENTATIONS OF ELIZABETH I Anna Riehl

THE FACE OF QUEENSHIP

Copyright © Anna Riehl, 2010. All rights reserved. First published in 2010 by PALGRAVE MACMILLAN® in the United States—a division of St. Martin’s Press LLC, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10010. Where this book is distributed in the UK, Europe and the rest of the world, this is by Palgrave Macmillan, a division of Macmillan Publishers Limited, registered in England, company number 785998, of Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire RG21 6XS. Palgrave Macmillan is the global academic imprint of the above companies and has companies and representatives throughout the world. Palgrave® and Macmillan® are registered trademarks in the United States, the United Kingdom, Europe and other countries. ISBN: 978–0–230–61495–6 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Riehl, Anna, 1970– The face of queenship : early modern representations of Elizabeth I / Anna Riehl. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978–0–230–61495–6 (alk. paper) 1. Elizabeth I, Queen of England, 1533–1603—Public opinion. 2. Elizabeth I, Queen of England, 1533–1603—In literature. 3. Elizabeth I, Queen of England, 1533–1603—In art. 4. Facial expression—Social aspects. 5. Facial expression—Political aspects. 6. Great Britain—History—Elizabeth, 1558–1603. 7. Monarchy— Great Britain—Public opinion. 8. Queens—Great Britain—Public opinion. I. Title. DA356.R54 2010 942.05⬘5092—dc22

2009039973

A catalogue record of the book is available from the British Library. Design by Newgen Imaging Systems (P) Ltd., Chennai, India. First edition: May 2010 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 Printed in the United States of America.

To my mother and children

. . . her face and countenance every day We changèd see, and sundry forms partake . . . —Edmund Spenser, Two Cantos of Mutabilitie, Canto VII, 50. 6–7

CONTENTS

List of Illustrations Note on the Text Acknowledgments List of Abbreviations Introduction

ix xi xiii xvii 1

1

Plain Queen, Gorgeous King: Tudor Royal Faces

13

2

“Let nature paint your beauty’s glory”: Beauty and Cosmetics

37

Meeting the Queen: Documentary Accounts

65

3

4 “Mirrors more than one”: Elizabeth’s Literary Faces 5

Portraiture: The Painted Texts of Elizabeth’s Faces Part I: Elizabeth and Hilliard Part II: Augmenting the Canon

Notes Bibliography Index

91 123 127 151 173 209 239

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FIGURES

Cover Image The Rainbow portrait of Elizabeth I, circa 1603. 1 Queen Elizabeth I in Coronation Robes, circa 1559–1600. 2 Royal arms of Queen Elizabeth I, from Robert Cooke, “Armorial bearings of the kings and noble families of Great Britain from the reign of William the Conqueror to that of James I,” 1572. 3 Nicholas Hilliard. Chart from Treatise Concerning the Arte of Limning. 4 Nicholas Hilliard. Queen Elizabeth I playing the lute, circa 1576–1580. 5 Nicholas Hilliard. Queen Elizabeth I. 1572. 6 Anonymous. Portrait of Queen Elizabeth I, circa 1575–1580. 7 Nicholas Hilliard. Portrait of Queen Elizabeth I, 1588. 8 Elizabeth I, “The Hampden Portrait,” circa 1563. 9 Anonymous, Elizabeth I, circa 1564–1567. 10 Portrait of Elizabeth I, circa 1575–1580. 11 Portrait of Queen Elizabeth I, circa 1560. 12 Marcus Gheeraerts, the Younger. Queen Elizabeth I (“The Ditchley Portrait”), circa 1592. 13 Workshop of Marcus Gheeraerts, the Younger. Queen Elizabeth I, circa 1592. 14 Marcus Gheeraerts. Portrait of Elizabeth I, circa 1592. 15 Elizabethan three-pence coin, 1575.

106

107 130 140 141 146 149 153 155 159 161 164 165 166 167

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NOTE ON THE TEXT

I

n the quotations from the primary unedited sources, the original spelling is preserved except for the silent changes, where appropriate, from u to v and vice versa, and from i to j.

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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

A

substantial part of research for and writing of this book was made possible by the Dissertation Award from the American Association of University Women; the University Fellowship and Provost Award from the University of Illinois at Chicago; the English-Speaking Union Scholarship for research in England, and Summer Research Grant from the College of Liberal Arts at Auburn University. The research process repeatedly took me out of my office on the journeys around the United States and England, and I am grateful to the staff at the reading rooms of the Newberry Library, Folger Shakespeare Library, British Library, and Heinz Archive of the National Portrait Gallery in London, and to the audiences of my conference presentations. I thank Karen Hearn at the Tate Britain and Tarnya Cooper at the National Portrait Gallery in London for conferring with me about my research. I am grateful to Rab MacGibbon for his expert help in locating some of the obscure portraits of Elizabeth. This book would not be what it is without the assistance of many scholars, and I feel very fortunate to be a recipient of their enthusiastic support and expertise. I am especially grateful to three of my colleagues at Auburn University who have read the entire manuscript in the final stages of revision: Craig E. Bertolet, who has been my invaluable resource for all things medieval and who also made all translations from Latin quoted in this book; Hilary Wyss, whose comments made me see the structure of this project in a new light; and Paula Backscheider, whose good judgment facilitated the finishing touches on this book and whose generosity enabled me to include twice as many illustrations than my budget would otherwise allow.

xiv

Acknowledgments

I am also indebted to Thomas Herron, Hannibal Hamlin, Margaret Hannay, Patricia Phillippy, Ilona Bell, Jane Donaweth, Mary Villeponteaux, Constance Relihan, and Wiebke Kuhn, for reading parts of the book and providing invaluable comments that sharpened my focus and saved me from many errors. I am deeply thankful to Michele Osherow, Donald Stump, Lynn Botelho, Linda Shenk, and Catherine Howey, whose own work has created a stimulating intellectual environment and whose enthusiasm about my research has been unflagging over the years. For their wisdom and support, I thank the members of the English Department at the University of Illinois at Chicago, particularly Clark Hulse, who introduced me to the delights of early modern visual culture and forstered my interest in the English queen during the work on my dissertation and “Elizabeth I: Ruler and Legend,” a public humanities exhibition at the Newberry Library in Chicago. I give my heartfelt thanks to John Huntington, whose support and guidance, as well as an invariably upbeat disposition, helped me to navigate some difficult stages of the research process. At the UIC, I also thank Mary Beth Rose, Mark Canuel, Lisa Freeman, and Judith Gardiner. Further thanks go out to remarkable people of an extraordinary intellectual generosity, Sander L. Gilman and John Watkins. At Auburn University, I give special thanks to my bright research assistants Rachel Reed and Mary Mechler and to my colleagues, especially Nancy Noe, Joanne Tong, Matt Zarnowiecki, and Jeremy Downes. I am also grateful to the individuals at Palgrave Macmillan who worked on my book, especially Chris Chappell, general editor; Carole Levin and Charles Beem, series editors and inspiring scholars; and Samantha Hasey, editorial assistant. I am additionally indebted to Carole Levin, who discerned the seeds of a future book within my initial essay and supported its growth with her outstanding expertise, enthusiasm, and wisdom. My further gratitude goes out to Craig E. Bertolet whose knowledge, wit, and devotion helped me to steer this book through to its completion. I give my heartfelt thanks to the far-away-so-close friends who regularly lent me their emotional and moral support as my thinking and writing moved forward by leaps and bounds: Ann Cheetham, Andrea Brillhart, Lydia Barnett Gastley, Kris Curtis, John Divine, Cristin McConnaughay, Lia Brouwers, Judith

Acknowledgments

xv

Bieberle Marks, and Anna Klatis. My great thanks go to Michael for his steady support on a long journey and his patient belief that often superseded my own self-confidence. This book is dedicated to my mother Yana, an extraordinary woman whose wisdom and love are at heart of all achievements of my life; to April and Alexander, who put my scholarly challenges in perspective and thus inspired me to persevere; and to the memory of Rachel.

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A BBREVIATIONS

CSP Foreign

Calendar of State Papers, Foreign Series, from the Reign of Elizabeth I CSP Spain Calendar of the Letters and State Papers Relating to English Affairs Preserved in, or originally Belonging to, the Archives of Simancas CSP Venice Calendar of State Papers and manuscripts relating to English affairs, existing in the archives and collections of Venice, and in other libraries of Northern Italy CSP Domestic Calendar of State Papers, Domestic CW Elizabeth I: Collected Works DNB Dictionary of National Biography FQ The Faerie Queene Letters and Papers The Letters and Papers, Foreign and Domestic, of the Reign of Henry VIII. Preserved in the Public Record Office, the British Museum, and Elsewhere in England NPG National Portrait Gallery, London ODNB Oxford Dictionary of National Biography OED Oxford English Dictionary

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INTRODUCTION

My Niece Is “far from beautiful” In 1582, the Russian czar Ivan the Terrible appointed a secret mission to his ambassador in England, Fyodor Pisemsky, to secure Mary Hastings as the next consort for the czar.1 In addition to determining Mary’s exact relationship to the queen, Ivan’s instructions called for an inquiry into the potential bride’s physical appearance.2 Instead of exploring Mary’s precise social status and personal character, Pisemsky concentrated on a survey of her looks, a task not easily accomplished outside a formal arrangement for an inspection that had to be sanctioned by the queen. On January 18, 1583, after a three-month wait for an audience, Pisemsky was finally able to broach the issue in Elizabeth’s private chamber at Richmond palace, beseeching Elizabeth to show him the lady and order her portrait to be painted for delivery to Ivan. The English queen responded diplomatically: Although I love my brother, your czar, and would be pleased to establish family ties with him, I have heard that he loves beautiful maidens whereas my niece is not beautiful, and I expect she will not suit him. I am also grateful to your czar for loving me so much that he wants to be related to me, but I am ashamed to have her face painted and sent to your lord because she is far from beautiful, and she is unwell, and has had smallpox, and her face is red and pock-marked.3

Pisemsky persisted until Elizabeth agreed, upon Mary’s recovery, to allow the inspection and painting of her person. The bride-show took place on May 17, 1583 in York House Garden. 4 Pisemsky’s orders were to “scrutinize the girl intensely: how tall is she; how big? is her complexion white or dark?” 5 Ivan’s questions were only slightly vaguer than his representative’s answers. Having finally seen Mary Hastings in person, Pisemsky described her in a compact catalog of features: “tall of stature, slender, white

2

The Face of Queenship

of face, grey eyes, blonde of hair, straight nose, fingers slender and long.” 6 This description is flanked by Pisemsky’s exchanges with Thomas Randolph (one of Elizabeth’s chief diplomats) and later with Elizabeth herself. Before they set off for the garden, Randolph draws the ambassador’s attention to the fact that the “queen ordered to show her niece to you neither in a dark place, nor in a chamber—but in the open light.” 7 Elizabeth continues in the same vein. After asking Pisemsky to keep the negotiations a secret, she declares, “I deal with my brother truthfully, and not by deceit: the portrait I will send will look the same as what you have seen in person.” Pisemsky, as if not completely convinced, assures the queen that he will supply his czar with an accurate verbal description of the lady. Apparently perturbed by Pisemsky’s insistence on honesty without letting her know what exactly he is going to report to Ivan, Elizabeth, in her typical roundabout fashion, attempts to extract Pisemsky’s opinion of Mary Hastings’ looks: “I expect your lord will not love my niece; moreover, you did not love her either.” Pisemsky is thus forced to admit and compliment her “niece’s” beauty.8 Having received Mary’s portrait in June 1593, the Russian ambassador left England accompanied by Elizabeth’s messenger Jerome Bowes. Bowes announced to Ivan that Mary was “sickly, taken by a great disease” and also unlikely to change her religious alliances.9 Moreover, he insisted, “her face is not the most beautiful; but the queen has up to ten other nieces closer to her in relation” and, although the queen did not give him permission to disclose their names, Bowes was certain that they “had faces more beautiful” than that of Mary Hastings.10 Even though Ivan was frustrated, he might very well have intended to pursue the negotiations, but his death on March 19, 1584 put an end to his plans to engage an English-born lady to be his eighth wife. For her part, Mary never married. The precise year of her death is unknown. This story highlights the issues that this book will address. The persistent interest in a woman’s facial features shows the value placed on female beauty and produces complex attitudes to facial blemishes. Another set of problems is created by a continual need to negotiate deception and honesty of display, both in real-life situations (as in Mary Hastings’ bride-show) and in representation when both the author and the audience have to contend with the difficulty of verbal description of faces and the unreliability

Introduction

3

of portraiture. Importantly, this account allows a glimpse of the queen’s tactics in respect to the matter of female faces: we get to witness Elizabeth’s behavior as a participant in an exchange about scrutiny, evaluation, and representation (in a portrait as well as a verbal report) of the appearance of a woman other than herself. Elizabeth is positioned in this situation ambivalently. On the one hand, she acts as a representative of the masculine power of the gaze that objectifies a woman’s face through appraisal and criticism; on the other, she identifies with the feminine subject who is obliged to defend her facial perfections as well as flaws by making claims to the integrity of display and eliciting compliments in the very act of self-disparagement. In this unique illustration of an early modern woman’s maneuvering in the world of men, Elizabeth’s dual status as female subject and male objectifying gazer is highlighted. She figures both as an object of scrutiny and representation, but an object whose privileged position of power lends her the awareness of the masculine values according to which her own face is being regarded and figured. The value placed on the face in the early modern society, as much as in our own, is derived from a face’s ability to function as an “instrument panel” 11 and its visual accessibility. Thus, John Donne observes that because “the face be more precisely regarded it concernes more. . . . the secret parts neede less respect; but of the Face discovered to all Survayes and examinations there is not too nice a jealousy.” 12 In the early modern period, this part of the human body emerges from under the medieval veil and helmet. It becomes less a formalized rhetorical trope and more an intersection of interpretive efforts of the onlookers. The controversial site of dissimulation and revelation, it is forever suspended between the potentials of truth and lie, art and nature. Indeed, the society had a well-developed system of treating faces as textual entities capable of communicating and hiding truths about their owners’ inner disposition. While conduct manuals teach how to properly compose the face to ensure social success, the physiognomic treatises give detailed instructions on plumbing the features for the practical insights into personality, character, and health.13 While the doctor studies the patient’s face for the signs of disease, and the suitor inspects the face of a woman, the markings that nature had left in these faces may be concealed and rewritten by cosmetics. Even as the early moderns search the faces of their interlocutors for signs of their inward character, experience

4

The Face of Queenship

confirms that “one may smile and smile and be a villain.” 14 It is a slippery signifier that demands to be seen only in this capacity. It invites interpretation, but makes impossible any certainty of this signification. Yet one cannot help but read the face; its epistemological promise is too powerful to be resisted. The heterogeneous system of attitudes toward the human faces that Elizabeth had to reckon with was well in place in the early modern England. In their introduction to The Body in Parts, David Hillman and Carla Mazzio explain that a shift of interest from the universal to particular has occurred in the course of the early modern period. They call the period an “age of synecdoche” and propose that early modern science and culture became interested in body parts, making them “concentrated sites” of meaning in their own right, without a subsequent reincorporation into the body as a whole.15 The richness of meaning and function of such a crucial body element as a face is explained not only by the period’s interest in partitioning and interrogation of each part in separation, but also by the prominence of faces in communication, portraiture, rhetoric, professional activities, et cetera. A general tendency in the early modern thought supports a dualistic exaltation of invisible and immaterial mind/soul over visible and palpable body. However, when another hierarchy is mapped onto the body itself, the face is invariably placed at the top, not only due to its superior spatial position,16 but also as the site of the body where the material flesh is most prominently joined with the mind, however complex and ambiguous these connections may be. As Lucy Hutchinson eloquently put it in Order and Disorder, The head which is the body’s chiefest grace, The noble palace of the royal guest Within by Fancy and Invention dressed, With many pleasant useful ornaments Which new Imagination still presents, Adorned without by Majesty and Grace: O who can tell the wonders of a face!17

The Face of Queenship An inquiry into the subject of Elizabeth’s face, first and foremost, must account for her dual status as a woman and a monarch. In Shakespeare’s play Richard II, we find a perceptive account of the

Introduction

5

unique status of a royal face in the early modern period. After Richard is dethroned, he orders a mirror “That it may show me what a face I have, / Since it is bankrupt of his majesty”: No deeper wrinkles yet? Hath sorrow struck So many blows upon the face of mine And made no deeper wounds? O flatt’ring glass, Like to my followers in prosperity, Thou dost beguile me! Was this face a face That every day after his household roof Did keep ten thousand men? Was this the face That like the sun did make beholders wink? Is this the face which faced so many follies, That was at last outfaced by Bolingbroke? A brittle glory shineth in this face. As brittle as the glory is the face, [He shatters the glass] For there it is, cracked in an hundred shivers. Mark, silent King, the moral of this sport: How soon my sorrow hath destroyed my face.18

Looking in the mirror, Richard registers the immediate unresponsiveness of his face, its failure to record the tremendous change of meaning that has occurred in its owner’s existence. Frustrated by this facial endurance, Richard imposes symbolic destruction onto his countenance by shattering the mirror that reflects it. The apparent stasis of his face would seem to underscore the profoundly metaphysical nature of Richard’s lost kingship. Instead, this lack of change frustrates him because it undermines the concept of the king’s two bodies as Richard conceives it: literally. Prior to the deposition, his notion of his monarchal face has followed the traditional metaphors of kingship: he believes his face has dazzled the beholders with its glory, “like the sun.” It is in the face where, for Richard, the record of his sacred monarchy has been clearly written and where he now searches, in vain, for a reciprocal transformation of glory into sorrow. Instead, he discovers that even now a “glory shineth in this face.” It is his knowledge that this enduring glory is but an erroneous facial signification that causes him to lash out in an attempt to crack his face “in an hundred shivers,” as if to interject these symbolic cracks in place of the absent “deeper wrinkles,” thus closing the gap between his two bodies that meet in his mirrored countenance.

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The Face of Queenship

However qualified, a tenuous identification of Elizabeth and Richard II has become a part of literary history.19 In addition, Shakespeare’s text bears testimony to the supreme significance of the face, especially the royal face, as a site of meaning, and an almost desperate need to bring, if not the face itself, then at least its representation, in agreement with meaning that one senses or imagines lying beneath its surface. And insofar as Richard’s perspective is conditioned by his kingship, the uneasy relationship between the king’s two bodies causes a necessity to bring his natural face in line with this symbolic loss and thus reforge the connection between the two bodies, even though he no longer possesses the body politic. In all aspects of early modern culture, the face emerges as a site of power and means of empowerment: epistemological, political, and even divine. The face is surrounded by a technology of interpretation, training, and representation: a technology that grows more elaborate as new voices join the discourse about the control of the body in social and political spheres as well as in art. Cutting across various approaches to the human countenance in the period, there is an underlying confidence that it is intrinsically connected to the mind: that the face can express the mind, hide it, or serve as an object of its inquiries, as a cognitive map that offers a path to knowledge that lies beyond its physicality. For the early moderns, the visible lines and delineations of the face, drawn by a “pencil that never works in vain,” 20 retain their potential as the signs of the invisible truths that are waiting to be revealed. Fascination with faces in the early modern England is omnipresent: physiognomic theories of the Germans and the French are imported in multiple editions; conduct books address the matters of proper facial behavior; artists process the faces in order to translate them onto panels and canvases; citizens describe faces in their letters and diaries; poets perpetuate the ideals of beauty or sharpen their wits in the mockery of ugliness while women follow cosmetic recipes to fashion their faces anew. The subject of many of these reinventions in portraiture, private and public documents, and literature is the English queen’s countenance, and it is this bundle of complex and contradictory modes of engagement comprising the early modern concept of the face that Elizabeth has to reckon with throughout her life. This book’s title conveys a multitude of meanings: putting a material face to the abstract notion of power, specifically royal and

Introduction

7

female authority; creating a face for the human beings, Elizabeth among them, who happen to occupy positions of power, political, sexual, or aesthetic; interpreting these kinds of faces in the early modern context, as well as our own. Building on the debate of the scholars dealing with literature and power, this book investigates the multifaceted meanings inscribed in the queen’s face by her contemporaries. In addition, because hair seems to be inseparable from the face in descriptions of Elizabeth, I attend to the cultural meanings evoked by Elizabeth’s hair, along with those of her proper facial features. This study engages diverse fields of inquiry: from physiognomic treatises to theories of art, poetic practice, portraiture, and polemics dealing with face-painting. As a backdrop for Elizabeth’s particular case, these elements allow a reconstruction of the early modern theory and practice of representation and interpretation of faces. Early modern studies have recently been enriched by a few analyses of face-painting and cosmetics,21 in addition to Martin Porter much-needed inquiry into early modern physiognomic treatises. An earlier study The English Face by David Piper provides a survey of stylistic changes in representation of faces in portraiture and sculpture. An emerging interest in the early modern concept of the face is evident in these studies, and, most recently, in the exciting book by Sibylle Baumbach, Shakespeare and the Art of Physiognomy.22 Arguing for the necessity of attending to the poetics and politics of meaning in verbal and visual renderings of the face of Elizabeth I, my own book seeks to establish that, in early modern society, the natural properties of the face are habitually translated into cultural terms as one’s countenance is drawn into the process of projecting and deciphering of meaning. The face thereby becomes a cultural construct and rhetorical tool whose presence transpires in many aspects of thought and experience in the early modern period. In this respect, the notion of the face in this book coincides with the neuropsychiatrist German E. Berrios’s observation that the “face is not a ‘natural kind’ but a ‘cultural construct’ and hence its study requires a discipline that may borrow from biology, theology, poetry, history, philosophy, portraiture, and aesthetics.” 23 Because of its special focus on the rhetorical possibilities realized in various representations of the face, the scope of my study is limited to literature, history, and portraiture; it also includes some elements of contemporary aesthetics and physiognomic thought. Elizabeth’s particular case,

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The Face of Queenship

indicative of how this rhetorical tool has been implemented in the early modern context of female rulership, both elucidates and is itself illuminated by the understanding of the conceptual view of the face as a locus of aesthetic, political, ideological, and genderrelated meaning. To a significant extent, this book incorporates the findings and approaches of the New Historicist dimension of literary criticism that was initiated by Stephen Greenblatt in his study of selffashioning and the complex relationships between literature and power and developed and modified by other scholars and successfully adopted to reading both literary and nonliterary texts as well as images. The New Historicist expansion of the field of evidence from the established canon to less familiar and marginal works is at heart of the selection of materials for this study. My inquiry is also informed by feminist and cultural studies, as well as practice of close reading of verbal and visual evidence. In the inclusion and analysis of visual imagery, I capitalize on Peter Burke’s argument that “art can provide evidence for aspects of social reality which texts pass over,” 24 pointedly reiterated in Stephen Orgel’s assertion that images “always say more than they mean”: “The image, unlike the word . . . also represents what does not signify, the unexplained, the unspeakable.” 25 My approach is also aligned with Louis Montrose’s interest in the way Elizabeth and her male subjects negotiated their agency and in awareness that Elizabeth’s “power to shape her own strategies was itself shaped (enabled or constrained) by repertoire of values, institutions, and practices available to her for appropriation and innovation.” 26 I am especially indebted to feminist scholars like Carole Levin, Susan Frye, and Susan Doran, whose work has enabled my inquiry into the effects of meaning-making in Elizabeth’s depictions and sharpened my awareness of the extent to which these meanings are implicated in cultural anxieties about the female monarch. Scholarship engaged with Elizabeth I encompasses biography, textual and literary analysis, iconography, and numerous interpretive ventures that tend to favor the issues of Elizabeth’s self-fashioning, virginity, attitude toward marriage, religious and political choices, and negotiation of power. Investigations into Elizabeth’s speeches and Ilona Bell’s brilliant analysis of the queen’s poetry, in particular, have produced a consensus about Elizabeth’s rhetorical dexterity: a skill that, I would argue, extends its influence beyond language and strives to control all representations of the

Introduction

9

queen regardless of their agency and medium.27 In this rhetorical endeavor, representations of Elizabeth’s face are instrumental. Used both in and against Elizabeth’s favor, they render multiple meanings, some of which may no longer be readily accessible by the modern audience. The medieval concept of the king’s two bodies, examined in detail by Ernst H. Kantorowicz, was still a valid currency during Elizabeth’s lifetime. As expounded in Edmund Plowden’s Commentaries or Reports, a monarch possesses two bodies, a body natural (“mortal, subject to all Infirmities that come by Nature or Accident, to the Imbecillity of Infancy or old Age”) and a body politic (invisible and intangible, “consisting of Policy and Governement” and “utterly void of Infancy, and old Age, and other natural Defects and Imbecillities”).28 Many scholars find this concept fascinating and, in light of the increasing interest in material culture, research on the queen’s natural body has added an important dimension to studies on Elizabeth. Attention paid to Elizabeth’s face in current scholarship, however, is occasional and cursory, a fact especially striking in this context of the ongoing discourse on Elizabeth’s body.29 In fact, among the numerous explorations of Elizabeth’s monarchical body, including those addressing the concept of the king’s two bodies, there have been no studies focused on the queen’s face.30 Her countenance nevertheless offers unique representational and interpretive challenges that exceed those of the rest of her body: functions, meanings, and interpretations of the face are distinctly different from what the scholarship has been discovering in its treatment of the early modern body as an integral unit or as it is metonymically represented by its various systems.31 Indeed, most recent inquiries into Elizabeth’s physicality all but equate her body natural with her virginity, an interest that has produced valuable discussions of anxiety and power associated with Elizabeth’s virginal state in various stages of her reign. What is most intriguing about the issues of virginity is not only its bearing on the issues of dynastic procreation, symbolic suggestion of impenetrability of Elizabeth’s realm, and divine ordinance of her rulership, but also the intangibility, uncertainty, a visual and verbal invisibility of the physical groundings of her virginal state.32 Her face, however, is the part of her body natural most open to view, and the concreteness of its representation far surpasses that of her virginity. In choosing the queen’s face as

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The Face of Queenship

the focal point of this study, therefore, I propose to turn attention away from the abstract figurations of her body as virginal, aging, or sexualized, and explore instead the concrete aspects of her physicality, made nowhere more tangible and visible than in her face. Although in representations of Elizabeth’s face the imagination, style, and political alliances of her writing and painting contemporaries inevitably reconstitute the concrete physicality of this face, this book seeks to ground these representational difficulties in their starting point: the materiality of the queen’s countenance. Renditions of Elizabeth’s face provide an opportunity to invest the monarch’s physiognomy with meaning and, as such, function as loci for the expression of the authors’ conflicting desires. By examining discourses on beauty and cosmetics, documentary writings, poetry, and portraiture, the chapters that follow reveal how the queen’s face functions as an index of political contest that encompasses hopes, fears, hatreds, mockeries, rivalries, and awe. Furthermore, I demonstrate that the political investment generated in representations of Elizabeth’s face is especially intense because of her feminine gender. Because royal faces were scrutinized in a peculiar way, with additional, politically charged, interest and expectations, chapter 1 establishes the cultural and historical background for Elizabeth’s specific case by tracing the concept of a Tudor royal face. To this purpose, I consider poetic and documentary descriptions of her royal predecessors, aiming to determine conceptual and local tendencies in the treatments of their faces, while also identifying the points of distinction between depictions of royal female and male visages. This survey explains not only various attitudes to the faces of the Tudor dynasty, but also provides a framework of problems and solutions that Elizabeth inherited and modified. To a significant extent, the policies of control of the monarch’s image were determined by the vital issue of the queen’s appearance, historical or legendary. Furthering the evidence discussed in chapter 1 that the Tudor queens were judged according to the degree of their gorgeousness, chapter 2 identifies and explores the obstacles that stand between Elizabeth and beauty, and the ways these obstacles are surmounted, undermined, or effaced. Building on the scholarship of Frances Dolan, Annette Drew-Bear, Patricia Phillippy, and Farah Karim-Cooper on face-painting polemics and empowerment, I analyze the implications of Ben Jonson’s

Introduction

11

anecdote about the queen’s face-painting and situate the issue of Elizabeth’s use of cosmetics within the period’s attitude toward the practices of self-embellishment. Chapter 3, in juxtaposition to Elizabeth’s efforts to control her appearance, explores the documented effect of these efforts on the onlookers. The authors’ political agendas as well as anxiety surrounding the issue of Elizabeth’s changing appearance cause inconsistencies within the written testimonies about the aging queen. This rhetorical maneuvering suggests that onlookers, despite their political differences, are caught in the same discursive predicament generated by the imperfection of her face. The chapter goes on to address the expressive life of Elizabeth’s face as a key element in the politics of representing the queen’s inwardness by means of external signification. As some scholars have noted, Elizabeth’s self-representation contains a tension between the tendency to disguise her meanings and her policy of self-display; I demonstrate that this tension results in activation of, to use Harry Berger’s term, “the credo of physiognomic skepticism.” 33 In addition, her facial expressions allow the onlookers an interpretive opportunity to advance their own representational purposes, claiming to read in her face a silent comment on her integrity or insincerity, kindness or ill disposition, stamina or weakness. Through an analysis of documentary descriptions extant in letters and diaries of Elizabeth’s contemporaries, chapter 3 establishes a base line for the study of interpretations of ostensibly mediated depictions of the queen’s face in the last two chapters of the book. In chapter 4, as I examine a range of techniques favored in literary portrayals of the queen, I show that the metaphoric inscriptions of Elizabeth’s face with her heraldic symbols are more potent and successful than the poetic claims of her indescribability, on one hand, and attempts at a full blazon detailing her features, on the other. This analysis engages texts by Edmund Spenser, John Lyly, Fulke Greville, and George Puttenham, as well as anonymous poems recited in Elizabeth’s presence. In addition, I suggest that these literary representations are governed by the “Medusa principle” that seeks to avoid a direct, unmediated depiction.34 Each technique represents a particular response to the same set of dilemmas, bound up with the issues of Elizabeth’s power and gender: desire to compliment, fear to displease, secret hope of domination, and rivalry with other men over the queen’s favor.

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The Face of Queenship

Elizabeth’s portrait-painters responded to the same set of problems reckoned with by writers. However, artists could not avoid depiction of her face or obfuscate it with a clever metaphor; instead, they put forth a prosthetic image of the queen, carefully refashioning her imperfect physical visage.35 Because the number of people who had seen the queen’s images far surpassed the number of people who had seen her in person, the faces in her portraits frequently functioned as definitive statements of Elizabeth’s looks. Therefore, chapter 5 investigates the meanings professed or concealed in the queen’s painted faces, in light of expectations and interpretive strategies the early moderns brought to creating and viewing her portraiture. In the first part, I show that Nicholas Hilliard’s adjustment and alteration of Elizabeth’s features as he translates flesh into paint allow him to inscribe her face with meaning that reflects his personal vision of his queen. The second part of the chapter seeks to augment the canon of the queen’s portraits. I propose and explain the concept of the approach to these images in “clusters” and explore the ways Elizabeth’s face is used to accommodate the purpose of each portrait within one cluster and create a particular effect on its viewer. The remaining part of the chapter engages some lesser known images that uncharacteristically portray Elizabeth smiling, sad, or withered. My analysis of these noncanonical depictions seeks not only to dislodge the scholarly dismissal of Elizabeth’s face in portraiture, but also to emphasize the complexity of early modern attitudes to the face of this English queen.

CHAPTER 1

PLAIN QUEEN, GORGEOUS KING: TUDOR ROYAL FACES

T

he fifth Tudor monarch and the second Tudor queen, Elizabeth crafted her queenship with a wisdom derived from historical hindsight, endeavoring to adopt, adapt, or discard her predecessors’ policies and strategies for running the complex business of a well-governed state. As the observers gazed at this queen, her face was subject to the same expectations and vulnerabilities as those of the faces of the earlier Tudors who were observed with a scrutiny potentially leading to adoration or assault. A logical response on the part of Elizabeth and her official image-makers, who knew that crafting her royal image could bolster her ability to rule, was to fulfill the positive expectations and strengthen the vulnerable aspects pertaining to her appearance. Yet, both the overt praises to the queen’s nonpareil beauty as well as seemingly objective representations of this monarch inevitably carried with them ambivalent tendencies inherited from the earlier Tudors. When Elizabeth’s face value is proposed, assessed, and modified to fit various rhetorical purposes, to what extent are these practices inherited from the queen’s Tudor predecessors? What is the measure of invention or refashioning of the ways to describe, depict, and discuss Elizabeth’s countenance? Is representation of the faces of other women who are incorporated in the Tudor dynasty—Katherine of Aragon, Anne Boleyn, Mary Tudor—more akin to the construction of Elizabeth’s faces than those of the Tudor men: Henry VII, Henry VIII, and Edward VI? Or does the reign of the famously androgynous Elizabeth create a hybrid of representational choices that at the same time implicate her face in a host of various cross-gender issues? In order to answer these questions, this chapter will consider the patterns of continuity and difference in the representations of royal faces from

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The Face of Queenship

the accession of the queen’s grandfather, Henry VII, to her own accession in 1558. In contrast to the medieval iconic representations of royalty where the artists depicted a concept of monarchy per se rather than the monarch as he or she appeared, the Tudor dynasty paid close attention to the royal face and its idiosyncratic representations. No longer did the presence of crown and scepter denote a monarch in royal portraiture. Instead, the individuality of the face became recognizable as its features effectively pointed at the monarch’s personal identity.1 Verbal accounts describing the Tudors likewise testify to the increasing attention paid to faces. In the dynastic line before Elizabeth’s accession, the Tudor concept of the royal face was shaped and elaborated by the joint efforts of the observers, artists, and the monarchs themselves. Representations of Henry VII set forth the humanist interest in the individuality of kingship, and depictions of Henry VIII continued this tendency, adding to it a careful assessment of the king’s face as a reflection of his mind, a link that made the observers’ compliments to Henry’s beauty a crucial element of their judgment on his character and competence as a ruler. It was at this point in the English history that the juxtaposition of the male and female royal faces began to measure a queen’s worth, to a significant extent, by the degree of beauty in her face, while it also allowed a handsome king to hijack one of the prized feminine attributes, sporting a beautiful face more attractive than that of his royal consort. This pattern continued in the reign of Mary I whose face was disparaged for its plainness and whose inability to compose her facial expressions had a direct bearing on her unsuitability as a ruler. Elizabeth’s use of her face as a rhetorical tool is a partly revisionist, partly adoptive response to these preceding paradigms.

Henry VII In his study of Henry VII’s iconography, Simon Thurley points to the necessity of this king’s legitimization and proof of fitness for kingship as the driving forces behind the creation of his images. In particular, Thurley demonstrates that the legitimacy of the first Tudor monarch was effected through references to his descent, by “making connections with the past and stressing

Tudor Royal Faces

15

current dynastic ties” 2 as well as aligning Henry VII’s kingship with the authority of the church. His fitness for the position of a ruler, in the meantime, was conveyed through his magnificence. These strategies were likewise employed by Elizabeth, who, more than any other Tudor after Henry VII, struggled because of the necessity to assert her legality and suitability for being a monarch, due to her history of bastardization and her unmarried status. In the multifaceted project that addressed Henry VII’s monarchal credentials, his face is implicated primarily as a sign of the identity and individuality of the first Tudor king. Thurley points out, for instance, that a group of portraits of Henry VII (c. 1490–1500), Elizabeth of York (c.1500), and their eldest son Arthur (c. 1502) all follow the formula of the portrait of Elizabeth of York’s father Edward IV.3 Indeed, the positioning of the sitter with the hands prominently displayed on a ledge, looking to the side, links the Tudors to Edward IV compositionally; Henry VII’s facial features, however, are strikingly unique markers of the new dynastic line, reflecting the developing humanist interest in individuality. 4 Elizabeth’s portraits employ a similar retrospective legitimization, but her painted faces are an integral part of this process. In particular, as will be discussed in chapter 5, the most consistent feature of Elizabeth’s face represented in portraiture is her eyes whose shape she seems to have inherited from her grandfather. In addition to Henry VII’s lowered and convex upper lids, Elizabeth’s auburn hair, reminiscent of her father Henry VIII, also functioned as proof of her paternal right to the English throne. A glimpse of Henry VII’s appearance may be additionally caught in the anonymous The most pleasant Song of the Lady Bessy, the eldest daughter of King Edward the Fourth; and how she married King Henry the Seventh of the House of Lancaster (n.d.).5 The central figure of this ballad, Henry’s bride-to-be Elizabeth of York, is described quite generically as a “lady so fair and free, / With rudd as red as rose in May.” 6 A quintessential signifier of redness, “rudd” (a variant spelling of “rud”) means complexion “of those parts of the face which are naturally reddish or ruddy” (OED 2): cheeks and especially lips. Descriptions of one’s “rud” using words like “red” and “rose” may sound tautological to our ear but were in fact almost idiomatic in medieval and early modern England. In the context of the princess’ determination to marry the Lancastrian Earl of Richmond, the presence of a red rose in her “rud” argues both her

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The Face of Queenship

determination and the aptness of her marital choice. Such subtle reinscription of a hackneyed floral trope into a politically charged heraldic context will become, as demonstrated in chapter 4, more aggressive in poetic descriptions of Elizabeth of York’s namesake granddaughter. In contrast to the generic appearance of Henry’s bride, the ballad offers an almost idiosyncratically individualized portrayal of the Earl of Richmond. The porter at the gate of the Beggrames (Begars) Abbey instructs Humphrey Brereton, Elizabeth’s courageous letter-bearer and her father’s old servant, who has never seen the banished Earl of Richmond, the future King Henry VII: He weareth a gown of velvet black, And it is cutted above the knee, With a long visage and pale and black,— There-by the Prince know may ye. A wart he hath, the porter said, A litle alsoe above the chinn, His face is white, his wart is redd, No more than a head of a small pinn: You may know the Prince certain, As soon as you look upon him truely.7

The future Henry VII’s own face is painted in the same colors as that of his bride: pale and red, the ideal colors of the contemporary standard of beautiful complexion. “His face is white, his wart is redd”—the simplicity of this formula glosses over the potentially disturbing ugliness of a red wart standing out on the future king’s face. The means of recognizing him by a “long visage and pale and black” are, of course, only slightly less generic than the description of his bride as fair and rosy. Somewhat oddly placed on the list of facial attributes, “black” may refer to Henry VII’s eyes or hair, or could be a short recap of the two preceding lines picturing his black gown. What focuses the attention of the porter to the earl’s face is the placement and appearance of the wart. As any physical blemish, a wart is an unlikely peculiarity to receive such representational emphasis on a royal face. In this ballad, of course, the unusual wart provides a convenient way of identification of the proper recipient of Bessy’s letters. Moreover, Henry’s red wart echoes Elizabeth’s red “rud” and functions as a mark of the House of Lancaster whose emblem is a red rose, thereby associating

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Henry as a Lancastrian. Its significance as a blemish on his complexion is carefully reduced by stressing the wart’s minuscule size, “No more than a head of a small pin.” Yet regardless of its small size it becomes the only distinguishing mark on the king’s face. Whether the red wart was a poetic device or historical fact, it is not mentioned in any known references to Henry VII’s face nor does it seem to appear in any of this king’s portraits. In his posthumous sketch of Henry VII’s person, Vergil Polydore describes the king’s appearance as follows: “His body was slender but well built and strong; his height above the average. His appearance was remarkably attractive and his face was cheerful, especially when speaking; his eyes were small and blue, his teeth few, poor and blackish; his hair was thin and white; his complexion sallow.” 8 When one considers this description alongside of Henry VII’s portrait attributed to Michael Sittow (1505),9 some discrepancies become obvious: in the portrait, Henry VII’s eyes are dark blue, but his hair is of chestnut color; his complexion seems hardly sallow, and his teeth are hidden behind his enigmatic lips whose cheerfulness is a matter of subjective opinion. These discrepancies are explained easily enough by the conventions of formal portraiture that would disallow a depiction of a cheerfully animated king; an inconsistency of the color of Henry VII’s hair, no doubt, results from the difference in the king’s age at the time of these visual and verbal portrayals. These differences will also be the case with Henry VII’s granddaughter Elizabeth, especially later in her reign: not only does her hair assume a variety of hues both in her images and descriptions, but also the multiplicity of colors shading her eyes in portraiture does not match their dark hue reported by eyewitnesses. Such inconsistencies, as I argue in chapter 5, create a variety of physiognomic meanings engendered by each portrait. As a verbal rendition of the face, Polydore’s description of Henry VII exhibits the same tendencies as the personal accounts of Elizabeth’s appearance discussed in chapter 3: even in this seemingly neutral list of features, there is a registered tension between what is attractive and what is imperfect. Remarkably, the fixed physiognomy of the king offers little to praise; in contrast, the attraction and cheerful disposition are most visible when his face becomes animated. It is this ability to overwrite the fixed text of her features by means of regulating her facial expressions

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The Face of Queenship

that allows Elizabeth to make a strategic use of her face in the instances of public and private performance.

Henry VIII While the Song of the Lady Bessy features the only known description of Henry VII’s appearance likely to have been composed in his lifetime, the annals hold quite a few verbal portraits of his successor to the throne. Even though most descriptions of Henry VIII belong to the period between 1515 and 1531 when the second Tudor was physically at his prime, the consistent praise of his beauty is nevertheless striking. For many of us, mental images of Henry VIII’s appearance are derived from Hans Holbein’s iconic portrait of his formidable bulk and ruthless masculinity. The impression of an overwhelming handsomeness is hardly what comes to mind when one hears his name. However, witnesses not only frequently remark on the exceptional attractiveness of Henry VIII’s face, but even discern in this king a beauty so delicate that it borders on the feminine. Moreover, Henry VIII’s handsomeness is further augmented by the noted superiority of his appearance over the plain looks of his wife, Katherine of Aragon. In Henry’s coronation eulogy, Thomas More praised “fiery power in [Henry VIII’s] eyes, beauty in his face, and the colour of twin roses in his cheeks.” 10 At the age of twenty-five, a foreign visitor claimed, the king is “the handsomest potentate I ever set eyes on . . . his complexion very fair and bright, with auburn hair combed straight and short, in the French fashion, and a round face so very beautiful that it would become a pretty woman . . .” 11 “The personal beauty of the King is very great,” insisted a Venetian ambassador.12 One of the earliest images of Henry VIII’s reign, The King Processing to Parliament (1512), also defines his appearance as refined and bordering on feminine. It is a depiction of the king as an elegant young man, with delicate features and beardless jawline, a face framed by fashionably long hair.13 Around the time leading to the Field of Cloth of Gold, a spectacular month-long meeting of Henry VIII of England and Francis I of France that took place in June 1520, the rivalry between the two monarchs was at its height, and physical appearance was one of the points of competition. Henry himself reportedly interrogated a French ambassador as to Francis’ physical endowments in comparison to the English king, a dialogue that echoed later when

Tudor Royal Faces

19

Elizabeth forced the Scottish ambassador to make comparative statements about herself and Mary Queen of Scots.14 The onlookers, too, weighed the aspects of the two kings against each other. “King Henry was 29 years old, and much handsomer than any other Sovereign in Christendom,—a great deal handsomer than the King of France,” reported one observer. He continued with admiration: “He was very fair, and his whole frame admirably proportioned. Hearing that King Francis wore a beard, he allowed his own to grow, and as it was reddish, he had then got a beard which looked like gold.” 15 “He is a very handsome King, both in face and figure, and has a red beard,” 16 testified one of the participants of the Field of Cloth of Gold. Another partaker of the festivities judged that, in comparison to the King of France, “the English King has rather the handsomer face and more feminine . . .” 17 The visual record, in contrast, carefully avoids an emphasis on beauty and especially femininity. In a contemporaneous portrait, we glean the features of Henry VIII still in his prime; the femininity of his face is particularly elusive in this static record: the face is obscured by a beard.18 Such discrepancy between the admiring remarks of the onlookers and the lasting testimony of the state portraits indicates that the makers of Henry’s public image deemphasized the features that interfered with the king’s highly gendered political persona. About a decade later, another Venetian ambassador joins the chorus of the admirers of the English king’s good looks and describes the thirty-seven-year-old Henry VIII as follows: “He wore a gown of gold brocade, lined with very beautiful lynx’s skins; which apparel, combined with an excellently formed head and a very well proportioned body of tall stature, gave him an air of royal majesty, such as has not been witnessed in any other Sovereign for many years.” 19 As will be explored in the next chapter, this praise to the majestic bearing echoes repeatedly in descriptions of Elizabeth. This impression is sometimes reinforced by praising her good looks, but often (especially toward the end of her reign) the powerful effect of her royal dignity will trump the visible defects of her aging face. Perhaps the most superlative expression of adoration of Henry VIII’s beauty comes from Hironimo Moriano, a secretary to the Venetian ambassador. Moriano exalts the “physical beauty and perfection of his Majesty, for he can declare that never in his days did he see any—he will not say sovereign, the number of whom

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The Face of Queenship

is small, but—man handsomer, more elegant, and better proportioned than this King, who is pink and white, fair, tall, agile, well formed, and graceful in all his movements and gestures.” Astounded by the face of such perfection, Moriano declares that he “[c]hooses to believe that nature, in producing this prince, did her utmost to create a perfect model of manly beauty in these times.” 20 In these descriptions, the Neoplatonic correspondences between body and mind are deeply entrenched as Henry VIII’s personal perfections seem to confirm these links in a spectacular combination of beauty, intelligence, and royal magnificence, a tendency continued and nurtured throughout Elizabeth’s reign. In this eighth Henry, God combined such corporal and mental beauty, as not merely to surprise but to astound all men. Who could fail to be struck with admiration on perceiving the lofty position of so glorious a Prince to be in such accordance with his stature, giving manifest proof of that intrinsic mental superiority which is inherent to him? His face is angelic rather than handsome; his head imperial and bald, and he wears a beard, contrary to English custom. Who would not be amazed when contemplating such singular corporal beauty, coupled with such bold address, adapting itself with the great ease to every manly exercise.21

Even at the age of forty, the beauty of Henry VIII’s face puts one in the mind of an angel, and a happy conjunction of this perfection of his appearance and the endowments of his mind seems to border on the supernatural. Many an observer notes Henry VIII’s affability in the years preceding his despotic marital and political behavior; certainly, no one in these accounts couples the king’s good looks with an accusation in tyranny or cruelty. There is only one account that cautiously approaches criticism of Henry VIII’s marital decisions in contrast to his essential goodness: “He is tall of stature, very well formed, and of very handsome presence, beyond measure affable, and I never saw a prince better disposed than this one. He is also learned and accomplished, and most generous and kind, and were it not that he now seeks to repudiate his wife, after having lived with her for 22 years, he would be no less perfectly good, and equally prudent.” 22 Curiously, after his divorce from Katherine, not only do praises for Henry VIII’s gorgeousness evaporate, but also descriptions of his face seem to disappear altogether. At the same time, with the arrival of Hans Holbein in England in 1526, Henry VIII’s image in

Tudor Royal Faces

21

portraiture completely and lastingly replaces these verbal praises to beauty and refinement. What survives from the earlier portraits and becomes progressively more pronounced in the visual images of the king is what I would call the “clutter syndrome”: a tendency, in many portraits of Elizabeth’s father even before he grew quite fat, to crowd his eyes, nose, and mouth in a small space at the center of the face, leaving vast areas of flesh around it. Henry VIII’s small clustered features on his large face create a stark dissonance: he is, so to speak, larger than himself; his influence is not limited to the center where control apparently resides. This cluttering is apparent, albeit to a lesser degree, with some portraits of Elizabeth. The commanding effect of Henry VIII’s later portraits is primarily due to Holbein’s portrayal in the king’s face “power, pride, and gravity.” 23 This new face of ruthless masculinity stands in sharp contrast to the earlier visual images and verbal descriptions that reflect an almost ecstatic fascination with the younger king’s perfect handsomeness that “would become a pretty woman.” Henry VIII’s face has been watched throughout the reign not only for the signs of handsomeness, but also for its expressive capacity. Several ambassadors supplement their reports about the king’s reactions and statements with remarks about the accompanying changes in his face: “becoming rather pale in the face”;24 “the blood mounted to his face”;25 the “King made a wry face.” 26 Chapuys, a cunning Spanish ambassador, noted with satisfaction that he saw “the King’s face expand . . . and his eyes glitter” in response to the ambassador’s politic suggestion during a particularly difficult conversation.27 Most of these remarks occur later in Henry VIII’s reign. The changing patterns in portraiture and verbal descriptions suggest that the impression made by the king’s face generally evolves from an emphasis on his good looks to perception of maturity and power. Elizabeth will adopt and foster both of these models early in her reign, playing her power and beauty concurrently until her very last hour on the throne.

Katherine of Aragon The young Henry VIII’s beauty stands out even more sharply when the observers contrast the king’s good looks to the relative plainness of his queen. As an adolescent, Katherine of Aragon presented a lovely sight: her “beauty” and “sweet face” at the age of sixteen greatly pleased her groom, Prince Arthur.28 But as early

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The Face of Queenship

as 1515, when she was only thirty, Katherine was already rather unceremoniously criticized by Nicolo Sagudino, secretary to the Venetian Ambassador Sebastian Giustinian: in one breath, Sagudino juxtaposes the “handsome” Henry VIII, who presents “such a beautiful sight” and “looked like St. George on horseback,” and his queen who is “rather ugly than otherwise” and “supposed to be pregnant.” 29 Mario Savorgano, another Venetian, draws a similar contrast sixteen years later when he admires the “handsome presence” of Henry VIII and attempts to show some generosity in granting that his Majesty’s consort, “If not handsome . . . is not ugly; she is somewhat stout, and has always a smile on her countenance.” 30 Later that year, Savorgano’s compatriot Lodovico Falier reports to the Venetian Senate that “The Queen is of low stature, rather stout, with a modest countenance; she is virtuous, just, replete with goodness and religion, she speaks Spanish, Flemish, French, and English; she is beloved by the islanders more than any Queen that ever reigned; she is about forty-five years old, having lived thirty years in England, from the time of her first marriage.” 31 These last two reports dating from 1531, during the last stages of Henry’s divorce from his first wife, register, above all, Katherine’s dignity in response to the ignominious circumstances. She is always smiling; her face is modest, and her virtues and learning ensure the fondness of her subjects despite her unremarkable looks.32 In all of these descriptions, the question of beauty is invariably raised. Its repetition suggests that beauty constitutes an essential aspect of judging the queen’s appearance. It is clear that, even as early as 1515 when the marriage is still quite stable, Henry VIII is looked to as an embodiment of the royal power while Katherine is relegated to the secondary position and easily dismissed because she lacks the striking looks of her husband. Falier’s more elaborate reference, however, not only downplays Katherine’s plainness, but also gives ample room to her accomplishments. The above remarks make it clear, therefore, that the pressure to appear handsome was exerted on all royal personages, regardless of gender. In the case of kings, however, this gorgeousness is remarked upon as a surprising bonus, while for a queen, beauty is essential. For many observers, a queen’s lack or possession of beauty defines her, makes her worthy or unworthy of notice and even respect.

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Anne Boleyn Once Katherine is hastily ushered off the stage, Henry’s new love interest Anne Boleyn is subjected to an intense scrutiny of the ambassadors. Eventually, she is sharply criticized for her success as an upstart, her replacement of the virtuous Katherine of Aragon, and the part Anne plays in England’s break with Rome. The ambassador’s initial reports make repeated mention of Anne without, however, remarking on her appearance. It seems that Anne stayed hidden from public view until her position as the king’s consort became at least somewhat secure. The Venetian ambassador penned the first account of her appearance just a few months before Henry VIII and Anne tied the knot: “Madam Anne is not one of the handsomest women in the world; she is of middling stature, swarthy complexion, long neck, wide mouth, bosom not much raised, and in fact has nothing but the King’s great appetite, and her eyes, which are black and beautiful, and take great effect on those who served the Queen when she was on the throne.” 33 It is, for the most part, a disappointing picture that seems to leave the writer puzzled and unsympathetic to the “great appetite” of Henry VIII. To be fair, Anne is hardly the only English woman seen as unattractive through the eyes of a foreigner. While there was a general conception of what constituted feminine beauty in early modern Europe, specific tastes did vary from one nation to the other; for instance, the Spanish consistently disparaged English women for “being generally ugly, badly dressed, and bold in their demeanour.” 34 The Venetians, however, had a more benevolent attitude to the English beauty. In the year previous to the aforementioned disappointment in Anne’s appearance, another Venetian traveler remarks: “The women are all excellently handsome, nor did I ever see the like, save at Augsburg . . .” 35 Two decades later, another Venetian makes a generous assessment that the “English for the most part are of handsome stature and sound constitution, with red or white complexions, their eyes also being white.” 36 There is no doubt, nevertheless, that everyone looked to Anne in hopes of discovering the apparent reason for her unprecedented success with the king. When the onlooker is a man, and a foreigner, the limitation of his inquiry to a clinical inventory of her outward appearance leaves him with little chance to probe the mystery of this woman’s personal charms. And yet, at the end of his description, the Venetian arrives at Anne’s most

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The Face of Queenship

prominent feature and pays his due to what seems to be her most potent weapon: her eyes. Indeed, Anne’s eyes were one of the most notable aspects of her appearance. Writing just a few days after Anne’s execution, Lancelot de Carles, French poet and future Bishop of Riez, in his Histoire de Anne Boleyn Jadis Royne d’Angleterre (1636), admiringly remembered her eyes not so much for their beauty as for Anne’s incomparable skill in using them to attract people: eyes always most attractive Which she knew well how to use with effect, Sometimes leaving them at rest, And at others, sending a message To carry the secret witness to her heart, And, truth to tell, such was their power, That many surrendered to their obedience.37

These verses testify to the exact danger of the seductive powers of women’s eyes warned against by the writers of many conduct books. De Carles, of course, is not criticizing Anne’s superb ability to use her eyes for her purposes. Instead, he elaborates on the versatility of Anne’s strategic composing of her face, a skill so refined that even the knowledge of this woman’s intent to conquer with her gaze does not preclude her audience from surrendering to her power. Long after Anne’s tragic death, Nicholas Sander introduces a far less sanguine image of the late English Queen. In his venomous portrait, he treats her as Protestant upstart responsible for turning the king’s mind away from the Catholic religion of his predecessors: Anne Boleyn was rather tall of stature, with black hair, and an oval face of a sallow complexion, as if troubled with jaundice. She had a projecting tooth under her upper lip, and on her right hand six fingers. There was a large wen under her chin, and therefore to hide its ugliness she wore a high dress covering her throat. In this she was followed by the ladies of the court, who also wore high dresses, having before been in the habit of leaving their necks and the upper portion of their persons uncovered. She was handsome to look at, with a pretty mouth, amusing in her ways, playing well on the lute, and was a good dancer. She was the model and the mirror of those who were at court, for she was always well dressed, and

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every day made some change in the fashion of her garments. But as to the disposition of her mind, she was full of pride, ambition, envy, and impurity.38

As Retha Warniecke has demonstrated, the unattractive physical peculiarities of this image are the result of Sander’s recasting Anne as a witch. Yet even here the tension between what is repelling and what is compelling takes sway. The queen’s complexion is undermined by a tentative reference to a disease, and the description progresses to pointing out her overt defects: a “projecting tooth,” an ugliness of a “large wen under her chin.” Despite these blemishes, she “was handsome to look at”—apparently because she hid the ugliness so competently that even her imperfect tooth did not mar her “pretty mouth.” As Sander expounds on Anne’s sophistication of dress and manners, he prepares the stage for a succinct and ruthless destruction of all her apparent accomplishments. In the quick dispatch of the last sentence, Sander not only contrasts Anne’s prettified appearance and her corrupted mind; he also throws in relief all of Anne’s defects listed above and temporarily suspended, only to highlight the concealed ugliness of the queen’s body and mind alike. This description, therefore, calls attention to the invisible and peels off the queen’s beauty to reveal its superficial nature. Penned by a staunch religious opponent, this vision employs Anne’s appearance to make a rhetorical point that not only links the body and the mind, but also draws attention to the possibility that the visible body may deceive through covering and masking the truth of that body: a lip may hide a projected tooth, and a high collar may conceal an unsightly protrusion, thereby erasing crucial physical signs from the legible text offered by one’s face and body.

Edward VI When he was crowned king Edward VI, Elizabeth’s brother was not only a child replacing an accomplished father, but also a direct dynastic heir whose image was continuous with that of Henry VIII. Possibly because he was a minor whose authority as king was greatly restricted in the course of his short reign, and because he was a child, and later an adolescent whose features were still soft and changing, few comments were made on his appearance. His looks are recorded mostly in the visual representations of this

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boy king. Evidently, a great effort was made to create Edward in the image of his father; this project is especially apparent in portraiture where the young prince is dressed and posed as a small replica of Henry VIII. Verbal testimonies about Edward’s appearance, however, give a vague sense of handsomeness and attractiveness, with hardly any individualized features discernible amidst the praise to his learning and affability. During his lifetime Edward is simply reported as “handsome, affable, of becoming stature . . . ” 39 In fact, the most detailed, albeit unreliable, description of the new king comes from the imaginative pen of John Hayward whose The Life and Raigne of King Edward the Sixth was written and published in the seventeenth century: “These his acquirements by industrie were exceedingly both enriched and enlarged by many excellent endowments of nature. For in disposition he was milde, gracious and pleasant, of an heavenly wit, in body beautifull, but especially in his eies, which seemed to haue a starrie liuelynes and lustre in them, generally hee seemed to be as Cardane reported of him A MIRACLE OF NATURE.” 40 Shortly after his death, the late Edward was described as a “youth of very handsome presence, with which his mental endowments corresponded,” a generalized praise that, unlike Hayward’s portrayal quoted above, lacks focus on a particular feature and seems to dematerialize the young king’s face and body by omitting direct references to them or using almost impressionistic terms like “presence” instead.41 More eloquently, Edward was praised in an elegy by William Baldwin, written upon the king’s demise: The noble hart which feare could neuer moove, Whereat a minde with vertue fraught did rest, The face whose chere allured vnto loove, All hartes, through eyes which pity whole possest, The braine, which wit & wisedome made their chest, Fullfyld with all good giftes that man may have, Rest with a princely Carkas here in grave. 42

The poem gives an inventory of Edward’s body and mind, moving from the heart to the face and brain—and, finally, to the entire dead body left behind in a grave that now holds all these natural organs and parts that used to encompass the superlative virtues listed above. Edward’s face here is not a seat of handsomeness, but

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is an alluring instrument, whose compelling attraction is exerted through the boy’s eyes. Perhaps Hayward, describing the “starrie liuelynes and luster” of Edward’s eyes in his History, draws inspiration from this elegy. Even so, these verses echo those of the French poet who sang an elaborate praise to the eyes of young Anne Boleyn. The echo is hardly deliberate, but this pattern of highlighting the eyes grows even more complicated once Anne Boleyn’s daughter Elizabeth becomes the object of description. In the verbal portraits of both a disappointingly plain future queen Anne and vaguely handsome prince Edward, the feature that stands out and dazzles is the eyes. As we will see in Elizabeth’s case, the habit of privileging the eyes will continue to enhance her depictions and, in some cases, to cause description to turn upon itself, as it happens in the Venetian’s report on Anne Boleyn when the observer undermines his own disappointment as he dwells on the power of her “black and beautiful” eyes.

Mary I Princess Mary’s eyes, too, have merited poetic admiration, at least on one occasion. John Heywood ventures a “much eloquent praise” to “aduertis[e] her yeares, as face,” opening his poem with a nudge to “ye ladyes” to make room for “one / Whose face yours all blanke shall.” In each of her two eyes Ther smiles a naked boye. It would you all suffice Too see those lamps of ioye. ... ... Her couler comes and goes With such a goodly grace, More ruddye than the rose Within her liuely face. 43

Because Heywood identifies the poem’s subject, Henry VIII’s eighteen-year-old daughter Mary, only in the end of the poem, this poetic account of Mary’s countenance appears to be overtly, and perhaps deliberately, generic, with its familiar Petrarchan evocations of roses, smiling Cupids (remarkably coded in the image of a “naked boye”), and “lamps of joy.” The poet’s note on

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the ebbs and tides of Mary’s rosy color underlines the authenticity of her complexion: her blush “comes and goes,” and, therefore, is natural rather than painted. Although this poem offers a greater descriptive detail than the elegy commemorating Mary’s brother Edward, its conventionality is amplified by Heywood’s concealment of Mary’s identity until the very end. Heywood was Mary’s loyal devotee throughout her life, and his flattering poetic tribute comes as no surprise. She was watched, however, by many less sympathetic eyes that saw this woman in a more prosaic and down-to-earth light. The frequency of verbal depictions of Mary by various ambassadors, for example, indicates that they were expected regularly to touch upon the subject of her appearance in their reports.44 As princess at the age of fifteen, she was said to be “not very tall, has a pretty face, and is well proportioned, with a very beautiful complexion”;45 at sixteen, a “handsome, amiable, and very accomplished Princess.” 46 But once the glow of youth is gone, Mary presents a rather unremarkable picture: as a queen aged thirty-eight, she is of “low stature, with a red and white complexion, and very thin; her eyes are white47 and large, and her hair reddish; her face is round, with a nose rather low and wide; and were not her age on the decline she might be called handsome rather than contrary.” 48 Aging and unhealthy, 49 Mary garners little praise of her person: she “is not at all beautiful, rather small and more skinny than stout, she is very white and red; she has no eyebrows; she is a saint; her sight is very poor . . .” 50 Every item on this strange list begs elaboration, but, because of the initial denial of beauty, even the subsequent remarks about her being “white and red”—a coloration that, in the early modern period, would typically merit a compliment, instead reads as criticism: perhaps she is sickly pale or feverishly flushed. The Spanish observers, ironically, prove to be the most unforgiving of Mary’s plainness. Throughout her life, she was regarded as a natural ally to Spain. The daughter of Isabella I of Castile and Ferdinand II of Aragon, Mary’s mother Katherine of Aragon was an aunt to Charles V, the Holy Roman Emperor, and, therefore, related to Charles V’s son Philip, who became a logical choice to be Mary’s future husband. However, the marriage arrangements took some time, and the wedding between Mary and Philip did not take place until she completed the first year of her reign. In these negotiations, the omission of any mention of Mary’s appearance is striking. Unlike Elizabeth’s protracted marriage

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negotiations where the queen’s beauty was played as an important bargaining chip, Mary’s negotiations stayed the course of rhetorically unadventurous discussions where both sides were in essential agreement about the proposed union.51 The situation, of course, hardly presented a challenge for the prospective groom to win Mary’s favor. The main concerns of correspondence related to the marriage included the political instability in England that threatened Mary’s sovereignty as well as Philip’s desired control of the country. If Mary was greatly impressed by the portrait of Philip, and later by the sitter himself, her dashing consort-to-be refrained from expressing any admiration of Mary’s beauty. In fact, as indicated by the Spanish courtiers’ remarks after accompanying Philip to his first meeting with Mary, very shortly before the wedding, the Spanish were disappointed in Mary’s looks. Philip’s favorite, Ruy Gómez de Silva, for instance, reports back to Spain that the bride is “rather older than we had been told. But his Highness is so tactful and attentive to her that I am sure they will be very happy . . . ” 52 Two days later, de Silva continues to be optimistic: “I believe that if she dressed in our fashions she would not look so old and flabby.” 53 These hopes for happiness were not realized: Philip quickly became an absentee husband. His courtiers obviously shared his disappointment. A few months into the marriage, Simon Renard sympathized with Mary’s stoic spouse: “Although it might be wished that the Queen were more gracious, your own virtue, goodness, and intelligence leave nothing to be desired.” 54 Another Spanish gentleman observes that “[t]he Queen is well served, with a household full of officials, great lords and gentlemen, as well as many ladies, most of whom are so far from beautiful as to be downright ugly, though I know not why this should be so, for outside the palace I have seen plenty of beautiful women with lovely faces.” 55 The last example is especially curious. More often than not, observers at court use references to the ladies-in-waiting in order to make oblique evaluations of the queen whom they surround. Indeed, female sovereigns were careful in their choice of companions. On the one hand, surrounding herself with unattractive women reflected unfavorably on the queen, just as the reputation of a princess was bound to suffer if her ladies showed loose morals.56 It is partially for this reason that, during the marriage negotiations between Katherine of Aragon and Prince Arthur, the parents of the groom wished “very

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much that the ladies who are to accompany the Princess of Wales should be of gentle birth and beautiful, or at least that none of them should be ugly.” 57 On the other hand, the woman in charge did not want to highlight her plain looks by populating her court with gorgeous female specimens. It is apparent that Mary Tudor’s entourage consisted of deliberately chosen women whose looks did not surpass her own. Oddly, and all the more suggestively, a reference to Mary’s supposed beauty appears, at least once, in relation to her portrait by Antonio Mor, painted, as Joanna Woodall argues, in November– December 1554, and thus comes only a few months after the unfavorable testimonies left by Philip’s companions. In his Schilder-boeck (1603–1604), Karel van Mander narrates the story of Mor’s quest for reimbursement from the Emperor. According to van Mander, the artist “copied the face of this Queen, who was a very beautiful woman, several times onto face-panels” and presented these portraits to various lords, Cardinal Granvelle, and the Emperor. Because the latter avoided paying Mor for his copy, the Cardinal interfered, “praised the portrait highly and the beauty of this Princess, asking how he had rewarded the painter,” and eventually convinced the Emperor to open his purse.58 Woodall maintains that these two praises of Mary’s beauty are not only a conventional “assumption that queens and princesses are by definition beautiful,” but is excited specifically by Mor’s compositional formula that portrays Mary in a seated pose favored by the Hapsburg image-makers.59 Van Mander’s story, however, has an overtly humorous purpose, illustrating the Emperor’s parsimony and the Cardinal’s clever way of shaming the ruler into paying up. Mary’s actual appearance is irrelevant; the Cardinal gives praise to talk up the value of the portrait. The quality of the portrait and the appearance of the sitter are the prime considerations determining the price of the artifact; significantly, the Cardinal does not find it necessary to praise Mary’s accomplishments as queen, her intelligence, or her piety. A portrait’s decorative purpose alone is what determines its value.60 Whether or not the Emperor agrees that Mary is beautiful, the Cardinal’s insistence on payment to the artist produces the desired result. Van Mander’s narrative published forty-five years after Mary’s death is, of course, focused on Mor rather than Mary. His casual remark that this queen “was a very beautiful woman” bears no factual weight borne out by any other testimony. As shown

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above, Mary’s contemporaries, in varying degrees of tactfulness, agreed that, as queen, she was quite plain. Likewise, the portraits of this queen put forth a hard-favored, unrefined face, gazing at the viewer with an unsympathetic sternness.61 The most elaborate, and once again mainly unflattering, verbal portrait of the now forty-three-year-old Mary comes from Giovanni Michiel, Venetian ambassador, whose political sympathies clearly lie with Elizabeth rather than her Catholic sister: She is of low rather than middling stature, but, although short, she has no personal defect in her limbs, nor is any part of her body deformed. She is of spare and delicate frame, quite unlike her father, who was tall and stout; nor does she resemble her mother, who, if not tall, was nevertheless bulky. Her face is well formed, as shown by her features and lineaments, and as seen by her portraits. When younger she was considered, not merely tolerably handsome, but of beauty exceeding mediocrity. At present, with the exception of some wrinkles, caused more by anxieties than by age, which make her appear some years older, her aspect, for the rest, is very grave. Her eyes are so piercing that they inspire, not only respect, but fear, in those on whom she fixes them, although she is very short-sighted, being unable to read or do anything else unless she has her sight quite close to what she wishes to peruse or to see distinctly. Her voice is rough and loud, almost like a man’s, so that when she speaks she is always heard a long way off. In short, she is a seemly woman, and never to be loathed for ugliness, even at her present age, without considering her degree of queen. But whatever may be the amount deducted from her physical endowments, as much more may with truth, and without flattery, be added to those of her mind . . . 62

In this detailed account of Mary’s person, Michiel hits upon a number of issues typically raised in the early modern discussions of royal appearances: an evaluation of the degree of resemblance to one’s parents, which implicitly legitimizes or undermines the monarch’s authority; an aesthetic assessment of the monarch’s physical features, especially the face; and a note on the effect of the monarch’s presence on others. Michiel’s elaboration on these common points is consistently colored by a clear lack of enthusiasm about the current queen. It is strange, for instance, that so much of his description is built from denial of the defects instead of assertion of perfections or at least normalcy. The ambassador finds it necessary to note, for instance, that Mary “has no personal

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defect in her limbs, nor is any part of her body deformed,” and he concludes that she is “never to be loathed for ugliness.” It seems that, while Michiel is straining to deliver an accurate report to the Venetian Senate, he is also addressing an audience who holds a preconceived opinion about Mary’s unattractiveness, possibly to the point of deformity. Having pointed out her wrinkles, her short-sightedness (which seems to be the reason behind her piercing stare), her unfeminine voice, Michiel reminds us, somewhat ambiguously, that she is “never to be loathed for ugliness . . . without considering her degree of queen.” The ambassador may have been implying that monarchs should not be criticized for their physical failings on account of their social position. Or Michiel’s cautionary conclusion may have been a reminder that Mary’s plainness, when pointed out, should be considered side by side with her queenly status. If so, would her unattractiveness be amplified because she is a queen? However we interpret Michiel’s statement, it testifies to the intimate link between queenship and beauty, a link that will be discussed at greater length in the next chapter. Even while Elizabeth patiently awaited her turn on the English throne, her appearance already began to contribute to the impression of her potential success as a future monarch. Michiel’s letter tellingly juxtaposes the current queen—aging, unattractive, unloved by her subjects—and her youthful sister—good-looking, adored by the people, and ready to become the next queen of England. He describes the twenty-three-year-old Elizabeth as “a young woman, whose mind is considered no less excellent than her person, although her face is comely rather than handsome, but she is tall and well formed, with good skin, though swarthy; she has fine eyes and above all a beautiful hand of which she makes a display; and her intellect and understanding are wonderful, as she showed very plainly by her conduct when in danger and under suspicion.” The ambassador creates a sharp contrast between the two sisters; he relates that Elizabeth exceeds the Queen as a linguist, that “everybody [is] saying that she also resembles [Henry VIII] more than the Queen does”; and that the “eyes and hearts of the nation [are] already fixed on this lady as successor to the Crown.” 63 The issue of physical resemblance included in the list of Elizabeth’s superiorities is, in fact, an important aspect of the contest for legitimacy that both sisters, bastardized and then reinstated, had to take into account in their monarchal aspirations. It is telling that Mary openly attempted to undermine her sister’s

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pronounced resemblance to their father: Mary “asserted on various occasions that she could see a likeness between Elizabeth and Smeaton,” one of the alleged lovers of Anne Boleyn, rather than Henry VIII.64 Michiel’s letter likewise registers Mary’s painful awareness of the threat presented by Elizabeth, whose accomplishments and even physical attributes so clearly exceed Mary’s own. The Venetian notes the queen’s “evil disposition towards her sister my Lady Elizabeth, which although dissembled, it cannot be denied that she displays in many ways the scorn and ill will she bears her.” 65 To be fair, Michiel finds many commendable traits in Mary’s character; for instance, her courage, piety, humility, and intelligence. But as his remark on the queen’s veiled hatred of Elizabeth suggests, Mary was somewhat naive in the art of dissimulation because she betrayed herself in her ill feelings. Early in her reign, Mary confessed to her inability to control her face in order to deceive. In September 1553, at an early stage of her marriage negotiations with Spain, Mary’s Privy Council was still unaware of Philip’s proposal, and the queen was anxious to keep this business secret. She dissuaded the Spanish embassy from bringing forward the “point of her marriage” at a public audience: even if she kept her Council “at a distance,” they would become suspicious by observing her facial expressions: Mary confessed that she “could not feel sure of being able to keep an even countenance, and the nature of the communication made to her might be conjectured and perceived (by those present).” 66 This acknowledgment of her inability to control her face is only in part a testimony to Mary’s honest simplicity. In this particular context, such inability could lead to grave political consequences. The necessity to control her face was a practical matter. Her failure to compose her face convincingly exposed her to the onlookers’ probing gazes in ways that reached farther than scrutiny of the queen’s countenance for its aesthetic value. In implicitly physiognomic terms, her observers also read her face in order to determine her inner disposition and especially the degree of her tractability. The Venetian Ambassador Giacomo Soranzo, for instance, reaches conclusions about Mary’s character heavily dependent on the meanings read in her face and behavior: “Her Majesty’s countenance indicates great benignity and clemency, which are not belied by her conduct, for although she has had many enemies, and though so many of them were by law condemned to

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death, yet had the executions depended solely on her Majesty’s will, not one of them perhaps would have been enforced; but deferring to her Council in everything, she in this matter likewise complied with the wishes of others rather than with her own.” 67 This very gendered observation of Mary’s subservience echoes a succinct note by the Imperial Ambassador Simon Renard, just a month into Mary’s reign: “However that may be, I know the Queen to be good, easily influenced, inexpert in worldly matters and a novice all round . . . ” 68 This report curiously mirrors one of the typical physiognomic concerns about the ease of manipulation that can be assessed by reading one’s features. Mary’s authority, in fact, and even the dignity of her position was in part a casualty of her inability to hold her countenance. Mary’s inability to forge and sustain a reputation of being a beautiful queen undoubtedly played an important part in her failures as a monarch. In this sense, as well as in other aspects of her queenship, Mary produced an unsuccessful paradigm of the Tudor queen. In shaping her own queenship, Elizabeth revised her sister’s ruling style and adopted many crucial elements from the paradigm established by her father, Henry VIII. Part of the effect of his kingship, especially in the first decade of his reign, was achieved by the beauty of his face and sumptuousness of his court, qualities missing from Mary’s political persona. Elizabeth watched her sister’s humiliation; it was all too clear that Elizabeth herself could not afford to dismiss the political impact of her looks. Even though she dressed modestly during the reigns of her siblings, the natural attractiveness of her face, especially in contrast to Mary’s plainness, already began to help Elizabeth craft an image of a future successful Tudor queen. *

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Mary’s case demonstrated that a queen’s appearance, and especially her face, was scrutinized in a variety of contexts, and the conclusions drawn from such perusal resulted in very serious consequences to her authority. When Elizabeth inherited the throne, she moved to the center of this scrutiny and embraced it. Her personal ruling style, in this sense similar to that of her father, heavily relied on monarchal self-display, and she was conscious of how she controlled her face. “We princes,” she declared, “are set on stages in the sight and view of all the world duly observed; the eyes of many

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behold our actions; a spot is soon spied in our garments; a blemish noted quickly in our doings.” 69 If Elizabeth’s clothes undoubtedly attracted the attention of the onlookers, her face was a spectacle even more compelling because it intensified the effect of her presence that set her apart from her older sister. Having inherited the early Tudor commitment to faces as conduits and markers of the monarch’s individuality, Elizabeth actively began to use her face for legitimization of authority. Various representations of her countenance emphasized her physical resemblance to her father and grandfather. Simultaneously, the investment in the beautiful appearance transpired both in Elizabeth’s extreme care to look gorgeous and her encouragement of verbal and visual affirmations of her beauty, creating and sustaining the legend that would protect her from the dismissive remarks that had been endured by her female predecessors. But moving beyond her father’s and grandfather’s models, her skill of influencing her audience not only by her beauty and majestic bearing but also through an effective use of her face as a rhetorical tool was uniquely Elizabeth’s own. The contemporary testimonies to the cheerfulness of Henry VII’s face, Henry VIII’s beauty, Katherine of Aragon’s invariable smile in the face of humiliation, Anne Boleyn’s powerful use of her eyes, and Mary I’s inability to control her face in order to dissemble argue that the Tudor royal faces, in particular, were viewed as potentially effective political and personal instruments of power. Elizabeth learned this lesson long before she became queen, and throughout her reign, she used her face to charm and threaten, delight and terrify, and, more often than not, to leave the onlookers guessing at the degree of her sincerity or dissimulation.

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CHAPTER 2

“LET NATURE PAINT YOUR BEAUTY’S GLORY”: BEAUTY AND COSMETICS

It is her Beauty onely creates her Queen; ‘tis that which adds a commanding power to every syllable. Beauty is the Image of the Creator, and the Rhetorick of Heaven.1

A

s the epigraph above suggests, in the early modern period, beauty and queenship are intimately connected: beauty amplifies female power and, as “the Image of the Creator,” reaffirms the monarch’s divine right. In chapter 1, I demonstrated that even kings were sometimes measured by their handsomeness; the onlookers were most unforgiving to plain and unattractive queens. It was crucial, therefore, that Elizabeth create and maintain her reputation as a gorgeous queen. In addition, as this chapter will show, Elizabeth’s claim to beauty is itself validated by her presence on the throne. What emerges then is a symbiotic, codependent relationship between beauty and queenship, a relationship where challenges to one inevitably threaten the other. In the multifaceted process of forging and protecting Elizabeth’s reputation for beauty, the poetic tributes stand as the most elaborate and hyperbolic body of praise. I will begin by exploring two representative panegyrics to Elizabeth’s superlative good looks. Although the rest of the chapter will focus on the cultural and historical context of Elizabeth’s battle to be known as a beautiful queen, these poetic affirmations, in their choices of metaphors and rhetoric of submission, show that beauty is an empowering asset that, for a queen, is both a requirement for and a guarantee of power.

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After a brief overview of contemporary concepts of beauty, I will examine the circulation of social and diplomatic references to Elizabeth’s beauty. The problematic aspects of the queen’s appearance were downplayed, ignored, or converted to strengths. The creation of the myth about Elizabeth’s miraculous escape from the smallpox scarring is an integral part of forming the queen’s public image during her lifetime. This myth is parallel to a posthumous assumption about Elizabeth’s excessive face-painting, an assumption that distorts the implications of the mentions and omissions of her use of cosmetics.

Poetic Affirmations: Sidney and Gascoigne In Philip Sidney’s Lady of May, 2 performed before Elizabeth in 1578, the queen’s beauty receives a peculiar praise. Before the word “beauty” itself appears in the unfolding of this “dramatic interlude,” 3 there ensues a great deal of hinting and vagueness as to the reason for the powerful effect of the queen’s appearance on the participants. After making a plea concerning her daughter’s suitors, May-Lady’s mother confesses: “I dare stay here no longer, for our men say in the country, the sight of you is infectious.” 4 She leaves a formal supplication in Elizabeth’s hands: Most gracious Soveraigne: To one whose state is raised over all, Whose face doth oft the bravest sort enchaunt, Whose mind is suche as wisest mindes appall, Who in one selfe these diverse gifts can plant; How dare I, wretch, seek there my woes to rest, Where ears be burnt, eyes dazled, hearts opprest? Your state is great, your greatnesse is your shield, Your face hurts oft, but still it doth delight, Your mind is wise, but still it makes you milde, Such planted gifts enrich even beggars sight: So dare I, wretch, my bashful fear subdue, And feede mine eares, mine eyes, my heart in you.5

The italicized phrases highlight the impact Elizabeth’s face has on her onlookers, inspiring the disparate and contradictory reactions of enchantment, pain, and delight. As discussed in the next chapter, Elizabeth is a master of facial rhetoric, and this poem’s apparent exaggerations register a mixture of rapture and fear

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experienced in the queen’s presence when she chooses to put that rhetoric to use. Although these verses do not articulate the precise ways in which Elizabeth’s face enchants, hurts, and delights, phrases such as “eyes dazzled” and “feede mine . . . eyes” point to beauty (frequently equated with radiance) as the queen’s main instrument. The performance quickly moves in this direction: Lalus the old Shepherd delivers a precise measurement of good looks by assuring his royal audience that May-Lady is “of a minsical6 countenance, but . . . not three quarters so beauteous as your self . . .” 7 May-Lady then takes over and addresses Elizabeth as follows: Do not think (sweet and gallant Lady) that I do abase my self thus much unto you because of your gay apparel, for what is so brave as the natural beauty of the flowers? nor becaus a certain Gentleman hereby seeks to do you all the honor he can in his hous; that is not the matter, he is but our neighbour, and these be our own groves; nor yet because of your great estate, since no estate can be compared to be the Lady of the whole month of May, as I am. So that since both this place and this time are my servants, you may be sure I would look for reverence at your hands, if I did not see something in your face which makes me yield to you. The truth is, you excel me in that wherein I desire most to excel, and that makes me give this homage unto you, as to the beautifullest Lady these woods have ever received.8

In this bold speech, May-Lady asserts her preeminence over the queen herself: she devalues the richness of Elizabeth’s clothes; discounts Leicester’s supplication; and finally, declares that Elizabeth’s estate cannot be compared to her own. From a vague hint at “something” in her sovereign’s face that causes submission, May-Lady slowly builds up to the disclosure of the true cause of Elizabeth’s superiority: she is the “beautifullest Lady these woods have ever received.” On one hand, the compliment is diluted by the spatial limitation of the wood; on the other, it is augmented by May-Lady’s admission that beauty is “that wherein [she] desire[s] most to excel.” Apparel, favor, estate—all these advantages are devalued next to one ultimate prize: beauty. Before she hands the victory to the queen, however, May-Lady takes her time debunking the courtly value system. The inverted rhetoric of ownership and submission resembles the interaction between Elizabeth and the Lady of the Lake three years prior: in response to that Lady’s

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offer of her lake to the queen, the latter thanked her, adding sarcastically: “we had thought indeed the Lake had been oours, and doo you call it yourz now?” 9 Therefore, another Lady tried this rhetorical move before, and Elizabeth was not persuaded. The Lady of the Lake, however, did not play the beauty card; instead, she explained that it was Elizabeth’s symbolic third visit to Killingworth that caused such supplication.10 In contrast, MayLady’s surrender to Elizabeth’s superlative beauty meets with no reproach from the queen. George Puttenham likewise chose wisely when, in The Arte of English Poesie, he established a flattering association of his queen and a principal figure of poetical ornament, “Exargasia, or the Gorgious.” Puttenham cited Elizabeth’s poem “The doubt of future foes” as an example of exargasia, introducing it as a “ditty of her Maiesties owne making passing sweete and harmonicall, which figure being as his very originall name purporteth the most bewtifull of all others, it asketh in reason to be reserued for a last complement, and desciphred by the arte of a ladies penne, her selfe being the most gorgious and bewtifull, or rather bewtie of Queenes . . .” 11 Even though Jennifer Summit rightly questions Puttenham’s judgment of this poem’s sweetness and gorgeousness,12 the compliment to the queen’s beauty in the context of a theoretical treatise on poetry links Elizabeth’s looks with the production of the “ladies penne.” This correlation introduces a Neoplatonic twist suggesting that, at least for Elizabeth, external beauty of the writer elicits beautiful poetry from her pen. But how is this proverbial beauty conveyed in verse? As Elizabeth Cropper reminds us, Petrarch’s two sonnets on Laura’s portrait claim that the “physical beauty is necessarily beyond representation, that the representation of intrinsic beauty is specifically beyond the painter’s reach, and finally, that the painting of a beautiful woman, like the lyric poem, may become its own object, the subject being necessarily absent.” 13 Cropper explains that in following the Petrarchan tradition, poets not only dismember the object of description, but even seek to divorce that description from the woman’s physical presence; hence, “figurative and coloristic metaphors consciously deny specific mimetic reference.” 14 As I will argue in chapter 4, Elizabeth’s face escapes realistic poetic description. Even more so, references to her beauty either dissolve in tautology, as in Edmund Spenser’s “so fair, and thousand

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times more fair,” 15 or reach for metaphors, such as those examined below. However, if these metaphors, in Cropper’s terms, render Elizabeth physically absent, these tropes, and the notion of the queen’s beauty along them, are put to political uses. In his “Vanities of Beauty,” George Gascoigne articulates Elizabeth’s fairness in an allusion to angelic looks and in a metaphor of light: My Queen herself comes foremost of them all, And best deserves that place in m’eche degree, Whose presence now must needs thy sprytes appall, She is so faire, and Angell lyke to see. Beholde her well (my Muse!) for this is she Whose bewtie’s beams do spredd themselues full wide, Both in this Realme, and all the worlde beside.16

The dazzling beams of the queen’s beauty proclaim her fairness at home and abroad. Beauty itself evades description, but the metaphor nevertheless conflates Elizabeth’s magnificent appearance with her fame and power: beauty is not limited to the queen’s physical body, but emanates from it across the boundaries of her realm. Her “bewtie’s beams” move centrifugally from her face to claim for her places far beyond her physical reach.17 Gascoigne’s verse, in its implicit conflation of beauty, fame, and authority, is representative of the cultural and political contexts of the period. Affirmations of the queen’s immaculate beauty, therefore, reach beyond elegant compliments: in perpetuating the reputation of a beautiful monarch, these constructions uphold and strengthen her power.

“So faire, and thousand thousand times more faire . . . ” 18 Early modern attitudes to beauty are informed by a variety of ideas and sensibilities. Among them are formulas of ideal beauty, inherited but slightly modified from medieval and Neoplatonic views of beauty; various empirical notions that support or contradict a semiotic view of beauty; Christian teaching; and finally, courtly and misogynist treatments of female beauty.19 Thomas Aquinas summarizes the three constituents of beauty as follows: “integrity or completeness—since things that lack

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something are thereby ugly; right proportion or harmony; and brightness—we call things bright in colour beautiful.” 20 By the time John Donne writes, “Beauty, that’s colour, and proportion,” 21 the three aspects seem to be conveniently contracted to two. These requirements applied to all physically beautiful objects. More specifically, feminine beauty, as Sara F. Matthews Grieco put it, “followed a formula” 22 that laid a heavy emphasis on color. It seems that the “medieval ideal of a naturally white and red face that does not need painting and of naturally long blond hair” continues into the early modern period.23 Meanwhile, the ideal of “small neat features and pale grey eyes” so common in the Middle Ages is modified mainly due to Petrarch’s praise of Laura’s dark eyes.24 This is not to suggest that proportion (or harmony of the parts) does not remain a necessary component of beauty in the period. Proportions could be controlled only minimally, if at all; color, however, was easy to adjust cosmetically. The general attitude toward the meaning of beauty and especially beautiful women was heterogeneous: Neoplatonic admiration was counterbalanced by suspicion expounded in Christian thought and confirmed by experience. Neoplatonic notions traveled to England, most significantly, by means of Baldesar Castiglione’s The Book of the Courtier (1528), translated by Thomas Hoby in 1561, but read in England even earlier. In The Courtier, Pietro Bembo expounds the doctrine of ascendance to the universal divine beauty that sublimates individual physical loveliness.25 Although some of his interlocutors point out the negative aspect of beauty, Bembo is steadfast in his celebration of beauty as a “sacred thing” that springs from God and is like a circle, the centre of which is goodness. And so just as one cannot have a circle without a center, so one cannot have beauty without goodness. In consequence, only rarely does an evil soul dwell in a beautiful body, and so outward beauty is a true sign of inner goodness.26

It is Bembo’s pronouncement that “in some manner the good and the beautiful are identical, especially in the human body,” 27 that, for the Neoplatonists, makes the appreciation of beauty commendable. It is, in turn, his general rule—“Therefore for the most part the ugly are also evil, and the beautiful good”—that validates the judgment of a person’s character based on her beauty.28 It is

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not accidental that Bembo uses physiognomics as an example: loveliness is a physical “token by which the soul can be recognized for what it is,” in the way similar to that in which “physiognomists often establish a man’s character and sometimes even his thoughts from his countenance.” 29 This belief in the legibility of the body, and particularly the face, forms the foundation of physiognomic thought: without the link between the external and internal, not only beauty and ugliness would be rendered meaningless, but also all the intricate variations marked by the physiognomists would become inconsequential for the discovery of the true nature of one’s soul and mind. Elizabeth’s admirers were wont to play with these Neoplatonic notions without undermining them. “Her inward worth all outward Show transcends,” proclaimed one poet, possibly Philip Sidney himself.30 Similarly, at one tilt performance, “The Castle or Fortress of Perfect Beautie” was attacked because Elizabeth supposedly refused to “no longer exclude vertuous Desire from perfect Beautie.” 31 A boy delivering the first defiance called her a queen “in whome the whole storie of vertue is written, with the language of Beautie . . .” 32 In contrast, Christian thought, with its emphasis on humility and the afterlife, was less likely to exalt physical beauty as a sign of the soul’s beauty. “Corruption in the skin, says Iob: In the outward beauty, These be the Records of velim, these be the parchmins, the endictments, and the evidences that shall condemn many of us, at the last day, our skins; [because] we neglect book, and image, and character, and seal, and all for the covering.” 33 Yet, because Donne’s Neoplatonic sympathies were fused with Christian beliefs, or because the ultimate Christian aspiration envisioned a harmony between the outward show and inner essence, Donne, in another sermon, sounded a familiar note of correspondence brought on in consequence of a “daily polishing of the heart” by divine love: “That thou maist see thy face in thy heart, and the world may see thy heart in thy face; indeed, that to both, both heart and face may be all one: Thou shalt be a Looking-glass to thy self, and to others too.” 34 Donne, however, expresses the general Christian attitude to earthly beauty most accurately when he reminds his congregation, “But yet the body is but out-case, and God lookes not for the gilding, or enamelling, or painting of that: but requires the labour, and cost therein to be bestowed upon the Tablet it selfe, in which this Image is immediately, that is

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the soule.” 35 More often than not, in the early modern period the discussion of outward beauty turned to cosmetics: the means by which women (and men) could alter the faces given them by God. Following Agrippa, men acknowledged nature’s general tendency to endow women more generously than men.36 Courtly admiration of women’s beauty, however, was countered by misogynist views that satirized women’s preoccupation with their appearances, disparaged beauty as inferior to masculine intellect, or indulged in mocking blazons of ugly women.37 The suspicion of beauty’s unreliability and transience was spread in the secular circles as well. John Lyly’s Euphues, for instance, albeit with his habitual ironic disposition, put it thus: How franticke are those louers which are carryed away with the gaye glistering of the fine face? the beautie whereof is parched with the Sommers blase, & chipped with the winters blast, which is of so short continuance that it fadeth before one perceiue it flourishe, of so small profit that it poysoneth those that possesse it, of so little value with the wyse, that they accompt it a delicate bayte with a deadly hooke, a sweete Panther with a deuouring paunch, a sower poyson in a siluer potte.38

Despite what some scholars have termed the early modern cult of beauty, the value of appearances was frequently undercut. Shakespeare’s oeuvre, for instance, is replete with observations on the dangers of trusting the correspondences between the essences and appearances, nor were inverted links, implying that a beautiful exterior invariably hides corruption within, more likely to be true.39 Francis Bacon also attempts to break down the signification and substitute it by a cause and effect relationship: “it is good to consider of Deformity, not as a Signe, which is more Deceiuable; But as a Cause, which seldome faileth of the Effect.” 40 This substitution allows Bacon to account for those cases when the “Starres of Naturall Inclination are sometimes obscured, by the Sun of Discipline, and Vertue”: again, a qualification familiar to the readers of physiognomic treatises.41 Criticism of the naive expectation of a direct correspondence indicated the persistence of that simpler view that apparently resonated on an almost instinctive level. Véronique Nahoum-Grappe argues that beautiful women, especially in the lower classes, were more likely to be taken advantage of and ruined. Beauty, however, still remained a much valued currency for women throughout the

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social strata. Particularly for a queen, beauty came with a unique set of concerns that determined the policies of control of the monarch’s image and became part of a paradigm of Renaissance construction of physicality and identity.

“. . . but she was a queen, and therefore beautiful.” Contemporary and posthumous writings about Elizabeth sometimes jest about her notorious vanity and desire for verbal and visual compliments. Horace Walpole’s witticism is typical: “There is no evidence that Elizabeth had much taste for painting; but she loved pictures of herself,” build on the contemporary stories of Elizabeth’s weakness for praise. Her vanity, however, is an obverse of a very serious political necessity to sustain her reputation of beauty as well as to make every effort to actually appear to be beautiful to her onlookers. Despite inevitable empirical disappointments and frequent criticism by such sharp wits as Shakespeare, the early modern period was deeply invested in reading people’s faces for signs of their inner condition: a lovely face, in Neoplatonic terms, signified inner goodness. For Elizabeth, this tenacious philosophical link between beauty and virtue was compounded by her royal authority: beauty enhanced the power of a female monarch while her power reciprocally activated and authenticated her beauty.42 This beauty, as much as her virginity, has been largely a matter of gender-specific beliefs and mythical attributes. The meanings of both terms, beauty and virginity, undergo modifications once they are ascribed to a woman in power. As Sara Mendelson argues, the popular assumption that a queen had to be gorgeous was deeply ingrained in the minds of Elizabeth’s subjects.43 This belief is most evident in tales that measured a queen’s authenticity by her beautiful looks. Consider, for example, Marie de France’s “Lanval” where a queen’s insufficient beauty undermines her royal power: Guinevere, a vain queen, is defeated by a much more beautiful fairy rival. By the early modern period, Guinevere was a familiar poetic example of a gorgeous queen, thanks to Thomas Malory’s Le Morte d’Arthur. According to Mendelson, “Neo-Platonic ideals promoted by the queen’s courtly admirers thus found a corollary among the masses, who were programmed to perceive Elizabeth as an embodiment of ideal beauty.” 44 Beauty, therefore, was a cultural requirement for a queen. Without being able to sustain

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a reputation of being beautiful, a queen such as Elizabeth’s sister Mary Tudor was liable to lose her subjects’ loyalty. Upon her accession to the throne, Elizabeth got something like a head start on her looks because as a queen, she would be initially assumed to be beautiful. Yet, she had to nurture and sustain the legend of her beauty rather than let the common perception run its course. And this maintenance was no mean task. When she was still a princess of twenty-four, the Venetian Ambassador Giovanni Michiel remarked that Elizabeth’s “face [was] comely rather than handsome.” 45 Forty years later, Elizabeth herself both confirmed and complicated the issue of her youthful beauty. On one hand, she famously described her departed looks in one of her poems, circa 1580s, “When I was fair and young, and favor graced me, / Of many was I sought unto, their mistress for to be.” 46 In contrast, as the French ambassador Andrè de Maisse reported, “when anyone [spoke] of her beauty she [said] that she was never beautiful, although she had that reputation thirty years ago.” 47 Thus, even if she acknowledged never being beautiful, she yet left those who were too young to have seen her in her twenties and thirties wondering whether her reputation has been based on flattery or truth. Frederic Gerschow, who was present at court at Oatlands in 1602, found himself looking for evidence in the queen’s portraiture in order to supplement the imperfect reality set before his eyes: “To judge from portraits showing her Majesty in her thirtieth year there cannot have lived many finer women at the time; even in her old age she did not look ugly, when seen from a distance.” 48 Gerschow’s word choice denies ugliness, rather than affirming beauty, and immediately qualifies even this denial, highlighting the alarming state of Elizabeth’s appearance in the last years of her life.49 To be sure, many of her onlookers were not easily fooled, but Elizabeth spared no remedies to appear handsome (at least “from a distance”), and she certainly encouraged compliments. The same French ambassador who remarked, “Whenever anyone speaks of her beauty she says that she was never beautiful,” adds, “Nevertheless, she speaks of her beauty as often as she can.” 50 Numerous poems and ditties extolling the queen’s unsurpassed gorgeousness were recited and sung in her presence, presented as gifts, or circulated in print or manuscript. As she grew older, Elizabeth also seems to have rather coyly solicited compliments by referring to herself as old and ugly. Francis Bacon mentions that

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“very often, many years before her death, she would pleasantly call herself an old woman.” 51 She even penned the following humble words to her ardent suitor Alençon: “Monsieur, my dearest, grant pardon to the poor old woman who honors you as much (I dare say) as any young wench whom you ever will find.” 52 Francesco Gradenigo, an Italian visitor, reports the queen’s gracious greeting, “My brother, the King of France, writes to me that I am to show you the most beautiful things in this kingdom, and the first thing you have seen is the ugliest, myself,” to which Gradenigo predictably assures Elizabeth, “now that I had satisfied my eyes and fed my soul with the sight of her person, I cared to see naught else,” the queen nostalgically retorting, “Once on a time, when I was princess, I was more esteemed by your Lords than I am now that I am Queen.” 53 Even when she was younger, Elizabeth’s desire for compliments transpired in her conversations, and even then it was frequently paired with strategic insecurity. James Melville, the Scottish ambassador, preserved a detailed record of his exchange with the English queen who attempted to make him admit that she was, among other things, more beautiful than her cousin Mary Queen of Scots: Her hair was more reddish than yellow, curled in appearance naturally. She desired to know of me, what color of hair was reputed best; and whether my Queen’s hair or hers was best; and which of the two was fairest. I answered, “The fairness of them both was not their worst faults.” But she was earnest with me to declare which of them I judged fairest. I said, “She was the fairest Queen in England, and mine the fairest Queen in Scotland.” Yet she appeared earnest. I answered, ‘They were both the fairest ladies in their countries; that her Majesty was whiter, but my Queen was very lovely.54

This episode makes particularly clear that the beauty contest is part of the competition between queens, and Elizabeth repeatedly disallows Melville’s diplomatic attempts to elide this tension by allotting each woman a palm of superiority in her own country. Along with the queen’s personal efforts to elicit regular affirmations of her good looks, Elizabeth’s reputation as a beauty was diligently molded by careful dissemination of the queen’s beautified image on coins, woodcuts, engravings, and refined portraits. To these visual proofs, Elizabeth’s courtiers and poets added

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verbal affirmations varying in degree of artfulness and persuasiveness. Her claim to beauty traveled by portraiture and word of mouth across England and Europe. When visual proof failed to uphold this claim, verbal testimony came to the rescue. When Elizabeth’s portrait was sent to Alençon in 1571, it was accompanied by a letter that referred to her “bewtie and favour.” 55 On one occasion, instead of raising doubts about Elizabeth’s famed beauty, Catherine de Medici diplomatically blamed the English painters: “After what everyone tells me of her beauty, and after the paintings that I have seen, I must declare that she did not have good painters.” 56 Elizabeth’s repute, however, received occasional blows when diplomatic politeness was deemed unnecessary. When the earl of Essex sent Villars, the governor of Rouen, a challenge “to meet him on horse or foot, and by personal encounter to decide which was the better man, fought in the better cause, or served the fairest mistress,” Villars declined, adding contemptuously, “as to the beauty of their mistresses, it was scarcely worth his while to put himself to much trouble about that . . .” 57 Even if Villars’ insult was primarily aimed at Elizabeth’s advanced age, challenges to her looks surfaced throughout her life. Indeed, her natural features were highly individual and did not readily fit into a mold of an ideal feminine beauty. Some scholars suggest that Elizabeth’s looks neatly accommodate the desired image of a Petrarchan beauty. In his “A Collection of Prints in Imitation of Drawings” (1778), Charles Rogers asserts that the “Queen’s red hair and black eyes . . . call to our minds Petrarch’s Laura, and Ariosto’s Angelica.” 58 Two centuries later, Leonard Forster, who argues that Elizabeth was the “physical incorporation of the literary icon,” notes correctly that “the way in which the Queen is presented in the literature and art of the time bears a close resemblance to the descriptions of the ideal lady of petrarchistic convention.” 59 Forster’s opinion that the Petrarchan mistress gleaned from the early modern poetry resembles Elizabeth’s portraits, however, is problematic, both in its inaccuracy and reversal of causality.60 For example, her eyes were sometimes described as black, but most of her portraits do not opt for this color, and they rarely sport Laura’s yellow locks. Assertions like that of Rogers and Forster, along with Elkin Calhoun Wilson’s statement that “the queen’s hair fortunately matched the hair of the conventional sonnet mistress,” 61 overlook the fact that Petrarchan ideal was a blonde beauty, whereas Elizabeth’s natural hair color was

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probably strawberry blonde, auburn, or some other shade of red, a problematic hue due to its negative cultural associations. As John Liggett points out, as early as in the Middle Ages, women who “experimented with precious hair dyes . . . were careful to avoid auburn—the sign of the witch.” 62 Not only did the red hair point to witchcraft, but it also had a direct connection to whoredom: all prostitutes in London were compelled to wear red wigs. According to the physiognomic pronouncements thought by the early moderns to be penned by Aristotle, “reddish hair” was a sign of a “bad character,” and, in the eyes, “excessively black color signifies cowardice.” 63 The Kalendar & Compost of Shepherds (1508) lectures that “They that have red hair be commonly ireful, and lack wit, and be of little truth.” 64 As aptly summarized by Mendelson, “Early modern physiological theories associated red hair and a fair complexion with the ‘hot’ humoral characteristics of the choleric personality, characterized by aggressive behavior and sexual vigor.” 65 Hence, a popular ballad instructs that . . . she that by nature’s compos’d Of round cherry cheeks and red hair If she be pink-ey’d and long-nos’d, Believe me, ‘tis dangerous ware.66

The combination of red hair and long nose, Elizabeth’s salient features, makes this ballad’s warning faintly seditious. It was also a common belief that Judas was a redhead.67 After Elizabeth’s death, the humoral reading of red hair persisted. The Compleat Midwifes Practice (1656), for example, cautioned that, in choosing a nurse for your infant, “you must have a special care she be not red hair’d, for their milk is extreamly hot.” 68 These views reached across Europe. Discussing whether it was lawful for a woman to amend her unfortunate natural hair color, Jean Liébault proposed that, “if she had red hair, and since that color suggests a proud and haughty person, given to certain grand vices, she could dye it blonde.” 69 Perhaps the only instance of depicting reddish-orange hair in a fictionalized relation to Elizabeth is Philip Sidney’s description of Queen Helen’s portrait that is said to sport “jacinth hair.” 70 In fact, not only Elizabeth’s reddish hair changes its hue when it is poeticized as “lockes like wiers of beaten gold” 71 or “yellow lockes crisped, like golden wyre,” 72 there also seems to be a competitive tension between red

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and yellow hair in the Elizabethan culture. Julia in Two Gentlemen of Verona, for instance, is prepared to address the issue by simply wearing a reddish wig: “Her hair is auburn, mine is perfect yellow./ If that be all the difference in his love, / I’ll get me such a coloured periwig.” 73 Scholars such as Neville Williams and Liggett noted that Elizabethan women imitated their queen’s auburn hair color.74 These judgments seem to be derived from portraiture of some women with hair inclining to reddishness. No one, however, seems to be concerned with the discrepancy between the color of Elizabeth’s hair and the fair yellow of the medieval beauty standard such as Laura’s hair of gold. Fenja Gunn comes close to acknowledging the red-blonde rivalry created by this monarch’s genuine coloring, yet Gunn simply ignores the resulting tension: “Elizabeth’s own naturally red hair set the pattern for the rest of female society, but golden hair was also popular due to the influence of the Italian court.” 75 The only scholar who draws attention to the potential disapproval to which Elizabeth was exposed is Mendelson, who points to the common notions about the redheads but does not discuss the issue at length. Although the physiognomic meaning of the red hair, likely due to the queen’s natural hair color, occasionally acquires positive tones and appears in a fair number of portraits featuring Elizabethan women, the traditional distrust of redheads remains dominant. Indeed, if one of the English proverbs recorded in a commonplace book says that red-haired people are wise, this positive signification still shares the page with a chart that suggests that “Redde” women are “Badde.” 76 For the makers of Elizabeth’s public image, therefore, red hair was a challenging physical characteristic. While the queen was up against the uneasy cultural connotations, her natural hair color reinforced the genetic link to her auburn-haired father, Henry VIII, and thus functioned as a visual confirmation of her legitimacy.77 Her contemporaries were wont to consider physical resemblance as an ocular proof of their blood relationship. Her own sister maintained that Elizabeth was fathered by a lute player Mark Smeaton, who pleaded guilty at Anne Boleyn’s trial; as queen, Mary remarked several times that Elizabeth resembled Smeaton in appearance.78 At about the same time, however, a Venetian ambassador countered this claim, registering that not only princess Elizabeth “prides herself on her father and glories in

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him,” but that “everybody say[s] that she also resembles him more than the Queen does.” 79 As with so many other issues, Elizabeth needed to accentuate the useful traits that served her interests while brushing off the negative associations with red hair. The new queen begins her reign with assertions of virginity as the kind of life most pleasing to her; she keeps emphasizing her lack of carnal desires.80 On one hand, these tactics allow her to control the marriage negotiations, supplying a long-standing justification for tarrying. Her council and parliament are thus warned in advance that they will have to account for this important obstacle. On the other hand, it works in tandem with other rhetorical elements that seek to extricate Elizabeth from the traditional feminine mold: the project of redefining her as a woman unlike any other. Elizabeth’s red hair comes to mean something different from the red hair of other women—and also, implicitly, at least one man, her father, whose sexual escapades and choleric temperament were part of the inheritance that Elizabeth had to embrace, however selectively. Elizabeth indeed had a hot temper that she and her courtiers explicitly linked to her father. The element of his sexual vigor, however, she chose to efface. Long before the time of her Rainbow portrait, her red hair has been purged of the meanings of sexuality, and room was made for metaphoric interpretations that recalled a favored royal symbol: the sun. Curiously enough, the positive associations of the red hair color linger after Elizabeth’s death. In The art to please at court (1632), Nicolas Faret instructs an able courtier in the art of turning defects to objects of praise; in particular, he suggests, “If she had red hayre, hee will allow of the iudgment of the Italians and other Nations which loue them so, and that of the most dainty and amorous Poets, who neuer brag of any hayre but of this colour.” 81 Such statements create an additional confusion among the shades of red and yellow; with the words designating various colors floating from Italian to French and English and potentially losing the appellative accuracy. A look at a range of early modern Italian portraits, however, confirms their consistent preference of a blonde hue.82 As Elizabeth made more frequent use of wigs, she probably enjoyed adorning her head with a variety of hues, from red to blonde. In wearing wigs, she challenged the advocates of “keeping it natural” to the same extent and with the same confidence as she

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did by using cosmetics. “The Sermon Against Excess of Apparel,” widely reprinted throughout Elizabeth’s reign, proclaimed: Who can paint her face, and curl her hair, and change it to an unnatural color, but therein work reproof to her maker, who made her? As though she could make her self more comely, than GOD hath appointed the measure of her beauty. What do these women, but go about to reform what God hath made? not knowing that all things natural, is the work of God: and things disguised, unnatural be the works of the devil.83

Another prominent yet problematic feature that complicates the queen’s claim to beauty is the shape of Elizabeth’s nose. Although visual images of the queen often softened the aquiline shape of her nose, her contemporaries described it as “somewhat rising in the midst,” “high,” and “a little hooked.” 84 As discussed in chapter 5, aquiline and hooked noses did not always attract positive cultural and physiognomic interpretations. The shape of the queen’s nose falls short of the early modern standard that prefers a straight, unassuming nose to Elizabeth’s remarkably distinctive one. In the final analysis, therefore, if the queen’s features were tallied next to those expected of an ideal beauty, her natural claim to beauty would have been quite weak. Furthermore, disease and aging marked Elizabeth’s face with new blemishes. The contemporary habits of thought, prone to seek correspondences between essences and appearances, touched upon imperfections far more subtle than the ostentatious deformities and monstrosities.

“Clear as the skie, withouten blame or blot . . .” In Elizabeth’s time, one of the most widespread varieties of eruptive afflictions was smallpox, or variola major, a viral disease that claimed lives, beauty, and sometimes eyesight of its numerous sufferers. Although smallpox could be fatal, it was likely that some of its victims feared less for their lives than for their complexions because the survivors rarely escaped unscathed. In some cases, people’s faces were horribly scarred and disfigured. For instance, Mary Sidney, who contracted smallpox while devotedly nursing her queen to health, was forced to retire from court and to spend the rest of her days hiding her ruined looks from view.85 The tragedy and injustice of such merciless undoing of beauty in a virtuous woman was bewailed, for instance, in Henry Wotton’s “On

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a woman deformed wth ye Pocke” that charged the disease with leaving “prints on beauty” and making honeycombs of faces.86 As a smallpox survivor herself, Elizabeth had an opportunity to see the issue from both points of view, as a victim of disfigurement and onlooker who passed judgment on the disfigurement of other victims. Elizabeth contracted smallpox in 1562. The detrimental effect of the disease on her complexion is registered in a Spanish ambassador’s letter to the Duchess of Parma on October 25: “She is now out of bed and is only attending to the marks on her face to avoid disfigurement,” and, on February 7, 1563, in his epistle to Philip II where Elizabeth is reported to have assured the lords “that the marks they saw on her face were not wrinkles, but pits of smallpox.” 87 If indeed she still had pockmarks three and a half months after her illness (the period of time indicated by the dates of the ambassador’s letters), the subsequent assertions of her supposed miraculous escape from the typical scarring are improbable. Those marks were not as horrific as the blemishes on Mary Sidney’s face, and masking them by means of cosmetics was not very difficult. Their complete disappearance, nevertheless, was a case of wishful thinking. The scare of further blemishes was upon the English court again in 1572 when Elizabeth appeared to become sick with smallpox for the second time, not an entirely unusual occurrence.88 This strain was much weaker than her earlier infection. Upon recovery, she wrote to the Earl of Shrewsbury assuring him that her suspected relapse had left no marks on her face: . . . after twoo or three daies, without any great inward sicknes, ther began to appere certain red spotts in som part of our face, likely to proove the small pox; but, thanked be God, contrary to the expection our phisycians, & all others about us, the same so vanished awaye as wtin foure or five dayes passed no token almost appeered; and at this day, we thank God, we are so free from any token or marke of any such disease that none can conjecture any suche thing.89

A postscript in the queen’s own hand reiterates, “I assure you, if my creadid were not greatar than my shewe, ther is no beholdar wold beleve that ever I had bin touched with suche a malady.” 90 It appears from this letter that it is far more important for her to assure the addressee of her immaculate complexion than to

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verify that her health has been restored. Indeed, it seems that the queen even prayed to God to protect her from pockmarks: “heal my body, so that it may straightway be without any remains of sickness, if it should seem thus to Thy mercy.” 91 And thus the fiction of Elizabeth’s pristine skin was created: not only was she not terribly disfigured by disease, but she had escaped smallpox altogether unmarred. This legend hinted at the divine favor for God’s handmaiden, who had recovered from a particularly grave case of smallpox, followed by yet another assault ten years later. The belief that the divine intervention has saved her life and complexion is evidenced in the medal commemorating Elizabeth’s recovery (1562). On the obverse of the medal, “the face of the queen appears free of any physical effects of the disease,” 92 and the image on the reverse is encircled by a legend, SI. DEVS. NOBISCVM. QVIS. CONTRA. NOS, If God be with us, who can be against us.93 Besides asserting Elizabeth’s singularity in the eyes of God, the narrative that erased blemishes from her face also protected her against seditious accusations of promiscuity. Smallpox was contracted in no connection to any amoral or amorous activities, and thus its disfigured victims were morally innocent. It was the other variety of the pox, the “Great Pox,” or syphilis, that resulted from sexual promiscuity and thus marked the sufferer as a bawd and sinner, and there was a potential for confusion of the two types of scars.94 Protection afforded by a claim to a pock-free face, of course, was only partial: as Carole Levin has shown, the fantasies of Elizabeth’s sexual life surfaced regularly; however, none of these stories cited Elizabeth’s pockmarks in support of her supposedly loose behavior, making any slander all the more unsubstantiated. Elizabeth’s supporters, in the meantime, adopted the official story with enthusiasm. In keeping with the legend of the queen’s unblemished complexion, she was greeted in 1578 in Norwich in the following manner: Who ever found on earth a constant friend, That may compare with this my Virgin Queene? Whoever found a body and a mynde So free from staine, so perfect to be seene, Oh heavenly hewe, that aptest is to soyle, And yet doste live from blot of any foyle!95

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Spenser likewise complimented his queen’s perfect face as he painted her portrait as Belphoebe: Her face so faire as flesh it seemed not, But heauenly poutraict of bright Angels hew, Clear as the skie, withouten blame or blot, Through goodly mixture of complexions dew . . . 96

These passages emphasize that Elizabeth’s face, being “free from staine,” “clear as the skie, withouten blame or blot,” remains unmarred by the disease. Rather than serving as a testimony of her perfect complexion, these lines combine flattery and desire to conform to the queen’s public image perpetuated in portraits that omit scars, complimentary writing praising her immaculate beauty, and her own careful denial of blemishes. Along with the fiction of Elizabeth’s pristine skin came her license to despise other people’s pockmarked faces, but her harsh judgment of others’ imperfections distanced her from and thus denied her own concealed scarring. Some evidence indicates that she shared her contemporaries’ view that pockmarks and scars not only marred beauty, but could not coexist with it. Rather than showing compassion towards Mary Sidney’s tragic disfigurement, Elizabeth seemed to give her harsh treatment.97 She also made disparaging remarks about Mary Hastings’ pocked face.98 Perhaps more understandably, the queen was hesitant to pursue a romantic relationship with a similarly disfigured man, the Duke of Alençon. The royal houses of England and France were engaged in marriage negotiations for a good part of the 1570s and early 1580s. The Duke of Alençon, one of the sons of Catherine de Medici, visited England twice: in 1579 and 1582–1883, so the English queen had an opportunity to form a personal opinion of his charms. Alençon bore heavy signs of smallpox on his countenance, and, long before she met him in person, Elizabeth was outspoken in her attitude that these blemishes made the Duke a second-rate marriage material. The queen probably feared, quite fairly, a reciprocal scorn on the part of her much younger suitor—and she protected herself carefully, as her postscript to the aforementioned letter to Shrewsbury indicates. The queen was anxiously preoccupied with her appearance not because she was merely vain, but because she knew of its value as a possible trump card in the marriage

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negotiations. Indeed, assertions of Elizabeth’s unmarred beauty run as a counterpoint to the discussion of Alençon’s unfortunate disfigurement. In 1579, for instance, the French ambassador writes to Catherine de Medici that Elizabeth “has never been more pretty or more beautiful. There is nothing old about her except her years.” 99 In July 1579, Mendoza reports that, in anticipation of Alençon’s arrival, Elizabeth “is largely influenced by the idea that it should be known that her talents and beauty are so great that they have sufficed to cause him to come and visit her without any assurance that he will be her husband.” 100 Mendoza’s remark suggests that Elizabeth herself consciously contributed to dissemination of the narratives about her “talents and beauty.” Since it was acknowledged that the potential groom was “void of any good favour, besides the blemish of the smallpox,” the well-crafted belief in the English queen’s beauty dramatically increased her caché for these marital negotiations.101 When she met him in person, however, Alençon’s pockmarks seemed to carry little importance in comparison to his delightful personality. She nicknamed him her Frog and came very close to marrying the French youngster. Whatever the obstacles and considerations that prevented that marriage, his pockmarks seemed to have contributed little to nothing to the outcome of those negotiations. Elizabeth’s eventual readiness to overlook the blemishes seems to undermine the sincerity of her earlier concern, making the latter a political strategy rather than personal conviction. But the inaccuracy of the official story of her unmarred complexion opens a possibility that Elizabeth overplayed the importance of Alençon’s pockmarks in order to make her own scars seem less significant.

“In either cheeke depeincten lively Chere” As if in a mirror, Elizabeth’s attitude to her suitor’s disfigurement reflects the anxiety about her own facial imperfections. It has been frequently asserted that she tackled these blemishes with the help of cosmetics, painting a mask-like face over her natural features. In this final section, I will question the validity of this posthumous belief and explore the implications of what seems like deliberate silence on the matter of Elizabeth’s face-painting during her time on the throne. In order to understand what is at stake in Elizabeth’s use of makeup, it is necessary to situate this issue within the period’s

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attitude toward cosmetics. Powders, ointments, paints, and dyes were used to achieve the brilliant colors of what was considered the ideal Renaissance beauty: white and red face framed by blonde hair. Unfortunately, many of these cosmetics contained harmful ingredients that ruined skin and teeth while promising to beautify them. Relatively crude cosmetics available to the early modern women were probably responsible for such caustic remarks as Thomas Tuke’s pronouncement that a “man might easily cut off a curd of cheese-cake from either of their cheeks.” 102 While sometimes women flaunted their makeup by applying it quite liberally, they also knew how to paint themselves with skill and subtlety that deftly blended nature and art. Such skill of application caused a great deal of anxiety among men who could not always readily discern whether a woman’s beauty was natural or artificial. The issue was especially important because face-painting caused a lively debate in the early modern society. The opponents of the use of cosmetics lined up a battery of arguments rooted in the writings of the church fathers. The most important objection concerned a woman’s appropriation of God’s right to creation: in this view, a painting woman heretically altered the sacred work of God, her face, and became “her own creatrisse.” 103 Further criticism reminded women that, by painting themselves, they resembled the notorious users of makeup: courtesans and prostitutes. Meanwhile, the supporters of the new fashion published collections of recipes for homemade cosmetics as well as treatments for the blemishes like freckles and acne. The prefaces to these books encouraged women to take charge of their appearance, emphasized the repulsiveness of facial imperfections, and explained that it was unfair to their souls to keep them imprisoned in the withering bodies that could be easily turned into palaces.104 The harmful nature of makeup and the impact of the controversy about face-painting are two important issues relevant to the discussion of Elizabeth’s use of cosmetics. First, even if she did use cosmetics in moderation, the queen could have been caught in the same vicious circle as the other women: attempting to amend the facial imperfections by applying to her skin and teeth ingredients so caustic and drying that, instead of slowing down the process of aging, these efforts accelerated its progress. As will be discussed in the next chapter, a German visitor to the English court, Paul Hentzner, and the French Ambassador André de Maisse remarked on the queen’s profuse wrinkles and black and missing

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teeth. However, by then she was in her late sixties, so it is difficult to assess whether her wrinkles and discolored teeth were precipitated by aging or by her use of unsavory cosmetics. Second, whatever the extent of her face-painting, Elizabeth clearly was not caught in between the anti- and procosmetic sides of the polemics. If she indulged in ostentatious use of paint, taking the general criticism personally would be tantamount to acknowledging her potential culpability, altering her exalted status and exposing her as a woman like any other. Such a nonengagement, however, could equally indicate that Elizabeth used cosmetics only sparingly rather than painting “an inch thick.” Granted, Elizabeth could not afford to be dismissive of her appearance: she was frequently in the public eye, and because her power as a female ruler was supplemented by a gorgeous appearance, she had to take great care of what she put on display. In 1586, Elizabeth herself declared in an address to Parliament: “We princes, I tell you, are set on stages in the sight and view of all the world duly observed; the eyes of many behold our actions; a spot is soon spied in our garments; a blemish noted quickly in our doings.” 105 Such open displays were deeply theatrical. John Clapham, for instance, wrote that, “not long before her death,” Elizabeth “would often show herself abroad at public spectacles, even against her own liking, to no other end but that the people might the better perceive her ability of body and good dispositions, which otherwise in respect of her years they might perhaps have doubted; so jealous was she to have her natural defects discovered for diminishing her reputation.” 106 Clapham explains that Elizabeth showed herself to the public as a means of reassuring her people that their aging sovereign was still capable of ruling. However, the highlighted addendum conveys the dissembling nature of such spectacles: the discovery of “her natural defects” is deemed to be detrimental to her reputation, and the queen herself is acutely aware of the danger of letting the public in on the secret of her imperfections. Clapham also remarks on Elizabeth’s method of deflecting the onlookers’ attention away from the blemishes, especially those that affected her good looks: “In her later time, when she showed herself in public, she was always magnificent in apparel, supposing haply thereby, that the eyes of her people, being dazzled with the glittering aspect of those accidental ornament would not so easily discern the marks of age and decay of natural beauty.” 107

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These retrospective insights ring true: as years passed, Elizabeth’s facial imperfections inevitably multiplied. Smallpox scars, wrinkles, tooth decay, and changes in color of complexion demanded increasing attention. The queen and the ladies of the bedchamber undoubtedly left no stone unturned to beautify her countenance. The drama continued to be exacerbated by Elizabeth’s particular ruling style that demanded and capitalized upon the spectacle of her exposure to the public. Echoing Clapham, Bacon quipped that “[s]he imagined that the people, who are much influenced by externals, would be diverted, by the glitter of her jewels, from noticing the decay of her personal attractions.” 108 Yet, even Bacon, who knew Elizabeth personally, did not use this opportunity to bring up the maintenance of “her personal attractions” by cosmetic means. While she was alive, the issue seems to have been taboo in court, outside the queen’s bedchamber where her ladies ministered to her withering face. Furthermore, although the proponents of face-painting hinted that Elizabeth was on their side as they put her name on some recipes, they still refrained from including Elizabeth directly in their arguments, even as a positive example. Neville Williams points out that no laws were passed against face-painting during Elizabeth’s reign.109 Although the anticosmetic attitudes were repeatedly expressed in print, there was no apparent royal attempt to suppress them. In addition, it is unclear whether Elizabeth had anything to do with the cosmetic recipes attributed to her in various cookbooks that sought to empower women to take charge of their looks.110 Importantly, these recipes gave instructions for making perfumes and skin-whitening “cosmetic water” rather than face-painting products.111 Some scholars speculate that Elizabeth turned to the craft of cosmetic enhancement after her near fatal bout with smallpox in 1562. The queen’s extravagant use of face-paint, however, is a received opinion passed from one scholar to the next: there is no reliable evidence extant from Elizabeth’s lifetime to substantiate this belief. Most recently, Karim-Cooper aptly summarizes the scholarly thinking on the matter: “Of course, the queen is famous for her use of cosmetics and it is understood that she had her face painted to distance herself from her subjects by carving herself out as a featureless icon hidden behind a cosmetic mask . . .” 112 Such thinking, dramatized in Shekhar Kapur’s film Elizabeth (1998), mistakenly conflates the face of the living queen with a face put forth in her portraits.

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Whereas the aesthetics of portraiture and cosmetically enhanced body were related, reconstructing one with the help of the other is still problematic. In the meantime, it is perplexing that, in the multitude of testimonies that record Elizabeth’s features and facial expressions, there seems to be only one contemporary mention of Elizabeth’s face-painting in late 1600: “It was commonly observed this Christmas that her Majesty, when she came to be seen, was continuously painted not only all over her face, but on her very neck and breast also, and that the same was in some places near half an inch thick.” 113 But this story is hardly unbiased, nor is it an eyewitness’ testimony. It is only a rumor picked up on the streets of London by Father Rivers, a Jesuit in hiding. The same informant who was obviously preoccupied with Elizabeth’s aging reports that “her face showeth some decay, which to conceal when she cometh in public, she putteth many fine cloths into her mouth to bear out her cheeks.” 114 Karim-Cooper terms this behavior “the older Queen’s open cosmetic practice,” 115 and yet one should be wary of believing this report, given the danger of the author’s position that could hardly allow him to see the queen in person, much less discover information as intimate as precise content of her supposedly stuffed cheeks. Father Rivers’ stories, however, are extremely important. Even though their absolute truthfulness is doubtful, his letters register an attempt to disparage Elizabeth on various grounds, her use of cosmetics among them. These attempts also suggest that Elizabeth used makeup even though they do not prove that she did so in a garish way, painting “an inch thick,” as so many modern scholars assume. There exists, of course, a posthumous reference to Elizabeth’s face-painting, in Ben Jonson’s Conversations with Drummond. As Jonson sketches out a few pointed anecdotes about Elizabeth, his frivolity seems to be unleashed by the fact of Elizabeth’s death. In describing her idiosyncratic vanity, Jonson says: “Queen Elizabeth never saw herself after she became old in a true glass; they painted her, and sometimes would vermilion her nose.” 116 Here, Jonson returns to a scene from Volpone where Nano refers to Lady Politic’s troubles that arise from trusting others to apply her cosmetics, “anon, shee’ll beat her women, / Because her nose is red.” 117 Vermilion, in fact, was normally applied to lips and cheeks, so this story suggests that Elizabeth’s servants took advantage of her refusal to look in the mirror and painted her in ridiculous colors (and got away with it, too).

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Not simply because of the anecdotal nature of this evidence, but mainly because Elizabeth’s formidable personality made such disrespectful treatment unthinkable, we can certainly discount this scene of the vain queen being lampooned unawares by her merry ladies. Like Father Rivers’ disparaging stories, this fantasy points to the cultural uneasiness engendered by Elizabeth’s use of cosmetics. Jonson’s sarcasm stands out in a particular contrast to Colin’s intimation, in Henry Chettle’s Englands mourning garment (1603), that the queen avoided mirrors out of humility rather than self-delusion: For quaffing as it was vnfitting her Sexe, so shee extreamely abhord it: hating superfluitie as hell: and so farre was shee from all nicenesse, that I haue heard it credibly reported, and knowe it by many instances to be true, that shee neuer could abide to gaze in a mirrour or looking-glasse: no not to behold one, while her head was tyred and adorned, but simply trusted to her attendant Ladies for the comelinesse of her attire: and that this is true, Thenot I am the rather perswaded, for that when I was yong, almost thirtie yeares agoe, courting it now and then: I haue seene the Ladies make great shift to hide away their looking-glasses if her Maiestie had past by their lodgings. O humble Lady, how meeke a spirite hadst thou? How farre from affecting beautie, or vaine pride: when thou desiredst not to see that face, which all thy subiects longed dayly to behold, and sundry Princes came from farre to wonder at.118

In Chettle’s interpretation, Elizabeth’s refusal to see herself in the mirror offers an occasion for a compliment to her virtuous modesty. Chettle thereby deftly bypasses an opportunity to criticize the queen’s behavior. Absence of any registered censure of Elizabeth’s face-painting in her lifetime, therefore, not only pertains to the personal attitudes and general polemics of the period, but also suggests a possibility that Elizabeth used makeup quite sparingly. Of course, this lack of criticism and, except for Rivers’ spurious report of the queen painted “half an inch thick,” the nonexistence of any acknowledgment of Elizabeth’s face-painting may also be due to censorship. Even the inventories of the New Year gifts to the queen record no creams, no paints, no dyes: items that come closest to cosmetics are sweet waters and perfumed gloves.119 There seems to be a tactful agreement not to draw attention to Elizabeth’s face-painting

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by avoiding gifts of overtly cosmetic nature. Jonson’s anecdote, therefore, opens a window onto the forbidden territory, albeit sixteen years after Elizabeth’s death. Not only does it reflect a typical misogynistic distrust of the perceived vulnerability and waning power of the aged queen, but it also fantasizes about the possibility of social transgression, the subordinate women having fun at the monarch’s expense. It mocks the vanity of the woman; it mocks her old age, and her power—all at once. Such multifold mockery is possible, on the one hand, because of Elizabeth’s uniquely layered personal and political position of being an unmarried female ruler. On the other hand, the pithy effectiveness of Jonson’s phrasing (he accomplishes everything in just one sentence) owes much to its subject: the queen’s face. It is her face where so much of the unspoken anxiety is centered. Through the fantasy of a helpless queen being denigrated without her knowledge, figuratively and literally under her very nose, this anecdote indulges the younger generation’s frustration with an aged monarch, and even more, the younger men’s reluctance to serve under a woman’s rule. This part of the anecdote focuses on Elizabeth’s most vulnerable feature, her physiognomy, whose obvious defects she could suppress only to a limited extent. Hence the stories of Elizabeth’s refusal to look in the mirror appear, as if a woman of her stature and intelligence would reveal her feminine weakness by believing that averting her eyes from the scars and wrinkles on her own face would prevent them from existing.120 The issue of Elizabeth’s face-painting is all the more ambiguous because the dynamics of attraction and repulsion, bonding and distancing are continuously present in the fashioning of her image. If her face was painted in order to hide the imperfections of her skin, the motives for doing so were not purely aesthetic (to secure the appeal of her public image), but also political (to assure her subjects that their queen is properly and perpetually beautiful), and perhaps personal (because she was vain, ashamed, or insecure). These justifications—an invitation for desire without a promise of fulfillment, indulgence of vanity while pleasuring the onlookers’ gaze, upkeep of the myth of perpetual youthfulness and beauty in order to secure her authority, and protection of her private self—also apply to Elizabeth’s face rejuvenated in paint by Nicholas Hilliard in the so-called mask of youth. In this mask, the arts of cosmetic and portraiture prominently come together,

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putting forth, to use Harry Berger’s term, a prosthetic image of Elizabeth. Yet, as I will show in chapter 5, the idealized face of the queen coexisted with harsher, less skillfully executed or seemingly more realistic renditions of her physiognomy in paint. The official project enacted in her portraiture and court poetry aimed to refashion Elizabeth’s imperfect physical visage, but even the images produced outside the idealized paradigm exude some impression of gorgeousness. To this day, one may look at this queen’s portraits, whatever their degree of quality and realism, and admit, “She was a queen, and therefore beautiful.” Yet it must be remembered that, for this extraordinary monarch, power was beautifying while beauty, empowering.

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CHAPTER 3

MEETING THE QUEEN: DOCUMENTARY ACCOUNTS

She was the daughter of Henry VIII. and Anne Boleyn, and was born on the 7th September 1533, so she is now about twenty-one years old; her figure and face are very handsome, and such an air of dignified majesty pervades all her actions that no one can fail to suppose she is a queen.

T

he lines quoted above concern Lady Elizabeth Tudor, sister of Queen Mary, who just entered the second year of her reign at the time this report was penned by the Venetian Ambassador Giacomo Soranzo.1 Married to Philip of Spain for less than a month, Mary had every expectation of bearing an heir to the throne and, therefore, thwarting Elizabeth’s hopes for succession. Yet even in her precarious position, the young Elizabeth’s demeanor projected the same “dignified majesty” that would astound the onlookers in her advanced age. Instead of listing Elizabeth’s physical characteristics, this account outlines a handsome presence, dignity, and charisma that allow the young woman who was envied and harassed by her royal sister to carry herself in a way that may convince the observers that it is Elizabeth who is queen, and not Mary. The physical details in Soranzo’s description are hardly vivid, and yet the essential image of her personhood comes across in it. It becomes the earliest in what will be an ensuing paradigm of describing the Queen in a manner that transcended physicality. In his essay on Fyodor Dostoevsky, Russian critic A. Chudakov poses a distinction between writers oriented toward forms and those who are primarily concerned with essences. Descriptions of characters produced by writers of the first type, in their attention to “physical objects, customs, day to day existence,” place the physical details at the center. A writer of the second type, in

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contrast, creates an “essentialist portrait of his character, not a direct description of appearance.” 2 In such description, the sense of scarcity of the physical details is “emphasized by a constant juxtaposition of the material and the ideal, the feeling and the physical object,” and the verbal portrait is “pieced together by the references to action, gesture . . . , movement, rhythm,” 3 rather than a list of physical features.4 In marginalization of the physicality, writers such as Dostoevsky wrestle with the problems inherent in the confrontation between the body and language: no matter how detailed the description of the features, the words remain at odds with the body they strive to depict. Roland Barthes terms this incompatibility the “spitefulness of language: once reassembled, in order to utter itself, the total body must revert to the dust of words, to the listing of details, to a monotonous inventory of parts, to crumbling: language undoes the body, returns it to the fetish.” 5 This sense of fragmentation and undoing of the body by descriptive language is already implicit in the topos of indescribability, discussed in the next chapter, and this sense likewise accounts for the way we read the contemporary descriptions of Elizabeth in the twenty-first century. The overt concern in the early modern period lies with the imprecision of language when wielded by an inferior writer. Yet the belief in the possibility of an adequate description persists, and the number of verbal portraits of Elizabeth shows that many a witness did not feel daunted by the undertaking. But in these portrayals of Elizabeth’s facial features and expressions, the problems of language and perspective, especially political perspective, preclude any objective, “true” reading of her face. Many of Elizabeth’s contemporaries attempted to put her countenance into words, and exact portrayals of the queen’s face wrestle with the techniques typical of the period. These methods were derived primarily from the classical rhetorical concept of effictio in Ciceronian rhetoric. The author of Rhetorica ad Herennium, attributed to Cicero in the Middle Ages and Renaissance, introduces the concept of effictio, or the portrayal of physical appearance that “consists in representing and depicting in words clearly enough for recognition [sic] the bodily form of some person . . .” The main purpose of such description is to “designate some person,” therefore, aiming at a list of physical attributes that would make the individual easily recognizable.6 In De Inventione, Cicero suggests that, in description of a person, “we take into consideration such

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advantages or disadvantages as are given to mind and body by nature,” 7 and that the virtues of the body are “health, beauty, strength, speed.” 8 Medieval writers followed Cicero’s rules and applied them particularly to poetry. The twelfth and early thirteenth-century rhetoricians considered effictio a crucial aspect of poetry. For instance, Matthew of Vendôme, in his Ars versificatoria (c. 1175), builds on Cicero’s prescription, suggesting more insistently that “in any description of a person . . . one’s general appearance ought to be fully delineated,” and gives two detailed poetic descriptions of his own composition as models, proposing that “in praising a woman one should stress heavily her physical beauty.” 9 Geoffrey of Vinsauf’s Poetria Nova (c.1200–1215) not only offers an extended description of a beautiful woman, but also points out that portrayal of appearance should move in a consistently downward direction: “So let the radiant description descend from the top of her head to her toe, and the whole be polished to perfection,” and Geoffrey’s portrayal indeed begins with the hair and moves to the forehead, eyebrows, nose, eyes, mouth, and chin.10 In the thirteenth century Alan of Lille wrote an entire treatise concerning the description of the just man, Anticlaudianus. This system produces the poetic trope of the blazon, so plentiful in late medieval love poetry. Yet, for all these writers, descriptions of one’s appearance are secondary to the description of the character per se, the “qualities of the inner man” as distinct from the “bodily graces” constituting the “exterior man,” as Matthew terms them. The pattern is replicated in the early modern period: Erasmus’ De Copia (1534), a manual of virtuoso eloquence, and Thomas Wilson’s The Arte of Rhetorique (1553) omit the instruction on describing physical appearance. Erasmus, for instance, explains that the “technical term for the realistic presentation of persons” is prosopopoia (dramatization), a term closely related to prosopografia (delineation of persons). Erasmus then outlines a variety of descriptive categories and remarks in passing that descriptions of physical appearance are somewhat rare in oratory, the subject with which he was most concerned.11 Wilson includes an example of such depiction in his section on “Description of persons” that is otherwise occupied with the rules of a believable portrayal of character and speech. George Puttenham, in The Arte of English Poesie (1589), places his flamboyant blazon of Elizabeth in his entry on the ornamental figure “Icon, or Resemblance by imagerie,” explaining that the

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term alludes to the art of painting that furnishes a “visible representation of the thing.” 12 Presented to Elizabeth as a New Year’s gift, Puttenham’s blazon, discussed in the next chapter, follows the descending order prescribed by Geoffrey, moving from the forehead to eyebrows to eyes and then down to the lips, and so on. Printing it in The Arte, Puttenham truncates his poem and changes the order so that the reader’s gaze moves down from the forehead and brows to the lips and then upward to the eyes, a movement less systematic than that advocated by Geoffrey; however, this change of order is less jarring than the Arte’s omissions that result in a startling leap from Elizabeth’s eyes to her breasts, a subject of discussion that makes a rare but not unheard of appearance in the eyewitness descriptions of the queen. The rhetorical methods clearly inherited from these guides by most of Elizabeth’s verbal portraitists fall midway between Cicero’s “brevity and clarity,” exemplified in his description of a man, listing his physical features in a comprehensive yet succinct inventory,13 and Matthew’s and Geoffrey’s florid poetic descriptions of beautiful women. The genre of eyewitness reports entails methods aiming at realism and moderation of portrayal; however, a close look at the structure of these verbal portraits reveals tendencies absent from the rules and examples handed down from the antiquity and the Middle Ages. Early modern descriptive habits, especially rhetorical approaches to depicting faces of people familiar to the author personally, are exemplified in Erasmus’ masterful description of Thomas More, in a 1519 letter to Ulrich von Hutten. The letter opens with a sketch of More’s appearance: In truth, he has such symmetry in all his limbs that nothing desirable is lacking. He has fair skin with a complexion that is glowing, rather than pale, and is far from ruddy, except for a faint rosiness shining through everywhere. His hair is darkish blonde or rather, somewhat yellowish brown, his beard scanty, his eyes bluish-grey interspersed with flecks which is taken to mean a happy spirit. Among the British, this is held to be attractive, while we are more captivated by dark eyes. The British assert that this kind of eye is not subject to defects. His countenance corresponds to his character, always showing a pleasant and friendly cheerfulness and somewhat habitually composed toward laughter. And to speak honestly, it approaches more toward pleasure, than gravity or solemnity, but is greatly removed from absurdity and buffoonery.14

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With remarkable precision, Erasmus layers his brushstrokes to create a countenance alive with color and meaning. Yet Erasmus qualifies his epithets in an attempt to pinpoint his friend’s appearance as exactly as language would allow. To recreate the truthful shade of More’s complexion, Erasmus considers several hues of white and red, dabbing, mixing, and defining the chosen shade in contrast to the ones passed over—a process so deliberate that translations of this passage teem with synonyms: “he has a fair skin” (corporis candida), “glowing, rather than pale” (facies magis ad candorem vergit, quam ad pallorem), “far from ruddy” (a rubore procul abest), “a faint rosiness shining through everywhere” (nisi quod tenuis admodum rubor ubique sublucet). The last masterful stroke makes the white skin translucent and warm with a delicate rosy glow underneath. Erasmus equivocally places More’s hair on the continuum from brown to blonde (capilli subnigro flavore, sive mavis, sufflavo nigrore), and then his eyes, with fine speckles or spots on their irises, whose color is poised on the spectrum somewhere between blue and gray (subcaesii). The copia of fine details in this description is infused with a loving feeling that employs the writer’s rhetorical mastery to indulge the pleasure of a meticulous recollection of the face of his absent friend. The indeterminacy of Erasmus’ colors is directly related to his indeterminacy of character, possibly related to More’s being Erasmus’ opponent on some issues, as well as friend. More’s countenance is pleasant but not grave or solemn. He is also not foolish. Erasmus here finds difficulty in the precision needed to create a rhetorical portrait. In so doing, he recognizes the problems other, lesser writers would have describing the human face. Erasmus engages More’s eyes as a transitional point in his description as he prepares to conclude the sketch of his friend’s physical appearance and proceed to characterize his personality. The key statement follows: “His countenance corresponds to his character.” This assertion is not a mere convenient transition in Erasmus’ coherently flowing description: for the early moderns, the acknowledgment of harmony between the appearance and interiority is in itself a compliment. Harry Berger, Jr., locates the inception of a new physiognomic attitude in a treatise authored by Erasmus a decade after he wrote this letter; even here, his attentiveness to what I call face-mind relationship is already evident. There is one difficulty, however. By More’s “character,” Erasmus does not necessarily mean his interiority; in fact, the subject here

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is rather More’s behavior, his attitude, and disposition. Moreover, Erasmus is describing a representative disposition (hence the use of the overbearing “habitually” [habitum]), and he links it to a representative expression on More’s face. It is understood that neither one is static in More the living being, but Erasmus deliberately chooses only one facial expression because he likens his descriptive activity to painting a portrait or drawing a sketch.15 Admittedly, the warmth and precision of Erasmus’ description have no peer among the documentary accounts of Elizabeth’s countenance. Even the queen’s most intimate relationships did not yield a single extensive verbal portrait, but her features glimpsed in the extant descriptions are as fascinating as the rhetorical strategies used to render her face in words. Her royal features were recorded in an almost clinical manner. Interpretation of Elizabeth’s facial expression was subject to its own limitations, yet social necessity forced the onlookers to construe the queen’s expressive looks. This chapter, therefore, employs different methodologies for the two aspects of verbal descriptions of the queen by her contemporaries. In the first part, where I will examine the depictions of Elizabeth’s features, the lack of interpretive judgment is compensated for by implied or contextual meanings betrayed in the rhetorical dynamics within the testimonies. The second part of the chapter concerns the expressive life of the queen’s face and engages not only some registered expressions, but also witnesses’ comments on their meaning and especially the speakers’ views on Elizabeth’s deliberate use of her face for specific rhetorical purposes. While this chapter concerns, in turn, the fixed and mobile physiognomy, my emphasis is on the reading and interpretation of Elizabeth’s face as reported by the witnesses. On occasion, their reading is supplemented with the insights into the queen’s composition of her features. In a way typical of Elizabeth’s style, however, the intentionality of such composition is frequently undetermined, even as the witnesses share their judgment as they gauge the queen’s sincerity or dissimulation.

“ . . . a seeming seat for princely grace” 16: The Politics of Describing As Henri IV of France put it, one of the most vexing questions that tormented Elizabeth’s contemporaries was whether she “was a maid or no.”17 Perhaps the second most popular question

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constantly asked during and after Elizabeth’s lifetime was what she really looked like. The iconography of her most famous portraits has succeeded in forming a certain image in the collective consciousness of later generations: the unmistakable “Elizabeth look” that includes red hair, a Roman nose, and pearls in abundance. The contemporary verbal descriptions of the queen, however, draw attention to a variety of her features, and these accounts frequently contradict one another in ways that preclude an emergence of a definitive physical portrait. As a group, these documentary verbal portraits hardly exhibit a regularity.18 For this reason, instead of discrediting their reliability as a truthful record of the queen’s features, my approach highlights the usefulness of these accounts for understanding the anxiety that surrounded the issue of Elizabeth’s appearance, especially as her reign drew to a close. The extant accounts are distributed rather unevenly throughout Elizabeth’s lifetime, with a weightier group appearing in the last decade of her reign. The descriptions of the aging queen, in particular, show the logic of the inconsistencies within and among these texts and point to the rhetorical betrayal of the authors’ own representational agendas. These agendas affect the degrees of verisimilitude, apparent accuracy, and the balance of praise and scorn evident in these accounts as the writers address the imperfections detected in the queen’s aging face. And yet, despite the difference in the observers’ attitude, these descriptions share similar discursive impulses: Elizabeth’s purposeful display of majesty affects not only her own subjects, but even foreigners who have no vested interest in “redeeming” the English queen from an unflatteringly accurate portrayal of her face. Among some of the late and posthumous descriptions are the following accounts, in chronological order. Francesco Gradenigo remarks that Elizabeth is “ruddy in complexion” (1596).19 André Hurault de Maisse records that the queen’s face “is and appears to be very aged. It is long and thin, and her teeth are very yellow and unequal, compared with what people say they were formerly, so they say, and on the left side less than on the right. Many of them are missing so that one cannot understand her easily when she speaks quickly” (1597).20 Paul Hentzner’s description is probably one of the most severe: “her Face oblong, fair, but wrinkled; her Eyes small, yet black and pleasant; her Nose a little hooked; her Lips narrow, and her Teeth black . . . she wore false Hair, and that red” (1598).21 John Hayward (d. 1627) observes that “her forehead

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[was] large and fair, a seeming seat for princely grace; her eyes lively and sweet, but short sighted, her nose somewhat rising in the midst; the whole compass of her countenance somewhat long, but yet of admirable beauty, not so much in that which is termed the flower of youth, as in a most delightful composition of majesty and modesty in equal mixture.” 22 Robert Naunton’s (d. 1635) portrayal is very compact: “of hair and complexion fair, and therewithal well favored, but high-nosed.” 23 The last two descriptions are by Englishmen and, notably, are posthumous, casting a nostalgic look at the late queen. Indeed, almost all detailed testimonies depicting Elizabeth in her lifetime are penned by foreigners (travelers and ambassadors). In other words, they are written by people who were detached from the in-house games and politics, but instead were either sightseeing at their leisure or involved in larger political games that did not have the English Queen as the main center of power. The lack of similar extended portrayals from the English may be explained by their preoccupation, whether willingly or not, with the cult of Elizabeth as the Queen of Love and Beauty. This fiction was easily accommodated by verse but would call for an outright lie in a memoir, letter, or a diary entry. It is thus hardly surprising that most descriptions of Elizabeth by her own subjects are either neutral or laudatory, whereas foreigners often report their observations in a seemingly objective, unmitigated manner. The surprise is that, upon a close examination, the rhetoric of both foreign and domestic depictions of the queen turns out to be swayed by similar discursive energies. They spring from what Hannah Betts describes as Elizabeth’s “ambiguous rhetorical status” caused by the “disparity in prestige between her ‘two bodies’: the first a public symbol of nationhood, the second merely a female body divested with an unusual degree of power.” 24 Moreover, in the last decade of Elizabeth’s reign, her natural body causes even more anxiety because its visible decay challenges the conception of the incorruptible body politic and raises issues of succession. Apprehension and unease that result from this challenge are intensified by the courtly fiction of Elizabeth’s perpetual beauty and youthfulness. Those facing her bodily inadequacies find themselves suspended between the glaring truth and necessary fiction, as well as between the acknowledgment of the natural decline and fear to admit that the monarch’s body natural is actually failing. The Earl of Essex, for instance, once articulated

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the resulting frustration in his private comment that Elizabeth’s “conditions were as crooked as her carcase.” 25 The recorders of Elizabeth’s appearance do not always dare to be so direct, and yet the signs of the queen’s physical shortcomings appear in their writing. Her face in particular becomes a site of the aforementioned mixed impulses. One rhetorical similarity that stems from the conflicting pressures around the aging queen’s body is the observers’ oscillation between the wish to skirt the issue of Elizabeth’s facial imperfection and the opposing desire to make this imperfection known. This tension is especially evident when Hayward’s and Hentzner’s descriptions are compared. If, on one hand, her countenance is “somewhat long,” it is “yet of admirable beauty”; on the other, “her Face oblong, fair, but wrinkled” (italics mine). The very rhetorical pattern of these descriptions indicates the speaker’s delicate position: he either covers the shortcomings of the queen’s facial structure with a greater merit (these imperfections matter little; she is still breath-taking), or pulls the fair appearance off to expose the signs of aging (her skin may be of the right color, but it is all wrinkled). These qualifications are related to those we see in Erasmus’ struggle to make language yield an accurate description of More (“glowing rather than pale, and far from ruddy except for a faint rosiness shining through everywhere” [magis ad candorem vergit, quàm ad pallorem, quanquam à rubore procul abest, nisi quod tenuis admodum rubor ubiq]), and yet, in Elizabeth’s case, rather than achieving precision, they trace the clash of diplomacy with reality. Interestingly, both Hayward and Hentzner reverse their own formulas when they describe the queen’s eyes. Hayward mixes flattery and criticism in portraying them as “lively and sweet, but short sighted”; Hentzner points out that “her eyes [are] small, yet black and pleasant”; this reversal seems to strengthen the credibility of these reports and also suggests that Elizabeth’s eyes are a focal point of her face, perhaps in a way that, in one sense, contradicts her public persona and reinforces it in another. If their “sweet[ness]” contributes to the queen’s position as an eroticized object, the figurative potential of “short sighted[ness]” undermines Elizabeth’s political competence: a short-sighted ruler is a dangerous image to entertain. Elizabeth inherited her myopia from her father; so did her sister Mary whose near-sightedness was sometimes mistaken for an intensity of the gaze. As Hentzner draws attention to her eyes “yet” being “black,” in another subtle

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twist from a defect to an advantage, he acknowledges that, framed by false hair, wrinkles, and black teeth, Elizabeth’s eyes remain untouched by the discoloration and ugliness of aging. Hentzner’s description is the only extant instance of Elizabeth’s eyes described as black. As will be discussed in chapter 5, the color of her eyes in portraiture is highly inconsistent, and both this variety of color and avoiding the depiction of the queen’s eyes in black have curious physiognomic implications. Moreover, black is the color of Anne Boleyn’s eyes, as well as those of Petrarch’s Laura, and consequently any emphasis on Elizabeth’s black eyes is fraught with both advantageous and disadvantageous associations as well as historical and poetical antecedents.26 An Italian humanist Galeotto Marzio evokes a view prominent in the period when he states that “[t]he eyes are the windows of the soul: almost everyone knows what their colour, what their restlessness, what their sharpness indicates.” 27 This view imagines the eyes as portals from the physical to the spiritual, from the externality to interiority. The eyes are always in a privileged, most noticeable position on a human face, but the way in which Elizabeth’s observers single them out through their rhetoric signals that her eyes are perceived as a site of contest between her various personae, and also a site of resistance: it is as if the language itself stumbles at their description that refuses to fit into the surrounding rhetorical pattern. In the 1590s, Elizabeth’s face may have especially warranted this phenomenon because the skin was probably painted (perhaps that is why we get contradictory descriptions of her complexion as “fair” or “ruddy”), leaving the eyes to be the only part of her face that was not covered up and thus remained strikingly different from the rest of her appearance. This brief step back in both descriptions, however, does not influence the main course of each. The Englishman is determined to recreate the “mask of beauty” that urges both contemporary audiences and posterity to first imagine her as beautiful and then to remember her as such; the foreigner cares, and probably knows, little about the fiction of eternal youthfulness surrounding the queen and is determined to speak the truth. As a rule, the English tend to use a softer language in their portrayal of the queen: “her nose somewhat rising in the midst” rather than, as a foreigner puts it, “a little hooked.” In Hayward’s case, rhetorical choices are especially important. Having been in serious trouble when his History of Henry IV alarmed Elizabeth with its potential

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seditiousness, Hayward had learned his lesson about the risks of poor phrasing.28 Whatever are the main paths of describing in Elizabeth’s many verbal portraits, the rhetoric of these descriptions points to the essential imperfection in her face. As a genre, the contemporary reports are entirely different from the flattering verses and paintings, particularly from the last decade of her reign. Nevertheless, even the harshest observers, such as Monsieur de Maisse, mitigate the inadequacy of the queen’s features: either, as we have seen, through qualifying turns in describing her face, or nostalgic recapturing of her beauty (or at least grandeur) by counterbalancing the shortcomings of her face with the virtues of her body and mind. The Venetian Ambassador Giovanni Michiel offers an early instance of such recovery: “although her face is comely rather than handsome, but she is tall and well formed, with good skin, though swarthy; she has fine eyes and above all a beautiful hand of which she makes a great display, and her intellect and understanding are wonderful.” 29 Along the same lines, Gradenigo sees Elizabeth as “short, and ruddy in complexion; very strongly built.” 30 Even de Maisse, who comments on the poor condition of her teeth, remarks later in his journal, “As for her natural form and proportion, she is very beautiful,” and goes on to comment on her tall stature.31 He is fascinated with her long hands and marvels “how lively she is in body and mind and nimble in everything she does.” 32 No matter how unenthusiastic is the beginning of a description, the end is invariably stamped with admiration. The air of royal dignity that Elizabeth projected so successfully impressed even those observers who remained aware of her facial (and political) imperfections. The ultimate approval of the queen’s person does not necessarily coincide with the writer’s opinion of her political persona. The two are at odds in the testimonies of ambassadors, this most biased group of observers. Unlike Elizabeth’s subjects or traveling foreigners, they view Elizabeth less on their own behalf than on the behalf of their prince. De Maisse, for instance, frequently criticizes Elizabeth’s political choices. Foreign travelers, on the other hand, show little interest in Elizabeth’s political habits and instead revel in the exotic splendor of the English court. Despite their potential impartiality, however, the resulting testimonies are sometimes inaccurate, either because some foreigners apparently

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have found it amusing to play along with the cult of the Queen of Love and Beauty, or because they failed to see Elizabeth closely enough to discern the details of her physiognomy. The Duke of Wirtemberg, for instance, testified that, in 1592, “she need not indeed—to judge both from her person and appearance—yield much to a young girl of 16.” 33 The queen was a year shy of sixty at the time. If one is to believe Thomas Platter, Elizabeth was, even seven years later, still “very youthful in appearance, seeming no more than twenty years of age.” 34 Such striking impression of Elizabeth’s youthfulness may be a consequence of viewing the queen from a considerable distance. Platter’s testimony is especially suspect because his narrative largely repeats that of Wirtemberg.35 It is, therefore, not only the writers’ political agendas or possible playfulness, but also the irregularity of subjective impressions that make searching these testimonies for reliable facts about Elizabeth’s looks a precarious matter. Even in the sampling of descriptions above, there are some serious factual discrepancies. Is the queen’s skin smooth or wrinkled; swarthy, ruddy, or fair? Is she tall or short? If Elizabeth’s complexion could have changed with age, surely her height could not fluctuate between being tall and short? Most contemporaries agree that Elizabeth was tall; although, according to Melville, she herself once claimed to be “neither too high nor too low.” 36 Some of these consistencies may point toward the truth of what Elizabeth actually looked like, but I suggest that the scrutiny of her verbal portraits should be directed toward another aim: not a reconstruction of the queen’s body natural, but an awareness of the rhetorical methods used in dealing with the imperfection of her aging face and body that were decaying in accordance with natural laws even as they continued to be invested with the awe-inspiring power of a sovereign.37 It is, after all, this power that urges and enables the ultimate redeeming of Elizabeth’s physical shortcomings. Virtually all descriptions converge on one inevitable point: whatever one can say about the details of Elizabeth’s face and body, everyone reports her, to rephrase Lear, every inch a queen. She is “stately,” “majestic,” “dignified, serious, and royal,” 38 has “a dignified and regal bearing,” 39 and is “of stately and majestic comportment.” 40 A great deal of this majesty emanates from her face. Bacon praises Elizabeth’s “countenance in the highest degree majestic and yet sweet.” 41 Hentzner dramatizes an almost Medusa-like effect

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of Elizabeth’s features on everyone around her: “Wherever she turned her Face, as she was going along, everybody fell down on their knees.” 42 If the scrutiny of the queen’s face yields results often disappointing, the impulse to compensate for this imperfection culminates in admiration of her regal bearing. It is her majestic demeanor that redeems the plainness or even unattractiveness of her face and creates a queenly countenance, one independent of the vicissitudes of age. With a subtle turn of a phrase, her ordinary features are transformed into majesty. Once Elizabeth is granted her “stately and majestic comportment,” the magnificence of her body politic veils and redeems the imperfections of her body natural. The process of this consistent redeeming of the queen’s imperfect features, however, is interesting not only in its pervasiveness among both foreign and domestic descriptions of the queen, but even more in its employment of reverse psychology that Elizabeth herself habitually used in her promptings for compliments. In this process, both the verbal portrait and the actual sight of her wrinkled face and bosom, hooked nose, and yellow teeth cease to be dangerous to her public identity. Instead, her appearance is absorbed by the system of the collective fashioning of the aging queen. Thus, Elizabeth seems to be paving the way for her own descriptions with her regal comportment and clever conversation, helping her observers to reconcile the discrepancy between her two bodies. As I will discuss in the next two chapters, a similar process of redeeming and neutralizing of her aging appearance takes place in literature and portraiture representing the queen. Despite their apparent unreliability, descriptions of Elizabeth by her contemporaries constitute important documentary evidence of how she appeared in life. However, as we have seen, these accounts are far from objective attestation of Elizabeth’s looks; instead, they register the mixed signals whirling around the queen’s physical and metaphorical person, and thus should be read with an eye for politically charged signs that transpire in their rhetoric. In the end, it is the edge and proportion of positive and negative remarks that allow estimating each writer’s political position. Meanwhile, the rhetorical maneuvering evident in these descriptions suggests that the observers, regardless of their political differences, are caught in the same discursive predicaments. As the paucity of Elizabeth’s domestic descriptions may teach us, some things are better left untold.

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“When she smiled, it was a pure sunshine” 43: The Expressive Life of Elizabeth’s Face Qui nescit dissimulare, nescit regnare.

Elizabeth’s visage was looked to not only for the shape and color of its particular features (a highly unstable method that engaged either personal taste or possibly even the pseudo-scientific postulates such as those offered by physiognomic treatises) but also for the information that required a highly intuitive and yet culturally determined reading: its expression. The dynamic life of Elizabeth’s face is what escapes us in most of her state portraits. Her commanding expression forever pins the viewer down in a motionless silence. Looking at these portraits, we may sympathize with one of Mary I’s ladies-in-waiting, Jane Dormer, who noted that, even at thirteen, Elizabeth’s “proud and disdainful” expression “much blemished the handsomeness and beauty of her person.” 44 Her contemporaries, however, frequently commented on their queen’s “gracious and gentle” demeanor45 and her smiles that warmed the hearts of the onlookers. Sadness, joy, anger: these and many other emotions were not only detected in her visage, but noted in various accounts of personal encounters with the monarch. On the basic human level, Elizabeth’s facial expressions afforded her interlocutors and onlookers an opportunity to read her current state of mind, a possibility that to us may seem more reliable than physiognomic or aesthetic probing of her features and complexion for hidden meanings. Yet, Elizabeth was hardly “so simple” (one of her favorite phrases in her letters and speeches) as to let her face function as an immediate index of her mind.46 The remainder of this chapter deals with the queen’s face as a living entity whose motions and expressions transmit a wide variety of signals. Following the example of Erasmus in his description of More, my method blurs the distinction between disposition and interiority; I will additionally conflate the categories of “feeling” (the early modern term for emotion) and mind, thereby constructing interiority as inclusive of both thoughts and emotions.47 As discussed in the introduction, a face has two prominent states, stasis and motion, and it is in the latter state that a face is to some degree trainable, susceptible to its owner’s control and fashioning. One cannot change the shape of one’s lips, but one can choose to grant or withhold a smile. Then again, one may choose to let the smile play on one’s face not because it is strategic, but because it

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came from genuine joy within. Yet, allowing a genuine smile to remain can be a strategic decision itself. How could then a facial expression be trusted for a glimpse of the hidden emotions, innermost thoughts and intentions? In his book Pictures of the Body, James Elkins succinctly summarizes the dissimilar ways the above issue was approached in the Middle Ages and Renaissance. In the earlier period, the doctrine of the occulta cordis postulates that the heart is obscured from view; facial expressions are perceived as a sign of the symbolic connection of body and soul. The Renaissance, by contrast, brings about the awareness that homo interior and homo exterior are essentially separate from each other. 48 As Berger demonstrates, the ancient credo of physiognomy, “the face is the index of the mind,” survives well into the early modern period despite “a historical record in which . . . the highly evolved skills of homo hypocriticus have been documented from the beginning.” 49 Berger observes that, in early modern Europe, this old formula is finally challenged50 by what he calls “the credo of physiognomic skepticism” 51 that revises the old assumption as follows, “the face is the index of the mind’s ability to make the face (appear to be) the index of the mind.”52 The turning point, according to Berger, is registered in De civilitate morum puerlium (1530), Erasmus’ treatise that provides schoolboys with some useful advice on manners. It is here that the relationship between the referent (mind) and sign (face) begins to be seen as a two-way exchange: the face no longer has to be a passive reflection of one’s thoughts and emotions, but, with due skill, may actually be composed in a particular way that will, in turn, reconfigure one’s inner disposition. Although Erasmus’ supposition is mostly ethical (one’s inner character may actually be shaped by the external signs that one is able to manipulate), the prescriptive character of his work points to the new understanding that the face not just is but should be a reflection of the mind (and sometimes the mind may actually change to accommodate the facial expression). The wistfulness of this should be dislodges the dated reliability of the mind-face relationship. The predicament, however, lies in the ambivalence of this correspondence: however inconsistent, the connection still continues to be possible; the new credo does not assure us that “the outward man always conceal[s] or misrepresent[s] the inner; the problem is that sometimes it doesn’t and sometimes it does.” 53 Of course, the belief that the soul sometimes manifests itself in the face has been quite common at the time: William

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Shakespeare’s Hamlet, for example, resolves to “rivet” his eyes to King Claudius’ face in order to perceive his uncle’s reaction to the performance of The Mousetrap.54 Richard III’s outward deformity reflects and betrays his warped soul. Nevertheless, distrust of appearances permeates Elizabethan culture. Hamlet refers, among other outward signs of grief, to the “dejected haviour of the visage,” when he dismisses these signs as insufficient manifestations of his inwardness: “But I have that within which passeth show.” 55 This failing link becomes outright sinister when facial activity is purposefully forged to convey a disposition opposite to what lies within; one, like Claudius, “may smile and smile and be a villain.” 56 In the mid-seventeenth century, a commonplace book records the same sentiment with proverbial directness: “some there are can smile without friendship and weep without charity.” 57 The culture of Elizabeth’s court in particular invited the use of strategic deceit that, in turn, necessitated awareness of widespread dissimulation. In The Arte of English Poesie, for instance, George Puttenham expounds the principles of courtly dissemblance and advocates their use for would-be poets.58 An experienced courtier, Francis Bacon records practical advice for reading the faces of one’s interlocutors and manipulating the conversation by carefully controlling one’s own facial expressions.59 Addressing the challenges of social interactions, Bacon counsels: It is a point of cunning to wait upon him with whom you speak, with your eye, as the Jesuits give it in precept; for there be many wise men that have secret hearts and transparent countenances. Yet this would be done with a demure abasing of your eye sometimes, as the Jesuits also do use.60

In his discussion of dissimulation, Bacon argues that a “habit of secrecy is both politic and moral.” He adds, “And in this part it is good that a man’s face give his tongue leave to speak. For the discovery of a man’s self by the tracts of his countenance is a great weakness and betraying, by how much it is many times more marked and believed than a man’s words.” 61 It is especially important that Bacon raises the issue of facial dissimulation in both essays explicitly concerned with the tactics of veiling and concealment. His prescriptions and observations make it clear that the face is considered a tool suitable for conscious rhetorical maneuvering in social and political situations. Furthermore, it is

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not simply an instrument that one may choose to use or let it rest in the toolbox of communicative opportunities. A face is always in use, and it is up to its owner to remember to use it responsibly. For Bacon, a face is not to be left alone to transmit signals involuntarily; to do so is a “great weakness and betraying.” And because people often trust a person’s face more than words, one must strive to bring one’s facial expression to accord with one’s speech, so as not to undermine the meaning of his or her verbal signification. A face, therefore, must be subordinate to language. Its own system of signification must be either neutralized so as not to betray one’s mind, or rearranged so as to project the emotional content proper to one’s utterances. Contemporary accounts confirm that Elizabeth was an expert in using her face to gain advantage in social situations. Although at times she professed her integrity while accusing others of dissimulation,62 her credo was that of “physiognomic skepticism” not only in relation to the others, but also, albeit covertly, in her own facial dynamics. At age fifteen, she disbelieved that, in the portrait she was sending to her brother, her “inward good mind toward [Edward VI] might as well be declared as the outward face and countenance shall be seen.” Her famous remark in the same letter seemingly reiterates this credo: “For the face, I grant, I might well blush to offer, but the mind I shall never be ashamed to present.” 63 While reasserting the face-mind duality, however, the young Elizabeth seeks to reverse the outward and the inward, the visible face and the invisible mind. She declares her readiness to lay her mind open to view and indicates her embarrassment and even reluctance to “offer” her countenance for Edward’s perusal. Because Elizabeth chooses a verb so tightly associated with the face, blush, to describe her attitude to displaying her visage, it is impossible to pinpoint the precise nature of her position. According to the OED, the figurative meaning of the verb blush is “to be ashamed,” but its colorful evocation of facial blushing, especially in Elizabeth’s phrasing where it appears in proximity to the very word face, is almost inseparable from the primary meaning “to become red in the face, (usually) from shame or modesty.” Although the syntactic parallel balances “blushing” with “being ashamed,” there remains a component of blushing as a sign of modesty and shamefastness. Elizabeth, therefore, may be reluctant to show her face out of modesty while thinking her face to be good-looking, or out

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of shame because she is aware of its imperfections. The reference to blushing, this praised sign of maidenly honor, much discussed in early modern texts, serves to bring color to the girl’s face, making her visage momentarily alive and visible even as it asserts Elizabeth’s shamefastness and desire to withhold her countenance from perusal. Elizabeth’s reference to her face, therefore, is a pithy epitome of the complex and contradictory attitudes and meaning-making for which her face becomes a focal point: self-display and self-withdrawal, compliance with (in communicating her modesty) and subversion of gender-driven expectations (by using blush figuratively), and the necessity to account for the fragility of treacherous mind-face relationship. In the elegant writing by the adolescent Elizabeth, the game promising to conceal while actually revealing and vice versa, so characteristic of Elizabeth the monarch, has already begun. As queen, she lived under the scrutinizing gaze of her subjects and, knowing that her “life [was] in the open,” 64 chose to embrace this circumstance as a part of her royal personality. The politics of representation of Elizabeth’s “inner man” through the external signification became a vital channel in the support system that sustained her growing success as a monarch. Her supposed inwardness that was signified in this process, however, was again a construction engineered to play into the same support system: a construction that sometimes was and sometimes was not the truth. Elizabeth’s realization of the outright necessity to compose herself found a unique outlet in her poem “On Monsieur’s Departure” (c. 1582) that, among other issues, ponders the separation of her public and private selves or, more precisely, the intentional rupture between the external signifiers and the inward signified. I grieve and dare not show my discontent; I love, and yet am forced to seem to hate; I do, yet dare not say I ever meant; I seem stark mute, but inwardly do prate. I am and not; I freeze and yet am burned, Since from myself another self I turned.65

Likely influenced by the description of the contradictory feelings in Gaius Vaelrius Catullus’ “Carmen 85” (“I hate and I love . . .”), the

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speaker in Elizabeth’s poem separates the inwardly experienced emotion and outwardly performed attitude. This poem reads as a confession of Elizabeth’s hidden discomposure and a disclosure of the speaker’s deliberate dissimulation that is, in turn, presented as forced rather than voluntary (“dare not show,” “forced to seem,” “dare not say”). The reverse side of courtly necessity of making up appearances was the attitude of suspicion, and Elizabeth repeatedly found herself on either side of distrust: suspecting the others or being suspected by them. The double-edged suspicion figures prominently in two of Elizabeth’s early poems written in Woodstock and Windsor: “Much suspected by me . . .” and “No crooked leg.” 66 In these texts as well as in their contexts, suspicion underlines the anxiety of interpretation of appearances and protects the essences from discovery.67 The dissimulation attested to in “On Monsieur’s Departure” is presented as an imposition from without rather than the speaker’s personal choice, and the ultimate aim of her pretense appears to be clear: she must protect her reputation from suspicion. However, when the speaker confesses (presumably, to Monsieur) that she “shows” passions opposite to the ones felt and “seems” to be hateful while hiding her love, she may be rewriting the situation to protect herself from being accused by her beloved: in the culture permeated by physiognomic skepticism, how would one know for sure whether the queen is in love and hiding it by means of outward show of hatred, or indeed cannot wait to be rid of her tiresome suitor? The history of Elizabeth’s bewildering relationship with Alençon (the Monsieur) certainly has room for both explanations. This poem’s appeal, however, lies in the apparent intimacy of its contents. In fact, it constitutes a private counterpart to Elizabeth’s public declaration that princes “are set on stages.” As she put herself on display, the queen was aware of being watched at all times by inquisitive eyes that were often suspicious. Similarly to the eyewitness descriptions of her features, the surviving testimonies about Elizabeth’s facial expression seem to be conditioned by the political agenda of the witnesses, especially when the reports are written by foreign ambassadors. Although Elizabeth’s visitors looked closely at her facial expression, the issue of dissimulation was never far from their minds. Not surprisingly, the distrustful viewers expected to be deceived by the queen and thus were prepared to see any facial expression as suspect. We will probably never know whether James Melville, the ambassador of

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Mary Queen of Scots in the early 1560s, had real or only imaginary friends who informed him of Elizabeth’s supposed insincerity: it is not certain whether the reported event had taken place or the yarn has been crafted by Melville to make a point about the English queen’s duplicity. Yet he chose to record the following story (and probably reported it to Mary Stuart), complete with the behind-the-scenes details that exposed Elizabeth’s facial expressions as grossly counterfeit. According to Melville’s memoirs, he initially shared the news of Prince James’ birth with William Cecil, bidding the latter to keep it a secret: Melville preferred to deliver the report to the queen personally. Impatient, Cecil, however, whispered the news to the merrily dancing Elizabeth, whose “mirth was laid aside for that night; all present marveling whence proceeded such a change; for the Queen did sit down, putting her hand under her cheek, bursting out to some of her ladies, that the Queen of Scots was mother of a fair son, while she was but barren stock.” Next morning, on his way to see Elizabeth in Greenwich, Melville met by some friends who told . . . how sorrowful her Majesty was at my news; but that she had been advised to show a glad and cheerful countenance: which she did, in her best apparel, saying, that the joyful news of the Queen her sister’s delivery of a fair son, which I had sent her by secretary Cecil, had recovered her out of heavy sickness which she had lyen under for fifteen days.68

This is the perspective of an ambassador who, after his previous visit to the English court, reported to Mary Stuart that “there was neither plain dealing, nor upright meaning; but great dissimulation, emulation and fear.” 69 In this narrative and his other stories, Melville’s mindset is invariably tuned to distrust Elizabeth’s words and actions; here, however, the ambassador places a specific emphasis upon Elizabeth’s deceitfully “glad and cheerful countenance.” Moreover, according to this narration, the devious English queen not only faked her joy but also needed advice to do so. Likewise, the French Ambassador la Mothe Fenelon reported that, upon being informed of the death of Charles IX, Elizabeth “composed her face very strongly to grief and dolor” and immediately hinted that another marriage proposal from Henri III, the new king, was not unexpected.70 Inferences in this group of testimonies, unlike Melville’s narrative, rely on the assumption that

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Elizabeth is fully in control of her face: she purposefully composes it in certain ways. In consequence of political tension, “physiognomic skepticism” becomes a favored approach to imagining the English queen’s inwardness: her facial expression is not believed to alter in accordance with her disposition, and thus the relationship between face and state of mind/emotion is presumably severed. Biased reports of this kind discount the value of Elizabeth’s facial demeanor as a window to her heart, reducing observations of her expressions to those of an insincere theatrical performance. Even though these ambassadors are determined to remain unconvinced by the queen’s facial rhetoric, their testimonies demonstrate that she controls her countenance and can “compose” and “show” it at her will. These accounts also suggest, however, that Elizabeth’s facial performances are not completely naturalized, but instead draw attention to their theatricality. When she was an adolescent princess, she apparently was not yet adroit in composing her face as a text she intended for others to read. Sir Robert Tyrwhit, who repeatedly examined Elizabeth on the charges of her conspiracy with Thomas Seymour, wrote in exasperation: “I see by her face she is guilty, yet she will abide more storms ere she will accuse Mrs. Ashley.” 71 A little later, in 1554, the Spanish Ambassador Simon Renard ventured to decipher Elizabeth’s real emotions, also presuming with confidence that her face was nothing but a mask: “She had her litter open to show herself to the people, and her pale face kept a proud, haughty expression in order to mask her vexation.” 72 Elizabeth’s haughtiness, however, was noted by many observers. It could have been a part of her personality, but the fact that the queen chose not to conceal it points to the use of her demeanor as a strategic disposition calculated to emphasize her royal status.73 Perhaps the best performance of indignation and sorrow that Elizabeth put on was her famed reaction to the execution of Mary Queen of Scots in 1587, and, even if Elizabeth was sincere, it is as performance that her behavior on that occasion came to be remembered in history. Elizabeth’s devoted biographer William Camden described her dramatic response as follows: “her Countenance altered, her Speech faultered and failed her; and through excessive Sorrow she stood in a manner astonished; insomuch that she gave herself over to passionate Grief, putting herself into mourning Habit, and shedding abundance of Tears.” 74 This scene of the queen’s distress was apparently well known. Robert Carey,

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relating Elizabeth’s indisposition shortly before death, compared it to her grief over Mary Stuart’s beheading: “. . . in her discourse she fetched not so few as forty or fifty great sighes. I was grieved at the first to see her in this plight; for in all my lifetime before I never knew her fetch a sigh, but when the Queene of Scottes was beheaded. Then upon my knowledge she shedd many tears and sighes, manifesting her innocence that she never gave consent to the death of that Queene.” 75 Whether he witnessed the 1587 scene himself or heard others’ renditions of it, Carey has absorbed both the depth of Elizabeth’s reaction and the overtones of theatricality that subtly bring her sincerity to question: the signs of her grief are said to “manifest[ . . . ] her innocence” instead of confirming that her reasons for grieving were humane rather than legal or political. Elizabeth’s face was watched for the signs of her reaction both in private and in public. Her first major public performance as queen took place in the procession through London the day before her coronation. While she was listening to the welcoming oration, [h]ere was noted in the Queen’s Majesty’s countenance, during the time that the child spoke, besides a perpetual attentiveness in her face, a marvelous change in look, as the child’s words touched either her person or the people’s tongues and hearts. So that she with rejoicing visage did evidently declare that the words took no less place in her mind than they were most heartily pronounced by the child, as from all the hearts of her most hearty citizens.76

Although the “marvelous change in look” escapes words, it appears that Elizabeth lit up and showed a “rejoicing visage.” The occasion indeed was a happy one, and the young queen spared no good cheer and benevolence as the city hailed her in adoration. Admittedly, as Judith Richards points out, the account in The Passage is a crafted record of the actual event, “devised as an important preface of the new queen to all her subjects, not just the people lining the streets of the City of London,” and, therefore, Elizabeth’s reactions described in this record, whether accurately or not, serve political purposes in perpetuating a royal persona she wished to project.77 Even a single smile was noted, and its meaning was pondered by the onlookers. “In Cheapside her Grace smiled, and being thereof demanded the cause, answered for that she had heard one say, ‘Remember old king Henry the Eighth.’ A natural child,

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which at the very remembrance of her father’s name took so great a joy, that all men may well think that as she rejoiced at his name whom this realm doth hold of so worthy memory: so in her doings she will resemble the same.” 78 From her first step on the road of rulership, Elizabeth knew how to turn a fleeting smile into a lasting political statement. Her eager subjects appeared all too ready to assist her. Foreigners, on the other hand, were skeptical about the propriety of Elizabeth’s expressiveness. Il Schifanoya,79 upon seeing Elizabeth on January 15, 1559, directly after her coronation, remarked: “She returned very cheerfully with a most smiling countenance for every one, giving them all a thousand greetings, so that in my opinion she exceeded the bounds of gravity and decorum.” 80 The same smile that gladdened the crowd ready to greet the newly anointed queen caused resentment and even a charge of impropriety from the outsider. Elizabeth was generous with her smiles in public, and many times witnesses rejoiced to see her “cheerful countenance.” 81 It was indeed the most effective way to assure the people of her welcoming disposition, and her smiles and friendly gestures could be seen at a greater distance than her voice could be heard. She held up “her hands and merry countenance to such as stood far off, and most tender and gentle language to those that stood nigh to her grace.” 82 Elizabeth’s smile was, as John Harington put it, a “pure sun-shine, that everyone did chuse to baske in, if they could,” 83 but these smiles were granted strategically, and frequently served the queen’s purposes in ways known only to those close to her. Christopher Hatton understood that she used her smiles as “so sweet a bait, that no one could escape her network,” and John Harington recalled that he had “seen her smile, soothe with great semblance of good liking to all around, and cause every one to open his most inward thought to her; when, on a sudden, she would ponder in private on what had passed, write down all their opinions, draw them out as occasion required, and sometime disprove to their faces what had been delivered a month before.” 84 Hatton’s and Harington’s remarks about the concealed significance of Elizabeth’s smile are not reproving because they do not suggest a hidden evil disposition. Instead, they testify to the subtlety of her use of smiling to political ends, particularly for gathering information: she fishes for people’s inward thoughts, using her smile to create “great semblance of good liking” and put the others at ease.

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Hatton’s metaphor of fish- or game-catching and Harington’s remarks on Elizabeth’s act of soul-fishing communicate the queen’s underlying purpose that extends beyond merely charming those who meet her in person, but leads instead to a potential entrapment. Though “sweet,” her smile is a “bait.” These glimpses in Elizabeth’s everyday behavior throw into relief Bacon’s famous statement about the queen “not liking . . . to make windows into men’s hearts and secret thoughts, except the abundance of them did overflow into overt and express acts and affirmations.” 85 However vigilant the queen had been in strategic use of her facial rhetoric, there have certainly been many occurrences of permitted sincerity: the privileged few who spent a significant amount of time in Elizabeth’s presence record instances of the apparent agreement between her face and mind. Her behavior on one important occasion was recorded in the private notes of Harington who accompanied the Earl of Essex on the latter’s unsanctioned return from Ireland in 1599. Essex disobeyed orders to suppress rebellion in Ireland and came back to London, bursting unexpected into Elizabeth’s bedchamber at Nonsuch Palace; charges were brought against him in June 1600, the rift between the Earl and the Queen leading to Essex’ ill-fated rebellion on February 8, 1601. In the days following Essex’ return from Ireland, Harington described the indignant and restless Elizabeth walking about improperly attired, stamping her feet, keeping her sword close by, and looking “with discomposure in her visage.” 86 “Every message from the city does disturb her, and she frowns on all the Ladies.” 87 Harington himself was sent away with a frown, and only a few days later called back, rebuked, and pardoned.88 Similarly, two months after Essex’s return from Ireland, Harington wrote to his wife that he found his queen “in most pitiable state:” “She lookede up with much choler and greife in her countenance, and saide, ‘Oh, nowe it mindeth me that you was one who saw this manne [Essex] elsewhere’:—and hereat, she droppede a teare, and smote her bosome.” 89 For this courtier, it would seem, her face was a fairly reliable indicator of her mood. The most metaphoric and intimate description of the eloquence of this countenance comes from Harington as well: “When she smiled, it was pure sunshine, that everyone chuse to baske in, if they could; but anon came a storm from a sudden gathering of clouds, and the thunder fell in wondrous manner on all alike.” 90 Such statement suggests Elizabeth’s ability to communicate her

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disposition in no uncertain terms. Harington’s weather metaphors evoking his queen’s smiles and frowns and eventually her thundering voice are reminiscent of the Ditchley portrait of Elizabeth (figure 12). Posed atop the map of England, she towers over the world, the sun shining behind her right shoulder, lightning raging in the darkened sky over her left. Elizabeth’s face is fully lit and placed off the center of the line dividing the light and darkness, the sunshine and storm. Her face seems to belong almost entirely to the sunny portion of the painting, and there is just a hint of a smile in the left corner of her mouth. Yet, her raised brows and inquisitive gaze communicate the readiness and power to command the storm just as surely as this face can bring the sun from behind the clouds. These glimpses of Elizabeth’s personality through the depictions of her facial expressions are dramatically different from the startling account of the queen’s condition in the last days of her life. This account by a French ambassador, Count de Beaumont, pictures a face void of consciousness, still but not restful: she “appeared in a manner insensible . . . holding her finger almost continually in her mouth, with her eyes open and fix’d on the ground, where she sat upon cushions without rising or resting herself, and was greatly emaciated by her long watching and fasting.”91 This staring countenance, in which the mind-face connection seems to be completely severed, almost paradoxically transcends the need for “physiognomic skepticism.” *

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Whether it is her physical self-display, frequent enigmatic expression of her thoughts in her speeches and poems, or a witness’s account of her appearance and actions, both verbal and physical modes of Elizabeth’s self-representation contain a tension between her tendency to veil her meanings through obfuscation and her policy of displaying herself. Concealment and display are intertwined in virtually all of her moves; at times, the concealment itself is deliberately exhibited while at others it is only implicitly present in the apparently sincere show. For this reason, the politics of veiling and masking in various representations of Elizabeth as she appeared in person are always infused with the possibility that the mask, at least partially, may be truthful. Because of its high visibility and expressiveness, a

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face consistently attracts the eye and invites interpretation. For the same reasons, it becomes a site of potential dissimulation. Tension and uncertainty in Elizabeth’s representations stem both from the empirical plausibility of mind-face correspondence and the credo of physiognomic skepticism that destabilizes this link and yet puts its possibility to practical use. Except for Elizabeth’s remark in the letter to her brother Edward, the evidence examined in this chapter mediates Elizabeth’s self-representation. She appears, in the testimonies of those who encountered her in person, as a woman put willingly on display. By offering her face to be viewed without mediation, Elizabeth becomes paradoxically both vulnerable and empowered. The onlookers are free to objectify her in their observations, evaluating and judging her features; they are equally free to be skeptical in interpretation of her smiles and frowns, even though every written account is molded by its own constrictions and obligations. Yet Elizabeth’s undeniable charisma is inseparable, in the social context, from her skill of using the power of her face to maneuver her way on both solemn and routine occasions: the queen’s majesty shields her imperfect face from severe criticism or ridicule; her expressions put nonverbal communication to precise political ends. This skill is reflected in the testimonies that document, if not exactly what Elizabeth looked like, at least the ways her face impressed and affected those in her personal presence. In other words, they show not how she was in reality, but how she wished herself to appear. In the personal descriptions discussed in this chapter documenting Elizabeth’s face proves to be a task fraught with ambiguity. Erasmus turned his phrases and changed his emphases in search for the precise words to describe More’s looks and personality traits so as not to misrepresent his friend’s character. Similarly, those who described Elizabeth attempted to interpret and verbalize her countenance and disposition. At the site where language met the body in order to create a document of the queen’s appearance, the rhetorical moves in these documents show the writers’ awareness of the difficulty of this task. The next chapter will examine descriptions and nondescriptions of Elizabeth in literature, by poets and fiction writers fully aware of a potential inadequacy of language and the dangers of a poor description of a sovereign.

CHAPTER 4

“MIRRORS MORE THAN ONE”: ELIZABETH’S LITERARY FACES

. . . All wisdome, beautie, maiestie and dread, Wrought in the speaking pourtrait of thy face . . . —George Chapman, Hymnvs in Cynthiam [8–9]1

She shall haue no defect, but hee shall disguise it with some terme of sweetning. If her complexion bee blacke, hee shall say it is browne, and that such was the greatest part of the beauties which antiquity did admire. If she had red hayre, hee will allow of the iudgment of the Italians and other Nations which loue them so, and that of the most dainty and amorous Poets, who neuer brag of any hayre but of this colour. If shee be too leane or too little, she will be so much the more actiue and nimble; if too fat, it will be gracefull: the excesse in height will passe for the stature of a Queen or Amazon; and in that end hee will couer euery imperfection with the perfection that is nearest vnto it. —Nicolas Faret, The honest man: or, The art to please at court 2

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ow does an early modern subject describe the face of a living queen? Classical rhetoric advises that, as a part of the body, the face may be praised under the rubric of the “gifts of the body”3 or omitted altogether, especially if the writer subscribes to Cicero’s belief that “the external or personal gifts of fortune do not in themselves contain any true ground for praise, which is held to be due to virtue alone.”4 Yet, in attempting a description of one’s queen, it might not be entirely politic to reduce her to abstractions. As Edmund Spenser famously expounded in the apparatus of The Faerie Queene, Elizabeth was both a “most royall Queene or Empresse” and a “most vertuous and

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beautifull Lady.”5 The most effective eulogy for Elizabeth, therefore, would join praise to the beautiful woman and tribute to the accomplished queen, thereby issuing a combined compliment to the two bodies of a monarch.6 A poet had a wide variety of tropes to complete the first task, but giving praise to the monarch without losing sight of her femininity was a trickier business. One had to find a symbol of political power that would also possess a cache as a symbol of beauty, such as the lion or dragon, images traditionally associated with the masculine power of the English throne. For sixteenth-century writers, the Tudor rose proved to be ideal for this purpose. In tropes drawn from heraldry, Elizabeth’s poets found an effective means of conveying both her personal and royal essences through a singular fusion of description and symbolism, in Elizabeth’s face, of her body politic and her body natural. The instances of this heraldic metaphor, however, are few. In addressing the subject of Elizabeth’s appearance, however, a writer was less likely to offer a detailed description of her features in a blazon than take an elaborate recourse to the topos of poetic indescribability. Radical polarity of these solutions accentuates the seriousness of the challenge and hints at its inherent problems. While refusal to describe Elizabeth’s face suggests, among other things, the preeminence of her body politic, a full blazon, despite its rhetorical potency, also ends up avoiding the portrayal of her body natural.7

“No pen can paint thy commendation due” :8 The Limits of Representation Epideictic recourse to the topos of poetic indescribability is a popular remedy in early modern literature of praise. In William Shakespeare’s Othello, Cassio’s nondescription of Desdemona is an elegant example that belittles the efforts of “blazoning pens” and rings the familiar bell of competition between nature and art. . . . a maid That paragons description and wild fame, One that excels the quirks of blazoning pens, And in th’essential vesture of creation Does tire the engineer.9

Likewise, in The Twelfth Night, Olivia refuses to hear Orsino’s poetical praises of her beauty because she suspects such praise “is

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the more like to be feigned”10 (and the epigraph to this chapter from Nicolas Faret confirms her suspicions); Olivia then takes her skepticism even further by mocking what Cassio terms the “quirks of blazoning pens” in a mundane inventory of her beauty. In this sense, refusal to portray a woman is located at the opposite end of the representational spectrum from composition of an elaborately descriptive “five-fold blazon.”11 Pleading indescribability, however, does not automatically relieve a writer of the set of concerns that have necessitated such a plea. Compounding this difficulty for writers in the case of Elizabeth, early modern society inherited the late medieval view of an anointed monarch as God’s representative on earth, and some degree of attribution of divine qualities to a sovereign permeated the contemporary discourse of rulership. In particular, there lay an extension of two theological precepts: the Pauline concept that God’s face cannot be seen by the living12 and the Protestant iconoclastic belief that the face and body of God is a visual taboo. Professions of inadequacy are also transparent instances of sprezzatura: a writer’s conventional self-dismissal and apology for his lack of skill, a rhetorical strategy reaching beyond Castiglione’s rules of courtly conduct and grounded in the classic rhetoric of praise. Rather than diminish the writer’s reputation, such disavowal aims to augment suggestively the subject’s excellence.13 However, while the impulse to avoid describing Elizabeth’s face altogether is evident in many writers of the period, the causes of such impulse are not limited to a male writer’s desire to create a compliment at the expense of his medium, but are often rooted in a genuine concern about the inadequacy of the author’s personal verbal skill and an equally authentic fear of Elizabeth’s reaction if his attempted description should fail to please. The scruples of John Lyly, who left the most eloquent statement on his difficulty in representing his queen in words, are especially pertinent to the examination of this issue, not least because of the convenience afforded by Lyly’s other musings (even if tongue-incheek) on the matter of faithful representation, including that of monarchs. From the very first line of his dedication to Sir William West of his Euphues: The Anatomy of Wit (1578), Lyly flaunts his artistic integrity in a lecture on “perfect” portrayal: Parrhasius drawing the cou˜terfait of Helen (right honourable) made the attire of hir head loose, who being demanded why he

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The Face of Queenship did so, he aunswered, she was loose. Vulcan was painted curiously, yet with a polt foote. Læda cu˜ningly, yet with hir blacke haire. Alexander having a scar in his cheeke, held his finger upon it, that Appelles might not paint it, Appelles painted him with his finger cleaving to his face, why quod Alexander, I laid my finger on my scarre bicause I would not have thee see it, (yea sayd Appelles) and I drew it there bicause none els should perceive it, for if thy finger had ben away, either thy scarre would have been seene, or my art misliked: whereby I gather, that in all perfect workes, as well the fault as the face is to be showen. . . . in every counterfaite as well the blemish as the beautie is coloured . . . 14

Lyly’s commentators have noted that the stories of Parrhasius and, even more significantly, Appelles, are Lyly’s own invention, among a host of other pseudofactual exempla concocted by the author in support of his numerous witty pronouncements. For Arthur Kinney, this untruth entails an “implied duplicity” in Lyly’s narrative, especially because it is from this made-up story that the author derives the artistic principle of “perfect works”: “as well the fault as the face is to be shown.” As Kinney points out, Lyly’s choice “for good art is neither strategic nor even voluntary but ‘the necessity of the history.’ ”15 Certain circularity is then built in Lyly’s argument. His choice to support an argument for perfect representation with fake or fictional examples implies that the mimetic element may be irrelevant, that the relationship between subject and representation is less important than the resulting image itself. Lyly’s demand for accuracy in artistic representation, however, is no less important than the fraudulence of his argumentation. For it is one thing to assume the pose of brutal honesty in imitation of the faithful artists who depicted famous rulers, philosophers, and beauties of the past—and quite another to exercise such frankness in respect of the flaws of a living prince who holds an all too real power over the author’s fortunes. There is no direct mention of Elizabeth so far. Instead, Lyly discourses on the scar on Alexander’s cheek and Cyrus’s hooked nose that, in contrast to his high forehead, is apparently an undesirable feature, even in a man. This image nevertheless has been disseminated by his loving people: “The Persians, who above all their kings most honoured Cyrus, caused him to be engrave¯ aswel with his hoked nose, as his high forehead.”16 Scars, hooked nose, high forehead: all these are subtle references to Elizabeth’s individual face. The nature of these references is not necessarily

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positive, but neither is it unquestionably disapproving. Lyly may have seen the traces of smallpox on Elizabeth’s cheeks, or he may be paying a compliment to the queen’s miraculously unmarred complexion. Likewise, the admiring nod to Elizabeth’s high forehead carefully accentuated by a receding hairline, in the context of an implicit comparison to another “most honoured” king Cyrus, may be made in order to counterbalance her hooked nose, or it may be given as an additional praise to the ruler whose nose is so imperceptibly hooked that it does not merit such harsh description. Whether, at the time Lyly composed this dedication in 1578, he anticipated the ultimate task of describing his own queen in a “counterfaite [where] as well the blemish as the beautie is coloured,” or whether the thought did not occur to him until the success of Euphues: The Anatomy of Wit gave Lyly an incentive to write a sequel, Euphues and his England (1580), he undoubtedly left here the principles to be reckoned with in such a precarious endeavor. However, with only two years separating Lyly’s two books, chances are that he did have an inkling that he would soon dare to step into Apelles’ shoes and immortalize his Alexander; except when the time came, Lyly shifted gears and opted rather to play a Zeuxis to his Venus: Touching the beautie of this Prince, hir countenaunce, hir personage, hir maiestie, I can-not thinke that it may be sufficiently commended, when it can-not be too much meruailed at: So that I am constrayned to saye as Praxitiles did when he beganne to paint Venus and hir sonne, who doubted, whether the worlde coulde affoorde coulours good enough for two such fayre faces, and I whether our tongue canne yielde woordes to blase that beautie, the perfection where-of none canne imagine, which seeing it is so, I must do like those that want a cleere sight, who being not able to discerne the Sunne in the Skye, are inforced to beholde it in the water, Zeuxis having before him fiftie fayre virgins of Sparta where-by to drawe one amiable Venus, sayde, that fiftie more fayrer then those could not minister sufficient beautie to shewe the godesse of beautie, therefore being in dispayre either by Arte to shadowe hir, or by immagination to comprehende hir, he drewe in a table a fayre Temple, the gates open, and Venus going in, so as nothing coulde be perceiued but hir backe, wherein he used such cunning, that Appelles himselfe seeing this worke, wished that Venus woulde turne hir face, saying, that if it were in all partes agreeable to the backe, hee would become apprentice to Zeuxis,

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The Face of Queenship and slaue to Venus. In the like manner fareth it with mee, for hauing all the Ladies in Italye more then fiftie hundred, whereby to coulour Elizabeth, I must saye with Zeuxis, that as many more will not suffice, and therefore in as great an agonie paint hir court with hir backe towards you, for that I cannot by art portray hir beautie, wherein though I want the skill to doe it as Zeuxis did, yet vewing it narowly and comparing it wisely, you al[l] will say that if hir face be aunswerable to hir backe, you will like my handi-crafte, and become hir handmaides. In the meane season I leaue you gasing, untill she turne hir face, imagining hir to bee such a one as nature framed, to that ende that no arte should imitate, wherein shee hath proved hir selfe to bee exquisite, and Painters to bee Apes.17

What has become of the rule of good art advocated so cunningly in the opening lines of Euphues: The Anatomy of Wit? Where is the “blemish” colored to counterbalance the “beauty?” Where is the “fault” shown that was promised to us as well as the “face”? And, for that matter, where is the face? Does Lyly not only go against his own tenet, but simultaneously modify and exploit the meaning of his earlier words? If, in 1578, he means “face” as an antonym to “fault,” does he now, in reckoning with the “face” in its primary sense, omit it in hopes to justify (or conceal?) his reluctance to show the “fault”? A simple reading between the lines produces just such explanation. Yet the lines themselves are cautious in their immaculate praise of Elizabeth’s perfections. In this somewhat understated example, phrasing and conceptualizing are delicately blended together so as to make the tracing of any unseemly implications a choice taken at the reader’s own risk. Put in G.K. Hunter’s terms, Lyly manages to protect the conscience of the humanist even as the courtier flatters his way to survival.18 The obverse of the matter, however, is flattery rather than reservation. In Euphues and his England, Elizabeth is consistently compared to Venus, and this choice is becoming conventional by the time Lyly ventures to expound it for his purpose. Indeed, I suggest that the emerging association of Elizabeth with the goddess of love and beauty is a direct cause of an amendment of the first Euphues. Namely, the text of the very first printing (issued at Christmas, 1578) makes a fault-finding reference to Venus that disappears without a trace in all subsequent printings and editions.19 Initially, Venus follows Vulcan in the list of examples of truthful portrayals: Lyly intimates that she was painted “cu˜ningly, yet with hir Mole.”20 While the recollection of Venus side by side

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with her husband Vulcan seems natural enough, it is curious that Lyly has decided to substitute Leda for Venus, and use not a mole, but black hair as an example of a blemish. In addition, the mole may also connect this reference to Elizabeth, and it would seem that Lyly realized that an unflattering allusion to Venus and her mole might jeopardize his quest for Elizabeth’s favor. A certain seditious text by Nicholas Sander viciously described Elizabeth’s own mother Anne Boleyn as “handsome to look at,” and yet concealing an ugly mole under her chin.21 Whether the mole, along with a sixth finger on her right hand and “projecting tooth under her upper lip” was a part of the public image of Henry’s unfortunate second wife or Sander’s personal invention, it would seem that Lyly, in planting an unsightly mole on the goddess of impeccable beauty, was besmirching an ideal subject for future flattering comparisons. Yet there exists another reference to Venus’ mark that survives in subsequent editions of Euphues. It is a complimentary allusion that helpfully converts the blemish into a point of attraction. Lyly’s previous demand to show the “fault” seems to be mitigated by the suggestion that visual imperfections in beautiful women are actually quite charming: And true it is that some men write and most men beleeue, that in all perfect shapes, a blemmish bringeth rather a lyking euery way to the eyes, then a loathing any way to the minde. Venus had hir Mole in hir cheeke which made hir more amiable: Helen hir scarre on hir chinne, which Paris called Cos Amoris, the whetstone of loue.22

When Lyly broaches the task of depicting Elizabeth, the discussion is placed outside his own prescription to show “as well the blemish as the beauty,” even more so than his image of Venus whose perfection is undermined, although her beauty is given an intriguing twist. However, while Lyly seems to maneuver around his earlier requirement of a truthful portrayal, even with the qualification that blemishes may often be endearing, how is he to depict his queen’s face and yet save his own? In his answer to this dilemma, Lyly is in numerous company: he refuses to paint.23 Lyly’s solution is an indirect gaze that mitigates the impact of the spectacle presented by the powerful woman’s face: “I must do like those that want a cleere sight, who being not able to discerne

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the Sunne in the Skye, are inforced to beholde it in the water.” The implied danger is that the writer is bedazzled into blindness, and, to avoid this caveat, Lyly decides to follow a clever painter in suggesting Elizabeth’s face by showing her from the back. Why, however, would Lyly choose to imitate Zeuxis, whose famous achievement is known to be a trompe l’oeil: in other words, a superb accuracy of representation rather than clever avoidance of it?24 Moreover, the story of Venus painted with her back to the viewer is a volte-face to Lyly’s own avowal in the preface, “To the Ladies and Gentlewoemen of England”: “When Venus is paynted, we can-not see hir backe, but hir face, so that all other thinges that are to be recounted in loue, Euphues thinketh them to hang at Venus backe in a budget, which bicause hee can-not see, hee will not set downe.”25 Lyly is witty here to use an ordinary technique of portraiture: he will cleverly call the shots as to what parts are placed out of view and thus excused from being addressed. Whereas Zeuxis’ supposed way of depicting the goddess appears to be unique, it still remains in compliance with the commonsense necessity that the unseen part be left out, as well as the artist’s agency in designation of that concealed area. It is clear that Lyly is attracted to Zeuxis’ artistic solution because it allows him both to compliment the queen and save himself from a major artistic exertion and, more importantly, responsibility. Although this trick may not be Lyly’s own invention,26 he solves the dilemma of representing the queen and by so doing brings together two previously mentioned biblical taboos and translates them into the language of courtly compliment. Indeed, the prohibition of gazing at God is twofold: it is both experiential and representational. Most notably, God allows Moses to see his back and not his face,27 even as he hands the prophet a commandment against the worship of graven images. Lyly’s promise to depict Elizabeth’s back in order to suggest her face is likewise related not only to representational difficulties, but also to the circumstances of personal experience. The “Glass,” after all, comes from Euphues’ pen. He does not report any personal interaction with the queen of England. As he dwells on his qualms about the impossibility of depicting her, it becomes more doubtful that this traveler has had the privilege of an audience. While Lyly had waited on Elizabeth at court, Euphues may never have enjoyed a good look at the brilliance he is so eager to praise. Taking this possibility into account throws a new light on all representations of

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Elizabeth: specifically, it may illuminate the different intentions behind the use of convention and help to separate fantasy and political prudence. The texts opting for indescribability often turn to imagination as an alternative. This turn seems to be necessitated by the author’s unfamiliarity with the queen’s exact appearance. It is also Zeuxis’ predicament: he has never seen Venus, and his trick is caused by his “dispayre either by Arte to shadowe hir, or by immagination to comprehende hir.” Although everyone has seen the regal profile stamped on a coin, not many of the poets bidding for Elizabeth’s favor have seen her. Hence their hyperbolic praise results in part from the vagueness of its subject. It would appear that Euphues, after an unsuccessful attempt to persuade the old man to disclose more visual data about Elizabeth, presumably gets to see her well enough from behind to describe her back. Yet some other characters—and writers—have not even this opportunity. For instance, the painter, whose visit to the English court is related in Thomas Churchyard’s lengthy poem, never reaches the queen and is forced to deduce the magnitude of her unseen “sweetness” from the more accessible beauty of her ladies-in-waiting: Where then stood five faire flowers, whose beauty bred disdaine, Who came at certain houres, as nymphs of Dian’s traine. Those goodly Nimphes most gay, like Goddesses divine, In darkest night or day, made all the chamber shine. Dame kinde with collours new, gave them such lively grace, As they had tooke theyr hue, from faire bright Phœbus’ face, If such fair flowrs quoth he, in Presence men may find. In Privey-chamber sure, some faire sweet saints are shrind. The Painter as he might, with that did him content, And wondering at the sight, amazed he homeward went. Where he is drawing still, some works of stranger kind, If this may gaine good-will, for plaine true meaning mind.28

As the painter peeps through the door of the Presence Chamber, the glamor of the five ladies hidden within satisfies his curiosity. His social status prevents him from entering that room, much less the queen’s Privy Chamber, but his artistic imagination completes the leap to the ultimate vision, and he walks away “content” to explore this image in “some works of stranger kind.” To reflect his amazement, the painter’s language is already permeated with the

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evocation of sainthood and divinity. To the deeply religious mentalities of Elizabeth’s contemporaries, the leap from the indescribable to the divine, saintly, or angelic comes only too naturally.29 Has the author actually seen Elizabeth? Elizabethan culture teems with hopefuls, such as Churchyard’s painter, coveting the sight of the English queen. From the ambassadors who rightly expect a private audience and become infuriated when their expectations are not fulfilled, to the commoners crowding along the road during the royal progress, to travelers and subjects attempting to find their way to court, many eyes seek her, and many succeed only briefly or not at all. What is left, then, to those who desire to view Elizabeth’s face? An indirect vision that comes in many varieties: through the eyes of others, one perceives the elusive features in a word of mouth or a portrait, but it is by means of a dream or apprehension by association that an oblique vision takes most intimate shape.30 Dreams and fantasies about the queen were only one step away from poetic descriptions by those who never saw her in person, and those imaginings were the alternative for those who simply refused to paint her face in words. Thus, at the entertainment at Bisham in 1592, a Wilde Man greets Elizabeth with a confession that the local satyrs have seen her in their dreams: Every one has tolde his dreame, and described your person; all agree in one, and set downe your virtues: in this onely did wee differ, that some thought your Pourtraiture might be drawen, other saide impossible: some thought your vertues might be numbered, most saide they were infinite: infinite and impossible, of that side was I: and first in humility to salute you most happy I: my untamed thoughts waxe gentle, and I feele in myselfe civility; a thing hated, because not knowen; and unknowen, because I knew not you. Thus Vertue tameth fiercenesse; Beauty, madnesse.31

The recourse to a dream vision is reminiscent of Arthur’s encounter with the Faerie Queen whose appearance in Arthur’s dream is limited to a mention of her “daintie limbes.”32 In the Wilde Man’s speech, likewise, the queen’s “person” is perceived indirectly, through the dream glass darkly, and it is only at the moment the speech is delivered that he sees the queen in the flesh. And yet Elizabeth perceived in a dream seems to be readily described by the satyrs, and their debate about the feasibility of representation only in part concerns the medium of painting. In a conversation

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held by the dreamers, it is likely a disputation about any representation of the “real” rather than “dream” queen. This example is unusual in its direct admission that the speaker has been engaged in describing Elizabeth’s looks prior to seeing her properly. The fictional crowd of visionary satyrs debating the limits of representation of the queen of England resembles writers and poets who ponder the same abstract questions at a distance from their sovereign’s physical person. The topos of indescribability, therefore, serves complex purposes, political as well as practical. In contrast, a metaphor that superimposes heraldic imagery onto Elizabeth’s features (resulting in part from this predicament), compensates for the lack of personal visual experience. As we shall see, this trope engages familiar political iconography as well as Petrarchan convention. By fusing these two modes, heraldic descriptions of Elizabeth’s face offer imagery more tangible than a dream and more specific than a claim to indescribability would allow.

“The red, and white rose quarter’d in her face”: Elizabeth’s Physiognomic Heraldry Before William Shakespeare penned his famous phrase, the “Herauldry in Lvcrece face,”33 at least three other Elizabethan poets—Philip Sidney, Edmund Spenser, and Fulke Greville— composed lines of poetry that drew a female face powerfully into the symbolic field of heraldry. In the first case, the visage belonged to Stella; in the other two, to Queen Elizabeth. In early modern culture, heraldry and facial beauty were readily linked, respectively, to the categories of power and femininity. While many poets aspired to separate the monarch and the woman, formulated in Spenser’s Faerie Queene as “the one of a most royall Queene or Empresse, the other of a most vertuous and beautifull Lady,”34 others endeavored to embrace both personae. One of the most effective amalgamations of these two personae was achieved in the metaphoric conflation of Elizabeth’s face and the Tudor rose or her royal coat of arms. The heraldic metaphor is not exclusive to the descriptions of Elizabeth, yet its distinctive use in her case results in an array of meanings specific to this queen.35 Heraldic significations played an important part in early modern social structure. Inherently connected to the society’s distinction “betweene the Gentle and the ungentle,”36 heraldry was concerned with coats of arms and badges whose specific details

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identified their owners’ genealogical lineage, symbolizing their virtues and proclaiming their place in the social hierarchy by means of strictly delineated and thus easily legible iconography.37 Heraldry equipped the queen and her supporters with a readily recognized symbolic affirmation of her authority. For this reason, the poetic technique of inscribing heraldry onto the monarch’s physiognomy lent support to Elizabeth’s lifelong project of defending her genealogical claim to the throne. Allusions to the Tudor rose and to Elizabeth’s royal coat of arms in poetic descriptions of her face, therefore, served predominantly as celebrations of her sovereignty. Although the heraldic metaphor comes with its own set of representational complications, it provides a poetic outlet for the male writer’s desire to invest his queen’s face with meaning. The heraldic metaphorization of her face is not only a poetical matter; it is also fraught with political undertones. As I will show, this process of investment is complicated by an undercurrent of hidden anxiety and harmful metaphoric associations. Because heraldry itself is a symbolic practice, the superimposition of heraldic and poetic significations results in images whose meaning goes beyond their superficial visual suggestiveness. Edmund Spenser’s “Aprill” Eclogue from The Shepheardes Calender includes Hobbinoll’s recitation of Colin’s epideictic tribute to “fayre Elisa, Queene of shepheardes all.”38 Colin announces his intention to “blaze / Her worthy praise” and then directs our gaze to Elisa herself: See, where she sits vpon the grassie greene, (O seemely sight) Yclad in scarlot like a mayden Queene, And Ermines white. ................. Tell me, haue ye seene her angelick face, Like Phœbe fayre? Her Heauenly haueour, her princely grace can you well compare? The Redde rose medled with the White yfere, In either cheeke depeincten liuely chere. Her modest eye, Her Maiestie, Where haue you seene the like, but there?39

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E. K., in his “Glosse” on the line “The Redde rose medled with the White yfere,” reveals the heraldic intention of this apparently conventional image of Elizabeth’s beauty. He provides the following observations: By the mingling of the Redde rose and the White, it meant the vniting of the two principall houses of Lancaster and of Yorke: by whose longe discord and deadly debate, this realm many yeares was sore traueiled, and almost cleane decayed. Til the famous Henry the seuenth, of the line of Lancaster, taking to wife the most vertuous Princesse Elisabeth, daughter to the fourth Edward of the house of Yorke, begat the most royal Henry the eyght aforesayde, in whom was the firste vnion of the Whyte Rose and the Redde.40

Although E.K.’s commentary suggests that Spenser has metaphorically inscribed the Tudor rose onto Elizabeth’s face, the preceding stanza of the poem has already used the same heraldic colors, red and white, to describe the queen’s robes—and thus has created a larger representational field that expresses heraldry that literally covers her body: “Yclad in Scarlot like a mayden Queene, / And Ermines white.”41 Heraldic symbols routinely appeared as fabric patterns in the clothing; in this light, Spenser’s treatment of Elizabeth’s face as a type of fabric or canvas that may be custompatterned is emphatic. While the red and white of Elizabeth’s face and attire echo and reinforce each other, however, the conceptual difference causes some tensions. For instance, are the colors of the face intrinsic to the skin, or can they be put on and off, like the robes? A question arises about how much of the queen’s legitimate heraldry is imprinted onto her face naturally—and how much of it is painted onto her skin cosmetically. Spenser’s word choice in the following line—“In either cheek depeincten liuely chere”—gestures to the art of cosmetics, a site of many polemical battles of the time. This suggestion, of course, is suitably veiled in doubleness.42 As a result of this suggestive line, the image of Elizabeth’s cheeks painted in the colors of Tudor roses simultaneously acknowledges and questions her political authority. The image additionally betrays the male poet’s suppressed anxiety about praising a female monarch: Spenser imagines that her very face bears the symbolic confirmation of her power, and yet he leaves it up to his reader to contend with the possibility that these roses may be washed off her cheeks.

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Although it is difficult to determine the exact chronological relationship of Fulke Greville’s Sonnet 81 about Elizabeth to Spenser’s “Aprill,”43 the iconographic resemblance between the two depictions (the awe-inspiring sovereign sitting motionlessly on display44) allows consideration of them as companion pieces: Vnder a Throne I saw a virgin sit, The red, and white Rose quarter’d in her face; Starre of the North, and for true guards to it, Princes, Church, States, all pointing out her Grace. The homage done her was not borne of Wit, Wisdome admir’d, Zeale tooke Ambitions place, State in her eyes taught Order how to fit, And fixe Confusions vnobservuing race. Fortune can here claime nothing truly great, But that this Princely Creature is her seat.

Helen Hackett rightly sees the second line as “explicitly linking the blazon of a courtly mistress with the heraldic blazon.”45 Indeed, the metaphor of a quartered rose draws on the heraldic practice of dividing the field of a coat of arms into four sections (the technical term is a “quarterly” partition). As explained by Nancy Vickers, the two objects of description—shield and body—are historically connected through the two early modern meanings of the term blazon: “first, a codified heraldic description of a shield, and, second, a codified poetic description of an object praised or blamed by a rhetorician-poet.”46 However, scholars have not addressed the significance of the face as the site of this linkage. To begin with, the face lends itself to the heraldic metaphor on a purely geometric level: consider, for example, Elizabeth’s armorial bearings (figure 2) and the shape of her face in the best known full face portrait in coronation robes (figure 1). The outline of a typical “heater” shield, with its elegant curves swooping from the wide top and meeting at the bottom point, resembles a mask that could be fitted onto a human face.47 As a piece of functional armor, however, long before its emblematic and symbolic roles became an end in themselves, a painted shield was meant both for an easy identification of the bearer and for protection of his body. 48 In response to the development of full-body armor, the early moderns have substituted the shield’s primary protective function with a declarative one, and thus endowed the shield with a purely rhetorical power.49In addition, both Elizabeth’s coat of arms

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and the Tudor rose frequently include the royal crown that sits atop the shield or the flower in the same fashion as it appears above the queen’s visage, thereby suggesting the treatment of heraldic images as a kind of face. Furthermore, the symmetrical quartering of a coat of arms is compatible with the partition of the face: both natural, following the line of the nose and the imaginary line connecting the eyes, and artistic, often performed in the preparatory sketches for drawing a portrait.50 The natural map of the “quartered” face, however, stands in contrast with the traditionally diagonal mirroring of the design of the quartered coat of arms (the imagery and colors of the bottom left segment, for instance, correspond to those in the top right). An imposition of the heraldic pattern onto a face inevitably reorganizes natural facial elements. Even more importantly, it inscribes the face with a new meaning. If a physiognomy serves as a marker of individuality, the metaphoric stamping of a face with a heraldic emblem, itself an important expression of early modern identity, leads either to veiling of the natural features (and thus closing up of their own meaning) or superimposition of one pattern upon the other. The naturally and culturally encapsulated identity and meaning of one’s face, therefore, are either replaced or conjoined with those recorded in one’s coat of arms. In England, a similar replacement was already happening in the name of Reformation: Elizabeth’s arms, for instance, were habitually used to designate her “absent/presence”; her emblem hung in the churches in place of religious imagery washed away by the iconoclastic wave.51 Consequently, the imposition of heraldry on the queen’s face activates a complex interplay of three kinds of power: that of a shield, that of royalty/nobility, and that of a face. When Sidney’s Cupid wins the competition for the fairest armor because Stella’s “face he makes his shield,” he conjoins the two powers by cleverly exploiting Stella’s beauty.52 The face, however, exerts its own kind of command—and the queen’s face, in particular, is immensely powerful, as confirmed by the records of Elizabeth’s social interaction discussed in the previous chapter. For this reason, the convergence of her shield and face has a potential to increase Elizabeth’s power symbolically or alter it. This convergence can combine the expressive and aesthetic power of the face and the inherent protective and rhetorical power of the shield—or replace the former with the latter, thereby deactivating the queen’s ability

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Figure 1. Queen Elizabeth I in Coronation Robes, c.1559–1600. Oil on panel. English School. Sixteenth century. National Portrait Gallery, London, UK/The Bridgeman Art Library

to exercise her authority through the conventional use of her face. And insofar as, for a woman, that use is traditionally predicated on her beauty, while heraldry is predominantly a masculine domain,53 the superimposition of the two inevitably causes a gender-related shift in meaning. In this sense, the ambivalent potential of the

Figure 2. Royal arms of Queen Elizabeth I, from Robert Cooke, “Armorial bearings of the kings and noble families of Great Britain from the reign of William the Conqueror to that of James I,” 1572. Detail. Case MS F 0745.1915. Photo Courtesy of the Newberry Library, Chicago.

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complimentary imagery employed by Spenser and Greville mirrors the instability of numerous rhetorical moves made by Elizabeth herself and those who dared to represent her, aiming to redeem the queen’s female gender by either strengthening or replacing her gender identity with masculine characteristics. Although heraldry, like genealogy, is said by some scholars to be gender-biased, the practice of quartering the arms often purports to represent heraldic inheritance without making distinction of gender. However, the arms of a queen regnant constitute an exception to the rules for the display of the arms of ladies. Elizabeth’s royal coat of arms was that of her male predecessors. Passed down to her from Edward III,54 it reflected the marital union of Edward II and Isabella of France in the emblematic representation of the two countries, pictured respectively on the four segments of her shield as lions on the red field (derived from Edward I’s arms) and fleurde-lis on the blue field (historically deriving from Charlemagne). This union, however, was about a dozen generations away from that of Elizabeth’s natural parents. Much closer to her was the nodal marriage of Henry Tudor and Elizabeth of York—the foundation of the Tudor dynasty that united the houses of Lancaster (with its red rose badge) and York (with its white rose), symbolically represented by the superimposed red and white roses, white petals contained within red ones. While it was not featured on the shield itself, the Tudor rose badge was a crucial dynastic signifier and was frequently incorporated in Elizabeth’s arms. As noted by Simon Thurley, the Tudor rose “was most visible architecturally, in badges, mottoes and heraldry which formed an outer crust of propaganda upon the shell of the building” as well as the interior of the royal palaces where the “Tudor badge appears in stained glass, tapestry, stone and terracotta.”55 A substantial number of Elizabeth’s own portraits sport the Tudor roses as props, background, or fabric patterns.56 Variations of this floral symbol move from the corner of the portrait to the queen’s person or hand and to the pattern on her dress. The Tudor rose was stamped on coins next to the face of the queen (figure 15). Spenser’s reading of the rose onto Elizabeth’s face and, for instance, William Roger’s depiction of the queen as Rosa Electa exemplify two metaphoric applications of the Tudor rose onto the queen. In images such as the one by Roger, the rose is implied to mean Elizabeth’s entire political body, often represented by her

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red attire trimmed in white fur. Spenser’s metaphor, on the other hand, depicts the rose as an explicit part of Elizabeth’s face. Even though red and white are the traditional colors of ideal Renaissance beauty, visual representations may only hint at the use of heraldic metaphor of the queen’s face: coloring of Elizabeth’s face in a precise Tudor rose-like fashion would appear grotesque. Not only does Spenser use the two colors of the Tudor rose to suggest Elizabeth’s beauty, but also makes a point of reminding us about the flower’s historic significance. It is this choice that points to the political implications of the heraldic inscription. The importance of this coexistence of the two roses in the queen’s face is thrown into an even greater relief when, in Henry VI, part 3 (1595), Shakespeare traces the deathly floral symbolism on the face of a young man mistakenly killed by his own father in one of the hectic battles between the Yorkists and Lancastrians: The red rose and the white are on his face, The fatal colours of our striving houses; The one his purple blood right well resembles, The other his pale cheeks, methinks, presenteth. Wither one rose, and let the other flourish— If you contend, a thousand lives must wither.57

As King Henry’s comment links the red and white roses with the morbidity of blood and paleness, it marks both with fatality. Yet, Henry sees only one solution to the deadly contention: one rose must “wither” so the remaining one could “flourish.” He is blind to the possibility of a “fair conjunction,” a floral hybrid effected later in Shakespeare’s Richard III by the newly crowned Henry VII.58 Viewed apart from its dynastic significance, metaphorical treatment of the queen’s face as a rose is deeply traditional. As an emblem of virginity in general, and the Virgin Mary in particular, it evokes Elizabeth’s sacred virtues; as a flower of Venus,59 it carries conventional Petrarchan connotations. In fact, Spenser’s praise of Elizabeth’s cheeks—“The Redde rose medled with the White yfere, / In either cheeke depeincten liuely chere”—is in itself completely conventional.60 It is E.K.’s annotation that makes Spenser’s metaphor truly heraldic. Greville, however, makes use of heraldic terminology and thus eliminates the need for a gloss: “The red, and white Rose quarter’d in her face.” These

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explicit demarcations of both poets’ heraldic intentions, however, are accompanied by a curious choice of verbs loaded with hidden ambivalence. If “meddled” suggests mixing, it also recalls contention, not in the fatal militant sense suggested by King Henry VI, but perhaps referring to the ongoing turmoil at court generated by and around the queen. If to “quarter” may mean to “station, place, or lodge in a particular place,” according to the OED, the application of this verb to the Tudor badge signals a necessarily heraldic signification and thus seems to refer to the partition of a coat of arms. However, this division also evokes the horrendous method of execution by quartering the body, still popular during Elizabethan age and sanctioned by the queen in cases of treason. Even though the context constrains these disturbing connotations, they cannot be entirely effaced. Both of these latent meanings echo within the early modern mentality. When Shakespeare arrives at the subject, he famously stages a struggle between “beauty’s red and virtue’s white” in Lucrece’ face: “their ambition makes them still to fight . . .”61 Likewise, Greville’s allusion to quartering evokes partitioning associated with the genre in which some scholars see an artistic expression of a man’s violent impulses in relation to a woman: the poetic practice of blazon discussed later in this chapter, a method of description that catalogues the parts of a woman’s body. Vickers argues that this approach, as exemplified in the poetry of Petrarch, is rooted in the myth of Diana and Actaeon: the male poet finds himself in the position of a voyeur who stands in danger of punishment by dismembering, and “hence he projects scattering onto [the female he attempts to describe] through the process of fetishistic overdetermination.”62 Enumeration of parts, however, is what emphatically does not happen in Spenser’s and Greville’s descriptions of their female sovereign. The vision of Elizabeth’s face is limited, except for a brief reference to her eyes, to naming of the two colors, red and white, and an indication of their, perhaps somewhat uneasy, arrangement on her countenance. We are meant to see a few vibrantly red or pink configurations—scarlet lips and rosy cheeks—on the delicate pale background of Elizabeth’s complexion. In other words, unlike a blazon proper, this vision is not created by division. And yet, the heraldic metaphor implies certain restrictions: if Elizabeth’s face is a shield, as Greville’s sonnet suggests, the field must be marked by the lines of partition; if her cheeks are Tudor roses, as

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in Spenser’s eclogue, their shape and distribution of colors must conform to the badge whose iconography is evoked in E.K.’s commentary. Greville, in particular, is eager to allude to the royal coat of arms rather than stop at the floral badge, like Spenser does. In effect, Greville repaints Elizabeth’s arms, substituting for the French and English quarters those of the Plantagenet Houses of Lancaster and York. Cultural connotations of quartering and reinscription of the face in these poems imply an intrusion. Admittedly, figurative language makes it seem like a very mild sort of violence, insofar as a prudent reader stops short of literalizing the metaphors. Nonetheless, these tropes convey the poets’ desire to inscribe meaning onto the monarch’s face, and in their zeal to conflate a compliment to a woman and a tribute to a sovereign, they brand her countenance with imagery that exceeds the bounds of harmless flattery and spills over into infringement. Greville was hardly evoking the horrific wounds that could be inflicted on the queen’s face by quartering, but both he and Spenser could have imagined a milder violation of Elizabeth’s visage: repainting it cosmetically or even tattooing it in the fashion of the Picts whose habits of selfdecoration fascinated the Elizabethans.63 However, this codified violence is not only hidden, but even naturalized because both poets sensibly focus their heraldic allusions on a flower whose symbolic meanings pertain both to power and beauty. Furthermore, even as it flatters Elizabeth’s complexion, historical and cultural extensions of the image of the Tudor rose complicate its use as a metaphor for the queen’s face. In both texts, besides the poetic convenience, the focus on this flower emphasizes Elizabeth’s Englishness. Although she never gave up on her inherited claim to France, including it in her formal title and persistently incorporating fleur-de-lis in her iconography, it was the Tudor rose that symbolized her personal genealogical history. Contrasting herself to her predecessor Mary Tudor, whose mother was Spanish, Elizabeth took pride in being “mere English” and derived much of her popularity from such “pure” origins. The iconographic use of bicolor roses, therefore, boosted national pride, the composite badge of the Tudor dynasty standing as an additional reminder of Henry Tudor’s accomplishment: ending the Wars of the Roses and uniting England under the banner of peace that his granddaughter managed to preserve for over four decades. At the same time, the enclosure of the white petals by the

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red ones asserted predominance of the masculine over the feminine, a union realized through containment of a woman’s political value (the white rose of the Yorkist Elizabeth married by Henry VII) as a means of buttressing a man’s claim to the throne. The heraldic stamp itself, therefore, is an encoded statement on the interplay of the royal gender and power. As this stamp is imprinted on the queen’s face, her visage emerges as a site of ambivalence and contention between her womanhood and authority, between the feeble flattery to her fleeting beauty and the acute awareness of her ever-present political identity. Elizabeth’s contemporaries treated faces as texts, capable of being composed and written without any recourse to figurative language. In other words, facial features have meaning without metaphor, and metaphor is not required to give them significance. Every transformation of Elizabeth’s features into an even conventional metaphor, therefore, rewrites their meaning and is thus in some way intrusive. Even more importantly, the epideictic words that mean to put the woman’s beauty in service of her dynastic magnificence nevertheless force a symbolic political pattern onto her natural features. The resulting empowerment of the face, however flattering to Elizabeth the queen, divests it of its multiple rhetorical uses. Quartering of the face implies a simplification, a reduction of its inherent potential to mean: her quartered shield, after all, contains only two distinct parts, mirrored diagonally in the other two. Rewriting Elizabeth’s features in heraldic terms also curbs the queen’s personal and symbolic control of her face. It closes up all of its meanings except two: her rose-like beauty and, even more insistently, the dynastic legitimacy of her power.

“To blazon foorth the Brytton mayden Queene”64 The rhetorical maneuvering described above gets a great deal of expressive mileage from one colorful metaphor. Yet, for all its aesthetic and political potency, heraldic metaphor does not pack much of a descriptive punch. Readiness or reluctance to give a detailed description of Elizabeth’s appearance depends not only on the writer’s aesthetic sensibilities, but also on the extent of his boldness, both social and poetical. If heraldic metaphors of necessity limit the number of depicted parts, more general and thus less restricted descriptions may be expected to put Elizabeth’s features in a full blazon, a method of depicting beauty through

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enumeration of its elements. The intrinsic difficulty of blazoning the monarch’s face, however, is evident even in the fact that there are far more writers who plead indescribability than those who dare to describe. Spenser, it would seem, embraces both alternatives in The Faerie Queene. As I already mentioned, he splits the two aspects of his sovereign, avoiding description of the “most royall Queene and Empresse,” yet portraying at length the “most vertuous and beautifull Lady.” If Gloriana’s correspondence to Elizabeth’s political persona allows Spenser to leave the queen’s features appropriately indistinct, Belphoebe, in contrast, is subjected to a well-developed blazon: Her face so faire as flesh it seemed not, But heavenly pourtraict of bright Angels hew, Cleare as the skie, withouten blame or blot, Through goodly mixture of complexions dew; And in her cheekes the vermeill red did shew Like roses in a bed of lillies shed, The which ambrosiall odours from them threw, And gazers sense with double pleasure fed, Hable to heale the sicke, and to reuiue the ded. In her faire eyes two living lamps did flame, Kindled above at th’heavenly makers light, And darted fyrie beames out of the same, So passing persant, and so wondrous bright, That quite bereav’d the rash beholders sight: In them the blinded god his lustfull fire To kindle oft assayd, but had no might; For with dredd Maiestie, and awfull ire, She broke his wanton darts, and quenched base desire. Her ivorie forhead, full of bountie brave, Like a broad table did it selfe dispred, For Loue his loftie triumphes to engrave, And write the battels of his great godhed: All good and honour might therein be red: For there their dwelling was. And when she spake, Sweet words, like dropping honny she did shed, And twixt the perles and rubins softly brake A siluer sound, that heavenly musicke seemd to make. Vpon her eyelids many Graces sate, Vnder the shadow of her even browes, Working belgards, and amorous retrate, And every one her with a grace endowes: And every one with meekenesse to her bowes.

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So glorious mirrhour of celestiall grace, And soveraine moniment of mortall vowes, How shall fraile pen descrive her heavenly face, For feare through want of skill her beautie to disgrace?65

Paradoxically, however, the huntress is blazoned to such an extent that, after peeling off the metaphors, the reader is left with little doubt about her not looking like Elizabeth. Spenser’s representational moves in respect to Elizabeth’s body politic offer an apt example of a masterful poetic application of the Medusa/Yahweh principle of indirect representation suggested by John Lyly as the only feasible technique for describing Elizabeth’s face: “I must doe like those that want a cleere sight, who being not able to discerne the Sunne in the Skie are inforced to beholde it in the water.” In The Faerie Queene, the indescribability of the queen’s face is omnipresent. It lies in the poet’s refusal to “tell” even the brightness of princess Una’s face, much less her exact features. Arthur, who has seen Gloriana only in his dream, “From that day forth . . . lou’d that face diuine.”66 But the view of her face is locked in his memory without retelling, and even artistic renditions of the queen’s appearance—her diamond head inset in Arthur’s armor, her portrait on Guyon’s shield—are not translated into a proper ekphrasis that would allow us to see beyond the glow of her mystical face. The blazon of Belphoebe is so fictitious and conventional that it may suggest Elizabeth’s face only conceptually: as a typical Petrarchan mistress. In the later reflection of Elizabeth in Mercilla, the description is simply faceless.67 Yet Spenser’s primary solution to the problem of describing the queen is his promise to show Elizabeth “in mirrors more than one.”68 The technique of cumulative mirroring is an attempt to overcome the difficulty of representing Elizabeth through an optical trick: while the direct description is withheld, a composite of several representations is offered to the reader instead. As I mentioned above, when Spenser splits Elizabeth’s twofold persona between Gloriana and Belphoebe, he makes Gloriana stand for the queen’s body politic, and Belphoebe for her body natural. Because she does not directly participate in the unfolding events of Spenser’s narrative, Gloriana’s face remains physically absent and also invisible to the reader. The only description of her countenance is sounded by Guyon when he tells Medina about his queen’s appearance in terms of brilliance, peace, and

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mercy: “As morning Sunne her beames dispredden cleare, / And in her face faire peace, and mercy doth appeare.”69 Gloriana’s face within the narrative is confined to representation within representation, vague and impressionistic. Moreover, Elizabeth herself is invited to look at these receding mirror images in order to see her own face.70 Even the most carefully blazoned of these mirror images, however, is but a fictional fragment of idealized beauty. The essential conventionality of the description of Belphoebe’s face sets her appearance apart from the “most beautiful lady” she supposedly figures forth. Belphoebe’s visage is that of a generic Petrarchan and Elizabethan mistress: fair and unblemished complexion, rosy cheeks, shiny eyes, broad ivory forehead, all that beauty surrounded by Amazonian yellow locks.71 With the exception of her hair that was actually auburn rather than blonde, one may argue that none of these flattering traits is at blatant variance with the queen’s actual features, much less so with the cosmetically enhanced face she had been offering to public view. However, neither are these rather generic facial characteristics unmistakably Elizabeth’s own. It is perhaps because of conformity of Belphoebe’s features to a commonplace ideal that Spenser takes care to sprinkle this “pourtraict” with some indications that evoke his queen rhetorically rather than descriptively. The very first lines seek to stabilize the entire structure of the subsequent blazon with the help of the angelic trope that, as I argue elsewhere, has been consistently associated with the queen. The colorful floral simile of “roses in a bed of lillies shed” is a reworking of Spenser’s own earlier admiration of the “Redde rose medled with the White” in the queen’s cheeks, now with a supplementary allusion to the French fleurde-lei’. Likewise, the goings-on in the various parts of Belphoebe’s well-populated face contain many a reference to Elizabeth’s various virtues exalted in countless panegyrics and now made apparent, almost literally, in this visage alive with metaphorical activity. Despite these somewhat individualized markers, the descriptive contents of the blazon remain fully derivative and thus distanced from the real person Elizabeth. Spenser opts instead for Elizabeth the fictionally beautiful woman, passing over the opportunity to represent her actual body natural with the same grace with which he elided the representation, in physical terms, of her body politic.

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The faces of Gloriana and Belphoebe are the two extreme responses to the challenge of articulation of Elizabeth’s features: either the suggestive nondescription, or the blazon so predictable that the description cancels itself and the individual escapes once again. It should, therefore, come as no surprise when a poet as sensitive as Spenser interrupts his own elaborate blazon to exclaim in rhetorical frustration: “How shall fraile pen descriue her heauenly face, / For feare through want of skill her beautie to disgrace?” The full-blown description momentarily dissolves in the circuitous babbling of redundant praise: “So faire, and thousand thousand times more faire . . .” (II.III.25.8–II.III.26.1). At moments like this one, indescribability and blazon flash as the two sides of the same medal, the two possibilities always present, the two choices that a poet must face. Typically, when Lyly’s Euphues doubts “whether our tongue canne yeelde wordes to blase that beautie,” he defines the indescribability of the glorious Elizabeth as her beauty’s resistance to language. Roland Barthes argues the innate futility of blazon as a method to capture the subject’s appearance. What transpires in the critic’s objection, however, is that the fault lies not with the method, but with the medium of language itself, and hence using the blazon dooms the writer to strive for a “totality impossible because linguistic, written.” Barthes calls this phenomenon the “spitefulness of language: once reassembled, in order to utter itself, the total body must revert to the dust of words, to the listing of details, to a monotonous inventory of parts, to crumbling: language undoes the body, returns it to the fetish. This return is coded under the term blazon. The blazon consists of predicating a single subject, beauty, upon a certain number of anatomical attributes . . .” Blazon is “constructed like sentence[..]” and “refer[s] to the very destiny of the sentence . . . which consists in this (doomed thereto by its structure): the sentence can never constitute a total; meanings can be listed, not admixed: the total, the sum are for language the promised lands, glimpsed at the end of enumeration, but once this enumeration has been completed, no feature can reassemble it—or, if this feature is produced, it too can only be added to the others.” Barthes concludes that “As a genre, the blazon expresses the belief that a complete inventory can reproduce a total body, as if the extremity of enumeration is then subject to a kind of enumerative erethism: it accumulates in order to totalize, multiplies fetishes in order to obtain a total, defetishised body; thereby, description represents no beauty at

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all.”72 Elizabeth’s contemporaries may not have seen the inherent problems of any verbal description quite in Barthes’ terms, but, as evident in the popular topos of indescribability, they nevertheless sensed the limited capacity of language to render accurately their object of admiration. Still, for the Elizabethan mind, blazon was not only the main alternative to silence, but also the method of description par excellence and an opportunity to flaunt one’s superior poetic skills. Although early modern poets produced a great number of blazons, however, there seems to be only one elaborate description of the queen in verse. Perhaps realizing the extent of his audacity, George Puttenham begins his Partheniades with a careful promise that he will “blazon foorthe the Briton mayden Queene,” executing his catalog “in chast style.”73 Ironically, it is equally possible that his note is meant to set his poems apart from the so-called pornographic blazons or guard his boldness from a charge of overstepping the mark. Indeed, the Parthe containing an extensive blazon of the queen’s body bears the title “Euterpe” (the Muse whose name means “giver of pleasure”) and contains at its very center rather risqué musings about Elizabeth’s breasts and nipples. These references are couched, however, in the reasonably respectful enumeration of the queen’s parts “From toppe to toe,” describing her face as follows: Of silver was her forehead hye, Her browes twoo bowes of hebenie; Her tresses troust were to beholde, Frizeld and fine as frenge of golde; Her eyes, God wott, what stuffe they arre, I durst be sworne eche ys a starre: As cleere and brighte as to guide The pilot in his winter tide. Twoo lippes wrought out of rubye rocke, Like leaves to shutt, and to unlocke, As portall doore in prince’s chamber; A golden toonge in mouth of amber, That oft ys hard, but none yt seethe Without a garde of yvorye teethe, Even arrayed and richelye all, In skarlett or in fine corrall: Her cheeke, her chinne, her neck, her nose; This was a lillye, that was a rose;

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The Face of Queenship Her hande so white as whale’s bone, He finger tipt with cassidone, Her bosome sleeke as Paris plaster, Held upp two bowles of alabaster: Ech byas was a little cherrye, Or, as I thinke, a strawberrye; A slender greve swifter than roe, A pretye foote to trippe and goe, But of a solemne pace perdye, And marchinge with a maiestye: Her body shapte as strayghte as shafte, Disclosed eche limbe withouten craft; Save shadowed all, as I could gesse, Under a vayle of silke cypresse, From toppe to toe yee might her see, Timber’d and tall as cedar tree, Whose statelye turfe exceedeth farre All that in frithe and forrest arre.74

Elkin Wilson calls this string of images “barbarous conceits . . . . authorized by the orthodox Petrarchan tradition.”75 Indeed, Puttenham reaches for the chest filled with silver, gold, crystal, rubies, ivory, amber, and coral (he does get stumped, however, unable to identify of “what stuffe” her eyes are), not forgetting the perennially popular lilies and roses. In this somewhat clumsy attempt at description, the most meaningful element is Puttenham’s architectural metaphor76 glimpsed in the comparison of Elizabeth’s lips to a “portall doore in prince’s chamber.” Admittedly, many contemporary verses hail their addressees as “queens,” whether they are dealing with a commoner, aristocrat, or the actual queen herself. Yet such metaphoric elevation to royal status collapses in descriptions of Elizabeth. What does it mean to imagine Elizabeth’s lips “As portal doore in princes chamber?” Is this phrase simply a “barbarous conceit,” or does it capture the author’s longing (or fantasy, in the sense discussed by Louis Montrose) to penetrate the privy chamber or even the bed chamber?77 The admixture of erotic desire and longing for social privilege is certainly less visible in Puttenham’s blazon of Elizabeth’s face than in his daring admiration of her bosom.78 His “chast style,” however, falters even before he arrives at that delicate region. It may be that his dwelling on the queen’s lips and tongue urges the poet to wrap up the description of the

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face, hastily rolling together “Her cheeke, her chinne, her neck, her nose,” and trusting the reader to figure out which “was a lillye” and which “was a rose.” He eventually recovers to praise Elizabeth’s majestic gait, stature, and chaste marble heart, but the striking images describing her outward appearance linger with the reader, and their conventionality (or barbarity)79 fades when we fully realize that they describe the living queen. In fact, Puttenham’s blazon is unique in that it is the most encompassing poetical description of the “real” Elizabeth (in contrast to a fictional character, like Belphoebe, said to represent Elizabeth). Insofar as it belongs to the pen of the author of The Arte of English Poesie, this poem, however predictable its elements, is especially significant. It is likely that Puttenham has seen his queen in person; it is, nonetheless, highly unlikely that his poetic description matches that spectacle. Either some or all seventeen of the Partheniades were destined for Elizabeth’s eyes, presumably as a New Year’s gift, and yet it is uncertain whether the queen ever read this collection.80 In addition, Puttenham felt sufficiently confident about poetic merit of Parthe VII to quote parts of his daring blazon in The Arte. If this information does not provide a sure footing, it at least confirms that Parthe VII is not, for example, a private meditation or dream, and thus its “barbarous conceits” were expected to impress Elizabeth. As the boldest and most detailed blazon of the queen, this poem testifies as much to the descriptive tastes of the period as to the unwillingness of poets to use these techniques in order to broach the subject of Elizabeth’s physiognomy. If subjecting the queen to an extensive blazon or keeping silent on the subject are two extreme alternatives available to Elizabethan poets, the views of twentieth-century scholarship on the method of blazon may suggest another reason for withdrawal from representation. As I mentioned earlier, Barthes points out the impossibility of faithful description through an accumulation of features while Vickers argues that Petrarch’s imaging of Laura as a “collection of exquisitely beautiful disassociated objects”81 and his followers’ perpetuation of this “poetics of fragmentation”82 can be understood as the male poet’s preventive measure to neutralize the threat of dismemberment for unsanctioned looking at a female, a predicament modeled in the lamentable (though, one may note, hardly identical) cases of Actaeon and Orpheus.83 The peculiarities of Petrarch’s poetry should not be extrapolated to

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serve as general underpinnings of all blazons written in the period (after all, sometimes women blazoned men, and many blazons lack even oblique references to Ovid). However contestable this dip into the Renaissance psychology of blazon may be, the circumstances of Elizabethan period did make punishment by dismemberment a literal rather than simply literary possibility. It is in connection to this method of execution that Greville’s use of the word “quartered” is potentially sinister. Furthermore, Jonathan Sawday proposes that Elizabeth herself was the ideal subject for the poetic blazon, a vehicle for the demonstration of a male wit which encircled the queen’s body in a fetishistic adoration of her power, her virtue, her attraction, and (of course) her sexual allure, made all the more potent through her unavailability. The queen provided the perfect vehicle for initiating a complex linguistic interchange, uniting partition and division with the emerging, and determinedly expansionist language of colonization.84

Sawday’s interest in partition, however, is primarily anatomically driven. Hence, his (and Vickers’) account of blazon encompasses the entire female body, with a sharp focus on sex and colonization.85 For Sawday, as much as for Vickers, the method of blazon reveals the struggle among men that treat the woman’s body as a territory to be conquered through language. Both Vickers and Sawday perceive blazon as a weapon, or an aggressive strategy fully in service to the writer (most frequently male) who employs it, whether for the purposes of self-defense, offense, or proclamation of ownership.86 Sawday neatly relates his theory to the queen. However, his examples are not sufficient to support the weight of his propositions in Elizabeth’s particular case.87 The very scarcity of blazons directly depicting the queen shows that, rather than lending her body to the rhetorical competition among men, she was more likely to be admired by a vague affirmation of her beauty than depicted in detail in a list of her features. It is for this reason that, in each case a poet has the courage to take up even a brief enumeration, the resulting image is always a generic Petrarchan mistress, and not the real queen. Why, one may ask, is her hair always said to be “gold” and “yellow” when it was often perceived as auburn or red by those who have seen her in person? Why do the writers chose not to weave any conceits

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in praise of the color of her eyes? Why does no one invent a way to depict the queen’s noble nose (a feature thoroughly avoided in poetic descriptions, and even all-encompassing Puttenham seems to throw it in merely as a convenient rhyme to “rose”)? And what of Elizabeth’s languidly heavy eyelids? Is Spenser hinting at their peculiar shape by planting a few Graces on their surface? Surely there are more precise ways to pay tribute to the queen’s actual features! The predicament may be as simple as a lack of unmediated personal experience. But there must be a reason why none of Elizabeth’s courtiers who dabbled in poetry produced a recognizable depiction of her face: neither Raleigh, to whom Spenser directed his reader for a perfect portrait of the queen; nor Sidney, whose talent in praising a woman’s face, feature by feature, shines in several sonnets and even more so in his Arcadia; nor even Essex, who spent much of his time in close parlance with his royal lady. It would seem that such a lacuna would result not from the writers’ explicit fear to “mar” her perfect visage, but from a possible hidden fear to incur their queen’s displeasure by accentuating the undesirable features of her actual face. Whereas it is common sense that admiring any imperfections in her complexion would be unacceptable, features like heavy eyelids or slightly hooked nose have been aberrant to the Elizabethan stereotype of properly blazoned beauty, if only because Petrarch made no record of those when he created Laura’s poetic face.88 In the context of these factual and linguistic difficulties, marshalling the queen’s features in a full blazon or, alternatively, avoiding description prove to be less dialectic opposites than two radical responses intrinsically bound together by exactly the same challenge: the limits of representation imposed by language and restricted further by the stakes inherent in Elizabeth’s face as the subject of depiction. Paradoxically, it is heraldic inscription that stands out as the most ingenious and meaningful image in this host of attempts and refusals to describe the queen’s actual face. In its succinct recovery of the blazon’s original function, that of recording the demarcations of a shield, the heraldic metaphor charts the symbolic lineaments of monarchy onto the natural face of a woman.

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CHAPTER 5

PORTRAITURE: THE PAINTED TEXTS OF ELIZABETH’S FACES

Importance of Faces in Early Modern Portraiture The unstable relationship between the “real” face and its painted counterpart entails a formative influence on the conception, in the viewers’ minds, of how Elizabeth’s actual face appeared. Along with mass-produced images featured on coins, cheap prints, and broadside sheets, the faces of her portraits functioned as definitive public statements of Elizabeth’s looks. The interpretations and judgments passed upon Elizabeth’s faces in her portraits became interpretations and judgments upon the queen herself, and it is on these faces, belonging essentially to an elitist and higher quality genre of portraiture, that this chapter is focused. There exists a pervasive notion in scholarship that the Elizabethans viewed portraiture as a means to assert various aspects of the sitter’s identity mainly through the setting, leaving the face essentially outside the system of signification. To the modern eye, faces in Elizabethan portraiture generally seem to suggest little concern with verisimilitude or resemblance as they seem to carry less realistic emphasis than the surrounding material and symbolic objects. This view is derived partly from the elaborate symbolic and allegoric network surrounding many faces in the English portraits in the period, and partly from the stylistic choices in depiction of faces: a flat, two-dimensional appearance that, in comparison to the extensive use of light and shadow in the contemporaneous Italian art, seems to be deliberately unnatural and mask-like, a result of the insular preference of the line over color/chiaroscuro.1 For instance, the portraits of Elizabeth often dazzle the viewers with a spectacular array of scrupulously depicted clothing, jewelry, and allegorical

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paraphernalia that surround her face, thus incorporating the face into an impressive setting, although detracting attention from the face itself. Nevertheless, faces were very important to the early moderns. Portraits were often treated as substitutes for the people they represented, and the viewers scrutinized the painted faces intently, commenting on the degree of lifelikeness and resemblance to those they depicted.2 The artists, too, placed an emphasis on the depiction of the face. As we shall see in this chapter, for Nicholas Hilliard, the sitter’s visage was undisputedly a focal point of a portrait. Earlier in the century, Erasmus’ portraitist issued a similar painstaking demand for precision when he refused to proceed with painting “saying that Erasmus’ face was no longer the same” after his bile was purged by a physician. The painting was delayed presumably until the sitter’s face returned to its former state.3 Not only did portraits endeavor to record the sitter’s identity, they also served as a means of providing and soliciting the crucial information in matters of diplomacy and marriage negotiations. 4 Looking for wives in the foreign countries, Henry VI, Henry VII, and most famously Henry VIII sent their artists to produce likenesses of the faces of the potential royal brides. Henry VI’s orders in 1442, for instance, encouraged Hans the painter to focus on the faces of the Count of Armagnac’s daughters, “with all manner of features,” 5 and, in 1505, Henry VII demanded a precise picture of the “veray visage countenaunce and semblance” of Joanna of Aragon.6 Not only did such portraits allow one to appraise a potential spouse, but they were also used to gauge the viewer’s reaction. French Ambassador Castillon, for example, kept a close eye on Henry VIII’s facial expression and reported to Francis I that Henry has received the “portrait of Mademoiselle de Guise, whom this King does not think ugly, as I know by his face.” 7 Castillon’s remark encapsulates a layered reading that frequently took place during the consumption of portraits in diplomatic contexts: the viewer’s face is being observed and read while the viewer is studying a countenance depicted in the portrait. Likewise, the face was particularly significant to the consumers of the portraits of Elizabeth. Two poetic meditations on her pictures addressed below allow us to determine the early modern interest in representation of Elizabeth’s royal countenance, both at the opening and closing of her reign. A Latin poem “On

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the picture of the Queen” (1566) focuses explicitly and entirely on Elizabeth’s face in the portrait: Your ivory brow conquers your primrose countenance with shining whiteness: How does your charming beauty shine through your delicate cheeks? What neck with gold hair is more pure than gold? Does any rosy beauty shine in a snowy mouth? And will no woman begrudge you such a face So long as you always wish to live as a maiden?8

Tellingly, the painted depiction of Elizabeth and the living queen, who may live on as a virgin and thus preserve the beauty captured in that picture, merge in the address of the poet to the portrait. The familiar Petrarchan metaphors of roses, ivory, and gold, therefore, praise both the living and the painted face, and the prominence of the color in this description particularizes the viewer’s lingering on the queen’s face captured in the poetically appropriate colors of the paint. As a consumer of the visual representation, the speaker optimistically believes that the congruency of the image and the face it depicts may continue because this beauty is a function of Elizabeth’s maidenhood. In Shakespeare’s Measure for Measure, Lucio similarly implies that virginity is manifested in the colors of the face when he greets Isabella in Act 1: “Hail, virgin, if you be—as those cheek-roses / Proclaim you are no less.” 9 The Latin poem’s last line draws a link between talem vultum (such a face) and Elizabeth’s living viuere virgo (as a maiden), and thus ostensibly ascribes meaning to the face that heretofore seemed to be merely an object of aesthetic admiration. Later poetic testimony to the high expectations placed onto the royal faces in portraits is John Davies’ poem “To Her Picture” (1599) that conveys his disappointment with the inadequacy of an artist’s representation of the queen. In his comparison of Elizabeth to her portrait, he singles out her face as the site of liveliness and majesty: But here are colours red and white, Each lyne, and each proportion right; These Lynes, this red, and whitenesse, Have wanting yet a life and light, A Majestie, and brightnesse.10

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The speaker maintains that the physical aspect of the painted face is present (color and line), but the portrait lacks suggestion of character (life, light, or majesty). The poem hints that the possible reason for the artist’s failure to capture Elizabeth’s glory is her physical absence from the creation of the picture: the artist, therefore, “was not bold; / Nor durst his eyes her eyes behold; / And this made him mistake her.” In other words, the image-maker never saw the queen in person, was too inhibited to scrutinize her, or drew her “mistakenly” from memory, failing to grasp the essence of her glory, a predicament similar to the one often thwarting poetic descriptions of the queen discussed in the previous chapter. Davies issues a familiar complaint about the inadequacy of representation: “Little his skill that finisht thee, / . . . So dull her counterfait should be, / And she so full of glory.” Of course, the disparagement of the medium here is a way to glorify the subject of representation: by the end of the century, Davies had an opportunity to see some of her portraits that hardly lacked splendor. Or so it seems when one recalls the gorgeous fabrics, the massive jewelry, and the commanding settings of these late portraits. A catch, however, in this particular poem is that Davies seems to be talking only about the representation of Elizabeth’s face, and it is specifically in the face that he finds a disappointing dullness and lack of glory. This attention to the painted face indicates that, even for Elizabeth’s contemporaries, the effect of her portraits was not entirely a function of the paraphernalia around her countenance: her face was construed to be an essential element of representation that was scrutinized for a confirmation of her glory. Viewers such as Davies, however, expected from her portrayed face not a similitude of features but a rendition of her royal magnificence. Other viewers, as I discuss in the end of the chapter, voiced a persistent interest in the degree of a portrait’s resemblance to the English queen. These viewers, however, had to rely on the eyewitnesses, who were not always truthful, for this information. For this reason, the inquiry that follows suspends the question of accuracy of representation, that is, the reciprocity between the depicted and living faces, and pursues instead the tangible meaning in the painted face itself, or more precisely, in the variations within the multitude of faces created in Elizabeth’s portraiture. Although this analysis will inevitably produce some suggestions as to Elizabeth’s “real” facial features,

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the main strategy in this chapter is to explain the possible significations professed or concealed in the queen’s painted faces. As a contribution to the study of the royal portraits, this chapter will show how an analysis of Nicholas Hilliard’s theory of portraying faces illuminates his depictions of Elizabeth. In the second part of the chapter, I will demonstrate that an examination of well-known and marginalized portraits of the queen in conjunction with each other yields more complete insights into the peculiarities of her portraiture.

Part I: Elizabeth and Hilliard Nicholas Hilliard and the Craft of Life, Favor, and Likeness One of the crucial principles of depicting faces in the period is what Berger calls “mimetic idealism”: a particular combination of accuracy, and thus individuality, of portrayal and exemplarity that necessarily involves an idealization of the face.11 The sitters’ social status is of utmost importance for the artistic decisions: idealization is necessary to assert the beauty of the sitters’ souls and/ or competence of their minds. In Neoplatonic terms, the artist is called upon to make the invisible visible: he depicts the sitters’ essential qualities through the modification of their accidental physical features, erasing the incongruities by means of idealization. As a method of representation, “mimetic idealism” is present both in visual and verbal arts of the period. In literary and documentary descriptions of Elizabeth, the balance between the mimetic and idealist aspects of representation is constantly shifting. Both in visual and verbal depictions, this process of idealization is further complicated by the heightened investment in spectacularity of Elizabeth’s monarchal style that foregrounds the disparity of her body natural and body politic even as it attempts to merge them. If Berger insists on the portraiture’s relative preservation of individuality, Elizabeth Cropper argues that, when viewed in the context of early modern gender economy, individuality in representation of the face is less desirable in portraits of women than men. Idealization of female beauty takes precedence over recording her specific personality: the identity of the sitter is less important than the generalized beauty of the painted face that, in

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the patriarchal world, possesses primarily a decorative value.12 In Elizabeth’s case, however, this tendency is undoubtedly reconfigured: anonymity is unavailable to the monarch. Yet the faces that her portraits figure forth are often disassociated from her natural visage in ways that, rather than negating her identity, recreate it anew. The politics of representation of the queen’s face, therefore, are deeply embedded in social, aesthetic, and gender economies of depiction of faces in paint and language. Considerations related to the early modern professional gaze employed for the scrutiny of the sitters’ faces, Elizabeth’s visage among them, are discussed by Hilliard in his Treatise Concerning the Arte of Limning (c. 1600).13 Hilliard produced most of Elizabeth’s miniatures, and at least three full-size portraits are attributed to this artist. His treatise not only gives an insight into his individual approach to portraying the queen, but also provides an important theoretical framework for the painting of faces in early modern England. According to Hilliard, a miniaturist’s skill of portrayal is revealed, first and foremost, in the depicting of faces: of all things the perfection is to imitate the face of man kind, or the hardest part of it, and which carieth most prayesse and comendations, and which indeed one should not attempt untill he weare metly good in story worke, soe neare and so weel after the life, as that not only the party, in all liknes for favor and complection is or may be very well resembled but even his best graces and countenance notabelly expressed, for ther is no person but hath variety of looks, and countenance, as well ilbecoming as pleasing and delighting . . . 14

To a modern reader familiar with Elizabethan images, Hilliard’s outspoken and unmistakable delight in faces may come as a surprise: en masse, the composed English faces seem to bespeak a clinical, dispassionate approach on the part of the artist. The expressiveness of Hilliard’s faces, however, is of a different variety than that found in the creations of the Italian masters.15 Once the English painter’s vocabulary becomes familiar, the lingering on the visages in his miniatures brings out the subtle signs of expression that give life to the face in exquisite yet understated ways. Hilliard’s confession of not only aesthetic but also emotional pleasure of observing the faces communicates the delight and affection that permeate the scene of production of his portraits.

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As he admires the “comlynes and beauty of the face, therfor which giveth us such pleasinge, and feedeth soe wonderful ower afection, mor then all the worlds treasure,” Hilliard poses a requirement of restrained amorousness toward the sitter. Although “wee are all generally commanded to turne awaye ouer eyes frome beauty of humayne shape, least it inflame the mind,” an artist is obliged to look lest he fails to observe the subtlest shapes and motions of the face, and, therefore, “it behoveth that he be in hart wisse, as it will hardly faill that he shalbe amorous . . .” The artist, then, works in constant tension with his own erotic impulses, observing and taking down the features—“thosse lovely graces wittye smilings, and thosse stolne glances which sudainely like light[n]ing passe and another Countenance taketh place”—even as he worries about “blasting his younge and simpel hart.” 16 The explicit combination of the eroticism and beauty permeates Hilliard’s discussion of the face. For this reason, the technicality of his highly detailed description of the fleeting transformations rippling across the surface of a face is warmed by his affection, very much like the features recorded in his miniatures. In a certain sense, these specialized descriptions, articulated by a master of the brush rather than pen, may in their wonder at the smallest changes in the human face vie with some vague and conventional poetic sketches left by his contemporaries. It takes a keen eye of an artist or lover to register a smile in the following way: . . . in smilling howe the eye changeth and narroweth, houlding the sight just between the lides as a center, howe the mouth alittel extendeth, both ends of the line upwards, the Cheekes rayse themselves to the eyewards, the nosterels play and are more open, the vaines in the tempel appeare more and the cullour by degrees increaseth, the necke commonly erecteth it selfe, the eye browes make the straighter arches, and the forhead casteth it selfe in to a plaine as it wear for peace and love to walke upon . . . 17

Even as this itemized record of the birth of a smile, in an apparently dispassionate way, registers the subtle changes in shape and color in every visible part of the face, it bursts through the clinical style into an emotional metaphor in the end that throws the entire description into poetic relief. Portraits that we are likely to see produced by such a writer will endeavor to record every subtle configuration of a living face, and do it so affectionately that each face will bear a stamp of the artist’s fascination.

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Hilliard’s theoretical approach to the face includes an excursion into three components of beauty and a tripartite quality of a properly painted face. Listing the components in his treatise, Hilliard draws a distinct division between the judgment about a face in life and representation of the same face in a portrait (figure 3). Hilliard charts the evaluation of living and painted faces as follows: “the goodness or ilnes of the living face”: 1 Complection 2 Proportion 3 Countenan[c]e

Being the favore

“the goodness of a picture after the life”: 1 Liffe 2 favor 3 Liknes

which chiefly consist in these three features

Eye nose mouth

Figure 3. Nicholas Hilliard, A Treatise Concerning the Arte of Limning, 25. University Press of New England, Hanover, NH. Reprinted with permission.

The terminology in these classifications is distinctly early modern. The word “favor,” for instance, refers to facial appearance. Moreover, the artist destabilizes the term “favor” as he moves along. Thus, according to his chart, Hilliard seems to use “favor” as a general synonym to “comlynes and beauty of the face” (two terms themselves not entirely synonymous in early modern usage); however, earlier in the treatise he also points out more specifically, that the “good proportion [is] somtime called favore . . .” While “complexion” refers to the color of the skin, the “countenance” denotes facial expression: the “greatest of all is the grace in countenance, by which the afections apeare, which can neither be weel ussed nor well Juged of but of the wisser sort . . .” All together, “faire and beautiful” complexion, “good proportion,” and “grace in countenance” constitute the three parts of beauty.18 The inference is that the qualities of complexion, proportion, and countenance are the main points of reference for the early moderns, forming

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a judgment about facial beauty.19 We shall see that some of these elements may be downplayed in favor of others. Importantly, Hilliard esteems countenance as the “princepall part of the beauty” and also the chief trigger of “amorousness” in a beholder; the faces of his miniatures, therefore, should be examined accordingly. With this emphasis in mind, the two major ramifications of Hilliard’s preference relate to the long-standing issues of agency and idealization in early modern thought. Hilliard himself did not leave his opinion on the use of cosmetic products, but his friend Richard Haydock voiced his protest to face-painting.20 Leaving aside the availability of cosmetic aides, discussed in chapter 2, with contemporary plastic surgery limited to the reconstruction of the noses ruined by syphilis,21 the only component of beauty that could be swayed by the owner of any particular face was the countenance: that is, one could train the features to assume a pleasing expression or refrain from showing emotion if the resulting expressions could not be altered. In this respect, Hilliard’s hierarchy speaks of his generosity toward his sitters, admittance that all “goodness” of the face is not lost even if one’s complexion and proportion are not ideal. It is on these grounds that Hilliard may proceed to dispute the previously mentioned link between proportion and favor, arguing that many well-proportioned faces are ill-favored and unpleasant to view. As Hilliard’s account develops, therefore, the term “favor” ceases to be synonymous with “proportion,” and the coexistence of both qualities becomes unstable. However, Hilliard notes that “very rarly doth nature or hardly can Art make a good favor that shall not howld that true proportion”; hence the good fortune of Sir Christopher Hatton, whose ill-proportioned features did not hinder his reputation “amongst the best favours,” is a wondrous exception to the rule.22 At the same time as Hilliard’s exaltation of the countenance opens an opportunity for self-fashioning through control of one’s facial expressions, it bears upon the art of a portrait painter and his likely choices among the possibilities for idealization. Would Hilliard be more or less disposed to idealize his sitter’s complexion, proportion, or expression? This question is tricky because an answer must account for two other major issues addressed by Hilliard in relation to the portrayal of faces: first, his tripartite evaluation of a face in a portrait is inclusive of, but not identical to, the three components of a judgment about a living face; second,

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Hilliard’s position in the controversy about the superiority of line or color, line or shadow bears a great importance upon all his artistic choices, his approach to idealization among them. To start with, Hilliard outlines the requirements for a successful portrait as both encompassing and outgrowing the excellence of a beautiful living face. In particular, the aspects of a painted face consist of the living face’s three components of beauty (favor), but also include life and likeness. The latter additions are obviously a function of a portrait as an artifact; its representational nature entails a further challenge of imitating those qualities that are already present by default in a living being. From this point of view, the task of managing the face in a portrait, therefore, is ostensibly more complex than in life. Moreover, encoded in Hilliard’s requirements are not only the early modern expectations that surround a successful portrait, but also rules that address the predicament of painting an ill-looking sitter. For the purposes of portraiture, the artist seems to advocate, so to speak, a most favorable likeness: so that “not only the party, in all liknes for favor and complection is or may be very well resembled but even his best graces and countenance notabelly expressed, for ther is no person but hath a variety of looks, and countenance, as well ilbecoming as pleassing and delighting . . .” 23 The artist is urged to “espy” and capture the moment of beauty, but the possibility that such moment may never come is optimistically veiled by Hilliard. Indeed, the assumption in Hilliard’s charts only seems to be that all sitters are as likely to possess “favor” as they are to have “liffe.” The presence of “liknes” ’ on the list seems to ensure, but instead undermines, the genuineness of painted “favor,” while together the two requirements create a balance that grounds idealization. Even here, however, Hilliard is struggling with the terms: “favor and liknes are both one in some sence, as one would say of a picture after the liffe, that it hath the very favore of the party or the very liknes of the party, both is one thinge, but when one sayeth it is a welfavored picture, and a well like picture, theese differ . . .” 24 Hilliard’s lack of precision in his attempt at theorizing the painted face is but a symptom of the larger confusion surrounding the terms of painting in the sixteenth-century England. Writing the first treatise on art in the English language, Hilliard encounters numerous problems in his task of expressing the theoretical

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assertions that have not yet acquired stability in either professional or everyday language.25 For example, in the distinction that Hilliard points out in the passage quoted above, the synonymy of favor and likeness ceases to exist once the terms refer to the painted face per se rather than the painted face only in relation to the living face of the sitter (“the party”). In the latter case, the portrait that has the “very favore of the party or the very liknes of the party” is evaluated on the grounds of likeness, be it likeness to the sitters’ features or their comeliness. When the focus shifts to the representation, the two terms are split: a “welfavored picture” commends the comeliness of a painted face regardless of the sitter’s actual demeanor, whereas a “well like picture” comments on likeness apart from the correspondence between the living and pictured faces in terms of beauty or lack thereof. In effect, the two comments together constitute a compliment both to the sitter and the artist whereas, in separation, they praise the artist alone (excluding, of course, the unlikely situation when an “ill-favored” portrait is desirable). These confusing subtleties, so evident in Hilliard’s meandering writing style, testify to the complexity of concerns surrounding the production and consumption of a painted face in early modern portraiture. Hilliard’s admiring contemporary George Chapman left a judgment that does not diminish the importance of likeness in a portrait, but certainly places it below the evanescent qualities of “motion, spirit, and life” achieved only by a master and appreciated only by a connoisseur: “. . . it serves not a skilfull Painters turne, to draw the figure of a face onely to make knowne who it represents; but hee must lymn, give luster, shaddow, and heightening; which though ignorants will esteeme spic’d, and too curious, yet such as have the judiciall perspective, will see it hath, motion, spirit, and life.” 26 Coming back to the earlier question of whether Hilliard is more or less disposed to idealize his sitter’s complexion, proportion, or expression, it is necessary to consider what has become, for art historians, a trademark of Hilliard’s artistic credo: his opinion on the use of color, line, and shadow in art. The terms “color,” “line,” and “shadow,” as they appear in Hilliard’s treatise, are in continuous tension with each other. Hilliard begins by educating the “common eys” of his reader about the true artistic mastery. In the absence of proportion and perspective, “neatnes and well coulloring” may give an impression of perfection, but only to an untrained

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eye. There is an obvious urgency in Hilliard’s desire to correct this misconception: “knowe it you for a truth that the cheefest mastery and skill consisteth in the true proportion and line . . . forget not therfore that the principal parte of painting or drawing after the life, consiste[t]h in the truth of the lyne . . .” Line and proportion, in this view, share the same nature: they circumscribe the figure and thus both stand in contrast to color and shadow, the two amorphous fillers of space, incapable of defining the shapes on their own: “the lyne with out shadowe showeth all to a good Jugment, but the shadowe without lyne showeth nothing . . .” 27 However, Hilliard’s radical pronouncements in favor of line are soon modified by his articulated admission of both color and shadow into the art of portraiture. He advocates shadowing “sweetly,” suggesting that to “shadowe as if it weare not at all shadowed, is best shadowed,” 28 and then goes on to give the detailed instructions as to the choice and processing of paints suitable for use in making miniatures. In the midst of these instructions, Hilliard inserts a dictum that brackets his preceding distribution of value among color, line, and shadow: “Take this for a generall rule, that Lymning must excell all Painting in that point, in that it must give evry thing his proper lustre as weel as his true cullor light and shadowe.” 29 This statement turns the focus away from the hierarchy of line versus color/shadow, concentrating instead on the issue of accuracy of imitation. These theoretical convictions hold utmost importance in the assessment of Hilliard’s practical choices in his depiction of faces. His own skill of the “truth of the line” has been acknowledged in John Harington’s testimony about Hilliard’s minimalist ability to delineate the face of the queen, capturing her likeness in four lines: “. . . among other things of his doing, my selfe have seene him in white and black in foure lines only set downe the feature of the Queenes Majesties countenance, that it was even thereby to be knowne, and he is so perfect therein (as I have heard others tell) that he can set it downe by the Idea he hath without any patterne . . .” 30 Harington’s deposition refers to an accomplishment in which Hilliard himself took no small pride, as the latter includes an oddly disguised self-reference in his treatise, mentioning the same incident: “. . . as one sayeth in a place, that he hath seene the picture of her majestie in fower [four] lynes very like, meaning by fower lynes but the playne lynes, as he might as well have sayd in one lyne, but best in plaine lines without shadowing . . .” 31 What

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these two accounts emphasize is not the scarceness of lines, but their ability to convey likeness in the absolute absence of color and shadowing. However, one must not confuse the admiration for the artist’s skill manifested in a casual trick and the serious artistic convictions that transpire in the miniaturist’s carefully managed creations. To start with, there is an established place for color in Hilliard’s theory of depicting faces, and this place is assigned in accordance to the conditions that, in his view, make for an accomplished portrait. Likeness and liveliness of a picture, it turns out, depend on line and color: “. . . may if it be a faire face, have sweet countenance even in the lyne, for the line only giveth the countenance, but both lyne and colour giveth the lively likness . . .” 32 The sum total of line and color, in effect, produces all three elements that comprise “the goodness of a picture after the life”:33 favor, inclusive of proportion and countenance (line), life and likeness (color). One may add that color is obviously used to render the sitter’s complexion (the third constituent of favor), but Hilliard leaves this out. In fact, his rendition of complexion is the least detailed and the most generic: after making the initial decision as to what shade to use to paint the skin, a miniaturist lays the ground pigment of that shade. As the image is created and colors applied, the ground layer is left intact in the areas that represent the skin. Moreover, shadow makes an auxiliary contribution to the portrait’s success. Hilliard continues: “. . . and shadows showe the roundnes, and the effect or defect of the light wherin the picture was drawne . . .” 34 Shadow, unlike line and color, belongs more to the setting than the sitter: even though it helps to show relief of the face, shadow is essentially a “defect of light” and attribute of place.35 If so, how may the technique of shadowing affect the representation of a face in a portrait? In his answer, Hilliard continuously appeals to the necessity of representing the truth. Here, an ethical requirement is implied, but not charted as a part of judging a portrait. Indeed, prompted by Elizabeth’s famous question about “shadowing,” Hilliard theorizes his stylistic preference for presenting faces in full frontal light in terms that start out as purely optical, but soon become distinctly moral. . . . when first I came in her highnes presence to drawe, whoe after showing me howe shee noti[c]ed great difference of shadowing in

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the works, and diversity of Drawers of sundry nations, and that the Italians who had the name to be cunningest, and to drawe best, shadowed not, Requiring of me the reason of it, seeing that best to showe ones selfe, nedeth no shadow of place but rather the oppen light.36

In Hilliard’s opinion, shadows cause obscurity. They act as a cover-up for the artist’s incompetence or indolence (because then he can draw “a grosser lyne”) or of the sitter’s defects (“to palle, too red, or frekled [fa]ce”); in either case, shadows conceal what should be visible: the truth. Even if beauty may still show in a shadowed picture, it appears muted because shadows act like a veil whereas “beauty and good favor is like cleare truth, which is not shamed with the light, nor neede to bee obscured.” 37 Two questions immediately arise from this reasoning: (1) what should the artist do if his sitter is devoid of “beauty and good favor” and (2) what can be inferred about a woman’s “real” appearance from her portrait? Both of these questions lead into the territory inhabited by Hilliard’s numerous clients, Elizabeth in particular—a client whose depiction carried a significance of singular magnitude. Despite his admiration for common English beauties,38 Hilliard acknowledges that not all faces are perfect, and those lacking in complexion (but not in proportion) can be remedied by being shown in a shadow. Heavy shadowing, therefore, may indicate not only the painter’s ineptitude or badly lit setting, but also an attempt to camouflage the defects of the sitter’s complexion. Actually, the shadow in setting and shadowing in portraiture do the same for a face covered in freckles (or excessively red or pale) as what cosmetics do for it in life. Hilliard seems to disapprove of such complacencies in painting, concluding that “great shadowe is a good signe in a pictur after the life of an ill cause . . .” 39 It is interesting that the artist is careful to point out that the woman in his example possesses a good proportion even though her defective complexion is an “ill cause.” Irregular proportion, he implies, can be helped neither by a trick of light and shade in life nor by chiaroscuro in painting. The possible inadequacies in the third element of beauty, countenance (the one Hilliard has pronounced to be the most important), are silently omitted in this statement. It is this complex and at times contradictory set of valuations, techniques, and correspondences that surrounds Hilliard’s

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famous account of the queen’s sitting for her portrait. As Hilliard prepares to paint her picture, Elizabeth makes a point of using the occasion to show herself in “the oppen light,” allowing the artist to view and record her looks. The queen’s choice of the “open ally of a goodly garden, where no tree was neere, nor anye shadowe at all” 40 is an eloquent follow-up to her own observation that “best to showe ones selfe, nedeth no shadow of place but rather the oppen light.” 41 Such willingness to display herself without reservation, in the context of recognized moral connotations of light and shadow, says less about Elizabeth’s vanity than confidence in her moral goodness and eagerness to make this confidence known to the artist as well as viewers of his work. For the reputation and authority of the writer of this treatise, however, the effect of this narrative is twofold. First of all, this story allows Hilliard to assert obliquely his position of being in charge of the sitting. Elizabeth’s decision, though it is often cited as an expression of her personal taste in portraiture, is in complete agreement with Hilliard’s own convictions. In his prescription for a proper setting, he expounds the rule “conserning the light and place wher you worke in” as follows: “on[e] only light great and faire let it be, and without impeachment, or reflections, of walls, or trees, a free sky light the dieper the window and farer, the better, and no by window, but a cleare story . . .” 42 Moreover, Hilliard overtly connects Elizabeth’s choice to his persuasive answer to her question about shadowing: she arrives to the sitting with an understanding that an “oppen light” is needed “best to showe ones selfe”; but she chooses to sit in the open ally because she “conseved the reason” as Hilliard explained it.43 Likewise, when Hilliard admits that “this her Majestie curiouse d[e]maūnd hath greatly bettered my Jugment besids divers other like questions in Art by her most excelent Majestie which to speake or writ of, weare fitter for some better clarke,” 44 he juxtaposes the queen’s questions and his own judgment: her demands stimulate the artist’s articulation of his views and observations rather than fashion them. Although it is tempting to see in this unique account Elizabeth’s agency and management of her own portraiture, 45 the context hardly justifies such optimistic view. In the absence of Hilliard’s remark that it is the conversation with Elizabeth and her choice of the place for the sitting that prompted him to form the above rule that the sitter always has to be placed in the open light, this story testifies more to Hilliard’s skillful management

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of Elizabeth’s inclination than the queen’s unbridled control of the ensuing portrait. Second, in recording this account more than twenty years after the event, Hilliard lays a retrospective claim on the truthfulness of his portrayal of Elizabeth: at least, in one portrait that was created as Elizabeth sat in “the open ally of a goodly garden.” 46 The truthfulness of all his portraits, however, is qualified by his theoretical concepts of the face as well as the social situation where a degree of idealization is a necessity. In addition, one may exploit the affinities of Hilliard’s portrait production to his craft as a goldsmith and connect his views on artistic bettering of natural gems to his likely position on idealization in portraiture. Hilliard notes that the cutting and setting of a stone doubles its value, and “proportion g[i]ven to a Stone by Arte, by the cuning Artificer helpeth nature, and addeth beautye as well as nature doeth, to the great commendations of that Misterye or Sience.” 47 For today’s viewers of Hilliard’s Elizabeth, therefore, his credo of truthfulness has to be accepted in the sense he seems to have assigned to it: the “truth of the line” had little to do with likeness to the living face, and everything with life and favor emanating from the painted visage.

Hilliard’s Elizabeth: “the truth of the lyne” Hilliard’s uniqueness among those who painted images of Queen Elizabeth lies both in continuity and undisputed authorship of his creations. Hilliard’s portraits span three decades of Elizabeth’s reign and form a line of visages that record a history of their own. It is this history of the queen’s face, “writ by N Hilliard” 48 that I would like to examine in this section, based on some representative portraits that record the variety of possible facial features, a variety that even one and the same artist has not failed to capture in his creation of the royal image. In order to interpret the faces Hilliard gives to Elizabeth in his miniatures, we need to superimpose onto them the network of criteria, values, and requirements announced in his treatise. Needless to say, some, if not all, correspondences of his practical decisions to the theoretical aspects on his chart are beyond solid verification. With all caution, however, we can still get at some principles of Hilliard’s portrayal of the queen’s face. The objective is not to evaluate the quality of each portrait according to the directions in

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Hilliard’s second chart, but to discover the meaning of Hilliard’s artistic choices by deducing the correspondences among the features in the portraits. These findings will be used to reconstruct the transformation of the facial qualities listed in the first chart, dedicated to the judgment of the living face, into the painted faces of the miniatures. My task, unlike that of a conscientious restorer of paintings, is to discern the additives and alterations not in order to clean them off, but to make sense of the meaning produced as a result of translation of flesh into paint. Despite his previously mentioned claim of truthfulness (via his credo of portrayal in the “oppen light”), the manipulation of the face is overtly inscribed in Hilliard’s principles of endowing a portrait with life, favor, and likeness: respectively, life is conveyed by the depiction of the eyes; favor, by the shape of the nose; and the secret for capturing likeness lies in a skillful rendition of the mouth.49 Besides assigning meaning and purpose to specific features, these correspondences imply that parts of the face may and should be adjusted in accordance to the artist’s and sitter’s wishes. We may discern the distribution of Hilliard’s priorities by noting that he gives no instructions as to the painting of a mouth; emphasizes a well-proportioned nose as a chief trait of a well-favored face;50 and gives a great number of techniques for the proper portrayal of the eyes.51 If Hilliard’s focus as a writer is indicative of his artistic preferences, it would seem that he is likely to spend his greatest effort on achieving liveliness. To be sure, the unevenness of his instructions may also indicate the difficulty of producing universal rules for the rendition of a mouth, a feature whose painting, in this view, would require the most individualization. The depiction of a nose, however, is another matter. Natural noses fall in far more categories than simply well- or ill-proportioned, and the early modern physiognomists indefatigably document their various shapes in their treatises. The fact that Hilliard is willing to be satisfied with a generally well-proportioned nose carries a great importance because his royal sitter quite certainly possessed an adequately proportioned but aquiline nose. The noses in three early portraits of Hilliard’s Elizabeth are certainly well-proportioned in regards to the rest of the face (figures 4 and 5; Miniature Portrait of Elizabeth I, Royal Collection [c. 1580]52). The classic formula calls for the length of the nose being a third of the distance between the chin and top of the forehead.

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Figure 4. Nicholas Hilliard. Queen Elizabeth I playing the lute, circa 1576–1580. Miniature Portrait. Berkeley Castle, Gloucestershire, UK/The Bridgeman Art Library

Hilliard’s own preference, in the matter of proportion, for intuition over calculation53 is suitable for the challenge of proportioning Elizabeth’s face, artificially elongated due to the fashionably receding hairline that purposefully accentuated the broad forehead, a sign of beauty at the time. The shape of each nose, however, differs: the 1572 (figure 5) miniature hints at a possible slight

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Figure 5. Nicholas Hilliard. Queen Elizabeth I, 1572. Miniature portrait. National Portrait Gallery, London, Great Britain. Photo Credit: V&A Images, London/Art Resource, NY

hump on the nose, with a more pronounced elongation and dipping toward the tip. The face in this miniature, in all its delicacy, is vague and evasive, but not because Elizabeth or Hilliard preferred it to be so. This vagueness is the result of a restorer’s cautionary repainting.54 Nevertheless, this portrait presents a relatively rare case of ambiguous aquilinity in the shape of the nose: it is thin and long, with a delicate tendency to hook and an even subtler hint at crookedness in the upper middle. The nose in the Lute miniature

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(figure 4) is thicker and straighter, and the angle of its tip suggests no dipping. The miniature in the Royal Collection is transitional between Hilliard’s early vision of the younger queen and his even less realistic adjustment of her face into a settled “mask of youth,” a term proposed by Roy Strong in reference to the rejuvenation of Elizabeth’s features in many portraits created in the later part of her reign. It is here that the evasion begins: the outline of the nose grows thinner so as to almost disappear in the middle section; as a result, the lower part of the nose (quite exquisitely sculpted) is emphasized while the possibility of crookedness in the middle is bypassed. The mouths in these three miniatures—a site where, according to Hilliard, the artist must take chief care to convey likeness—are surprisingly dissimilar. Not only does the thickness of the upper and lower lips vary, but also the delineation of the lips shows no similarity whatsoever. Even as the upper lip grows thinner in the two later portraits, its line is quite straight in the Lute miniature whereas in the third depiction the two corners at the center of the upper lip are unmistakable. This last mouth is also repeated in the Phoenix and Pelican portraits. This inconsistency is especially significant because, on one hand, the shape of the mouth is unlikely to undergo such dramatic changes over one decade of a person’s life, and, on the other hand, the first two miniatures, traditionally thought to be painted in the queen’s presence, may be expected to record likeness with considerable precision.55 The features in the 1572 miniature have been completely repainted, although ultraviolet light still reveals the underdrawing similar to the features of the Pelican portrait, a full-scale painting attributed to Hilliard. In the latter portrait, the elegant points in the middle of the upper lip are fully defined, opening the possibility that the mouth in the 1572 miniature was originally quite shapely. What follows is that the Lute miniature has either undergone some paint loss or it depicts a mouth altered by the facial expression of the sitter. The latter is more likely. First, Strong finds the condition of this miniature sufficiently good to suggest a sitting associated with it; and second, this portrait exhibits other signs of animated countenance, especially in comparison with the other two miniatures under discussion. In particular, the eyes (especially, Elizabeth’s left eye that is closer to the viewer) in the Lute miniature are not fully open; their slightly elongated shape suggests a hint of an attentive squint, a

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tease, or even a hidden smile (Hilliard asserts, “in smilling . . . the eye changeth and naroweth”).56 Again, unlike in the other two miniatures, the queen’s gaze here is engaged with the viewer’s eyes: she is not playing the lute in solitude, and her awareness of the onlooker’s presence accounts for her facial expression as much as her sentiment toward the music that her hands are ready to elicit from the lute. Hilliard’s skill in depicting the eyes as the loci of life is especially evident if the three sets of eyes in these miniatures are compared. While Elizabeth’s gaze in the 1572 portrait is averted from the viewer in a frozen moment of inwardness, the third miniature depicts the queen’s stare in an intermediary position: she seems to be looking toward the viewer, but her sight is unfocused, and her mind seems to be remote. In addition, let us mark that the color of Elizabeth’s eyes in the Lute miniature is much darker than in the other two depictions (and thus probably closer to the truth), and such inconsistency in eye color extends to all the portraits of the queen. Partly, these variations are explained by discoloration caused by the passing time, but, because black is unlikely to fade to a very light bluish grey hue, the fact remains that many times visual representations of Elizabeth feature lighter eyes. As discussed in chapters 3 and 4, Elizabeth’s eyes were described as black by an eyewitness, but not in the literary portraits of the queen. One may turn to the early modern physiognomic treatises for an explanation. A somewhat unstable set of meanings is associated with each eye color. In particular, a treatise attributed at the time to Aristotle pronounces “black lack-lustre eyes” as a sign of an “orderly man,” but only if they open and close slowly and are “neither very wide open nor half closed”; otherwise, “excessively black” eyes are a sure sign of cowardice.57 Thomas Hill, claiming to follow Aristotle and Avicenna, declares “very blacke” eyes an unfailing indicator of fearfulness and continues to explain “eyes blacke, notable in brightnesse” as a mark of an “evill conditioned, deceytfull, and wicked” person58 while “eyes appearing much blacke in colour” belong to a person “of a harde nature, and fraudulent.” 59 According to Richard Roussat, very black eyes signify not only fearfulness, but also “desyre to scrape together gooddes” while “eyes not altogether Browne” show “good courage and mynde.” 60 In contrast, “eyes not very gray in colour, but to a seemly maner, like the colour of the Lions eies” are thought to signify an

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“honest nature and good minde”;61 whereas brown eyes, if they are shiny and sanguine, are a “signe of rasheness and privation of witte: But yf they be well proporcioned, they betoken good state of the wytte”; however, “tremblyng eyes and browne” belong to a “man withoute shame, unfaythfull and unjuste.”62 Physiognomic writings allow, therefore, a considerable wiggle room in the range of the positive and negative meanings of eye color, and no color is linked exclusively to good qualities. In this context, for Elizabeth’s contemporaries, the variations of eye color from one portrait to another augmented the mystery of the queen’s personality, as if to suggest that her essence could not be pinned down and defined. In addition, Elizabeth appears with lighter eyes most frequently in her miniatures, while the fullscale portraits tend to hold to coloring her eyes darker shades of brown. This lightness in the eyes of the miniatures may indicate Hilliard’s attempt to depict her sunlit eyes as transparent (and thus truthful), as well as underscore the romantic appeal of a miniature as a private genre. Whereas Hilliard was first and foremost a painter of miniatures, three full-scale portraits of Elizabeth are attributed to this artist on the grounds of characteristic handling of line and color: the Pelican and Phoenix portraits and Queen Elizabeth I (c. 1580).63 Setting aside the lack of intense shadowing (a technique that Hilliard, in his treatise, actually allows in “great pictures placed high ore farr of”),64 the delineation of the face in these three portraits is not a simple enlargement of the features in Hilliard’s miniatures. In the first two portraits, Phoenix and Pelican, the affinity to the 1572 miniature (figure 5) is certainly visible in position and setting of the face as well as in its general proportions, but each face is nevertheless unique in its subtle details. The face in the third large portrait is a not too distant relative of the Pelican and Phoenix; however, it sports an unusual degree of idealization that decisively transforms the meaning of the queen’s face. The differences in the linear features of the first two faces suggest that, although these two portraits are reversed versions of each other, they are not identical. The composition of the face in the Phoenix portrait has undergone some early corrections. After the first draft on the priming, the features were adjusted upward and the face was narrowed. In particular, Elizabeth’s eyes, mouth, and nose were drawn higher, with her right eye drawn completely anew over the first version.65 These adjustments have extended

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the chin and perhaps are responsible for the difference in the depiction of the eyes. The enlarged chin is common to the Pelican and Phoenix portraits, to the probably related the 1572 miniature, and to some other portraits of Elizabeth as a young queen. The readers of Roussat were instructed that a long chin was much preferred to short chin: the latter was thought to signify that a person was filled with vices, “full of impietye and wyckednes and are spyes,” while the former belonged to a person “verye lyttle subjecte to anger, and of a good complexion: and yet he be somewhat a babbler and a boaster.” 66 Hill also pronounced a “large & bigge” chin to be a mostly positive sign of being “quiet, of a mean capacitie, dull of witte: yet faithfull, secret, and convertible, eyther unto the good or evill.” 67 In Elizabeth’s later portraits, the mouth is placed considerably lower, and the area occupied by the chin is thereby shortened. While her chin is thus brought closer to a proportional mean rather than made short (again, according to the physiognomists, the most desirable solution of a happy medium), this transformation in the later portraits seems to be, to some extent, a neutralization of the suggestions of “babbling,” “boasting,” and susceptibility to easy manipulation, qualities associated with the longer and larger chins. Because this correction accompanies Elizabeth’s coming into her own as her power stabilizes despite the low expectations earlier in her reign, this small detail of the depiction of her face may be seen as a testimony to the rhetoric of Elizabeth’s marriageability: is she, or is she not, merely a vain woman who can be easily controlled?68 Elizabeth, however, could not efface her gender nor was she willing to do so, and her womanhood survives in many distinct features of her state portraits. For example, all Elizabeth’s portraits consistently exhibit a round chin, a physiognomic marker of femininity and a feature that curbs, in certain overtly charismatic portraits, the unsettling effect of her inquisitive stare, aquiline nose, and unsmiling lips.69 The Darnley portrait of Elizabeth is one of the most well-known examples of such charismatic portraits (figure 6). If Hilliard’s 1572 miniature (figure 5) and the large portraits attributed to him endeavor to present a calm and somewhat remote countenance imbued with intelligence, this intelligence and will are asserted emphatically in the Darnley portrait where Elizabeth is shown unsympathetically reciprocating the viewer’s gaze. It is

Figure 6. Anonymous, sixteenth century. Portrait of Elizabeth I, Queen of England. Detail. Circa 1575–1580. Oil on wood. National Portrait Gallery, London, Great Britain. Photo Credit: Bildarchiv Preussischer Kulturbesitz/Art Resource, NY

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this face that became a pattern for numerous paintings that differ most noticeably in the choices of Elizabeth’s dress and jewelry, but preserve the stern countenance with its alert and distrusting stare. This was obviously a welcome rendition of the face of a ruler who would not only protect her country from the encroachment of other sovereigns, but would also tolerate no sedition of the subjects in her realm. It is a stance that will be inverted at the end of the reign when the loving bond with subjects will be emphasized instead, both in the queen’s speeches and her portraits.70 The face depicted in this portrait provided a pattern for a vast group of other paintings, making the Darnley cluster the most populous among several sets of Elizabeth’s portraits produced in her lifetime.71 Strong asserts that the “compositional source” of the third full-size portrait of the queen attributed to Hilliard is the Darnley portrait.72 If so, the face in the former painting, despite its superficial similarity to the Darnley pattern, recalls the faces of the Pelican and Phoenix portraits in preserving, with some moderation, the larger chin, the small mouth, and especially the exquisitely sculpted curls framing the forehead and temples. Unlike the curved nose in the Darnley portrait, as aquiline as it will ever get in paint,73 the middle of the nose in Hilliard’s depiction is softly straightened, characteristically, by the lack of emphasis on the particulars of its delineation. The oval of the face is also softened and smoothed in an idealized curve, effectively rejuvenating the face. As in the Pelican and Phoenix portraits, Elizabeth’s mouth is very small (another physiognomic sign of femininity),74 notably delineated in the Darnley portrait and its many descendants. No less significant is Hilliard’s preference, in all three large portraits, for a gaze that avoids the viewer’s eyes rather than meets them, especially as decisively as the commanding stare of the Darnley portrait. Hilliard’s Elizabeth is never imposing, and her viewers are moved to admire her “grace of countenance,” delicacy, and splendor, as well as her essential mystery. The regal dress and sumptuous jewelry leave no doubts as to the identity portrayed in this highly idealized full-scale portrait. These elements seem at once to justify, validate, and stabilize the refashioning of Elizabeth’s face. In other words, this new face not only continues to signify the queen, but, in doing so, becomes one of her legitimized faces, capturing an aspect of her identity that, if not readily visible in her body natural, is nevertheless deemed to be a necessary element of her public image.

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It is perhaps for this reason that Hilliard usually softens, in his early miniatures of the queen, the lineaments of Elizabeth’s characteristically deeply set eyes, erasing the prominent curves of the eye sockets and thus relaxing her facial expression. To be sure, the limner’s refusal to propagate a sharp stare in his sovereign’s images could have been a consequence of his somewhat romanticized attitude toward his sitters, as well as the conventions of intimacy associated with the genre of miniature. The cultural attitude to such a commanding stare was, however, fraught with meaning that went farther than that of a disturbed intimacy. “The eyes that beholde sharpelye, and wyth the eye lyddes studyouslye declining” were thought to betray a malicious, deceitful, secretive, wicked, and “fayntly faythfull” person.75 The shape of Elizabeth’s eyes seems to have been especially problematic. Judging by the frequency of their occurrence in portraits, we can conclude that she possessed hooded eyes whose lids became very prominent by the 1570s. Even when a princess, Elizabeth was described alternatively as modest or haughty, to some extent because of her eyes, and she was equally capable of juggling these contradictory impressions when she became queen. Interestingly, Hill teaches that “the upper eie lidde bearing out, rather blowne up: then full appearing, and somewhat declining ouer the eie” declare a “hawtie and disdainfull” person.76 Whether the correspondence between her pride and the shape of her eyes is an accident of physiognomic accuracy, or perhaps, for her observers, Elizabeth’s wide upper lids intensified the expression of haughtiness on her face, it is these hooded, emphatically convex eyes that have become Elizabeth’s most consistent trait in her portraits.77 It is also, quite surprisingly, the feature that Hilliard chose to retain when he composed the so-called mask of youth, a vision of Elizabeth seemingly untouched by the ravages of age. Even though Hilliard postulates that the likeness of a portrait resides in the mouth, Elizabeth’s identity seems to be captured by the artists most consistently in their representation of her eyes. An early example of the “mask of youth” is found in Hilliard’s miniature (figure 7); a moon jewel and arrows in the queen’s hair refer to the cult of Elizabeth as Diana/Cynthia, and the smooth round shape of her face is evocative of the moon, with the lines of her ruff accentuating the radiance of the face and drawing the gaze of the viewer toward her countenance. This radiant

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Figure 7. Nicholas Hilliard. Portrait of Queen Elizabeth I, 1588. P. 23–1975. Victoria and Albert Museum, London, Great Britain. Photo Credit: V&A Images, London/Art Resource, NY

moon-like shape of the face becomes a recurrent feature in Elizabeth’s later portraits, in disagreement with the surviving testimonials that her face was very lean and wrinkled in the last years of her life.78 The invention and establishment of the “mask of youth” were so radical that the new image affected the meaning of a range of Elizabeth’s portraits that came into being well before this innovation. With the introduction of the rejuvenated face of the older queen, the linear sequence of portraits turned in upon itself as Elizabeth’s youth was reinvented in new, masculinized terms. When Elizabeth was a princess, the possibility of her inheriting the throne was so remote that she, unlike her younger brother, was never depicted on a threshold of gaining power. She was represented instead in accordance with conventional portrayal of young women’s “constrained chastity.”79 At the same time, as Mary Hazard reminds us, the early modern understanding of youth figured it, above all, as “the period when the male members of society

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were cultivating their talents and refining their skills in positions that prepared for the exercise of power.” Even as Elizabeth became queen, almost all her early portraits continued to be conventionally feminine. The aspect of her coming into power was not addressed explicitly. Not until the mid-1570s and 1580s do these images begin to acquire and surpass all the attributes usually granted to portraits of adult men, those indicative of full authority and responsibility. The process of maturation reflected in Elizabeth’s portraiture thus not only lags behind Elizabeth’s actual coming of age, but also yields little in terms of representation of her youth as “the time of power and increasing responsibility,” a concept normally reserved for males.80 The “mask of youth,” then, is as much a return to this underrepresented stage as it is an idealization of still being youthful and at the same time already fully empowered. Even in the 1590s, Elizabeth still remembered the uncertainties and hardships she experienced prior to ascending the throne.81 The cloud of illegitimacy was continuously hanging over the young Elizabeth’s head, and the retrospective revision of her early portrayals effectively legitimized the queen’s power, strengthening at the same time the least stable periods of her reign: the end and the beginning. The “mask of youth” then, even as it looks nothing like the young Elizabeth, rewrites both the beginning and the end of her life, compensating for the shortcomings of the earlier representations as it simultaneously fictionalizes her appearance in the later ones. In this sense, the trajectory of Elizabeth’s portraiture is circular rather than linear, with a return to youthfulness that simultaneously rewrites the decaying visage of the aging ruler, and the immature malleability of the young queen whose ability to sustain her power was still in question. In the later portraits that utilized “the mask of youth,” the face is the only element that conveys the queen’s youthfulness, and the multifaceted effect of the later portraits results from the reconciliation of the logical tension between this face and allegorical apparatus of a fully mature power scattered around it. The rejuvenated face surrounded by splendor is repeated even in the portraits of the queen not associated with Hilliard (see cover image and figure 14 for an example). The miniaturist, therefore, has discovered an effective formula of representation, one that conjoins the end and the beginning.

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Part II: Augmenting the Canon Clusters of Elizabeth’s Portraits: Purposes and Execution The flattering images created by Hilliard, however, were contemporaneous with more realistic representations that depicted Elizabeth aged and withered, images largely forgotten in discussions of the queen’s portraiture. This omission is symptomatic of a larger situation. In the course of the studies on Elizabeth in the past century, certain portraits have emerged not only as reliable and authentic, but also as artistically superior and even “parental” to others, in the sense that some portraits are deemed to be the “originals” that served as models for production of copies. I propose the term “clusters” to designate these groups of related portraits. My goal is less to dispute the status of these privileged images as higher quality portrayals of the queen than to counteract their monopoly as the safe favorites of scholarly investigation.82 Because it is not always clear which images are normative and which are the variants, clusters do not simply consist of the “originals” surrounded by their “offspring.” All portraits in a cluster were versions of a particular iconographic concept, and these versions were often produced by utilizing the same face pattern. The tracing of the changes and fluctuations of Elizabeth’s face within these clusters calls for a reconfiguration and complication of the trajectory of her representation in paint.83 In particular, the path proves to be no mere linear progression from conventional, unexciting portrayal of the young woman to an austere ruler to a divinely immortal Virgin Queen. Instead of a uniform transformation, we find diachronic changes marked by synchronic internal tensions at each point, particularly within the clusters of portraits united by the same face pattern. These pressures are evident in the representations of Elizabeth’s face that simultaneously connects and differentiates the portraits derived from the same blueprint. It appears, on the one hand, that the royal portraits were created, multiplied, and distributed less for the queen than for her subjects clamoring, as the 1563 draft of Royal Proclamation about the production of her images puts it, “to procure [her] portrait and picture”; at the same time, many of these portraits seem to be designed to please the queen as well as impress her subjects.84

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Speaking of a variety of the visual images of the queen, including portraits, Louis Montrose points out that Elizabethan royal images were employed in a wide range of cultural work, which included enhancing and subverting the charisma of the Queen; legitimating and resisting the authority of her regime; seeking to influence royal sympathies and policies in matters religious, civic, and military; and pursuing personal advantage by means of royal courtship and celebration.85

Although the very genre of Elizabeth’s portraits, as essentially elitist, was less suitable for expressions of subversion and resistance than printed images, multiple motives were likewise associated with production and reproduction of these portraits: for instance, some of them were created to be sent abroad in the course of marriage negotiations; others were commissioned by the courtiers in order to flaunt their connection to the queen as well as profess their loyalty; yet others, as the royal documents show, were meant to produce an official pattern to be followed in mass production for the wealthy subjects wishing to own a portrait of their sovereign. A brief consideration of the cluster of portraits formed around the Hampden portrait of Elizabeth, attributed to Steven van der Meulen (figure 8), reveals a range of meanings inscribed in the queen’s faces as the various versions of this cluster reinvent her visage. At least six versions of this portrait were produced in this cluster, and at least two of them are also attributed to Steven. As I explained above, there is no clear hierarchical relationship within the group nor is there a certainty about the chronological order of their production: this group dates to the period around 1563– 1570. For convenience of reference, I chose the Hampden portrait as the central image and will number the versions in this cluster arbitrarily. The representation of the face in the Hampden portrait (version one, figure 8) is considerably invested in Elizabeth’s femininity, likely because it was created in the context of the “marriage negotiations with the imperial court on behalf of the Archduke Charles.”86 Versions two and three, also attributable to Steven, share the facial features of the Hampden portrait but slightly elongate the nose; the face in these versions is more heavily shadowed, making the areas around the eyes and mouth appear somewhat swollen and creating a somber if not saddened look.87 The fourth

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Figure 8. Elizabeth I, “The Hampden Portrait,” circa 1563. Detail. Oil on panel transferred onto canvas. Anglo-Flemish School. Private Collection/Philip Mould, London/The Bridgeman Art Library

version offers a rather unflattering variation.88 The face here appears to be older and more resolute: the lips are drawn tighter, and the direction of the gaze is changed to engage the viewer in a piercing look. The meaning of this variation is uninterpretable.

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On the one hand, its emphasis on the queen’s aging is unflattering. On the other hand, the gaze signals power, authority, and confidence and, along with the wrinkles and stern expression, substitute the claim, evident in the other versions, that Elizabeth is in need of marital support and guidance with a new claim of her maturity and earnest ability to rule on her own. There is, however, another possible purpose of such representation: to protect the queen’s reputation. In the 1560s, the court was horrified by Elizabeth’s flirtations with Robert Dudley, and fears that she would rashly marry him were rampant both at home and abroad. Carole Levin points out that these speculations carried an implicit sense that “Elizabeth, this unmarried woman of questionable morals, had no business ruling.” 89 All versions in this cluster show Elizabeth as somber and trustworthy, but this version in particular prefigures her future image as the Virgin Queen. She may not look like an attractive maiden in this depiction, but the maturity and austerity of her face may well refute the charge of wantonness and loose behavior. This portrait captures in the queen’s face her willful personality and acute awareness of her own authority. In contrast, version five is a result of some significant idealizing changes that cosmetically subtract unbecoming elements from the Hampden portrait.90 In comparison with the depictions that emphasize the queen’s somberness, Elizabeth’s facial appearance in this version is not exactly softened as will be the case later in her reign, with some versions of the Ditchley portrait (figure 14). Her features are refined instead: there is more definition to the lips; the puffiness around the eyes and mouth is erased, and the contour of the face is almost imperceptibly slenderized. The radiance of her visage and its subtle smile testify to the queen’s robust health and readiness to produce the coveted heir. Finally, the sixth member of this cluster (figure 9) is a small anonymous portrait of the young queen, possibly depicting her in the presence chamber. The face comes from the same pattern, but this depiction is overtly androgynous. Elizabeth’s hair is pulled tightly under the hood absent from the Hampden portrait, minimizing the framing of the face and leaving it completely open; her features are reserved; yet, Elizabeth retains the delicacy of complexion as well as feminine gestures typical of this cluster of portraits. Although the contrast among the six versions within the Hampden cluster may reflect the different uses intended for these

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Figure 9. Anonymous, Elizabeth I, circa 1564–1567. Oil on panel. Used by permission from the collection of John H. Bryan, Jr.

paintings, the fact that the beautified version was enlarged while less enticing variants were painted on a smaller scale91 may suggest that, in the first decade of Elizabeth’s reign, feminine vulnerability, youth, and beauty were deemed favorable in portrayal of the still marriageable queen and were preferred to representation of her as a mature and shrewd ruler. Version six that combines the signs of feminine delicacy and masculine gravity of power is the smallest one of the group. Even so, its existence shows that the way has been open for the new royal iconography, an iconography that grants Elizabeth an ability to wield power while retaining

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her femininity. It is this androgynous iconography that resonates in the rhetoric of Elizabeth’s speeches, culminating in her famous proclamation at Tilbury in 1588 that her “body of a weak and feeble woman” was empowered by “the heart and stomach of a king.” 92 This instance of the reworking of Elizabeth’s face additionally indicates that the manufacture of a countenance in portraiture was often quite autonomous from the queen’s body natural for which this face was invented as a prosthetic substitution. Here and later in Elizabeth’s reign, the manipulation of facial features and the gaze modified the sitter’s apparent age, making her look older or more youthful, depending on the purpose of the painting. These changes in depiction also alter the representation of her personality, rendering her either vulnerable or stern and thus implicitly undermining or strengthening her royal authority. Moreover, the images in this cluster and others present the queen as a woman who, in her attractiveness or plainness, invites or discourages the viewers to perceive her as a possible object of desire or figure in unapproachable majesty. As Elizabeth’s reign continued, these tendencies coexisted and vied for dominance. The less attractive face of version four, for instance, looks forward to the intractable will and acumen that reappears about a decade later in the Darnley portrait (figure 6) and even later in the Ditchley portrait (figure 12); likewise, the rejuvenating technique of idealization is echoed in the end of the century in the invention of “mask of youth” (cover image and figure 7).

The Nose, the Smile, and the Wrinkle: Elizabeth’s Odd Faces An examination of Elizabeth’s portraiture, cluster by cluster, reveals that “odd” faces that differed from the “norm” either in style or quality coexisted with the canonical ones throughout her reign. Such a wide range of the royal images resulted from the fact that their dissemination and multiplication in Elizabeth’s England was less sporadic than purposeful, even when the initiative came from the viewers and artisans instead of the royal authority.93 The faces of the queen in many portraits are strikingly different from the visages to which we are accustomed on the basis of her well-known depictions. Nonetheless, these painted faces of the queen gazed from the walls of various houses inhabited by her contemporaries

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in England and abroad. Insofar as people in portraits displayed in places of habitation become a distinctive part of the household, the marginalized depictions of Elizabeth’s face formed multiple centers of attention in the houses outside the court. To the owners of these images, the value of these paintings was considerable even if their quality may have been lacking. The resemblance to the queen in these portraits was measured in juxtaposition to the memories of the queen’s appearance if one had them; otherwise, the face in the portrait was substituted for the face of the living queen. Lucy Gent notes that, for the Elizabethans, the importance of an idea in a painting compensated for the shortcomings of its execution. “Portraits of the Queen were to be portraits of true majesty”; it is this property, according to Gent, that “her royal subjects were prepared to find, regardless of the quality of the painting they saw.” 94 This mindset indeed is an important factor in the viewers’ perception of Elizabeth’s portraits. However, in a culture that exhibited a heightened interest in the meaning conveyed by faces, it is hardly possible that the faces in the queen’s painted portraits were seen as mere generic tokens of majesty. In this sense, there is hardly such a thing as a peculiar face of Elizabeth. The “odd” faces were as powerful as the “regular” ones. In the project of recovery of these lesser known images, therefore, no contemporary portrait of Elizabeth should be dismissed on the grounds of its poor quality, lack of resemblance to better known images, or obscurity. The queen’s lesser known faces, nevertheless, rarely appear as visual points of reference in academic studies. Some of these images are marginalized as inferior versions of canonical portraits; many are hidden away from public view in private collections and are unfamiliar to nonspecialists. If we welcome Elizabeth’s odd faces into the field of study, the received standard applied to her features will stand in need of qualification. In these odd faces, we see Elizabeth smiling, rather than looking remote and expressionless, and we also see her aged and sorrowful rather than forever youthful. Moreover, it is the oddness of these portraits that educates the modern eye. Read against these atypical images, the famous portraits reveal the subtlety of expression that is often unnoticed on its own. Mary Hazard explains, “The image of Queen Elizabeth I as she appears in her portraits is well known: the stiff posture, the expressionless and ageless mask, the elaborate clothing, the panoply of jewels and fabrics.” 95 In fact, this description is not

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invariably true even for all of the better known portraits of the queen although it does capture the tendencies in her depictions during the last decade or two of her reign. The concept of “the expressionless and ageless mask,” however, has become nearly a cliché in thinking about the subject, and Hazard quickly points out that Elizabeth’s “portraits are unsmiling.” Indeed, when asked to recall Elizabeth’s smile (an event, according to John Harington, which was “pure sunshine” 96 and a joy to behold), most of us will come up empty. Elizabeth’s smiles, however, appear in her portraits with a surprising frequency: for example, in the Garter portrait (figure 10), the Rainbow portrait (cover image), Elizabeth’s portrait in Saint John’s College at Cambridge, and in the Dover portrait discussed below. One of the reasons for eschewing a grinning countenance in early modern portraiture had to do with the culture’s suspicion of smiles as signs of moral looseness. A “cheerefull and smyling countinaunce” typically signified a person to “be gyven unto myrth, and to be lybidinous after nature”;97 likewise, “lippes faire, and cheerefull, and the countenaunce chearefull and smylinge also” put one in danger of appearing lecherous or libidinous, “but sume suche be deceavers, theves, and full of gieles or cavetous.” 98 Elizabeth herself was reproached, albeit by a foreigner, for showing excessive cheerfulness after her coronation.99 Nevertheless, as Harington’s testimony illustrates, smiles were also an object of admiration and social relief. If laughter was often considered lascivious, especially for women, a composed, subtle smile was a safer option and it had an advantage of adding expression without distorting the face. While the restrictions of formal portraiture created an intentional discrepancy between the expressions acceptable in one’s social behavior and those captured on canvas, the end of the sixteenth century seems to mark a gradual acceptance of depicting of smiling faces. It is likely, for instance, that Isaac Oliver’s miniature portrait of his wife was painted at about that time.100 The cheerful portraits of Elizabeth and of a smiling lady by Marcus Gheeraerts101 suggest that smiles, at least in some instances, were becoming welcome in the large-scale portraits, and beholding them was no longer a privilege of private viewers of miniatures: those “lovely graces wittye smilings” so adored by Hilliard. Indeed, at least one of the portraits of the smiling queen was specifically created for a very public place: the Portrait of Elizabeth I with the Cardinal and Theological Virtues was commissioned “to be

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Figure 10. Portrait of Elizabeth I, circa 1575–1580. Detail. Oil on panel. English School. National Portrait Gallery, London, UK/The Bridgeman Art Library

displayed as an emblem of monarchy in the town hall at Dover in Kent.” 102 The pillar on Elizabeth’s right is populated with women representing Faith, Hope, Charity, Justice, Prudence, Temperance, and Fortitude, an assembly that encompasses virtues of the queen

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as a pious virgin as well as a shrewd ruler. In this context of her multifold virtues, the queen’s smile was safe from reproach. Although one may argue that the smile of a ruler would be exempt of any negative connotations, this confidence was always unstable because this ruler was a female and thus susceptible to the usual charges of lasciviousness. The installation of the various virtues behind her shoulder not only served an allegorical purpose, but also protected her smile from misinterpretation: an arrangement especially significant in a portrait meant to be displayed in a civic setting. The artist’s choices in representation of the queen’s face are indicative of what features were found appropriate for a public display. Elizabeth’s nose in this portrait is thick and hooked; the eyes are brown and wide-lidded; the face is distinctly heartshaped, with the hair arranged to echo the shapely upper lip that makes Elizabeth’s smiling mouth reminiscent of a heart slightly stretched sideways. Unlike the uniform austerity of the Darnley portrait, the temporary facial expression here is at odds with the permanent facial features: the shape of the eyes and nose carry the meaning of shrewdness and strong will while the smile projects benevolence. The two coexist, complicating the queen’s multifold personality even as her many virtues range from Fortitude to Charity, strength and kindness enriching rather than annihilating each other. Another category of “odd” portraits shows Elizabeth with a disproportioned face. One of the most striking examples is found in an early cluster that adopts a full frontal view: a traditional medieval pose that presents the ruler confronting the viewer face to face, the symmetry and openness of the visage evoking the perfection and integrity of power, such as in the Westminster portrait of Richard II. Version one (figure 11) and version two date from around 1560. Both show a relatively full face, the proximity of nose and mouth reminiscent of Henry VIII’s “clutter syndrome,” described in chapter 1, the ruff and hair framing the face on all sides. In the first portrait (figure 11), the features are so generic and symmetrical that they look like a model image mathematically calculated to represent a human face; if it were not for particularity in the outline of the face and some individuality conveyed by the placement of the nose and lips, this face would hardly have any personality. As a matter of fact, the claim of impersonality has been promoted in many modern references to Elizabeth’s portraits; however, even the expressiveness of the

Figure 11. Portrait of Queen Elizabeth I, circa 1560. Detail. Panel. English School. Private Collection/Richard Philp, London/The Bridgeman Art Library

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seemingly impassive visage of the Coronation portrait (figure 2) becomes more evident in comparison with this smooth early representation. It is version two, however, that is clearly an odd one: whereas the clothes and the setting (the ruff, the ermine collar, even the Tudor rose and book in the queen’s hands) are convincing markers of Elizabeth’s identity, the face is positioned unusually low, and the eyes look uncharacteristically droopy and asymmetrical.103 In the Heinz Archive, the back of the photograph of this portrait bears a value statement “horrible.” Something indeed has gone wrong with the representation of the face in this picture. It is likely that this portrait originated from the workshop of Hans Eworth.104 In the workshops, the master artist normally painted the face, but it is unclear to what extent Eworth has contributed to the creation of this particular face. Obviously, the body proportion has been miscalculated: no space has been left for the sitter’s neck that causes the chin to dive lower than the shoulder line and the ruff to go as high as the temples. However, the mishap with the eyelids seems to have resulted from an unsuccessful attempt at a correction. Elizabeth’s prominent upper lids were not actually droopy. They looked convex more because of the hollowness of the bone structure above the eye than because they protruded down to the middle of the pupil. This portrait may be an early effort to represent the queen’s eyes more accurately, but the inexact placement of the lid and especially the pupil has produced a somewhat sleepy look; the uneven spacing of the pupils may be due to the same miscalculation. In the early modern period, droopy eyes indeed signified sleepiness or, alternatively, drunkenness; pseudo-Aristotle, for instance, says that “projections like bulges over the eyes” signaled somnolence “because when men are aroused from sleep the upper lids do hang down”;105 Hill warns that eyelids that “decline downewards, full and very thicke, especially when they be covered with a rednesse” are likely to belong to a “ruinous and wastefull drunkard.” 106 Given these connotations, even the Elizabethans who have never seen their queen would hardly find much appeal in this portrait. Still it is no less important that this face was accepted by some viewers as representation of the queen. In addition to the smiling and disproportioned portraits of Elizabeth, there exists a third group of unusual portraits of the queen. This group includes a few rare and lesser known examples

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of Elizabeth’s face ravaged by time and sorrow. We are far more familiar with the famous Rainbow portrait, for instance, which depicts the queen’s preternaturally youthful face ready to bloom into a smile of happiness, even as her time on the throne is about to expire (cover image). Because the revealing visages stand in frank contrast to the host of such counterparts hidden under the “mask of youth” of the last decade of her life, it is especially striking that two atypical portraits I am going to discuss are directly associated with the same artists who have fashioned some of the most celebrated icons of the queen: Hilliard and Marcus Gheeraerts, the Younger. One of Hilliard’s later miniatures of Elizabeth readily calls to memory his numerous starburst images of an ageless queen, but the sitter’s expression differs greatly from the youthful contentment emanating from most of these images.107 All the elements of the setting are still there: the sumptuous jewels, gorgeous ruff, carefully arranged hair. Her face greatly resembles that in the moon miniature (figure 7), but seems to convert peaceful acceptance into an expression of weariness and sadness. The corners of the mouth, the hooked tip of the nose, and the hints of wrinkles on the tired lids: everything seems to be tending downward. It is an unusual image, indeed, and a philosophical one at that, with its suggestion of unhappiness surrounded by splendor. Coming from Hilliard, it is less likely to be subversive than sympathetic, both for social and professional reasons, but also because of Hilliard’s singular ability to recognize and empathize with his sitters’ moods and expressions. Only the private nature of a miniature as a genre would admit a portrait like this one, encapsulating the quiet sorrow of the aging queen. Elizabeth’s melancholic disposition late in her life was frequently remarked upon by her courtiers, due in large part to the dying off of many of her closest friends and trusted advisors. Likewise, the Manteo portrait (figure 13), one of the variants of the celebrated Ditchley portrait (figure 12), is even more unforgiving about Elizabeth’s aging. It stands in striking contrast to the rejuvenated features in idealized versions of the same image, better known to scholars than the unforgiving depictions of the queen’s withering visage (figure 14). Folds and wrinkles abound on the face in the Manteo portrait. It is probably an unflattering portrait of this kind that Hazard has in mind as a rare exception to the overwhelming trend of covering up Elizabeth’s facial flaws:

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Figure 12. Marcus Gheeraerts the Younger. Queen Elizabeth I (“The Ditchley Portrait”), circa 1592. Detail. Oil on canvas. NPG 2561. Courtesy of National Portrait Gallery, London. Descriptions by her contemporaries, on the other hand, put a different face upon the image, one that appears on only a couple of graphic images of the queen, one corresponding more closely to the wicked witch of stereotypical tale, and one that perhaps represents the image of Elizabeth as she is imagined by unsympathetic readers of early modern history. She is described as having a hooked nose, but she does not appear in profile on canvas. She is described as having blackened teeth, but her portraits are unsmiling. She was reputed to wear a wig, so not even the color of her hair as it appears on the portraits would be of help in identifying her if observed in dishabille.108

In chapter 3, I have addressed the complexity of the rhetoric of describing the old queen. The observers noted her decaying appearance but remarked on Elizabeth’s dignified and benevolent disposition. Likewise, neither of the two portraits of an aging Elizabeth imagines her unequivocally as a “wicked witch.” In Hilliard’s miniature, the woman looks mournful rather than evil, and in the Manteo portrait, she gazes at the viewer with acceptance of her ravaged state, her dignity unshaken, and a smile hidden in the corner of her mouth. Hazard’s summation, in fact, exemplifies

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Figure 13. Workshop of Marcus Gheeraerts, the Younger. Queen Elizabeth I, circa 1592. Detail. The Elizabethan Gardens, Manteo, NC. Reproduced by permission.

the interpretive tendencies brought by even the most sensitive modern viewers to the representations of Elizabeth’s face. The hooked nose, blackened teeth, and a wig constitute the negative bits of reality that, as Hazard elegantly observes, are bypassed or hidden in the portraits. However, in the early modern period, these elements were not invariably negative; they were neither always absent nor consistently covered up, nor were their absence and concealment exclusive to the portraits of the queen. As we have seen, Elizabeth was depicted smiling, but not grinning widely; but neither did any

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Figure 14. Marcus Gheeraerts. Portrait of Elizabeth I. Detail. Oil on canvas. Galleria Palatine, Palazzo Pitti, Florence, Italy. Photo Credit: Alinari/Art Resource, NY

other women in their portraits, even if their teeth, as many lovers claimed, could rival the whitest of pearls. No portraits could convey whether the sitter was sporting a well-made wig or her natural (or dyed) hair; therefore, Elizabeth’s portraits can hardly be resolved of this ambiguity. Finally, the hooked nose (a feature that came to epitomize Elizabeth’s individuality although it appeared

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on canvas with less regularity than on coins and medals) was hardly a shape that conveyed an inflexible negative connotation to the early modern eye. To begin with, visual representations of Elizabeth’s noses are many; they come in a range of shapes and sizes. Even on coins and medals, where the queen’s face is molded in profile, her nose sometimes appears to be long and straight (figure 15), while in other instances, it is distinctly raised in the middle and almost always ends in a longish, although not necessarily hooked, tip. As we have seen, the variety of Elizabeth’s noses in portraits is even wider: from an idealized fairly straight and neat nose of some miniatures to the bold aquiline contour in the Darnley portrait to a thick and curved nose on the smiling portrait at the Dover City Hall.109 A hooked nose, like so many other features, is a generic term for a wide variety of noses that had a corresponding range of meaning in early modern physiognomy. However, even when sorted into two broad groups of likely positive and negative significations, these meanings may change their value in response to the specifics of each interpretive situation. Physiognomic thinking about aquiline noses is already in place long before Elizabeth inherits the English throne, and the positive connotations are rooted in the representations of the emperors of antiquity. The variants of this shape are frequently compared to birds’ beaks: in particular, to those of the eagle, raven, and hawk, with the physiognomic meanings linked to the cultural notions about each bird. Pseudo-Aristotle’s treatise, for example, connects the raven-like nose (“nose [that is] somewhat hooked and rises straight from the forehead”) to shamelessness,110 whereas a person whose nose is reminiscent of an eagle’s beak (“aquiline nose with a marked separation from the forehead”) is said to be magnanimous.111 Johannes Indagine makes extensive remarks about the controversy as to the

Figure 15. Elizabethan three-pence coin, 1575. Private Collection.

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correct meaning of a crooked nose: a feature that, he points out, often gets an unfair treatment: it will not be vaine to declare such adages as the common people do use uppon the noose, the whyche above all other membres they do moste abuse, as for so much as suche as are croked nosed are naturallye geven to deride and mocke other: thys proverbe is growen, to hange by the croked noose. Likewise a Rhinoceron his nose, whiche is an obiection against suche at or scorne other. Nowe be it amongste the Persians it was counted great comlinesse to be crooked nosed [ . . . ] And even unto this day they preferre no man unto that dignity, excepte he be well nosed, for it is saide that Xerxes was bolde and stoute, and a great mocker and scorner of men, whereby suche menne are judged scornefull and boulde, deceeitfull, trayterous, geven to rapine and Covetousnesse.112

In opposition to this popular opinion, Indagine rehabilitates the noses that are only slightly crooked, with “a certaine risinge upwarde, the crokednesse somwhat abated.” People with such moderately crooked noses “are to be judged liberal, stoute, eloquente, and proude.” Maximilian the Emperor is recalled as a noble owner of such a nose. However, even for the open-minded Indagine, the territory of aquiline noses remains unstable, as he hurries to add a contingency even to this already qualified physiognomic rule: “excepte the tippe of the nose be copped and sharppe, the whiche the more sharpe it is, it sheweth the more angry, severie, and froward persons.” 113 In the first edition of Hill’s translation of Bartolommeo Cocles’ physiognomy, published just two years before Elizabeth became queen, he writes that a “nose very highe elevated in the middle which we name a copped nose” is pronounced to be a sign of an “often lyar, vayne, unstable, leacherouse, sone or lightly credytyng, importunate, havyng a good wytte, grosse in feadyng, more simple then wyse, and malycyouse” person.114 He adds that a “nose that croketh, lyke to the byl of the Egle” signifies a “cholerick, couragyous, bold” person, who is also “a gredy ravener and cruel.” 115 Within these characterizations, we discern the polysemic possibilities of an aquiline nose in the early modern culture. This view is echoed in other physiognomic treatises. Roussat sees a “hawke nose” as a sign of “magnanimytye and courage, cruellty, rapacitye, and boldnes whych thyng commeth of heate. And therefore they that have thys hawke nose are commonlye angrye and full [of]

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revenge and gyve themselves to unlawefull things.” 116 Likewise, the degree of crookedness may intensify the nose’s negative potential: the harder the curve, the more dishonest and shameless the person is proclaimed to be.117 For Elizabeth, therefore, and for those who endeavored to portray her, her aquiline nose was a feature fraught with difficulty. If an aquiline nose remains outside of the early modern standard of feminine beauty, it is nevertheless admitted in the royal portraiture, perhaps as a part of Elizabeth’s androgynous public image. Her hooked nose may not always be a prominent feature. Beyond doubt, its appearance in the state portraits such as the Darnley was meant to accentuate her magnanimity, nobility of wit, and courage. When its crookedness was not erased completely, it was always “abated” so as to suppress the negative connotations of deceit and cruelty. In contrast, the shape of Elizabeth’s nose was glossed over in the portraits emphasizing her role as a “beautiful lady,” rather than that of a powerful queen. The odd faces of Elizabeth throw into relief the concept of likeness, noted by scholars as a primary expectation imposed on a portrait in the early modern period. It would seem that the oddity of these faces may contribute to the theory that one’s identity lay in one’s dress, regalia, books, and other markers of occupation and status separate from one’s physical being and appearance. However, likeness is not equivalent to identity, precisely because likeness is grounded in the body. It reflects the mind and soul insofar as they show themselves in one’s pose, and even more in one’s facial expression rather than in a crown displayed nearby or a book in one’s hand. Physiognomic likeness in the early modern portraits, however, is hardly ever painstakingly accurate, especially in the images of rulers. Marianna Jenkins postulates that at the heart of the state portrait in sixteenth century lies the “act of transforming the likeness of a given individual into a personification of certain abstract concepts,” and that the state portrait evolved with the premise that “the symbolic character of the work should exact a note of abstraction and impassivity in the rendering of the face of the sitter [in order to stress] the remoteness of a superior being.” 118 As we have seen, many depictions of Elizabeth exhibit an emotional expressiveness whose subtlety is consistent with the stylistic preferences of contemporary English portraiture. For the early modern audience, such subtle expressiveness must have contributed

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to the effect of lifelikeness of Elizabeth’s portraits, a quality that increasingly gained admiration among the viewers, even as the hopes for (or at least assumption of ) likeness in portraiture remained in place.119 Strong emphasizes that in the “Elizabethan mind the recording of human likeness was connected with [the] concept of fame and social rank.” 120 If this observation is true, then, for the Elizabethans, likeness (the body) and identity (the social position) are virtually indistinguishable. However, the viewers’ remarks about an individual likeness often refer to the face and thus occur outside the discourse of social rank.121 Instead of attempting to separate the two, I would like to point out that Elizabeth’s faces in her portraits, however odd many may seem to us, conveyed her potential likenesses to the early modern spectators. Whether such potential was or was not disproved by reliable witnesses, the display of these portraits in frequented places probably led to the viewers’ eventual acceptance of the face as likeness. It is often noted that portraits, in early modern culture, served as substitutes for their sitters. In Elizabeth’s case, such substitutions occurred on an increasingly larger scale as the number of her portraits multiplied throughout her reign. In this process, the odd copies, variants, and new compositions painted outside the production of the authorized images, took upon themselves not only to substitute for the queen, but also to rewrite her face simply by virtue of their representational status.

Reading the Painted Faces of the Queen The intricacies of interpreting the queen’s faces are then contingent upon a greater number of irrecoverable factors than has been recognized so far. The viewers brought to her portraits a set of expectations contingent upon their individual status, professional as well as cultural. An artist such as Hilliard, for instance, evaluated a portrait with specific criteria in mind: lifelikeness, comeliness, and resemblance to the sitter. His own emphasis on “sweetness,” in his theory and his miniatures, suggests that he would place the primary value on comeliness, or “favor,” of the portrayed face. Other viewers, such as George Chapman, were more concerned with lifelikeness whereas observers such as John Davies searched the queen’s face for her intangible glory. Those who met the queen viewed the portrayed face as a prop to their

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memories of her personal presence. Those who saw her briefly or from a distance would find that the painted face effectively replaced the visage captured in their memory. Finally, a great majority of viewers, at home and abroad, were left with no choice but to accept the face offered by the portrait as a truthful document of the queen’s real face. For this reason, the anxiety of some distant viewers manifested itself in their repeated questions about likeness. For instance, Margaret of Parma cajoled the Earl of Sussex into showing her a picture of Elizabeth, and Monsieur de Maldingham helped Margaret to evaluate the image when he “affirmed it to be so like unto [Elizabeth] as ther lacked but speche.” 122 Likewise, while at the French Court in 1580, Lady Cobham engaged Henri III and his wife Queen Louise in various conversations and maneuvers focused on a miniature of Elizabeth in Lady Cobham’s possession. Notably, the French queen asked Lady Cobham “if she [Elizabeth] were like it.” The fact that Lady Cobham confirmed this likeness is as important as the placement, in the French queen’s phrasing, of likeness as the quality that emanates from the image toward the person it represents, rather than the other way around. This example argues that the picture, in the immediacy of the act of viewing, readily assumed priority over the absent sitter, and confirmed likeness was transposed onto the sitter’s imaginary features.123 To an extent, witnesses such as the earl of Sussex and Lady Cobham become the ambassadors in whose power lies not only the assertion of the truthfulness of the image, but also the very formation of the concept of Elizabeth’s real face in the viewers’ minds. While the earl of Sussex may dismiss the portraits of the queen seen as marginal from his privileged position at court (he tells Margaret of Parma that the “picture commonly made to be solde did nothinge resemble Your Majestie”), the English subjects who bought and owned those paintings did so despite their lack of knowledge of Elizabeth’s real appearance. In addition, the queen’s portraits afforded an opportunity for a viewer to send a message separate from and more positive than those transpiring in the course of often difficult political negotiations. Used as props in the diplomatic setting, both miniature and full-length portraits depicting Elizabeth frequently elicited an exaggerated reaction. Recall, for instance, somewhat grotesque stories of Anjou’s rapture upon receiving the fifty-year-old

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Elizabeth’s portraits, or Henri IV’s refusal, after his interception of her picture sent to Catherine of Navarre, to part with the beautiful portrait of the sixty-year-old queen.124 A year or two later, Henri IV readily took Henry Unton’s bait when Unton declared that he had in his possession a picture of a mistress so excellent that her painted image came “farr short of her Perfection of Beauty.” After kissing it “twice or thrice,” the French king once again appropriated a portrait that did not belong to him, almost prying the miniature of the English queen out of the ambassador’s hand. Unton, who heretofore was having difficulty in his attempts to remove the king’s “ill Impressions” and “add Dulceness to his hard Conceipt,” concluded that the “dombe Picture did drawe on more Speache and Affection from him then all my best Argumentes and Eloquence.” 125 Even the queen’s faces depicted in Hilliard’s miniatures, therefore, were read differently by the English courtiers and ambassadors, who commissioned these images or received them as gifts from Elizabeth herself, and by the viewers abroad, with whom these courtiers and ambassadors shared the experience of gazing at these treasured possessions. Whereas both sets of viewers could assess the lifelikeness and favor of these faces, one group had to rely on the other group’s honesty as to the degree and nature of idealization and likeness. Likewise, the viewers’ subjective convictions of what constitutes a beautiful face, personal experience of the facial characteristics of one’s friends and enemies, and knowledge of the popular physiognomies endowed each of the queen’s painted faces with a variety of possible meanings. For the early moderns, the problem of authenticity mattered insofar as they questioned each portrait’s likeness to the real queen. Once they trusted in that likeness, the painted face became fair game for interpretation, both in the case of the portraits that in the later centuries became a part of the canon and the images that were relegated to relative obscurity.

NOTES

Introduction 1. The title quotation comes from by Pisemsky’s “The Secret Addendum Presented to the Czar by Fyodor Pisemsky,” 150. Mary Hastings was a sister to Henry Hastings, the Earl of Huntington. Elizabeth’s reluctance to promote Ivan’s suit stems from her overall lack of interest in forming a political alliance with the Russian czar. For a survey of the correspondence between Ivan IV and Elizabeth I, emphasizing the diplomatic rather than purely commercial relationship between Russia and England, see Inna Lubimenko, “The Correspondence of Queen Elizabeth with the Russian Czars.” A brief story of these marital negotiations, with approximate details, may be found in Cross, The Puritan Earl, 29–30; and in Lynn Emerson, Wives and Daughters, 106. I continue discussion of the correspondence between Ivan and Elizabeth in my forthcoming book chapter in Elizabeth and the Foreign Relations, ed. Charles Beem. 2. Wagner, ed., Historical Dictionary of Elizabethan World, 144–45. Ivan was mistakenly led to believe that, on her mother’s side, Mary was Elizabeth’s niece. In actuality, Mary’s relation to Elizabeth was somewhat distant: the Hastings inherited the Yorkist claim to the English throne through Margaret Pole, Countess of Salisbury, who was niece of Edward IV and Mary’s great-grandmother. Ivan’s ambassador, however, was unaware of the particulars and even remained under the impression that the current Earl of Huntington was Mary’s father rather than brother. 3. Pisemsky, “Addendum,” 150. All translations from Russian are mine. 4. This meeting is also described in Horsey’s “Observations in seventeene yeeres travels and experience in Russia,” in Purchas his pilgrimage. Or Relations of the vvorld and the religions obserued in all ages and places discouered, 969–92, esp. 982. Horsey, who spent a significant period at the court of Ivan IV, was not present at the bride-show and must have constructed his somewhat mocking account by hearsay.

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5. Ivan IV of Russia, “Memorandum for the Ambassador Nobleman and Shatsky Representative Fyodor Andreevich Pisemsky,” in Sbornik Imperatorskago Russkago Istoricheskago Obschestva, vol. 38, 5. 6. Pisemsky, “Addendum,” 154. 7. Ibid., 153–54. 8. Ibid., 154. 9. Mary’s brother was a staunch Puritan so this excuse actually rings true. 10. Ivan IV of Russia, “Memorandum for the Ambassador Nobleman and Shatsky Representative Fyodor Andreevich Pisemsky,” Collection of Russian Historical Society, vol. 38, 104. 11. In The Unbearable Lightness of Being, 40, Milan Kundera summarizes the views of the body informed by science: “The face is nothing but an instrument panel registering all the body mechanisms” in contrast to the ancient belief that, in the face, one’s soul becomes visible. These contrasting views on the significance of the face share the same concept: the face bears a text that communicates truths either about the body or the soul. The early moderns likewise read the face both for the signs of physical ailment and mental disposition. In this book, I focus on the latter in order to pursue the inflections of the belief in the face being an index of the mind. 12. Donne, Selected Prose, 38. 13. For the concept of faces as texts to be composed and read, see my forthcoming article, “Early Modern Face as Text: Conduct Books and Physiognomic Treatises.” 14. Shakespeare, Hamlet, 1.5.109. All quotations from Shakespeare follow The Norton Shakespeare, ed. Stephen Greenblatt et al. 15. Hillman and Mazzio, eds., The Body in Parts, xiv, xii. 16. In the hierarchy of spatial positioning, the early moderns followed Aristotle, who maintained that “the upper part [of the body] points in the direction of the upper part of the universe,” and that the “superior and most noble, considering high and low, tends to be up high; considering front and back, front; considering right and left, right” (cited in Patrizia Magli, “The Face and the Soul,” in Zone 4, 93). This topology, applied to the human body, privileges the face as the “superior and most noble” part. 17. Hutchinson, Order and Disorder, 30, 3.64–70. I am grateful to Jeremy Downes for bringing this reference to my attention. 18. Shakespeare, Richard II, 4.1.256–57; 4.1.267–80. 19. Late in Elizabeth’s reign, we find significant evidence of the nervous regard of Richard’s deposition by Bolingbroke as a precedent some subjects may attempt to repeat. In particular, John Hayward’s publication of The First Part of the Life and Raigne of

Notes

20. 21. 22. 23. 24. 25. 26. 27. 28. 29.

30.

175

Henri IIII in the early 1599, with a lavish dedication to the Earl of Essex, evoked major suspicion on the part of Elizabeth, who had Edward Coke peruse the books and take notes early next year, apparently looking for the parallels between Elizabeth and Richard. Essex’s admiration for the frequently performed play Richard II was brought up against him at his early trial, and the infamous attendance of the Globe performance of the play by his supporters the day before the Essex rebellion on February 8, 1601, all but cemented the link. The analogy between Elizabeth and Richard II is most famously celebrated in the queen’s alleged rhetorical question put to William Lambarde as she poured over the Tower inventory of manuscripts, “I am Richard II. know ye not that?” See Clegg, “Archival Poetics and Politics of Literature: Essex and Hayward Revisited,” 115–32, esp. 122, and Barroll, “A New History for Shakespeare and His Time,” 441–64, esp. 453, 447. Browne, Religio Medici, 137. I refer here to the books by Drew-Bear, Painted Faces on the Renaissance Stage; Phillippy, Painting Women; and Karim-Cooper, Cosmetics in Shakespearean and Renaissance Drama. Baumbach, Shakespeare and the Art of Physiognomy. Berrios, “The Face in Medicine and Psychology: A Conceptual History,” in The Human Face: Measurement and Meaning, 57–8. Burke, Eyewitnessing, 30. Orgel, “Gendering the Crown,” in Subject and Object in Renaissance Culture, 148–9. Montrose, The Subject of Elizabeth, 2. See, for instance, the insightful analyses of Elizabeth’s speeches by Frances Teague and Mary Beth Rose. Plowden, The commentaries, or reports of Edmund Plowden . . . Some of the studies that touch upon Elizabeth’s body in particular are typically concerned with her sexuality and virginity. See, for instance, Levin, “Wanton and Whore,” in The Heart and Stomach of a King, 65–90; Doran, “Virginity, Divinity, and Power: The Portraits of Elizabeth I,” in The Myth of Elizabeth, 171–99; Montrose, “Purity and Danger,” in The Subject of Elizabeth, 144–66; and “Elizabeth through the Looking Glass: Picturing the Queen’s Two Bodies,” in The Body of the Queen: Gender and Rule in the Courtly World 1500–2000, 61–87. Although not exclusively concerned with the queen, Phillippy’s and Karim-Cooper’s books touch upon Elizabeth’s case and thus begin to pay closer attention to the complexity surrounding Elizabeth’s use of makeup, an important aspect in the study of the queen’s face. See, in particular, Phillippy, “Colors and Essence” (133–61), and Karim-Cooper, “Painting the Queen” (58–63).

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31. The study of early modern body is a rapidly growing field. To name just a few key texts, some of the representative publications include Barkan, Nature’s Work of Art; Calbi, Approximate Bodies; Egmond and Zwijnenberg, eds., Bodily Extremities; Gent and Llewellyn, eds., Renaissance Bodies; Grantley and Taunton, The Body in Late Medieval and Early Modern Culture; Healy, Fictions of Disease in Early Modern England; Hillman and Mazzio, eds., The Body in Parts; Paster, The Body Embarrassed; Sawday, The Body Emblazoned; Schoenfeldt, Bodies and Selves in Early Modern England. 32. The interest in the politics of Elizabeth’s virginity is omnipresent. See, for instance, the works of Louis Montrose, Helen Hackett, and Philippa Berry. See also Amster, “Frances Howard and Middleton and Rowley’s The Changeling,” for the early modern views on the ways female bodies were presented or read as virginal. 33. Berger Jr., Fictions of the Pose, 127. 34. I define this term in chapter 4, in connection to John Lyly’s suggestion that, like a blinding sun, Elizabeth may be viewed and represented only indirectly, by means of a reflection. 35. In my use of the term “prosthetic,” I follow Harry Berger, Jr.’s notion of representational prosthetics in his essay, “Second-World Prosthetics: Supplying Deficiencies of Nature in Renaissance Italy,” in Early Modern Visual Culture, 98–147. Karim-Cooper talks about the prosthetic function of cosmetics in the early modern construction of femininity as well as their use as the stage props. See, in particular, “ ‘Pieced beauty’: Cosmetics as Prostetics,” 112–18.

Chapter 1

Plain Queen, Gorgeous King: Tudor Royal Faces

1. In English royal portraiture, a famous early example of the idiosyncratic face is the portrait of Richard II that appears in the Wilton Diptych and Westminster Abbey. In the Abbey portrait, the king is depicted in his royal state with throne, crown, orb, and scepter, but his forked beard and his heavy-lidded eyes would not have been standard iconographic markings of a king. These features may be a result of later repainting; their individuality stands out as an aberration in the medieval paradigm of depicting monarchs. For the history of overpainting and restoration of this portrait, see Hepburn, Portraits of the Later Plantagenets, 13–14 and figure 12. 2. Thurley, “Henry VIII: The Tudor Dynasty and the Church,” in Henry VIII: Images of a Tudor King, 20.

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3. Lloyd and Thurley, Henry VIII, 16. See, in particular, figures 5, 6, and 7. 4. In Henry VII’s portrait attributed to Michael Sittow (1505, NPG 416), the king’s gaze is turned to the viewer, and his features are even more painstakingly individualized (see Lloyd and Thurley, Henry VIII, figure 4). For a perceptive account of the main images of Henry VII, see Piper, The English Face, 36–45. 5. For dating and authorship of the extant manuscripts of the ballad, see Kingsford, English Historical Literature in the Fifteenth Century, esp. 250–52; Firth, “The Ballad History of the Reigns of Henry VII. and Henry VIII,” 21–50, esp. 26; Churchill, Richard the Third up to Shakespeare, 231. 6. The most pleasant Song of the Lady Bessy, 13. 7. The most pleasant Song of the Lady Bessy, 33–34. 8. Vergil, The Anglica Historia of Polydore Vergil,, 145. 9. See note 4. 10. Quoted in Weir, Henry VIII, 5. 11. Pet. Pasqualigo to ——–, April 30, 1515, Letters and Papers, vol. 2, part 1, item 395, p. 116. 12. “Nicolo Sagudino, secretary of Sebastian Giustinian, Ambassador in England, to Alvise Foscari,” May 3, 1515, CSP Venice, vol. 4, June 6, 1515, p. 247 (item 624). 13. See Lloyd and Thurley, Henry VIII, figure 12. 14. Cited in Neville Williams, Henry VIII and His Court (New York: Macmillan, 1971), 70–71. See chapter 3 for a discussion of Elizabeth’s conversation with Melville. 15. “Report of England by Sebastian Giustinian,” September 10, 1519, CSP Venice, vol. 3, January 2, 1519, p. 559 (item 1287). 16. “Letter from the Court of France to the Magnifico Pietro Montemerlo, Royal Senator,” June 7, 1520, CSP Venice, vol. 3, p. 50 (item 68). 17. “Letter from the French Court, dated 11th June, sent to the College by the Signory’s Governor Triulzi,” June 11, 1520, CSP Venice, vol. 4, p. 61 (item 80). 18. See Lloyd and Thurley, Henry VIII, figure 18. 19. “Lodovico Falier, Venetian Ambassador in England, to his brother Lorenzo ‘and the others,’ ” January 2, 1529, CSP Venice, vol. 4, p. 184 (item 385). 20. “Hironimo Moriano, Secretary to Lodovico Falier, Venetian Ambassador in England, to ——–,” January 2, 1529, CSP Venice, vol. 4, p. 185 (item 386). 21. “Report of England, made to the Senate by Lodovico Falier,” November 10, 1531, CSP Venice, vol. 4, p. 293 (item 694). 22. “A Tour in England.—Mario Savorgano to ——–,” August 25, 1531, CSP Venice, vol. 4, p. 287 (item 682).

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23. Piper, 51. For an analysis of the progression of Henry VIII’s visages in portraiture, see Piper, 46–51; Lloyd and Thurley, Henry VIII: Images of a Tudor King. 24. “Seb. Giustinian to the Council of Ten,” March 11, 1516, Letters and Papers, vol. 4, part 2, entry 4206, State Papers Online [Accessed: February 27, 2009]. 25. “Du Bellay to Montmorency,” April 25, 1528, Letters and Papers, entry 1653, State Papers Online [Accessed: February 27, 2009]. 26. “Van der Delft to Charles V,” February 13, 1545, Letters and Papers, vol. 20, part 1, entry 188, State Papers Online [Accessed: February 27, 2009]. 27. “Chapuys to Charles V,” April 16, 1542, Letters and Papers, vol. 17, entry 251. State Papers Online [Accessed: February 27, 2009]. 28. “Henry VII to Ferdinand and Isabella,” November 28, 1501, CSP Spain, vol. 1, p. 264 (item 311). “Arthur, Prince of Wales, to Ferdinand and Isabella,” November 30, 1501, CSP Spain, vol. 1, p. 265 (item 312). 29. Nic. Sagudino to Al. Foscari, May 3, 1515, Letters and Papers, vol. 2, part 1, pp. 119–20 (item 410). Katherine indeed may have been expecting; Mary was born just over nine months after Sagudino’s report. 30. “A Tour in England.—Mario Savorgano to ——–,” August 25, 1531, CSP Venice, vol. 4, p. 287 (item 682). 31. “Report of England, made to the Senate by Lodovico Falier,” November 10, 1531, CSP Venice, vol. 4, p. 292 (item 694). 32. There is a possibility, of course, that the meaning of Katherine’s smiles is not as positive as the witnesses seem to assume. Anthropologists have linked smiling to oppressed people trying to win favor. In any case, Katherine used her smiles strategically, and she succeeded in making their persistence noticed. 33. “Summary of the Interview between the kings of England and France,” October 31, 1532, CSP Venice, vol. 4, p. 365 (item 824). 34. Loades, Mary Tudor, 225, fn. 4. 35. “A Tour in England.—Mario Savorgano to ——–,” August 25, 1531, CSP Venice, vol. 4, p. 288 (item 682). 36. “Report of England made to the Senate by Giacomo Soranzo, late Ambassador to Edward VI. and Queen Mary,” August 18, 1554, CSP Venice, vol. 5, p. 539 (item 934). 37. Lancelot de Carles, “De la royne d’Angleterre,” quoted in Loades, Elizabeth I, 5. On de Carles’ account of Anne’s execution, see also Eric William Ives, The Life and Death of Anne Boleyn (Malden, MA: Blackwell, 2004), 60–61. 38. Sander, Rise and Growth of the Anglican Schism, 25. 39. “Report by the most noble Messer Daniel Barbaro (afterwards Patriarch elect of Aquileia) of his Legation in England, delivered by the Senate in the month of May 1551,” CSP Venice, vol. 5, p. 339.

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40. Hayward, The life, and raigne of King Edward the Sixt Written by Sr. Iohn Hayward Kt. Dr. of Lawe, 4. 41. “Report of England made to the Senate by Giacomo Soranzo, late Ambassador to Edward VI. and Queen Mary,” August 18, 1554, CSP Venice, vol. 5, p. 535 (item 934). 42. William Baldwin, “The Death playnt or life prayse of the most noble and vertuous Prince, King Edward the syxt,” in The funeralles of King Edward the sixt. VVherin are declared the causers and causes of his death (London: In Fletestrete nere to saynct Dunstons church by Thomas Marshe, 1560), A3r. 43. John Heywood, “A discripton of a most noble Ladye, aduewed by Iohn Heywoode: presently, who aduertisinge her yeares, as face, saith of her thus, in much eloquent phrase,” in John Heywood’s Works and Miscellaneous Short Poems, ed. Burton A. Milligan (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1956), 250. 44. A somewhat humorous report comes from Marillac, who apparently went out of his way collecting information on Mary’s appearance, using her chamber lady, portraits, and hearsay. “Marillac to Francis I,” October 12, 1541, Letters and Papers, vol. 16, entry 1253, State Papers Online [Accessed: February 27, 2009]. 45. “A Tour in England. ——–Mario Savorgano to ——–,” August 25, 1531, CPS Venice, vol. 4, p. 288 (item 682). 46. “Report of England, made to the Senate by Lodovico Falier,” November 10, 1531, CPS Venice, vol. 4, p. 293 (item 694). 47. “Biahchi” is a reference to the whites of the eyes rather than the color of the retina. 48. “Report of England made to the Senate by Giacomo Soranzo, late Ambassador to Edward VI. and Queen Mary,” August 18, 1554, CPS Venice, vol. 5, p. 532 (item 934). 49. Giacomo Soranzo continues, “She is not of a strong constitution, and of late she suffers from headache and serious affection of the heart, so that she is often obliged to take medicine, and also to be blooded.” 50. “An account of what has befallen in the realm of England since Prince Philip landed there, written by a gentleman who accompanied the prince to England,” August 17, 1554, CSP Spain, vol. 13, p. 31. 51. In his report following the wedding, De Silva notes that the “King fully realises that the marriage was concluded for no fleshly consideration, but in order to remedy the disorders of this kingdom and preserve the Low Countries” (“Ruy Gómez de Silva to Francisco de Eraso,” July 29, 1554, CSP Spain, vol. 13, p. 6 [item 7]). About nine months after the wedding, Simon Renard enumerated the reasons for the marriage between Mary and Philip. None of them concerned Mary’s person (“Simon Renard to Philip,” March or April 1555, CSP Spain, vol. 13, p. 150 [item 164]).

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52. “Ruy Gómez de Silva to Francisco de Eraso,” July 27, 1554, CSP Spain, vol. 13, pp. 2–3 (item 2). 53. “Ruy Gómez de Silva to Francisco de Eraso,” July 29, 1554, CSP Spain, vol. 13, p. 6 (item 7). 54. “Simon Renard to Philip,” March or April 1555, CSP Spain, vol. 13, p. 150 (item 164). 55. “A second letter from a Spanish gentleman who accompanied Philip to England, also addressed to a gentleman of Salamanca,” October 2, 1554, CSP Spain, vol. 13, p. 61 (item 72). 56. See, for instance, Christine de Pizan’s instructions on “how the wise princess will keep the women of her court in good order” (50–52). 57. “De Puebla to Ferdinand and Isabella,” June 16, 1500, CSP, Spain, vol. 1, p. 226 (item 268). 58. Mander, The Lives of the Illustrious Netherlandish and German Painters, vol. 1, fol. 231r, pp. 182–83. Woodall, “An Exemplary Consort: Antonis Mor’s Portrait of Mary Tudor,” 192–224. 59. Woodall, “An Exemplary Consort,” 206–7. 60. For the discussion of the early modern treatment of portraits in terms of their ornamental value, see Cropper, “The Beauty of Woman: Problems in the Rhetoric of Renaissance Portraiture,” in Rewriting the Renaissance, 175–90. 61. See, for instance, portraits of Mary in the National Portrait Gallery (NPG 4174) and her portrait by Antonius Mor in Museo del Prado at Madrid. A portrait of Mary by Hans Eworth (c. 1555) shows a more pleasant and somewhat softened face, a result of Eworth’s skillful alteration of the underdrawing. See Elizabeth Ann Drey, “The Portraits of Mary I, Queen of England,” unpublished MA report, Courtauld Institute 1990, pp. 35–50, cited in Hearn, Dynasties, 66–67. 62. “Report of England made by Giovanni Michiel, late Ambassador of Queen Mary and King Philip, to the Venetian Senate, on the 13th May 1557,” CPS Venice, vol. 6, part 2 p. 1054 (item 884). 63. “Giovanni Michiel’s report to the Venetian Senate,” May 13, 1557, CPS Venice, vol. 6, part 2, pp. 1058–59. 64. Johnson, Elizabeth I, 11. 65. “Report of England made by Giovanni Michiel, late Ambassador of Queen Mary and King Philip, to the Venetian Senate,” May 13, 1557, CPS Venice, vol. 6, part 2, p. 1058 (item 884). 66. “A Report made by Ambassador Scheyfve’s Secretary,” from “The Ambassadors in England to the Emperor,” September 4, 1553, CSP Spain, vol. 11, p. 205. 67. “Report of England made to the Senate by Giacomo Soranzo, late Ambassador to Edward VI. and Queen Mary,” August 18, 1554, CPS Venice, vol. 5, p. 533 (item 934).

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68. “Simon Renard to the Bishop of Arras,” September 9, 1553, CSP Spain, vol. 11, p. 228. 69. “Elizabeth’s Address to Parliament,” November 12, 1586, in CW, 194.

Chapter 2 “Let nature paint your beauty’s glory”: Beauty and Cosmetics 1. Elder, Pearls of Eloquence, or, The School of Complements, 28, 29. The epigraph comes from the “Speech to the Queen at Sudeley, 1592,” printed in Nichols, The Progresses and Public Processions of Queen Elizabeth, vol. 3, 140. 2. Nichols, Progresses, vol. 2, 94–103. The Lady of May was performed during Elizabeth’s visit to Leicester at Wanstead House, 1578 or 79, and printed in the end of Philip Sidney’s Arcadia, 1598. 3. Ibid., vol. 2, 94. 4. Ibid., vol. 2, 95. 5. Ibid. Italics mine. 6. OED: “Prob.: mincing, dainty.” 7. Nichols, Progresses, vol. 2, 96. 8. Ibid., vol. 2, 97. 9. Ibid., vol. 1, 431. 10. For the full speech of the Lady of the Lake, see: Ibid., vol. 1, 491–92. 11. Puttenham, The Arte of English Poesie [by] Lord Lumley, 207. 12. Ibid., 86–88. 13. Cropper, “The Beauty of Woman: Problems in the Rhetoric of Renaissance Portraiture,” 181. 14. Ibid., 182–83. 15. Spenser, The Faerie Queene, II.III.25.1. All references to The Faerie Queene follow this edition. 16. George Gascoigne, “Vanities of Beauty”; 2nd song (MSS in BL 18 A.61), printed in Nichols, Progresses, vol. 1, xliv, fn. 4. 17. For a discussion of the associations of Elizabeth with angels and the relationship between the cultural notions of beauty and the angelic, see Anna Riehl, “ ‘Shine like an Angel with thy starry crown’: Queen Elizabeth the Angelic,” in Queens and Power in Medieval and Early Modern England, 158–86. 18. For the description of Belphoebe, see Spenser, The Faerie Queene, II.III.26.1. 19. For the concept of beauty in Renaissance art theory, see Panofsky, “The Renaissance,” in Idea: A Concept in Art Theory, 47–99. For a history of thinking about beauty and its sociological implications, see Synnott, “Truth and Goodness, Mirrors and

182

20. 21. 22. 23. 24. 25. 26. 27. 28. 29. 30. 31. 32. 33. 34. 35. 36.

37.

38.

Notes Masks—Part I: A Sociology of Beauty and the Face,” 607–36; and “Truth and Goodness, Mirrors and Masks—Part II: A Sociology of Beauty and the Face,” 55–76. For an informative survey of early modern definitions of beauty, see Farah KarimCooper, “Defining Beauty in Renaissance Culture,” in Cosmetics in Shakespearean and Renaissance Drama, 1–33. Karim-Cooper’s work was published after this chapter was written; our accounts of the attitudes to beauty in the period are essentially in agreement. For a collection of primary sources, see Hofstadter and Kuhns, Philosophies of Art & Beauty: Selected Readings in Aesthetics from Plato to Heidegger. St. Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae (Ia.39, 8), vol. 7, 133. Donne, “An Anatomy of the World: The First Anniversary,” in The Complete English Poems, 250. References to Donne’s poetry follow this edition. Grieco, “The Body, Appearance, and Sexuality,” in History of Women in the West: Renaissance and Enlightenment Paradoxes, 58. Drew-Bear, Painted Faces on the Renaissance Stage, 23. Gunn, The Artificial Face: A History of Cosmetics, 64. Castiglione, The Book of the Courtier, 338–40. Ibid., 330. Ibid., 332. Ibid., 330. Ibid., 330. Sidney, “To Queen Elizabeth,” The Complete Poems of Sir Philip Sidney, vol. 2, 72–73. Nichols, Progresses, vol. 2, 314. Ibid., vol. 2, 315. Donne, “Sermon XIIII,” Fifty sermons, preached by that learned and reverend divine, John Donne. Donne, Selected Prose, 142. Donne, “Sermon XXXII,” Fifty sermons. Henricus Cornelius Agrippa, “The Superior Beauty of Women,” in Declamation on the Nobility and Preeminence of the Female Sex, trans. and ed. Elbert Rabil, Jr. (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1996), 50–54. For the hypotheses of the reasons for women’s beauty, see Buoni, Problemes of beavtie and all humane affections, 4–5. A compensatory view of female beauty is also recorded in Geffrey Whitney’s Choice of Emblems: “no defence was lefte for woman kind. / But, to supplie that wante, shee gave her suche a face: / Which makes the boulde, the fierce, the swifte, to stoope, and pleade for grace” (182b, “Pulchritudo vincit. To the fairest”). Lyly, Euphues. The anatomy of Wyt, 12r.

Notes

183

39. See, for instance, Twelfth Night, 1.2.43–47 and 4.1.331; 334–35; Merchant of Venice, 3.2.73–74; 81–82; 88–101. 40. Bacon, Essayes, 254–55. 41. Ibid., 254. 42. Karim-Cooper suggests a view of Elizabeth’s self-beautification similar to my argument that it was, to a significant extent, driven by a political necessity. Karim-Cooper’s conclusions, in Cosmetics in Shakespearean and Renaissance Drama, 61–63, are limited to Elizabeth’s use of cosmetics whereas I address a variety of rhetorical practices that were employed to fashion the queen’s reputation as a beauty. The title of this section comes from Philip Sidney, The New Arcadia, in Selected Prose and Poetry, 354. 43. Mendelson, “Popular Perceptions of Elizabeth,” in Elizabeth I: Always Her Own Free Woman, 192–214. 44. Ibid., 196. 45. CSP Foreign, vol. 6, part 2, 1058. 46. Elizabeth I: Collected Works, 303. 47. De Maisse, A Journal of all that was accomplished by Monsieur de Maisse, 38. 48. The Duke of Stettin’s visit to Oatlands on September 26, 1602. “Diary of Journey of Philip Julius, Duke of Stettin-Pomerana, through England in the Year 1602,” ed. Bülow, Transactions of the Royal Historical Society, 53. 49. See chapter 3 for the descriptions of Elizabeth’s appearance in the last few years of her reign. 50. De Maisse, A Journal, 38. 51. Bacon, “On the Fortunate Memory of Elizabeth Queen of England” (In Felicem Memoriam Elizabethae), in The Works of Francis Bacon, vol. 6, 453. 52. Elizabeth I: Collected Works, 251. 53. “Gradenigo’s Report to Piero Duodo, Venetian Ambassador in France,” CSP Venice, vol. 6: 1556–57; vol. 9, p. 238 (item 505). 54. Melville, Memoirs of His Own Life, 55. This exchange seems to be mirrored in Two Gentlemen of Verona, 4.4. 55. Cited in Strong, Gloriana: The Portraits of Queen Elizabeth I, 23. 56. Cited in ffolliott, “Portraying Queens: The International Language of Court Portraiture in the Sixteenth Century,” in Elizabeth I: Then and Now, 171. 57. Cited in Strickland, Lives of the Queens of England, from the Norman Conquest, vol. 4, 638. 58. Cited in Nichols, Progresses, vol. 1, xiii, fn. 1. 59. Forster, The Icy Fire. Five Studies in European Petrarchism, 127, 125. 60. Ibid., 127.

184 61. 62. 63. 64. 65. 66. 67. 68. 69. 70. 71. 72. 73. 74. 75. 76. 77. 78. 79. 80. 81. 82.

83.

84. 85.

Notes Wilson, England’s Eliza, 258–59. Liggett, The Human Face, 85. Aristotle, Physiognomics, in Minor Works, 127. The Kalendar and Compost of Shepherds, 152. Mendelson, “Popular Perceptions of Elizabeth,” 200. “The English Fortune-Teller,” in Roxburghe Ballads, vol. 4, 488–91, esp. 490. See Gubar, Judas: A Biography, 8, 116, 182 and Mellinkoff, “Judas’s Red Hair and the Jews,” 31–46. T[homas] C[hamberlain], I. D., M. S., T. B., T. C., The Compleat midwifes practice, 135. Cited in Phillippy, Painting Women, 104. Sidney, Selected Prose and Poetry, 354. Queen Helen is commonly considered to be Elizabeth’s counterpart in Arcadia. A “Dittie” to Elizabeth on her visit to Lord Montague [sp. Montecute] at Cowdray (1591), attributed to Lyly by R. Warwick Bond in his The Complete Works of John Lyly, vol. 1, 423. Spenser, The Faerie Queene, II.III.30.1, description of Belphoebe. Shakespeare, Two Gentlemen of Verona, 4.4.181–83. Williams, Powder and Paint: A History of the Englishwoman’s Toilet. Elizabeth I –Elizabeth II, 23. Liggett, The Human Face, 87. Gunn, The Artificial Face, 83. Anon., “The Redde ys wise, the Browne trustye, The Pale peevishe, the Black lustye,” in Commonplace book. See chapter 1 for discussion of Henry VIII’s appearance. Johnson, Elizabeth I, 11. CSP Venice, vol. 6, part 2, 1058–59. Elizabeth I: Collected Works, 56–58. Faret, The art to please at court, 265–67. As I explain in chapter 5, the English queen was depicted alternatively as a blonde and a redhead, and the choice of color was strongly connected to the purpose of each image as well as its generic association. “The Sermon Against Excess of Apparel,” in The second tome of homelyes of such matters as were promised and intituled in the former part of homelyes set out by the aucthoritie of the Quenes Maiestie, and to be read in euery paryshe churche agreablye, 117v. See chapter 3 for these descriptions. “Sir Henry Sidney to Sir Francis Walsyngham,” March 1, 1583, CSP Domestic, ed. R. Lemon (London: Longman, 1865), 1581–90, entry vol. 159, 1; State Papers Online. [Accessed: February 27, 2009.] For an argument about Sidney’s compensatory treatment of his mother’s defacement in Arcadia, see Kay’s essay, “ ‘She was a queen, and therefore beautiful’: Sidney, His Mother, and Queen

Notes

86. 87. 88. 89. 90. 91. 92. 93.

94.

95. 96. 97. 98. 99. 100. 101. 102. 103. 104.

185

Elizabeth,” 18–39. The title of this section comes from Spenser, The Faerie Queene, II.III.22.3. Henry Wotton, Commonplace book, composed about 1630, p. 6. [Folger V.a. 345]. Chamberlin, The Sayings of Queen Elizabeth, 52, 54. According to Chamberlin, it was “probably only the varioloid” (The Sayings of Queen Elizabeth, 88). Nichols, Progresses, vol. 2, 322. October 22, 1572. Also in Elizabeth I, Elizabeth I: Collected Works, 214; the manuscript is reproduced on page 213. Post script from queen, 323. “Thanksgiving for Recovered Health,” CW, 140. This may be a reference to the 1562 bout with smallpox. See Elizabeth: The Exhibition at the National Maritime Museum, 85, no. 63. See Edward Hawkins, Augustus W. Franks, and Herbert A. Grueber, Medallic Illustrations of the History of Great Britain and Ireland to the Death of George II (British Museum, London, 1885), vol. 1. Hawkins dates the medal 1572 (the “7” is flipped on the obverse). David Starkey and Susan Doran catalogue it as 1562, the year of Elizabeth’s first, significantly more dangerous bout, with the smallpox. The queen’s recovery from a near death experience in 1562 seems to be a likely event for commemoration. Although the scars caused by smallpox and syphilis have a somewhat different appearance (the former are “circular pits”; the latter are “larger, circular, or oval in shape”), the distinction was not always readily apparent. The presence of any circular scars on the face, therefore, could cause a suspicion of syphilis. See Musser, A Practical Treatise on Medical Diagnosis for Students and Physicians, 146. Nichols, Progresses, vol. 2, 163. Spenser, The Faerie Queene, II.III.22.1–2. Kay, “ ‘She was a queen, and therefore beautiful,’ ” 27. Hannay, Lady Mary Wroth: A Sidney Though Unnamed. For the story of Mary Hastings, see the Introduction. Cited in Weir, Elizabeth the Queen, 321. Ibid., 323. Ibid., 285. Tuke, A discourse against painting and tincturing of women, B3v. The title of this section comes from Spenser, “The Shepheardes Calendar,” in The Shorter Poems,69. 57 [Kr ]. This section follows in part my entry, “Cosmetics and Makeup” in Women in the Renaissance. See also Williams, “The Englishwoman’s

186

105.

106. 107. 108. 109. 110. 111. 112. 113. 114. 115. 116. 117. 118. 119.

120.

Notes Toilet,” in Powder and Paint, 1–32; Carney, “ ‘God hath given you one face, and you make yourselves another’: Face Painting in the Renaissance,” 21–34; Phillippy, Painting Women; Dolan, “Taking the Pencil out of God’s Hand: Art, Nature, and the Face-Painting Debate in Early Modern England,” 224–39; Karim-Cooper, “Early Modern Cosmetic Culture,” in Cosmetics, 34–66. “Elizabeth’s Address to Parliament,” November 12, 1586, CW, 194. The fact that facial blemishes of the monarchs were particularly noticeable and, even more importantly, that the visibility of the face in comparison to the body is analogous to the prominence of a monarch to a commoner, is illustrated in the emblem representing moles on the face, accompanied by the following inscription: “A small stain or mole on the face is sooner seen than a large one on the body: The face is open in all places, the body hidden and only seen from the outside. By this emblem we can remember, that we make more of the smallest of vices noted in a Prince, than a large one in the thin man” (cited in Porter, 6). Clapham, Elizabeth of England, 90, italics mine. Ibid., 86. Cited in Strickland, Lives of the Queens of England, vol. 4, 717. Williams, Powder and Paint, 7. Carney, “ ‘God hath given you one face,’ ” 28. See, for example, Neville Williams’ record of Elizabeth’s cleansing lotion, in Powder and Paint, 28. Karim-Cooper, Cosmetics, 59. Father Rivers, “Letter of 13 January, 1601,” in Records of the English Province of the Society of Jesus, vol. 1, 8. Foley, Records of the English province of the Society of Jesus, vol. 1, 24. Karim-Cooper, Cosmetics, 62. Ben Jonson, Conversations with William Drummond of Hawthornden, in Ben Jonson, 602. Reference to Volpone follows The workes of Beniamin Ionson, 3.4.15–16. Chettle, Englands Mourning Garment, Er. In Painting Women, 135, Phillippy points to “apothecary’s records, inventories of mirrors, and surviving mortars and pestles, used to grind and mix makeup” as additional evidence of the queen’s use of cosmetics. For stories about Elizabeth’s attitude to mirrors, see Jonson’s anecdote, see Clapham’s narrative in Elizabeth of England, 96, and Elizabeth Southwell’s “True Relation of What Succeeded at the Sickness and Death of Queen Elizabeth,” transcribed in Catherine Loomis, “Elizabeth Southwell’s Manuscript Account of the Death of Queen Elizabeth,” 492–509. For the interpretation of these stories, see Phillippy, Painting Women, 142–43.

Notes

187

Chapter 3 Meeting the Queen: Documentary Accounts 1. “Report of England made to the Senate by Giacomo Soranzo, late Ambassador to Edward VI. and Queen Mary,” August 18, 1554. CPS Venice, vol. 5, p. 539 (item 934). 2. A. P. Chudakov [А. П. Чудаков], Slovo—veshch’—mir: ot Pushkina do Tolstogo: ocherki russkikh klassikov [Слово—вещь—мир: от Пушкина до Толстого: очерки русских классиков. Word— Thing—World: From Pushkin to Tolstoy], 94–104. 103; 101. 3. Ibid., 101. 4. For an example of an essentialist description of a face, see Myshkin’s speeches about Nastasya Phillipovna’s face in Dostoevsky’s The Idiot. 5. Barthes, S/Z, 113. 6. [Cicero], Ad C. Herennium: De Ratione Dicendi, vol. 4, xlix.63. 7. Cicero, De Inventione; De Optimo Genere Oratorum; Topica, vol. 1.xxiv.35. 8. Ibid., II.LIX.177. 9. Vendôme, The Art of Versification, vol. 1, 75; I.67. 10. Vinsauf, Poetria Nova, ll. 598–99, p. 37; 36. 11. Erasmus, Copia: Foundations of the Abundant Style (De duplici copia verborum ac rerum commentarii duo), in Collected Works of Erasmus: Literary and Educational Writings 2, 582, 586. 12. Puttenham, The Arte of English Poesie, Book III, 204. 13. [Cicero], Ad C. Herennium, IV.xlix.63. 14. Epistolarum D. Erasmi Roterodami libri XXXI, Book X, Epistle 30, 534. I am grateful to Craig E. Bertolet for his translation from the original Latin. 15. In the beginning of the letter, Erasmus acknowledges von Hutten’s request to paint a “portrait” of More and promises to attempt only a “sketch” of the man. 16. Hayward, Annals of the first four years of the reign of Queen Elizabeth, 7. 17. Osborne, Historical memoires on the reigns of Queen Elizabeth and King James, 61. According to Henri IV, the other two unsolvable mysteries were “how valiant was Maurice of Orange . . . who had never fought a battle” and that of the nature of Henri’s religious beliefs. Henri famously converted to Catholicism because “Paris was well worth a mass.” 18. My concern here is only with the depictions of Elizabeth’s face and body. Nevertheless, picturesque stories about her jewels and attire are also a part of the politics of describing. The opulence of Elizabeth’s extravagant clothes and jewels performs a redeeming function similar to the one I describe here. That she herself

188

19. 20. 21. 22. 23. 24. 25.

26. 27. 28. 29. 30. 31. 32. 33. 34. 35.

36. 37.

38.

Notes may have intended these riches for this purpose is suggested in a pointed remark ascribed to Bacon by Agnes Strickland, 708: “She imagined that the people, who are much influenced by externals, would be diverted, by the glitter of her jewels, from noticing the decay of her personal attractions.” CSP Venice, vol. 9, 239. De Maisse, Journal, 25–26. Hentzner, A Journey into England in the Year M.D.XC.VIII, in Fugitive Pieces, on Various Subjects, vol. 2, 233–311, esp. 273. Hayward, Annals of the first four years of the reign of Queen Elizabeth, 7. Naunton, Fragmenta Regalia, or Observations on Queen Elizabeth, Her Times & Favorites, 38. Betts, “ ‘The Image of this Queene so quaynt’: The Pornographic Blazon 1588–1603,” in Dissing Elizabeth, 153–84, esp. 159. Walter Raleigh reported that, around July 1598, Essex said these words to the queen and was consequently boxed on the ear during their argument concerning the appointment of a lord deputy in Ireland (DNB, “Devereux, Robert, second Earl of Essex,” 881). See chapter 1 for a discussion of Anne Boleyn’s eyes. Galeotto Marzio, De homine (Milan, 1490), quoted in Martin Porter, Windows of the Soul, 13. See Introduction, note 19. CPS Venice, vol. 6, part 2, 1058. Ibid ., vol. 9, 239. De Maisse, Journal, 38. Ibid., 59, 61. Frederick, Duke of Wirtemberg’s Travel to England (1592), in England as seen by Foreigners in the days of Elizabeth and James the First, 12. Platter, Travels in England in 1599, 192. Platter refers to the Duke of Wirtemberg’s narrative (218) and even copies several pages verbatim. Platter’s narrative is plagued with inaccuracies. In “Popular Perceptions of Elizabeth,” 196, Sara Mendelson points that, due to Elizabeth’s use of cosmetics, she probably appeared quite beautiful when she was viewed from far away. See chapter 2 for the discussion of this issue. Melville, Memoirs, 55. In Reading Shakespeare Historically, 23–25, Lisa Jardine reminds us that de Maisse’ notorious story about Elizabeth exposing her belly does not give us access to Elizabeth as actual historical subject, but she adds that his text’s actuality is limited to “the sense that Elizabethan male subjects expressed (and therefore consciously experienced) their selfhood in those (explicitly sexual and desirous) terms.” Bacon, “On the Fortunate Memory,” 12.

Notes 39. 40. 41. 42. 43. 44. 45. 46.

47.

48. 49. 50.

51. 52. 53.

189

Platter, Travels, 192. Naunton, Fragmenta Regalia, 38. Bacon, “On the Fortunate Memory,” 451. Hentzner, Journey, 274. Harington, Nugæ Antiquæ: being a miscellaneous collection of original papers in prose and verse, vol. 1, 362. Jane Dormer, quoted in Erickson, The First Elizabeth, 59. Von Klarwill, Queen Elizabeth and Some Foreigners, 323. This nonverbal behavior is analogous to verbal figuration of ‘allegoria,’ as explained by George Puttenham: “when we speake one thing and thinke another, and that our wordes and our meanings meete not.” Puttenham remarks that “the most noble and wisest Prince of them all are many times enforced to use it, by example (say they) of the great Emperour who had it usually in his mouth to say, Qui nescit dissimulare nescit regnare,” 155. Inwardness, or interiority, is variously referred to as “essence,” “truth,” and “private self”; I conflate these terms as well. “Steven Mullaney has observed that the word ‘emotion’ did not become a term for feeling until about 1660, around the time that ‘individual’ took ‘on its modern meaning.’ The Renaissance words that most closely approximated what we call emotion were ‘passion’ and ‘affection’ ” (Paster, Rowe, and Floyd-Wilson, Reading the Early Modern Passions, 2). In the debate about the sense of interiority in the early modern period, my position is similar to that of Katherine Eisaman Maus, whose book Inwardness and Theater in the English Renaissance is a persuasive statement on the issue. Elkins, Pictures of the Body, 84. Berger, Fictions, 125. In Pictures of the Body, 84, James Elkins likewise remarks on the early modern shift in trust in a “systematic connections between mind and face.” In medieval epic the “gesture meant the passion,” and “symbolical connection remained between the body and soul, and facial expressions were a sign of this connection”; whereas, since the Renaissance, the “inner man” (homo interior) and the “outer man” (homo exterior) were no longer perceived as undivided from each other. Berger, Fictions, 127. Ibid., 131. Hulse, “Shakespeare’s Sonnets and the Art of the Face,” 3. Recent research on the relation between facial activity and emotions registers the same pitfalls of shimmering correspondences: “the relationship between facial actions and their multiple determinants can be described as being of the many-to-many type” (as opposed to a simple one-to-one). Among other considerations, psychologists are forced to take into account that “facial behavior as well as

190

54. 55. 56. 57. 58.

59.

60. 61.

62.

Notes other nonverbal behaviors are not only assumed to be influenced by emotion but also by a host of other factors, including motivations, social context and cultural conventions.” Most importantly for the study of Elizabeth’s facial activity as reported by the onlookers is the qualification confirmed by careful behavioral experiments: “it cannot be assumed that the moment characterized by the highest level of facial activity is also the ‘most genuine’ moment.” Kappas, “What Facial Activity Can and Cannot Tell Us About Emotions,” in The Human Face, 228, 226, 218. Shakespeare, Hamlet, 3.2.78. Ibid., 1.2.81; 1.2.85. Ibid., 1.5.109 Evans, Hesperites or the Muses Garden. See, in particular, Puttenham’s definition of allegory. On Puttenham’s treatment of courtly dissimulation, see Javitch, The Poetry of Courtliness in Renaissance England, and Kegl, “ ‘Those terrible approches’: Sexuality, Social Mobility, and Resisting the Courtliness of Puttenham’s The Arte of English Poesie,” in The Rhetoric of Concealment: Figuring Gender and Class in Renaissance Literature, 11–42. In order to create interest in information without volunteering its disclosure, for example, Bacon suggests, in “Of Cunning,” The Essayes, 129, that “you may lay a bait for a question by showing another visage and countenance than you are wont,” that is, assume a facial expression that would provoke a question from the interlocutor, allowing one to speak. Bacon, The Essayes, 128. Bacon finds both advantages and disadvantages in employment of dissimulation, and justifies its use in light of his established “three degrees of this hiding and veiling of a man’s self.” The three degrees explained by Bacon in “Of Simulation and Dissimulation,” The Essayes, 27–30, are secrecy, dissimulation, and simulation/false profession. As a realist, he admits that one cannot avoid dissimulation by necessity, at least to some extent. “I have in this assembly found so much dissimulation, having always professed plainness, that I marvel thereat—yea, two faces under one hood, and the body rotten, being covered with two visors: succession and liberty” (“Queen Elizabeth’s speech dissolving Parliament, January 2, 1567” [Speech 10, version 2], CW, 107). An even more emphatic variant appears in D’Ewes, The journals of all the Parliaments during the reign of Queen Elizabeth both of the House of Lords and House of Commons, 116–17: “where I always professed plainness.” Twenty years later, Elizabeth wrote to James: “. . . as not to disguise fits most a king, so will I never

Notes

63. 64. 65. 66. 67.

68. 69. 70. 71. 72. 73.

74. 75. 76. 77. 78. 79. 80. 81. 82.

191

dissemble my actions but cause them show even as I meant them” (“Elizabeth to James, February 14, 1587,” CW, 296). CW, 35. CPS Foreign, vol. 1, 387. CW, 302. Ibid., 46, 132. According to Harry Berger’s classification of various types of sprezzatura in Fictions, 98, this tactics fall into the category of “sprezzatura of suspicion” that “involves not deceit tout court but rather the menace of deceit, the display of the ability to deceive,” that is, the “ability to show that one is not showing what one really desires, feels, thinks, and means or intends.” Scholars like Javitch, Whigham (100–101), and, following them, Berger (97–99), point to sprezzatura as a strategy utilized by courtiers in competition for their prince’s favor. On concealment and revelation in Elizabeth’s poem “The Doubt of Future Foes” and in Puttenham’s comments on Elizabeth’s dealings with Mary Queen of Scots, see Summit, “ ‘The Arte of a Ladies Penne’: Elizabeth I and the Poetics of Queenship,” in Reading Monarch’s Writing: The Poetry of Henry VII, Mary Stuart, Elizabeth I, and James VI/I, 79–108. For a detailed and perceptive analysis of “Much suspected by me . . .” and “No crooked leg . . .” see Bell, “Elizabeth Tudor: The Poet,” in Images of Elizabeth I: A Quadricentennial Celebration, 1–22. Melville, Memoirs, 77. Ibid., 58. Cited in Strickland, The Lives of the Queens of England, 410. Cited in Loades, Elizabeth I: A Life, 67. CPS Spain, vol. 12, 125. For example, Michiel, a Venetian ambassador, describes princess Elizabeth as “proud and haughty,” May 13, 1557, CSP Venice, vol. 6, part 2, 1058–59. Likewise, de Maisse reports in his Journal, 3, that Elizabeth is a “haughty woman.” Camden, The History of the Most Renowned and Victorious Princess Elizabeth, 388. Memoirs of the Life of Robert Carey, Baron of Leppington, and Earl of Monmouth: Baron of Leppington, and Earl of Monmouth, 137. Warkentin, The Queen’s Majesty’s Passage & Related Documents, 77. Richards, “Love and a Female Monarch: The Case of Elizabeth Tudor,” 145–46. Warkentin, The Queen’s Majesty’s Passage, 97. Don Aloisio Schivenoglia, an Italian. CSP Venice, vol. 7: 12 Cited in Strickland, The Lives of the Queens of England, 733. CW, 53.

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Notes

83. 84. 85. 86. 87. 88.

Harington, Nugæ Antiquæ, 362. Ibid., 358–59. Bacon, Letters and Life of Francis Bacon, vol. 1, 178. Harington, Nugæ Antiquæ, 356. Ibid., 317. In his recollections of that highly agitated behavior, Harington found in them a manifestation of his late queen’s occasional “strange temperament,” and mused on “what strange humors do conspire to patch up the natures of some mynds.” Ibid., 355. 89. Ibid., 322. 90. Ibid., 362. 91. Cited in Birch, Memoirs of the Reign of Queen Elizabeth, From the Year 1581 till her Death, vol. 2, 507.

Chapter 4 “Mirrors more than one”: Elizabeth’s Literary Faces 1. Chapman, The Poems of George Chapman. Title quotation is from Edmund Spenser, The Faerie Queene (3.Proem.5.6). 2. Faret, The honest man, Folger STC 10686. 3. Wilson, The Arte of Rhetorique, 12. 4. Cicero, De Oratore, II.84.342, 459. For further discussion of the epideictic formulae, see Hardison, Jr., The Enduring Monument, 30. 5. Spenser, Faerie Queene, p. 16. 6. For a discussion of the concept of the king’s two bodies, see the Introduction. 7. Mary Villeponteaux, writing about Spenser’s Amazon Queen Radigund, suggests that “in Elizabethan England in general it was much easier to think of the queen in terms of her body natural.” “ ‘Not as women wonted be’: Spenser’s Amazon Queen,” in Dissing Elizabeth, 209–25, esp. 210. Whatever its hold over the popular imagination, I contend that Elizabeth’s body natural does not readily lend itself to description. 8. Barnfield, “Cassandra,” (1595), in The Poems of Richard Barnfield, 79. 9. Shakespeare, Othello, 2.1. 62–66. The Norton edition glosses the last two lines as follows: “whose natural beauty exhausts the poet’s capacity to invent praise” (p. 2117). 10. Shakespeare, Twelfth Night, 1.5.172–73. 11. Ibid., 1.5.263. 12. See, for example, Exodus, 33:19–23. See also Paul’s famous dicta whose meaning is not limited to being allegorical: “For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face: now I know

Notes

13.

14. 15. 16. 17. 18. 19. 20.

21. 22. 23.

24.

193

in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known” (1 Cor., 13:12). Harry Berger terms this version of modesty topos a particular variety of sprezzatura, a “sprezzatura of conspicuously false modesty.” Fictions of the Pose, 97. For the use of this figure in classical rhetoric of praise, see Hardison: the “prefatory profession of inadequacy” was one of the features of the encomium (endnote 8, 205). Lyly, Euphues. The Anatomy of Wit, A2r. Italics mine. Kinney, “ ‘Singuler Eloquence and Braue Composition’: Lyly, “Euphues, and Its Sequel,” in Humanist Poetics, 147. Lyly, Euphues. The Anatomy of Wit, A2r. Lyly, Euphues and his England, 121v–122r. See Hunter, John Lyly. According to Warwick Bond’s note, Venus is replaced by Leda starting with the printing in midsummer of 1579. Lyly, Euphues. The Anatomy of Wyt, A2r. Interestingly, Bond published this early variant in his key edition of Lyly’s works. The origins of Venus’ mole are unclear. It is not mentioned in Ovid, but Erasmus makes a reference to this goddess’ “blemishing mole” in The Praise of Folly (Witt against Wisdom, or A Panegyrick upon Folly [Oxford: Printed by L. Lichfield, for Anthony Stephens, 1683], B4r). An extended inquiry into this attribute is necessary, both in literary and visual representations. In my preliminary search, I have found no early modern paintings of Venus with a mole. Lyly’s reference seems to be the first one after Erasmus, and the only other mention of Venus’ blemish in the 1580s is found in Robert Greene’s Morando: The Tritameron of Loue ([London: For Edward White, 1584], B1r–B1v). Greene specifies that the mole was “in her face.” The appearance and supposed deformities of Anne Boleyn are discussed in chapter 1. Lyly, Euphues: The Anatomy of Wit, 1r–1v. In his famous “Proem” to Book III of The Faerie Queene, Spenser explains that the option to forgo description altogether is motivated by “fear through want of words her excellence to marre,” and yet the poet must forge forth, asking pardon of Elizabeth for his inevitable inadequacy (III.Proem. II.1–3.9). Legend has it that, in competition with Parrhasius (the very same painter whose artistic honesty was praised in the dedication to Euphues: The Anatomy of Wit), Zeuxis painted grapes so life-like that the birds pecked at them. It is Parrhasius, however, who won the contest by deceiving the eye of his competitor with a realistically painted veil that appeared to cover the painting. Thus the trick of suggestive substitution akin to that of painting Venus’

194

25. 26. 27.

28.

29.

30.

31. 32. 33. 34.

35.

Notes back in order to hint at her face belongs to Parrhasius rather than Zeuxis. Lyly, Euphues and his England, B1r. Lyly may have adapted this tale from Sannazarro’s description, in his Arcadia, of the technique in the painting of the Judgment of Paris (Bond, II, 480). See Exodus, 33:19–23, esp. 33:20: “But, he said, ‘you cannot see my face, for no one may see me and live’ ” (33:20) and “you will see my back; but my face must not be seen” (33:23). This narrative is especially interesting because this literal reference to God’s face clarifies the idiomatic meaning of the previous reference that the “Lord would speak to Moses face to face, as a man speaks with his friend” (Exodus, 33:11). “A Pleasant Conceite” (1593), New Year’s gift from Thomas Chuchyard (verses “counterfeiting to sette foorth the workes of an extraordinarie Painter”) (printed in Nichols, III, 238); italics mine. For an insightful discussion of this poem, see Lawrence Green, “ ‘Talkest thou nothing but of ladies?’: Courtly Love and the Aged Muse in Thomas Churchyard’s Pleasant Conceite (1593),” 19–35. For a discussion of issues associated with the use of the angelic trope in relation to Elizabeth I, see my essay, “ ‘Shine like an Angel with thy starry crown’: Queen Elizabeth the Angelic,” in Queens and Power in Medieval and Early Modern England, 158–86. See, for example, Montrose, “A Midsummer Night’s Dream and the Shaping Fantasies of Elizabethan Culture: Gender, Power, Form,” for a discussion of Simon Forman’s intimate dream about Elizabeth in 1597 (in Rewriting the Renaissance, 65–87). From the Bible to Macrobius, Langland, and Chaucer, and to Spenser and Shakespeare, the dream vision was an established literary genre by the early modern period. For an extensive study of the construction of Elizabeth through dreams, see Levin, Dreaming the English Renaissance. Nichols, III, 131–32. Spenser, Faerie Queene, I.IX.13–15. Shakespeare, Rape of Lucrece, l. 64. Spenser, Faerie Queene, p. 16. For an interesting application of the concept of the king’s two bodies to Spenser’s representation of Elizabeth, see Miller, The Poem’s Two Bodies: The Poetics of the 1590 Faerie Queene. In “ ‘The blazon of sweet beauty’s best’: Shakespeare’s Lucrece,” in Shakespeare and the Question of Theory, 104, Nancy Vickers points out that the body/shield metaphor makes a frequent appearance in the Blasons anatomiques du corps fémenin (1543). These examples, however, do not include a specific figuration of a face as a coat of

Notes

36. 37.

38. 39. 40. 41.

42. 43. 44.

45. 46. 47.

48.

195

arms; this metaphor may very well originate in the poetic descriptions of Elizabeth. Legh, The Accedens of Armory, A2r. For a survey of the early modern heraldic treatises, see J. F. R. Day, “Primers of Honor: Heraldry, Heraldry Books, and English Renaissance Literature,” 93–103. For studies addressing the history of English heraldic practices, see Rodney Dennys, The Heraldic Imagination; Wagner, Heraldry in England, and an illustrated volume by Thomas Woodcock and Robinson, Heraldry in Historic Houses of Great Britain. Spenser, The Shorter Poems, 34. Ibid., 43–44; 55–58; 64–77. Ibid., 68. In recent criticism, there has been a distinct tendency to unfold eroticized subtext of these descriptions. For example, in her discussion of “Aprill” in Of Chastity and Power: Elizabethan Literature and the Unmarried Queen, 80, Philippa Berry compares Spenser’s description of Eliza to that of Diana in Ovid’s Metamorphoses: Berry suggests that “Eliza is naked, clad in the ‘Scarlot’ and ‘Ermines white’ of her own skin.” Similarly, in “The Elizabethan Subject and the Spenserian Text,” 326–27, Montrose cites the line depicting Belphoebe’s cheeks as “roses in a bed of lillies shed” as an example of a “rhetorical play between the prohibition and provocation of desire”: for Montrose, “the internal rhyme on ‘bed’ and ‘shed’ imparts to the description of her maidenly modesty a subliminal suggestion of her defloration.” Ambiguity in anticipation of censorship is explored in Patterson’s Censorship and Interpretation. Almost all of Fulke Greville’s works, including the sonnetsequence Caelica, were published posthumously. This iconographic mode is itself heraldic in the sense that, as Ellen Chirelstein emphasizes, the essentially heraldic images are “flat, schematised and immobile” (“Lady Elizabeth Pope: The Heraldic Body,” in Renaissance Bodies: The Human Figure in English Culture c.1540–1660, 39). Hackett, Virgin Mother, Maiden Queen: Elizabeth I and the Cult of the Virgin Mary, 168. Vickers, “This Heraldry,” 175. This particular shape is that of a classic “heater,” the basic and most practical shape for a shield in a battle. On the evolution of the shapes of shields, see Dennys, The Heraldic Imagination, 43–44. See Vickers’ summary of the place accorded to the coats of arms in the Tudor England, “ ‘The blazon of sweet beauty’s best’: Shakespeare’s Lucrece,” in Shakespeare and the Question of Theory, 104–5.

196

Notes

49. The collateral existence of both the protective and rhetorical functions is evident, for instance, in the description of Sir Gawain’s shield that bears imagery both on the inside and outside in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. The painted shields of the multiple characters of Spenser’s pseudo-medieval Faerie Queene look back to the same tradition. 50. Albrecht Dürer, for instance, makes such partitioning in his drawings of human faces in his Dresden Sketchbook (Strauss, No. 110). Dürer’s sketches were familiar to the Elizabethans from Richard Haydock’s translation of Lomazzo’s treatise on painting. 51. In my use of this concept, I follow Mary Hazard who, in Elizabethan Silent Language, 236, adapted a phrase “absented presence” from Philip Sidney’s New Arcadia to explore the politics and dynamics of presence and absence at Elizabeth’s court. “Present/absence” refers to the “physical presence of one who signals personal separation from foregrounded action,” while “absent/presence” indicated the “felt presence of one physically absent.” For the effect of iconoclasm on religious imagery in England, see Duffy, The Stripping of the Altars: Traditional Religion in England, 1400–1580, esp. Part II, and Margaret Aston, England’s Iconoclasts. 52. Astrophil and Stella, Sonnet 13.10. 53. In The Crisis of the Aristocracy 1558–1641, Lawrence Stone maintains that, in the patrilinear English family, attention was focused “upon the origins of the father rather than those of the mother” (23). For Stone, the “inclusion of maternal coats going back many generations was not in itself symptomatic of any increasing respect for matrilinear descent” (25). There have been cases, however, when one’s genealogical claims depended heavily on the mother’s origins, as illustrated, for instance, in the discussion of Henry V’s claim to France in Act One of Shakespeare’s Henry V. 54. Strictly speaking, Elizabeth’s coat of arms is that of Henry IV, who modified the French quarters of Edward III’s shield from fleur-de-lis semé to France Modern (i.e., reduced the number of fleur-de-lis to three). 55. Thurley, “Henry VIII: The Tudor Dynasty and the Church,” in Henry VIII: Images of a Tudor King, 13–14. 56. For a survey of the imagery of roses (especially eglantine roses) associated with Elizabeth, see Strong, The Cult of Elizabeth: Elizabethan Portraiture and Pageantry, 68–73. For the history and use of Tudor rose, see Anglo, “The Rose Both Red and White,” in Images of Tudor Kingship, 74–97. 57. Shakespeare, Henry VI.3, 2.5. 97–102. 58. Shakespeare, Richard III, 5.8.20. 59. Strong, Cult of Elizabeth, 68.

Notes

197

60. Spenser’s friend Philip Sidney, however, while drawing on the same tradition, uses an unmistakably heraldic terminology that doubles up as a conventional metaphor (“gules,” “field”) when he depicts Stella’s rosy cheeks: “roses gules [red] are borne in silver field” (Astrophil and Stella, Sonnet 13. 11). 61. Shakespeare, Rape of Lucrece, 65, 68. 62. Nancy Vickers, “Diana Described: Scattered Woman and Scattered Rhyme,” in Writing and Sexual Difference, esp. 104. 63. In The Artificial Face, 53–54, Fenja Gunn writes that the Picts “covered themselves in coloured images of birds and animals . . . [as] a means of establishing a tribal identity and, within the tribal unit, of distinguishing social rank. . . . During the Roman occupation, when the ancient Britons adopted conventional clothes, they transferred the painted designs of birds and animals from their bodies to their shields, and eventually these images formed the basis for heraldic devices.” In this sense, a suggestion of the Tudor rose inscribed on the face is a regression to the tribal habits of the Picts. 64. Puttenham, Arte, 151. Also in: Partheniades, Parthe II, “Clio” Nichols, III, 470. 65. Spenser, Faerie Queene, II.III.22–25. In The Body Emblazoned, 200, Jonathan Sawday draws a parallel between Spenser’s later blazon of his bride Elizabeth Boyle in “Epithalamion” (1595) and more detailed description of Belphoebe (1590). Sawday makes an interesting remark about Spenser’s imagining of “the possibility of partitioning his bride so that she could be re-created as a second Belphoebe / Elizabeth, and what greater compliment could the old queen have enjoyed?” Sawday compares this fantasy to Simon Foreman’s dream of dalliance with Elizabeth (endnote 41, 303), explored at length by Louis Montrose in “Shaping Fantasies,” 65–69. Sawday’s interest is focused especially on the nexus of the sexual and political. 66. Faerie Queene, 1.9.15.5. 67. Likewise, Spenser resorts to the topos of indescribability of Una’s “heauenly beautie” through disparaging his poetic dexterity (I.XII.22.4; I.XII.23.1–5). In the case of Mercilla (one of the many mirrors that reflect Elizabeth in Spenser’s epic), the poet does not even attempt to describe—it is a depiction by proximity. 68. III.Proem.5.7. This technique is borrowed from Zeuxis and alluded to in the last prefatory sonnet. 69. II.II.40.8–9. 70. II.Proem. 4.6–9. On the issues of mimetic representation in Faerie Queene and implications of the technique of making a composite image as announced in the last prefatory sonnet, see Clark Hulse,

198

71.

72. 73.

74.

75. 76. 77.

78.

79. 80.

81. 82. 83.

Notes “ ‘Painted Forgery’: Visual Approaches to The Faerie Queene,” in Approaches to Teaching Spenser’s Faerie Queene. In 1940, Rosemond Tuve argued that Belphoebe’s yellow hair is less a function of Petrarchan stereotype than the pictorial tradition of the depiction of the Amazons (“Spenser and Some Pictorial Conventions: With Particular Reference to Illuminated Manuscripts,” in Essays by Rosemond Tuve, 112–38). Barthes, S/Z, 113–14. Partheniades, Parthe II, “Clio.” Printed in Nichols, III, 470. Hannah Betts addresses the matter of bawdy descriptions in her fascinating essay, “ ‘The Image of this Queene so quaynt’: The Pornographic Blazon 1588–1603,” in Dissing Elizabeth, 153–84. Puttenham, Partheniades, Parthe VII, “Euterpe: A Ryddle of the Princesse Paragon,” printed in Nichols, III, 474–75; italics mine. This poem is a part of Puttenham’s New Year’s gift to Elizabeth. Lines in italics were publicized when Puttenham quoted the excerpts in The Arte as examples of the figure of icon (204–5). Wilson, England’s Eliza, 243. Spenser follows the same path in his fantasy of Alma’s Castle, but his is a portrait of a man’s face (see 2.9, particularly 23–27). The method of blazon is derived from the Song of Songs, and Puttenham’s figurative language in this poem is especially reminiscent of this source (especially, Song 4: 1–7, 5: 4–5, and 5: 10–16). For this type of biblical language that was commonplace in early modern England, see, for example, Krier, “Generations of Blazons: Psychoanalysis and the Song of Songs in the Amoretti,” 293–327. Montrose, “Midsummer Night’s Dream and the Shaping Fantasies,” For readings of this poem, see Betts’s essay and Lisa Gim’s “Blasoning ‘the Princesse Paragon’: The Workings of George Puttenham’s ‘False Semblant’ in his Partheniades to Queen Elizabeth,” 75–92. “Every document of civilization is also a document of barbarism” is Walter Benjamin’s famous adage that first appeared in his “Theses on the Philosophy of History.” While John Nichols prints it as “New Year’s Gift, addressed to the queen, 1600,” scholars agree that the work dates to c. 1579–81. ODNB notes that “the work’s absence among the Royal manuscripts in the British Library argues that it was either not delivered or not accepted . . .” (604). For a summary of scholarship concerning the dating of this manuscript, see Gim, esp. 85, note 3. Vickers, “Diana Described,” 96. Ibid, 102. Ibid., 103.

Notes

199

84. Sawday, The Body Emblazoned, 197. 85. Ibid., 197, 198. 86. Vickers pursues the implications of men describing women to each other in her essay, “ ‘This Heraldry in Lucrece’ Face’ ” in The Female Body in Western Culture, 209–22. 87. Sawday, The Body Emblazoned, 198–99. I disagree with Sawday’s substantiation of his concept (in itself intriguing and certainly applicable to the face) of Elizabeth’s self-blazon. By “self-blazoning,” Sawday here seems to mean something like “striptease” as his evidence consists of stating that Elizabeth put herself on public display “bare-breasted” (arguably a misleading reference to the low neck line of her dresses late in the reign) and sends us to de Maisse’s story of the queen revealing “her belly” to him (again, a unique story about a private incident that may hardly be deemed evidence of Elizabeth’s supposed habit of self-exhibitionism). 88. Elkins, in “What Is a Face?” The Object Stares Back, 164–65, makes a perceptive argument that “written descriptions of faces cannot conjure pictures of faces . . . they can only help us recall what it’s like to try to remember a face.” Elkins approaches the issue from the point of subjective perception, explaining, for instance, how a biblical simile of parted lips and “pomegranate cut open” evokes disturbing image in the author’s mind unless he takes the description “loosely and nonvisually.” This argument in part supports my point about the lack of individuality and concreteness in poetic descriptions of Elizabeth’s facial attributes. On the other hand, I argue here that this lack is caused less by the inherent impossibility of language to “conjure up” a face than by the writers’ conscious reluctance to do so.

Chapter 5

Portraiture: The Painted Texts of Elizabeth’s Faces

1. Possible reasons and implications of the acceptance of this stylistic choice of facial representation have received various explanations. In Images of Rule, 107, David Howarth suggests that the naturalistic depiction of the face was devalued by virtue of belonging to the shady realm of external appearances whereas the Elizabethans sought an expression of their inner selves through more sophisticated means of the emblematic and symbolic. In Elizabethan Silent Language, 34, Mary Hazard maintains that naturalness and even liveliness in a portrait had little to do with “mimetic representation of physical appearance” and was conveyed in “representation of spiritual essence of the subjects.” Unlike Howarth and Hazard, who are interested in conceptual and intellectual rationale of the

200

Notes

2.

3. 4. 5. 6. 7.

stylistic choice in question, Strong, in The English Icon, seeks to connect this choice to a long-standing tradition. In fact, his concept of the cult of Queen Elizabeth stems from his initial observation that “an isolated, strange, exotic and anti-naturalistic style” of Elizabethan painting is “akin to the aesthetic of Byzantine art” (3). In this sense, the Elizabethan aesthetic draws on the twodimensional medieval portrayal of kings’ faces as divina majestas, “the remote and expressionless mask with its calm and never-ending vision” (Strong, Gloriana, 38). More recently, Miguel Falomir points out that Elizabeth’s rivalry with Philip II leads to rejection of Hapsburg’s masterful three-dimensional models in England (Campbell, Falomir, Fletcher, and Syson, Renaissance Faces, 78). This partiality to line rather than “shadow” is in itself meaningful, especially because the sheer number of commissioned portraits attests to the patrons’ apparent satisfaction with this style. The viewers wanted their portraits above all to be a documentation of the sitters’ social position; a picture’s value as a record of identity lay primarily in gender-class documentation rather than in individual facial resemblance or its realistic execution. The viewers probably recognized the artificiality of an unshadowed look, but it seems that some hints of resemblance made these portraits sufficiently convincing: obviously, an image does not have to be naturalistic to capture likeness effectively. Moreover, while the modern critical insights quoted above emphasize the lack of naturalness and expressiveness of Elizabethan painted faces, an accomplished painter Nicholas Hilliard by no means considers himself a producer of “expressionless masks.” As discussed later in the chapter, although Hilliard is skeptical about chiaroscuro, he advocates just the opposite of blankness in the countenance. Mary I, for example, reportedly vented her frustration with her absentee husband Philip of Spain by scratching at his portraits and kicking them from her privy chamber (Campbell et al., Renaissance Faces, 282). See also Luke Syson, “Witnessing Faces, Remembering Souls,” in Renaissance Faces, 18–19. Erasmus to More, June 28, 1517. Letters and Papers, vol. 2, part 2: 1517–18; entry 3413. State Papers Online. [Accessed: February 26, 2009]. See Jennifer Fletcher, “The Renaissance Portrait: Functions, Uses and Display,” in Renaissance Faces, 48–51. Lorne Campbell, “The Making of Portraits,” in Renaissance Faces, 35–36. Instructions given by King Henry the Seventh, to his Embassadors, 17. “Castillon to Francis I,” July 25, 1538, Letters and Papers, vol. 13, part 1: 1538, entry 1451. State Papers Online. [Accessed: February 27, 2009].

Notes

201

8. CPS Domestic, vol. 13, 57. State Papers Online, document ref. SP 15/13 f.118. [Accessed: February 27, 2009]. I am grateful to Craig E. Bertolet for his transcription and translation from the original Latin, and to Heather Wolfe at the Folger Shakespeare Library for the corroboration of the transcription. 9. Measure for Measure, 1.4.16–17. 10. Davies, Hymnes of Astraea, in acrosticke verse, 12. 11. Berger, Fictions of the Pose, 93–94. 12. Cropper, “Beauty of Woman: Problems in the Rhetoric of Renaissance Portraiture,” in Rewriting the Renaissance, 175–90. 13. See Arthur F. Kinney’s explanation of dating this treatise in Hilliard, A Treatise Concerning the Arte of Limning, 8. 14. Ibid., 22. 15. Alpers’ correction, in The Art of Describing, of the Italian-biased approach to the Northern Art, applies also to the modern expectations in regard to the expressivity of the faces in English portraiture. 16. Hilliard, A Treatise Concerning the Arte of Limning, 23. 17. Ibid., 23–24. 18. Ibid., 23. 19. See chapter 2 for Aquinas’ three components of beauty. 20. See Richard Haydock’s insertions in his translation of Paolo Giovanni Lomazzo’s treatise on painting, “Brief Censure of the Book of Colours,” in A Tracte Containing the Artes of Curious Paintinge Caruinge & Buildinge, 125–33. 21. Sander L. Gilman, in Making the Body Beautiful, 10, points out that it were the stigmatizing effects of syphilis that necessitated the “rise of aesthetic surgery at the end of the sixteenth century.” 22. Hilliard, A Treatise Concerning the Arte of Limning, 26. 23. Ibid., 22. 24. Ibid., 25. 25. On the issues surrounding the confusion of terminology of art in England, see Gent, Picture and Poetry 1560–1620. 26. George Chapman, Ovids Banquet of Sence, “Epistle to Royden,” in The Poems of George Chapman, ed. Phyllis Brooks Bartlett (New York: Russell & Russell, 1962), 49. 27. Hilliard, A Treatise Concerning the Arte of Limning, 28. 28. Ibid., 30. 29. Ibid., 32. 30. John Harington, in Lodovico Ariosto, Orlando furioso in English heroical verse, by Sr Iohn Haringto[n] of Bathe Knight (London: By Richard Field, for Iohn Norton and Simon VVaterson, 1607), 278. The first edition of Harington’s translation and his testimony on Hilliard’s skill appeared in 1591. 31. Hilliard, A Treatise Concerning the Arte of Limning, 28.

202 32. 33. 34. 35. 36. 37. 38. 39. 40. 41. 42. 43.

44. 45. 46.

47. 48. 49. 50. 51. 52.

53. 54.

Notes Ibid. Ibid., 25. Ibid., 28. Hilliard refers to the “shadow of the place” twice (28, 29), and voices his agreement with Lomazzo’s definition of shadow as the “defect of light” (30). Ibid., 28–29. Ibid., 29. Ibid., 21. Ibid., 29. Ibid., 29. Ibid., 28–29. Ibid., 22. The dynamics of Hilliard’s handling of conversations about art with the social elite have a distinct tone of very subtle condescendence of a professional educating a lay person. For an analysis of Hilliard’s managements of a question posed by Philip Sidney, see Hulse, “Sidney and Hilliard,” in The Rule of Art, 115–56. Hilliard, A Treatise Concerning the Arte of Limning, 29. For instance, Patricia Phillippy cleverly refers to this instance as “Elizabeth’s Stage Management,” in Painting Women, 139. Traditionally, the portrait in question is considered to be the miniature now at the National Portrait Gallery in London (figure 5), in turn thought to be the earliest portrait of Elizabeth by Hilliard. See Hilliard, A Treatise Concerning the Arte of Limning, 9; Strong, Portraits of Queen Elizabeth I, 89. Hilliard, A Treatise Concerning the Arte of Limning, 41. Ibid., title page. The title of this section is from Ibid., 28. Hilliard, A Treatise Concerning the Arte of Limning,24. Ibid., 25. Ibid., 24. An image of this miniature is available online at http://www. royalcollection.org.uk/eGallery/object.asp?imgbuttonsearch= &radioAll=0&startYear=&searchText=&title=&rccode=&maker Name=hilliard&category=&collector=&endYear=&pagesize= 20&object=422026&row=1 [Accessed: May 28, 2009] Hilliard, A Treatise Concerning the Arte of Limning, 25. The “Conservation report on NPG 108” in Archive of the National Portrait Gallery, London reveals the extent to which this miniature differs from its original condition: “features extensively repainted”; “Because of extensive damage and restoration it is impossible to speculate on the original technique used in the features of this miniature”; “The face has been completely restored”; “The face has been almost entirely repainted.” A glimpse of the original is reserved only for a professional equipped

Notes

55. 56. 57. 58. 59. 60. 61. 62. 63. 64. 65. 66. 67. 68.

69.

70. 71.

72. 73. 74. 75.

203

with advanced technology: “Under ultraviolet light it is possible to discern the remains of a tougher drawing of the features, comparable to some extent, to that of the ‘Pelican’ portrait.” See Strong, Gloriana, 109. Hilliard, A Treatise Concerning the Arte of Limning, 23. Pseudo-Aristotle, Physiognomica, 101, 127. Hill, The contemplation of mankinde contayning a singuler discourse after the art of phisiognomie . . . , 82r–82v [M2r–M2v]. Ibid., 69r [K5r]. Roussat, The most excellent, profitable, and pleasant booke . . . , P8r. Hill, Contemplation, 82v [M2v]. Roussat, The most excellent, profitable, and pleasant booke . . . , P6v–P7r. Reproduced in Strong, Gloriana, figure 64, 65, 99. Hilliard, A Treatise Concerning the Arte of Limning, 29. For a detailed technical report on this painting, see Rica Jones, “The Methods and Materials of Three Tudor Artists: Bettes, Hilliard, and Ketel,” in Dynasties, 235–37. Roussat, The most excellent, profitable, and pleasant booke . . . ,Q7v–Q8r. Hill, Contemplation, 144v–145r [L8v–M1r]. In Gloriana, 79, Strong situates the Pelican and Phoenix portraits in the context of “demands from abroad” for full-scale depictions of the queen, thus implying that these portraits were probably produced to be sent to Elizabeth’s suitors. According to Hill’s Contemplation, 143v [L7v], round chin in a man was thought to manifest his “effeminate conditions, and a feeble courage,” “for the mans chinne (after nature) ought to be formed, in a square maner, and not round.” See Rose, “Gender and the Construction of Royal Authority in the Speeches of Elizabeth I,” in Gender and Heroism in Early Modern English Literature, 26–54. The face of the Darnley portrait, in its commanding presence and incessant recurrence in an impressively large cluster of portraits, dominates the queen’s iconography of the 1570s and 1580s. There are at least three additional versions of this portrait, a subgroup of the Sieve portraits, the Ermine portrait, and at least six paintings that Strong attributes to John Bettes the Younger. For a discussion of these portraits, see Strong, Gloriana, 94–95, 100–101, 112–13, 116–19). Ibid., 109. Elizabeth’s nose is truly and indisputably aquiline in her depictions on many medals, coins, and some engravings. Hill, Contemplation, 117v [Q5v]. Cocles/Hill, B3r.

204

Notes

76. Hill, Contemplation, 57v [ J1v]. 77. Heavy-lidded eyes are also a prominent feature in some depictions of Richard II (his tomb effigy in Westminster Abbey and his seal). This characteristic is a clear rhetorical device for demonstrating this king’s haughtiness and distance from the observer. See Saul, Richard II, 450–51. 78. See chapter 3 for the documentary descriptions of Elizabeth. For instance, John Clapham relates that the queen’s face was said to be “lean and full of wrinkles,” and Andre de Maisse describes it as “long and thin”; likewise, Paul Hentzner reports that it was “oblong, fair, but wrinkled.” 79. Hazard, Silent Language, 15. 80. Ibid., 14. 81. See Platter, Travels in England in 1599, 221. 82. This task has proved to be complicated by the difficulty of tracing the lesser known portraits of the queen and the challenges associated with obtaining permissions for reproduction of such portraits in this book. For the readers’ convenience, whenever possible, I provide the information about the last known location of each portrait under discussion. Also whenever possible, bibliographic references to the images published elsewhere are included. For trajectories of Elizabeth’s visual representation, see Strong, Gloriana; Frye, Elizabeth I; Cerasano and Wynne-Davies, “ ‘From Myself, My Other Self I Turned’: An Introduction,” in Gloriana’s Face, 1–24; Howarth, Images of Rule; Andrew and Belsey, “Icons of Divinity: Portraits of Elizabeth I,” in Renaissance Bodies, 11–35. For trajectories of verbal representations of Elizabeth, see also King, “Queen Elizabeth I: Representations of the Virgin Queen,” 30–74, and Rose, “Gender and the Construction of Royal Authority.” 83. Tudor Royal Proclamations, vol. 2, # 516, p. 240. 84. Montrose, “Idols of the Queen: Policy, Gender, and the Picturing of Elizabeth I,” 109. 85. Strong, Gloriana, 59. 86. Ibid., figures 47 and 49. 87. Ibid., figure 48. 88. See Levin, The Heart and Stomach of a King, 75–77. 89. Strong, Gloriana, figure 46. 90. Ibid., 60–61; see also Strong’s information on these portraits, 175–76. 91. CW, 326. 92. The two documents that allow a possible glimpse into Elizabeth’s feelings about her portraits are the 1563 draft of Royal Proclamation and the 1596 order of the Privy Council, both meant to

Notes

93. 94. 95. 96. 97. 98. 99. 100. 101.

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regulate the production and circulation of the queen’s portraits. The latter ordered public officers “to aid the Queen’s Sergeant Painter in seeking out unseemly portraits which were to her ‘great offence’ and therefore to be defaced and no more portraits produced except as approved by Sergeant Painter” (cited in Strong, Gloriana, 14). The wording of the order suggests with some ambiguity that Elizabeth was offended by “unseemly portraits”—or that the Privy Council found such images offensive. The agency of Sergeant Painter, George Gower, is expressed clearly while the extent of the queen’s interest in the matter is rather implicit. This rhetoric looks back to the draft of a proclamation in 1563 in which the intervention with the production of royal portraits is presented Elizabeth’s behalf rather than by her own initiative. It is “her loving subjects” that complain that “hitherto none hath sufficiently expressed the natural representation of her majesty’s person, favor, or grace, but that most have so far erred therein,” and it is “for satisfaction of her loving subjects” that Elizabeth is said to agree to let “some special person” take her likeness, making it a “perfect patron [pattern] and example” for others to follow (Tudor Royal Proclamations, 240–41). Elizabeth’s own reluctance to sit for a portrait is emphasized (to do so “she hath been always of her own disposition very unwilling”), and her indifference to her portraits, be they of high or low quality, is implied in the draft’s rendition of the queen’s order not as a response to “the errors and deformities” of her portraiture, but as an action meant to please her “grieved” subjects that “take great offense” with these defects. Any mention of possible defects of Elizabeth’s actual face is characteristically absent from these documents; nor does Nicholas Hilliard make any references to blemishes on her skin although it was scarred when she was ill with smallpox in 1562. Hilliard painted his first miniature of Elizabeth I in 1572. See chapter 4 for the discussion of Elizabeth’s pockmarks. Gent, Picture and Poetry, 30–31. Hazard, Silent Language, 1–2. Harington, Nugæ Antiquæ, 362. Hill, Contemplation, 90r–90v [N1r–N1v] Cocles/Hill, C1r. CSP Venetian, 7, 12. See chapter 3 for a discussion of the testimonies about Elizabeth’s smile. Isaac Oliver, Elizabeth Harding, Mrs. Oliver (c. 1610–15), Private Collection. Marcus Gheeraerts II, Portrait of an Unknown Lady (c. 1595), Tate Britain. Doran, Exhibition, 197–98.

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102. English School, possibly workshop of Eworth, c. 1560, sold at Sotheby’s, December 4, 2008, Lot 2, sale L08123. http://www. sothebys.com/app/live/lot/LotDetail.jsp?lot_id=159479985. [Accessed: March 26, 2009]. 103. In 1978, John Fletcher has conducted a tree-ring analysis that pointed to the likelihood that one or two of the panels came from the same tree as those used in the portrait of Richard Wakeman painted by Eworth. See the “Catalogue Note” in the Sotherby’s entry for this portrait at http://www.sothebys.com/app/live/lot/ LotDetail.jsp?lot_id=159479985. [Accessed: March 3, 2009]. 104. Pseudo-Aristotle, Physiognomica, 123. 105. Hill, Contemplation, 57v [ J1v]. 106. This miniature is reproduced in Strong, Gloriana, figure 162. 107. Hazard, Silent Language, 1–2. 108. This portrait is reproduced in Doran, Exhibition, figure 200. 109. Pseudo-Aristotle, Physiognomica, 121. 110. Ibid., 123. 111. Indagine, Briefe introductions, both naturall, pleasaunte, and also delectable . . . , H1r–H1v. 112. Ibid., H3r. 113. Ibid., B7r. 114. Ibid., B7v. 115. Ibid., Q3r. 116. Hill, in the 2nd edition of 1571, 97–100, introduces examples of the bad princes with aquiline noses: an almost seditious, although discreet, move, especially in conjunction with the dedication to the treacherous Duke of Norfolk. 117. Jenkins, The State Portrait, 77. 118. For a discussion of lifelikeness and likeness as the prevalent values of the early modern English portraiture, see Gent, Picture and Poetry, 28, 54. See also Woodall, Portraiture, 3, and ffolliott, “Portraying Queens: The International Language of Court Portraiture in the Sixteenth Century,” in Elizabeth I, 164–75, esp. 171. 119. Strong, English Icon, 29. 120. Consider, for instance, Catherine de Medicis’ famous remark about the portraits of Elizabeth, cited in ffolliott, 171: “After what everyone tells me of her beauty, and after the paintings I have seen, I must declare that she did not have good painters.” 121. CPS Foreign, 1566–8, 272. 122. CPS Foreign, 1579–80, #189. 123. Strong, Gloriana, 24. 124. “Sir H. Unton to her Majesty, from Coucy,” February 3, 1595–96, in A Collection of State Papers, Relating to Affairs in the Reigns of King Henry VIII, King Edward VI, Queen Mary, and Queen Elizabeth,

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Transcribed from Original letters and Other Authentick Memorials, Left by William Cecill Lord Burghley, ed. William Murdin (London: William Bowyer, 1759), vol. 2: 1571–96, entry 448, transcription page number 717. State Papers Online. [Accessed: February 27, 2009]. For a study of miniatures and privacy, see Fumerton, “Secret Arts: Elizabethan Miniatures and Sonnets,” in Cultural Aesthetics, 67–110.

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INDEX

Agrippa, Henricus Cornelius, 44 Alençon, Duke of, 47, 48, 55–6 Alpers, Svetlana, 201n15 ambassadors and visitors to England, 72, 75–6 French, 18, 46, 56, 57–8, 71, 75, 84, 89, 124, 188n37, 191n73, 199n87, 204n78 German, 46, 57–8, 71, 73–4, 76–7, 188n34, 204n78 Italian, 47, 71, 75 Russian, 1–2, 173n1, n2 Scottish, 19, 47, 76, 83–4 Spanish, 21, 29–30, 33, 34, 53, 85, 179n51 Venetian, 18, 19, 22, 23–4, 27, 31–3, 46, 50–1, 65, 75, 179n49, 191n73 Amster, Mara, 176n32 androgyny, 13, 154–6, 169 Anglo, Sydney, 196n56 Anne Boleyn, Queen of England, 13, 23–5, 27, 33, 35, 50, 65, 178n37 appearance of, 23–5, 27, 74, 97 Anticlaudianus (Lille), 67 Aquinas, Thomas, 41–2 Aristotle, 174n16 see also Pseudo-Aristotle Armagnac, Count of, 124 Ars versificatoria (Vendôme), 67 Art to please at court, The ( Faret), 51, 91, 93 Arte of English Poesie, The (Puttenham), 40, 67–8, 80, 119, 189n46, 190n58 Arte of Rhetorique, The (Wilson), 67

Arthur, Prince of Wales, 15, 21, 29–30 Astrophil and Stella (Sidney), 197n60 Bacon, Sir Francis, 44, 46, 59, 76, 80–1, 88, 188n18, 190n59, n61 Baldwin, William, 26–7 Barthes, Roland, 66, 116–17, 119 Baumbach, Sibylle, 7 beauty, 6, 7 concepts of, 41–5, 130, 182n37 as expression of majesty, 41 and heraldry, 103 ideal of, 6, 16, 41–2, 45, 48, 52, 57, 109, 115, 127–8 of the king, 14, 18–21, 22, 23, 26 of the queen, 14, 21, 22–3, 28–35, 37–41, 45–63 and writing, 40 Bell, Ilona, 8, 191n67 Benjamin, Walter, 198n79 Berger, Jr., Harry, 11, 63, 69, 79, 127, 176n35, 191n67, 193n13 Berrios, German E., 7 Berry, Philippa, 176n32, 195n41 Bertolet, Craig E., 187n14, 201n8 Betts, Hannah, 72, 198n73, n78 Biblical references, 194n30 Corinthians, 192–3n12 Exodus, 192n12, 194n27 Song of Songs, 198n77 blazon, 11, 44, 67–8, 92–3, 104, 110, 112–21, 197n65, 198n73, n77, 199n87 blushing, 27–28, 81–2

240

Index

body, 176n31 and king’s two bodies, 5–6, 9, 72, 77 and language, 66, see also blazon and mind/soul, 4, 6, 20, 25, 26, 31, 43–4, 67, 69, 73, 169, see also Neoplatonism parts of, 4 Bond, Warwick, 193n19, n20 Book of the Courtier, The (Castiglione), 42–3, 93 Bowes, Jerome, 2 Buoni, Thommaso, 182n37 Burke, Peter, 8 Camden, William, 85 Carey, Robert, 85–6 Castiglione, Baldesar, 42–3, 93 Catherine de Medici, Queen of France, 48, 55, 56, 206n120 Catherine of Navarre, Duchess of Lorraine, 172 Catholicism, 24, 31, 187n17 Catullus, Gaius Vaelrius, 82 Cecil, William (Lord Burghley), 84 chamber, privy, 99, 118, 200n2 Chapman, George, 91, 133, 170 Chapuys, Eustace, 21 Charlemagne, 108 Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor, 28 Charles IX, King of France, 84 Chettle, Henry, 61 Chirelstein, Ellen, 195n44 Chudakov, A. P., 65–6 Churchyard, Thomas, 99–100 Cicero, 66–7, 68, 91 Clapham, John, 58–9, 186n120, 204n78 Cobham, Lady (Frances Brooke), 171 Cocles, Bartolommeo, 168 Coke, Edward, 174–5n19 color, 17, 42, 69, 74, 103, 108–9, 123, 129, 133–5, 143 Commentaries or Reports (Plowden), 9 Compleat Midwifes Practice, The (C[hamberlain]), 49

Conversations with Drummond ( Jonson), 60–2 cosmetics, 3, 6, 10–11, 28, 42, 44, 57–62, 131, 136 studies of, 7, 10 see also Elizabeth I, Queen of England, cosmetics, use of Council, Privy, 33, 204–5n92 Cropper, Elizabeth, 40–1, 127, 180n60 Davies, John, 125–6, 170 Day, J.F.R., 195n36 de Beaumont, Count, 89 de Carles, Lancelot, 24, 27 De civilitate morum puerlium (Erasmus), 79 De Copia (Erasmus), 67 de France, Marie, 45 De Inventione (Cicero), 66–7 de Maisse, André Hurault, 46, 57–8, 71, 75, 188n37, 191n73, 199n87, 204n78 de Maldingham, Monsieur, 171 de Pizan, Christine, 180n56 de Silva, Ruy Gómez, 29, 179n51 deception, 3, 4, 33, 35, 58, 80–90, 189n46, 190n61, 190–1n62, 191 fn 67 deformity, 24–5, 31–2, 52, 80, 97 see also disfigurement “Description of most noble Ladye, A” (Heywood), 27–8 Deveraux, Robert, second Earl of Essex, 48, 72–3, 88, 121, 174–75n19, 188n25 disfigurement, 52–6 dismemberment, 40, 66, 110, 119–20 Dolan, Frances, 10 Donne, John, 3, 42, 43 Doran, Susan, 8, 175n29, 185n93 Dormer, Jane, 78 Dostoevsky, Fyodor, 65–6, 187n4 dreams, 100–1, 114, 119, 194n30, 197n65

Index Drew-Bear, Annette, 10 Drey, Ann Elizabeth, 180n61 Dudley, Robert, 154 Dürer, Albrecht, 196n50 Edward I, 108 Edward II, 108 Edward III, 108, 196n54 Edward IV, 15, 103, 173n2 Edward VI, King of England, 13, 28, 81, 90 appearance of, 25–7 Edward, Prince of Wales, see Edward VI, King of England effictio (physical description), 66–70 Elizabeth I, Queen of England aging of, 11, 48, 57–9, 60, 71–7, 150, 163 bedchamber of, 59, 88, 118 body of, 75, 76, 117–19, 188n37, 192n7, 199n87 two bodies of, 72, 77, 91–2, 101, 112, 114–15, 121, 127, 169, 194n34 coat of arms of, 101, 102, 104–12, 195n48 cosmetics, use of, 38, 56–62, 74, 103, 183n42, 186n119, 188 fn 35 court of, 110 accessibility of the queen in, 98–101 culture of, 80, 82–9, 96, 191n67 ladies-in-waiting, 59, 60–1, 62, 84, 88, 99, 171 descriptions of, 66, 68, 70 in documentary accounts, 11, 32, 46, 57–8, 60, 65, 71–90, 148, 149, 187–88n18 in literature, 11, 91–121 in scholarship, 48, 50, 59–60 dignified majesty of, 19, 35, 65, 71–2, 76–7, 90, 119, 125–6, 156, 157, 164, 200n2

241

eroticism in representation of, 49, 51, 117–19, 120, 156, 188n37, 194n30, 195n41, 197n65, 199n87 face of aging of, 19, 52, 58, 71–7, 153–4, 162–6 beauty of, 10, 21, 35, 37–41, 45–63, 74, 78, 170–1 chin, 145, 147, 162 as coat of arms, 104–12, 121 complexion, 32, 73, 76, 111 control of, 34, 78–90 eroticism of, 73, 117–19 expressions of, 17–18, 70, 78–89, 142–3, 154, 157–60, 162, 163, 164, 169–70 eyes, 15, 17, 27, 32, 48, 71, 72, 73–4, 120–21, 142–4, 146–47, 148, 153–4, 160, 162 forehead, 71–2, 94–5, 117, 140, 147 individuality of, 35, 48, 49, 52, 94–5, 115, 121, 166–7, 170, 199n88, see also portraits, as records of individuality and majesty, 76–7, 125–6 and mind, 78, 81–90, 143, 169 mouth, 71, 142, 144–5, 147, 153, 163 nose, 52, 71, 72, 73, 77, 94–5, 121, 139–42, 147, 152, 160, 163, 165, 166–9, 203n73, 206n116 rhetorical use of, 9, 14, 17–18, 34–5, 38–39, 70, 76, 78–9, 81–90, see also rhetoric scars / pockmarks, 38, 53–6, 62, 94–5 teeth, 57–8, 71, 74, 75, 77, 117, 165 and Tudor royal faces, 13, 34–5 wrinkles, 53, 57–8, 59, 62, 74, 77, 154, 163, 154, 163, 204n78 hair of, 7, 15, 17, 48–51, 71, 120, 147, 160, 184n82 hairline, 95, 140, see also wigs

242

Index

Elizabeth I, Queen of England—Continued indescribability of, 92–101, 113–14, 116–17, 197n67 reasons for, 93, 98–9, 121, 193n23 see also body, and language; face, and language intellect of, 32, 75, 145, 156, 160 inwardness of, 82–90 see also inwardness and legitimization of power of, 15, 32–3, 35, 50–1, 102, 150, 152, 154, 156 marriage negotiations of, 48, 51, 55–6, 152, 154 mockery of, 48, 60–2 and Petrarchan ideal, 48–9 portraits and images of, 12, 45, 46, 48, 78, 123–8, 134, 138–72 canonic and marginalized, 71, 127, 151–2, 156–66 “clusters” of, 12, 147, 151–6, 203n71 on coins, 99, 167 condition of, 202–3n54 and cosmetics, 62–3 and descriptions of Elizabeth, 89 drawings, 134–5 importance of face in, 123–7, 151 and living face, 52, 59–60, 123, 125–6, 139, 142, 144, 147, 148, 156, 157, 164–5, 170–1, 172 “mask of youth” in, 62–3, 142, 148–50, 156, 163 purposes of, 152 regulation of, 204–5n92 sitting for Hilliard’s portrait, 136–8 and smallpox, 54, 55, 185n93 trajectory of, 149–51 and Tudor rose, 108–12 resemblance in physical appearance of to Henry VII, 15, 35

to Henry VIII, 15, 32, 35, 50–1, 87, 160 to Mark Smeaton, 33, 50–1 as sacred monarch, 54, 100 self-representation, 8, 11, 34–5, 47, 53–4, 56, 58, 81–2, 137, 191n62 and smallpox, 38, 53–6, 59, 185n93 theatricality, 34–5, 58–9, 82–90 as Tudor Rose, 92, 101, 108–12 virginity of, 8, 9, 45, 51, 70, 109, 125, 176n32 visits of to Bisham, 100–1 to Wanstead House, 38–40 to Norwich, 54 wigs, 51, 71, 165, 166 works of “The doubt of future foes,” 40, 191n67 Letter to Edward VI, May 15, 1549, 81–2 “On Monsieur’s Departure,” 82–3 “When I was fair and young,” 46 Elizabeth of York, Queen of England, 15–16, 103, 108, 112 Elkins, James, 79, 189n50, 199n88 Englands mourning garment (Chettle), 61 Erasmus, Desiderius, 67, 68–70, 73, 78, 79, 90, 124, 187n15, 193n20 Essex, Earl of, see Deveraux, Robert, second Earl of Essex Euphues and His England (Lyly), 95–6, 97–9 Venus in, 95–6, 98–9, 193–4n24 Euphues: The Anatomy of Wit (Lyly), 44, 93–5, 96–7 Venus in, 96–7, 193n20 Eworth, Hans, 162, 180n61, 206n103 face angelic, 20, 41

Index blemishes of, 11, 25, 57 moles, 95–6, 186n105, 193n20 pockmarks and scars, 1, 52–6, 62 warts, 16–17 blushing, see blushing complexion, 16, 18, 28, 130, 135, 136, see also face, blemishes of composing, 3–4, 6, 24–5, 33–4, 70, 80, 174n13, 178n32 expressions of, 17, 21, 70, 158, 178n32, see also, Elizabeth I, Queen of England, face of, expressions of eyes, 16, 17, 18, 21, 23, 24, 26–7, 31, 42, 69, 139, 143–4, 204n77, see also Elizabeth I, Queen of England, face of, eyes of God, 93, 98, 192–3n12, 194n27 importance in early modern period of, 3–4, 6–7, 15, 174n16 and language, 80–1, 112, 116, 121, see also body, and language and mind, 3, 6, 11, 14, 20, 43–4, 45, 69, 78–90, 174n11, 189n50, 189–90n53, see also Neoplatonism as object of interpretation, 3–4, 6, 7, 9, 11, 78–90, 174n11 painting, see cosmetics reading of, 3–4, 25, 33–3, 38, 66, 70, 80, 174n11, n13, see also physiognomic treatises rhetoric of, 7, 24, 38–9, 109n59, see also Elizabeth I, Queen of England, face of, rhetorical use of royal, peculiarity of, 5–6, 10, 16, 31, 35, 91–2, 93, 100, 113, 121, 126, 169, 186n105 as signifier, 4, 5, 11 Faerie Queene, The (Spenser), 91–2, 113–16, 119, 121, 192n7, 193n23, 194n30, 196n49, 197n65, n67, n70, 198n71, n76

243

Arthur’s dream in, 101, 114 Falier, Lodovico, 22 Falomir, Miguel, 199–200n1 Faret, Nicolas, 51, 91, 93 femininity, 3, 10, 18, 19, 51, 147 of beauty, 42, 44, 48 of the gaze, 24 in portraits, 145, 149–50, 152–5, 160 Fenelon, Bernard de Salignac de la Mothe, 84 Ferdinand II of Aragon, King of Spain, 28 ffolliott, Sheila, 206n118 Field of Cloth of Gold, the, 18–19 Firth, C. H., 177n5 Fletcher, John, 206n103 Forman, Simon, 194n30 Forster, Leonard, 48 France England, relations with, 18–19, 55–6, 111, 171 poets, 24, 27 see also ambassadors and visitors to, French Francis I, King of France, 18, 19, 12 Frye, Susan, 8 Fumerton, Patricia, 207n124 gender, 4, 8, 10, 13, 14, 19, 33–4, 62, 92 and heraldry, 106, 108, 111–12, 196n53 see also androgyny; femininity; masculinity; misogyny Gent, Lucy, 157, 201n25, 106 fn 118, 201n25, 206n118 Geoffrey of Vinsauf, see Vinsauf, Geoffrey of Gerschow, Frederic, 46 Gheeraerts, Marcus, the Younger, 158, 163–6 Gilman, Sander L., 201n21 Gim, Lisa, 198n78, n80 Giustinian, Sebastian, 22

244

Index

Gradenigo, Francesco, 47, 71, 75 Granvelle, Cardinal, 30 Green, Lawrence, 194n28 Greenblatt, Stephen, 8 Greenwich Palace, 84 Greville, Fulke, 11, 101, 104, 108, 109–11, 120 Gunn, Fenja, 50, 197n63 Hackett, Helen, 104, 176n32 Hamlet (Shakespeare), 8, 80 Hardison, O.B., Jr., 192n4, 193n13 Harington, Sir John, 87–9, 134–5, 158, 192n88 Hastings, Henry, the Earl of Huntington, 173n1,n 2, 174n9 Hastings, Mary, 1, 2, 55, 173n1, n2 Hatton, Sir Christopher, 87–8, 131 Hawkins, Edward, 185n93 Haydock, Richard, 131, 196n50, 201n20 Hayward, John, 26, 27, 71–5, 174–5n19 Hazard, Mary, 149–50, 157–8, 163–5, 196n51, 199–200n1 Henri III, King of France, 84 Henri IV, King of France, 172, 187n17 Henry IV, King of England, 196n53 Henry V, King of England, 196n53 Henry V (Shakespeare), 196n53 Henry VI, King of England, 124 Henry VI, part 2 (Shakespeare), 109 Henry VII, King of England, 13, 18, 103, 108, 109, 111, 112, 124, 177n4 appearance of, 14–17, 35 and legitimization of power, 14–15 portraits of, 14, 15, 17, 177n4, 178n23 Henry VIII, King of England, 13, 22, 23, 25, 26, 27, 34, 65, 85–6, 97, 103, 124, 160 appearance of, 14, 18–21, 22, 31, 32, 33, 35, 50 marriages of, 20, 22, 23

portraits and images of, 18, 19, 20–1, 31 Hentzner, Paul, 57, 71, 73–4, 76–7, 204n78 heraldry, 11, 15–16, 92, 101–12, 121, 195n36, n44, n47, n48 Heywood, John, 27–8 Hill, Thomas, 143, 145, 148, 162, 168, 203n69, 206n116 Hilliard, Nicholas, 12, 62, 124, 127–51, 158, 163, 164, 170, 172, 200n1, 201n13, n30, 202n35, n43, n46, n52, 205n92 and facial expressiveness, 128–9 Hillman, David, 4 Histoire de Anne Boleyn (de Carles), 24, 27 History of Henry IV (Hayward), 74–5, 174–75n19 Hoby, Thomas, 42 Holbein, Hans, the Younger, 20–1 Horsey, Jerome, 173n4 Howarth, David, 199–200n1 Hulse, Clark, 197–8n70, 202n43 humanism, 96 and interest in individuality, 14, 15 Hunter, G. K., 96 Hutchinson, Lucy, 4 Indagine, Johannes, 167–8 inwardness, 3, 11, 74, 78; 189n47, n50, 189–90n53 see also body, and mind; face, and mind Ireland, 88, 188n25 Isabella I of Castile, Queen of Spain, 28 Isabella of France, 108 Ivan IV, Czar of Russia, 1, 2, 173n1, n2, n4, 174n5 Ives, Eric William, 178n37 James I, King of England, 84, 190n62 Jardine, Lisa, 188n37

Index Jenkins, Marianna, 169 Joanna of Aragon, 124 Jonson, Ben, 10, 60–2 Kalendar & Compost of Shepherds, The (anon.), 49 Kantorowicz, Ernst H., 9 Kapur, Shekhar, 59 Karim-Cooper, Farah, 10, 59, 60, 175n30, 176n35, 182n19, 183n42 Katherine of Aragon, Queen of England, 20, 23, 28, 29, 178n29, n32 appearance of, 13, 18, 21–2, 31, 35 Kay, Dennis, 184–5n85 Kinney, Arthur, 94, 201n13 Kinsgford, Charles Lethbridge, 177n5 Kudera, Milan, 174n11 Lady of May, The (Sidney), 38–40, 181n2 ladies-in-waiting, 29–30, 59, 60–1, 62, 78 see also Elizabeth I, Queen of England, court of Lambarde, William, 175n19 “Lanval” (de France), 45 Levin, Carole, 8, 54, 154, 175n29, 194n30 Liébault, Jean, 49 Life and Raigne of King Edward the Sixth (Hayward), 26, 27 Liggett, John, 49, 50 Lille, Alan of, 67 Lomazzo, Paolo Giovanni, 196n50, 201n20, 202n35 London, 49, 60, 86, 88 Louise, Queen of France, 171 Lubimenko, Inna, 173n1 Lyly, John, 11, 44, 93–9, 114, 116, 176n34, 184n71, 193n20, n24

245

Malory, Thomas, 45 Mary I, Queen of England, 13, 14, 46, 50, 65, 78, 111, 179n49, 200n2 appearance of, 14, 27–35, 73, 179n44, n51 and control of her face, 14, 33–4 and marriage to Philip, II, 28–9, 33, 65, 179n51, 200n2 portraits of, 30–1, 180n61 Mary Queen of Scots, see Mary Stuart, Queen of Scotland Mary Stuart, Queen of Scotland, 19, 47, 84, 85, 86, 191n67 Mary Tudor, Princess of Wales, see Mary I, Queen of England Marzio, Galeotto, 74 masculinity, of gaze, 3 in portraits, 18, 21, 149–50, 155, 156 Matthew of Vendôme, see Vendôme, Matthew of Maus, Katherine Eisaman, 189n47 Mazzio, Carla, 4 Measure for Measure (Shakespeare), 125 Melville, James, 19, 47, 76, 83–4 Mendelson, Sara, 45, 49, 50, 188n35 Mendoza, Inigo de, Imperial ambassador, 56 Michiel, Giovanni, 31–3, 46, 75, 191n73 Middle Ages, 3, 9, 14, 15, 49, 50, 176n1, 189n50, 200n1 body and soul, concept of, 79 idea of monarchy in, 93 ideal of beauty in, 41, 42 method of description in, 66–8 royal iconography in, 14, 160, 176n1, 204n77 Miller, David Lee, 194n30 mirrors, 5, 60–1, 62, 91, 114–15, 186n119, 186n120 misogyny, 41, 44, 62

246

Index

Montrose, Louis, 8, 118, 152, 175n29, 176n32, 194n30, 195n41, 197n65 Mor, Antonio, 30, 180n61 More, Sir Thomas, Lord Chancellor, 18 description of (Erasmus), 68–70, 73, 78, 90, 187n15 Moriano, Hironimo, 19 Morte d’Arthur, De (Malory), 45 Mullaney, Steven, 189n47 Musser, John Herr, 185n94 Nahoum-Grappe, Véronique, 44 Naunton, Robert, 72 Neoplatonism, 20, 40, 41, 42–3, 45 New Arcadia, The (Sidney), 49, 121, 184n70, 196n51 Nonsuch Palace, 88 Oliver, Isaac, 158 Order and Disorder (Hutchinson), 4 Orgel, Stephen, 8 Othello (Shakespeare), 92 Ovid, 110, 119–20, 193n19, 195n41 Panofsky, Erwin, 181n19 parliament, 18, 51, 58 Parma, Duchess of, 53, 171 Partheniades (Puttenham), 117–19, 121, 198n73, n74, n77 Petrarch, Francesco, 27, 40, 42, 48, 74, 101, 109, 110, 114, 115, 118, 119, 120, 121, 125, 198n71 Philip II, King of Spain, 28–30, 33, 53, 65, 179n51, 200n1, n2 Phillippy, Patricia, 10, 175n30, 186n119, n120, 202n45 physiognomic skepticism, 11, 79, 81, 83, 85, 89–90 physiognomic treatises, 6, 7, 17, 33–4, 43, 49, 52, 74, 78, 79, 139, 143–4, 145, 147, 148, 158, 162, 167–9 Piper, David, 7, 177n4, 178n23

Pisemsky, Fyodor 1–2, 173n1 Platter, Thomas, 76, 188n34 Plowden, Edmund, 9 pock-marks, see face, blemishes Poetria Nova (Vinsauf ), 67 Pole, Margaret, Countess of Salisbury, 173n2 Porter, Martin, 7 portraits, 6, 50, 51 as decorative objects, 30, 127–8, 180n60 and diplomacy, 171–2 eroticism in production of, 128–9, 131 and gender, 127 as historic and cultural evidence, 8 idealization in, 63, 127, 131–3, 136, 138, 144, 147, 154, 156, 172 importance of face in, 123–7, 169 and living faces, 129–33 marriage negotiations, use in, 1, 2, 124, 152, 203n68 Mary Hastings, of, 1, 2 realism in, 63 as records of individuality, 14, 15, 16, 35, 127, 139, 160, 166, 169, 170, 176n1, 177n4, 200n1 resemblance to sitters of, 127, 132–5, 138, 157, 169, 170–1, 172 royal early modern, 14, 17 Henry VII, 17 Henry VIII, 18, 19, 20–1, 31 Mary I, 30–1 medieval, 14 Philip II, 29, 200n2 see also Elizabeth I, Queen of England, portraits and images of style of, 199–200n1, 201n15 unreliability of, 2–3, 40, 125–6 privy chamber, see Elizabeth I, Queen of England, court of Privy Council, 33, 204–592

Index proportion, 42, 75, 130, 131, 133–5, 136, 139–40, 144, 160, 162 Pseudo-Aristotle, 49, 143, 162, 167 Puttenham, George, 11, 40, 67–8, 80, 117–19, 121, 189n46, 190n58, 198n74, n77 Queen’s Majesty’s Passage, The (Mulcaster), 86–7 Raleigh, Sir Walter, 121, 188n25 Randolph, Thomas, 2 Rape of Lucrece, The (Shakespeare), 110 religion, 2, 22, 24, 25, 100, 105, 187n17, 196n51 Renard, Simon, 29, 34, 85, 179n51 rhetoric, 3, 4, 8, 11, 39 of describing appearances, 66–70, 73–7 Rhetorica ad Herennium ([Cicero]), 66 Richard II, 6, 160, 174–5n19, 176n1, 204n77 Richard II (Shakespeare), 4–6 Richard III (Shakespeare), 80, 109 Richards, Judith, 86 Richmond, Earl of, see Henry VII, King of England Richmond Palace, 1 Riehl, Anna, 174n13, 181n17 Rivers, Father Anthony, 60, 61 Roger, William, 108 Rogers, Charles, 48 Rose, Mary Beth, 175n27, 204n82 Roussat, Richard, 143, 145, 168–9 royal majesty, 5, 15, 19, 20, 58, 65, 71–2, 76–7, 156, 157 Sagudino, Nicolo, 22 Sander, Nicholas, 24–5, 97 Savorgano, Mario, 22 Sawday, Jonathan, 120, 197n65, 199n87 scars, see face, blemishes

247

Schifanoya, Il, 87 Schilder-boeck (van Mander), 30 Seymour, Thomas, 85 Shakespeare, William, 4–6, 8, 44, 45, 50, 80, 92–3, 101, 109, 110, 125, 183n54, 194n30, 196n53 Shepheardes Calender, The (Spenser), 102–4, 108–9, 110–11, 195n41 Shrewsbury, Earl of (George Talbot), 53, 55 Sidney, Mary, 52, 53, 55, 184–5n85 Sidney, Sir Philip, 38–40, 43, 49, 101, 105, 121, 181n2, 184n70, n85, 196n51, 197n60, 202n43 Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, 196n49 Sittow, Michael, 17, 177n4 smallpox, 38, 52–6, 59, 185n94 see also Elizabeth I, and smallpox Smeaton, Mark, 33, 50 Song of the Lady Bessy, The (anon.), 15–17, 18 Soranzo, Giacomo, 33, 65, 179n49 Southwell, Elizabeth, 186n120 Spain, 28, 29, 30, 33 see also ambassadors and visitors to England, Spanish; Philip II, King of Spain Spenser, Edmund, 11, 40, 55, 101–4, 121 see also Faerie Queene, The, Shepheardes Calender, The sprezzatura, 93, 191n67, 193n13 Starkey, David, 185n93 Steven van der Meulen, see van der Meulen, Steven Stone, Lawrence, 196n53 Strickland, Agnes, 188n18 Strong, Roy, 142, 147, 170, 196n56, 199–200n1, 202n46, 203n68, n71, 204n82, n90, 204–5n93 subversion, 82, 152, 163 see also Elizabeth I, mockery of Summit, Jennifer, 40, 191n67 Sussex, Earl of, 171

248

Index

Synnott, Anthony, 181–2n19 syphilis, 54, 131, 185n94, 201n21 Teague, Frances, 175n27 Thurley, Simon, 14, 15, 108, 178n23 Treatise Concerning the Arte of Limning, A (Hilliard), 128–39 beauty, 130–1 and Elizabeth I’s sitting, 136–8 facial expressiveness, 128–9 “goodness of the face,” 130–1 Tudor rose, 103–112, 162 see also, Elizabeth I, face of, as Tudor rose, heradlry Tuke, Thomas, 57 Tuve, Rosemond, 198n71 Twelfth Night, The (Shakespeare), 92–3 Two Gentlemen of Verona (Shakespeare), 50, 183n54 Tyrwhit, Sir Robert, 85

“Vanities of Beauty” (Gascoigne), 40 Vendôme, Matthew of, 67, 68 Vergil, Polydore, 17 Vickers, Nancy, 104, 110, 119, 120, 194–5n35, 195n48, 199n86 Villars, Marquis of, 48 Villeponteaux, Mary, 192n7 Vinsauf, Geoffrey of, 67, 68 Virgin Mary, 109 Volpone ( Jonson), 60 von Hutten, Ulrich, 68

ugliness, 6, 16, 22, 23, 24–5, 29–30, 31–2, 42, 43, 44, 46, 74, 97, 124 Unton, Henry, 172

Walpole, Horace, 45 Warniecke, Retha, 25 warts, see face, blemishes West, Sir William, 93 Whigham, Frank, 191n67 Whitney, Geffrey, 182n37 Williams, Neville, 50, 59, 186n11 Wilson, Elkin Calhoun, 48, 118 Wilson, Thomas, 67 Wirtemberg, Duke of, 76, 188n34 witchcraft, 25, 49, 164 Wolfe, Heather, 201n8 Woodall, Joanna, 30, 206n118 Wotton, Henry, 52

van der Meulen, Steven, 152 van Mander, Karel, 30

York House Garden, 1 youth, 28, 72, 76, 149–50, 156, 163