A Play Mirroring the Culture of a Court

Melissa Showalter 2010

“Under the strictest definition the court consisted of the monarchs’ immediate entourage and those institutions of the royal household responsible for their personal and ceremonial needs” (Smuts 3).  In actuality, that definition only served to identify the members of the ruler’s inner circle, since the King of England’s court also consisted of a large number of subordinates (Smuts 3-4).  During the time of the Renaissance, from the 14th through the 16th centuries, English court culture evolved and expanded due to the influence of other European countries, resulting in a court aloof from its nation (Smuts 2).   Shakespeare’s 1 Henry IV displays excellent examples of the nature, military traditions, social rituals, and marriage system of the Renaissance English court.

Dollimore neatly summed up how individuals in the royal court were perceived: “…identity is shown to be constituted not essentially but socially…this identity exists in terms of the role ascribed to the individual by others…” (184). This quote speaks volumes about the nature of the court.  An example of such judgment in 1 Henry VI was displayed in an argument between Glendower and Hotspur.  In response to Hotspur’s superior attitude and taunts about his Welsh heritage, Glendower said, “I can speak English, lord, as well as you, for I was trained up in the English court…” (1H4 3.1.118-119).  Glendower felt the need to defend his self-worth by pointing out his connections to the royal court, since that was the only way to counteract Hotspur’s contempt for his identity.

Members of the court strived to keep up appearances at all costs because that was how their worth was measured.  Clothes and presentation literally made the person, with any innate qualities only considered in the individual’s evaluation as an afterthought.  Because clothes represented affluence and social status, people were constantly dressing above their rank in order to impress.  Courtiers and prospective courtiers are examples of such people who invested heavily in their appearance, basically “wearing their fortunes on their backs” (McMurtry 218-19).

Courtiers also provide a good example of the process of becoming a part of the peripheral royal court because they must rise through the ranks to do so.  Traditionally, potential courtiers were able to blend in with the crowd accompanying known court members in order to enter the King’s palace, where they hoped to be presented to the King and earn his approval.  As long as the courtier-to-be kept in the court’s good favor, maintained a costly, well-dressed appearance, and preserved his riches, he was accepted as part of the entourage (McMurtry 92-93).

Such over-the-top mannerisms and standards developed at court did not fit in elsewhere in society, contributing to the belief that court members were, “corrupt and extravagant” (Smuts 4).  Surely Hotspur saw nothing respectable in the effeminate courtier that approached him on the battlefield:

…Came there a certain lord, neat, and trimly dressed,
Fresh as a bridegroom, and his chin new reaped
Showed like a stubble land at harvest home.
He was perfumèd like a milliner,
And 'twixt his finger and his thumb he held
A pouncet box, which ever and anon
He gave his nose and took 't away again…
…for he made me mad
To see him shine so brisk and smell so sweet
And talk so like a waiting-gentlewoman 
Of guns, and drums, and wounds… (1H4 1.3.33-39, 53-56)

As seen in the case of Hotspur, members of the court were not exempt from military participation.  Because England had no standing army, soldiers had to be recruited from the general population and were paid for their service.  Officers in the army consisted of experienced captains and aristocrats that had a family tradition of military excellence, though only a high ranking court member was given the position of honor as general.  Despite the duties of the officers to serve honorably, some such as Falstaff abused the recruitment process in order to turn a profit.  As revealed in 1 Henry IV, not only did Falstaff keep the recruitment money, he earned more by attempting to enlist citizens capable of paying him off.  Then, to meet his quota, he just rounded up the poor for free.  In accordance with the times, it was more customary for members of the court to do things for their own gain than it was to do their duty properly (McMurtry 188-193).

When there were not wars to be taken into consideration, social activities took the foreground.  Entertainment pastimes of the aristocracy included hunting, hawking, and watching theatrical performances (McMurtry 93, 98).   Not only would the King go on hunts with members of his royal court, in which he secured for himself “a central position in the etiquette of the chase,” he also granted hunting rights to other aristocrats (McMurtry 210-211).  Because the nobility were granted the privilege to hunt, they could also enjoy the delicacy of meat dishes at their meals (McMurtry 214).  The higher social classes had feasts fancily prepared with high quality food accompanied by imported wine, which was indicative of their status (McMurtry 214-215).  Wine was so easy for members of the royal court to come by that even on the battlefield Falstaff had a bottle of white wine close at hand in his holster (1H4 5.3.53-54).

While there was no cause for celebration or customary feasting in 1 Henry IV, there were nonetheless many relations to food and feasting throughout the book.  The most notable and telling mention of a banquet was in the King’s speech to his son, where he compared his rare public presence to that of a feast:

Thus did I keep my person fresh and new,
My presence, like a robe pontifical,
Ne'er seen but wondered at, and so my state,
Seldom but sumptuous, showed like a feast
And won by rareness such solemnity. (1H4 3.2.55-59)

 Not only does this show the King’s egotistical view of how he thinks he appears in the public eye, there is also an implied similarity between the traditions the King represents and those that accompany a banquet.  There is a “…public display of order implicit in the banquet’s formality and ritual…;” the same could be said of the King (Meads 70).  By remaining isolated from the public, except on rare occasions of his choosing, the King was able to maintain his power over the people through his god-like mystique.  “Subscribing to the myth of transcendent virtue in another permits the ruler to mystify the true extent of his own material power” (Dollimore 186).

Chief among the social customs that were not limited to the royal core of the court was marriage.  It was rare for aristocratic couples to marry purely out of love, since tradition was based on arranged marriages (McMurtry 113).  As a result, the status of women depended on the status of their husbands; marriage was the only way for a woman to rise through the social ranks (McMurtry 5).  Couples knew that simple fact as a given part of the marriage agreement, as illustrated in Hotspur’s reprimand to his wife: “I know you wise, but yet no farther wise than Harry Percy's wife…” (1H4 2.3.107-08).  Her opinion may have been valued in some cases, but her advice and interest in Hotspur’s life could only be recognized as coming from a wife and not someone whose status stood on merit and heritage alone.

“The convention among the gentry and aristocracy was for marriages to be arranged by families with a view to securing advantages or alliances, conforming to a patriarchal model. It was expected that aristocratic children would submit willingly to such marriages, happy to comply with parental wishes” (Sokol and Sokol 30).  An example of such an arranged marriage in 1 Henry IV was the rather hasty union between Mortimer and Glendower’s daughter (1.3.84-85).  The purpose was to join the two families against the King to lend support to the rebellion, and though Glendower’s daughter went along with father’s wishes, the union turned into a marriage based upon love.

The royal court of Renaissance England shared many of its cultural and social customs with Shakespeare’s play 1 Henry IV.  Members of the court were given high-ranking army positions, and they were also pressured to use marriage as a way of forming advantageous family bonds.  From entertainment to kingly protocol to entry into the entourage, the social culture of the court defined every facet of a court member’s being.  Truly, the English court of the Renaissance was a world apart from public it presided over.

Works Cited

Dollimore, Jonathan. Radical Tragedy: Religion, Ideology, and Power in the Drama of Shakespeare and his Contemporaries. 2nd ed. Durham: Duke UP, 1989. 184, 186.

McMurtry, Jo. Understanding Shakespeare's England: A Companion for the American Reader. Hamden: Archon, 1989. 5, 92-93, 98, 113, 188-193, 210-211, 214-215, 218-219.

Meads, Chris. Banquets Set Forth: Banqueting in English Renaissance Drama. Manchester: Manchester UP, 2001. 70.

Shakespeare, William. The First Part of King Henry the Fourth. The Necessary Shakespeare. Ed. David Bevington. 2nd ed. New York: Pearson, 2005.  370-411.

Smuts, R. Malcolm. Court Culture and the Origins of a Royalist Tradition in Early Stuart England. Philadelphia: U of Pennsylvania P, 1999. 2-4.

Sokol, B.J., and Mary Sokol. Shakespeare, Law, and Marriage. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 2003. 30.