The pre-coronation passage of Elizabeth I : political theatre or the rehearsal of politics?

G R A N T M C C R A C K E N University of Guelph‘

Cet article, une analyse du passage d’Elizabeth I avant son couronnement, cherche i adopter et B critiquer la metaphore comparant la politique au thGtre, telle que rhcemment utilisCe par Geertz et autres spCcialistes du symbolisme politique. Je veux montrer ici o~ et comment le passage pre-couronnement devient plus comprehensible, grice i cette mkta- phore, mais aussi OG celle-ci obscurcit sa signification. Je suggere, sur cette base, que la valeur analytique de la metaphore est amelioree quand la notion de ’repetition’ prend le pas sur celle de ’representation’ (anthropologie symbolique, symbolisme politique, reciprocite, anthropologie historique).

This paper, a treatment of the pre-coronation passage of Elizabeth I, seeks to adopt and to criticize the ‘politics as theatre’ metaphor recently used by Geertz and other students of the symbolism of political affairs. I seek to show where and how the pre-coronation passage is illuminated by this metaphor, and where its significance is made obscure. It is suggested, on this basis, that the metaphor is improved as an analytic device when the notion of ’rehearsal’ is emphasized over that of ‘performance. ‘

Theatre and politics are less and less regarded as mutually exclusive categories of scholarship. The view is now frequently taken that politics is so largely made up of rhetorical and dramatic elements that the metaphor of the theatre is important to its study. It is the purpose of this paper both to adopt and to criticize this view of politics. Examining the pre-coronation passage of Elizabeth I, I will attempt to show that for all its illuminative power in this and other contexts, the theatre metaphor has distorting powers of its own.

The paper consists in three parts. First, the ’politics as theatre’ argument is reviewed. Following Geertz, special note is taken of its strengths vis-i-vis more conventional treatments of politics. Second, the pre-coronation passage of 1558 is treated as an instance of political theatre. This procession is seen to have consisted in a political dialogue that enacted in symbolic terms the mutual roles and

* Research for this paper was undertaken while the author was a Visiting Scholar in the Department of Social Anthropology at the University of Cambridge. Thanks are also due to the Canada Council for its support, to Marshall Sahlins, my thesis advisor, for his advice, and to K.O.L. Burridge who commented on an earlier version of this paper.

This manuscript was received in September, 1982, and accepted in December, 1982.

Rev. canad. SOC. & Anth. / Canad. Rev. SOC. & Anth. ~ ( z ) 1984

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expectations of Elizabeth and her subjects. The third section asks whether, in light of the coronation analysis, the ’politics as theatre’ metaphor does not require revision. I argue that the pre-coronation passage and perhaps other instances of politics are better viewed as a matter of rehearsal than performance. This modification of the theatre metaphor allows the treatment of politics in theatrical terms without dispensing with the role of event, change, crisis, and innovation in politics. Without this modification the theatre metaphor threatens to obscure aspects of politics just as much as more conventional views have done.

The ‘politics as theatre’ argument has found expression in several recent works. Mount, for instance, has called attention to the ’theatrical element running through all political activity‘ (1973: 5). He argues that the popular modern distinction between ’real’ politics and its ’unreal’ symbolism is ‘one of the most potent delusions of our time’ (1972: 8).

Geertz has also disputed the assumption that politics is something essentially without a theatrical aspect.‘ He contends that the conventional view has treated ’political symbology’ as an adornment or disguise for the ’real business of politics - social domination’ (1980: 122). In each of the several popular views of government the ’semiotic aspects of the state’ are seen to ’exaggerate might, conceal exploitation, inflate authority, or moralize procedure. The one thing they do not do is actuate anything‘ (1980: 123).’

The inadequacy of the non-semiotic approach with which Geertz takes issue is plainly apparent in the case of nineteenth-century Bali. Here, indeed, theatre may be seen to ’actuate’ the state. Nineteenth-century Bali is, in Geertz’s view, a country devoted to

the public dramatization of the ruling obsessions of Balinese culture: social inequality and status pride. It was a theatre state in which the kings and princes were the impressarios, the priests the directors, and the peasants, the supporting cast, stage crew, and audience (1980: 13).

So central was the place of theatre in Bali that ’mass ritual was not a device to shore up the state but rather a device for the enactment of mass ritual. Power served pomp, not pomp power’ (1980: 13).

To argue as Geertz does that Balinese theatre was not the .drapery of political order but its substance is to take a new view of politics. It is to insist that politics is first of all a matter of culture and therefore only in a mediated sense, the work of necessity, the residue of empirical forces, or the sum of conflicting demands. Politics is belief, idea, concept, assumption, possessed of a logic and an ambiguity sufficient to give shape and substance to thought and action.

Once this notion of politics is accepted, new methological directives must govern the student of political discourse. The first directive is that the study of things political must begin with the consideration of the particular terms in which they are construed. The beliefs, assumptions, logic, and illogic of the political process must be scrutinized before further study is undertaken. Before prosopographical and demographic data are assembled, before elites are revisited and peasants rediscovered, before political ’structure’ and ‘process‘ are established, it is necessary to know the manner in which the political universe and its discourse is

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defined. That this may indeed be the result of a traditional analysis is not unlikely, but care must be taken that an understanding of the ’semiotics‘ of politics is the object rather than an accident of analysis.

The second directive is that special regard must be given to the representation, enactment, and fulfillment of cultural concept. Beliefs, assumptions, and their conceptual order must be examined in situ. They cannot be drawn from our own received understanding of the preoccupations of a particular time and place. Furthermore they must be widely sought. The western historiographical, philosophical, and political science traditions are particularly skilled in analysis of tracts, debate, and other written testimony. What is just as important are the largely nonverbal (and theatrical) media of ceremonial display, dress, ritual, and architecture in which cultural concept takes physical form and, sometimes, its most persuasive character.

As Geertz seeks to demonstrate, these are not symbolic elaborations that attend the ’real’ stuff of politics. For, if politics is first of all a matter of culture there is no ’real’ politics to be distinguished from the symbolism. Those who insist on the distinction are aptly reminded by Geertz that ‘the real is as imagined as the imaginary’ (1980: 136).

A perspective of the sort employed by Geertz and Mount changes not only the methological directives of the study but also the more general terms in which it is cast. Previous perspectives have introduced a number of figures, including the metaphors, ’contest,’ ‘struggle,’ ‘game,’ and ‘science.’ However if politics is first a matter of culture it is best viewed not so much as a contest as a performance.

The metaphor of politics as contest gives us participants defined as ‘competitors,’ intention and conduct as ’gain seeking,’ interaction as the ’strategic deployment of resources,’ and outcome as ‘success or failure.’ In so ordering our vision of politics it draws us away from culture. It conceals the definition of the cultural categories of persons engaged, the larger order out of which rules ensue, the logic which defines what is ‘gain,’ what is ’strategic,’ what constitutes a ’resource,’ and it makes outcome a matter of the scoreboard. Cultural concept consistently eludes the scrutiny of this metaphor. It does so because the metaphor supplies a concept of its own.

The metaphor of the theatre is rather more inclusive. It directs our attention to the semiotic heart of politics. Thus when it suggests that political participants are ’actors,’ it invites a specification of the roles these actors have assumed. When it suggests that intention and conduct are ’enacted,‘ it invites an exploration of the contemporary definition of psychology and action. When it suggests that interaction is ‘dramatic’ in nature, it invites the study of the larger structure of this drama, and a definition of the terms of its unity, its ability to persuade and capacity to illuminate. And when it suggests that outcome is a ‘denouement,’ it invites us to establish what is thus articulated, rendered compelling, coherent, and conceptually satisfying. It invites us to ask what has been intellectually and emotionally ’actuated.’ In short, all of the questions the metaphor of theatre raises can only be answered by recourse to culture. All of them, furthermore, lead us to examine how this culture has been made concrete.

The recognition of the theatrical character of politics has not escaped students of English history. Thompson has acknowledged the theatrical aspect of the cultural

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hegemony established by the ruling class in eighteenth-century England. Bergeron (i97i) , Strong (1973,1977) and Yates (1975) have considered theatre in the Renaissance Europe and more particularly Elizabethan England.

Their acuity on this point has no doubt been aided by two characteristics of the period. One is the explicit use of theatre as a political device. As Orgel notes, masques were essential to the life of the Renaissance court: ’their allegories gave a higher meaning to the realities of politics and power, their fictions created heroic roles for the leaders of society’ (1975: 38).

Orgel speaks of masques as deliberate means by which the concept of monarchy was embodied, the notion of hierarchy represented, and the princely virtue of magnificence displayed. This explicit presence of the theatre in politics has plainly helped to encourage a sensitivity to the notion of politics as theatre.

The second characteristic is the Renaissance confidence in the power of art to permade, transform, and preserve (Orgel, 1975: 40). It is surely the absence of this conviction in the modern world that has encouraged the ‘potent delusion’ to which Mount refers.

A recent contribution to the study of Renaissance political literature is Montroses‘s ’ “Eliza, Queene of Shepheardes,” and the Pastoral of Power.‘ Montrose examines the royal pastoral as a ’social drama’ which worked symbolically to enact and mediate the political relations of the period. I t brought Elizabeth and her progress hosts into ’acts of reciprocal courtship, display and conciliation’ (1980: 177). Part of the significance of these acts lay in the extent to which they represented and manipulated relations of domination and subordina- tion. Elizabeth’s preeminent status was asserted even as she was made to appear approachable and loving. The subordinate status of the host was emphasized even as his claim to perquisites, honours, and offices was asserted. In short political relations found graceful but unambiguous representation in the theatre of the pastoral.

Montrose emphasizes two aspects of Elizabethan theatre of special interest here. He treats the relationship between Elizabeth and her hosts not as one between actor and audience but as that between actor and actor. Both parties were engaged by the dramatic process. Its theatre consisted largely in their mutual role taking. Second, he treats this interaction as a matter of reciprocity. The nature of the roles assumed by the dramatis personae was balanced and reciprocal. The two parties were cast both as donors and as recipients of the objects, sentiments, and gestures of the pastoral.

This analysis of the pre-coronation passage of 1558 will also treat the political theatre undertaken by Elizabeth as interactive and reciprocal in character.3 It will view the passage as an event that took place between two parties for whom the theatre (and political efficacy) of the occasion consisted in reciprocal exchange.4 I will seek to show that the object of this exchange was a kind of political dialogue that considered the mutual and reciprocal expectations of a young woman about to assume the throne and a citizenry about to become her subjects.

Reciprocity as an aspect of political theatre was not confined to pre-coronation passage, summer progresses, or the other ceremonials of the monarchy. It existed in other more modest contexts. As an introduction to the passage analysis I would like briefly to refer to one of these. Its aptness as an introduction to the

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pre-coronation passage rests in the fact that it reveals the part played by reciprocity in political theatre, and serves to illuminate by contrast salient aspects of the passage.

Let us consider the woodcut that illustrates John Derricke’s The Zmage of Zrelande published in 1581. It shows the submission of Turogh Lynagh O’Neale, an Irish chieftain, to Sir Henry Sidney who had been charged with the responsi- bility of subduing the rebellious Irish. The striking aspect of the illustration is that it shows two events that cannot have occurred simultaneously. In the foreground O’Neale presents himself before Sidney who sits in his tent surrounded by his knights. O’Neale’s posture is that of a full kneel as befits the nature of the event: this is not just the acknowledgement of superior rank but the act of submission to a greater military and sovereign power. In the background Sidney is depicted embracing O’Neale outside the English camp. The act of receiving a visitor outside of one’s residence was an Elizabethan demonstration of respect (Wildeblood, 1973 : 54). To embrace one‘s guest was the prerogative of the host, especially when he was of superior rank. Sidney’s gesture show both his respect for O’Neale and the fact of his superior rank. Most important it reciprocates the gesture of submission which occurs in the foreground of the engraving. The simultaneity of the representations of these gestures gives iconographic representation to the reciprocity of Elizabe- than courtesy.

This pattern of a reciprocal exchange of greeting and acknowledgment is exhibited on a much greater scale in Elizabeth’s pre-coronation passage in 1558. Both the small and this large version evidence the interaction between distinct parties, the reciprocity of the exchange thereof, and a highly charged political significance. While the exchange between Sydney and O’Neale (and the countless similar exchanges of courtesy between superordinate and subordinate) was brief, the pre-coronation passage lasted several hours. While the Irish instance saw the exchange of gestures, the passage organized the movement of flowers, gold, bibles, prayers, gestures, and exclamations. While it was only Sidney and ONeale who engaged in the first instance, the second drew Elizabeth together with thousands of onlookers. If the two differed in these details, they nevertheless worked to similar political purpose. Distinct parties were brought together and a kind of social contract was created and affirmed out of the exchange of gifts signifying mutually dependent political attitudes.

Neale argues that the form the passage assumed on the occasion of Elizabeth’s coronation was a relatively novel one. Early Tudor monarchs had held processions but only those of Mary and Elizabeth incorporated pageants (Neale, 1960: 9-11). Neale also notes that the pageants mounted in the reign of Mary were the contribution of members of London’s foreign community. Elizabeth was the first to be created by native Londoners alone.5

The account of the passage to be examined here is probably the work of a courtier or statesman who accompanied Elizabeth on her progress through London. This fact and the rapid publication of the account prompt Neale to wonder whether this is not the first piece of Elizabethan propaganda (Neale, 1960: 15).

Kipling has considered the didactic nature of the triumph or progress.6 He sees it as an opportunity for the people and dramatist to instruct their monarch (or mayor) in the virtues required of their office (1977: 52). Kipling also emphasizes

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the interactive character of the progress, noting that the ’triumphator’ is drawn into each pageant of the progress as a participant in its drama. The effect of this participation is essential to the process of instruction.

The virtue that the protagonist masters in his drama are the virtues that the dramatist and his audience hope their governors will master in performing the duties of their office . . . . After performing his role in the triumphal drama perhaps, the magistrate is now fit to perform it again in ’real life’ (1977: 56).

This process of instruction took place chiefly in the seven pageants of the passage. These typically consisted of a scaffold on which the theme of the pageant was given emblematic representation while a child nearby gave an oration which ’opened up’ the meaning of the pageant. In the first pageant the scaffold showed several figures in regal dress arranged vertically to represent the Tudor family tree. The use of roses and the colours red and white in the design of the scaffold emphasised the unification of the Houses of Lancaster and York in the creation of the Tudor line. This theme of unity was picked up by the orator and expanded to include both present and future unity as the desired end of Elizabeth’s reign. The text that described the passage observed:

unitie was the ende whereat the whole devise shotte ... [and records that Elizabeth] promised that she would doe her whole endevour for the continual1 preservation of con- corde, as the Pageant did emport (Nichols, 1823: 42).’

The remaining pageants are no less forthright in their efforts to instruct Elizabeth in the qualities she was expected to possess and exhibit as a ruler. The first four pageants are summarized in the text in the following terms.

The first declared her Grace to come out of the house of unitie, the second that she is placed in the seat of Government, staied with Vertue, to the suppression of Vice; and therefore in the third the eight blessings of Almighty God might well be applyed unto her: so this fourth now is to put her Grace in remembrance of the state of the Commonweale, which Time, with Truth his daughter, doth revele, which Truth also her Grace hath received and therefore cannot but be merciful and careful for the good government thereof (Nichols, 1823: 51-2).

The fifth pageant showed ’Deborah,’ judge and restorer of the house of Israel with whom Elizabeth was frequently compared in the early part of her reign. The pageant presented Deborah consulting figures representing the nobility, the clergy, and the ‘commonalytye’ ’for the good Governmente of Israel’ (1823: 54) The penultimate pageant consisted of assembled children, before whom Elizabeth stayed her carriage: ‘[Elizabeth] caste up her eyes to heaven, as who should saye, ’‘I here see thys mercyfull worke towarde the poore, whom I muste in the middest of my royaltie nedes remembre!’ (1823: 55)

A child then proceeded to deliver the message Elizabeth’s demeanour had anticipated, reminded her of the importance of her ’mercy unto the poore.’ On the completion of his oration the child lussed the paper on which it was written and gave it to Elizabeth, who ’received it graciouslye both with woordes and countenance, declaring her gracious mynde towarde theyr reliefe’ (1823 : 55).

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In the final pageant ‘two gyants bigge in stature‘ held tables with Latin verse and offered Elizabeth another gift. They offered her ’firm hope’ and ’earnest prayers.’ The firm hope, the verses explained, was for virtuous government and the prayer for Elizabeth’s long life and good government (1823: 55-7). In the fifth pageant, Elizabeth promised to remember the poor, so anticipating the didactic message of this pageant. Similarly in the second pageant she was seen by the progress audience to have, ’most graciouslie promised her good endeavour for the maintenaunce of the sayde Vertues, and suppression of Vyces’ (1823: 46). This pattern of instruction and promise of conformity to it is implicit in all the pageants, and represents one of the relationships established between Elizabeth and her people in the course of the passage.

In addition to these pageants were exhibits. Here instruction gives way to reciprocity. Exhibits were less formal, less premeditated, and less lavish than the pageants. They were apparently spontaneous gestures between a monarch and her people. The fact that they were so carefully noted in the account of the passage suggests that for all their spontaneity they were neither fortuitous nor insignifi- cant. The following account of them suggest that they constituted a kind of dialogue. The object of this dialogue between Elizabeth and her people was the social contract between them and the political responsibilities that devolved to both parties as a result of this contract.

The first exhibit occurred as Elizabeth entered the City of London. It is possible to regard her presentation of herself on the passage (especially here at the first exposure of the royal train to the waiting crowds) as a kind of gift. The public display of the monarch was neither obligatory nor common. Assuming, as it normally did, the proportions of a spectacle, the character of a visual feast, and a rare access to the queen, the public encounter can be regarded as something bestowed by the monarch and gratefully received by the people.8 So at least the response of the people at this first exhibit suggested. They responded with gifts of their own. Entering the city, Elizabeth

was of the People received marveylous entirely, as appeared by the assemblie, prayers, wishes, welcomminges, cryes, tender woordes, and all other signes, which argue a wonder- full earnest love of most obedient subjectes towarde theyr soveraigne (1823: 38).

The significance of these gifts as these words suggest was a ’wonderful earnest love.’ It is also glossed as a demonstration of the ’Peoples good wyll’ which they hereby ’lovingly offered‘ their queen (1823: 38).

Elizabeth’s counter-prestation consisted of gestures and language. It is impor- tant to observe that the text considered here emphasized the reciprocal nature of Elizabeth‘s response by placing it immediately after the descciption of the people’s show of affection.

And on thother [sic] side, her Grace, by holding up her handes, and merie countenaunce to such as stode farre of [i.e., off], and most tender and gentle language to those that stode nigh to her Grace, did declare herselfe no lesse thankefullye to receive her Peoples good wyll, than they lovingly offered it unto her (1823: 38).

The significance of Elizabeth’s words and gestures are, as noted here, ’thanks’

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while elsewhere in the text she is described as having ’rejoyed marveilously’ (1823 : 38). As Elizabeth had responded to the people so they now respond to her. ’The People again were wonderfully ravished with the loving answers and gestures of theyr Princesse’ (1823 : 38-9).

As a result of this ritual exchange of signifying gesture and signified sentiment each party was encouraged to entertain a particular conception of the other. These conceptions were essentially political ones. Parties addressed each other as monarch and people, and, in the nature of their public dialogue, gave demonstra- tion of the manner in which they expected to continue to engage one another as such. In the conceptions represented in this dialogue there was evidenced an implicit promise to fulfill an expectation and an implicit expectation that a promise would be fulfilled. A kind of contract had been fashioned.

Elizabeth was encouraged to regard her subjects as possessed of an ‘earnest love: towards her while the people had ‘emplanted [within them] a wonderful1 hope . . . touchying [Elizabeth’s] woorthy Government in the reste of her Reygne’ (1823 : 39). The contract fashioned in this reciprocal manner had a continual mutuality to it. Worthy government depended on and followed from earnest love while earnest love depended on and followed from good government.

What happened in large also happened in small. The reciprocal nature and symbolic message of this first exhibit occurred in the still more spontaneous exchanges between Elizabeth and her people that took place throughout the progress.

If the baser personages had offered her Grace any flowers or such like as a signification of their good wyll, or moved to her any sute, she most gently, to the common rejoysing of all lookers on, and private comfort of the partie, staid her chariot, and heard theyr requestes (1823: 39).

It is subsequently noted in the text that many ’mightye Prynces have gentlye receyved presentes offered them by base and lowe personages’ (1559: 59) but it is doubted whether any ever did so as often or as well as Elizabeth on this occasion.

How many nosegayes did her Grace receive at poore woman5 handes: how ofttimes stayed she her chariot, when she sawe any simple body offer to speake to her Grace: a branche of rose-mary geven to her Grace with a supplication by a poore woman about Flete Bridge, was seen in her chariot ti1 her Grace came to Westminster, not without the marveylous wondring of such as knew the presenter, and noted the Quenes most gracious receiving and keeping the same (1823: 59).

The second exhibit occurred at ’Fanchurche’ and possessed a slightly more formal nature. On a ’scaffole richely furnished’ stood a child in ’costly apparell.’ On behalf of the City of London the child offered Elizabeth two gifts. Continuing the theme established by those of the first exhibit, the first gift was ’blessing tongues’ with which the city prays Elizabeth does well, wishes her long life and blesses this happy day (1559: 39). The second gift was ‘true hertes, which love thee from their roote’ (1823: 40). To emphasize that this exhibit was more formal but not less collective than the first, ’the hole People gave a great shout, wishing with one assent, as the chylde had said’ (1823: 40).

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Here was noted in the Quenes Majesties countenance, during the time that the child spake, besides a perpetual attentiveness in her face, a marvelous change in loke, as the childes wordes touched either her person, or the Peoples tonges or hertes (1823: 40).

Elizabeth suggested that the intensity of her response to the child’s gift was not less than that of the spirit with which it was given.

So that she with rejoysynge visage did evidently declare that the wordes tooke no lesse place in her minde, than they were moste heartely prounounced by the chylde, as from all the heartes of her moste heartie Citizeins (1823: 40).

The third exhibit presented Elizabeth with another gift, this time a ’purse of crimeson sattin richly wrought with gold’ containing one thousand marks in gold. The gift was from the City, its ’lorde Mayor, his bretheren and Comminaltie of the Citie. ’ They asked Elizabeth to continue their ‘good and gracious’ queen and ’not to esteme the value of the gift, but the mynd of the gevers’ (1823: 49). Elizabeth responded by reassuring them :

I will be as good unto you as ever Quene was to her People. No wille in me can lacke, neither doe I trust shall ther lacke any power. And perswade your selves, that for the safetie and quietnes of you all, I will not spare, if need be, to spend my blood, God thanke you all (1823: 49).

The fourth exhibit consisted of a child giving a Latin oration in front of the school at St Paul’s. The fifth occurred as Elizabeth was led to observe the efforts the City had expended in its preparation for her arrival. From Fanchurche to the ’high end’ of Cheape stood the companies of the City.

Enclosed with rayles, hanged with clothes, and themselves well apparelled with many riche furres, and their livery whodes [i.e., hoods] uppon their shoulders, in comely and semely maner, having before them sondry persons well apparelled in silkes and chains of golde, as wyflers and garders of the sayd companies, beside a number of riche hanginges, as well of tapistrie, arras, clothes of gold, silver, velvet, damaske, sattin and other silkes, plentifullye hanged all the way as the Quenes Highnes passed from the Towre through the Citie. Out of the windows and pent-houses of every house did hang a number of ryche and costlye banners and streamers, tyll her Grace came to the upper ende of Cheape (1823: 48).

The gates of the city and other points along the passage route were also ’finelie trimmed up against her Majesties comming’ (1823: 53) and at each city gate watchmen ‘did geve a pleasant noyse with their instrumentes‘ (1823: 48). When Elizabeth‘s attention was called to these efforts and the fact that ’there was not cost spared. ’

Her Grace answered, that she did well consyder the same, and that it should be remem- bred. An honorable aunswere, worthie a noble Prince, which may comforte all her subjects, considering there can be no point of gentlenes or obedient love shewed her Grace, whych she doth not most tenderlie accepte, and graciously waye (1823: 53).

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Later Elizabeth said again that the City’s generosity would not be forgotten.

Whiche saying myght move all Englishemen heartelye to shewe due obedience and entier- nes to so good a Quene, which will in no poynt forgeat any parcel1 of dutie lovingly shewed unto her (1823: 58-9).

The over-all effect of these several exhibits is summarized in the text as follows.

Thus the Quenes Hyghnesse passed through the Citie, whiche, without any forreyne persone, of itselfe, beawtifyed itselfe, and receyved her Grace at all places, as hath been before mentioned, with most tender obedience and love, due to so gracious a Quene and Soveraigne Ladie. And her Grace lykewise of her side, in all her Graces passage, shewed herselfe generally an ymage of a woorthye Ladie and Governour; but privately those especial1 poyntes wer noted in Grace as sygnes of a most princelyke courage, whereby her loving subjects maye ground a sure hope for the rest of her gracious doinges hereafter (1823: 58).

It is apparent that it was through a process of exchange that Elizabeth and her people established a set of mutual expectations. On the one hand the demonstra- tion of the good will of the people was secured by the queen‘s reassurance of good government. On the other, Elizabeth’s demonstration of love for her people won the promise of obedience from them. In short the ‘tender obedience and love’ of the subordinate and the ’ymage of a worthie Governour’ of the superordinate created a ritual exchange essential to the hope of settled government. It is worth examining closely the precise terms of this dialogue to determine the assumptions on which it rested.

First of all it should be observed that the procession may be seen to involve two distinct parties and to consist in large part in the interaction of these parties. Second it may be observed that the nature of the interaction is not that which occurs between actor and audience, rhetorician and assembly, or lord and suppliant. It is the interaction of two relatively equal parties, each of whom had something to give to and take from the other. The relationship between these two parties was an essentially reciprocal one.

An important clue to why this should be so rest perhaps in the nature of the objects exchanged. In the second exhibit Elizabeth was offered ’blessed tongues’ and ‘true hertes.’ It would be simple enough to treat these objects as synecdoches intended to signify the obedient subject. There are, however, references to hearts and tongues in the Elizabethan period that suggest that they may have a special significance in this context. For instance, several Renaissance writers referred to the heart of the subordinate when it was obedience, or the superordinate’s ruling conduct, that was at issue. Thus, Guazzo referred to ’curtesie’ as an instrument for winning hearts. Vaughan said of an amiable show of countenance that it ’stealeth‘ the ’hearts‘ of the people. Francis Bacon in his proposal for the restoration of order in Ireland called for ’the recovery of the hearts of the people’ (Cabala Sive Scrinia Sacra, 1691: 48). Braithwait (in Jones, 1917: 138) said that when tenants curse officers for their greed they did so ’with their harte.’ Fletcher spoke of the Russian common man as a slave, suffering a completely ‘servile subjection’ while ’robbed

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continually ... of their harts’ (1591: a 4 ~ ) . At Warwick in 1572 Elizabeth was offered the ‘good hearts and just obedience’ of the people there (Nichols, 1823 : vol. I, 197). At Coventry in 1565 she was offered a great quantity of gold and told that it represented something much more valuable- the hearts of the people (Nichols: vol. I, 192). These references could be multiplied almost endlessly. The most revealing of them is surely one in Elyot which reads:

Howe often have I herde people say, whan men in authoritie have passed by without makinge gentill contenance to those whiche have done to them reverence: This man weneth with a loke to subdue all the worlde; nay, nay, rnennes hartes be free, and wyll love whom they lyste. And therto all the other do consente in a murmure, as it were bees (1531: 130).

In a very similar passage in Vaughan (very likely cribbed from the earlier Elyot) there occurs another such reference to freedom but this time the object concerned is ’tongues.’

If a Noble man, that is proud and haughty of countenance, should passe by them [the people] without semblance of gentlenesse, they [will be moved to speak 111 of him and] they care not who heares them: their tongues are their owne (1608: KR).

These references while slight are suggestive. Could it be that the subordinate party in this particular case is conceived to have an element of autonomy and freedom which is his to dispense with as he will? Is it possible that the subordinate, even when subject to the threat or fact of punishment, retains an essential freedom? In short does the subordinate have certain political dispositions that are his to keep or give away? Are these dispositions his superodinate must solicit, and obtain or not?

From this point of view the importance of the reciprocal process identified in the procession becomes clearer. Endowed with a freedom that resided in the head and in the heart, that worked within him as will and love, and that was represented as ’tongue‘ and ‘heart,‘ the subordinate had something to make him more than a passive audience of, or secondary partner to, the procession. He was endowed with something he might trade and the superordinate must elicit. Indeed one of the ‘problematics’ of the procession may be said to be precisely the elicitation of the people’s good will by the ruling group and the elicitation of a promise of good government by those who were ruled. Elizabeth and the people engaged one another as distinct and relatively coequal parties in the procession because both had something to win from the other. The process by which these political goods were won was, because of the comparable status of the two parties, a reciprocal one. The operation of this reciprocity established a mutually advantageous exchange and consequent contract.

C O N C L U S I O N

It may now be asked whether and in what regard this pre-coronation passage may be regarded as a species of political theatre. Clearly it does in some respects conform closely to the dramaturgical model proposed by Mount, Geertz, and

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Montrose. It was an occasion on which political actors engaged one another on a public stage, each assuming roles set by tradition and the art of the procession author. By the prescribed use of gesture, facial expression and spoken word in clearly fixed reciprocal sequence, Elizabeth and her people communicated public sentiments of political import. They staged an enactment of monarchical majesty and subordinate devotion, of monarchical solicitude and subordinate expectation, of good government and due obedience. They represented in dress, adornment, and setting the hierarchical order of their universe, and the bonds of duty and expectation which organized it. There cannot be any doubt that the pre-coronation passage was to this extent a theatre of politics.

But was it something more? Are there aspects of the procession that exceed the grasp of the conventional use of the theatre metaphor? Are there indeed aspects of the process which controvert something in its conventional use? These questions can, I think, be answered in the affirmative. The coronation passage was forward looking. Its ritual, its theatre, was not the theatre of the state. It was instead a process by which mutual expectation was established. I t was a rehearsal of rules, sentiments, promises, and good intentions. It was in short not an enactment ot what the state was, but what the state, according to Elizabethan concept, aspired to be.

In some respects the ceremony of the passage resembles that of a wedding. In both an exchange of tokens of future conduct enacts a promise of this conduct. Plainly the wedding ceremony is not an enactment of the wedded state. I t is instead a pledge of good intention. The pre-coronation passage has this same character. It is not an enactment of the state but a rehearsal of it. Both wedding and passage look forward to a condition that may or may not realize the promises to which the parties involved have committed themselves.

It is this essential indeterminacy of the ceremony of the passage that must be emphasized. The procession is best seen as a process of preparation, anticipation, instruction, reminder, promise, and practice. It was not a condition in and of itself but a rehearsal. As such it did not enact the state and could not do so. It was undertaken as a means of promising a future conduct; for all its solemnity, however, it could not guarantee the faithfulness with which this conduct would be executed.

To emphasize the 'rehearsal' rather than the 'performance' aspect of the metaphor is to save it from itself. It is to allow for an indeterminacy, in this case a historicity, with which the metaphor is not, in its conventional form, equipped to deal. The theatre itself departs from preconception, from the fixed arrangement of character, plot, and staging, only through technical error. The theatre of politics is possessed of a much greater range of possibility and unpredictability. Politics is the work of events, deliberate departures from convention, bids for power, shifts in concept. It is something more fluid than theatre.

If the plastic nature of politics is to be acknowledged, it must be admitted that the theatre of politics never fully constitutes politics. Something escapes it.

If this is true, we must also acknowledge that something escapes the conventional use of the theatre metaphor. As the 'contest' metaphor fails to allow for concept, so the theatre metaphor fails to allow for change and variation. A place must be left for historical forces, real events, accidents, failed intentions, and

59 THE P R E - C O R O N A T I O N PASSAGE OF ELIZABETH I

abandoned promises. The theatre of politics in this and perhaps other instances must be seen as a rehearsal of politics not their accomplishment.

This modification of the theatre of politics metaphor is not an attempt to restore the old distinction between real and symbolic politics. Still less is it an attempt to insist on the distinction between what people say and what they do. It is instead an effort to adknowledge that cultural concept is frequently open to several possible realizations. Elizabeth was prepared in 1558 to confront in the course of her reign a people who showed little good will and even less inclination to obey. The concept of her part as monarch contained alternate views of what her people were, alternative ways of contending with them which departed sharply from the solicitude and beneficence she displayed in 1558. So too did the people themselves possess expectations of a queen who would not establish good government (indeed there were those who thought a woman incapable of such a thing). They were prepared, as we have seen, to withdraw their willing compliance and devotion, and insist that their hearts were free and that they would ‘love whom they liked.’ Either of these possibilities could be provoked by a simple refusal to honour one’s promises, or by the intervention of economic, political, religious, or other factors which made one‘s promises impossible to keep.

These latter are not ’real’ politics, for economic, political and religious factors are, as Geertz would note, just as much imagined as imaginary ones. They are not, that is to say, brute empirical forces. Just as much as the passage itself, they are constituted in terms of cultural concept. To admit to the presence of these factors is not to abandon the primacy of concept. It is merely to acknowledge that the representation of cultural concept through theatre never fully determines or encompasses politics.

The theatre of politics is a metaphor central to the study of political discourse. Its virtue is that it allows one to take fuller account of the cultural concept that organizes this discourse. This heuristic advantage must not blind us to the fact that the conventional form of the metaphor fails to account for possible change and variation. This weakness can be to some extent transcended if we reconstrue the metaphor and emphasize the aspect of ‘rehearsal’ over that of ’performance.’

NOTES

I It is Geertz’s use of the ‘politics as theatre’ metaphor that is the-focus of this paper. Another scholar to have used the metaphor, or an apparent variation, and to whom the following commendation and criticism therefore also applies, is Cohen (1979: 105-7).

2 Geertz has speculated on some of the intellectual origins of this delusion (1980: 121-2).

3 It is worth noting that Geertz has treated the pre-coronation passage of Elizabeth I in a recent paper. He suggests that the passage contributed to the ’transformation of Elizabeth into a moral idea’ (1977: 157). This analysis is an interesting and valuable addition to the literature on the topic. However, relying as it does on a conventional approach to the ‘symbolics of power’ it fails to note the interactive and reciprocal aspects of the passage that will be considered here.

4 I have treated another instance of Elizabethan reciprocity in a paper entitled ’The Exchange of Tudor Children: An Anthropological Phenomenon in Historical Context. ’

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This second instance of reciprocity does not have a public, theatrical aspect. It was not, as the pre-coronation passage was, tied to a particular historical event. I t therefore did not have the burden of establishing a new historical relationship.

sentiment, see Anglo (1969: 345-59). 5 For the relationship of the passage to earlier royal passages and current religious

6 Talbert‘s analysis (1962: 79-86) turns chiefly on this theme. 7 All of the following passages describing the 1558 procession are from Nichols’ (1823,

8 On the occasion of another public procession recorded in Strype, the account of the vol. 1) reprint of Anonymous (1558).

excitement and festivities created by and for Elizabeth as she was rowed up and down the Thames, concludes: ‘by this means shewing herself so freely and condescendingly unto her people, she made herself dear and acceptable unto them’ (1848: 285). The gift of the the queen’s presence was reciprocated with the show of public delight. This in turn created an obligation to reciprocate: ’She was received everywhere with great acclamations and sighs of joy, as is customary in this country, whereat she was exceed- ingly pleased and told me so, giving me to understand how beloved she was of her subjects and how highly esteemed . . . She would order her carriage sometimes to be taken where the crowd seemed thickest, and stood up and thanked the people’ (1848: 285).

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