Elizabethan Triumphal Processions (review)
The architecture of Theobalds is designed to stage this ceremonial exchange for the “legitimation of [Burgley’s] family interests and policies” (80), as revealed in some nine visits by Elizabeth between 1564 and 1587. At the same time, Sutton devotes some of his most interesting discussions to explaining how the iconography and decor of Theobalds were designed for educating the ascendent Robert to take over the reigns of power. The nature of the entertainments changed, Sutton contends, when the architectural rhetoric no longer was enough to project Burghley’s longheld, but newly-expressed goal: the advancement of his son, Robert Cecil, the future Lord Salisbury, to replace him upon his own wished-for retirement. Sutton argues rather schematically that the architecture of Theobalds now needed to be supplemented with words — that is, scripted entertainments — to persuade Elizabeth of this new aim. Sutton provides close readings of the 1591 and 1594 entertainments and their putative location in Elizabeth’s Great Chamber, though he presents little persuasive evidence that this is where they actually took place. The final portion of the books turns to the management of the house’s symbolic economy by Salisbury after the accession of James, when Burghley’s delicate balance of “allurement” and “contentation” broke down. Sutton explores the notorious visit of James and King Christian of Denmark in 1606, when Salisbury’s ceremonious decorum was breached by the royal drunken debauchery, through which, Sutton argues, Salisbury lost control of Theobalds’s spatial practices. Implicitly contending that the representation of space has a material agency all its own, Sutton verges on claiming that this symbolic loss of control was the cause of James’s appropriation of the house for himself, which was celebrated in the 1607 entertainment put on by Inigo Jones and Ben Jonson, who scripted the actual transfer of ownership of Theobalds to James. Unlike Elizabeth, James’s “allurement” could not be checked by “contentation.” The array of documents Sutton supplies, including letters, architectural plans, and house records, makes this a valuable book for anyone interested in great Elizabethan houses. However, the reader will have to sift through several arguments based on sheer speculation. Anyone who has worked on these houses knows the frustrating lack of evidence necessary to identify the location of events in specific parts of a house. Sutton too often succumbs to temptation to make unsupportable claims. MARTIN ELSKY The Graduate Center and Brooklyn College, The City University of New York