Creating Entertainments for Prince Henry's Creation (1610)

Abstract

In exploring the dramatic entertainments that center on Prince Henrys becoming Prince of Wales in 1610, one could begin with a question: how does a culture create the of a Prince of Wales? We may refer to the official ceremony as the investiture, but most commentators in 1610 referred to Henrys event as the creation. Certainly Daniel Price, Henrys chaplain, had this in mind when he preached a sermon in Westminster Abbey on Trinity Sunday, 3 June, the day before the ceremony; for he took Psalm 51:10 as his text, and he translated it as Create in me a new heart.1 The entire sermon focused on the processes of creation and the renewal of a right and constant spirit. I will argue that Henrys came about partly through dramatic entertainments that in 1610 surrounded the actual ceremony in Parliament. I will pay particular attention to the river pageant on the Thames, devised by Anthony Munday, as the most public of the consciously planned dramatic entertainments. But first the English culture had to create the narrative and liturgy of the actual investiture ceremony. No royal son had been created Prince of Wales since 1504, when Henry, son of Henry VII and later himself Henry VIII, at the age of thirteen experienced the official installation. Only the monarch could bestow the titles Prince of Wales and Earl of Chester, but Robert Cecil insisted that Parliament play a role also. Pauline Croft has pointed out the extensive research that began, under the auspices of Cecil, to determine exactly how one creates a Prince of Wales.2 Croft reports, On the afternoon of Thursday 15 February 1610, Robert Cecil, earl of Salisbury addressed a joint committee of the Lords and Commons, as sembled for the fourth session of James Is first parliament.3 Cecil had many motives, including trying to cajole Parliament into providing more