THREE VERSE EULOGIES OF ANNE OF BOHEMIA

Abstract

Anne of Bohemia, the first queen of Richard II, died on 7 June 1394, after a short struggle with what may have been the plague. Her funeral on 3 August, nearly two months after she died, was of course an occasion to focus on her deeds and character, to reflect on the past and on how her reign had impacted England. Yet the crowd which gathered at Westminster Abbey that day did not check its politics at the door. The Earl of Arundel, for one, was not in a particularly reflective mood; arriving late to the funeral (and asking to leave early on pressing business), his audacity provoked Richard to physical violence, which caused a delay in the proceedings until Arundel's blood could be cleared and the church reconsecrated.1As Anne and Richard had been childless, her death also brought to the fore a looming crisis of succession, part of a more widespread anxiety about Ricardian legitimacy. Richard was under enormous pressure, then, to turn the occasion of Anne's funeral to his own political advantage. It was to be an affair of state which would command a degree of obligatory cooperation and, as Richard made clear to Arundel, the 'unity' of all factions, however coerced.2 Any commemoration that might have been offered for the Bohemian queen thus presented its narrative of the past under the duress of tremendous political tensions.And indeed one would like to know what was said of Anne during or after her funeral, and whether her legacy was shaped to address Ricardian political woes. Up to now, with the exception of a scattering of brief eulogizing generalities in the chronicles and a specious anecdote about a funeral sermon by Thomas Arundel (then the Archbishop of York),3 what scholars have known about the impact of Anne's death has had more to do with her contemporaries' commemoration through indirection. Most notable are Chaucer's efforts to edit out what many have read as references to Anne between the F and G prologues to the Legend of Good Women. Anne's absence has also been credited for much of Richard II's subsequent tyrannical bent, no longer moderated by a queen who was celebrated for her meek supplications.4 John Bowers has argued that the Middle English Pearl may also eulogize Anne, but if he is right, then the poet does so (as Bowers admits) by carefully avoiding direct association with any particular mourner, any specific deceased maiden.5 It seems, in light of such commemoration, that Anne of Bohemia left the world quiedy, relegated to near total obscurity, the legacy of her twelve-year reign reduced to stock characterizations of piety, veiled literary allusions, and indignant remarks about modish footwear.6Fortunately there is more to be said. We can now add to the discussion of the discourse surrounding Anne's funeral three verse eulogies, carried to Prague within years of her deadi, which commemorate Anne of Bohemia in explicit terms. The eulogies, which I edit and discuss in the appendix, are valuable indications of die ways in which Anne's piety was construed and then used to advance royalist devotional and political agendas. In the discussion which follows I restrict my commentary primarily to issues of manuscript context and transmission history, as well as to the origin and audiorship of the eulogies. Social and political implications, together with considerations of historical context, will be addressed more fully as part of a book-length study on Angloimperial relations which I am currendy revising.ManuscriptsOf the three eulogies, only the poem beginning Anglica regina' survives in two witnesses (Prague, Knihovna Metropolitni Kapituly (hereinafter PKMK) MS H.i 5, fol. 9or; and PKMK MS D. 12, fol. 2.17^sup r-v^), with the other two poems ('Femina famosa' and 4NoHs natura florem')7 extant in a single copy (PKMK MS H.i 5, fols 9o^sup v^ and 9o^sup v^- 92^sup r^, respectively). The poems in both manuscripts are copied in Bohemian hands - the D.i 2 poem in a competent book hand, the H. …