King Consort Research Articles

The Provenance of the Visitation Panel by Francisco Niculoso

A small tile panel created by the Italian ceramic painter Francisco Niculoso (active 1498-1529 from the private collection of Ferdinand Saxe-Coburg-Gotha (1816-1885), king consort to Queen Maria II of Portugal (1819-1853), was in 1902 acquired by the Rijksmuseum. Although the ownership history of this Visitation panel is not fully documented, this essay provides a more comprehensive understanding of its historical narrative, by exploring the various contexts of acquisition and collecting. The panel’s journey from Lisbon to Amsterdam vividly illustrates the remarkable fluidity and permeability that defined the boundaries of art markets and museums around the turn of the twentieth century.

Prof Theodor Billroth and Ferdinand II King Consort of Portugal: who owns the truth?

Prof Theodor Billroth and Ferdinand II King Consort of Portugal: who owns the truth?

Ruling & relationships: the fundamental basis of the exercise of power? The impact of marital & family relationships on the reigns of the queens regnant of Navarre (1274-1517)

Family relationships were the foundation of dynastic monarchy and provided a crucial basis for the support of the rule of a reigning queen, who was arguably in a far more vulnerable position than that of her male counterparts. This article will examine the situation of the queens regnant of Navarre, between 1274 and 1517 with particular regard to their relationship with their natal and marital families. It will highlight various examples which demonstrate the key support that reigning queens received from their family members, which was especially vital in times of crisis. While the paper will also discuss episodes of conflict and tension within the queens’ family over the succession, it will ultimately argue that support from within the dynasty and from her ruling partner, the king consort, played a vital role in securing and maintaining the rule of a reigning queen.

Intrigue and Treason. The Tudor Court, 1547-1558 (review)

Reviewed by: Intrigue and Treason. The Tudor Court, 1547-1558 Ralph Houlbrooke Intrigue and Treason. The Tudor Court, 1547-1558. By David Loades. Harlow:Pearson Longman. 2004. x, 326 pp. £19.99. ISBN 0582772265. This study of the mid-Tudor court focuses on the interaction between political and institutional developments. Biographer of Mary Tudor and John Dudley, historian of the major conspiracies of Mary's reign, and anatomist of the Tudor court, David Loades is well-qualified to write such a study. After an initial definition of the court and analysis of its functions during the early 1540s, he devotes most of his book to a brisk political narrative covering the years 1540-59, punctuated by accounts of changes in organization and personnel, together with descriptions of court entertainments, viewed as magnificent manifestations of royal power. A final chapter pulls together the book's thematic strands and succinctly demonstrates that its lurid title is deceptive. 'The court was always a place of intrigue, and inevitably it was fiercely competitive' (p. 288). Nevertheless, such intrigue caused few if any of the major political upheavals of the period. Neither the fall of Southampton in 1547 nor that of Somerset in 1549 resulted from it. Control of the court was not enough to save Somerset from being stripped of his protectoral dignity by the conciliar majority opposed to him. Thomas Seymour used his personal relationship with Edward VI in his attempts to involve his royal nephew in his dangerous intrigues, but he had no power base or party in the court. 'Both Northumberland and Mary were confronted with numerous protests and conspiracies, but none of these had either root or flower in the court' (p. 291). Mary's court, indeed, 'seems to have been remarkably free from plotting and faction, and completely free from anything that could be called treason' (p. 293). According to Loades, Edward VI, unprompted by any courtier, was the original author of the attempted exclusion of Mary from the throne in 1553, and the ensuing struggle was 'fought out partly in the council and partly in the country', at a time when 'the court was virtually in abeyance' (p. 291). The years covered by this book did nevertheless see notable episodes of political turbulence. In giving them a central place [End Page 267] in his narrative, Loades supplies a valuable corrective to the impression of purposeful consensus given by some recent accounts of Edward's reign in particular. He is almost certainly right to suggest that Northumberland was too hard on himself when, before his death, he confessed that he had fabricated the case that brought Somerset to the block. The erstwhile protector's disgruntled indiscretions had made him seem a dangerous liability. The most thought-provoking chapter among those Loades devotes to Edward's reign is however about the king's education and entertainment. Loades casts no doubt on Edward's commitment to godly kingship, but nevertheless suggests that William Thomas, under Northumberland's aegis, imparted aMachiavellian moral relativism to the king's studies which was the antithesis of his tutor John Cheke's approach. Among the chapters concerned with the Marian court the most interesting is perhaps the one about 'King Philip', which demonstrates how well Mary's much maligned husband fulfilled the very difficult role of king consort and how positively he influenced the English regime. His participation in knightly combats brought a touch of sorely needed glamour to Mary's court. Loades exploits in some of his most vivid passages the contrast between Mary, the pious, dowdy queen utterly without charisma who embraced marriage out of duty, and her sister, the perhaps unwilling virgin, 'an instinctive flirt . . . a young woman whose sexuality was as lively as her mind' (p. 257), who used to the full her power to excite and manipulate men. [End Page 268] Ralph Houlbrooke University of Reading Copyright © 2006 Edinburgh University Press Ltd.

“I Am Her Majesty’s Subject”: Prince George of Denmark and the Transformation of the English Male Consort

One of the most enigmatic historical figures in late Stuart England was Prince George of Denmark (1653-1708), the husband of Queen Anne (r. 1702-1714). Unlike Philip of Spain, the husband of Mary I (r.1553-1558), who held the position of king consort, and William of Orange, later William III, the husband of Mary II (r. 1689-1694), who reigned as king in his own right, George of Denmark did not attain the position of king. George’s relegation to a status subordinate to his wife was a glaring contradiction to prevailing contemporary social theory, yet an explanation for this occurrence is completely absent from the body of historical studies concerned with the Revolution of 1688/89 and the passage of the Act of Settlement of 1701.

Henry Purcell, Complete ODES and Welcome Songs, Vol 3: Fly, Bold Rebellion, Sound the Trumpet, Beat the Drum, Celebrate this Festival; Vol 4: From Hardy Climes, Ye Tuneful Muses, Celestial Music Did the Gods Inspire; Vol. 5: Welcome, Welcome, Glorious Morn; Great Parent, Hail; The Summer's Absence Unconcerned We Bear; Vol. 6: Love's Goddess Sure Was Blind; Raise, Raise The

Journal Article Henry Purcell, Complete ODES and Welcome Songs, Vol 3: Fly, Bold Rebellion, Sound the Trumpet, Beat the Drum, Celebrate this Festival; Vol 4: From Hardy Climes, Ye Tuneful Muses, Celestial Music Did the Gods Inspire; Vol. 5: Welcome, Welcome, Glorious Morn; Great Parent, Hail; The Summer's Absence Unconcerned We Bear; Vol. 6: Love's Goddess Sure Was Blind; Raise, Raise The Voice; Laudate Ceciliam; From Those Serene and Rapturous Joys; Vol. 7: Of Old, When Heroes Thought It Base (The Yorkshire Feast Song), Swifter, Isis, Swifter Flow; What, What Shall Be Done in behalf of the Man; Vol. 8: Come, Ye Sons of Art, Away; Welcome, Vicegerent, Why, Why Are All The Muses Mute, Choir of New College, Oxford, The King's Consort, directed by Robert King, Hyperion CDA66412, CDA66456 (rec 1990), CDA66476, CDA66494, CDA66587 (rec 1991), CDA66598 (rec 1992); boxed set of all eight odes, CDS44 Get access Bruce Wood Bruce Wood Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar Early Music, Volume XXI, Issue 1, February 1993, Pages 149–152, https://doi.org/10.1093/em/XXI.1.149 Published: 01 February 1993

RECORDINGS

RECORDINGS Get access MUSIC FOR ROYAL OCCASIONS Fisher Gillian (soprano), John Mark Ainsley (tenor), Michael George (bass), Choir of New College, Oxford, The King's Consort, directed by Robert King Hyperion CDA66315 (rec 1988) Eric Cross Eric Cross Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar Early Music, Volume XVII, Issue 3, August 1989, Pages 464–466, https://doi.org/10.1093/earlyj/XVII.3.464 Published: 01 August 1989

31. Kingship and Kinship: The Royal Lineages of Late Shang

ABSTRACTOn the basis of inscriptional evidence, it is proposed that the following principles governed the system of succession and inheritance among the lineages forming the Shang dynasty:(1) The great Royal Lineage consisted of certain kings (Great Ancestors) and their consorts, selected from a federation of ten patrilineages, named by the ten kan stems; these patrilineages were linked by ties of marriage and consanguinity.(2) Kan names were inherited through the male line; sons and daughters both inherited the kan name of their biological father.(3) Marriage was exogamous; a male could not marry a female bearing the same kan name as his own; nor could he, in general, marry a female who bore the same kan name as his mother.(4) When kingship remained in the same generation it passed from one classificatory “brother” to another. When kingship descended a generation, it passed not from the king to his son, but from the king to his consort's sister's son. Only a king who was the son of a king's consort's sister and whose consort's sister was the mother of a king was eligible for Great Ancestor status.(5) Kings of the same generation had to be of different kan; when a kan lineage had occupied the kingship in one generation, it could not do so again in the generation immediately succeeding.