The Speeches at Prince Henry's Barriers

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The Speeches at Prince Henry's Barriers, sometimes called The Lady of the Lake, is a

James I of England. The speeches were performed on 6 January 1610 in conjunction with the ceremony known as Prince Henry's Barriers.[1]

Barriers

Prince Henry's Barriers was a stylized martial combat, conducted on foot with swords and pikes; it was something like a joust without horses. The entertainment took place in the

Whitehall Palace.[2]

Though ceremonial in nature, the practice had some inherent risk (as jousting did), and the sixteen-year-old Prince Henry had to persuade his reluctant father to allow his participation. The ceremonial challenge that initiated the barriers occurred on 31 December 1609; Prince Henry then kept an "open table" at

Thomas Howard, 21st Earl of Arundel; Henry Wriothesley, 3rd Earl of Southampton; James Hay, 1st Earl of Carlisle; Sir Robert Gordon, and Sir Thomas Somerset. The seven met fifty-eight challengers during the Barriers; "each bout consisted of two pushes with the pike and twelve sword-strokes, and the young prince gave or received that night thirty-two pushes and about 360 strokes."[4]

Greenwich Palace. David Murray bought pearls for the Prince's costume.[5]

Show

Barriers ceremonies were often lushly decorated and costumed. As with Jonson's other masques for the Court, the sets and costumes for Prince Henry's Barriers were designed by

Arthurian legend. Henry was introduced as Meliades, a son of the Scottish queen by Meliadus of Lyonesse. The speeches prophesied a revival of British chivalry.[7]

The

Meliadus
, lord of the isles," (Henry). Merlin summarizes British history; then a personified spirit of Chivalry emerges, after which the barriers combat took place.

Jonson had to tread lightly between the King's well-known pacifism and the Prince's more martial frame of mind. He had the Lady of the Lake present the Prince with a shield, rather than the more usual and typical sword,[9] like the shield given by Thetis to Achilles in the Iliad. Merlin warns the young Prince to beware of militaristic urges. The name "Meliadus," or "Moeliades," applied to Henry in Jonson's text, is an anagram for Miles a Deo, "soldier of God." The Arthurian theme was the Prince's idea rather than Jonson's, who in fact disparaged Arthurian romance,[10] and preferred James's suspicion of militarism to Henry's enthusiasm.

Jonson's text was first published in the first folio collection of Jonson's works in 1616, and was thereafter included in editions of his works.

References

  1. ^ Clare Jackson, Devil-Land: England under Siege, 1588–1688 (Penguin, 2022), p. 132.
  2. ^ Janette Dillon, The Language of Space in Court Performance, 1400-1625 (Cambridge, 2010), pp. 145-6.
  3. ^ Norman Egbert McClure, Letters of John Chamberlain, vol. 1 (Philadelphia, 1939), p. 293
  4. E. K. Chambers
    , The Elizabethan Stage, 4 Volumes, Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1923; Vol. 3, p. 393.
  5. ^ Frederick Devon, Issues of the Exchequer (London, 1836), 103, 115.
  6. ^ Frederick Devon, Issues of the Exchequer (London, 1836), 99.
  7. ^ Martin Butler, The Stuart Court Masque and Political Culture (Cambridge, 2008), pp. 179-80.
  8. ^ John Peacock, The Stage Designs of Inigo Jones: The European Context, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1995; p. 69.
  9. ^ Alison V. Scott, Selfish Gifts: the Politics of Exchange and English Courtly Literature, 1580–1628, Teaneck, NJ, Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, 2006; p. 149.
  10. ^ Peacock, p. 68.
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