Festivals for the Garter Embassy at the Court of Henri IIT Roy C. Strong Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes, Vol. 22, No. 1/2 (Jan. - Jun., 1959), 60-70. Stable URL htp:/flinks jstor-orgisii sici=0075- 390%28195901%2F06%2922%3A 1%2F2%3C60%3 AFFTGEA%3E2.0.CO%3B2-D Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes is currently published by The Warburg Institue, ‘Your use of the ISTOR archive indicates your acceptance of JSTOR’s Terms and Conditions of Use, available at hup:/www,jstororglabout/terms.hml. ISTOR’s Terms and Conditions of Use provides, in part, that unless you have obtained prior permission, you may not download an entire issue of a journal or multiple copies of articles, and you may use content in the JSTOR archive only for your personal, non-commercial use. Please contact the publisher regarding any further use of this work. Publisher contact information may be obtained at hupulwww.jstor.org/journals'warburg.huml. 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Evidence is fragmentary, but establishes that even when the monarchy was on the verge of collapse it was still possible for poets, artists and musicians to combine their talents to produce a series of brilliant spectacles. Hitherto our knowledge of these fétes has been drawn chiefly from L’Estoile’s Journal and the account of the cere~ monies printed by Elias Ashmole in his history of the Order of the Garter, but a search into the English diplomatic correspondence relating to this embassy has brought to light new and important material and in particular a full-length description of a ballet ambassadors. Iam much indebted to Miss F. A. Yates for her valuable advice in reading the succes- sive versions of this paper. ¥ Attention was drawn to the importance embassy in F. A. Yates, ligious Processions in Paris in the late Sixteenth Century,” Annales Mus cologit ues me 1 258-61. Pde Thos titre Univelt, London, 17g BK, p38 Yon ihe sce “Joyeuse a Sawa de Pee oe Rane de Ha i ed. Le R. Lefevre, Paris, 1943, PP. 274 279° 8; ies Se Vets "Mesa de Focus, Paris, 1926, pp. 63:65; Henry Pruntres, Baill de Cour on France evant Bowerade ot Lily, Paris, 1914, pp. 82-043 F. A. Yates, "Pocsie et Musque’dans Ics ‘Magnifcencet’ au Mariage du Due de Joyeuse, Paris, 1s81,”"in Masigs ef Polsie a AVI" silo, Pan, 1054, pp. 241-64; the same author's The’ Frewh Heads of the Sistenth’ Ct, London, ogy, BP. 236-74. SHAN account of the ceremonies for this embasy given in this article based on the following sources: ()) Letter ffom the Eatl of Desby and Sir Edward Stafford to Queen Blzabeth, February 23cd, 1584/5, of which the final version @ musing from the State Papers but the draft for which isin Bodleian Tanner MS. 78, ff. 30-97% 78. (i) Official account A of which the draft fs in tid, ff 24> presented in honour of the English 29” and the final version in B.M. Cotton MS. Caligula, BVI as", (i) Oficial account B in ibid, . 241-43. A transcript by ‘Athmole sin Bodleian Achmole MS. 1109, ff, 63-66, and is printed in his The Histor, Laws, and Ceremonies of the most Noble Order of the Garter, London, 1672, Bey doons. Other. English account lean ‘Tanner MS. 78, ff. 81-83; Bodleian Ashmole MS. 1110, if “91-94; Holinshed’s Chronicles, London, 1808, IV,’ pp. 557-60; also in J. Nichols, The ‘Progresses of Queen Blizabelh, London, 1823, II, pp. 428-31; J. Stowe, Annales, London, 1631, pp. 700-702 ; W. Cam- den, Elizabeth, London 1688, p: gos. (¥) The jague Archives contain the following reports by Dutch envoys in Paris: Brieven van de Gedeputcerden uyt Paris, gand February, 1585; Rapport van de Handeling gehauden i9°0e Geklnen; Brie! van de Cecsnten uyt Pas 11 Maart'58s- Tam grea indebted to Mr. D. J. Bruggeman for consulting the manuscripts in The Hague. Sec also Pieter Bor, Neerlandsche Oorloghen, Leyden and Amsterdam, 1621, TIL, if. 58¥-59. Mr. B. Dietz kindly helped with this Dutch source. (0) Accounts by foreign agents and ambass- jors in Paris: C.S.P. Venetian, 1581-91, pp. 107- 1a V, von Klarwil, he Page Net Lt and series, London, 1926, pp. 88-893 C.S.P. Foreign, 1964-5, p: 206; A"Bexjarding, Nigo- cations Diplomatiques de’la France avee ta Tos- 6FESTIVALS FOR THE GARTER EMBASSY 6 Henri III was elected a Knight of the Garter on St. George's Day 1575,¢ an act designed as an open expression of the amity that existed between the two countries. This election was not followed by the immediate delivery of the insignia of the Order, as was customary, and nearly a decade was to pass before this was finally accomplished. The decision to dispatch the Order to Henri was prompted by a rapid change in the European political scene at the opening of 1584.7 In May the resident English ambassador in Paris, Sir Edward Stafford, was authorized to offer the Garter to Henri, who received it with great thanks,® On June roth, however, Anjou, heir to the French crown and suitor to Queen Elizabeth, died. ‘This was followed a month later by the assassination of William the Silent. Orange had, of course, been actively engaged in leading the struggle in the Netherlands against Spain, a struggle in which Anjou had acted as a figurehead, and their deaths created a vacuum for action: either the French or English, or both, had to intervene to ensure that the Spaniards should not triumph. At the end of July Sir Philip Sidney was dispatched to the French court, ostensibly to commiserate on the death of Anjou, but more especially to find out the attitude of the French to the problem of the Netherlands. Throughout the early summer rumour had it that the Garter embassy was on its way,? but the Queen Mother, Catherine de’ Medici, on July 25th had instructed’ the French ambassador in London to inform Elizabeth that Henri wished the embassy to be deferred. This delay would enable him to receive it with a splendour which would be to the outside world a magnificent manifestation of the Anglo-French alliance. The following January, over a month before the English embassy arrived, envoys came to Paris from the Netherlands offering unconditionally the sovereignty of the Provinces to Henri III. ‘These emissaries were to be in Paris throughout the visit of the English, and their presence invested the embassy with a new significance. While outwardly the splendours of the reception demonstrated Anglo-French friendship, beneath the surface rival policies were fought out. On the one hand the envoys of the Provinces offered sovereignty to Henri, and, on the other, the English Queen urged joint action by both France and Engiand in the Netherlands. This embassy was to occur at a critical juncture not only in Anglo-French cant, Paris, 1872, IV, pp. 547-485 W. Murdin, ‘Sate Papers relating to afairs inthe reign of Queen Elizabeth, er 1759: PP. 461 tS, (i) LEstoile, Journal, pp. 375-745 HH, Sau Histoire ef a nip dela Jie Paris, Paris, 1724, I, pp. 98, 725-273 Registes des Déibératons du Bureau de la Ville de Paris, ed. P. Guérin, Paris, 1846, VIII, p. 428; de Thou, Histoire Univesll, 1X, pp. 315-16, (vill Documents concerned with conveying the ‘Order, Ashmole, Orde of the Garter, Appendix, Nos. EXVIN, LXXVIN, “OVI, GXXXV, XcIL cxvin, cxurx. A great number of duplicates of these exist in manuscript. # Additional MS. 36768 (a transcript of the Liber Ceruleas), f. 20. “Correspondance Diplomatique de Bertrand de Salignae de la Mothe Féndlon, Patis and London, 1840, VI, pp. 430, 432. The French wanted it sent in 1578, C.S.P. Foreign, 1577-78 p. 458. On the general diplomatic’ background see Conyers Read, fr. Sereary Walsingham and the Policy of Queen Elizabeth, Oxford, 1925, IIL, p. 71 #25 J. Le Motley, History "of the United" Netherlands, London, 1860, 1, pp. 65-108. HMC. Halfeld House, 111, pp. 30-313 Murdin, State Papers, p. 399. "CSP. Ventian, 1580-91 pp. 96, 993 HAG: Haspld foun tp. gee” 10 M, le Comte Baguenault de Puchesse, Letres de Catherine de Medici, Paris, 1901, VIIT, P. 198, 203; see also C.S.P. Seotland, 2584-85, p. 223.