Chapter 3 Civic Pageantry and the Return of the Whoremaster
3.1 Civic Pageantry and James I’s Management of Public Image
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Chapter 3
Civic Pageantry and the Return of the Whoremaster
3.1 Civic Pageantry and James I’s Management of Public Image
The final scene of Measure for Measure, in which Duke Vincentio arranges a magnificent return and holds a public trial at the city gate, has always been a critical focus besides the play’s intriguing beginning. It seems to contradict some critics’
claim that the Duke hates the crowd and thus avoids public appearances. The Duke not only does not fear public appearance but also wants to make it as grand as possible. In Act 4 Scene 3, after Provost leaves with the Duke’s order, the Duke reveals his determination to appear publicly in his soliloquy:
And that by great injunctions I am bound To enter publicly. Him I’ll desire
To meet me at the consecrated fount A league below the city. (4.3.95-98)
Later, the Duke orders Friar Peter to “give the like notice to Valencius, Rowland, and to Crassus, and bid them bring the trumpets to the gate” (4.5.7-9). The Duke’s soliloquy and orders show that he does not shun public appearance. On the other hand, he carefully arranges a grand return. The location, the city gate, is a careful choice. It is where every citizen has access to and passes by everyday. With the sound of the trumpets, people could be assembled in a short time.
The city gate becomes another topical and geographical reference in this
Shakespearean city comedy. The significance of the city gate was closely connected to civic pageantry and people’s living experience. Civic pageantry was a form of
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street performance, defined as “a succession of brief, relatively static tableaux performed along a procession-route, amidst large crowds” (Dutton 7). Being one of the spectacular civic entertainments, it was as popular as the staged plays. What made civic pageantry different from the staged plays was, however, that everyone had access to it and one needed not pay for admission. Stock and Zwierlein reveal the temporal affinity between city comedy and civic pageantry: “city comedy and civic pageantry flourished at the same time, in the last years of the sixteenth and the first decade-and-a-half of the seventeenth century” (16). Richard Dutton also notes that dramatists of the period frequently took inspiration from such street performances:
“when writing for the commercial theatres, dramatists were able to capitalize on the familiarity of symbolic characters which was so largely perpetuated by the civic pageants” (13). The co-existence of and mutual influence between city comedy and civic pageantry show that both entertainments were important parts of Jacobean citizens’ life. They were highly familiar with these two forms of public performance.
As Dutton suggests, “to ignore the civic pageants of the Tudor and Stuart period is to ignore the one form of drama which we know must have been familiar to all the citizens of London” (7).
Much similar to how the Duke is compared to James I, the former’s magnificent return at the end of the play could be compared to the King’s civic pageantry,9 The Magnificent Entertainment, taking place on 15 March 1604. The royal entry was supposed to be staged one year earlier, the year when Elizabeth I died and James I became England’s new king. It was delayed, however, because of the outbreak of the
9 According to Dutton, there are three major types of civic pageantry. The first type is “dramatic entertainments presented to divert and instruct royalty on their progresses around the kingdom” (8).
The second type is “similar theatricals to mark the formal entry of royalty into a town or city” (8). The third type is “shows to honor civic dignitaries, particularly the Lord Mayors of London on their inauguration, which took place annually on 29 October” (8). The Magnificent Entertainment belonged
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great plague in 1603. This royal procession was a work of cooperation between Ben Jonson and Thomas Dekker. Normally, a civic pageantry would be organized by the city council and the Livery Company. In this case, however, the king represented
“the whole City council and all twelve of the Livery Companies” (Dutton 9). The pageantry started from the Tower of London, which was believed to be built by their Roman ancestor, Julius Caesar, and ended at the Strand, with seven arches decorated with ample symbolic meanings and classical allusions.10 The purpose of this royal procession was obvious. By weaving classical, especially Roman, allusions into the route and evoking London’s deep connection with the ancient Rome, the creators of the pageantry intended to fuse London with Rome and shape James I into a figure of Roman emperor. Neil MacGregor discloses the creative intention of this particular pageantry: “For the whole of that day, 15 March 1604, real-life London fantasized that it was ancient Rome, and James its ‘conquering Caesar’ guaranteeing peace and prosperity” (245).
James I’s royal procession was highly performative and theatrical, with him being both an actor and a spectator at the same time. The king was basically performing his kingship during this pageantry. His facial expression and subtle actions were constantly seen and closely observed by his citizens. As Dutton notes,
“the processional nature of the entertainment meant that the King or the Lord Mayor was inevitably an actor in the drama” (10). MacGregor put it into simpler words: “It was pure theatre: classical arches as a seamless backdrop to classical pageantry” (252).
The King, on the other hand, was also an audience, since he (and those who
accompanied him) would be the only person who “saw all the pageants performed”
(Dutton 10). The performative nature of the civic pageantry was worth noticing, since
10 For the symbolic meanings and classical allusions of the seven arches erected along the King’s route, see Dutton pp. 20-21 and MacGregor pp. 243-57. For the use of biblical motifs and the hidden
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it is closely connected to the final scene of Measure for Measure, in which, I would argue later, a ruler’s politics of public performance is countered by a popular politics represented by Lucio and other lowlife characters.
Many critics have noticed the politics of civic pageantry. A civic pageantry is generally considered an outward demonstration of the king’s power and a validation of his authority. Stephen Orgel points out that “theatrical Pageantry, the miming of greatness, is highly charged because it employs precisely the same methods the crown was using to assert and validate its authority” (23). Dutton also reveals that a civic pageantry was “a drama both of and for its time, designed to celebrate particular events and persons in an age when the outward manifestation of authority was still critically important” (7). Paula Backscheider notes that the political function of a civic pageantry was to form consensus: “city pageants and public ceremonies had traditionally been part of street politics and had participated interactively in the formation of national consensus” (xvi). For some critics, a civic pageantry was also a
“performative promise:” through this grand event, the new King promised to resolve the political problems, which came from the previous reign. As Malcolm Smuts argues, “It is in many ways more instructive to view [James I’s] triumphant arrival in London… as an event that promised to resolve a number of serious problems that had overshadowed the previous two decades” (47). A civic pageantry could, then, no longer be considered “innocent.” It was always already connected with power and politics. It was an outward demonstration of the ruler’s authority. It validated his legitimacy to rule the kingdom.
Although a civic pageantry could be seen as an outward demonstration of kingly power and thus a validation of his legitimacy, James I also showed his unwillingness to participate in this event since it contradicted his desire to retreat from the public
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gaze, which, to him, would undermine his ultimate authority. Unlike Elizabeth I, who earnestly participated in many forms of civic pageantry, James I generally avoided public gaze. Arthur Wilson, an early modern biographer, stated that “[James I]
endured this day’s brunt with patience, being assured he should never have such another” (qtd. in Dutton 22). J. P. Kenyon, quoting Sir John Harington, a Jacobean courtier, also shows that James I generally disliked the English crowds: “The
demonstrativeness of the English people soon palled—‘The access of the people made him so impatient that he often dispersed them with frowns’” (Kenyon 42). As Doty has pointed out, James I feared popularity. The term “popularity” had two meanings:
first, it stood for people’s favor of you; second, it stood for popular discourses.
Unlike Elizabeth I, who won people’s favor through multiple civic pageantries, James I was more careful about the use of “popularity” since he knew the danger of popular discourses and how they might have undermined his authority. His “notorious sensitiveness to slander” (Schanzer 125) leads to his fear of public appearances.
Billington notes that “King James, for one, was very aware of dramatic analogies and drawbacks inherent in even a real monarch’s public appearances” (6). The staging of The Magnificent Entertainment thus became an intriguing issue. How was James I going to demonstrate his legitimacy through public performance, win people’s favor of him, yet protect his honor and authority at the same time?
James I achieved such a task through a careful management of popular
discourses and his public appearances. His management of his own public image can be seen as a form of political control. It will be useful to bring Basilicon Doron—
James’s treatise on government in 1599, written as a private letter for his eldest son, Henry—into discussion. In this treatise, James I talked about how a king should not
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outwardly demonstrate his “glistering worldly glory” (I:27),11 which was given by God. His “attitude of controlled contempt for the ‘glistering worldly glory of Kings’”
(Gless 157) matched his avoidance of public appearance. Later in the same treatise, James I commented that:
Delight more to be godly and virtuous in deed, than to be thought and called so, expecting more for your praise and reward in heaven, than here; and apply to all your outward actions Christ’s command to pray and give your alms secretly. So shall ye on the one part be inwardly garnished with true Christian humility, not outwardly glorying in your godliness…ye shall eschew outwardly before the world, the suspicion of filthy proud hypocrisy and deceitful dissimulation. (I:51)
In this letter written for his son, James I clearly stated that as a king, one should avoid frequent demonstration of his “godliness.” A king’s inward virtue is more important than his outward vainglory.
James I, however, was also highly aware of the necessity for his public
appearance. He realized that it was impossible to simply avoid public appearance.
How to carefully manage his public image was, in fact, the major issue. He was very much aware of his public image “onstage,” since he stated in the treatise that “[t]he kings are set upon a public stage, in the sight of all the people” (I:12). In this treatise, James’s complicated attitude towards his own image could be clearly seen—he wanted to, on the one hand, avoid public appearance, which might have risked his honor; but he also sought to, on the other hand, manage his public image carefully and
11 The full description is the following: “Remember then, that this glistering worldly glory of Kings, is given by God, to teach them to press so to glister and shine before their people, in all works of sanctification and righteousness, that their persons as bright lamps of godliness and virtue may, going
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demonstrate his virtue outwardly. The result of both strategies was people’s obedience, as Gless observes:
James I both avoids the dishonor that arises from tyranny or luxury and advertises their virtues through the manipulation of external appearance and the promotion of public ceremony. Properly employed, these things foster the obedience that preserves civil harmony. (160)
James I’s “proper” management of his outward demonstration of virtue and his inward control of his honor showed that even a ruler’s honor and reputation could be utilized as a form of political control. Concerning a king’s reputation as a political tool, Gless comments that “reputation remained an important tool for ensuring effective political control… throughout his treatise on monarchy, then, James both condemns vainglory and encourages the use of reputation as in instrument of policy”
(158, 161). James I’s seemingly contradictory attitude towards public appearances, therefore, resulted in both his avoidance of frequent outward demonstration of his authority and power, and his careful performance of his virtue and honor during the civic pageantry. He intended to utilize his honor and reputation as a way to manage public discourses and to control his subjects.