Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of Illustrations
- Acknowledgements
- Introduction
- Chapter 1 Comic Performance in the Tudor and Stuart Percy Households
- Chapter 2 Wedding Revels at the Earl of Northumberland’s Household
- Chapter 3 Weddings and Wives in some West Riding Performance Records
- Chapter 4 Travelling Players on the North Yorkshire Moors
- Chapter 5 Travelling Players in the East Riding of Yorkshire
- Chapter 6 Northern Catholics, Equestrian Sports, and the Gunpowder Plot
- Chapter 7 Wool, Cloth, and Economic Movement: Journeying with the York and Towneley Shepherds
- Chapter 8 Visiting Players in the Durham Records: An Exotic Monster, a French Magician, and Scottish Ministralli
- Chapter 9 Rural and Urban Folk Ceremonies in County Durham
- Chapter 10 Rush-bearings of Yorkshire West Riding
- Chapter 11 Boy Bishops in Medieval Durham
- Chapter 12 Regional Performance as Intangible Cultural Heritage
- Bibliography
- Index
Chapter 3 - Weddings and Wives in some West Riding Performance Records
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 09 June 2021
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of Illustrations
- Acknowledgements
- Introduction
- Chapter 1 Comic Performance in the Tudor and Stuart Percy Households
- Chapter 2 Wedding Revels at the Earl of Northumberland’s Household
- Chapter 3 Weddings and Wives in some West Riding Performance Records
- Chapter 4 Travelling Players on the North Yorkshire Moors
- Chapter 5 Travelling Players in the East Riding of Yorkshire
- Chapter 6 Northern Catholics, Equestrian Sports, and the Gunpowder Plot
- Chapter 7 Wool, Cloth, and Economic Movement: Journeying with the York and Towneley Shepherds
- Chapter 8 Visiting Players in the Durham Records: An Exotic Monster, a French Magician, and Scottish Ministralli
- Chapter 9 Rural and Urban Folk Ceremonies in County Durham
- Chapter 10 Rush-bearings of Yorkshire West Riding
- Chapter 11 Boy Bishops in Medieval Durham
- Chapter 12 Regional Performance as Intangible Cultural Heritage
- Bibliography
- Index
Summary
The lucky find in the East Riding Archives at Beverley of an account of the Nevile family wedding feast, highlighted by East Riding editor Diana Wyatt in a recent article, provided a timely reminder to look at the material we have for the kind of performance activity which is recorded at weddings of all sorts of people associated with the West Riding. Some of them are very well known. We start at the very top, with Princess Elizabeth, daughter of James I, whose wedding celebrations on Valentine's Day, or Shrove Sunday, 1613, were recorded by the Yorkshire antiquary, John Hopkinson, from papers of the Talbots, earls of Shrewsbury, and others. Hopkinson, of Lofthouse, near Leeds (1610–1680), was an antiquary who in the 1660s was employed, with Yorkshire historian Nathaniel Johnston, in arranging the Talbot papers at Sheffield Castle. The royal festivities were also mentioned in a letter by Francis Clifford, Earl of Cumberland, to Sir William Wentworth, father of Thomas Wentworth, later Earl of Strafford. Cumberland's son, Henry Clifford, was one of the “viij Noble men, and viij Ladies, of which Number my Sonne is first of the 4 barons. …” appointed to take part in a masque at the marriage.
Elizabeth Stuart (1596–1662) eldest and only surviving daughter of James I, married Frederick V, Count Palatine of the Rhine and Elector of the Holy Roman Empire (1596–1632) on February 14, 1613. It may be that the marriage to this Protestant prince was part of James I's plan to provide a balance against potential Catholic marriages for his sons Henry and Charles, but Elizabeth's elder brother, Henry, Prince of Wales, had other ideas and had probably commissioned a masque for her wedding called The Masque of Truth (author uncertain), which symbolised the final triumph of light against the evil darkness of popery. Unfortunately Henry died on November 6, 1612, and this masque was not performed. Instead, The Lords’ Masque, by Thomas Campion (1567–1620), was put on, at a cost of £400, to celebrate the marriage.
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- Publisher: Amsterdam University PressPrint publication year: 2021