Femininity, race-making and gender non-conformity in Queen Henrietta Maria’s court performances (1625-42)

In collaboration with Royal Museums Greenwich ('RMG') and Historic Royal Palaces ('HRP'), members of the REACH CDP Consortium, this project investigates gender nonconformity and race-making in the court masques of Henrietta Maria (queen consort to Charles I). It will (1) bring scholarship on women’s performance, race-making and gender nonconformity to bear on the texts and archival materials of the Caroline masque in which Henrietta Maria and her women – some of the most important women performers in seventeenth-century England – performed; and (2) create new materials for the inclusive curation of the Queen’s House (one of RMG's core sites). The Queen’s House is of tremendous significance as an object of architectural and women’s history, and a site for the performance of Stuart queenship. It is the last non-ecclesiastical building completed for Henrietta Maria and the only remaining trace of the lost Greenwich Palace. However, because of a paucity of archival records, much about its early use remains elusive. This project analyses the rich records of court performance and conducts comparative work between the Queen’s House and the Banqueting House (built for James VI & I by Inigo Jones and used by the late Jacobean and Caroline courts) to reassess the relationship of Henrietta Maria’s Queen’s House to culture, art and performance. It assesses the extent and limits of the House as a performative ‘House of Delights’, and the relationship of these dynamics to Henrietta Maria’s broader artistic patronage. To investigate Henrietta Maria’s performances, the project draws on performance, gender, queer and trans studies, on theatre history, and on pre-modern critical race studies. Inigo Jones’ lighting techniques and costumes will be analysed for the discourses of racialised whiteness and fairness that surround the Queen; discourses of blackness will be analysed in the depiction of people of colour in scenic representations and theatrical machines. Costume and dance will be analysed to explore what Noémie Ndiaye calls the ‘scripts of blackness’ inherent in the cosmetic, textile, and danced representation of the Americans, Persians, Indians, Ottomans and others who people Stuart antimasques. Gender nonconformity will be analysed in moments like the confrontation between Pallas and Circe in Tempe Restored (1632) – in which Circe, played by one Madame Coniack, tells Pallas, played by an unnamed boy-actor, ‘Man-maid, begone!’ – and in cross-casting in Artenice (1626) and The Shepherds’ Paradise (1633), in which court women perform in beards and breastplates. This project will form part of RMG’s ongoing reconsideration of Henrietta Maria’s career in the Queen’s House. This CDP project is an ideal opportunity for the student to feed into these activities through a proposed placement at the Museum. The collaboration with HRP offers important additional benefits and opportunities. The Banqueting House will re-open to the public in 2025 and, following the extremely popular ‘Long Live Queen James’ event of 2018, HRP plans ‘summer seasons’ of live public programming and fresh inclusive interpretation. The student will have the chance to bring their findings and expertise to this programming, in a proposed placement at HRP to work on inclusive public engagement for the Banqueting House.