Gracechurch Street - a photo on Flickriver

Gracechurch Street

Corner of Gracechurch Street (which Fenchurch Street leads to). Anne Boleyn’s coronation procession travelled through Fenchurch and onto Gracechurch Street. It was here, on the corner, that Anne witnessed another pageant. This pageant was designed by Hans Holbein the Younger, and sponsored by the merchants of the Steelyard. Fortunately a design for this display still survived:

www.flickr.com/photos/20631910@N03/2420701543/in/set-7215...

giving us a good impression of the event. Apollo is surrounded by the Nine Muses, ‘amonge the mountains/syteyng on the mount of Pernasus/and every of them havynge their instruments & apparayle acordyng to the deicryption of poetes’. The Nine Graces then bestowed gifts upon Anne Boleyn.

You may notice at the top of Holbein’s drawing, there is an eagle. This was not intended to be a reference to the Imperial Eagle of Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor, who was staunchly opposed to Anne’s marriage to Henry VIII and elevation as queen. The imperial eagle had two heads. Instead, as Retha Warnicke observes, the eagle here was simply a symbol of ancient antiquity. The Imperial ambassador, Eustace Chapuys, argued that the inclusion of the eagle was intended to be an insult to Anne Boleyn, for the Hanseatic merchants opposed Anne’s marriage to Henry VIII as they feared it would have impact on trade relations between England and the Emperor. Aside from the eagle not actually being the imperial eagle as Chapuys argued, it seems highly unlikely that the merchants would have dared to show their dissatisfaction so publicly and on such an occasion.

Today a Marks and Spencer’s stands on the spot where the display likely took place!

Taken on: September 23, 2009

Tags:

Gracechurch

Street

city

London

Anne

Boleyn

coronation

procession

May

1533

Henry

VIII

pageant

Hans

Holbein

Younger

drawing

design

Apollo

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Muses « less

Sets appears in: • Anne Boleyn’s coronation procession (31 May 1533) • Tudor London

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