Court and anti-court. London and the British monarchy in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries - article ; n°1 ; vol.111, pg 381-394

Corfield Penelopej.

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Mélanges de l'Ecole française de Rome. Italie et Méditerranée - Année 1999 - Volume 111 - Numéro 1 - Pages 381-394
Pénélope J. Corfield, Court and anti-court. London and the British monarchy in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, p. 381-394. The essay argues that London needed the court to consolidate its commanding position as capital city - but that simultaneously the British monarchy needed to be in London. That created a complex and sometimes tense relationship. There was an anti-court tradition of hostility to the trappings of monarchy as well as a pro-court tradition of reverence for kingship. Many British monarchs built their own private palaces outside the metropolis but they could never move away entirely. Policentric and pluralist London, as the political, business, social and cultural capital of Britain, was also the inevitable home for the monarchy : kingship amidst the city crowds, courtiers among the citizens.
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Source : Persée ; Ministère de la jeunesse, de l’éducation nationale et de la recherche, Direction de l’enseignement supérieur, Sous-direction des bibliothèques et de la documentation.

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• Publié par: MELANGES_DE_L-ECOLE_FRANCAISE_DE_ROME
• Publié le: 01 janvier 1999
• Nombre de lectures: 10
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 1 Mo

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Penelope Corfield
Court and anti-court. London and the British monarchy in the
eighteenth and nineteenth centuries
In: Mélanges de l'Ecole française de Rome. Italie et Méditerranée T. 111, N°1. 1999. pp. 381-394.
Abstract
Pénélope J. Corfield, Court and anti-court. London and the British monarchy in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, p. 381-
394.
The essay argues that London needed the court to consolidate its commanding position as capital city - but that simultaneously
the British monarchy needed to be in London. That created a complex and sometimes tense relationship. There was an anti-court
tradition of hostility to the trappings of monarchy as well as a pro-court tradition of reverence for kingship. Many British monarchs
built their own private palaces outside the metropolis but they could never move away entirely. Policentric and pluralist London,
as the political, business, social and cultural capital of Britain, was also the inevitable home for the monarchy : kingship amidst
the city crowds, courtiers among the citizens.
Citer ce document / Cite this document :
Corfield Penelope. Court and anti-court. London and the British monarchy in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. In:
Mélanges de l'Ecole française de Rome. Italie et Méditerranée T. 111, N°1. 1999. pp. 381-394.
doi : 10.3406/mefr.1999.4621
http://www.persee.fr/web/revues/home/prescript/article/mefr_1123-9891_1999_num_111_1_4621PENELOPE J. CORFIELD
COURT AND ANTI-COURT
LONDON AND THE BRITISH MONARCHY IN THE
EIGHTEENTH AND NINETEENTH CENTURIES1
Court and city. Theoretical postulates
Does a great city need a court, defined as the socio-ceremonial
headquarters of the executive arm of the state (whether royal or non-royal),
for the accolade of true urban greatness? In response, the answer must be
in the negative. There are numerous 'world cities' that are great in
population, resources, and influence, that are not centres of national
government : New York is a classic example. Conversely, there are many
smaller places that have housed a court but have not evolved into major
cities. For instance, Wolfenbüttel in Lower Saxony (Germany) remains a
small residential town, with little economic role over the centuries other
than servicing the palace and attendant library of the Guelph dukes (1432-
1755).
The question can then be asked in reverse formulation : does a court
need an attendant city? Here the answer is : both no and yes. On the one
hand, a court has a political and social rationale of its own. It is dependent
upon a governing power structure itself usually holding sway over many
cities. Rulers and their courtiers may thus feel superior to ordinary
citizens, and wish to avoid their vulgar gaze. On the other hand, a settled
court (as opposed to a peripatetic kingship or a summer palace) depends
upon a basic urban infrastructure. Well-behaved citizens are required as
respectful audiences for public pageantry. The result is an intricate
relationship of both suspicion and need. Even when Louis XIV moved his
1 This has been expanded from a lecture given from notes at the Rome
Conference on 'Corti europee e civiltà moderna' in May 1997, with thanks to all participants for helpful discussions and references; and to Tony Belton
for a critical reading of the text. For a short discussion of the same themes, see also
P. J. Corfield, London and the Modern Monarchy, in History Today, 49, February
1999, p. 6-13.
MEFRIM - 111 - 1999 - 1, p. 381-394. 382 PENELOPE J. CORFIELD
palace away from perceived urban contamination, quitting Paris for
Versailles in 1665, a new supply city was generated in the new location2.
The scene was changed but the knot was not untied.
Courts and cities are therefore intertwined but not identical. They
mark the conjunction of two separate forces in history : the practice of
socio-ceremonial power and the dynamics of urban growth. The city
population may service, support, and admire the court in its midst. Or it
may house the chief critics of a court. Or it may do both simultaneously. At
the same time, the court may wish to gild or plan the surrounding city or,
more aggressively, to control or repress it. Their mutual relationships
remain fluid and dynamic.
Pro-court and anti-court
In the case of the English - after 1707 the British - court, there was no
doubt that it constituted a central venue for visible social display. It was
thus a perennial magnet for ambitious men and women from elite families.
Access to the court entailed social proximity to the monarch. Courtiers
basked in the reflected 'divinity that doth hedge a king' (Shakespeare,
Hamlet, IV, v). Moreover, for long periods, the court had provided not only
a forum for the fashionable world but also a key political arena for the
leading politicians of the day3. That was an influential combination. It
focused attention upon the courtiers, whose manners and etiquette set the
social tone. Politeness and a show of gracious condescension were
required, even if the ideal was sometimes not achieved in practice. Thus
when Castiglione's Courtier (1528) was translated into English in 1561, it
was rapidly adopted as a standard 'courtesy' manual4.
Recent historiography also stresses the importance of kingship in
British national life, as a continuing focus for loyalty and national
identity5. The court, as the satellite body to royalty, was an important part
of the process. Monarchs needed an impressive entourage of courtiers.
Their presence confirmed and sustained the monarchical mystique. In
2 See O. Ranum, Paris in the Age of Absolutism, New York, 1968, p. 267-9; and
P. Benedict (ed.), Cities and Social Change in Early Modern France, London, 1989,
p. 24, 28.
3 See D. Starkey (ed.), The English Court. From the Wars of the Roses to the Civil
War, London, 1987.
4 Baldassare Castiglione, // libro del cortegiano, Venice, 1528, first translated
into English as The Courtier in 1561.
5 L. Colley, Britons : Forging the Nation 1707-1837, New Haven, 1992; M. Morris,
The British Monarchy and the French Revolution, New Haven, 1998. COURT AND ANTI-COURT 383
other words, courtiers not only basked in the royal sunshine but also
reflected it outwards to the wider world.
However, this neo-conservative stress on the powers of kingship in
recent historiography has tended to exaggerate its case. In Britain, there
were always alternative traditions. Some sectors of society paid relatively
little attention to the court, such as the Dissenters (post 1689); and there
was also a persistent tradition of criticism. If the daily companions of the
monarch seemed corrupt and unworthy, then they themselves became
targets of abuse. In 1614, for example, Sir Walter Ralegh denounced the
scandalous entourage of James I :
Say to the Court it glows
And shines like rotten wood...6.
Many others were as frank. The anti-court drama of the later sixteenth
and seventeenth centuries highlighted the failings of monarchs and their
entourages. One critic demanded rhetorically in 1594 : 'What is a
courtier?', replying that this was a strange beast who had been to Italy (a
reference to Castiglione) where he had learned to be nothing but a 'fine
close lecher' and a 'glorious hypocrite'...7.
Satire was thus directed not solely at politicians but also at kings and
courtiers. If the monarchs were dull and virtuous, then the criticisms were
abated, as they were also in times of acute national peril, when people
rallied behind the crown as a symbol of collective identity. If, on the other
hand, a court in peacetime was both scandalous and costly, then the
satirists did not restrain themselves.
For example, both James I and his grandson Charles II were
lampooned for keeping dissolute company - James I for his attachments to
young men, Charles II for his amours with women. The early Hanoverians
in the eighteenth century were quieter and their courts were more
restrained. Yet the readiness of their subjects to criticise did not disappear.
Even the bluff George III, who 'gloried in the name of Briton', had periods
of unpopularity. And, in the early nineteenth century, his oldest son, firstly
as Prince Regent (1810-20) and later as George IV (1820-30), was one of the
6 W. Ralegh, 'The Lie : A Poem (1614), quoted in C. Hill, Intellectual Origins of
the English Revolution, Oxford, 1965, p. 169. The poem was probably drafted in the
mid-1590s.
7 A. H. Tricomi, Anticourt Drama in England 1603-1642, Charlottesville, 1989,
p. 101. 384 PENELOPE J. CORFIELD
most satirised and unpopular kings in the country's long history.
Incidentally, he was one of the few British monarchs to promote
improvements in the capital city. But George IV's active role as builder and
town planner did not palliate his failings in the eyes of his subjects. It was
not he but his rejected wife Queen Caroline who, before her untimely death
in 1821, became the heroine of the London crowd8.
The court as social magnet
Hence the relationship between the British court and the capital city
was never a simple one. Instead, there was an interesting two-way