#historian: donna l. sadler

[richmond-rex]

The scrolling branches holding the main royal arms of [Henry VII and Elizabeth of York]'s marriage bed are echoed around the sides and ends of the lid of the couple’s tomb; they lie as on another bed with remembrances of their first, but this time with Renaissance cherubs to guard them.

One effect of this doubling of wedded bodies was to lengthen the duration of the marriage vows: what once expired at death now continued in the afterlife (...) Though it was common for a funerary monument to function as a memento mori, seldom had the imagined dialogue between the living and the dead been imbued with this degree of spousal intimacy.

Royal double tombs as a reflection of the royal body in which the body politic and natural body are mixed to forge royal power ‛whereby the emotional texture of the relationship between king and queen becomes a means to persuade their subjects of their superhuman authority’ (...) In short, spousal love becomes part of the definition of monarchical identity and power.

“We will, that for the said sepulture of us and our dearest late wife the Queen, whose soul God pardon, be made a tomb of stone called touche, sufficient in largeur for us both. And upon the same, one image of our figure, and another of hers, either of them of copper and gilt, of such fashion, and in such manner, as shall be thought most convenient.”

A CLOSED DEATH OF THE SHARED GRAVE |

Pietro Torrigiano — Tomb of Henry VII and Elizabeth of York / Ezra Pound — The River-Merchant’s Wife: A Letter / Franz Kafka — The Castle / Stephanie Brooke — Imagery, Iconography and Heraldry; The Marriage Bed of Henry VII & Elizabeth of York: Dynasty, Design & Descent / Bastille — Remains / Donna L. Sadler — Stone Fidelity: Marriage and Emotion in Medieval Tomb Sculpture (review) / John Berger — And Our Faces, My Heart, Brief as Photos / Laura Gilpin — Selected Poems / Henry VII — The Last Will of Henry VII