3 - Chivalry and politics in Victoria's early reign: art, exhibitions and palace renditions

Summary

The interest of Queen Victoria and Prince Albert in the late medieval past offers an insight into their exercise of authority in the early years of the queen's reign. Victoria ascended to the throne, young and unready, at a time when the monarchy's reputation had been tarnished by George iv. Early in the reign, the ‘Flora Hastings’ affair made the queen very unpopular. Albert himself also had a deeply ambiguous status. Here, it became clearly relevant to the monarchy and to the married couple to associate themselves with virtuous rule as represented in the reign of Edward III and Queen Philippa of Hainault and in the figure of the Black Prince. At the same time, they saw in these fourteenth-century royal figures the height of chivalry and the source of honour and they used the emblems of this period to make specific claims about their royal power.

Victoria and Albert, known for their interest in the Middle Ages, drew on a number of earlier historical periods and myths to assert different aspects of their monarchical power; they turned to the Anglo-Saxon period, for example, for ideas about race and a unified English nation. However, very early in Victoria's reign, they focused on the age of Edward III as a time of romantic chivalry, which they thought offered an ideal expression of the monarch's role as the fountain of honour. This distinct focus on chivalry and honour for its political uses contributed an entirely new dimension to fascination with the fourteenth century. The first part of this chapter shows how, in the early Victorian era, such an ideal dovetailed nicely with other aristocratic and conservative visions, but did not go uncontested, especially by the Whigs. Prince Albert, in particular, provided the catalyst for many of the royal reimaginings of this period, showing his fascination by dressing as Edward III at the medieval-themed bal costumé in 1842.

The second part of the chapter explores how, during the 1840s, Prince Albert, in his role as the president of the Royal Fine Arts Commission oversaw the decoration of the new Houses of Parliament. Here, he highlighted a monarchical symbol of medieval power, the Order of the Garter, in a fresco which emphasised the sovereign as the source of honour and which celebrated the Black Prince and Edward III.