THOMAS WENTWORTH AND MONARCHICAL RITUAL IN EARLY MODERN IRELAND

Abstract

Historians have long argued about the political career in Ireland of Thomas Wentworth, earl of Strafford. Analysing the extent of his viceregal power in the 1630s and his relationship to political factions, this writing has focused on ‘high politics’, as captured in state papers, pamphlets, and private letters. This article focuses on less conventional sources like paintings and accounts of court ceremonies to try and clarify a vital question. In a fragmented colonial territory that the Stuarts were determined to turn into a kingdom, to what extent did Wentworth cast himself as a king? The article examines the sophisticated way that Wentworth elaborated on ritual forms already connected with the viceroyalty to associate his political persona with that of the monarch, with particular reference to his extraordinary inauguration in 1633. Wentworth's interest in painting is well known because of his celebrated patronage of Van Dyck. Less well known is the way that he extended the conventions of portrait painting into the third dimension through court ritual, particularly the practice of allusion to recognizable models, with all the implications for prestige that this entailed. Through ‘political aesthetics’ Wentworth made the allusion to kingship, to the point that enemies detected monarchical pretensions.