Tudor Execution Fashion - Dressing for Death.
The only certainty in life is death, and this is a fact that plagues many with worry and fear. We often choose to ignore this undeniable aspect of life and shy away from discussing it in public. But what if you had to face that reality face on? And what if you had to choose your outfit for that occasion? What would you choose from your wardrobe? Something basic and plain or would you use your dying moments to make an everlasting statement. While, hopefully, no one reading this will ever have to make that sort of decision, in history many people have. From Queens to commoners executed at the hands of the state in the era of the Tudors, using your death to make a statement was imperative.
It may not surprise you but from the contemporary accounts we have of executions during the reign of the Tudors, we actually do not know much about what people chose to wear. There were, of course, more important things taking place. For a poor commoner being executed for a crime, normally a petty crime, you would have just worn what you always wore in daily life. But, if you were a member of nobility or even royalty, you had access to a vast array of clothing and you had the ability to choose what to wear when you took your final breath. Let’s take a look at two famous Queens and what they wore to their executions, and why they made these decisions?
Natalie Portman as Anne Boleyn at her execution, The Other Boleyn Girl.
The year of 1536 was a shambles (an understatement) for the court of King Henry VIII, starting with a catastrophic jousting accident, a miscarriage and the trial and execution of Anne Boleyn. The 19th of May 1536 was sombre, but Anne, who had spent her final days in fluctuating moods, was almost serene. A Portuguese witness wrote an account of the events saying that ‘Never had the queen looked so beautiful’ and another account from De Carles (French diplomat who was in England in 1536) states that Anne ‘went to her execution with an untroubled countenance’. She also took great care with her appearance for the fateful day. She wore a grey damask robe overtop a crimson red kirtle, the colour of martyrdom. She wore a mantle of ermine symbolising her status as Queen of England and she wore a traditional English gable hood instead of the French hood which she is said to have favoured. Perhaps she chose to wear a gable hood, which covers the wearer’s hair entirely, to show herself as pious, as a true born Englishwoman and that she was dedicated to the English people.
We also know that Queen Katharine Howard who was executed by beheading on the morning of the 13th February 1542 alongside Jane Boleyn, Lady Rochford, dressed in black velvet, however, this is all the knowledge we have. The nine-day Queen Lady Jane Grey wore a black gown that was turned down and a cape lined in velvet. It is said that she wore the same dress in which she was arraigned. Neither of these women sought to make a statement on the scaffold, perhaps this was due to their age, both being teenagers and relatively naive.
The execution scene, drawn by eyewitness Robert Beale
However, someone who was far from naive was Mary Queen of Scots, and thankfully we know what she wore to her botched execution. After years of confinement under the orders of her cousin, the English Queen Elizabeth 1, Mary was executed on the 8th of February 1587 at Fotheringhay Castle. She is said to have worn a gown of black satin, trimmed in gold embroidery, underneath which she wore a petticoat and bodice in tawny red, often a reference to dried blood and a colour of martyrdom in the Roman Catholic Church to which she was so devoted. She wore a white veil and summoned her women to help her remove this once she was on the scaffold, however, the executioner attempted to help them do this making Mary cry out ‘Nay, my good man, touch me not!’. A French member of the nobility Pierre de Bourdeille, seigneur de Brantome, accompanied Mary through her final months and days. He writes that ‘The Queen entered the room full of grace and majesty, just as if she were coming to a ball. There was no change on her features as she entered.’ Her eyes were covered and she knelt down to the block, dignified and not showing any signs of fear.
The executioner botched her death, the first blow of the axe simply hit her in the neck slightly, she carried on praying in Latin. The second blow killed her, although it took a third blow to remove her head from her body. The executioner picked up her head and proclaimed to the crowd ‘God save Queen Elizabeth! May all the enemies of the true Evangel thus perish!’, however, the show wasn’t yet over for Mary had been wearing an auburn wig. When the executioner lifted her head, unaware she had been wearing a wig, the wig came off in his hand and her severed head hit the ground and is said to have rolled around the scaffold. It was a grisly death, but it was, as many things were in Mary’s life, pure theatre. Holding a cross in one hand, a Latin prayer book in the other and a rosary around her garter Mary was proclaiming herself a Roman Catholic, and by wearing tawny she was proclaiming herself a martyr. It was all a cleverly planned costume for a horrendous spectacle.
These women may have had to face death in the most extraordinary of circumstances but all were courageous and brave. Anne and Mary, both incredibly intelligent women, knew their deaths would become famous in history and they knew they had to use their final moments to make an everlasting statement to the world. A world which so often undermined them and wrote them to be villains. Fashion has, and always will be, a way to make an impact.
