Representations of Mary of Modena, Duchess, Queen Consort and exile : images and texts

• Main Author: Sullivan, Sandra Jean
• Published: University College London (University of London) 2008
• Subjects: 708
• Online Access: http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.487129

This study of the way in which the "image" of Mary of Modena was constructed, and then deconstructed, examines the changing ways in which this late seventeenth-century Italian Catholic aristocrat was represented, both visually in portraits,prints and engravings, and textually in verse and prose, opera, masque and pamphlet plays, after her arrival in England in 1673 as the wife of James, Duke of York (later James II). The images and texts are placed within the cultural context of the age: contemporary artists, writers, patronage, conventions and expectations, including those relating to women, are discussed. The focus of the first chapter is James's first wife, Anne Hyde. A comparison of the manner in which these two women, both Catholic, were represented, one coming from an ancient and noble foreign house,the other from an undistinguished country family, is instructive. The next four chapters examine the themes of "beauty", her "otherness", her patronage of music, artists and writers, and her court, during the years 1673 to 1685 when Mary of Modena was Duchess of York. The contrast between the portraits, music and poetry produced at the time of James II's coronation in 1685 and the representations produced as part of the adverse propaganda campaign waged by James's son-in-law, William of Orange which culminated in the "warming pan scandal" after the birth of Mary of Modena's son ("The Old Pretender"), and led to the "Glorious Revolution" of 1688 are the subject of chapters 6 and 7. The final chapters how show Mary of Modena was represented during her exile in France from 1689 until her death there in 1718.