Queens at the Spa: Catherine of Braganza, Mary of Modena and the Politics of Display at Bath and Tunbridge Wells

Abstract

Stuart consorts Catherine of Braganza and Mary of Modena joined a line of English and European queens repairing to spa waters to assist fertility. Following the Restoration of the English monarchy in 1660, Catherine and Mary assumed substantial responsibility to provide heirs for the reinstated Stuart dynasty. Both women faced prolonged difficulties conceiving and giving birth, yet they asserted their commitment to childbearing and the possibility that they would bear children through their appearance in the spa towns of Bath and Tunbridge Wells. The queen’s presence at the waters was appropriated in public discourse and memory, transforming spas from medical and social locations into political spaces, and asserting the political nature of the queen’s fertility.

Notes

1 For Mary of Modena’s place in this controversy, see Rachel Weil, ‘The Politics of Legitimacy: Women and the Warming Pan Scandal’, in Lois G. Schwoerer (ed.), The Revolution of 1688–89: Changing Perspectives (New York, 1992); Andrew Barclay, ‘Mary Beatrice of Modena: The “Second Bless’d of Womankind”?’, in Clarissa Campbell Orr (ed.), Queenship in Britain, 1660–1837: Royal Patronage, Court Culture and Dynastic Politics (Manchester, 2002), pp. 74-7, 89-90; Malcolm Smuts, ‘Royal Mothers, Sacred History, and Political Polemic’, in Paulina Kewes and Andrew McRae (eds), Stuart Succession Literature: Moments and Transformations (Oxford Scholarship Online, 2019), pp. 295-99.

2 Christopher Morris (ed.), The Illustrated Journeys of Celia Fiennes: 1685–c. 1712 (London, 1982), p. 44.

3 Jean Manco, ‘The Cross Bath’, Bath History 2, no. 3 (1988), p. 61.

4 Martin Haile, Queen Mary of Modena, her Life and Letters (London, 1905), p. 167.

5 See Sophie Vasset, ‘Mineral Waters as a Treatment for Barrenness in Eighteenth-Century Britain’, in Sophie Chiari and Samuel Cuisinier-Delorme (eds), Spa Culture and Literature in England, 1500–1800 (Cham, 2021), pp. 211-12.

6 See Erin Griffey, ‘“O sacred Vessel, fraught with England’s Store”: Stuart maternity, Infertility and Dynastic Politics,’ in E.L. Devlin (ed), Dynasty in Stuart Rule and Un-Rule (Oxford University Press, forthcoming).

7 Jacques Gélis, History of Childbirth: Fertility, Pregnancy and Birth in Early Modern Europe (Cambridge, 1991), pp. 16-18; Phyllis Hembry, The English Spa, 1560–1815: A Social History (London, 1990), pp. 45-47.

8 Rose McCormack, ‘“An assembly of disorders”: Exploring Illness as a Motive for Female Spa-Visiting at Bath and Tunbridge Wells throughout the Long Eighteenth Century’, Journal for Eighteenth-century Studies40, no. 4 (2017), pp. 558-59.

9 Lodwick Rowzee, The Queenes VVelles (London, 1632), p. 48.

10 Edward Jorden, A Discourse of Naturall Bathes, and Minerall Waters … (London, 1631), pp. 77, 80.

11 Griffey, ‘“O sacred Vessel, fraught with England’s Store”’, forthcoming.

12 Daphna Oren-Magidor, Infertility in Early Modern England (London, 2017), pp. 150-51. See also McCormack, “‘An assembly of disorders,’” passim.

13 John Wroughton, Stuart Bath: Life in the Forgotten City, 1603–1714 (Bath, 2004), pp. 24-43: Chapter 3, ‘Political Life: City and Nation, 1603–1714’. Notably, a recent seminar series, ‘Thermalisme et Politique (XVIIe–XIXe siècle)’ was convened by Samuel Cuisinier-Delorme (Clermont Auvergne University), Sophie Vasset (University of Paris) and François Zanetti (University of Paris), https://thermal1719.hypotheses.org/.

14 Brigette Mitchell, ‘English Spas’, in Malcolm Brown and Judith Samuel (eds), Bath History (Gloucester, 1986), vol. I, pp. 189-204, there p. 191.

15 Sandra Jean Sullivan, ‘Representations of Mary of Modena, Duchess, Queen Consort and Exile: Images and Texts’, PhD Thesis (University College London, 2012), p. 6.

16 Barclay, ‘Mary Beatrice of Modena’.

17 Mitchell, ‘English Spas’, p. 192.

18 Pope Clement X to Maria Beatrice d’Este, 19 September 1673, cited in Haile, Life and Letters, p. 21.

19 Henri Lefebvre, The Production of Space, translated by Donald Nicholson-Smith (Oxford, 1991), pp. 1-34.

20 Mary E. Fissell, Vernacular Bodies: The Politics of Reproduction in Early Modern England (Oxford and New York, 2004); Oren-Magidor, Infertility in Early Modern England; Griffey, ‘“O sacred Vessel”’.

21 Agnes Strickland, Lives of the Queens of England from the Norman Conquest (London, 1875), vol. IV, p. 403.

22 The National Archives of the UK [hereafter TNA], SP 89/6/86 f. 157: Secretary Bennet to Sir Richard Fanshaw, 25 July 1663.

23 See coach bills in Lincolnshire Archives [hereafter LA], 1-WORSLEY/6; Hembry, The English Spa, p. 81.

24 TNA, SP 89/6/86 f. 157: Secretary Bennet to Sir Richard Fanshaw, 25 July 1663; SP 29/78 f.118: Catsley to James Strange, 10 August 1663.

25 Hembry, The English Spa, pp. 66, 81, 88; Lillias Campbell Davidson, Catherine of Bragança: Infanta of Portugal and Queen-Consort of England (London, 1908), pp. 221, 281.

26 Arthur Bryant (ed.), The Letters, Speeches and Declarations of King Charles II (London, 1935), p. 147.

27 Hembry, The English Spa, p. 45.

28 Charles II had six acknowledged illegitimate children with various mistresses by mid-1663, and a seventh was born in September.

29 Stephen Zwicker, Lines of Authority: Politics and English Literary Culture, 1649–1689 (New York, 1993), pp. 92-93, 231.

30 Anna Keay, The Magnificent Monarch: Charles II and the Ceremonies of Power (London, 2008), pp. 126-132.

31 The Diary of Samuel Pepys: 1663, edited by Robert Latham and William Matthews (London, 1995), vol. IV, p. 352: entry 27 October.

32 Sarah Savage, married in 1687, recorded in her diary her fertility concerns only two months after her wedding: Oren-Magidor, Infertility, pp. 18-19.

33 Paul Friedmann, Anne Boleyn: A Chapter of English History, 1527–1536 (London, 1884), p. 190, n1: Eustace Chapuys to Nicholas Perrenot de Granvelle, 23 February 1533, cited in Jo Eldridge Carney, Fairy Tale Queens: Representations of Early Modern Queenship (New York, 2012), p. 21.

34 Kristen L. Geaman and Theresa Earenfight, ‘Neither Heir nor Spare: Childless Queens and the Practice of Monarchy in Pre-Modern Europe’, in Elena Woodacre, Lucinda H.S. Dean, Chris Jones, Zita Rohr and Russell Martin (eds), The Routledge History of Monarchy (Routledge, 2019), p. 518; Clarissa Campbell Orr, ‘Introduction’, in Clarissa Campbell Orr (ed), Queenship in Europe 1660–1815: The Role of the Consort (Cambridge, 2004), p. 5.

35 Haile, Life and Letters, p. 59.

36 Haile, Life and Letters, p. 174.

37 Mary Hopkirk, Queen Over the Water: Mary Beatrice of Modena, Queen of James II (London, 1953), pp. 75-76; Haile, Life and Letters, pp. 103, 109.

38 Hopkirk, Queen Over the Water, pp. 75-76.

39 Haile, Life and Letters, p. 149.

40 Hembrey, The English Spa, p. 88..

41 Manco, ‘The Cross Bath’, pp. 55, 61-63; Kent Archive and History Centre [hereafter KA], U1015/O47/3.

42 T. Dingley, History from Marble (1867), vol. I, cited in Manco, ‘The Cross Bath’, p. 58.

43 In 1668, the bath was very busy with ‘much company come; very fine ladies’: 13 June 1668, Pepys, Diary, vol. IX, p. 233. At Tunbridge Wells, Catherine’s visit ‘greatly raised its reputation’: Jaspar Sprange, The Tunbridge Wells guide …  (Tunbridge Wells, 1780; 1785), p. 29.

44 Haile, Life and Letters, p. 149

45 KA, U1015/O47/3; R.O. Bucholz (ed.), ‘Household of Mary, Duchess of York (from 1685, Queen) 1673–1688’, Database of Court Officers, accessed 1 April 2021, http://courtofficers.ctsdh.luc.edu/.

46 Cited in Haile, Life and Letters, p. 166.

47 Luttrell, A Brief Historical Relation, pp. 411-12.

48 London Gazette, British Library [hereafter BL], 2269 (15-18 August 1687); 2284 (6-10 October 1687).

49 Luttrell, A Brief Historical Relation, p. 415.

50 Browning (ed.), Memoirs, p. 465.

51 London Gazette, BL, 2284 (6-10 October 1687).

52 Beatrice Curtis (ed.), The Letters and Diplomatic Instructions of Queen Anne (London, 1968), p. 40; William Arthur Shaw, The Knights of England, A Complete Record … (London, 1906), vol. II, p. 264.

53 Elizabeth Cellier, To Dr. ------ an answer to his queries concerning the Colledg of Midwives (London, 1688), p. 7; Helen King, ‘Cellier, Elizabeth (fl. 1668–1688), midwife’, ODNB (accessed 15 September 2021).

54 See Jennifer Evans, Aprodisiacs, Fertility and Medicine in Early Modern England (Suffolk, 2014), p. 7.

55 Hembrey, The English Spa, pp. 46-7, 88; Narcissus Luttrell, A Brief Historical Relation of State Affairs from September 1678 to April 1714 (Oxford, 1857), pp. 411-12.

56 W.E. Knowles Middleton (ed.), Lorenzo Magalotti at the Court of Charles II his Relazione d'Inghilterra of 1668 (Waterloo, Ont., 1980), pp. 31-32, 70.

57 Erica Bastress-Dukehart, ‘Negotiating for Agnes’ Womb’, in Charles Lipp and Matthew P. Romaniello (eds), Contested Spaces of Nobility in Early Modern Europe (Burlington, 2011), pp. 42-44.

58 McCormack, ‘“An assembly”’, p. 560.

59 Middleton (ed.), Lorenzo Magalotti, pp. 31, 70; Andrew Browning (ed.), Memoirs of Sir John Reresby: The Complete Text and a Selection from his Letters (London, 1991), p. 41.

60 4 January 1664, Pepys, Diary, vol. V, p. 4; TNA SP 29/55 f.112. In the early 1660s, Pearse was listed as surgeon to James, Duke of York: Bucholz (ed.), ‘Household of James, Duke of York 1660–1685’, accessed 1 April 2021, http://courtofficers.ctsdh.luc.edu/.

61 24 June 1664, Pepys, Diary, vol. V, p. 188.

62 Holly Dugan notes that cleaning royal linens could be revealing in relation to ‘royal health’, and that in busy courts secrecy was difficult: ‘Scent’, in Erin Griffey (ed.), Early Modern Court Culture (New York, 2021), p. 439.

63 John Wildman, An Account of the Reasons of the Nobility and Gentry’s Invitation of His Highness the Prince of Orange into England (London, 1688), p. 20.

64 Thomas Shadwell, Epsom-wells a Comedy (London, 1676), epilogue; John Eliot, Poems, or, Epigrams …  (London, 1658), p. 58.

65 Madan, A Phylosophical and Medicinal Essay, p. 7.

66 William Sermon, The Ladies Companion, or, The English Midwife (London, 1671), p. 9.

67 Joseph Browne, Theo. Turquet Mayernii equitis aurati baronis auboniae medici & philosophi suo aevo celeberrimi Opera medica (London, 1703), p. 779 (owing to irregular pagination image number cited), https://wellcomelibrary.org/item/b30459709. Thanks to Erin Griffey for drawing my attention to this source, of which her own analysis is forthcoming.

68 Morris (ed.), Illustrated Journeys, pp. 44-45.

69 Anthony Hamilton, Memoirs of Count Grammont, eds Horace Wadpole, Sir Walter Scott and Anna Jameson (Philadelphia, 2019), p. 347. Note: This text uses ‘Grammont’, although ‘Gramont’ is correct.

70 Amanda Herbert, Female Alliances: Gender, Identity and Friendship in Early Modern Britain (New Haven, 2014), pp. 118, 123-4.

71 15 July 1663, Pepys, Diary, vol. IV, p. 232.

72 Smuts, ‘Royal Mothers, Sacred History’, pp. 295-96.

73 Thomas Ken, Prayers for the Use of All Persons Who Come to the Baths for Cure …  (London, 1692), p. 5.

74 Haile, Life and Letters, p. 146.

75 Oman, Mary of Modena, p. 102.

76 Ibid.

77 Mitchell, ‘English Spas’, 190.

78 I will discuss Mary’s involvement with the shrine and offerings made there in the context of Catholic ritual in my forthcoming chapter, ‘“shewed like a great bellied Woman”: Mary of Modena’s Performance of Catholic Pregnancy’, in Deanne Williams and Sophie Tomlinson (eds), New Representations of Female Performance: Voices, Stages, and Circuits (forthcoming).

79 Andrew Clark (ed.), The Life and Times of Anthony à Wood (abridged) (London, 1932), pp. 261-62.

80 Stephen Brogan, The Royal Touch in Early Modern England: Politics, Medicine and Sin (Suffolk, 2015), pp. 1-22 (introduction).

81 LA, 1-WORSLEY/6.

82 KA, U1015/O47/3.

83 10 September 1663, Lady Ann Fanshawe, Memoirs of Lady Fanshawe Wife of Sir Richard Fanshawe, Bt., Ambassador from Charles II to the Courts of Portugal and Madrid (Project Gutenburg, 10^th edition, 2004, accessed 1 March 2021).

84 Corporation records of Bristol cited in Strickland, Lives of the Queens of England, vol. IV, p. 407.

85 Thomas Ireland, Speeches Spoken to the King and Queen (London, 1663) cited in Marisa Benoit, ‘Attitudes Towards Infertility in Early Modern England and Colonial New England, c. 1620–1720’, PhD thesis (University of Oxford, 2014), p. 218.

86 Strickland, Lives of the Queens of England, vol. V, p. 35.

87 Robert Pierce, Bath Memoirs: Or, Observations in Three and Forty Years Practice … (Bristol, 1697), p. 257.

88 Christopher Pound, Genius of Bath: The City and its Landscape (Bath and Avon, 1986), p. 37.

89 Hamilton, Memoirs, pp. 303-5.

90 Madan, A Phylosophical and Medicinal Essay, pp. 10-14.

91 Morris (ed.), The Illustrated Journeys, p. 47.

92 Henry Chapman, Thermæ Redivivæ, the City of Bath Described …  (London, 1673), pp. 1-2.

93 Haile, Life and Letters, p. 167.

94 Hopkirk, Queen Over the Water, pp. 113-14.

95 Poems described Catherine bringing ‘welcome May flowers’ to England, and Charles as the sun: William Austin, Triumphus Hymenaeus (London, 1662), p. 27; J.L., A Poem Royal to the Sacred Maiesty of Charles the II. King of Great Britain and the Illustrious Donna Catharina His Incomparable Consort (London, 1662), np.

96 Virginia Smith, Clean: A History of Personal Hygiene and Purity (Oxford, 2015), pp. 193, 205, 209. Bathing for cleanliness was common in England by the 1600s: see chapter 11, ‘Washing Bodies’ in Susan North, Sweet and Clean? Bodies and Clothes in Early Modern England (Oxford, 2020), pp. 258-83.

97 Louis Montrose, ‘“Eliza, Queene of shepheardes,” and the Pastoral of Power’, English Literary Renaissance 10, no. 2 (1980), pp. 168-69.

98 Madan, A Phylosophical and Medicinal Essay, p. 7.

99 Carney, Fairy Tale Queens, p. 18.

100 See Herbert, ‘Hot Spring Sociability’, passim; Hembrey, English Spa, p. 88.

101 Gilbert Burnet, Bishop Burnet’s History of His Own Time (The Hague, 1624), vol. I, pp. 303-5.

102 ‘The Downfall of the Chancellor’, l.4, in George deForest Lord (ed.), Poems on Affairs of State: Augustan Satirical Verse, 1660–1714 (London, 1963), vol. 1, p. 158.

103 John Wood, A Description of Bath … Second edition, Corrected and Enlarged (London, 1765), vol. 1, p. 218.

104 Haile, Life and Letters, pp. 163, 166.

105 Luttrell, A Brief Historical Relation, p. 422.

106 Ibid., p. 426.

107 Bucholz (ed.), ‘Household of Mary, Duchess of York (from 1685, Queen) 1673–1688’, accessed 1 April 2021, http://courtofficers.ctsdh.luc.edu/.

108 The Several Declarations Together with the Several Depositions made in Council on Monday Oct. 22, 1688 (London, 1688), pp. 34-35.

109 The Several Declarations, pp. 39-40.

110 Luttrell, A Brief Historical Relation, p. 444; Curtis (ed.), The Letters and Diplomatic Instructions, p. 37.

111 Anon., The Amours of Messalina, Late Queen of Albion …  (London, 1689), p. 40.

112 Wildman, An Account of the Reasons, pp. 17-19.

113 Curtis (ed.), The Letters and Diplomatic Instructions, p. 34.

114 Manco, ‘The Cross Bath’, p. 63.

115 ‘In perpetuam / Reginæ Mariæ Memoriam / Quam Cœlo in Bathonienses Thermas / Irradiante Spiritus domini Qui Fertur / Super Aquas’ [In perpetual / Memory of Queen Mary / Who [under the] Heavens in the warm springs of Bath / Shining out of the Spirit of God who is lifted up / Over the waters]: Wood, A Description of Bath, vol. II, p. 260. Thanks to Nova Wood for her translation.

116 Barclay, ‘Mary Beatrice of Modena’, p. 74-75.

117 Hopkirk, Queen Over the Water, p. 118; Manco, ‘Cross Bath’, p. 65.

118 Catriona Murray, ‘Raising Royal Bodies: Stuart Authority and the Monumental Image’, in Woodacre, Dean, Jones, Rohr and Martin (eds), The Routledge History of Monarchy (Routledge, 2019), pp. 352-53.

119 Morris (ed.), The Illustrated Journeys, p. 191. Describing the prince as ‘Welsh’ was possibly a reference to James’s visit to St. Winefrede’s Well in Wales.

120 Pierce, Bath Memoirs, pp. 114-15.

121 Katarzyna Kosior, Becoming a Queen in Early Modern Europe East and West (Cham, 2019), p. 133.

122 These satires were printed in England and abroad: Haile, Life and Letters, pp. 174, 180.

123 Hopkirk, Queen Over the Waters, p. 207; Mary wrote to Catherine Priolo, mother superior at Chaillot, that she had ‘a suspicion of pregnancy’ a few months after taking the waters: 20 November 1691, in Falconer Madan, Stuart Papers Relating Chiefly to Queen Mary of Modena and the Exiled Court of King James II (London, 1889), vol. 1, p. 12.

124 Dr Hugh Chamberlen and Henry Mordaunt, second earl of Peterborough, a converted Catholic, were the only ones to apply for passports in 1692: Luttrell, A Brief Historical Relation, p. 425.

125 Luttrell recorded James’s declaration and the birth, but no reaction from the English parliament or court: Luttrell, A Brief Historical Relation, pp. 417, 419, 483, 496.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Susannah Lyon-Whaley

Susannah Lyon-Whaley

Susannah Lyon-Whaley is a PhD candidate in Art History at the University of Auckland under the supervision of Associate Professor Erin Griffey and Dr. Sophie Tomlinson, and holds a University Doctoral Scholarship. She has a Masters in English Literature with First-Class Honours and has published articles in Journal of New Zealand Literature (winning the 2020 Essay Prize), Ka Mate Ka Ora and Backstory. Her current thesis examines nature in the iconography of Catherine of Braganza (expected completion late 2022). She has an article forthcoming in 2022 titled ‘Hot Waters, Cold Waters, and Green Spaces: Stuart Queens and the Spa as Medical Treatment in the Seventeenth Century’ in La Revue Histoire, Médecine et Santé, and has written book reviews for The Burlington Magazine and Journal of Early Modern Cultural Studies.