Once a Dane, Always a Dane? Queen Anna of Denmark’s Foreign Relations and Intercessions as a Queen Consort of Scotland and England, 1588–1619

Abstract

Princess Anna of Denmark (1574–1619) married King James VI of Scots in 1589 and arrived in Scotland in 1590. She effectively became the first queen consort of Great Britain with the Union of the Crowns in 1603. Anna was a transnational consort, but she never really became Scottish or English and remained a Dane at heart until her death. This suited her family and the Danish Council who were well informed of events at the Scottish and English royal courts. Her marriage had bolstered Scoto-Danish trading links and she used diplomatic channels to assist Scots needing help in the Baltic, or even to help Danes needing her assistance in Scotland or England. The relationship between Anna and her younger brother King Christian IV of Denmark-Norway was strong and she would act on his behalf in complex European diplomacy that was independent from her husband’s foreign policy.

Notes

1 Glenda Sluga and Carolyn James (eds), Women, Diplomacy and International Politics Since 1500 (London and New York, 2016), pp. 1-2.

2 Helen Watanabe-O’Kelly and Adam Morton (eds), Queens Consort, Cultural Transfer and European Politics, c. 1500–1800 (London and New York, 2017), p. 3.

3 Ibid, p. 3.

4 See British Library (hereafter BL), Stowe MS 176; Third Report of the Royal Commission on Historical Manuscripts (Appendix) (London, 1872, reprinted 1979); R. Brown et al. (eds), State Papers and Manuscripts relating to English Affairs in the archives and collections of Venice and in other libraries of Northern Italy (London, 1864-1947) (hereafter CSPVenice); Helen Margaret Payne, ‘Aristocratic Women and the Jacobean Court, 1603–1625’ (PhD. diss., University of London, 2001).

5 The Danish Council of State was a privy council that advised the Danish Monarchy.

6 Though see the recent article by Jonathan Spangler which demonstrates that Marie de Guise was more than just a French noblewoman: ‘Mary of Guise as a Dynastic Entity: Re-asserting the Auld Alliance or Something Bigger?’, Annales de l’Est 1 (2017), pp. 161-81, in a special issue edited by Annette Bächstädt, Bruno Maes, and Christine Sukic: ‘Marie de Lorraine-Guise (1515-1560), un itinéraire européen’.

7 Maureen M. Meikle and Helen M. Payne, ‘Anna of Denmark (1574–1619)’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (ODNB) (Oxford 2004), vol. 2, pp. 191-9: Watanabe-O’Kelly & Morton, Queens Consort, p. 5. Sadly, there is little surviving evidence of Anna’s contacts with her sisters.

8 National Archives of Scotland, Edinburgh, State Papers SP13/11; J. Bain et al. (eds), Calendar of the State Papers relating to Scotland and Mary, Queen of Scots (Edinburgh, 1898-1969) (CSPScot), vol. 10, pp. 149, 187-8, 299; J. T. Gibson-Craig (ed.), Papers relative to the marriage of King James the Sixth of Scotland and the Princess Anna of Denmark A.D. 1590 (Edinburgh, 1828), pp. 19-21.

9 David Stevenson, Scotland’s Last Royal Wedding. The Marriage of James VI and Anna of Denmark (Edinburgh, 1997), pp. 42-3.

10 Papers relative to the marriage, pp. 38-42.

11 CSPScot, vol. 10, pp. 87-8.

12 Ole Degn, Tolden i Sundet: Toldopkrævning, politik og skibsfart i Øresund 1429–1857. Duty in the sound — Customs collection, policy and shipping in the sound, 1492–1857 (Copenhagen, 2010).

13 Danish National Archives, Copenhagen (hereafter DNA), TKUA, Speciel Del Skotland 5.

14 Maureen M. Meikle, ‘Anna of Denmark’s Coronation and Entry into Edinburgh, 1590: Cultural, Religious and Diplomatic Perspectives’, in J. Goodare and A. A. MacDonald (eds), Sixteenth-Century Scotland: Essays in Honour of Michael Lynch (Leiden, 2008), pp. 277-94.

15 CSPScot, vol. 10, p. 406.

16 CSPScot, vol. 10, p. 299.

17 Amy L. Juhala, ‘The Household and Court of King James VI of Scotland, 1567–1603’ (PhD diss., University of Edinburgh, 2000), pp. 332-6.

18 Anna’s surviving correspondence changes from French to English. See CSPScot, vol. 11, pp. 96, 126, 244, 436 where Anna wrote to Elizabeth I in French in June 1593, but her reply of December 1593 was in English and by September of 1594 Anna wrote to her in English.

19 CSPScot, vol. 10, p. 587.

20 CSPScot, vol. 11, p. 126. Maureen M. Meikle, A British Frontier? Lairds and Gentlemen in the Eastern Borders, 1540–1603 (East Linton, 2004), pp. 78, 232.

21 CSPScot, vol. 10, p. 589.

22 Sering’s surviving letters are in DNA, TKUA, Speciel Del Skotland 1-2, Speciel Del England 1, 7. Watanabe- O’Kelly and Morton, Queens Consort, p. 5.

23 DNA, TKUA Speciel Del Skotland 1-2. TKUA Speciel Del England 2, 7. Lund, University of Lund, Christian Barnekow archive, Letters A-21, 2 Sept 1595.

24 CSPScot, vol. 10, p. 829.

25 The Records of the Parliaments of Scotland to 1707, K.M. Brown et al. (eds), (St Andrews, 2007-2018), 1592/4/195; CSPScot, vol. 10, p. 82; T. Thomson (ed.), James Melville of Halhill, Memoirs of his Own Life (Edinburgh, 1827), pp. 363, 403.

26 CSPScot, vol.10, pp. 626-7.

27 CSPScot, vol. 11, pp. 101, 102; J. M. Thomson et al. (eds), Registrum Magni Sigilli Regum Scotorum (Edinburgh, 1882-1914), vol. 5, pp. 441-3, 593-4, 671-72, 815-16; vol. 6, pp. 24-8.

28 CSPScot, vol. 11, pp. 101, 119-120, 127.

29 ibid, vol. 11, pp. 88, 89, 180, 228, 234.

30 ibid, vol. 10, pp. 803.

31 CSPScot, vol. 10, pp. 272, 308-09, 624-25, 722; Reports of the Royal Commissioners of the Historical Manuscripts Commission, Manuscripts of the marquess of Salisbury (London, 1883-1930) (HMC, Salisbury), vol. 6, pp. 32-3.

32 CSPScot, vol. 10, p. 765.

33 Susan Doran and Paulina Kewes (eds), Doubtful and Dangerous. The Question of Succession in Late Elizabethan England (Manchester, 2014); Maureen M. Meikle and Helen M. Payne, ‘From Lutheranism to Catholicism: The Faith of Anna of Denmark (1574–1619)’, Journal of Ecclesiastical History 64 (2013), pp. 46-50.

34 F. Shearman, ‘The Spanish Blanks’, The Innes Review 3 (1952), pp. 81-103.

35 CSPScot, vol. 11, p. 370; CSPVenice, vol. 8, p. 489; Annie I. Cameron (ed.), The Warrender Papers (Edinburgh, 1931-32), vol. 2, pp. 193-202; Susan Doran, ‘Loving and Affectionate Cousins? The Relationship between Elizabeth I and James VI of Scotland 1586–1603’, in Susan Doran and Glenn Richardson (eds), Tudor England and its Neighbours (Basingstoke, 2005), pp. 209-11; Michael Questier, ‘The Politics of Religious Conformity and the Accession of James I’, Historical Research 71 (1998), pp. 20-1. Meikle and Payne, ‘From Lutheranism to Catholicism’, pp. 45-69.

36 Rory Rapple, ‘Brinkmanship and Bad Luck: Ireland, the Nine Years’ War and the Succession’, in Doran and Kewes, Doubtful and Dangerous, p. 240.

37 DNA, TKUA, Speciel Del Skotland 1-2.

38 DNA, TKUA, Speciel Del Skotland 1-2; Robert I. Frost, The Northern Wars, 1558–1721 (Harlow, 2000).

39 DNA, TKUA, Speciel Del Skotland 1-2.

40 Thomas M. McCoog, The Society of Jesus in Ireland, Scotland and England 1541–1588 (Leiden, 1996), pp. 178-223; Robert Peters, ‘Some Catholic Opinions of King James VI and I’, Recusant History 10 (1970), pp. 292-303.

41 CSPScot, vol. 11, pp. 559-60, 566, 569. This certainly refers to a Cardinal Caetani, though which one exactly is not clear in the sources — and there were several!

42 Lund, University of Lund, Christian Barnekow archiv, Letters A 2.1; R. Lemon et al. (eds), Calendar of State Papers Domestic (London, 1856-72 & 1992-) (hereafter CSPDom), Elizabeth. 1595-97, pp. 36, 65, 391; Thomas Thomson and David Laing (eds), History of the Kirk of Scotland by Mr. David Calderwood (Edinburgh, 1842-49), vol. 5, p. 336; David Laing (ed.) Original Letters of Mr John Colville, 1582–1603, (Edinburgh, 1858), p. 150.

43 CSPDom, 1580–1625, pp. 364-5; Maureen. M. Meikle, ‘A Meddlesome Princess: Anna of Denmark and Scottish Court Politics, 1589–1603’, in Julian Goodare & Michael Lynch (eds), The Reign of James VI (East Linton, 2000), pp. 133-4.

44 Diana Scarisbrick, ‘Anne of Denmark’s Jewellery Inventory,’ Archaeologia, 119 (1991), pp. 193-238.

45 CSPScot, vol. 12, pp. 359-60; W. Plenkers, ‘Er Frederik II’s Datter Anna, Dronning af Storbrittanien, gaaet over til Katholicismen?’, Historisk Tiddskrift 6 (1887-8), pp. 413-14.

46 HMC, Salisbury, vol. 6. p. 512; A. W. Ward, ‘James VI and the Papacy’, Scottish Historical Review 2 (1905), pp. 249-52; G. F. Warner, ‘James VI and Rome’, English Historical Review 20 (1905), pp. 124-7.

47 Francis Shearman, ‘James Wood of Boniton’, Innes Review 5 (1954), pp. 28-32.

48 BL, MS Additional 37021, fos 25-26; CSPScot, vol. 12, p. 424; vol. 13, pp. 850-1; Robert Pitcairn (ed.), Ancient Criminal Trials in Scotland (Edinburgh, 1833), vol. 2, pt. 2, pp. 340-7; William Forbes-Leith (ed.), Narratives of Scottish Catholics under Mary Stuart and James VI (Edinburgh, 1885), pp. 272-4; Warner, ‘James VI and Rome’.

49 CSPScot, vol. 13, pp. 1150-2; Cynthia Fry ‘Perceptions of Influence: The Catholic Diplomacy of Queen Anna and her Ladies, 1601–1604’, in Nadine Akkerman and Birgit Houben (eds), The Politics of Female Households (Leiden, 2014), pp, 275-7.

50 Letitia Álvarez-Recio, Fighting the Antichrist: A Cultural History of Anti-Catholicism in Tudor England (Eastbourne, 2018); John Coffey, Persecution and Toleration in Protestant England 1558–1689 (London and New York, 2014).

51 W. B. Patterson, James VI and I and the Reunion of Christendom (Cambridge, 1997), pp. 42, 43.

52 L. Hicks, ‘The Embassy of Sir Anthony Standen in 1603’, Recusant History 6 (1962), pp. 50, 53; Statute of Praemunire (1570) [8.Elizabeth.I.c.2.VII (Statutes at Large, 2 (London, 1786), p. 573.

53 The National Archives, London, Secretaries of State: State Papers Foreign, France SP78/51, fo. 13v.

54 CSPVenice, vol. 10, pp. 324-5; Meikle and Payne, ‘From Lutheranism to Catholicism’, pp. 59-61.

55 Third Report of the Royal Commission on Historical Manuscripts (Appendix) (London, 1872, reprinted 1979), p. 264.

56 Reid R. Zulager, ‘Elphinstone, James, first Lord Balmerino (1557–1612), administrator and judge’, ODNB Online; Fry, ‘Perceptions of Influence’, pp. 274-5.

57 CSPVenice, vol. 10, p. 206, 248; Watanabe-O’Kelly and Morton, Queens Consort, p. 5. Ulric’s visit to Scotland in 1598 had been far more successful. Meikle and Payne, ‘Anna of Denmark (1574–1619)’, ODNB.

58 H. Neville Davies, Christian IV’s 1606 State Visit to England (Farnham, 2006); Henry Roberts, The Most Royall and Honourable Entertainment of the Most Famous and Renowmed King Christiern the Fourth, King of Denmarke (London 1606). Reprinted in J. Nichols, Progresses of James I (London, 1828), vol. 2, pp. 56-7.

59 Calvin F. Senning, ‘The Visit of Christian IV to England in 1614’, The Historian 31 (1969), pp. 555-72.

60 DNA, TKUA, Speciel Del England, 2.

61 Jole Shackelford, A Philosophical Path for Paracelsian Medicine: The Ideas, Intellectual Context, and Influence of Petrus Severinus (1540/2–1602) (Copenhagen, 2004), p. 135.

62 DNA, TKUA, Speciel Del England 7.

63 CSPVenice, vol. 15, p. 206.

64 CSPVenice, vol. 10, p. 208; S. R. Gardiner (ed.), Narrative of the Spanish Marriage Treaty (London, 1869), old ser., ci, p.103.

65 CSPVenice, vol. 12, pp. 73-4.

66 BL, Harleian Manuscripts, 6986, fo. 375.

67 Norman E. McClure (ed.), The Letters of John Chamberlain (Philadelphia, 1939), 12/1, p. 404.

68 Meikle and Payne, ‘Anna of Denmark (1574–1619)’, ODNB.

69 Charles H. Carter, Secret Diplomacy of the Spanish Habsburgs 1598–1625 (New York, 1964), pp. 127-8.

70 CSPVenice, vol. 13, pp. 92-3.

71 CSPVenice, vol. 15, p. 207.

72 Helen Payne, ‘Drummond, Jane (Jean), Countess of Roxburghe’, in E. Ewan, S. Innes, R. Pipes and S. Reynolds (eds), The Biographical Dictionary of Scottish Women (Edinburgh, 2006), p. 103.

73 Paul Douglas Lockhart, ‘Denmark and the Empire: A Reassessment of Danish Foreign Policy under King Christian IV’, Scandinavian Studies 64 (1992), pp. 390-416.

74 BL. Stowe MS 176, fo.116.

75 CSPVenice, vol. 15, pp. 392-3.

76 Kevin Sharpe, The Personal Rule of Charles I (London, 1992), p. 5.

77 Imran Uddin, ‘William Trumbull: a Jacobean Diplomat at the Court of the Archdukes in Brussels, 1605/9–1625’ (PhD diss., Catholic University of Leuven, 2006), pp. 185-6.

78 An image of the hearse is preserved at The College of Arms, MS. I. 1, p. 1.

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Notes on contributors

Maureen M. Meikle

Maureen M. Meikle is the author of The Scottish People 1490–1625 (Lulu, 2013), A British Frontier? Lairds and Gentlemen in the Eastern Anglo-Scottish Frontier, 1540–1603 (East Linton, 2004) and with Christine M. Newman, Sunderland and its Origins: Monks to Mariners (Chichester, 2007). She co-edited Women in Scotland, c. 1100–c. 1750 (East Linton, 1999) with Elizabeth Ewan. Her next project is a biography of Queen Anna of Denmark, about whom she has written several articles and co-written the entry on Anna with Helen M. Payne for the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (Oxford, 2004).