Introduction

Death was omnipresent at the early modern court. The threats were all too visible – the constant dangers of disease, plague, and war meted out mercilessly to the young and old, the most powerful and most lowly. However, despite death's impartiality, there were high stakes at play in royal deaths. Royal death was both political and personal, portending the loss or weakening of a dynasty and the renegotiation of power at court as well as the emotional loss of a loved one. Dying and dead kings and queens remained at court as they had in life, attended by elaborate rituals, their embalmed bodies displayed in state to be glorified and mourned, and then buried with due respect and pomp.

This tableaux – the highly visual, material performance of the monarch's dead body and legacy – was carefully presented and observed by mourners. The optics and materials of mourning were carefully mapped out – the number of mourners, the huge outlay for mourning cloth, the measured display of emotion, and the retirement of the family of the deceased from everyday activities. With royal mourning, the affective was very much linked to the political. Mourning rituals and materials offered the opportunity to assert bonds of kinship and continuity with the deceased king while also showcasing the king's widow and heirs’ ongoing political relevance. For direct male heirs to the throne whose succession was secured, such staging of dynasty was relatively straightforward: they were presented as mourning the loss but seamlessly fulfilling the role destined for them.