Let’s dive into Tudor matchmaking and courtly love which wove the fabric of Tudor England society. This video explores the delicate dance of romance and political alliances that defined the era, from the whispered affections of knights and noble ladies to the strategic marital arrangements orchestrated by the realm’s most powerful figures.
Discover the stories of famous lovers and the hidden hands of matchmakers behind the scenes, shaping the course of history through matters of the heart. Join me and unravel the complexities of love, duty, and power in a time where the personal was always political.
So of course courtly love played a pivotal role in shaping the intricate dynamics of the Tudor Court life and the relationships between the nobility. The romantic ideal with its roots deeply embedded in the chivalric traditions of medieval Europe found fertile ground in the Tudor Court where it flourished amidst all of the pageantry, poetry, and politics of the era.
Courtly love was characterized by its highly ceremonial expression, and its adherence to a set of unspoken rules. It was more than romantic fancy, it was a complex social ritual that dictated interactions between men and women, often transcending physical attraction to embody ideals of love, bravery, and service.
The court of Henry VIII with its opulent festivity, jousts, and masks, provided an ideal stage for the enactment of these courtly rituals where noblemen and women engaged in a very delicate flirtation and favor, often under the watchful eye of the monarch.
Of course, this is where you see people have to write poems to their beloved woman who is so high up that they will never be able to attain any kind of relationship with her. She’s so out of reach. They write these poems and it was all just part of this kind of code that everybody knew the rules to if you were kind of just dropped there you wouldn’t know what was going on but they all knew the rules to this because it was part of their society and they grew up with it.
Literature of the time particularly the works of Thomas Wyatt and Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey brought the nuances of courtly love to life, weaving tales of unrequited love, noble sacrifice, and the valorization of the beloved. These poetic expressions, drawing on sonnets in the form of Petrarch, super popular in Italy, resonated very deeply within the Tudor court, echoing the complex interplay of desire and duty that characterized these aristocratic liaisons.
Of course, sometimes they got into trouble and that’s what happened with Anne Boleyn and her admirers. She perhaps thought she was playing the game of courtly love but in fact, it got a little bit out of hand, one could say.
Parallel to these, idealized pursuits of courtly love ran the pragmatic world of marriage alliances. We’ve talked about marriage alliances particularly when we talked about royal weddings and some of the Tudor scandals and forbidden loves. We talked about how marriages were orchestrated events, especially for noble families, but even for non-noble families, if you were a member of the gentry and you wanted to get more land you would figure out how to marry your daughter off or your son off to the right person.
I feel like the only people who really had freedom in who they were marrying were the super poor people but even then that would be dictated by the fact that they didn’t have a lot of freedom to move wherever they wanted but they kind of had some freedom in who they were going to marry, but especially among the nobility.
These marriages were seldom matters of personal choice but they were strategic alliances crafted to consolidate power, wealth, and influence. Matchmakers, often senior family members or even the monarch themselves, take for example Henry VI with Margaret Beaufort to his half-brother, who played a crucial role in negotiating these unions, balancing the web of political economic, and social considerations that accompanied each perspective match.
The role of the monarch as a matchmaker cannot be understated with monarchs like Elizabeth I taking a keen interest in the marital affairs of her courtiers. Wielding marriages as a tool of political strategy, the Queen’s involvement in arranging marriages and even then playing marriage counselor when the marriages didn’t necessarily work out, underscored the intersection of personal relationships and political expediency at the Tudor court.
For example, Bess of Hardwick when she had a marriage that was going south very quickly, would write a lot of letters to Elizabeth I explaining how the marriage was going wrong and could she be freed of the marriage and what should she do. The monarch was very much involved in these marriages of their nobility. Also, they wanted to make sure the nobility was aligned properly with their own cause.
So after the Wars of the Roses for example, Henry VII made a big act of making sure that Yorkists were married into families that supported him, thereby kind of tying them to the Lancastrian cause to the Tudor cause. So it was a big deal. The negotiations were complex involving dowries, land exchanges and titles, with each marriage shaping the social and political landscape of Tudor England.
This interplay between on one side, the lofty ideals of courtly love and then the pragmatic considerations of marriage alliances, reveals a society where the heart and crown were often at odds, and in fact it has been said that some of the rituals of courtly love actually were to provide a place for people to have those kinds of natural flirtation.
Everybody likes to engage in flirtations. If your marriage was arranged, it might be fun to have an outlet that everybody approves of where you can engage in these flirtations and this banter and this stuff that’s fun. Humans like to do that kind of stuff and so providing them a way to do it within rules that everybody can agree on, that was kind of a way to alleviate some of the tension and stress that came from marriages that were only arranged. So it was like “All right over here’s work and then we play over here,” sort of thing, I suppose.
Let’s talk about some specific examples of courtly love and matchmaking. One of the most compelling instances of courtly love entwined with political ambition is of course Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn. Anne was initially a lady-in-waiting to Katherine of Aragon, caught the eye of Henry with her wit and charm.
Embodying the unattainable object of courtly desire, she made herself completely unattainable to him. Their courtship was marked by the exchange of letters and gifts, played out against the backdrop of the king’s desperate quest for a male heir. Of course, this pursuit in the guise of courtly love ultimately led to the break from the Catholic Church, the establishment of the Church of England, a monumental shift driven by a king’s desire for a woman who initially played hard to get in accordance with the rules of courtly love.
Then of course she was kind of brought down with that as well with her courtiers and some of the people around her because when she was married and she was queen and the courtly love had been attained all of that. She probably should have stopped playing it but the story goes that she didn’t of course, there’s a lot more to it than that and we have talked about that in other videos so I won’t get into it, but that is of course the the story about her.
Elizabeth’s court as well, was center stage for the delicate dance of courtly love, with the Queen herself right in the middle of it all in the relationship between her and Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester. Their lifelong friendship and rumored romantic entanglement never culminating in marriage exemplify the tension between personal affection and royal duty. Dudley, despite his marriage to Amy Robsart remained a favorite of the Queen. His presence at court is a constant source of speculation and intrigue.
Matchmaking in Tudor England while less romanticized was no less significant in shaping the political landscape. The marriage of Mary, Queen of Scots to Francis of France, the strategic alliance that reinforced the old alliance between Scotland and France, was a union orchestrated by powerful figures of both realms to fortify their Catholic bond against Protestant England.
Similarly, marriage negotiations involving Elizabeth I such as those with the Duke of Anjou were laden with political implications. Each proposal was carefully weighed for its potential impact on the balance of power in Europe.
The legacy of courtly love and matchmaking in Tudor England extends far beyond the historical record permeating the cultural fabric of subsequent generations. These practices have been romanticized in literature and film often portrayed as the epitome of passion and romance yet the realities were complex.
Entangled in power politics and social duty works such as Shakespeare’s sonnets and plays and more recent films like Elizabeth reflect and reinterpret the dynamics of Tudor courtship for contemporary audiences, sometimes amplifying the romance while glossing over the politics. These practices also were not just romantic or social rituals but they were integral to the governance and stability of the realm.
The courtship rituals and marriage strategies of the Tudor period offer a fascinating lens through which to view the interconnections between personal desire and political necessity, revealing a world where heart and crown were inextricably linked the enduring fascination with these stories, speaks to the universal themes of love power and duty that continue to inspire us through the ages.
Heather Teysko is the creator, writer, and producer of The Renaissance English History Podcast, the original Tudor history podcast, started in 2009. She's been writing about history online for over 25 years, since her first site on Colonial American history became number one in history on Yahoo in 1998. In 2019 she created Tudorcon, which is now a yearly event, in addition to writing books, and running TudorFair.com - a whimsical Tudor Merch shop.
She has been passionate about Tudor England since she first read Alison Weir's The Six Wives of Henry VIII 30 years ago, and subsequently moved to London after college to spend her time immersed in Tudor history (how exciting when she got to interview Alison for the first time!). In addition to history, she is passionate about travel, and has lived in 3 countries and 4 states (not counting her perpetual state of confusion), and her family (who help her host her YouTube channel occasionally).
