The Royal Mourner

The Royal Mourner

‘…you might have seen his father and mother in a state almost bordering on madness, by reason of their sudden grief.’  (the reported reaction of King Richard III and Queen Anne Neville upon hearing of the death of their son)

 This exciting project aims to build upon both studies of emotions, grief and bereavement and studies of Kings and royal families to produce a collected publication on royal mourners and bereavement from the medieval to modern periods. How have royal mourners negotiated their private grief within the context of their public duty? What are the consequences of a Monarch going, or appearing to be ‘mad’ with grief? What is the appropriate level of grief, mourning and respect for a King to pay to a dead subject? Are particular subjects or causes of death particularly worthy of royal grief and mourning? How have Royal mourners been presented in popular culture and what does that say about the relationship between emotions, power and government? Proposals for chapter/case-study contributions are welcomed from researchers at all stages in their career, from doctoral students to established scholars, and from any related disciplines, addressing such topics as:

• Royal widows, widowers and widowhoods – in practice or as represented in popular culture, art, literature, drama etc.
• Royal attendance at funerals
• Public duty and private mourning
• Royal mourning of non-royal subjects
• The political capital of bereavement
• Popular identification with royal sorrow
• Royal observance of mourning dress
• Royal use of mourning or commemorative trinkets, tokens possessions etc.
• Representations of royal mourners – contemporary or retrospective
• Responses to Royals not observing mourning
• Royals mourning international deaths
• Royal participation in national mourning, royals as leaders in mourning
• Royal commemoration of past royal deaths
• Royal tears
• Emotions and monarchy

 

At this stage preliminary proposals of between 300 and 800 words and should be sent along with your name and institutional affiliation to royallossyork2012@gmail.com by 1^st August 2014.