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African presence at the Scottish royal court

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Ellen More and Margaret More were members of the household of Margaret Tudor at Linlithgow Palace

A number of people of African origin were recorded as servants at the Royal Court of Scotland during the 16th-century, forming a notable African presence at the Scottish royal court. The accounts include gifts of clothing.[1] The American scholar Kim F. Hall has characterised these people as "dehumanised alien curiosities",[2] and their histories, roles at court, and their relationships with communities, are the subject of continuing research and debate.[3]

The "More lasses"

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In the original records written in the Scots language, the word "More" or "Moir" refers to people of African origin.[4][5] An early reference to people of African origin at the Scottish court relates to a group of young women or children in November 1504, recorded as the "More lasses". They were accompanied by a Portuguese man, and a woman was rewarded for bringing them from Dunfermline Palace to Edinburgh.[6] One record, written in Latin, calls this group "four persons of Ethiopia".[7]

Ellen More

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Subsequent accounts of the Scottish treasurer, from 1511 onwards, mention Ellen More and Margaret More, as servants of Margaret Tudor.[8] Ellen More was given clothes and gifts on New Year's Day like other courtiers.[9] Ellen More has been identified with the part of the "Black Lady" in the tournaments of James IV of Scotland,[10] and as the subject of a racist poem by William Dunbar, Of Ane Blak-Moir, who had arrived in Scotland on the "latest ships".[11][12] Her story was the basis of a character in a 2022 stage play, James IV - Queen of the Fight, by Rona Munro.[13]

Other identities

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A record of costume bought for the "Moir" servant in 1590, from the Scottish treasurer's accounts

Other servants of African origin who received payments from James IV include; the musician and drummer known as the "More taubronar", whose name has not been discovered; Peter the Moor; and a group known as the "Moor friars".[14]

The Rough Wooing, a war between England and Scotland, brought the soldier Pedro de Negro and a cavalryman known as the "Spanish moor" to Scotland.[15] Mariotta Haliburton, a Scottish aristocrat, wrote that the "Spanish moor" was "as sharp a man as rides".[16]

Other people identified as "Moors" are noted in a record known as the "Bread Book" of Mary of Guise.[17] Nageir the Moor received payments from Regent Moray.[18] Anne of Denmark, queen consort of James VI and I, had servants of African origin, and, during her time in Scotland, people of African origin performed in court drama, including her Royal Entry to Edinburgh and the masque at the baptism of Prince Henry.[19]

In 1603, at the Union of the Crowns, James and Anne of Denmark moved to London, and the culture of the Scottish court merged with Tudor traditions.[20] The scholar Sujata Iyengar sees The Masque of Blackness performed at Whitehall Palace, as an example of Anne of Denmark's continued use of Scottish theatrical themes in England.[21]

See also

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References

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  1. ^ Imtiaz Habib, Black Lives in the English Archives, 1500–1677: Imprints of the Invisible (Routledge, 2008), pp. 30–37, 274–294: Peter Fryer, Staying Power: The History of Black People in Britain (Sterling VA: Pluto Press, 1984), pp. 2–4.
  2. ^ Kim F. Hall, Things of Darkness: Economies of Race and Gender in Early Modern England (Cornell University Press, 1996), p. 128.
  3. ^ Miranda Kaufmann, Black Tudors (London, 2017), p. 11: Carole Levin, 'Women in the Renaissance', Renate Bridenthal, Susan Stuard, Merry Wiesner (eds), Becoming Visible: Women in European History (Houghton Mifflin: Boston, 1998), pp. 152-173: Sue Niebrzydowski, 'The Sultana and her Sisters: Black Women in the British Isles before 1530', Women's History Review, 10:2 (2001), pp. 187-210. doi:10.1080/09612020100200287
  4. ^ Nandini Das, João Vicente Melo, Haig Z. Smith, Lauren Working, Blackamoor/Moor, Keywords of Identity, Race, and Human Mobility in Early Modern England (Amsterdam, 2021), pp. 40-50
  5. ^ "More", noun, Dictionary of the Older Scottish Tongue
  6. ^ Mairi Cowan & Laura Walkling, 'Growing up with the court of James IV', Janay Nugent & Elizabeth Ewan, Children and Youth in Premodern Scotland (Boydell, 2015), p. 24: James Balfour Paul, Accounts of the Treasurer of Scotland, 2 (Edinburgh, 1900), p. 468.
  7. ^ George Burnett, Exchequer Rolls of Scotland: 1502-1507, 12 (Edinburgh, 1889), pp. 374–375
  8. ^ Imtiaz Habib, Black Lives in the English Archives, 1500–1677: Imprints of the Invisible (Routledge, 2008), pp. 291–2, 294.
  9. ^ William Hepburn, The Household and Court of James IV of Scotland (Boydell, 2023), pp. 100-1.
  10. ^ Louise Olga Fradenburg, City, Marriage, Tournament: Arts of Rule in Late Medieval Scotland (Wisconsin, 1991), pp. 244–264.
  11. ^ Joyce Green MacDonald, Women and Race in Early Modern Texts (Cambridge, 2002), pp. 1-7: Jane E. A. Dawson, Scotland Re-formed (Edinburgh, 2007), pp. 79-81: Bernadette Andrea, The Lives of Girls and Women from the Islamic World in Early Modern British Literature and Culture (Toronto, 2017), pp. 22-26: Bill Findlay, 'Blak Lady', Elizabeth L. Ewan, Sue Innes, Sian Reynolds, Rose Pipes, Biographical Dictionary of Scottish Women (Edinburgh, 2006), p. 39: Kim F. Hall, Things of Darkness: Economies of Race and Gender in Early Modern England (Cornell University Press, 1996), p. 271.
  12. ^ Anu Korhonen, 'Washing the Ethiopian white: Conceptualising black skin in Renaissance Europe', Thomas Foster Earle & K. J. P. Lowe, Black Africans in Renaissance Europe (Cambridge, 2005), p. 98
  13. ^ Megan McEachern, 'James IV: New Rona Munro play to give black people their rightful but forgotten place in history of Scotland', Sunday Post, 20 June 2022
  14. ^ Miranda Kaufmann, Black Tudors (London, 2017), p. 11: Louise Olga Fradenburg, City, Marriage, Tournament: Arts of Rule in Late Medieval Scotland (University of Wisconsin Press, 1991), pp. 175–6: Imtiaz Habib, Black Lives in the English Archives, 1500–1677: Imprints of the Invisible (Routledge, 2008), pp. 28–29.
  15. ^ Miranda Kaufmann, 'Sir Pedro Negro: what colour was his skin?', Notes and Queries, 253, no. 2 (June 2008), pp. 142–146.
  16. ^ Annie Cameron, Scottish Correspondence of Mary of Lorraine (SHS: Edinburgh, 1927), p. 297]
  17. ^ Miranda Kaufmann, Black Tudors (London, 2017), p. 18: John G. Harrison, 'The Bread Book and the Court and Household of Marie de Guise in 1549', Scottish Archives, 15 (2009), p. 30.
  18. ^ Miranda Kaufmann, Black Tudors (London, 2017), p. 217.
  19. ^ David Stevenson, Scotland's Last Royal Wedding: The Marriage of James VI and Anne of Denmark (Edinburgh: John Donald, 1997), p. 128 fn. 12.
  20. ^ Clare McManus, Women on the Renaissance stage: Anna of Denmark and Female Masquing in the Stuart Court, 1590-1619 (Manchester, 2002), p. 76.
  21. ^ Sujata Iyengar, Shades of Difference: Mythologies of Skin Color in Early Modern England (Philadelphia, University of Pennsylvania Press, 2005), p. 82.
  22. ^ Clare McManus, 'Marriage and the performance of the romance quest: Anne of Denmark and the Stirling baptismal celebrations for Prince Henry', L. A. J. R. Houwen, A. A. MacDonald, S. L. Mapstone (eds.), A Palace in the Wild: Essays on Vernacular Culture and Humanism in Late Medieval and Renaissance Scotland (Peeters, 2000), p. 189: Anthony Gerard Barthelemy, Black Face, Maligned Race: The Representation of Blacks in English Drama (Louisiana State University Press, 1987), p. 19 fn. 2
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