21 October 2025
Seminar: ‘All that’s Rich’: The Intended Meanings of Luxury Goods in Stuart Interiors
Julia Hamilton (City, University of London)
Overview
James VI & I’s outward-looking approach, his peace with Spain in 1604, and England’s ambition towards colonisation and trade facilitated the adornment of Stuart interiors. This paper discusses how the movement of people, materials and objects brought luxury goods to the Stuarts’ Privy Lodgings. Their attempts at creating foreign interiors of unknown lands in English royal palaces promoted England’s rising global reach. It will become clear that luxury goods were not only employed to project identity, power and majesty, however. They were also manipulated to define layers of accessibility and intimacy within the kings and queens’ Privy Lodgings. These patterns were maintained throughout the Stuart period to express continuity and legitimacy of the House of Stuart. The discussion joins the recent increased interest in the Silk Roads, the Mughal Court, diplomacy, colonisation, mobilisation, and trade.
