Anne of Denmark (1574–1619) was the wife of James VI and I, King of Scotland, and King of England after the Union of Crowns. In 1617, she was depicted in a painting by Paul van Somer with an African servant holding her horse at Oatlands Palace.Karen Hearn, Dynasties: Painting in Tudor and Jacobean England 1530–1630 (London: Tate Gallery, 1995), pp. 206–7: Sarah Ayres, 'Introduction', 'Court Historian', 24:2 (London, 2020), p. 105. There are archival records of Africans or people of African descent, often called "Moors" or "Moirs", in her service and their costume.Anita Raychawdhuri, "Visions of Queer Pregnancy and the Making of Whiteness in Ben Jonson's The Masque of Blackness", Mira 'Assaf and Urvashi Chakravarty (eds.), Race / Queer / Queens (ACMRS, 2026): For "moir" see, 'Mor(e), Moir', Dictionary of the Older Scottish TongueNandini 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 One of the first publications to mention Anne of Denmark's "Moir" servant in Scotland was edited by James Thomson Gibson-Craig in 1828.Papers Relative to the Marriage of James VI, Edinburgh, 1828

Norway and Denmark James VI sailed to Norway to meet Anne of Denmark in October 1589, as his advisers thought it was time for him to marry and her older sister Elizabeth of Denmark was already engaged.Ethel Carleton Williams, Anne of Denmark (London, 1970), pp. 20, 207 fn. 20.

John Allyne Gade, a 20th-century biographer of the queen's brother Christian IV of Denmark, wrote in 1927 of the detail of the royal couple seeing a dance performed by African men in the snow at Oslo.Imtiaz Habib, Black Lives in the English Archives, 1500–1677: Imprints of the Invisible (Routledge, 2008), pp. 230, 316. Some of the dancers died from the cold.John Gade, Christian IV, King of Denmark and Norway (Boston, 1927), pp. 39-40.Kristen McDermott, Masques of Difference: Four Court Masques by Ben Jonson (Manchester University Press, 2007), p. 36: Kim F. Hall, Things of Darkness: Economies of Race and Gender in Early Modern England (Cornell University Press, 1996), p. 128: Ethel C. Williams, Anne of Denmark (London: Longman, 1970), p. 21.

The surviving performers accompanied the royal party in their journey to Denmark and afterward to Scotland. The source of Gade's story is unknown and its authenticity is therefore doubtful.Sujata Iyengar, Shades of Difference: Mythologies of Skin Color in Early Modern England (Philadelphia, 2005), p. 82: David Stevenson, Scotland's Last Royal Wedding: The Marriage of James VI and Anne of Denmark (Edinburgh: John Donald, 1997), p. 128 fn. 12: Clare McManus, Women on the Renaissance stage: Anna of Denmark and Female Masquing in the Stuart Court, 1590–1619 (Manchester, 2002), p. 76: Carol Chillington Rutter, Enter The Body: Women and Representation on Shakespeare's Stage (Routledge, 2001), p. 193 fn. 90. Gade's description has been reimagined as a moving poem by Roger Reeves, In a Brief, Animated World: The Marriage of Anne of Denmark to James of Scotland, 1589.Roger Reeves, King Me (Copper Canyon Press, 2013), p. 20.Roger Reeves, In a Brief, Animated World. Blackbird Archive A Scottish record of expenses mentions that the newlyweds were entertained in Oslo by acrobats, recorded as two "vautis". The "vautis" performed again, in the "close" or courtyard of a Danish palace.Miles Kerr-Peterson & Michael Pearce, "King James VI's English Subsidy and Danish Dowry Accounts", Miscellany of the Scottish History Society, XVI (Woodbridge: Boydell, 2020), pp. 50–51, British Library Add. MS 22,958 f.12r-v., 'gevin to the two vautis that fansit in the cloiss'; 'And of sex scoir daleris to the tua vautis that was in Upslo'.

Pageant in the streets of Edinburgh

The couple arrived back to Scotland in May 1590. A few months later, a household list records that Anne of Denmark had a "Moir" servant in her household.James Thomson Gibson-Craig, Papers Relative to the Marriage of James VI, (Edinburgh, (1828), Appendix, pp. 28, 36 It is unclear if he had already been in her service in Denmark. Soon after James and Anne arrived in Scotland, there was a pageant in the streets of Edinburgh to celebrate her arrival into the town on 19 May.Giovanna Guidicini, Triumphal Entries and Festivals in Early Modern Scotland: Performing Spaces (Brepols Publishers, 2020), p. 95: Martin Wiggins & Catherine Richardson, British Drama 1533–1642: A Catalogue 1590–1597, vol. 3 (Oxford, 2013), pp. 27–30.

A contemporary description of the 1590 Entry and coronation of Anne in Edinburgh by a Danish observer distinguished between townspeople who had blackened their faces or wore black masks,Marguerite Wood, Extracts from the Records of the Burgh of Edinburgh, 1589–1603 (Edinburgh: Oliver & Boyd, 1927), p. 332, "Item, payit for xvij maskis ... to the moiris ... for painting the young men". and "an absolutely real and native blackamoor" leading the ushers or whifflers who made way for the royal convoy.David Stevenson, Scotland's Last Royal Wedding (Edinburgh, 1997), p. 109.Sujata Iyengar, Shades of Difference: Mythologies of Skin Color in Early Modern England (Philadelphia, 2005), pp. 82–3. The original Danish phrase was, "men en ret naturlig og inföd Morian var des Anförer".P. A. Munch, "Prindsesse Annas, Giftermaal med Kong Jacob d. 6te af Skotland", Norske Samlinger, 1 (1852), pp. 493–494. He carried a drawn sword ahead of the others who were dressed in sailor's tunics.David Stevenson, Scotland's Last Royal Wedding (Edinburgh, 1997), p. 109. These were men from Edinburgh in blackface makeup, or were wearing black masks. David Moysie wrote that there were "42 young men from the town all clad in white taffeta and visors of black colour, on their faces like Mores, all full of gold chains, that danced before her grace all the way".David Moysie, Memoirs of the Affairs of Scotland (Edinburgh, 1830), pp. 83–4, 151, modernised here These performers, according to the poet John Burel, represented "Moirs" of "the Inds" who lived in comparative ease and comfort by the golden mountain of "SYNERDAS".The word "Synerdas" is obscure, it may be formed from the Hellenistic "synedrion", a convocation or council of advisors, in these two stanzas contrasting the "most willing minds" of the people of the pageant with those who dwell in Faunus' wilderness. See Jeffrey Walker, Rhetoric and Poetics in Antiquity (Oxford, 2000), p. 50. Some of the verses and themes of the entertainment seem to have been composed by Hercules Rollock. They had come to salute Scotland's new queen and offer to her service their "most willing minds".Clare McManus, Women on the Renaissance stage: Anna of Denmark and Female Masquing in the Stuart Court, 1590–1619 (Manchester, 2002), p. 78. They marched in front of her down the Canongate where she passed "intill hir Pallace", Holyroodhouse.Steven Veerapen, The Wisest Fool: The Lavish Life of James VI and I (Birlinn, 2023), p. 156: James Thomson Gibson-Craig, Papers Relative to the Marriage of James VI (Edinburgh, 1828), "Discription", pp. v–vi. "THE DISCRIPTION OF THE QVEENS MAIESTIES MAIST HONORABLE ENTRY INTO THE TOVN OF EDINBVRGH, VPON THE 19. DAY OF MAII. 1590" (Edinburgh: Robert Waldegrave, ?1596), STC (2nd ed.) / 4105.

It is not known if the man who participated in the street pageant was the "Moir" subsequently listed as a member of Anne of Denmark's household. The "Moir", like the other gentlemen and servants, was allowed 3 pints of ale at dinner.James Thomson Gibson-Craig, Papers Relative to the Marriage of James VI (Edinburgh, 1828), Appendix, pp. 21, 28, 36. He wore clothes of orange velvet and Spanish taffeta. The costume was similar to those made for others who served as "pages of the equerry". He was to eat with the three "lackeys" who attended the queen when she went riding with her companions, including Anna Kaas and, later, Margaret Vinstarr. The pages and lackeys were young men drawn from the Scottish and Danish gentry. Clothes were made for six pages and four lackeys at Anne's coronation on 17 May 1590, it was not recorded if the "Moir" was one these young men.Michael Pearce, "Anna of Denmark: Fashioning a Danish Court in Scotland", The Court Historian, 24:2 (2019), pp. 143–4.

Clothes and livery for royal servants of African origin

Clothes for servants were made in October and November 1590 by two tailors who served the court, James Inglis and Alexander Miller. Costume for the "Moir" included an orange velvet "jupe" and breeches and a doublet of shot-silk Spanish taffeta festooned with white satin passementerie. His hat was of yellow Spanish taffeta lined with orange. Cloaks for the four pages were made of orange London cloth and their jupes of orange stemming,Clara Steeholm & Hardy Steeholm, James I of England: The Wisest Fool in Christendom (New York, 1938), p. 142: 'Stemming', Dictionary of the Older Scottish Tongue the velvet for the African servant came from the queen's own stock, paid for from the English subsidy.Miles Kerr-Peterson & Michael Pearce, "King James VI's English Subsidy and Danish Dowry Accounts, 1588-1596', Miscelllany of the Scottish History Society, XVI (Woodbridge: Boydell, 2020), p. 78: Jemma Field, "Dressing a Queen: The Wardrobe of Anna of Denmark at the Scottish Court of King James VI, 1590–1603", The Court Historian, 24:2 (2019), pp. 154-5. The jupes were lined with a cloth called "grey bukkessie".'Buckasie', Dictionary of the Older Scotland TongueNational Records of Scotland E21/67 f.227v October 1590 and E35/13 pp. 17-18 November 1590, see external links. At least one of the pages, a young man, James Murray, had previously served the king and travelled to Denmark to join Anne's household in 1589.William Dunn Macray, 'Report on Archives in Denmark', 47th Report of the Deputy Keeper of the Public Records (London, 1886), p. 38 Clothes were also bought for the two Danish palfreymen and the Mecklenburg and Brunswick lackeys whose distinctive liveries underscored her royal identity.Jemma Field, Anna of Denmark: The Material and Visual Culture of the Stuart Courts (Manchester, 2020), p. 133: Michael Pearce, "Anna of Denmark: Fashioning a Danish Court in Scotland", The Court Historian, 24:2 (2019), pp. 143-4. : James Thomson Gibson-Craig, Papers Relative to the Marriage of King James the Sixth of Scotland (Edinburgh, 1836), Appendix p. 21.