William Marshall (illustrator)
Encyclopedia
Illustrator
An Illustrator is a narrative artist who specializes in enhancing writing by providing a visual representation that corresponds to the content of the associated text...
, best known for his print depicting "Charles the Martyr", a symbolic portrayal of King Charles I
Charles I of England
Charles I was King of England, King of Scotland, and King of Ireland from 27 March 1625 until his execution in 1649. Charles engaged in a struggle for power with the Parliament of England, attempting to obtain royal revenue whilst Parliament sought to curb his Royal prerogative which Charles...
of England
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
as a Christian
Christianity
Christianity is a monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus as presented in canonical gospels and other New Testament writings...
martyr.
Early career
Nothing is known of Marshall's life beyond references to his career as an engraver. Marshall's earliest known work is the frontispiece to the book A Solemne Joviall Disposition Briefly Shadowing the Law of Drinking, which was published in 1617. In the 1630s he produced a number of portrait engravings and book frontispieces, depicting PuritanPuritan
The Puritans were a significant grouping of English Protestants in the 16th and 17th centuries. Puritanism in this sense was founded by some Marian exiles from the clergy shortly after the accession of Elizabeth I of England in 1558, as an activist movement within the Church of England...
divines, poets, and figures associated with the High Church establishment of the day, such as William Laud
William Laud
William Laud was Archbishop of Canterbury from 1633 to 1645. One of the High Church Caroline divines, he opposed radical forms of Puritanism...
.
His most ambitious work was the highly elaborate frontispiece
Book frontispiece
A frontispiece is a decorative illustration facing a book's title page. The frontispiece is the verso opposite the recto title page. Elaborate engraved frontispieces were in frequent use, especially in Bibles and in scholarly books, and many are masterpieces of engraving...
to George Wither
George Wither
George Wither was an English poet, pamphleteer, and satirist. He was a prolific writer who adopted a deliberate plainness of style; he was several times imprisoned. C. V...
's 1635 Collection of Emblemes, Ancient and Moderne, an unusually complex example of the Emblem book
Emblem book
Emblem books are a category of mainly didactic illustrated book printed in Europe during the 16th and 17th centuries, typically containing a number of emblematic images with explanatory text....
. Wither left the design to Marshall, having given general instructions, but expressed himself exasperated with the result, on the grounds that its symbolism was thoroughly incoherent. As he wrote,
Instead thereof, the Workman brought to light,
What, here, you see; therein, mistaking quite
The true Design: And, so (with pains, and cost)
The first intended FRONTISPIECE, is lost.
Wither's lengthy poem on the engraving claims that its apparently inconsistent symbolism revealed, unintentionally, a deeper truth. The lower part of the frontispiece depicts people wandering in confusion in a cave, apparently having emerged from a womb-like pool in which babies are shown swimming. They exit the cave to draw lots given to them by the goddess of Fortune
Fortuna
Fortuna can mean:*Fortuna, the Roman goddess of luck -Geographical:*19 Fortuna, asteroid*Fortuna, California, town located on the north coast of California*Fortuna, United States Virgin Islands...
, symbolic of their alloted place in life. They then climb up a mountain, which divides into two peaks, symbolic of the right and the wrong paths in life. The path to the peak on the right appears more attractive at first, but then becomes rocky and finally leads only to death; the path on the left is at first harder, but eventually becomes pleasant and leads to paradise. A Christian church is depicted on the left and a Pagan temple on the right.
Marshall also created forty-one of the seventy-nine plates in Francis Quarles
Francis Quarles
Francis Quarles was an English poet most famous for his Emblem book aptly entitled Emblems.-Career:Francis was born in Romford, Essex, , and baptised there on 8 May 1592. He traced his ancestry to a family settled in England before the Norman Conquest with a long history in royal service...
's Emblems of the life of man.
William Shakespeare
William Shakespeare was an English poet and playwright, widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's national poet and the "Bard of Avon"...
for John Benson
John Benson (publisher)
John Benson was a London publisher of the middle seventeenth century, best remembered for a historically important publication of the Sonnets and miscellaneous poems of William Shakespeare in 1640....
's (notoriously inaccurate) edition of the poet's sonnets. This was an adapted and reversed version of the original Martin Droeshout
Martin Droeshout
Martin Droeshout was an English engraver of Flemish descent, whose fame rests completely on the fact that he made the title portrait for William Shakespeare's collected works, the First Folio of 1623, edited by John Heminges and Henry Condell, fellow actors of the Bard.-Shakespeare:Droeshout would...
print. Five years later, he created the image of John Milton
John Milton
John Milton was an English poet, polemicist, a scholarly man of letters, and a civil servant for the Commonwealth of England under Oliver Cromwell...
surrounded by four muses for Milton's 1645 Poems. The muses are Melpomene
Melpomene
Melpomene , initially the Muse of Singing, she then became the Muse of Tragedy, for which she is best known now. Her name was derived from the Greek verb melpô or melpomai meaning "to celebrate with dance and song." She is often represented with a tragic mask and wearing the cothurnus, boots...
(tragedy), Erato
Erato
In Greek mythology, Erato is one of the Greek Muses. The name would mean "desired" or "lovely", if derived from the same root as Eros, as Apollonius of Rhodes playfully suggested in the invocation to Erato that begins Book III of his Argonautica....
, (lyric poetry), Urania
Urania
Urania was, in Greek mythology, the muse of astronomy. Some accounts list her as the mother of the musician Linus. She is usually depicted with a globe in her left hand. She is able to foretell the future by the arrangement of the stars...
, (astronomy), and Clio
Clio
thumb|Clio—detail from [[The Art of Painting|The Allegory of Painting]] by [[Johannes Vermeer]]In Greek mythology, Clio or Kleio, is the muse of history. Like all the muses, she is a daughter of Zeus and Mnemosyne...
(history). Like Wither, Milton was unimpressed by Marshall's work, considering the portrait to be deeply unflattering. He had Marshall engrave satirical verses written in Greek underneath the image. It is assumed that this was a practical joke on Marshall, who is unlikely to have known that he was engaving insults directed at himself. The verses read in translation,
Looking at the form of the original, you could say, perhaps, that this likeness had been drawn by a rank beginner; but, my friends, since you do not recognize what is pictured here, have a chuckle at a caricature by a useless artist.
Eikon Basilike
English Civil War
The English Civil War was a series of armed conflicts and political machinations between Parliamentarians and Royalists...
, when King Charles was put on trial and condemned to be executed, a book was published entitled Eikon Basilike
Eikon Basilike
The Eikon Basilike , The Pourtrature of His Sacred Majestie in His Solitudes and Sufferings, was a purported spiritual autobiography attributed to King Charles I of England...
, The Pourtrature of His Sacred Majestie in His Solitudes and Sufferings. It purported to be a spiritual autobiography
Autobiography
An autobiography is a book about the life of a person, written by that person.-Origin of the term:...
written by the King. It was published on February 9, 1649, ten days after the King was beheaded by order of Parliament
Parliament of England
The Parliament of England was the legislature of the Kingdom of England. In 1066, William of Normandy introduced a feudal system, by which he sought the advice of a council of tenants-in-chief and ecclesiastics before making laws...
. Marshall created the image on the frontispiece, which employs symbolism derived from the Emblem Book tradition. This depicts the King as a Christian
Christianity
Christianity is a monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus as presented in canonical gospels and other New Testament writings...
martyr
Martyr
A martyr is somebody who suffers persecution and death for refusing to renounce, or accept, a belief or cause, usually religious.-Meaning:...
. So popular was the book and the image that Marshall had to re-engrave the plate seven times.
The Latin
Latin
Latin is an Italic language originally spoken in Latium and Ancient Rome. It, along with most European languages, is a descendant of the ancient Proto-Indo-European language. Although it is considered a dead language, a number of scholars and members of the Christian clergy speak it fluently, and...
texts read:
- IMMOTA, TRIVMPHANS — "Unmoved, Triumphant" (scroll around the rock);
- Clarior é tenebris — "Brighter through the darkness" (beam from the clouds);
- CRESCIT SUB PONDERE VIRTVS — "Virtue grows beneath weights" (scroll around the tree);
- Beatam & Æternam — "Blessed and Eternal" (around the heavenly crown marked GLORIA ("Glory")); meant to be contrasted with:
- Splendidam & Gravem — "Splendid and Heavy" (around the CrownThe CrownThe Crown is a corporation sole that in the Commonwealth realms and any provincial or state sub-divisions thereof represents the legal embodiment of governance, whether executive, legislative, or judicial...
of EnglandEnglandEngland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
, removed from the King's head and lying on the ground), with the motto Vanitas ("vanityVanityIn conventional parlance, vanity is the excessive belief in one's own abilities or attractiveness to others. Prior to the 14th century it did not have such narcissistic undertones, and merely meant futility. The related term vainglory is now often seen as an archaic synonym for vanity, but...
"); and - Asperam & Levem — "Bitter and Light", the martyr's crown of thornsCrown of ThornsIn Christianity, the Crown of Thorns, one of the instruments of the Passion, was woven of thorn branches and placed on Jesus Christ before his crucifixion...
held by Charles; contains the motto Gratia ("graceDivine graceIn Christian theology, grace is God’s gift of God’s self to humankind. It is understood by Christians to be a spontaneous gift from God to man - "generous, free and totally unexpected and undeserved" - that takes the form of divine favour, love and clemency. It is an attribute of God that is most...
");
- Splendidam & Gravem — "Splendid and Heavy" (around the Crown
- Coeli Specto — "I look to Heaven";
- IN VERBO TVO SPES MEA — "In Thy Word is My Hope";
- Christi Tracto — "I entreat Christ" or "By the word of Christ";
- Mundi Calco — "I tread on the world".
In the first edition, the frontispiece was accompanied by Latin and English verses that explain it. The English verses go:
- Tho' clogg'd with weighs of miseries
- Palm-like Depress'd, I higher rise
- And as th'unmoved Rock outbraues
- The boist'rous Windes and raging waues
- So triumph I. And shine more bright
- In sad Affliction's darksom night.
- That Splendid, but yet toilsom Crown
- Regardlessly I trample down.
- With joie I take this Crown of thorn
- Though sharp, yet easie to be born.
- That heavn'nlie Crown, already mine
- I view with eies of Faith diuine.
- I slight vaine things, and do embrace
- Glorie, the just reward of Grace.
The landscape at the left contains the weighted palm tree and the rock buffeted by winds and waves, emblematic of the king's steadfastness. The beam of light from heaven passing through the king's eye illustrates his vision of his heavenly crown of martyrdom, while he picks up the crown of thorns
Crown of Thorns
In Christianity, the Crown of Thorns, one of the instruments of the Passion, was woven of thorn branches and placed on Jesus Christ before his crucifixion...
and discards the earthly crown and worldly power (represented by the chart of the world on which he treads).
The Eikon Basilike and its portrait of Charles's execution as a martyrdom were so successful that, at the Restoration, a special commemoration of the King on January 30 was added to the Book of Common Prayer
Book of Common Prayer
The Book of Common Prayer is the short title of a number of related prayer books used in the Anglican Communion, as well as by the Continuing Anglican, "Anglican realignment" and other Anglican churches. The original book, published in 1549 , in the reign of Edward VI, was a product of the English...
, directing that the day be observed as an occasion for fasting
Fasting
Fasting is primarily the act of willingly abstaining from some or all food, drink, or both, for a period of time. An absolute fast is normally defined as abstinence from all food and liquid for a defined period, usually a single day , or several days. Other fasts may be only partially restrictive,...
and repentance
Repentance
Repentance is a change of thought to correct a wrong and gain forgiveness from a person who is wronged. In religious contexts it usually refers to confession to God, ceasing sin against God, and resolving to live according to religious law...
.
It is assumed that Marshall died in 1649, since there are no more references to him and the Eikon Basilke plate was reengraved for the eighth time that year by another engraver, Robert Vaughan.