13 - Symbols and Significances

Summary

'All such emblems'

The potent force exerted by symbols, translated into diverse emblematical forms, upon sixteenth- and seventeenth-century life, thought, painting and literature can hardly be overstressed. Unless we fully realize the current faith in these symbols and learn to recognize the many ways in which they were made to play their effective role, we shall fail to appreciate what may be termed the inner spirit of that age. Monarchs used emblematic devices to glorify their states, to emphasize their policies and to sway their subjects; subjects, in turn, utilized similar methods in order to demonstrate their loyalty or, on occasion, tactfully to make royalty aware of their grievances, their hopes and their fears. Queen Elizabeth thus had her portrait painted holding a sieve, which symbolized not only chastity (derived from the legend of the Vestal Virgin Tuccia who carried water in a sieve to prove her chastity), but also her ability to distinguish good from bad-a double voir typical of such devices. She was also engraved flanked by the pillars of Hercules, a device appropriated from Emperor Charles V, to express her expanding empire; besides ships in the offing the engraving also includes the pelican in piety and the phoenix, both 'personal devices of the Queen', placed strategically on top of the pillars. By the use of such emblems, she clearly disseminated an image of herself which has largely survived to this day. Similarly, her subjects, by the choice of device in costly and sumptuous pageants and tableaux, indicated to her what they wished from the monarchy. The first pageant presented to her by the citizens of London on her pre-coronation procession was on the theme of 'The vniting of the two houses of Lancastre and Yorke'. It consisted of a 'stage' (presumably a triumphal arch) extending across the street with a representation of the Tudor dynasty (Henry VII and Elizabeth of York, Henry VIII and Ann Boleyn - notably excluding Edward VI and Mary, as well as Henry VIII's other wives), wreathed with a profusion of red and white roses, 'and all emptie places thereof were furnished with sentences concerning vnitie'.