English literature -- History and criticism; Literature -- Anecdotes; Litterateurs
When, in the reign of Mary, England was groaning under Spanish
influence, and no remonstrance could reach the throne, the queen's
person and government were made ridiculous to the people's eyes by
prints or pictures "representing her majesty naked, meagre, withered,
and wrinkled, with every aggravated circumstance of deformity that could
disgrace a female figure, seated in a regal chair; a crown on her head,
surrounded with M. R. and A. in capitals, accompanied by small letters;
_Maria Regina Angliae!_ a number of Spaniards were sucking her to skin
and bone, and a specification was added of the money, rings, jewels, and
other presents with which she had secretly gratified her husband
Philip."[95] It is said that the queen suspected some of her own council
of this invention, who alone were privy to these transactions. It is,
however, in this manner that the voice which is suppressed by authority
comes at length in another shape to the eye.
The age of Elizabeth, when the Roman pontiff and all his adherents were
odious to the people, produced a remarkable caricature, and ingenious
invention--a gorgon's head! A church bell forms the helmet; the
ornaments, instead of the feathers, are a wolf's head in a mitre
devouring a lamb, an ass's head with spectacles reading, a goose holding
a rosary: the face is made out with a fish for the nose, a chalice and
water for the eye, and other priestly ornaments for the shoulder and
breast, on which rolls of parchment pardons hang.[96]
A famous bishop of Munster, Bernard de Galen, who, in his charitable
violence for converting protestants, got himself into such celebrity
that he appears to have served as an excellent _sign-post_ to the inns
in Germany, was the true church militant: and his figure was exhibited
according to the popular fancy. His head was half mitre and half helmet;
a crosier in one hand and a sabre in the other; half a rochet and half a
cuirass: he was made performing mass as a dragoon on horseback, and
giving out the charge when he ought the _Ite, missa est!_ He was called
the _converter!_ and the "Bishop of Munster" became popular as a
sign-post in German towns; for the people like fighting men, though they
should even fight against themselves.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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