That is not a very good lion, but Richard was not a very good king. You
would think that this lion has two heads, but that is not so; one is
only a shadow. There would be shadows for the rest of him, but there
was not light enough to go round, it being a dull day, with only
fleeting sun-glimpses now and then. Richard had a humped back and a
hard heart, and fell at the battle of Bosworth. I do not know the name
of that flower in the pot, but we will use it as Richard’s trade-mark,
for it is said that it grows in only one place in the world—Bosworth
Field—and tradition says it never grew there until Richard’s royal
blood warmed its hidden seed to life and made it grow.
Henry VII.; twenty-four _blue _squares. (Fig. 23.)
Henry VII. had no liking for wars and turbulence; he preferred peace
and quiet and the general prosperity which such conditions create. He
liked to sit on that kind of eggs on his own private account as well as
the nation’s, and hatch them out and count up the result. When he died
he left his heir 2,000,000 pounds, which was a most unusual fortune for
a king to possess in those days. Columbus’s great achievement gave him
the discovery-fever, and he sent Sebastian Cabot to the New World to
search out some foreign territory for England. That is Cabot’s ship up
there in the corner. This was the first time that England went far
abroad to enlarge her estate—but not the last.
Henry VIII.; thirty-eight _red _squares. (Fig. 24.)
That is Henry VIII. suppressing a monastery in his arrogant fashion.
Edward VI.; six squares of _yellow _paper. (Fig. 25.)
He is the last Edward to date. It is indicated by that thing over his
head, which is a _last_—shoemaker’s last.
Mary; five squares of _black _paper. (Fig. 26.)
The picture represents a burning martyr. He is in back of the smoke.
The first three letters of Mary’s name and the first three of the word
martyr are the same. Martyrdom was going out in her day and martyrs
were becoming scarcer, but she made several. For this reason she is
sometimes called Bloody Mary.
This brings us to the reign of Elizabeth, after passing through a
period of nearly five hundred years of England’s history—492 to be
exact. I think you may now be trusted to go the rest of the way without
further lessons in art or inspirations in the matter of ideas. You have
the scheme now, and something in the ruler’s name or career will
suggest the pictorial symbol. The effort of inventing such things will
not only help your memory, but will develop originality in art. See
what it has done for me. If you do not find the parlor wall big enough
for all of England’s history, continue it into the dining-room and into
other rooms. This will make the walls interesting and instructive and
really worth something instead of being just flat things to hold the
house together.
THE MEMORABLE ASSASSINATION
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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