Nicola Smith - The Royal Image and the English People

For the English people, the image of the monarch is deeply bound up with the idea of nationhood. It is no accident that the queens head alone on a postage stamp is understood to be sufficient to represent England, nor that the stamp only needs words or extra symbols if it is issued somewhere else: Scotland, for example. Representations of the sovereign are widespread, even commonplace, but officially even the flimsiest of them are still treated with painstaking marks of respect. Photographs of the queen removed from embassies and other official settings are returned to Buckingham Palace by government curators, presumably lest they should fall into the wrong hands. There is still a commonly held belief that it is an offence to damage an image of the monarch, and whilst this notion may not be so firmly founded as some think, the common law does recognize an offence of contempt of the sovereign, which might possibly encompass such damage. Nonetheless, most images of the monarch in public contexts cannot rely on long-term direct government protection. In effigy, even the most powerful figures are vulnerable. Reputations wax and wane. Individual monarchs, and at times the monarchy in general, have not always been regarded with respect. Debates about royal monuments have often expressed fundamental rivalries and tensions within society.

This book surveys aspects of Englands royal heritage dialogue from the late Middle Ages to the nineteenth century, by looking at the representation of the monarch in a variety of public monuments, both surviving and lost. In them, the king was sometimes represented by his coat of arms, but more often by a portrait in sculpture. The monuments which are considered here include tombs, and images on churches, crosses and civic buildings as well as free-standing statues. They are, of course, only part of a much larger picture. This account does not deal primarily or systematically with plays, pageants, paintings, stained glass, engravings, medals, or other personal, fragile or ephemeral ways in which the image of the king has been disseminated. It does not even mention coins or pottery. It concentrates on monumental sculpted portraits because that was the way in which the image of the monarch was customarily presented in the most striking, immediate, tangible and permanent form on a large scale in the public arena.

The creation of and reaction to royal statues and memorials in public places is only one measure of the mood of the moment, but it can be particularly telling, because such monuments were hostages to fortune. Their aim was to consolidate and commemorate shared loyalties and beliefs, focusing on the monarch. Made of durable materials, they were supposed to last, and their history did not end with the inauguration ceremony. As expressions of religious or political convictions, they sometimes generated very strong feelings. Being accessible, they were susceptible to the attentions of the graffiti artist, the daredevil drunk and the Protestant or republican iconoclast. They were sometimes protected by a railing, more often just by their talismanic value. In a changing political environment, this was not always enough. The story of royal monuments in England is as much one of damage and destruction as of respect and care. Their loss demonstrates the vulnerability of collective national values in the face of social and political change. Just as the advent of Yeltsins government in Russia saw the removal of cartloads of statues of Lenin, so in England, more than once, symbols and monuments of previous regimes have been removed. Image-smashing was a feature of the political upheavals of the Reformation, the Commonwealth and the Glorious Revolution, though monuments were not always destroyed without protest. Some of the earliest and fiercest heritage debates in England took place in response to threats to royal and public monuments in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.

In the context of so much religious upheaval and political change, it is perhaps more surprising that so many royal monuments in England survived, and that we have inherited a tradition of overall stability. Most lost monuments are soon forgotten, along with the original significance of some of those which remain. If there is any factor which links English royal monuments generally, it is the presentation of a picture of a continuous legitimate monarchy, stretching back to William the Conqueror or Edward the Confessor, or beyond, and culminating naturally with the current incumbent, be they of the House of Lancaster, York, Tudor, Stuart or Hanover. Memories and images of past monarchs were used to support the political aims of the present. Discontinuities and disputes over the throne were disguised.

Only one regime proved impossible to integrate satisfactorily. For two centuries the republic of the mid-seventeenth century was invisible in public memorials, and even in the nineteenth century when it seemed that almost anyone could have a statue there was widespread resistance to the idea that Oliver Cromwell should be commemorated in this way. The English generally remained uncomfortable with the idea of republicanism. For some, the idea of Englishness appears to depend upon monarchy and, even two centuries after his death, profound unease within society over apparent challenges to this notion were evident during debates over whether the Lord Protector should have a statue. Cromwell remains the exception which proves the rule. If he had only accepted the title of king, the picture of smooth continuity could have been made to seem unbroken, and the nations royal heritage tradition complete.