Barbara
Gribling. The Image of Edward The Black
Prince in Georgian and Victorian England: Negotiating the Late Medieval Past. Woodbridge: The Boydell Press, 2017.
Reviewed
by Rebekah Greene (gre926@gmail.com)
Barbara
Gribling’s The Image of Edward The Black
Prince in Georgian and Victorian England: Negotiating the Late Medieval Past
offers a wonderfully intricate survey of the ways that the image of the Black
Prince evolved to support challenging and complex considerations of the role of
the monarch, the martial history of the British people, and the portrayal of
medieval chivalry. A recent entry in the
Royal Historical Society’s Studies in History series, this 171-page
volume offers a closer examination of a wide array of art forms including
paintings, opera, theatrical performances, toy theaters, panoramas, and even
children’s books. Looking more closely at the Black Prince as a “generous and
humble . . . military hero and loyal son” (12) celebrated for chivalry and an
innate loyalty to England established him as a model for improved character in ways
that successfully appealed to the socially elite, as well as the lower classes
(18). Through her exploration of both royal and popular usage of the Black
Prince’s image, Gribling draws readers in to a compelling interdisciplinary
discussion of the ways that medievalism and the image of the Black Prince was
used as an avenue to explore political power and personal character.
Gribling
troubles the notion that the Victorians, especially, viewed the medieval period
as an idyllic one. Indeed, the works that are examined in this book demonstrate
that the usage of the Black Prince’s image shifted from sumptuous royal
reimaginings of the medieval past carefully curated to celebrate English honor
and power to lesser artwork targeted to more mainstream working-class audiences
interested in interrogating the violence of war. Observing that the Georgians
and Victorians alike used art for educational purposes, Gribling also notes
that they used art to tease out the relationships between royal and
parliamentary power and to question the ideas of nationhood and broader global
ambitions. Ultimately, the chivalric figure of the Black Prince offered artists
and their patrons a convenient starting point for a reconsideration of
England’s past and present roles on a greater world stage.
A
special highlight of the volume is Gribling’s first chapter, “Royal
Associations: Heroic Character and Chivalric Ceremony at the Court of George
III,” which hones in on the interest that George III had in the late Middle
Ages and the ways that he could repurpose the medieval to emphasize his own
majesty and power. Starting her survey with an overview of George’s Order of
the Garter investiture ceremonies (he held his first in 1762 and his last in
1805), Gribling notes that for George the ceremonies were a powerful link
between royalty, chivalry, and tradition; significant given George’s own status
as a Hanoverian monarch.
However,
the true highlight of this first chapter is a study of five out of a series of
eight paintings that George III commissioned by the American-born artist
Benjamin West for the audience chamber at Windsor during the 1780s. The five
paintings that Gribling spotlights (The
institution of the Order of the Garter,
Edward III crossing the Somme,
Edward, the Black Prince, receiving King John of France after the Battle of
Poitiers, Edward III with the Black
Prince after the Battle of Crècy, and The
Burghers of Calais), all feature the Black Prince. Gribling argues that
George III intended this sequence to highlight his usage of “the arts to assert
the monarchy’s importance at a time when the powers of the king were being
restricted” (27), as well as “a new kind of national history that moved away
from the mythological to highlight a triumphal British past on a grand scale”
(28). Drawing on archival materials that include West’s own preparatory notes
for the sequence, the textual sources that he used for his designs, and
contemporary studies of West and his reception, Gribling demonstrates the close
collaboration between artist and patron. George III was very much involved
throughout the entirety of the process, choosing the theme for the series,
selecting West, and then regularly visiting with West to discuss art while the
latter worked (27). Surviving records suggest that both men viewed art as
educative, something that could help “improve a viewer’s character” (32).
Gribling
notes that reading the Black Prince’s image in these paintings leads viewers to
a consideration of the Black Prince as a model public servant and dutiful son,
the perfect chivalric figure. Viewers could consider these paintings—and the
Black Prince’s depiction—as lessons in royal authority and service to the
monarch leading to a triumphant display of English character (30-31). The one
weakness to this chapter is that Gribling—a scholar of national identity and
consumer culture—does not explore the rich irony of a Hanoverian king
partnering with an American-born painter to tell the story of British national
identity in the years immediately following the (French-supported) American
Revolution. The heightened tensions between Britain and France during this time
period surely must have led George to think of past moments of national triumph
worthy of celebration, something that future researchers may wish to explore
more deeply.
A
second highlight of The Image of Edward
the Black Prince is Chapter 5, “Emulating Edward? Redefining Chivalry and
Character.” In this chapter, Gribling suggests that the Black Prince’s image
was widely used throughout the Victorian period (1837-1901) in a variety of
materials targeted towards adolescents promoting proper masculine behavior
(92). She identifies three primary shifts in this depiction: the Black Prince
as a civilized, properly behaved gentleman; the Black Prince as “robust” and
physically fit, capable of physical service to his nation (92-93); and finally
as a violent warrior (93). Throughout this chapter, Gribling traces these
shifts as they occurred in popular histories, children’s textbooks, games, and
adventure novels. Of great interest is her observation that late Victorian
authors and educators, especially post-1870, were interested in thinking about
the Black Prince as a man of violence, “a lesson for boys on how not to behave”
(109). Gribling establishes that Victorian writers and artisans recognized the
medieval period, and even heroes such as the Black Prince, as highly
complicated. Provocatively, she states that “[b]y the turn of the twentieth
century, there was a growing ambivalence towards the Black Prince as a role
model” (114), hinting that yet another sea-change in the construction of
national identity was taking place.
Throughout
The Image of the Black Prince, Gribling
generally succeeds in tracing the connection between the Georgian and the
Victorian period, something that she does best in the first part of the book,
which focuses on royal usages of the Black Prince’s image. Her discussion of
the ways that George IV, as both Prince Regent and monarch, developed and
executed his own artistic agenda is more thinly developed than her treatment of
the collaboration between George III and West, but will still be of likely
interest to scholars focused on the Romantic period. (Here, Gribling turns her
attention to other forms of art including carriage designs and even operas.) Another
chapter’s focus on Victoria’s early reign considers the impact that Victoria
and Albert as patrons had on the establishment of organizations such as the
Royal Fine Arts Commission. And clubs devoted to the pursuit of history. In
pointing to the keen interest that Albert had in medieval history, as well as
his commitment to images of the Black Prince being 1) closely connected to
royal authority and 2) used as an indicator to the recipients of royal honors
that a requirement for said honor was continued and committed service to the
crown (59-61), Gribling examines the extensive correspondence surrounding the
1848 fresco Edward III conferring the Order of the Garter on the Black
Prince. Despite the intense collaboration between Albert, the artist, and
various ministers, a shift in attitudes had taken place by the 1860s, with the
Black Prince’s reputation in decline due to concerns regarding “the dark side
of chivalry” (68). At the end, while it is refreshing to learn more about
Albert’s keen interest in the arts and in history, a more extensive treatment
of Victoria’s own views would have also been appreciated here.
In
the second movement of the book, Gribling shifts gears to consider more popular
usages of the Black Prince’s image, especially during the late Victorian
period. The chapter “Politics, Parliament and the People’s Prince” examines
depictions of the Black Prince in popular histories and considers how Victorian
historians were interested in recontextualizing the events of the Good
Parliament. In critiquing “Chivalry and Character” in Chapter 5, Gribling
utilizes a wide array of sources, including paintings, histories, games, and educational
materials, while Chapter 6 (“Warrior for Nation and Empire”) focuses on plays,
handbills, and needlework. Although Gribling succeeds in pointing out that the
Black Prince’s image, and that of chivalry in general, evolved over the course
of the Victorian period, especially among non-royal audiences, a further close
reading of some of the wonderful archival materials would be welcomed—some feel
only lightly attended to, which is a shame given the true variety Gribling has
gathered in this slim volume.
Overall,
this volume proves to be a welcome resource for scholars of literature and
history, especially those interested in the long eighteenth and the long
nineteenth centuries. By concentrating on representations of the Black Prince
in drama, art, and material culture. Gribling’s work develops a further
understanding of what medievalism and national identity meant to royal and
popular audiences alike in the long nineteenth century (and beyond). In the end, The Image of the Black Prince draws new attention to the
complicated views the Georgians and the Victorians had of the medieval period
and the ways it could be used to depict and critique power, chivalry, and
conduct.
Rebekah
Greene
