symbolism Archives - The History JarThe History Jar

In 1507 John Sackville married Margaret Boleyn of Blicking Hall. Their son Richard did rather well from the dissolution of the monasteries having a role in the Court of Augmentations. And since Margaret was Anne Boleyn’s aunt, it is perhaps not surprising that Elizabeth I, who valued her Boleyn kin, should give preferment to family after she ascended to the throne. Richard’s son, Thomas, was something of a favourite with Elizabeth and it was she who promoted the family to the peerage and granted them Knole. It was at about the same time that the Sackvilles, who’d arrived in England with the Conqueror, began to use a coat of arms supported by two snow leopards or ounces.

In 1604, Thomas was created Earl of Dorset but it was the reign of George I, in 1720, before the family attained its dukedom. The new earl rebuilt Knole, making sure to place his heraldic emblem in prominent positions in stone, wood and glass. His descendant, the duke, who added to the building, did the same. The screen in the Great Hall was carved by William Portington, Elizabeth I’s carpenter, Unsurprisingly it is topped by the Sackville coat of arms and, of course, the snow leopards.

The Sackvilles were using their heraldry to demonstrate their status – they were after all descended from someone who arrived with William the Conqueror – but the leopard has a hint of royalty about it…. and who doesn’t want to hint at that, especially if they’re building what was once described as the largest private residence in the country. Buildings associated with the family will often have an ounce on display somewhere, the almshouses in East Grinstead for example, as a code to remind people of its association with the Sackvilles.

One of the things I really enjoyed about last year was finding out more about the flowers on the #unstitched coif and, in the process, learning a bit more about the woman who intended to sew it. I also enjoyed the topic I covered during lockdown on the history of plants – et voila – another new ‘spot’ for the blog – reading the past – I’m no good with the emoticons and emoji’s of modern technology. This is much more my thing.

The image of a carved passionflower, or passiflora, is taken from a Victorian headstone in a local churchyard and just happens to be the firth thing I found when I started scrolling through my photos.

Welcome to the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. It’s the age of exploration and some Jesuits are wandering around modern Paraguay and Peru. The conquistador, Pedro Cieza de Leon mentions the plant in writing for the first time in 1553 in the context of its fruit. The Christian symbolism associated with the five wounds of Christ that could be identified within the flower was described soon after: 10 petals for the number of disciples who were still loyal at the time of the crucifixion; filaments representing the crown of throne; five anthers for the wounds of Christ; the stamen looking a bit like the hammer that drove the nails; even the tendrils were described as being like the whips with which Christ was beaten. And bingo! A valuable teaching aid and a flowery justification for invading and Christianising the Americas. The plant was there, so obviously God wanted a bunch of conquistadors terrorising the locals in his or her name.

The story spread and in 1609, Giacomo Bosia, one of the knights of Malta, included the passionflower in a book about legends and miracles associated with the cross. Three years later passionflowers were being cultivated in Paris and England. It was originally called the Virginian Climber in Britain as no one wanted to mention the Catholic connection. However, after Charles I had his head removed in 1649, the late monarch was sometimes described by his supporters as ‘the passionflower’ because they believed he had been martyred. The Tradescants who were royal gardeners and plant collectors made it very popular -for a price- after the Restoration.

By the Victorian period it was a popular adornment for gravestones representing as it did Christ’s crucifixion, redemption and mankind’s salvation. The jesuit element of the equation and even Charles I had been discarded, or never even had the chance to get going. To be honest I don’t recall seeing it on Stuart or later embroideries, no point looking at the Elizabethans – and of course the expansion of trade changed English attitudes to embroidery and ornament as indeed did the Commonwealth. England had a rich embroidered tradition prior to the English Civil War. By 1661 the royalists who’d spent their exiles in the Low Countries and France thought that European art was much more sophisticated than anything home grown. And, by the eighteenth century beautiful fabrics were arriving from China and the Indias – no more sitting around embroidering your bed curtains and night hats!

I think I’ve seen a passionflower on an alta-frontal but that was Victorian as well. In fact, I’m not sure I’ve ever seen a seventeenth century version in embroidered form. Stumpwork and crewel work were popular during that century. Please let me know if you spot any old needlework productions of the passionflower on your travels! A photograph (assuming its permitted would be even nicer).

Bleichmar, Daniela, Visual Voyages: Images of Latin American Nature from Columbus to Darwin (Yale: Yale University Press, 2017) pp.82-89