A Tapestry of England’s Past
Sarah Gristwood on the complex issues raised by the restoration of a remarkable Tudor vision of victory over the Spanish Armada.
The recreation of the Armada Tapestries, now on display in the House of Lords, could hardly be more timely, in a number of different ways. The original series of 10 tapestries was commissioned in the 1590s by Howard of Effingham, Lord High Admiral at the time of the Armada victory. It quickly became popular as an emblem of national identity. In 1798, when it was feared that Napoleon might cross the Channel, James Gillray was invited to produce a series of prints that ‘might rouse all the People’. One showed the tapestries being slashed and torched by a gleeful horde of marauding French. The tapestries were invoked whenever England felt herself up against the wall, as indeed she does today.
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