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.
This article is available to History Today online subscribers only. If you are a subscriber, please log in.
Please choose one of these options to access this article:
- Purchase a trial subscription and receive unlimited access to our archive for one week
- Purchase an online archive subscription and receive full access to all content published by History Today since 1980.
- Purchase a print and digital subscription, giving you one year's access to all our content and 12 editions of History Today magazine.
Contact our Subscriptions department on +44 (0)20 3219 7813 for more information.
If you are logged in but still cannot access the article, please contact us
- Home
- Location
- Period
- Themes
- Magazine
- Subscribe
- Archive
- eBooks
- Students
- Blog
- Contact
Related articles
This Month's Magazine
February 2012
Full contents
Buy this issue
Print subscription
Online access
Give as a gift
Newsletter
From The Current Issue
Graham E. Seel
|
David Cannadine
|
Robin Whitlock
|
From The Archive
The Falkland Islands were at the centre of dispute in 1770 – but was the conflict really over those far-away islands, or was it the political future of the French Secretary of State, Choiseul, that was at stake? |
Available To Subscribers
Follow Us
The History Today Blog
Posted 18 hours 16 min ago
|
Posted 20 hours 20 min ago
|
Posted 20 hours 50 min ago
|