ford madox brown - eTheses Repository - University of Birmingham

BMAG collection by a sheet of early compositional studies (cat. no. 151). 32 Despite
living in France at the time, for his first entry in the competition Brown chose a
moment from one of the most popular time periods in England: the Anglo-Saxon era.
The nineteenth-century historian John Lingard revealed the appeal of the Anglo-
Saxons for his contemporaries. For them it was ‘the most interesting [period]…
because it was the cradle of many customs and institutions which exist among us even
at the present day.’ 33 In particular the Witengamot, the Anglo-Saxon body of
advisors assembled to advise on the administration and organization of the kingdom,
was seen as the precursor of Parliament. 34 The roots of the modern monarchically
ruled but elected government of Britain were seen to stem from Anglo-Saxon
England, an issue which had been of great importance during the period of the Reform
Acts (1832 and 1867). 35 The appeal of the Anglo-Saxons continued with Victoria's
ascendancy to the throne and her marriage to the German Prince Albert. 36 The
Anglo-Saxons were celebrated as ‘a freedom-loving, democratic and heroic people,’
whose ‘liberty gave way to Norman tyranny and bondage’ at the Battle of Hastings. 37
As can be seen from the sheet of drawings this is the interpretation that Brown follows
32 Brown's entries in the 1844 competition depicting the body of Harold were no. 7 (cartoon), no. 8
(coloured sketch for no. 7 using encaustic paint) (Frederick Knight Hunt, The Book of Art: Cartoons,
Frescoes, Sculpture, and decorative Art, as applied to the new Houses of Parliament and to Buildings
in general, London, 1846, p. 121). His other entry that year was a cartoon depicting Adam and Eve
(no. 84). It was not titled but accompanied by a quotation from Milton's Paradise Lost: '"And they
heard the voice of the Lord God walking in the Garden in the cool of the day (marginal reading "in the
wind") [sic]' (ibid., p. 132). Brown may have chosen this subject from Milton having seen many
versions of the same episode whilst living in Paris. It was a regular subject in the Salon, further
highlighting the enthusiasm for English literature among artists working in France (see Pierre Sanchez
and Xavier Seydoux, Les Catalogues des Salons, vols. 3 and 4, Paris, 2000).
33 John Lingard, The History of England, Edinburgh, 1818, vol. 1, p. 76.
34 The Pictorial History of England states that 'there can be little doubt that the Saxon Witenagemot
was the root from which has sprung our modern English Parliament' but explained that it was not until
the Anglo-Saxon period that separate vassal kingdoms came together to form a single Witenagemot
(vol.1, London, 1837, pp. 250-252).
35 Op. cit. at note 1, p. 116.
36 Queen Victoria was descended from the Hanoverian line of monarchs. Her father was Edward
Augustus Hanover, Duke of Kent. Prince Albert was the younger son of the Duke of Saxe-Coburg-
Gotha.
37 Op. cit. at note 1, p. 116 and p. 45.
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