ford madox brown - eTheses Repository - University of Birmingham

Normandy.' 47 Therefore, a more plausible reading would also centre on Brown's
depiction of the end of Anglo-Saxon rule and William's claiming of the throne but
rather than allying this to radical political views it would seem more likely that Brown
wished to highlight the Anglo-Saxon ancestry of the current monarch, Queen Victoria
and her husband. The connection between Victoria and the Anglo-Saxons was widely
celebrated, even by the Queen herself who commissioned William Theed's sculpture
of the royal couple dressed as Anglo-Saxons in 1868 (Fig. 72). 48 Brown's
competition entry was one of many wishing to construct this image of Victoria's reign.
In the 1843 Westminster competition there were a large number of cartoons depicting
Anglo-Saxon subjects, and Harold in particular. This popularity was repeated in the
1844 fresco and sculpture competitions. In 1843 number 106 was entitled Edith
finding the Body of Harold after the Battle of Hastings and 107 was The Burying of
Harold accompanied by a quotation from Keightley's Elementary History of England
which like Brown's choice of quotations underlined William's ruthless character. 49 In
the 1844 competition the focus was largely on the discovery of Harold's body and in
the corresponding sculpture competition Thomas Milnes submitted The Death of
Harold, at the Battle of Hastings. 50 In fact Harold's death was such a popular subject
among competitors that in 1847, after F. R. Pickersgill had won a prize for his Burial
of Harold, Punch was moved to write 'I congratulate the public that King Harold is
47 Sir Walter Scott, Ivanhoe, first published 1819, reprinted London, 1994, p. 8.
48 'Queen Victoria recorded in her journal that the idea for the group came from her eldest daughter
Victoria, Princess Royal, at this date Crown Princess of Prussia. … Theed’s group sits on a pedestal
made from a substantial ancient fragment of African marble found in Rome. To it is applied the
inscription: "Allured to brighter worlds and led the way," from Goldsmith’s The Deserted Village'
(Jonathan Marsden, Deputy Surveyor of The Queen's Works of Art, The Royal Collection, in
correspondence to the present author, 21.5.2008). The statue is now kept in the Royal Mausoleum at
Frogmore, Windsor.
49 "When Harold's mother applied to William the Conqueror for the body of her son, and offered its
weight in gold, he refused it, and caused it to be buried on the sea-shore, saying, He guarded the coast
while he lived, let him do so now that he is dead" (cited op. cit. at note 32, p. 105).
50 Nos. 19 and 32 (ibid., pp. 119 and 121) are both The Discovering of the Body of Harold. Milnes
entry was no. 159 in the 1844 sculpture competition (ibid.,p. 133).
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