King Charles I praying. Engraving by W. Marshall, 1649.

Known as : Eikōn basilikē

Centre, King Charles I kneeling on his left knee before an altar, left, looking upwards to right. On the altar is an open book lettered "In verbo tuo spes mea" (in your word is my hope) and with a sheet of paper lettered "Christi tracto" (supposed to mean "In the path of Christ"). With his left eye he looks up along a ray of light lettered "Caeli specto" (supposed to mean "I look to heaven") at a celestial crown adorned with stars (lettered "Beatam et aeternam: gloria", blessed and eternal: glory); with his right hand he holds a crown of thorns lettered in banderolles "Gratia" (grace) and "Asperam at levem" (rough but light), which is contrasted with the regal crown at his feet lettered with banderolle "Splendidam at gravem" and "Vanitas" (splendid but heavy"; vanity). With his left foot he tramples on a globe lettered "Mundi calco" (supposed to mean "I trample on the world")

On the left, dark clouds in a a stormy sky, from which a ray of sunlight extends to the back of King Charles's head lettered "Clarior e tenebris" (shining more brightly from the darkness). In the sea to left, a rock lettered "Immota triumphans" (unmoved, triumphant). On land in the left foreground, two palm trees grow hung with weights, lettered in a banderolle "Crescit sub pondere virtus" (virtue grows under the pressure of weight)

[London] : [William (Gulielmus) Dugard], [1649?]

1 print : engraving ; image 14.8 x 16.5 cm, platemark approximately 27.5 x 17 cm

Guil. Marshall delinea; et sculpsit. The explanation of the embleme. Ponderibus genus omne ... virtutis gloria merces. Though clogg'd with weights ... reward of grace. G.D.

[Hind's plate D].

Frontispiece to: Eikōn basilikē, the pourtraicture of His Sacred Majestie in his solitudes and sufferings, ca. 1649

"G.D." is identified as William (Gulielmus) Dugard, schoolteacher and printer of the Eikōn basilikē: "Dugard, another printer [of Eikōn basilikē] was ordered by the Parliament to be arrested on 16 March 1649; when released he reprinted his edition" (Hind, op. cit. p. 151)

Freeman O'Donoghue, Catalogue of engraved British portraits preserved in the Department of Prints and Drawings in the British Museum, London 1910, p. 393 no. 205

A.M Hind, Engraving in England in the sixteenth & seventeenth centuries, part III (by M. Corbett and M. Norton), Cambridge 1964, pp. 148-151, no. 154

Wellcome Collection 2033554i