Richard II’s broomcod collar in the Wilton Diptych: a new identification of the flowers

Shorter Notices

Richard II’s broomcod collar in the Wilton Diptych: a new identification of the flowers and their significance

by DILLIAN GORDON

heraldic symbolism plays a crucial role in the Wilton Diptych (Fig.3), which was almost certainly commissioned for his own use by Richard II of England (reg.1377–99).1 Richard’s personal emblem of a white hart is painted on the exterior (Fig.4), while on the interior he is shown wearing a brooch with a white hart; the angels opposite wear simpler brooches. Richard’s houppelande overgown is patterned with white harts lying among branches of rosemary encircled by broomcods; around his neck he wears a collar formed of pairs of broomcods, linked by four large white dots interspersed with four tiny white dots around a black centre (Fig.2). The collar is fastened with a square brooch decorated with pearls

and with a blue stone at the centre from which hang two broomcods; the angels wear simpler broomcod collars. The broomcod was the livery of the kings of France,2 and as early as 1931 Maude Clarke recognised that Richard’s use of the broomcod indicates that the diptych could not have been painted before 1395, when the negotiations began for Richard to marry Isabelle, eldest surviving daughter of Charles VI of France.3

The Wilton Diptych is dense with symbolism, so that even the pattern on St Edmund’s robe contains Richard’s emblem of the sun clouded, and the knop at the top of the banner/pennon contains a symbol of England as the dowry of the Virgin.4 It is therefore unlikely

that such an important part of the collar as the links between the broomcods are not also symbolic. They almost certainly represent flowers that have never been identified. This article looks at documents that throw a new light on the flowers and their implications for confirming the date of the diptych.

It was common in the Middle Ages for husbands to adopt the heraldic symbols of their wives and Richard evidently adopted the emblems of his first wife, Anne of Bohemia (d.1394). On the exterior of the diptych the white hart lies among branches of fern and rosemary.5 Fern was one of Anne’s emblems, as was rosemary, which was also adopted by Richard.6 Rosemary features on his houppelande in the diptych, and in 1399 rosemary is documented as being combined with the white hart on a sword belt and sheath, which was to be suspended under the King’s helm in St George’s Chapel, Windsor. Made of red velvet, it was embroidered in Cyprus gold and silk with white harts crowned and with sprigs of rosemary.7 Richard’s followers were dressed in the livery of the dead Queen on Friday 27th October 1396 during the first day of the ceremonies at Ardres when Charles VI gave the

1. Detail of Fig.3, showing Richard II.

2. Detail of Fig.3, showing the flowers linking the broomcods in Richard II’s collar, here identified as pimpernels.