A Picture That Paints a Thousand Words

"The stained-glass window, ... is resplendent with symbolic connections between Southwell and the age in which he lived .... Crucially, it connects Southwell to Shakespeare."

From The Imaginative Conservative

By Joseph Pearce

The beauty of art comes in many forms, shapes and sizes. It is rendered in metal, stone, sound, movement, oils, watercolours and words. It ranges in scale from the majestic splendour of the great cathedrals to the diminutive glory of the finest crafted jewellery, from the grandeur of the greatest epic poems to the sonorous simplicity of the sonnet. It is also rendered in coloured glass, in what the poet Siegfried Sassoon described as “jewelled windows into which your mind might melt”. It is on one such jewelled window that I would like to focus, seeking to pay homage to its magnificence.

The stained-glass window, which depicts the life and significance of the English martyr, St. Robert Southwell, was a gift to me from its creator, Abigael Quain. It is resplendent with symbolic connections between Southwell and the age in which he lived and the legacy he has bequeathed. Crucially it connects Southwell to Shakespeare.

This is not the place to discuss the biographical and intertextual evidence for the influence that Southwell had on Shakespeare but it is evident from the design of the St. Robert Southwell window that Miss Quain is well-read and well-versed on the subject.

We’ll come to the Shakespeare connection presently but let’s begin by looking at the central panel, the centrepiece of the window, which shows the saint holding the Christ Child. Upon closer inspection we see that the Child is aflame, a reference to Southwell’s popular Christmas poem, “The Burning Babe”. The iconographic representation of the saint with the Christ Child is highly appropriate considering that he wrote several other devotional poems to the Baby Jesus, including “New Heaven, New War”, “New Prince, New Pomp” and “A Child My Choice”. Significantly, however, the scaffold on which the saint would hang is the backdrop to the central panel, connecting Christmas to the Cross. The inscription to the left is “God’s spice” and that on the left is “God’s spies”. The former is the plucking of two words from Southwell’s poem “Decease Release” in which Mary Stuart, Queen of Scots, is described as being crushed in her martyrdom but that her sacrifice rises to heaven like incense; she is “God’s spice”. Shakespeare makes a clear punning allusion to these words from Southwell’s poem when King Lear says to his soon to be martyred daughter Cordelia, that they will be “God’s spies” from their prison cell. The allusion makes sense when we understand that Jesuit missionaries to England, such as Southwell, were hunted mercilessly by Queen Elizabeth’s priest-hunters, necessitating their traveling incognito and with aliases. They were “God’s spies” while they were at liberty and became “God’s spice” when caught and crushed by torture and then executed as “traitors”.

The panels to the left and right represent Southwell as a poet. On the left, he is seen writing at a desk. The inscription above reads “Man’s mind a mirror is”, which is plucked from a line from one of his poems; to the right are images of beauty and pain that seem to recur in Southwell’s poetry, the sources of his inspiration.

At bottom left is a depiction of St. Thomas More being confronted by an accuser. This is a reference to one of St. Robert Southwell’s ancestors who was among those who conducted the prosecution of More at the behest of Henry VIII. The medallion on More’s right shows Christ the King, a poignant reminder of the hierarchy of kingship on earth, which must always be subordinated to the heavenly kingship. The placing of the medallion brings to mind More’s famous words that he would die the king’s good servant, but God’s first. At the top of this panel are the words “upon such sacrifices” which connects the panel at the bottom left to the one on the bottom right, which has the continuation of the line from King Lear: “the gods themselves throw incense”.

 “Upon such sacrifices, my Cordelia, the gods themselves throw incense.” These lines are spoken by Lear to his daughter as they are being taken to prison immediately after his reference to their being “God’s spies”. The image at the bottom left shows Southwell in his own prison cell after his arrest, or possibly hiding in a priest hole to escape from the priest hunters prior to his arrest.

The panels at the top of the window depict writers whom Southwell inspired, a fitting tribute to the Jesuit poet’s importance and enduring influence. Nowhere has this influence been documented and discussed better than in Gary M. Bouchard’s important book, Southwell’s Sphere: The Influence of England’s Secret Poet. Apart from Shakespeare, Bouchard shows Southwell’s influence on William Alabaster, Michael Drayton, Edmund Spenser, George Herbert, John Donne, Richard Crashaw and Gerard Manley Hopkins. One can only assume that Abigael Quain is familiar with Bouchard’s scholarship because those whom she depicts in the top panels include, on the left, Drayton, Spenser, Herbert and Crashaw, along with a mystery poet whom I’m unable to identify; and, on the right, William Shakespeare, John Donne, Richard Crashaw and two writers who fall within Southwell’s sphere of influence but not among those whom Bouchard discusses in Southwell’s Sphere. The first of these is Fr. Abram Ryan, who is known as the Poet-Priest of the South and the Poet Laureate of the Confederacy, whose poetry is not as well known as it should be; the other is a certain Joseph Pearce whose poetry, such as it is, is as well known as it should be.

My own presence amongst the assembled illustrissimi of English letters is hardly warranted, except for the fact that I can at least confess to being part of Southwell’s sphere, as one who continues to find inspiration in the holy martyr’s life and work. Finding myself in such company is akin to finding one of my books on a shelf, nestled snugly and alphabetically between volumes by Flannery O’Connor and Walker Percy. The words that come to mind are those which Southwell would have uttered every time he offered the holy sacrifice of the Mass in secret, and in peril, in Elizabethan England: Domine, non sum dignus (Lord, I am not worthy).

Changing the subject to save my blushes, let’s conclude with the symbolic significance of the backdrop of roses that serves as the field in which all the panels are placed. The intertwining blossoms are somewhat demure, fading into near invisibility in the green background between the panels. At the very top, however, is the bottom half of a resplendent red rose, blooming and blossoming into bloody light. This is the ultimate message, the ultimate moral of the whole glorious work. The blood of the martyrs is the seed of the Church!

The top half of the rose is outside the frame, beyond the physical vision. Yet it remains visible metaphysically in the way in which St. Robert Southwell and the other Metaphysical Poets show us heavenly truth through the splendour of metaphor. It is as though the visible part of the rose, blood-red, is the setting of the sun on the martyr’s temporal and temporary life. The invisible part of the rose is golden and glorious as it rises like the sun on the saint’s eternal and everlasting life. In this way, Abigael Quain’s stained glass picture does much more than merely paint a thousand words. It points to heaven.

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Abigael Quain established her family’s art collective, The Lady and the Tree, in 2024. Her work adorns churches, chapels and homes across America.