"Chapter 2 “And I heard a voice from heaven”262: The Contemporary Nexus of Political Prophecy and Religious Propaganda (S. 105-106)


2. Myth and Marriage

A blend of intellectual arcana and popular beliefs provided the backdrop for the Stuart-Palatine wedding. Several layers of meaning made it possible to understand the manifold messages contextually. Considering the courtly attempt to represent the amorous and political union most fashionably, it is reasonable to hypothesise that the actual historical event was transmuted into a literary/mythical topos.

The re-creation and interpretation of the Palatine Marriage as a series of politically charged mythical episodes was facilitated by an existing prophetic superstructure. It behoves us to examine these facts carefully because as an early modern dynastic marriage, matrimony seems to have depended heavily on political prophecy. However close, marriages, whether of convenience or of love, had always centred around a prominent feature: it was hoped the bond would last for ever. Given this tiny glimpse of eternity, a wedding could be imagined to be a ‘prophetic’ event – so prophetic that there was reason to believe that the marrying couple would enter a stage of never ending, unalloyed bliss.

Conventional hopes and wishes merged into a solemn fabric of an illusionary but ostensibly predictable future. Unlike ordinary marriages, in which merrymaking and well-wishing were inextricably linked, but usually within the realms of possibility, dynastic marriages reached beyond the scope of the explicable.263 In this respect, the Stuart- Palatine union should be of particular concern to us, for it tends toward an extreme somewhere between polemic prophecy and undeterred exuberance. Regardless of the religious significance of matrimony in general,264 dynastic bonds had a wider perspective as they brought together kingdoms and countries.

In the case of the Palatine Marriage, the apocalyptic conjectures fanned the heat of the event. It is no accident that a generation petrified with premonition and scepticism projected all their aspirations onto a couple that could be envisioned to ascend to the British throne as king and queen. Poetry and prose written on the occasion have to be interpreted within a context full of raging polarities, of Judgement Day madness and apocalyptic optimism, of increasing bigotry and reconciliatory tendencies, of sheer enthusiasm and complete indifference.

Altogether, the literature in question provided an outlook on a happy, promising and prosperous future. The stage was set for political prophecy. The state of feverish excitement is hard to describe. Arthur Wilson’s chapter on the Stuart-Palatine marriage allows us to catch a glimpse of the atmospheric frenzy, ill-omened premonition and scares which dominated the period of time shortly before the marriage took place. For example, it was feared that Spanish spies would disturb the festivities:"