The Venerable English College and the Dowry of Mary

England has long been known as the ‘Dowry of Mary’, a land especially connected with the Blessed Virgin and set apart for her.

On 29 March 2020, England will be rededicated to Mary as her Dowry: since the coronavirus crisis has necessitated the cancelling of any public celebrations, this will be done privately up and down the country. Although it is a very ‘English’ tradition, one of its earliest manifestations was in a painting, now lost, that was kept for centuries at the Venerable English College in Rome.   

The precise origins of the title of the Dowry of Mary are obscure. The first written reference dates from the mid-fourteenth century. Medieval wall-paintings uncovered in the Palace of Westminster at the turn of nineteenth century and then destroyed in the fire of 1834 showed Edward III (1312–1377) and Philippa of Hainault (1313–1369) offering England to Our Lady: this was possibly a reference to an early act of dedication and an association with the Westminster shrine of Our Lady of the Pew.

Edward III’s grandson, Richard II (1367–1400), dedicated England to Our Lady during a ceremony held at Westminster Abbey around Corpus Christi 1381. Mary was seen as a powerful protectress who had protected king and country during the Peasants’ Revolt that year.

The Wilton Diptych, dating from circa 1395 and now kept in London’s National Gallery, shows Richard II kneeling before the Virgin and Child, supported by St Edward the Confessor, St Edmund of East Anglia (otherwise known as St Edmund, king and martyr) and St John the Baptist. An angel carries the flag of St George, above which is an orb in which the map of England can just be seen. An inscription reads:

Dos tua Virgo pia haec est

‘This is thy dowry, O Holy Virgin’.

Richard II presented to the Virgin and Child by his Patron Saint John the Baptist and Saints Edward and Edmund

('The Wilton Diptych')

English or French(?), circa 1395–99, 53 x 37 cm, reproduced by permission of the National Gallery, London

A similar painting once existed at the English Hospice of St Thomas of Canterbury in Rome, later to become the English College. The pentaptych, measuring approximately 150 x 90cm, was kept on the altar of St Edmund and comprised five panels. Fortunately, several descriptions of the painting survive, including an anti–Catholic tract from the reign of James I kept in the British Library (MS Harley 360) and a brief account by Silvestro da Pietrasanta, SJ (1590–1647) in his Tesserae Gentilitiae (Rome, 1638).

There are some inconsistencies between the various descriptions, but it is possible to gain some idea of the painting’s subject.

In the middle was Our Lady; on her left knelt Richard II, wearing a crown and handing over ‘the globe or pattern of England’ with the words:

Dos tua Virgo pia Haec est, quare rege, Maria

‘Thy Dowry this, O Virgin Sweet, Keep it and rule it, as is meet.’

The royal sceptre lay on a cushion, and behind the king was an armoured St George, leaning forward and laying his right hand upon his back. His consort, Anne of Bohemia (1366–1394), was also shown kneeling, wearing a cope of cloth of gold, ornamented with eagles, while other saints appeared on the panels.

There is some confusion over exactly which saints were included, and additional evidence may be provided by an Inventory of the Hospice from 1502, kept in the College Archives, which lists ‘a old tabyll with the ymage of Our Lady: Saynt John; Saynt George; Saynt Katryn [Katherine] and Saynt Thomas.’

It is possible that the king and queen were omitted from this description either because they were unidentified or else considered too secular: it is therefore possible that the description of 1502 refers to the same painting.   

The pentaptych undoubtedly inspired a painting that Robert Persons, SJ (1546–1610), twice Rector of the Venerabile (1588–1589, 1598–1610), commissioned around 1593 for the new English College of St Gregory the Great in Seville, which he founded in 1592. This showed the Blessed Virgin protecting kneeling English seminarians with her mantle. An inscription reads Anglia Dos Mariae (‘England is Mary’s Dowry’). This painting is now in the city’s Real Academia de Medicina.

The Virgen de los Ingleses commissioned for the English College, Seville, circa 1593

Real Academia de Medicina, Seville

Sadly, the Roman painting disappeared during the French occupation of Rome from 1798. Many treasures left the Venerabile during this turbulent time. Then newly commissioned portraits of two of the College’s Cardinals Protector, Filippo Campanelli (1739–1795, Protector 1795) and Romualdo Braschi (1753–1817, Protector 1795–1817), vanished at that time. The paintings of the forty–four martyrs of the College, located on the Forty-Four Corridor of the College, were another casualty, though there is evidence that they were still present in Rome in the mid-nineteenth century.

All of this leads to a fascinating question: does the valuable pentaptych, demonstrating the strength of Marian devotion in pre–Reformation England, today lie hidden somewhere, unidentified and awaiting rediscovery?