Maximilian and Trithemius

Just for the sake of context, the center panel of the Hieronymus Bosch triptych of Saint Anthony in Lisbon appears to come from the general direction of the Holy Roman Emperor Maximilian, a Yorkist, and the idea of demons conveying messages is likely based on the work of the abbot Johannes Trithemius who advised Maximilian on demonology and also devised secret codes. This is not without interest in terms of art history since a comparison to Trithemius’s Steganographia and Polygraphia helps to clarify that for instance the Nahuatl chronology in El Jardin de las Delicias can be seen as an example of a message that can be decoded by putting its elements in chronological order by means of an obscure system, in this case a language that was unknown to most observers. A less obscure example is the series of illustrations described by Laurinda Dixon of an alchemical process for making gold in a laboratory. Charles V had no more need for alchemists than Saint Anthony had for demons volunteering to send messages since he had access to gold from New Spain, and the alchemical stages are certainly partly allegory (with for example the Sack of Rome representing putrefactio), but also a cover text to illustrate Trithemius’s steganography, that is the use of codes that make messages appear to be plain text concerning some unlikely subject.

The pois’nous bunch-back’d toad

 

Any information conveyed by the demons behind Saint Anthony, who is shown ignoring the lot of them, has to be regarded as unreliable. (I have added some labels to the detail shown here to show who appears to be claiming to be who.) Nonetheless they may have something to contribute to debates around Richard III. If nothing else, Hieronymus Bosch’s painting suggests that Shakespeare’s Margaret of Anjou was repeating a cliché when she slowed down a little after a long string of insults, just enough to allow Richard the Duke of Gloucester to get a word in sideways:

QUEEN MARGARET. And leave out thee? Stay, dog, for thou

    shalt hear me.

    If heaven have any grievous plague in store

    Exceeding those that I can wish upon thee,

    O, let them keep it till thy sins be ripe,

    And then hurl down their indignation

    On thee, the troubler of the poor world's peace!

    The worm of conscience still be-gnaw thy soul!

    Thy friends suspect for traitors while thou liv'st,

    And take deep traitors for thy dearest friends!

    No sleep close up that deadly eye of thine,

    Unless it be while some tormenting dream

    Affrights thee with a hell of ugly devils!

    Thou elvish-mark'd, abortive, rooting hog,

    Thou that wast seal'd in thy nativity

    The slave of nature and the son of hell,

    Thou slander of thy heavy mother's womb,

    Thou loathed issue of thy father's loins,

    Thou rag of honour, thou detested-

  GLOUCESTER. Margaret!

  QUEEN MARGARET. Richard!

  GLOUCESTER. Ha?

  QUEEN MARGARET. I call thee not.

  GLOUCESTER. I cry thee mercy then, for I did think

    That thou hadst call'd me all these bitter names.

  QUEEN MARGARET. Why, so I did, but look'd for no reply.

    O, let me make the period to my curse!

  GLOUCESTER. 'Tis done by me, and ends in-Margaret.

  QUEEN ELIZABETH. Thus have you breath'd your curse

    against yourself.

  QUEEN MARGARET. Poor painted queen, vain flourish of my

    fortune!

    Why strew'st thou sugar on that bottled spider

    Whose deadly web ensnareth thee about?

    Fool, fool! thou whet'st a knife to kill thyself.

    The day will come that thou shalt wish for me

    To help thee curse this poisonous bunch-back'd toad.

  HASTINGS. False-boding woman, end thy frantic curse,

    Lest to thy harm thou move our patience.

  QUEEN MARGARET. Foul shame upon you! you have all

    mov'd mine.

  RIVERS. Were you well serv'd, you would be taught your

      duty.

  QUEEN MARGARET. To serve me well you all should do me

    duty,

    Teach me to be your queen and you my subjects.

    O, serve me well, and teach yourselves that duty!

  DORSET. Dispute not with her; she is lunatic.

  QUEEN MARGARET. Peace, Master Marquis, you are malapert;

    Your fire-new stamp of honour is scarce current.

According to Thomas More, as of June 13, 1483 his left arm had been injured by sorcery that he blamed on Elizabeth, Jane Shore, and unnamed accomplices:

…And all the other affirmed the same. That is (quoth he) yonder sorceress my brother’s wife and other with her, meaning the queen. At these words many of the other Lords were greatly abashed that favoured her. But the lord Hastings was in his mind better content, that it was moved by her, than by any other whom he loved better. Albeit his heart somewhat grudged, that he was not afore made of counsel in this matter, as he was of the taking of her kindred, and of their putting to death, which were by his assent before devised to be beheaded at Pomfret this self same day, in which he was not ware that it was by other devised, that himself should the same day be beheaded at London. Then said the protector; ye shall all see in what wise that sorceress and that other witch of her counsel, Shore’s wife, with their affinity, have by their sorcery and witchcraft wasted my body. And therewith he plucked up his doublet sleeve to his elbow upon his left arm, where he showed a werish arm and small, as it was never other. And thereupon every man’s mind sore misgave them, well perceiving that this matter was but a quarrel. For well they wist, that the queen was too wise to go about any such folly. And also, if she would, yet would she of all folk least make Shore’s wife of counsel, whom of all women she most hated, as that concubine whom the king her husband had most loved. And also no man was there present, but well knew that his harm was ever such since his birth. Natheless the lord Chamberlain answered and said: certainly, my lord, if they have so heinously done, they be worthy heinous punishment. What, quoth the protector, thou servest me, I ween, with ifs and with ans, I tell thee they have so done, and that I will make good on thy body, traitor. And therewith, as in a great anger, he clapped his fist upon the board a great rap. At which token given, one cried treason without the chamber. Therewith a door clapped, and in come there rushing men in harness as many as the chamber might hold. And anon the protector said to the Lord Hastings: I arrest thee, traitor.…

Hieronymus Bosch’s picture of Richard III suggests a recent injury, as though the king formerly could play a lute and now can barely carry it under his arm, and paralysis rather than withering. It is actually consistent with the Society of Antiquaries portrait, which might represent a paralyzed right hand; that is, unless the artist deliberately reversed the National Portrait Gallery version to suggest the king was left-handed, although if he had been left-handed there would likely be some verbal indication somewhere. 

 

If it was a paralysis caused by sorcery, it might have resolved before the Battle of Bosworth two years later, and also might not have left any physical evidence, assuming that anxiety about sorcery could produce a real paralysis but could not deform a person’s bones.

                        The painting suggests that “toad” was a little ambiguous, since toads are sometimes hunchbacked, sometimes associated with witchcraft, and also sometimes poisonous, unless someone put a spell on a poisonous toad, which would have covered all the bases.

                        It also illustrates that Richard III was not a hunchback as the word is mostly understood, and interestingly goes on to represent an actual hunchback as someone who can work as a musician. The real hunchback is quick to help the temporarily afflicted king when he sees the lute about to fall to the pavement.

                        The identification of the dog Lovell is less certain given the absence of the cat and the rat.