Social identity was bound up with religious identity during a period when divisions between Roman Catholicism and Protestantism were causing conflict across Europe. From the mid-sixteenth-century, English popular culture became increasingly hostile to the Catholic Church. This is an example of pro-Protestant propaganda produced early in the 1620s. It dates from a wave of anti-Catholic feeling responding to the proposed marriage of Prince Charles and a Spanish princess. It depicts two (failed) attempts to overthrow the English monarchy and impose Roman Catholicism on its people – the Spanish Armada (1588) on the left of the print and the Gunpowder Plot (1605) on the right. It combines these two events as evidence that God was on the side of the Protestant English.<br /> <br /> The print speaks to a strong sense of religious and national identity that had emerged by the 1620s. Buying this print would show awareness of national politics and objection to the so-called ‘Spanish match’ and act as a conversation piece within groups of like-minded peers. The designer of the print was Ipswich preacher Samuel Ward, who also had some of his sermons published around this time. This engraving was published in Amsterdam, indicating the wider religious and cultural networks of the middling.
Double Deliverance (Illustrated print engraving), 1621

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Double Deliverance

Double Deliverance (Illustrated print engraving), 1621

Social identity was bound up with religious identity during a period when divisions between Roman Catholicism and Protestantism were causing conflict across Europe. From the mid-sixteenth-century, English popular culture became increasingly hostile to the Catholic Church. This is an example of pro-Protestant propaganda produced early in the 1620s. It dates from a wave of anti-Catholic feeling responding to the proposed marriage of Prince Charles and a Spanish princess. It depicts two (failed) attempts to overthrow the English monarchy and impose Roman Catholicism on its people – the Spanish Armada (1588) on the left of the print and the Gunpowder Plot (1605) on the right. It combines these two events as evidence that God was on the side of the Protestant English.

The print speaks to a strong sense of religious and national identity that had emerged by the 1620s. Buying this print would show awareness of national politics and objection to the so-called ‘Spanish match’ and act as a conversation piece within groups of like-minded peers. The designer of the print was Ipswich preacher Samuel Ward, who also had some of his sermons published around this time. This engraving was published in Amsterdam, indicating the wider religious and cultural networks of the middling.

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Object Type Illustrated print engraving
Year 1621
Discovered Amsterdam
Owned By The British Museum
Keywords reading; listening; performing; collecting; belief; memory; literacy; print; visual culture
Image Credit Double Deliverance, satirical print (Amsterdam, 1621), © The Trustees of the British Museum.

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