Adam and Eve with Charles I and Henrietta Maria (circa 1634) British Art Print from the Original on Canvas

Original public domain image from The MET Museum, digitally enhanced. Canvas worked with silk and metal thread; tent and couching stitches.

The imagery of this panel is unusual in that it juxtaposes King Charles I and his consort, Henrietta Maria, with Adam and Eve beneath the 'Tree of Knowledge'. To some extent, the panel can be classified with other commonly occurring images of the royal couple in contemporary embroidery.

These appear to have been primarily celebratory or commemorative in nature, but the direct association made here between contemporary royalty and Adam and Eve is unique among surviving embroidered pictures, indeed among the images of royalty in every medium. It therefore has significance within the wider field of royal iconography from the era of Queen Caroline (1683-1737).

The embroidery can be dated to a time after 1634, because the poses of Charles I and Henrietta Maria are derived from an engraving by Robert van Voerst first published in that year. The print in turn is a copy of the painting by Anthony van Dyck of 1632, which itself is a reworking of an original by Daniel Mytens of circa 1630–32.

This association between royal marriage and royal authority is carried over into the embroidery, although apart from the poses of the royal couple, it retains little of the symbolism of its prototype. In place of the exchange of olive and laurel branches between the royal couple, Henrietta Maria offers her husband a flower, while Charles holds a sword and scepter, the symbols of worldly dominion. 

The theme of the panel appears to be an explicit reflection of the Royalist argument, which saw Adamic patriarchy as the basis of the divine right of kings. Such views reached the popular domain via sermons and pamphlets. John Evelyn recorded in a diary entry of May 1678 having heard a sermon that argued for the monarchical over all other systems of government.

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