Transformations of the Gardener-King Trope in the Interregnum and the Restoration
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CULTIVATING POWER: TRANSFORMATIONS OF THE GARDENER-KING TROPE IN THE INTERREGNUM AND THE RESTORATION Jennifer Bolton Verdun A dissertation submitted to the faculty of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the Department of English and Comparative Literature. Chapel Hill 2009 Approved by: Reid Barbour Darryl Gless Megan Matchinske Joseph Wittig Jessica Wolfe 2009 Jennifer Bolton Verdun ALL RIGHTS RESERVED ii ABSTRACT JENNIFER BOLTON VERDUN: Cultivating Power: Transformations of the Gardener-King Trope in the Interregnum and the Restoration (Under the direction of Reid Barbour) This dissertation examines the significance of Interregnum and Restoration tropes that depict political power in terms of gardening. I argue that these tropes, as responses to images of England as a garden and of the king as gardener, register the political, moral, and scientific upheavals that accompanied the Civil Wars, the regicide, and the abolition of the monarchy. The first chapter explores communist Gerrard Winstanley’s application of the gardener-king trope solely to God and his presentation of Christ, as both plant and husbandman, as a model that better befits humans’ limited agency over the land and themselves. The second chapter investigates how Andrew Marvell tests out but ultimately rejects the gardener-general trope in favor of others that suggest England’s lost garden status. The third chapter interprets Sir Thomas Browne’s interest in quincunxes and gardener-princes as means of advocating religious and political mediocrity in the context of the Interregnum. The fourth chapter shows how John Evelyn uses the gardener-king trope to epitomize his vision of a social and political, as well as a natural, discordia concors . The epilogue, which focuses on Edmund Waller’s and the Earl of Rochester’s poems on St. James’s Park after its renovation by Charles II, extends my consideration of the gardener-king trope’s Restoration standing. iii To Todd, because we tend the same plots, and Luke, our best little bud. iv ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I would not have completed this project without the guidance and support of some extraordinary people, to whom I extend my joyfully sincere, if sadly inadequate, thanks. My committee members made finishing this dissertation all the more fun and fulfilling, and I deeply appreciate their reading of and comments on my work. I also have some more particular and longstanding debts to acknowledge. In my coursework and in the writing of this dissertation, Reid Barbour helped me to refine my thinking and my prose alike; his enthusiasm for his subject proved infectious, and his encouragement of my studies, invaluable. I am grateful to him both for challenging me and for cheering me on. I also wish to thank Jessica Wolfe, whose brilliant advice about scholarship and writing gave me direction through murky places in the course of developing and writing this project; Darryl Gless, whose excitement about his work inspired me to re-imagine my own; Megan Matchinske, whose willingness to join my committee in the final stages of this project is typical of her generosity; and Joe Wittig, whose attention to detail made me a better reader, thinker, writer, and teacher. The professionalism and kindness of Washington and Jefferson College’s U. Grant Miller Library staff, past and present, deserve special praise. I am especially grateful to Jennifer Corbin, Cindy Schwartz, Mandee Williams, and Rachael Bolden for their outstanding help with interlibrary loans. And the staff of the Walter Royal Davis v Library, at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, has my lasting gratitude for the services that allowed me to complete my research from afar. For excellent writing environments, remarkably tasty coffees, and friendly conversation, I want to thank the past and present staffs of Bean Traders Coffee, especially Christy, Dave, Chris, Josh, Kirsten, and Alex; Blue Horse Coffee, especially Annette, Melissa, Mike, Katie, and Theo; and Aldo Coffee Co., especially Rich, Melanie, Michelle, Lauren, Therese, and John. For their loving, attentive care of my son, Emily Cerrone and Nicole Gable have my everlasting gratitude. My friends and family have encouraged me in many ways, all of them wonderful. Lisa Klotz and John Ware provided camaraderie and commiseration in our writing group. Amy Sweitzer and B.J. Barry sustained me with much-needed hilarity. Lauryn Mayer administered sage advice and wry humor in perfect doses. Sam and Tara Fee’s good cheer has made my life infinitely richer; their friendship is a rare treasure. Pamela Kirkpatrick’s warmth and hospitality, like those of her dear late Robert, have been a great blessing and a joy. And my nieces, Jessica and Sophia Galey, illuminated dark times. My parents, Charles and Ruby Bolton, have contributed profoundly to the completion of this project. In their generosity, sensitivity, faith, and love, they make me doubly grateful: for their help and for the model they offer of cheerful sacrifice. I admire them as I love them, infinitely. My husband, Todd, is the love of my life. He has devoted tremendous time and energy to making it possible for me to finish my degree. In addition, he has supplied ready words of encouragement, inexhaustible patience and kindness, and truly excellent vi snacks. For his sacrifices, for all the ways he has nourished my work and me, and for a life in which we can share our struggles and triumphs, I will always be thankful. Lastly, I want to thank our son, Luke, whose presence has transformed my life in the best possible ways. Seeing him toddle about the house with a copy of Sallust made me appreciate my work as I never had before; his joy and wonder daily renew my own. vii TABLE OF CONTENTS LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS…………………………………………………………... x INTRODUCTION…………………..…………………………………………………... 1 Chapter 1. WINSTANLEY AGAINST GARDENS: THE HUMBLE HUSBANDMAN UNDER GOD THE GARDENER-KING…………………… 8 I. Winstanley against Kings……………………………………………………. 9 II. Winstanley against Gardens? ……………………………………………..... 27 III. Cultivation Metaphors and the Status of the Humble Husbandman……………………………………………………..... 56 Conclusion……………………………………………………………………… 65 2. THE GARDENER-GENERAL TROPE AND SOME ALTERNATIVES IN MARVELL’S “HORATIAN ODE” AND “UPON APPLETON HOUSE”……………………………………………….... 67 I. Gardener and Farmer in “A Horatian Ode”……………………………….... 68 II. Gardener and Forester in “Upon Appleton House”……………………….. 100 Conclusion…………………………………………………………………….. 162 3. THE QUINCUNX, MEDIOCRITY, AND GARDENER-PRINCES IN BROWNE’S THE GARDEN OF CYRUS …………………………………. 164 I. Mediocrity and the Quincunx………………………………………........... 166 II. Mediocrity and Faith……………………………………………………….196 viii III. Browne’s Gardener-Princes……………………………………………….. 224 Conclusion…………………………………………………………………….. 276 4. THE LEGIBLE GARDEN: MORAL AND POLITICAL LESSONS IN EVELYN’S ELYSIUM BRITANNICUM …………………………………... 279 I. The “Universall” Garden and the Book of Nature………………………… 283 II. Problems of Comprehension………………………………………………. 297 III. Garden Monarchs………………………………………………………….. 316 Conclusion…………………………………………………………………….. 320 EPILOGUE……………………………………………………………………………. 321 WORKS CITED………………………………………………………………………. 335 ix LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS EB Elysium Britannicum EEBO Early English Books Online ELH English Literary History ELP English Lyric Poetry KH Kalendarium Hortense MLN Modern Language Notes NB Nicholas Bacon ODNB Oxford Dictionary of National Biography OED Oxford English Dictionary PL Paradise Lost RM Religio Medici STB Sir Thomas Browne TB Thomas Browne x INTRODUCTION “Now ’tis the spring, and weeds are shallow-rooted; / Suffer them now, and they’ll o’ergrow the garden, / And choke the herbs for want of husbandry,” Queen Margaret warns the king in Shakespeare’s King Henry VI, Part 2 (3.1.31-33). The queen, fearful of Gloucester’s influence over “the commons’ hearts” in a potential bid for the throne (3.1.28), casts Henry as a gardener-king whose duties include preserving the kingdom’s health by keeping subjects’ aggression in check. Although the analogy on which she draws, which figures England as a garden and the king as its cultivator, implies pleasure and nourishment, the queen’s images of weeding and “chok[ing]” remind us more clearly of the violent aspects of both gardening and governing. Shakespeare’s play, which dates from between 1587 and 1592 (Cairncross xlv), was written shortly after the 1587 execution of Mary, Queen of Scots, removed what Patrick Collinson calls “a constant threat” to Elizabeth I’s reign (“Elizabeth I,” ODNB ). Roughly a half-century later, Britain would be thrown into civil war, and a few years after that, Charles I would be beheaded and monarchy abolished. Andrew Marvell, in “Upon Appleton House, To My Lord Fairfax,” would lament the ruin of the “Paradise of foúr seas”: “What luckless apple did we taste, / To make us mortal, and thee waste?” (323, 327-28). The chaotic violence imagined by Shakespeare’s Margaret would become only too real in the garden of England. The Gardener-King Trope In this project, I examine Interregnum and Restoration responses to the gardener-king trope, arguing that these responses reveal much about perceptions of Charles I’s reign, the nature of the Civil Wars, and England’s political, moral, and spiritual status in the years after the regicide. As the chaos of civil strife challenged the trope of England as a garden, the value of the gardener-king trope too came into question. Some writers, seeing the opportunity