Say "Cheese"

As depicted on Anglo-Saxon tapestries, manuscripts and coins, the early English kings appear to have been a particularly gloomy collection of crowned heads. Ethelred the Unready, for example, as portrayed in the ‘Chronicles of Abingdon’, frankly, he looks more like Ethelred the Agonizingly Constipated to me: perhaps this has something to do with the giant asparagus he is clutching to his royal bosom? Or perhaps Ethelred has merely been immortalized as ‘Jack’ in a traditional production of Jack and the Bean Stalk in which the reigning monarch must always play the title role. You’d think he’d make more of an effort to smile for the benefit of those poor smelly peasant children in the audience, but I guess not. So perhaps Ethelred simply did not have enough time to compose his kingly expression properly before his picture was painted. And like a goofy wife in a holiday snapshot who blinks when her husband’s camera flash unexpectedly explodes, maybe his Majesty’s surprised expression is purely a case of Ethelred being unready for his close-up.

Comments

[Bleak Mouse]

Are those flies circling about the royal head? Nice touch of naturalism, I think.

[khh]

Who was his plastic surgeon since those look like some great botox injections as well.

[Bleak Mouse]

Vast inequities in the distribution of cosmetic procedures would centuries later result in the Cromwellian Revolution.

[DarkoV]

How long did royalty have to sit for the tapestry? And were they allowed to move while sitting, or did they have to remain rigid the whole time? If they sat as long as I imagine the tapestry artist required to complete their work, I'd think there facial expressions would match the hemerrhoids' expressions; pouty, itchy, and pressed upon.