The Image of Edward the Black Prince in Georgian and Victorian England: Negotiating the Late Medieval Past by Barbara Gribling (review)

Barbara Gribling's book makes an important contribution to the fields of medievalism, reception studies, and royal studies. Gribling skilfully navigates the intricacies of the reception of Edward 'The Black Prince', providing a nuanced analysis of the uptake of the historical figure over the course of the Georgian and Victorian periods in England. This broad scope of focus, encompassing both the Georgian as well as the Victorian, is significant, as it highlights the oft-overlooked popularity and influence that discourses of medievalism had on the eighteenth century and the earlier part of the nineteenth century. Gribling acknowledges the distinctiveness of the medievalisms of both periods and their representations of the Black Prince, and crucially and effectively maps the development of depictions of the medieval figure alongside shifting social, political, and cultural interests and key events. Moreover, and importantly, the book examines how the past was remembered and reinvented for and by English royalty as well as for and by those engaged in 'popular' discourse. This decision, to map the reception of a figure of medieval royalty by Georgian/Victorian royalty and, simultaneously, by lay people, works to reveal the breadth and variety of medievalism at this time in English history as well as the widespread appeal of the Black Prince's story.

Gribling's book is separated into two distinct parts: 'Royal Use of the Black Prince' and '"Popular" Uses of the Medieval Past'. In the first section, in three chapters, the book surveys how the Black Prince was utilized by royal figures of the Georgian and Victorian periods. Chapter 1 examines the reign of George III and how his uptake of the medieval prince was filtered through a desire to engender loyalty and patriotism in his subjects; Chapter 2 looks at how George IV and his supporters utilized the mythology around the Black Prince to justify George's political ambitions; and Chapter 3 extends upon previous examinations of the medievalisms of Queen Victoria and Prince Albert to put forward a nuanced analysis of how their uptake of the Black Prince was used as a means to cement their political standing in society. The second part of the book, also in three chapters, examines the uptake of the Black Prince in 'popular' discourse. Chapter 4 centres on the moniker 'The people's Prince' and the Black Prince's role in the Good Parliament of 1376, highlighting how these aspects of his mythology informed the popular depiction of the prince as a champion of the people, but this chapter also inspects how this uptake was at times rejected as royalist, antidemocratic propaganda. Chapter 5 studies the centrality of the figure of the Black Prince to shifting conceptions of manliness, chivalry, and the English gentleman from the late eighteenth century and throughout the Victorian period. The final chapter deals with how the figure of the Black Prince often functioned as an archetype of English manliness to support the myth of the 'English warrior', delineating how this myth was informed by, and in turn helped shape, English expansionism and imperialism.

Gribling's study draws great strength from its depiction of medievalism in both the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries as not a unified, stationary endeavour but as a constantly shifting, always nuanced, and often contradictory enterprise. This strength is brought to the fore especially in the last three chapters of the book where, unimpeded by the constraints of focusing on the use/interpretation of a single monarch, Gribling is free to examine the ideological intricacies and contradictions of the reception of the Black Prince in more detail and with more nuance. The book also triumphs in its mapping of English medievalism within a longer tradition, as this broadening of the scope of study provides a clear...