William Marshall (illustrator)

William Marshall (fl. 1617–1649) was a seventeenth-century British engraver and illustrator, best known for his print depicting "Charles the Martyr", a symbolic portrayal of King Charles I of England as a Christian martyr.

Nothing is known of Marshall's life beyond references to his career as an engraver. Marshall's earliest known work is the frontispiece to the book A Solemne Joviall Disposition Briefly Shadowing the Law of Drinking, which was published in 1617. In the 1630s he produced a number of portrait engravings and book frontispieces, depicting Puritan divines, poets, and figures associated with the High Church establishment of the day, such as William Laud.

His most ambitious work was the highly elaborate frontispiece to George Wither's 1635 Collection of Emblemes, Ancient and Moderne, an unusually complex example of the Emblem book. Wither left the design to Marshall, having given general instructions, but expressed himself exasperated with the result, on the grounds that its symbolism was thoroughly incoherent. As he wrote,

Instead thereof, the Workman brought to light,
What, here, you see; therein, mistaking quite
The true Design: And, so (with pains, and cost)
The first intended FRONTISPIECE, is lost.

Wither's lengthy poem on the engraving claims that its apparently inconsistent symbolism revealed, unintentionally, a deeper truth. The lower part of the frontispiece depicts people wandering in confusion in a cave, apparently having emerged from a womb-like pool in which babies are shown swimming. They exit the cave to draw lots given to them by the goddess of Fortune, symbolic of their allotted place in life. They then climb up a mountain, which divides into two peaks, symbolic of the right and the wrong paths in life. The path to the peak on the right appears more attractive at first, but then becomes rocky and finally leads only to death; the path on the left is at first harder, but eventually becomes pleasant and leads to paradise. A Christian church is depicted on the left and a Pagan temple on the right.

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