Portraits of Stuart monarchs in court records

This image of James VI and I is taken from Easter term 1603, the first plea roll to be produced in his reign as King of England.

The new king, who united the crowns of England and Scotland, is shown in red with a sword and orb.

The plea rolls throughout James' reign reproduce this depiction, featuring his prominent beard and moustache.

This image of Charles I, from the first months of his reign, is striking partially due to the high quality of the illumination (decoration) framed against the background of plain parchment.

Earlier plea roll illuminations had used colourful backgrounds behind the throne, but here the bright colours of green, yellow, and red stand out in high definition.

During Charles I's reign, the plea rolls began to include iconography showing the crowns of England and Scotland united under the Stuarts.

In this illumination we see the imagery of the lion (symbolising England) and the unicorn (symbolising Scotland) depicted on either side of the King.

Occasionally the artistic style of the imagery in the plea rolls was influenced by changing artistic fashions.

This image of the king is in many ways similar to that of earlier portraits, but the throne and setting include elements of the popular Baroque style of the time.

One of the more unusual stylistic changes can be seen in a series of portraits of Charles I in 1644. The highly decorated and colourful plea roll images were replaced by detailed monochrome pen sketches.

The emphasis for this change in style is unclear, but it was a short-lived trend and only appears in the rolls for that year. It is possible that a change in artist had been brought about as part of the political upheaval of the Civil War, and tensions between the Crown and Parliament.

The political commentary of 1644 is perhaps most clearly represented in the roll for Trinity term that year, when Charles was depicted again in a pen sketch, but without his crown.

A crown remains above the initial letter ‘P’ of the roll, indicating the courts' continued jurisdiction, but the King has lost his own.

Earlier portraits from the plea rolls in 1643 also represent the King without his crown, although some of these images have suffered later damage, perhaps intentionally. From 1645 the King disappears entirely from the rolls, the space for his portrait left unfilled.

Throughout the Commonwealth period – after Charles I’s execution – the plea rolls retained an empty capital ‘P’.

With the return of the monarchy under Charles II, however, the royal image returned to the plea rolls, at first in a similar fashion to the earlier royal portraits.

The royal portraits from Charles II’s reign bear a good likeness to other portraits of the King from this time, highlighting the skills and experience of the anonymous artists who reproduced them on the plea rolls.

This is the final portrait of a monarch to be found on the plea rolls, from early in 1674.

From Easter term that year, the opening piece of parchment in each roll was no longer decorated in grand fashion. This was possibly as a cost-saving measure, or perhaps connected to a re-organisation of the court’s record keeping practice in 1674–5.

The royal image, which had for so many years visually depicted the monarch’s oversight of the court, had come to an end.