Supplications of Saints: A Book of Prayers and Praises in Four Parts

1672

De Beer Eb 1672 S

London: Printed for Peter Parker

Thomas Sorocold (1562–1617) was an English clergyman, who wrote Supplication of Saints, an extremely popular devotional aid containing a meditation on Christ’s life, death, and passion. Because the book contains prayers by Queen Elizabeth, a frontispiece image of her is attached. While many pictures of good Queen Bess aimed to reflect her agelessness, or contained associated symbols, like the rose, this particular woodcut is rather primitive. Its use in this late 17th century publication is at odds with some of the more sumptuous frontispiece illustrations extant from the Elizabethan times onwards.