The Solitudes of Robert Southwell

Abstract

Abstract A hitherto unidentified early modern inscription in an illuminated Anglo-Norman Apocalypse manuscript owned by the Wormsley Estate (Buckinghamshire) is here demonstrated to be a stanza from “Content and Rich,” a moralizing lyric written by the Jesuit priest and martyr Robert Southwell (ca. 1561–95). In three parts, this essay explores the nature of solitude as prompted by this happy placement of Southwell’s lines praising conscience within a medieval French metrical translation of the Book of Revelation. The first part considers how the medieval manuscript glosses the Renaissance poem, proposing that the eschatological setting changes the seemingly anodyne “Content and Rich” into a charged justification for the controversial defense strategy known as equivocation. The second part, inspired by the Wormsley manuscript’s evidence of early modern engagement with medieval books, investigates Southwell’s reading of Bernard of Clairvaux (1090–1153) while awaiting execution. The final section reverses the relationship outlined in the first, using the early modern annotation to explicate the medieval Apocalypse manuscript. Southwell’s verses celebrating inner tranquility challenge readers to imagine if there may be such a condition as eschatological solitude. All three of these meditations on finding Southwell in the Apocalypse underscore the profound paradox that contented solitude is not solitary.