The Mysticall Marriage, Martyrology and Arminianism, 1625–40

There was a whiff of politically-informed wit in the text chosen for John Donne’s sermon at Denmark House, for 26 April 1625. King James’ body was still lying in state there. The text was Canticles 3:11, ‘Goe forth ye Daughters of Sion, and behold King Solomon, with the Crown, wherewith his mother crowned him, in the day of his espousals, and in the day of the gladnesse of his heart.’ There followed much talk about the mystical marriage of King James with Christ, now consummated by the union of James’ soul with Christ at the King’s death: the imagery of sexual fulfilment usually accompanied the death of a martyr.1 In the equation of James with Solomon lay a distinct challenge to some of the militant Protestant ideology which had been embraced by many Puritans. Solomon was famous as the man of peace, in contrast to his father: James of course had deliberately followed a pacifist policy, in contrast to his predecessor, who was perceived as a military champion for the Protestant cause, or at least, as we saw in the last chapter, presented as such by the Protestant internationalists of James’ reign.2 Donne is deliberately detaching the rhetoric of the mystical marriage from the politics of Protestant internationalism, and perhaps from the spirituality of martyrdom itself.