The New Murrey and Blue blog

I have always wondered what J.R.R. Tolkien, author of The Lord of the Rings, thought of the Tudor Era. Apparently, he sometimes spoke of the Norman invasion with such pain, he made it sound as if it had happened in his lifetime! Being a devout Catholic, I surmise he would not have been much of a Tudor admirer, at least not of Henry VIII. However, there was an amusing little tidbit I found that may clarify his view.

One artist who illustrated various books of Tolkien, was the marvellous Pauline Baynes. She was heavily inspired by medieval art in most of her work and Tolkien approved the majority of her depictions.

However, there was one illustration for a poem called THE HOARD (which was about a dragon guarding his riches) that he was less than enamoured with.

The picture shows the dragon being approached from behind by a man armed with a sword and wearing an almost herald-like tunic. Tolkien looked at it, disappointed, and opined (paraphrasing here), “He should have had a helmet and a shield…He looks like a Tudor lackey!’