Life, 1921-05-26 · page 11 of 36
Life — May 26, 1921 — page 11: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This satirical cartoon by Tenggren depicts the famous legend of Raleigh spreading his cloak for Queen Elizabeth. The text clarifies that while this story is well-known, it's historically dubious. The cartoon shows an innkeeper lounging nearby, invisible due to perspective, telling a barmaid he'd be "plentifully blistered" rather than ruin his best cloak. The satire mocks how the romantic legend obscures the actual historical event—Raleigh's head was later divorced from his body by public execution, yet his memory remains sanitized by courtly mythology. The cartoon contrasts the idealized version with unheroic reality, suggesting how history gets romanticized.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
OO ..__ a i orenggrens Unfamiliar Anniversaries—No. 7. By TENGGREN Sir Walter Raleigh and Queen Elizabeth P' RADVENTURE, the incident described in the above de- lineation is familiar to most readers, but it is doubtful if many of them recall that to-day marks the 323th anniversary of the urbane event. tn all probability it was a good cloak that Sir Walter Raleigh ad in the London mire in order that his sovereign might s from the general store to the post office without con- tracting pneumonia, and if the cost of decent apparel was as high in Elizabeth's reign as it is in Harding’s, this was one of the greatest sacrifices ever made to a queen. The innkeeper, lounging in his doorway, is telling the bar- maid, who is invisible because of perspective, that he would be plentifully blistered before he would ruin his best blouse to prevent membranous croup from settling in the thorax of a female monarch—all of which serves to throw an interesting historical sidelight on the variation between the viewpoints of a high person in court circles and a low person in trade. However, long after Sir Walter’s head was divorced from his more common, though serviceable, anatomy by a public execu- tioner, this same innkeeper was getting rich on hat-checking privileges and exorbitant charges for table reservations. comicbooks.com