“Here a phœnix lieth, whose death
To another phœnix gave birth.
It is to be lamented much
The world at once ne’er knew two such.”
Queen Elizabeth placed a phœnix upon her medals and tokens with her favourite motto: “Semper eadem” (“Always the same”), and sometimes with the motto “Sola phœnix omnis mundi” (“The sole phœnix of the whole world”); and on the other side, “Et Angliæ gloria” (“And the glory of England”), with her portrait full-faced. By the poets of the time, Elizabeth was often compared to the phœnix. Sylvester, in his “Corona Dedicatoria,” says:
“As when the Arabian (only) bird doth burne
Her aged bodie in sweet flames to death,
Out of her cinders a new bird hath birth,
On whom the beauties of the first return;
From spicy ashes of the sacred urne
Of our dead phœnix (deare Elizabeth)
A new true phœnix lively flourisheth.”
And Shakespeare, in the prophecy which he puts into the mouth of Cranmer at the baptism of the Princess Elizabeth, her great and glorious reign is foreshadowed, and finally:
“... as when
The bird of wonder dies, the maiden phœnix,
Her ashes new create another heir,
As great in admiration as herself.”
Shakespeare elsewhere uses the simile to denote a phœnix among women—a phœnix, a paragon, unique, because alone of its kind:
“If she be furnished with a mind so rare,
She is alone the Arabian bird.”
Cymbeline, Act i. sc. 7.
Many other heraldic mottoes have been associated with this celebrated device. The following are from “Historic Devices, Badges,” &c., by Mrs. Bury Palliser:
Eleanor, Queen of Francis I. of Austria: “Non est similis illi” (“There is none like her”). She afterwards changed her motto, either showing how much she was neglected, or to express her determination to remain single: “Unica semper avis” (“Always a solitary bird”).
Bona of Savoy: “Sola facta solum deum sequor.”