And the foliage all was of emerald.”
From the East, the idea or fashion was transplanted to Byzantium, and the emperors there had similar trees erected above their thrones overshadowing them. William of Rubruquis describes a great silver tree in the Palace of the Khan of the Tartars, in 1253, of which leaves and fruit, as well as branches, were of silver. But kings went about, and wherever they went their majesty surrounded them; and consequently, with the double motive of comfort and of symbolism, the umbrella was invented as a portable canopy or tree over the head of the sovereign.
The Greeks noticed and disapproved of the use of the umbrella.[23] Xenophon says that the Persians were so effeminate that they could not content themselves in summer with the shade afforded by trees and rocks, but that they employed portable contrivances for producing artificial shade. But when he says this, he most certainly refers to the kings, for they alone had the right to use umbrellas.
On Assyrian and Persepolitan reliefs we have an eunuch behind the sovereign holding an umbrella over him when walking, or when riding in his chariot, or when seated; on a bas-relief of Assur-bani-pal, however, the king is figured reclining under an overshadowing vine, which is probably artificial. Firdusi says of Minutscher: “A silken umbrella afforded shade to his head.”
M. de la Loubière, envoy extraordinary from the French King in 1687 and 1688 to the King of Siam, says in his narrative that the use of the umbrella was granted by the sovereign to certain highly honoured subjects. An umbrella with several rings of very wide expansion was the prerogative of the king alone, but to certain nobles was granted by princely condescension the right to have their heads and faces screened from the sun by smaller shades. In his quaint old French, M. de la Loubière says that in the audience-chamber of the king:—“Pour tout meuble il n’y a que trois para-sols, un devant la fenêtre, á neuf ronds, et deux á sept ronds aux deux côtéz de la fenêtre. Le para-sol est en ce Pais là, ce que le Dais est en celui-ci”—that is to say, a mark of the highest power.
The Mahratta princes had the title of “Lords of the Umbrella.” The chàta of these princes is large and heavy, and requires a special attendant to hold it, in whose custody this symbol of sovereignty reposes.
In Ava it seems to have been part of the royal title that the sovereign was “King of the White Elephant and Lord of Twenty-four Umbrellas.” In 1855 the King of Burmah directed a letter to the Marquis of Dalhousie in which he styles himself “His glorious and most excellent Majesty, reigning over the umbrella-wearing princes of the East.”
Among the Arabs the umbrella is a mark of distinction. Niebuhr says that it is a privilege confined to princes of the blood to use an umbrella.[24]