In English folklore, the white hart is associated with Herne the Hunter – a ghost associated with Windsor Forest and Great Park. The earliest mention of Herne is in Shakespeare's The Merry Wives of Windsor. Shakespeare's source is unknown.
Richard II probably took the white hart badge from the arms of his mother – Joan, Countess of Kent, known to history as the Fair Maid of Kent. He is shown in an important work of art, known as the Wilton Diptych, wearing a gold and enamelled jewel which depicts a white hart. The Diptych shows Richard kneeling before the Virgin and Child, in what is known as a donor portrait; and even the angels surrounding the Virgin Mary all wear white hart badges.
Painted in the late 1390s (the last years of Richard's life and reign), the Wilton Diptych is one of very few surviving late Medieval religious panel paintings from England, and the earliest authentic contemporary portrait of an English king. Richard is presented to the Virgin and Child by his patron saint, John the Baptist, and by the English saints King Edward the Confessor and King Edmund the Martyr. The Diptych is an outstanding example of the International Gothic style. The artist is unknown, but was probably French or English.
© Haydn Thompson 2020