NEEDLEWOMEN ROYAL AND RENOWNED.
After the time of Adelicia of Louvaine there seems to have been a
period wherein little or no special needlework was done by great and
royal ladies, though its practice was kept up in what were called "The
Schools." In these, young gentlewomen were taught fine needlework and
embroidery to qualify them to beguile in a becoming manner the many
enforced hours of leisure in their lives, brought about by the lack of
outdoor amusements for women.
Many a rich and sumptuous vestment was made in these schools for the
service of the Church, and some of the beautiful work done there found
its way to the Palace of Westminster.
But towards the end of the 13th century, when Eleanor of Castille was
queen of Edward I., needlework came to the front again with enthusiasm.
She herself was a wonderful needlewoman, and her example made it the
fashion in every class of life.
Before accompanying her husband on a crusade to the Holy Land, she
embroidered a beautiful altar-cloth with her own hands, and gave it to
the church at Dunstable.
It is to this queen we owe the use of needlework tapestry-hangings as
furniture for walls. Up to this time tapestry had been used solely for
the decoration of altars and other parts of churches.
Tapestry hangings were worked originally entirely with the needle, and
they were found to be worth all the trouble and time bestowed upon them
in the increase of comfort they brought into the palaces and castles of
the great people of the land. At first they were rude in design, but
those introduced by Queen Eleanor were in very superior workmanship. To
her they must have been very welcome, for she felt the change from the
sunny south to the damp, bleak English climate greatly.
Tapestries never remained permanently hanging on the walls of a special
hall or castle, but accompanied the great people, when travelling from
one residence to another, under the care of the grooms of the Chamber,
whose special office it was to hang them.
The history of tapestry is full of romance, but can only be touched
upon here when worked by special royal seamstresses.
_Margaret of Anjou_, wife of Henry VI., was a very good needlewoman,
although the troublous times in which she lived prevented her devoting
much time to the art. It was she, however, who formed the first band of
women needle-workers, known in history as the _Sisterhood of the Silk
Women_.
Needlewomen found a very valuable patron in Elizabeth of York, wife of
Henry of Lancaster. She and her ladies spent much time in needlework of
all kinds.
"How oft with needle, when denied the pen,
Has she on canvas traced the blessed name
Of Henry, or expressed it with her loom
In silken threads, or 'broidered it with gold."
During the "Wars of the Roses" ladies of high rank were often compelled
to earn their bread and that of their children by the use of the
needle. The Countess of Oxford in the reign of Elizabeth of York was an
example of this. She was the first peeress who is said to have earned
her living by the use of the needle. Edward IV. had deprived her of
her dower, and she and her little children would have starved had she
not been a skilful needlewoman. She lived dependent on the work of her
hands for fifteen years, until her husband's rank and fortune were
restored.
_Katherine of Arragon_, the first wife of Henry VIII., was very skilful
with her needle, having learned the art from her mother, Isabella of
Spain, and it is more than likely that in her early days she took part
in the trials of needlework established by Isabella among Spanish
ladies.
She was in the habit of employing the ladies of her Court in
needlework, working with them and encouraging them.
Her work with the needle has been celebrated both in Latin and English
verse.
"(Although a queene), yet she her days did pass
In working with the _needle_ curiously;
As in the Tower, and places more beside,
Her excellent memorials may be seen;
Whereby the _needle's_ prayse is dignifide
By her faire ladies, and herselfe, a queene."
In a letter to Wolsey she writes, "I am horribly busy, making
standards, banners and badges."
It is a matter of history that when Wolsey and the Pope's Legate went
to Bridewell to visit Queen Katherine on the subject of her divorce,
they found her and her maids at work, and she came to them with a skein
of red silk round her neck.
Katherine of Arragon's successor, _Anne Boleyn_, could not help being
a good needlewoman, for she had been educated at the Court of Francis
I., under the superintendence of Anne of Bretagne who made needlework
the business and the pleasure of her life. It was her habit to collect
the children of the nobility within her Court daily and teach them
tapestry, embroidery and plain sewing till they became accomplished
seamstresses.
As wife of Henry VIII. Anne Boleyn and the ladies of her Court spent
much time in making garments for the poor in plain sewing as well as in
embroidery and tapestry--much of the last may still be seen in Hampton
Court. All this notwithstanding, she did not love needlework and never
resorted to it for solace or amusement.
_Katharine Howard_, another wife of Henry VIII., was skilful in making
pretty kerchiefs and other dainty articles of the toilette, some of
which she once made out of an old shirt of fine holland which had been
given her by her lover Derham. She is said, in return for the shirt,
to have worked for him with her own hand a band and a pair of finely
embroidered shirt sleeves.
She and her maidens made a great many shirts and smocks for the poor.
_Katharine Parr_, the last wife of Henry VIII., was almost as skilled
a needlewoman as his first. When young she objected strongly to
learning needlework; this was probably because it had been foretold
by an astrologer that "she should sit in the highest seat of imperial
majesty." At all events history reports her as saying--
"My hands are ordered to touch crowns and sceptres, not needles and
spindles."
She must have thought better of it, however, for there are some
beautiful specimens of her work preserved in Westmoreland; specially a
counterpane and toilet cover.
_Lady Jane Grey_ is said to have been a clever needlewoman, and that
"instead of skill in drawing she cultivated the art of painting
with the needle." There is still preserved at Zurich a toilet cover
beautifully ornamented by her own hands and presented by her to
Bullinger.
About this time the dress of the nobles was gorgeous and beautiful in
the extreme; not that the materials themselves were so costly, but
because of the exquisite work and embroidery bestowed upon them by
ladies of high rank.
The beds also at this period owed their rich beauty to women's work;
they were not at that time excluded from the day apartments and were
frequently among the richest ornaments of the sitting-room, so much
taste and expense were bestowed upon them.
The curtains of the bed were often of rich material adorned with
embroidery.
"Her bed-chamber was hanged
With tapestry of silk and silver."
_Shakespeare._
Royal seamstresses at this time worked rich needlework borders and
belts for their dresses, but they put their richest work on the pouches
or purses suspended from the waist of the dress.
Queen Mary, daughter of Henry VIII. and Katherine of Arragon, must have
had fame as a needlewoman, otherwise John Taylor the historian would
not have written of her--
"Her greatness held it no dis-reputation
To take the _needle_ in her Royal hand,
Which was a good example to our Nation
To banish idleness from out her Land."
Indeed she seems to have been skilled in all sorts of embroidery, and
beguiled the time after her mother's divorce peaceably and laudably
with needlework. Some of her work is in the Tower. She was clever in
embroidering the covers of books.
The book called St. Mary's Psalter contained the history of the Old
Testament in a series of small paintings, with a very richly worked
cover which is supposed to have been embroidered by Mary herself. The
embroidery as far as one can see was done on fine canvas or coarse
linen put on crimson velvet.
It never occurs to us to think of _Queen Elizabeth_ as a needlewoman,
yet to a certain extent she must have been one, for history tells
us of a cambric smock which she made and presented to her brother
Edward when he was six years old. She seems to have excelled
however in embroidering the backs of books. Needlework although not
enthusiastically practised in Elizabeth's reign was by no means
despised.
But of all royal seamstresses, Mary Queen of Scots carries off the palm
both for beauty, quantity and variety.
"She wrought so well in needlework, that she
Nor yet her workes shall ere forgotten be."--_John Taylor._
Her teachers in the art were Lady Fleming--her governess--and Catherine
de Medicis whose needlework was unrivalled. During the time the young
Queen of Scots was at the French Court she and the French Princesses
assembled every afternoon in the private apartments of Queen Catherine,
where for two or three hours all were occupied in needlework.
At no time of her life were her hands idle; she plied her needle even
while listening to the discussions of her ministers. Needlework was to
her a source of real pleasure.
While under the care of the Earl of Shrewsbury at Tulbury Castle she,
with the help of Bess of Hardwick, her guardian's wife, worked a pair
of curtains, a counterpane, and a vallance on green velvet.
In describing her daily life here, she said that all the day she
wrought with her needle, and that the variety of the work made it seem
less tedious.
In the drawing-room at Hardwick there are several pieces of her work
well preserved, and in Scotland there are parts of certain bed-hangings
in which M. S. is worked in very frequently.
Her tapestry work proved a blessing to her, as in the year 1586 she
writes, "My residence is a place enclosed with walls situated on an
eminence and consequently exposed to all the winds and storms of
heaven.... I have for my own accommodation only wretched little rooms,
and so cold that were it not for the protection of the curtains and
tapestries which I have put up, I could not endure it by day and still
less by night."
In the execution of all this work Mary Queen of Scots beguiled many a
weary hour at Chatsworth, Buxton and Sheffield, while brooding over
the plots for her escape and the intrigues and jealousies of Bess of
Hardwick.
She made a vest for her only son but he ungraciously refused it because
she addressed him as Prince and not as King of Scotland. She worked
also with her own hands an altar-piece, and presented it to the church
of the convent where she had been educated. She was the first, I
believe, to do the raised work in crewels.
We now come to a very remarkable needlewoman, whose work is considered
not only equal to that of Matilda, wife of the Conqueror, but superior
to it, because it was all done with her own hands. Her name was Jean or
Joan D'Albret, better known as the mother of Henry IV. of Navarre.
Her needlework which was the amusement and solace of her leisure
hours was designed by her to commemorate her love for the Reformed
faith which she publicly professed on Christmas Day, 1562. She worked
several large pieces of tapestry, among which was a suite of hangings
consisting of a dozen or fifteen pieces which were called "The Prisons
Opened," on which she represented that she had broken the pope's bonds
and shaken off his yoke. She had a great sense of satire and humour
which showed itself in her work.
The Duc de Sully, when sent by King Henry IV. to receive the Cardinal
of Florence at Paris in grand style, ordered the keeper of the castle
at St. German-en-Laze to hang the walls and chambers with the finest
tapestry of the Crown. This he did, but, unfortunately, for the
Legate's own chamber he chose a suite of hangings made by the Queen
Joan D'Albret herself. They were very rich, it is true, but they
represented nothing but emblems and mottoes against the pope and the
Roman Court, as satirical as they were ingenious. Fortunately the
mistake was rectified by Sully before the Cardinal's arrival.
This clever needlewoman died suddenly at the Court of France in 1572.
(_To be continued._)
IN THE TWILIGHT SIDE BY SIDE.
BY RUTH LAMB.