Stitches in Tudor Time: Part Two

Stitches in Tudor Time: A three-part series by JoAnn Spears

Part Two

The Tudors do hoops–embroidery hoops, that is

The hoop-la begins with Katherine of Aragon

Katherine of Aragon arrived in England to marry Prince Arthur in 1501. After his premature death, she married his brother, Henry VIII.

Then as now, royal brides were fascinating, and people wanted to emulate them. Young Katherine, the daughter of Isabella of Spain, brought what became known as Spanish work into fashion among English needlewomen. Also known as blackwork, this technique, new to the British, created the appearance of lace, which was a rare commodity at the time. It was commonly used on sleeves and collars. Katherine is said, like her mother before her, to have assumed the wifely duty of embroidering shirts for her husband.

The stitch used to create the blackwork effect became known as Holbein stitch, possibly because Holbein painted so many examples of blackwork in the outfits of his sitters.

 Katherine’s end in England was in sad contrast to her arrival. Exiled and alone, awaiting divorce and eventually death, Katherine no doubt consoled herself with her needlework. Legend has it that, during her final days in remote Kimbolton Castle in Huntingdonshire, Katherine taught lacemaking to the locals, and that a pattern named after her was long used in the district. While this story may be apocryphal, we do have one other touching bit of evidence that tells us that Katherine was a needlewoman to the last. It is recorded that Cardinal Wolsey and the Papal Legate Campeggio, seeking audience with Katherine on the subject of her divorce, found her ‘at work, like Penelope of old, with her maids, and she came to them with a skein of red silk about her neck.’

A surviving example of Katherine’s needlework is housed in St. Peter’s Church in Winchcombe, Gloucestershire. In keeping with Katherine’s pious nature, it is an altar cloth.

Like her grandmother Elizabeth of York, Katherine’s daughter, ‘Bloody’ Mary Tudor, has left behind a Privy Purse entry attesting to her interest in needlework: ‘For working materials for Jane the Fole, one shilling’. By all accounts, Mary took after her mother in her needlework ways. According to Agnes Strickland, the poet John Taylor attests that Mary consoled herself with needlework in her last illness, and in fact completed an elaborate tapestry begun by Katherine of Aragon.

Hooping and Hollering

Henry VIII’s second wife, Anne Boleyn, is said to have had no qualms about going toe-to-toe with her imposing husband, or about making her opinion known. Their tumultuous relationship famously ended with Anne’s execution.

While Anne may have been an unusual woman in many ways, she, like those around her at the Tudor court, was also a needlewoman. A garment purported to be her daughter Elizabeth’s christening dress, and embroidered by Anne, was authenticated in the 19^th century but is now believed to be of 17^th century vintage. A coif reputed to have been embroidered by Anne is also extant, but little information about its provenance is available.

Hoops and Hopes

In her 1865 History of Lace, Mrs. Bury Palliser tells of extant pieces of needlework (a counterpane and a toilet cover) at Sizergh Castle, Westmoreland, reputedly worked by Henry VIII’s sixth wife, Katherine Parr. She further tells, in a footnote, a charming story about the young Katherine. She reports that an astrologer cast Katherine Parr’s birth, and said that the child was destined to be a queen. The young Katherine was apparently privy to this prognostication. Mrs. Bury Palliser relates that when young Katherine’s mother would admonish her to work at her stitchery, she would reply that ‘my hands are ordained to touch crowns and sceptres, not needles and spindles.’

Hooping it up in the High Renaissance

Elizabeth I, daughter of Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn, was known for her over-the-top Renaissance garb, of course sewn by others. She herself, though, was started on needlework early. By the age of six, she had stitched a cambric shirt as a gift for her little brother, the future Edward VI.

At eleven, Elizabeth was still a precocious and a generous child. This time, the recipient of her stitchery gift was her stepmother, Katherine Parr. Katherine was an intellectual and a reformist, and no doubt encouraged her promising stepdaughter to flex her literary muscles. Ergo, Elizabeth translated a very heavy religious work, The Miroir or Glasse of the Synneful Soul, and copied it out for her stepmother. She then stitched a decorative cover for the work. The flowers on the cover are heartsease, or pansies, which stand for thoughts and rememberance. The inference would have been obvious to the symbolically-minded Tudors. A year later, Elizabeth is said to have gifted her stepmother with a similar piece of embroidery, this one embellishing a copy of the prayer book written by Parr herself. Both book covers are worked in silk on canvas in tapestry stitch.

Elizabeth’s idyll under the care of her kindly fourth stepmother ended badly. Katherine Parr’s last husband, Thomas Seymour, was at the very least sexually inappropriate with his wife’s stepdaughter. This was treasonous given Elizabeth’s status as a princess. The outcome of the Seymour affair was tragic, with Katherine Parr dying in childbirth, Seymour executed, and Elizabeth facing shame, discredit, or worse.

In Needlework as Art, Volume I, Vicountess Marianne Margaret Compton Cust Alford tells us that, during this difficult time, Elizabeth consoled herself at the needlework frame or hoop. She states that in South Kensington in 1873, works done by Elizabeth during this period (circa 1548-1549) were on display. They included shoes, a cap and a semainiere (small chest) worked in purl; cushion covers; and a portmonnaie (wallet) done in satin stitch. It is said that these works were left behind at Ashridge, Katherine Parr’s residence, when Elizabeth was rushed off in the dead of night to Hatfield, her childhood home, where she was kept under wraps in the aftermath of the Seymour affair.

Elizabeth of course was pretty busy in her heydey as Gloriana, the Virgin Queen, but Vicountess Alford assures us that she was not too busy for the odd bit of stitchery. She reports that the mature Elizabeth gifted Henri IV of France with a scarf worked by her own hands. It was accompanied by a message of unusual humility for Elizabeth; a message which also includes the needlewoman’s eagle eye for the tiny inconsistencies and errors in her work that no one would notice but her. She asks Henri to ‘hide its defects under the wings of your good charity, and to accept my little present in rememberance of me.’

Coming soon: Part Three

We, Hermia

‘We, Hermia, like two artificial gods,
Have with our needles created both one flower,
Both on one sampler, sitting on one cushion,
Both warbling of one song, both in one key,
As if our hands, our sides, voices and minds,
Had been incorporate.’

From A Midsummer Night’s Dream

Two of the Tudor era’s most famous needlewomen have left us a treasure trove of period stitchery to enjoy. Long before women ‘stitched and bitched’ around a quilt frame, Mary Queen of Scots and Bess of Hardwick shared time, talk, and creativity whilst they stitched together in difficult circumstances. Learn about them and their work in Part Three.

(If you haven’t already, read Part 1 here).