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The Tudors and the Stuarts: Bacon

This abnegation of vanity and ostentation was, however, whether feigned or not, but of short duration, for she soon outshone every sovereign in Christendom by the profusion and rarity of the jewels with which she was literally covered. Bacon gives some reason for this at the risk of his gallantry, for the court adulations to the last were on her grace and "fair" countenance. "She imagined," says Bacon, "that the people who are much influenced by externals would be diverted by the glitter of her jewels from noticing the decay of her personal attractions." If such were the queen's thoughts as age wore upon her, they are but the same feminine notions that generally prevail throughout time, in most countries. In the portrait of Queen Elizabeth at Henham Hall, Suffolk, she is represented with an enormous ruff, radiated till it rose like a winged background behind the lofty fabric of jewels she wore on her head, and at last overtopped the cross of her regal diadem. She has a rich carcanet, or collar, of rubies, amethysts, and pearls, set in a beautiful gold filagree pattern, with large pear-shaped pearls depending from each lozenge. The bodice of her dress is ornamented with jewels set in gold filagree of the same pattern as the carcanet. The gigot sleeves are surmounted on the shoulder with puffs of gold gauze, separated with rubies and amethysts, and two small rouleaux wreathed with pearls and bullion. The sleeves are decorated with jewels to match the bodice. She wears the jewel and ribbon of the Garter about her neck. The George is a large oval medallion decorated with rubies and amethysts. No Queen of England has ever been represented with such a blaze of jewels as Elizabeth. Horace Walpole, speaking of her portraits, says:--"There is not one that can be called beautiful. The profusion of ornaments with which they are loaded are marks of her continual fondness for dress, while they entirely exclude all grace, and leave no more room for a painter's genius than if he had been employed to copy an Indian idol, totally composed of hands and necklaces. A pale Roman nose, a head of hair loaded with crowns and powdered with diamonds, a vast ruff, a vaster fardingale, and a bushel of pearls, are features by which everybody knows at once the picture of Elizabeth." Elizabeth seems to have had a passion for pearls. The now faded waxwork effigy preserved in West-minster Abbey (and which lay on her coffin, arrayed in royal robes, at her funeral, and caused, as Stowe states, "such a general sighing, groaning, and weeping, as the like hath not been seen or known in the memory of man") exhibits large, round, Roman pearls in the stomacher; a carcanet of large round pearls, etc., about her throat; her neck ornamented with long strings of pearls; her high-heeled shoe-bows having in the centre large pearl medallions. Her earrings are circular pearl and ruby medallions, with large pear-shaped pearl pendants. This, of course, represents her as she dressed towards the close of her life. In the Tollemache collection at Ham House is a miniature of her, however, when about twenty, which shows the same taste as existing at that age. She is there depicted in a black dress, trimmed with a double row of pearls. Her point-lace ruffles are looped with pearls, etc. Her head-dress is decorated in front with a jewel set with pearls, from which three pear-shaped pearls depend. And, finally, she has large pearl-tassel earrings. In the Henham Hall portrait, the ruff is confined by a collar of pearls, rubies, etc., set in a gold filagree pattern, with large pear-shaped pearls depending from each lozenge. The sleeves are ornamented with rouleaux, wreathed with pearls and bullion. The lappets of her head-dress are also adorned at every "crossing" with a large round pearl. Her gloves, moreover, were always of white kid, richly embroidered with pearls, etc., on the backs of the hands. A poet of that day asserts even that at the funeral procession, when the royal corpse was rowed from Richmond, to lie in state at Whitehall-- "Fish wept their eyes of pearl quite out, And swam blind after." Elizabeth's christening gift from the Duchess of Norfolk was a cup of gold, fretted with pearls, that noble lady being (says Miss Strickland) "completely unconscious of the chemical antipathy between the acidity of wine and the misplaced pearls."

It seems to have been the custom of every one connected with the court to give presents to Queen Elizabeth on her birthday, and as her Majesty's weakness for jewellery was well known, articles enriched with precious stones were chiefly given, such as fans, bracelets, caskets studded with jewels, etc. (In the Sloane MSS. in the British Museum is a list of the New Year's gifts presented to the queen, from the fourteenth to the thirty-sixth year of her Majesty's reign.) Among the gifts in 1572 we find:-- "One juell of golde, being part of the History of Samson, standing upon an emeralde, having also an emeralde in thone hand, and a little rock rubye on his shoulder; the pillor standing upon two fayre dyamondes, and the upper parte of the pillor garnished with a border of sparks of dyamond on thone side; upon the top thearof a fayre rock-rubye, the backside of the said juell being a plate of gold enamuled. "A juell of golde, being a fish called the bull of the sea, fully garnished with dyamonds and rubyes on thone syde, and the other syde having a fynne lykewise garnished, and a man kneeling upon the same, his bodye and hedd garnished with small dyamondes and rubyes. The same juell hanging at three small chains, garnished with six small knobbes, having sparkes of dyamondes and rubyes, and a little knobbe at thende thearof, having two little dyamondes and two rubyes, and a large perle peare-fation, pendante. "A juell, being a chrisolite, garnished with golde, flagon-facyon, thone side sett with two emeraldes, thone of them a little cracked, three dyamonds and two sparcks of turquesses; thother side having in it a clocke, a border about the same flagon of golde, garnished with eight table-rubys and four dyamonds, the foote garnished with four small pointed dyamonds, and twelve sparks of rubyes, and four very lytle perles, also pendante; the mowthe of the said flaggon made with five pillors, a man standing therin every pillor, sett with a little dyamonde, a little emeralde, and a little rubye, and six litle perles upon the same pillors; the sam flaggon hangeth at a cheyne of golde having three knotts with two small dyamonds the peece, also hanging a knobbe having three by the sparcks of diamonds, and three very lytle perles." (Harrington sent a jewel in the form of a dark lantern, as a new year's gift, to James, King of Scotland, signifying that the failing lamp of life waxed dim with the departing queen, and would soon be veiled in the darkness of the tomb.) During the royal progress in 1573, some costly "juelles" were given to the queen, who generally returned these compliments with presents of "plate," very inferior in value, to her various favourites.