Jewels of Anne of Denmark
The jewels of Anne of Denmark (1574–1619), wife of James VI and I and queen consort of Scotland and England, are known from accounts and inventories, and their depiction in portraits by artists including Paul van Somer.
On 8 April 1594, possibly marking her "churching", James VI gave Anne a gold garnishing or headdress made by Thomas Foulis with two rubies and 24 diamonds, and an opal ring.
[18] A large pendant showing a scene of Diana and Actaeon is depicted worn on the sleeve in a 1589 portrait of Frances Brydges, Lady Chandos, by Hieronimo Custodis at Woburn Abbey.
The gifts were supplied by the goldsmith and financier Thomas Foulis from the money James VI received as a subsidy from Elizabeth I and the custom duty of the Scottish gold mines.
[31] A request for a loan (not dated) written by Anne survives, "Gordg Heriott, I ernestlie dissyr youe present to send me tua hundrethe pundes withe all expidition becaus I man hest me away presentlie, Anna R."[32] A letter from James VI to Mark Kerr of Newbattle of June 1599 mentions that he had instructed John Preston of Fentonbarns to repay from tax receipts a sum of money advanced on the security of some of the queen's jewels to George Heriot.
[33] A warrant from James VI dated July 1598 to the treasurer, Walter Stewart of Blantyre, requests 3,000 merks to be used to redeem jewels belonging to the queen pledged by his direction and command.
[39] Foulis and his partner Robert Jousie were involved in collecting the King's English subsidy in London, and bought a sapphire engraved with Queen Elizabeth's portrait for Anne of Denmark in 1598 made by Cornelius Dreghe, an associate of Abraham Harderet.
[73] Such jewels with ciphers were depicted in Anne of Denmark's portraits, especially those by Paul van Somer, Marcus Gheeraerts the Younger, and in miniature by Isaac Oliver.
A gold bracelet with crowned and enamelled "AC" ciphers surviving at Rosenborg Castle may have been Christian IV's gift to his wife Anna Cathrine.
Charles Howard, 1st Earl of Nottingham presented this jewel depicting the Habsburg emblems of a diamond double eagle and golden fleece to the Queen of Spain in Madrid in May 1605.
[92] In April 1603 King James ordered that some of Elizabeth's jewels,[93] and a hairdresser Blanche Swansted, should be sent to Berwick-upon-Tweed so that Anne of Denmark would appear like an English queen as she crossed the border.
[102] An inventory of some of Elizabeth's jewels made at this time included a brooch with a miniature of Henry VIII placed under a diamond-set crown and other old pieces like a "pater noster" or rosary of garnet, and a gold honeysuckle valued at £12 which may have a badge of Anne Boleyn.
[119] The bill for making the circlet is held at the library of the University of Edinburgh:[120]Item, made a rich circulet of gould for the Queene, set with dyamonds, rubyes, saphires, emeraldes and pearles, for the fashion thereof __ cl li [£150].
[123] Despite Spilman and Herrick's work on the circlet and the sacrifice of Elizabeth's jewels, it seems to have made little impact on the diplomatic community, as Scaramelli and Giovanni degli Effetti reported that she went to her coronation on Monday 25 July 1603 with a plain band of gold on her head.
However, Benjamin von Buwinckhausen, a diplomat from the Duchy of Württemberg, described her seated in Westminster Abbey wearing a heavy coronet set with precious stones.
[130] She asked a gentlewoman and the chamberer, Margaret Hartsyde for advice and was told the queen regarded "not the value but the device", and rather than a gown or petticoat, she would prefer a "little bunch of rubies to hang in her ear".
The parcel included pieces that had been in the keeping of another of Elizabeth's ladies in waiting, the late Catherine Howard, Countess of Nottingham, a combined looking glass and clock with the figure of woman on a pillar wearing a table diamond on her forepart,[134] and items taken from a ship regarded as a prize at sea.
[136] Later in January 1604 an inventory was made of other jewels from Elizabeth's collection still in the keeping of Earl of Nottingham including brooches fashioned like winding serpents set with emeralds.
John Finet described a visit of Isabelle Brûlart, the wife of French ambassador Gaspard Dauvet, Sieur des Marets, at Denmark House in December 1617, although no gifts are mentioned.
It had been one of the gifts made when there was discussion of Henry Frederick, Prince of Wales marrying his daughter Caterina de' Medici, and may have been brought to England by the Duke's envoy Ottaviano Lotti in 1611.
[158] At a banquet in London to celebrate the treaty of 1604, the Constable of Castile, or Villamediana,[159] drank a toast from a cup of crystal and gold shaped like a dragon, which was then displayed on the queen's cupboard.
[198] The figurative image of Anne of Denmark as a fruitful vine, an olive tree with four branches, was used in a speech made in Parliament after the Gunpowder Plot by Thomas Egerton, 1st Viscount Brackley as Lord Chancellor.
[205] Following the birth of Princess Mary, King James gave her a diamond jewel and two dozen buttons worth £1550, provided by Arnold Lulls and Philip Jacobson.
[217] Anne of Denmark's inventory records gifts of jewels to Livingstone when she left the court and returned to Scotland to marry Sir Alexander Seton of Foulstruther, who was made Earl of Eglinton.
[231] He gave Anne of Denmark the ruby from the Mirror jewel as a New Year's Day gift in January 1608, set in an aigrette with twenty eight small diamonds.
[233] Contarini noted King James wearing a hat badge with "five diamonds of extraordinary size" at dinner in February 1610, perhaps the Mirror of Great Britain in this alternative configuration.
[244] Notes written in the 1606 inventory next to an entry for a diamond "girdle or border" and a bracelet identify these as the pieces selected for Bodren to send to Anne of Denmark at Hampton Court in 1618.
[262] An inventory was made in May 1625 of a chest of her remaining jewels, including the circlet, the crown used at her Scottish coronation in 1590, and a head attire with nine great round pearls.
Gofton listed the contents of the "Cheste of the late Quene Anne", which included a "rock ruby in fashion of a harte in a collet", an "olde crosse of gold sett with sixe diamonds of an olde cutt, fower table rubies, fower round perles, and a flatt perle pendante", and a gold chain and 60 buttons and 70 "Spanish work" aglets made to hold scented ambergris.
[269] Servants of Anne of Denmark were accused and convicted of stealing her jewels on several occasions, Jacob Kroger in 1594, Margaret Hartsyde in 1608, Piero Hugon and "Dutch maid Anna" in 1619.
