Oxburgh Hangings

[2][3] An accomplished needlewoman, Bess of Hardwick joined Mary at Chatsworth House for extended periods in 1569, 1570, and 1571, during which time they worked together on the hangings.

The designs were copied from wood-cut illustrations in books by well-known authors such as Claude Paradin, Conrad Gessner, and Pierre Belon.

[3][10][9] Some of the designs featured exotic and mythical animals copied from the woodcuts of a French book, André Thevet's Les Singularitez de la France Antartique (Paris, 1558).

[22] 31 more octagonal panels of embroidery, with emblematic designs, some signed "ES", resembling the slips at Oxburgh remain at Hardwick Hall mounted on a screen.

[23] Thomas Howard, 4th Duke of Norfolk was executed in 1572 for treason, his part in the Rising of the North, and planning to marry Mary, Queen of Scots.

John Leslie, Bishop of Ross, testified that he had seen Mary's servant Bortwick deliver the cushion to the Earl, with the motto and device of a knife cutting vines, "all which work was made by the Scots Queen's own hand".

[24] James Beaton, Archbishop of Glasgow, her ally in France, sent Mary a watch in January 1575/6, and she wrote to thank him for its jolie devises.

[27] John Leslie served as Mary's secretary, and his copy of Conrad Gessner's illustrated work on four-footed mammals, De Quadrupedibus Viviparis (Zürich, 1551), survives in the library of the University of St Andrews.

The textile historian Margaret Swain thought the choice of ginger for the cat's fur reflected Elizabeth's red hair.

[31] Camden wrote that Mary's use of emblems and a motto Veritas Armata meaning "Truth armed" and forming an anagram Maria Steuarta, were regarded with suspicion and resulted in her transfer from the keeping of the Earl of Shrewsbury to the custody of Amias Paulet and Drue Drury.

[32] At Hardwick Hall a pair of cushion covers include roundels at the four corners and centre, worked in tent stitch, one with Mary's monogram.

The designs of the roundels are derived from Gabriello Faerno's Fabulae Centum (Rome, 1563), an Italian version of Aesop's Fables.