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New Year's Day gift (royal courts)

At the Tudor and Stuart royal courts in Britain it was traditional to give gifts on New Year's Day, on 1 January. Records of these gift exchanges survive, and provide information about courtiers and their relative status.[1] A similar custom at the French court was known as the étrenne. Historians often analyse these gift economies following the ideas of the anthropologist Marcel Mauss and Bronisław Malinowski's description of the Kula ring.[2][3]

Gifts and status

In 1504, James IV of Scotland gave Margaret Dennet, an English servant of his queen consort Margaret Tudor, a gold chain with a figure of Saint Andrew worth £20 Scots.[4] James IV gave Margaret Tudor two sapphire rings.[5] In 1507, James IV gave Elizabeth Berlay, another English attendant of Margaret, gold rosary beads with a cross costing £62 Scots.[6] James V gave gifts at the New Year Mass in 1539, and a length of black ribbon was bought to make loops for lockets or pendants known as "tablets".[7] He paid a goldsmith John Mosman £410 Scots for making chains, rings, tablets, bracelets, targets (brooches or hat badges), and other gold work brought to him at Stirling Castle to be New Year's gifts for his courtiers in January 1541. Other gifts of gold "Paris work" were provided by Thomas Rynd including "chaffrons" for French hoods, bracelets, rosary beads, buttons and a ring.[8][9]

In 1520, the Duke of Buckingham commissioned a gold pomander with the heraldic badges of Henry VIII and Catherine of Aragon for her New Year's Day gift, to be filled with scented compound and worn on her girdle.[10] The lady-in-waiting Isabel Leigh gave Henry VIII a shirt she had embroidered and received a silver cup in return.[11]

Henry VIII sometimes received his gifts in person, in 1538 leaning against a cupboard while Brian Tuke made notes of the presents and donors.[12] The silver and gilt plate which Henry gave to his courtiers in return for their gifts was made or supplied by goldsmiths including Cornelis Hayes and Robert Amadas.[13] Claiming these items of gift plate could involve administrative fees and a visit to the Jewel House.[14]

When Margaret Douglas was in favour in 1539 at the court of Henry VIII, she was given a gilt cup made by the goldsmith Morgan Wolf as a New Year's Day gift.[15] In 1543, Margaret Douglas gave Princess Mary a satin gown of carnation silk in Venice fashion.[16]

Mary Finch gave Mary I of England a red satin purse containing twelve gold half sovereign coins as a New Years Day gift for 1557. Sybil Penn, who had been Edward VI's nurse, gave Mary I six handkerchiefs edged with gold and silk lace.[17]

Mary Radcliffe, a maid of honour, was said to have been presented to Elizabeth I in January 1561 by her father as if she were a New Year's Day gift.[18] The plate distributed by Elizabeth was made by Robert Brandon, Affabel Partridge,[19] Hugh Kayle, Richard Martin and others.[20]

The gift rolls from the reign of Elizabeth include various costume accessories such as scarves, petticoats, mantles, girdles, caps, and handkerchiefs, frequently embroidered and enriched with silks, gold thread and jewels.[21] In January 1600, Dorothy Speckard, a silkwoman at the English court, gave a head veil of striped network, flourished with carnation silk and embroidered with metallic "oes", and Elizabeth Brydges, a maid of honour, presented a doublet of network lawn, cut and tufted up with white knit-work, flourished with silver.[22] Food was also a suitable gift,[23] in 1562 Lady Yorke gave Elizabeth three sugar loaves and a barrel of sucket.[24] A bible, bound in crimson velvet embroidered with pearls, given to Elizabeth in 1584 by the printer Christopher Barker is now held by the Bodleian Library.[25]

Beyond the royal court, evidence survives of New Year's day gift giving in aristocratic households. In 1576, Gilbert Talbot, who was staying at Goodrich Castle, sent his father, the Earl of Shrewsbury, locally made gifts of a Monmouth cap, Ross boots, and perry.[26] Mary, Queen of Scots, imprisoned at Sheffield in 1580, asked her ally James Beaton, Archbishop of Glasgow, to send her items of gold jewellery from Paris for her to give as tokens and New Year's Day gifts. She had not been able to acquire as many gifts as she would have liked to give in previous years.[27]

The Edinburgh goldsmith and financier Thomas Foulis supplied jewels to James VI to serve as New Year's Day gifts in 1596. These included a gold salamander studded with diamonds given to the Master of Work, William Schaw. Anne of Denmark had a diamond set gold locket or tablet with a diamond and ruby necklace. Sir Thomas Erskine had a locket set with rubies and diamonds, the Duke of Lennox had a hat badge in the shape of a diamond set gold crown, and a courtier known as the "Little Dutchman" (possibly William Belo) received a diamond ring.[28] Foulis had previously supplied James with jewels for gifts while working with his former master, the goldsmith Michael Gilbert.[29]

An account book for 1604 written by Princess Elizabeth (or her companion Anne Livingstone) records the purchases of gifts for the Harington household at Coombe Abbey, including "four ear rings at fifteen pennies the piece" that were "given at new year's day to my lady Harington's women", and rings bought for the dancing master and writing master, with gifts for "Lady Harington's officemen", including the pantry man and the buttery man.[30][31]

Arbella Stuart's letters give an insight into anxiety around gift giving. She recommended that Mary Talbot, Countess of Shrewsbury take advice from Margaret Hartsyde, one of the Scottish chamberers serving Anne of Denmark. She thought Hartsyde could discreetly inquire what the queen wanted, to know her "mind without knowing who asked it", without spoiling any surprise.[32] An inventory of Anne of Denmark's clothes lists elaborately embroidered petticoats or skirts, gifts in January 1609 and 1610 from King James, her chamberlain Lord Lisle, and her servant Mary Gargrave. The Countess of Nottingham gave a petticoat embroidered with fruit bats.[33]

In January 1610, Thomas Howard, 1st Earl of Suffolk gave Anne a petticoat embroidered with arches, pyramids, and wild beasts.[34] In 1619, he and his wife, the Countess of Suffolk, with their associate Sir John Bingley were charged with corruption, for taking bribes to expedite exchequer payments. They claimed that they had innocently received New Year's Day gifts, but the trial lawyer Francis Bacon declared "new years gifts did not last all the year".[35]

See also

References

  1. ^ Maria Hayward, "Gift Giving at the Court of Henry VIII", The Antiquaries Journal, 85 (2005), pp. 125–175. doi:10.1017/S0003581500074382: Jane Lawson, "Ritual of the New Year's Gift", Valerie Schutte & Jessica S. Hower, Mary I in Writing: Letters, Literature, and Representation (Palgrave Macmillan, 2022), pp. 165–188: Jane Lawson, The Elizabethan New Year's Gift Exchanges, 1559–1603 (Oxford, 2013): John L. Nevinson, "New Year's Gifts to Queen Elizabeth I, 1584", Costume, 9 (1975).
  2. ^ Peter Burke, "Renaissance Jewels in their Social Setting", Anna Somers Cocks, Princely Magnificence: Court Jewels of the Renaissance, 1500–1630 (London, 1980), pp. 8–11: Brigitte Buettner, "Past Presents: New Year's Gifts at the Valois Courts, ca. 1400", The Art Bulletin, 83 (4):598 (December 2001), pp. 598–625. doi:10.2307/3177225: Arjun Appadurai, "Commodities and the politics of value", The Social Life of Things: Commodities in Cultural Perspective (Cambridge, 1986), pp. 3–63.
  3. ^ Natalie Zemon Davis, The Gift in Sixteenth-Century France (Oxford University Press, 2000), pp. 3–16: Lisa M. Klein, "Your Humble Handmaid: Elizabethan Gifts of Needlework", Renaissance Quarterly, 50:2 (Summer 1997), pp. 459–493 doi:10.2307/3039187
  4. ^ Michelle Beer, Queenship at the Renaissance Courts of Britain: Catherine of Aragon and Margaret Tudor (Woodbridge, 2018), p. 107: James Balfour Paul, Accounts of the Treasurer of Scotland, vol. 2 (Edinburgh, 1900), pp. 412, 472.
  5. ^ Nicola Tallis, All The Queen's Jewels, 1445–1548: Power, Majesty and Display (Routledge, 2023), p. 199.
  6. ^ James Balfour Paul, Accounts of the Treasurer, vol. 3 (Edinburgh, 1901), pp. 92, 116, 360.
  7. ^ Andrea Thomas, Princelie Majestie: The Court of James V, 1528–1542 (John Donald, 2005), p. 209: James Balfour Paul, Accounts of the Treasurer, 7 (Edinburgh, 1907), p. 123.
  8. ^ Andrea Thomas, Princelie Majestie: The Court of James V, 1528–1542 (John Donald, 2005), p. 120: James Balfour Paul, Accounts of the Treasurer, 7 (Edinburgh, 1907), pp. 400–401, 408.
  9. ^ Sally Rush, 'Looking at Marie de Guise', Études Epistémè, 37 (2020)
  10. ^ Diana Scarisbrick, Jewellery in Britain (Norwich, 1994), pp. 145–146.
  11. ^ Maria Hayward, "Gift Giving at the Court of Henry VIII", Antiquaries Journal, 85 (2005), pp. 147, 165, 171 fn. 88.
  12. ^ Nicola Tallis, All The Queen's Jewels, 1445–1548: Power, Majesty and Display (Routledge, 2023), p. 195.
  13. ^ Maria Hayward, "Gift Giving at the Court of Henry VIII", Antiquaries Journal, 85 (2005), p. 133.
  14. ^ Felicity Heal, The Power of Gifts: Gift Exchange in Early Modern England (Oxford, 2014), p. 143.
  15. ^ Maria Hayward, "Gift Giving at the Court of Henry VIII", Antiquaries Journal, 85 (2005), p. 144.
  16. ^ Maria Hayward, "Dressed to Impress", Alice Hunt & Anna Whitelock, Tudor Queenship (Palgrave Macmillan, 2010), p. 91.
  17. ^ John Nichols, Illustrations of the Manners and Expences of Antient Times in England (London, 1797), pp. 8–9
  18. ^ Patricia Fumerton, Cultural Aesthetics: Renaissance Literature and the Practice of Social Ornament (Chicago, 1991), p. 43.
  19. ^ Elizabeth Goldring, Nicholas Hilliard (Yale, 2019), p. 67.
  20. ^ H. D. W. Sitwell, 'The Jewel House and the Royal Goldsmiths', Archaeological Journal, 117 (1960), p. 150: HMC 6th Report: Wykeham Martin (London, 1877), p. 468.
  21. ^ Georgiana Hill, A History of English Dress, 1 (New York, 1893), p. 182.
  22. ^ John Nichols, The progresses and public processions of Queen Elizabeth, vol. 3 (London, 1828), pp. 456-7.
  23. ^ Felicity Heal, "Food Gifts, the Household and the Politics of Exchange in Early Modern England", Past & Present, 199 (May 2008), pp. 41–70.
  24. ^ Elizabeth Goldring, Faith Eales, Elizabeth Clarke, Jayne Elizabeth Archer, John Nichols's The Progresses and Public Processions of Queen Elizabeth, vol. 1 (Oxford, 2014), p. 244.
  25. ^ Arthur J. Collins, "A Roll of New Year's Gifts of Queen Elizabeth", The British Museum Quarterly, 6:4 (March 1932), p. 96.
  26. ^ John Holland, History, Antiquities, and Description of the Town and Parish of Worksop (Sheffield, 1826), 44: Edmund Lodge, Illustrations of British History, vol. 2 (London, 1791), 152–154.
  27. ^ William Turnbull, Letters of Mary Stuart Queen of Scotland (London: Dolman, 1845), p. 284: Alexandre Labanoff, Lettres de Marie Stuart, vol. 5 (London, 1844), p. 121.
  28. ^ Miles Kerr-Peterson & Michael Pearce, "King James VI's English Subsidy and Danish Dowry Accounts, 1588–1596", Miscellany of the Scottish History Society, 16 (Woodbridge: Scottish History Society, 2020), pp. 84–85.
  29. ^ Maria Hayward, Stuart Style (Yale, 2020), p. 216.
  30. ^ William Fraser, Memorials of the Montgomeries, vol. 2 (Edinburgh, 1859) p. 248 (modernised here, the source is National Records of Scotland GD3/6/2 no. 4).
  31. ^ Nadine Akkerman, Elizabeth Stuart: Queen of Hearts (Oxford, 2021), p. 38.
  32. ^ Sara Jayne Steen, The Letters of Lady Arbella Stuart (Oxford, 1994), 191, 194–195.
  33. ^ Jemma Field, "The Wardrobe Goods of Anna of Denmark, Queen Consort of Scotland and England (1574–1619)", Costume, 51:1 (March 2017), p. 21 and online supplement nos. 307–310, 370–373, from Cambridge University Library MS Dd.I.26. doi:10.3366/cost.2017.0003
  34. ^ Jemma Field, "The Wardrobe Goods of Anna of Denmark, Queen Consort of Scotland and England (1574–1619)", Costume, 51:1 (March 2017), online supplement no. 372.
  35. ^ Linda Levy Peck, Court Patronage and Corruption in Early Stuart England (London: Routledge, 1993), pp. 182–184.
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