Royal English Bookbindings

by Cyril Davenport

A copy of Herodotus’ and Thucydides’ works, bound together in one cover, belonged most likely to Edward VI. It is part of the old royal library, and is bound in brown calf, with a broad outer border of Italian character enclosing the royal coat-of-arms, crowned, within a flamed circle. The flamed circle first occurs, as may have been noted, on the volumes bound for Edward when Prince of Wales, and it is afterwards used on several of his later volumes, and also on many that were bound for Queen Mary. What the meaning of this flamed circle is I have not been able to conjecture, it may possibly only be intended for ornament. Berthelet, doubtless, liked to use circles or parts of circles on his bindings, and in this taste he was following the lead of much more ancient English binders, as the circle is characteristic of the splendid blind stamped English work of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries.

Thomas Berthelet died, according to an entry in the Stationers’ Company Register, in 1556. So that it is just possible he bound books for Queen Mary. But I think that Berthelet was quickly copied, and it is very easy to copy the style or even the actual stamps of any binder; and if the binding of Cardinal Bembo’s History of Venice be taken as a test example of Berthelet’s best work, which I think it fairly may be, it will be seen that although Mary’s bindings have some points of resemblance there are also many wide differences. Berthelet avowedly acknowledged the beauty of Italian originals, but I do not find that he actually copied any one of them, and he, moreover, very soon left them behind. There is a certain recrudescence of this Italian manner distinctly apparent in many of the books bound for Queen Mary, and I imagine this to be the work, not of Berthelet himself, but of one of his imitators or successors, or perhaps one of his own workmen.

A good example of this Italian-English style is found on the binding of the Epitome omnium operum Divi Aurelii Augusti, etc., printed at Cologne in 1549. A very handsome broad border containing an elaborate arabesque is parallel to the edges of the boards. This encloses an inner black fillet interlaced with a diamond, in the middle of which is the royal coat-of-arms within a flamed circle, and at each side, in the angles formed by the intersection of the diamond points and the inner rectangular lines, are the initials M. R. The spaces throughout are filled in with arabesques, single roses, and circles.

A very similar design occurs on the binding of a manuscript poem by Myles Haggard, addressed to the queen, and another on a copy of Bonner’s Profitable Doctrine, printed in London in 1555.

Entirely different in manner of decoration is the binding of the Commentary on the New Testament, in Latin, by Aurelius Augustinus, printed at Basle in 1542, and which came to the British Museum as part of the old royal library. It is covered in white leather, and ornamented with gold tooling of a very elaborate kind. A broad inner rectangular panel, broken outwards at each side, contains a diamond, and the spaces in and about these leading lines are filled with arabesques, royal arms, and royal emblems, roses, fleurs-de-lis, and portcullises. Although the general design of the original decoration of this book has doubtless been preserved, it has been grievously tampered with, and no reliance can be put on any of the small detail work now existing upon it—a most unlucky circumstance, as it is unlike any other royal book in the general arrangement of its ornamentation, and so of special interest.

So again different, but in a much less important manner, is the little calf binding of a Livre faisant mention de sept parolles que N. S. Jesuchrist dit en l’arbre de la croix, printed at Paris in 1545, and bound for Queen Mary. It is decorated with blind and gold lines, and dotted all about in the most reckless manner with M’s and I’s, meaning doubtless Mary the First. In the centre of each cover there is a knot, the same knot exactly as is used in the sculptures on our Houses of Parliament to tie together the initials V. R. of our present Most Gracious Queen, and surrounding the knot are four M’s. The I’s are down the edge of the boards nearest to the back. The little book is of great interest, as it never could have been in any way a State copy, but was most likely a favourite book of the queen’s, and so decorated with her initials only—leaving heraldry for once out of the scheme.

The most splendid of the books that Queen Mary has left for us to admire is a manuscript of Psalms and Hymns in Latin and French of very beautiful workmanship, known as Queen Mary’s Psalter. It came to the British Museum with the old royal library. It is bound in crimson velvet and has gilt clasps and corners, and on each side a large piece of embroidery appliqué. This embroidery is much worn; it is on canvas, and some of it is actually gone, but it seems to have been a conventional pomegranate, and this is all the more likely as such a design would have been a probable one for Queen Mary to use, as she had an excuse to do so by virtue of her mother’s right to the emblem of Arragon. The clasps are engraved with the dragon, lion, portcullis, and fleur-de-lis, and in spite of the damage done to the volume by time and wear, it is still a splendid specimen of magnificent binding. By an inscription at the end of the volume we are informed that it was rescued from the hands of some seamen who were preparing to carry it abroad by “Baldwin Smith,” who presented it to Queen Mary in 1553.

Fig. 7.—Queen Mary’s Psalter, MS.