Royal English Bookbindings

by Cyril Davenport

There is another embroidered book belonging to the old royal collection in the British Museum that seems to have been bound for Queen Elizabeth. It is a copy of The Common Places of Dr. Peter Martyr, translated by Anthonie Marten, printed in London in 1583, and dedicated to the queen. It is covered in blue purple velvet, and ornamented with silver wire and guimp. There is an outer border formed of double lines, made easily and effectively by means of a spiral wire flattened down, giving the appearance of small overlaid rings. This border encloses a series of clusters, formed with stitches of silver guimp, arranged in a basket-work pattern. In the centre is an ornament of diamond shape, outlined with the same silver-wire edge and enclosing again the basket-work design, and the four inner corners are filled up with quarter circles of the same work. The book has been rebacked, and it is not in very good condition; but the effect of the silver on the deep purple ground still has a very admirable effect. The broad gilt edges are very handsomely and elaborately decorated with gauffred work of Elizabethan character.

A Bible, printed in London in 1583, was embroidered and bound for Queen Elizabeth, and presented to her in 1584, and is now in the Bodleian Library at Oxford. It is a folio book, measuring almost 17 × 12 inches, and is bound in crimson velvet. Upon each board is a very graceful design of rose-branches, intertwined. There are four large roses and two smaller ones, all embroidered in silver and gold braid and coloured threads, with here and there a few small pearls. A narrow border runs round the edge, embroidered in gold thread and coloured silk.

Fig. 11.—Orationis Dominicæ Explicatio, per L. Danaeum.
Genevae, 1583. Queen Elizabeth.

A remarkable binding on calf, executed for Queen Elizabeth, is on a large Bible printed at Lyons, measuring 16½ inches by 11, each board being double ([Fig. 12]). The upper board is pierced in several places, showing underneath it a lower level covered with green calf, and decorated with small stars and arabesques. The upper boards on both sides of the book are elaborately stamped in gold and painted in enamel colours, and in each case an oval, painted panel occupies the centre. The upper cover of the book has in the central oval a charming sunk miniature portrait of Elizabeth as a young woman, dressed in jewelled robes and head-dress, and carrying a sword or sceptre. The portrait is enclosed in a very delicately painted frame of jewelled goldsmith’s work. This painting is unfortunately damaged, especially in the face, and it seems to be executed in opaque water-colours, varnished, on vellum. Immediately round the miniature, on the leather, is a very elaborately painted and gilded oval ribbon with the words “Elizabeth Dei Gratia Ang. Fran. Hib. Regina.” The broad, irregular, oval border itself has a design of interlacing fillets and floral emblems of considerable beauty, winged horses and Cupids, all picked out in colours. This very large stamp, measuring 9 inches in length, which is now and then found on books other than royal, is the largest English stamp known to me. There are cartouches left in the upper leather above and below this central arrangement, and they are of a similar ornamentation and colour, as are also the very handsome corners. The other side of the book is similarly decorated, with the differences that the centre painting, by the same hand, is the royal coat-of-arms of England in an egg-shaped, oval form, surrounded by the Garter, within an Elizabethan scroll. Over the crown is a canopy of green and red, and the supporters of the lion and red dragon are in their proper places. Underneath the coat is the motto “Dieu et mon Droit” on an ornamental panel, and the legend lettered on the leather immediately surrounding the painting reads “Posui Deum adivtorem meum.” On the lower cartouche on this side is the date of the binding, “MDLXVIII.” This binding, when new, must have been one of the finest and most elaborately decorated of any of the leather bindings made for an English sovereign. The back of the volume, nearly 5 inches in width, is also very finely ornamented with an Elizabethan pattern outlined in gold and coloured in keeping with the rest of the ornamental work. Its present condition is unfortunate. The restorations, which have been largely added, have, however, the merit of being at once apparent, as little or no trouble has been in this case taken to reproduce the old stamps. The gilt edges are beautifully gauffred, and are picked out here and there with colour. The design is a complicated arabesque with masks, and on the lower edge a curious design of an animal resembling a unicorn.

Fig. 12.—La Saincte Bible. Lyon, 1566.
Queen Elizabeth.

One more beautiful book in the old royal collection that belonged to Elizabeth has double boards. The outer edges on this instance are interesting, as there is, in fact, an elongated head-band running along their entire length and joining the edges of the two boards. It is covered in very dark morocco, and decorated in blind and gold stamped work. In the centre of each cover is a sunk oval medallion, on which is painted the royal coat-of-arms of England, surrounded by the Garter; the two supporters holding up the crown in their paws. Flanking the crown are the letters E. R. The motto “Dieu et mon Droit” is on a red panel with a blue border at the lower portion of the oval, and the groundwork of the whole is silver. The medallion is enclosed in a richly designed broad border of strap-work, enriched with dots and arabesques, all in gold. Towards the upper and lower corners are four silver double roses with gold crowns. In each corner is a quarter circle of vellum, pierced and richly gilded in a pattern of strap-work and floral sprays. All the foregoing is enclosed in a border of blind work, and an outer edging ornamented with a succession of small set stamps. There are traces of green ribbons, both on the front edges of the book and at the upper and lower edges. It is a copy of Les Qvatre Premiers Livres des Navigations et Peregrinations Orientales de N. De Nicolay, printed at Lyons in 1568, and probably bound at the same time. The book is especially remarkable for its vellum corners, which are actually inlaid; that is to say, a corresponding piece of morocco is cut out and replaced by the vellum. This process, which, of course, adds immensely to the power of a binder in decorating the outside of a book, is one which, so far as I am aware, does not occur before on any English binding. It is a fashion that was much followed in the next century both by French and English binders. In the great majority of instances, however, the added leather is not actually inlaid, but only scraped or cut very thin, and superimposed. The remarkable manner in which the two last books described are made up with double boards is worthy of special notice, and has not, I think, ever been used since on any sumptuous binding. The fashion is one, nevertheless, which was much used with great effect on fine Italian bindings made towards the end of the fifteenth century, and there are two books of this kind that belonged to Elizabeth, and were bound for her in Italy after the “Italian fashion,” now in the British Museum. Vellum inlays for Queen Elizabeth occur in their finest form on a presentation copy from Matthew Parker, Archbishop of Canterbury, of Hores Historiarvm, per Matthævm Westmonasteriensem Collecti, etc., printed in London in 1570. It is probable that this volume was bound in Archbishop Parker’s own house. It is covered in calf, and the centre, border, angles, and side-pieces are inlaid in white vellum, and richly stamped in gold. The actual centre of the boards has the royal coat-of-arms of England, with crown and Garter stamped in gold, enclosed in a vellum oval of strap-work and arabesques, with the letters E. R. at the sides. The inner parallelogram has large corners stamped in gold, and is edged with a black fillet, the entire field on the calf being decorated with a semée of triple dots. The book has two gilded clasps, and the edges of the leaves are gilt, gauffred, and painted. A small panel on each of the angle-pieces, which are otherwise ornamented with designs of military trophies, drums, trumpets, shields, swords, and cuirasses, bears the initials “J. D. P.” These letters are supposed to mean John Day, Printer. John Day printed books at Lambeth for Archbishop Parker; and these corner-pieces do occur on books printed by him and bound in a very similar way to the volume now described, so there is some show of probability in the interpretation. A field covered with a succession of impressions from the same stamp has no name in English, but in France it is known as a “semée,” its use having come into fashion in that country a little earlier than the date of this book.