In 1599:—
‘By Mrs. Wingfeilde, mother of the maydes, four ruffes of lawne and a fanne.’
From a letter of Rowland Whyte to Sir Robert Sydney, December 13, 1595, we learn that ‘upon Thursday she dined at Kew, my lord keeper’s (Sir John Packering) house (who lately obtained of her majestie his sute for £100 a yeare land in fee farm). His intertainment for that meale was great and exceeding costly. At her first lighting, she had a fine fanne, with a handle garnished with diamonds.’
It is also recorded that upon her visit to Hawsted Hall, the seat of Sir Thomas Cullum, she dropped a silver-handled fan into the moat.[82]
In the year 1600, a commission was issued to the Lord High Treasurer, the Lord Chamberlain, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, and the Treasurer of Her Highness’s Chamber, to examine and take a perfect survey of all ‘robes, garments, and jewels,’ as well within the Court as at the Tower and Whitehall. In this, no less than twenty-seven fans appear. The following are enumerated:—
Item, one fanne of white feathers, with a handle of golde, havinge two snakes wyndinge aboute it, garnished with a ball of diamondes in the ende, and a crowne on each side within a paire of winges garnished with diamondes, lackinge 6 diamondes.
Item, one fanne of feather of divers colours, the handle of golde, with a bare and a ragged staffe on both sides, and a lookinge glass on thone side.
Item, one handle of golde enamelled, set with small rubies and emerodes, lackinge 9 stones, with a shipp under saile on thone side.
Item, one handle of christall, garnished with sylver guilte, with a worde within the handle.
Item, one handle of elitropia (q), garnished with golde, set with sparks of diamondes, rubies, and sixe small pearls, lackinge one diamonde.
The feather-fan appears in the following portraits of Queen Elizabeth, painted and engraved:—
Jesus College: white feather-fan with jewelled handle.
The Newcome picture, now in the National Portrait Gallery: part of a feather-fan, the portrait being three-quarter length.