In England in the time of James I, the love of personal ornament, among men as well as women, was even more widespread than before. King James, and also his Queen, who herself possessed a highly extravagant taste for jewellery, set a public example by their patronage of the jewellers; while the nobility outbid one another in lavish expenditure. John Chamberlain, an entertaining correspondent of the day, writes thus in 1608 to a friend unable to attend a masque: "Whatsoever the devise may be, and what success they may have in their dancing, yet you should be sure to have seen great riches in jewels, when one lady, and that under a baroness, is said to be furnished for better than a hundred thousand pounds; and the lady Arabella goes beyond her, and the Queen must not come behind."
Contemporary chroniclers have left no descriptions that show precisely how the King's own person reflected the fashions in jewellery of his day, yet we know that he possessed an almost childish admiration for "bravery," as it then was termed, particularly such as was intended for the decoration of those about his person. A very curious instance of the King's interest in these matters is to be found in the elaborate instructions he issued concerning the despatch of a large consignment of jewels for the use of the Prince of Wales, and his favourite, Buckingham, on their memorable journey to Spain in 1623. In the spring of that year orders were given to several officers of State, and with them the jeweller Heriot, to repair to the Tower and make a selection of the finest jewels there—some fit for a woman, and others for the Prince to wear. Among them a "jewel called the Three Brothers, five or six faire jewels to be worn in men's hats, same to be of £6,000 or £7,000 value, and none under; the five pendent diamonds that were the Queen's, whether they remain upon a string or be made up upon a feather. If none of the Targett fashion for hats, the jewels to be broke up to make them."[179]
To his son and favourite the King then addresses a letter, in which he tells them that he had been choosing "the jewells I am to send you, whereof my Babie is to present some to his Mistresse, and some of the best hee is to wear himselfe, and the next best hee will lend to my bastard brat [Buckingham] to wear." On their removal from the Tower the jewels are carefully inventoried, and Heriot is set to work to refashion them. After a fortnight's work he promises that they will be finished in a few days. So, on the 18th of March, "the jewels," we learn, "have been delivered." "Mr. Herriot is gone to assist in packing them, and has sat up day and night to get them completed."[180]
The King then writes that he is sending for his "Babie's owin wearing ... the Three Brethren,[181] that you knowe full well, but newlie sette, and the Mirroure of Frawnce, the fellowe of the Portugall Dyamont, quhiche I wolde wishe you to weare alone in your hatte with a litle blakke feather." To his "sweete Gosseppe" he sends "a fair table dyamonde." "I have hung," he says, "a faire peare pearle to it for wearing in thy hatte or quhair thow pleasis."[182]
As the result of extensive transactions both with the Crown and the nobility the jewellers of the day seem to have reaped a rich harvest; and they attained to positions of eminence by adding banking to their more ancient art of working in the precious metals. Of the royal jewellers, George Heriot of Edinburgh—rendered immortal by Sir Walter Scott as "Jingling Geordie"—the founder of Heriot's Hospital, comes first to mind. Heriot received in 1597 a life appointment as jeweller to Queen Anne of Denmark, and in 1601 James made him his own jeweller. He followed the King to London, and in 1603, together with William Herrick and John Spilman, was appointed jeweller to the King, Queen, and Prince, at a yearly salary of £50. Immense sums of money were paid him both as interest on loans and for the jewels supplied to their Majesties, of which long lists have been preserved. Sir John Spilman, a German by birth and one of the chief jewellers of Queen Elizabeth, executed great quantities of jewellery at the royal commands; but Sir William Herrick seems to have obtained an even larger share of the royal patronage. Queen Anne of Denmark, who spent an enormous amount on personal ornaments, received £36,000 worth from him alone. "Queen Anne," writes a contemporary shortly after her death, "hath left a world of brave jewels behind; and although one Piers, an outlandish man, hath run away with many, she hath left all to the Prince [Charles] and none to the Queen of Bohemia [her daughter Elizabeth]." In fact, so many of her jewels were embezzled that scarcely a vestige remained, though Herrick produced the models of them and swore to their delivery.[183] The poet Robert Herrick, Sir William Herrick's nephew, was a jeweller-apprentice to his uncle for several years, and his early training seems to have left a strong impression on him, for his poems throughout betray a love and appreciation for jewels. Among other jewellers whose names occur in the State Papers, the following may be mentioned: Philip Jacobson, Arnold Lulls, John Acton, and John Williams—a maker of gold neck-chains and pendent medals.
As far as the actual productions of the Jacobean jewellers are concerned we meet with comparatively few examples; this want, however, is supplied, to a certain extent, by means of a beautiful set of contemporary drawings for jewellery preserved in the Victoria and Albert Museum—the work of Arnold Lulls, a jeweller whose name occurs several times in the royal accounts. In conjunction with Sir William Herrick, Lulls supplied the King in 1605, as New Year's gifts for the Royal Family, with jewels to the amount of £3,000. For a certain jewel of diamonds, with pearls pendent, and two dozen buttons supplied by him and Jacobson, and bestowed by His Majesty on the Queen at the Princess Mary's christening the same year, Lulls was paid £1,550.[184]
Lulls' designs, drawn in water-colours in a parchment book, number altogether forty-one. The majority, set with large table-cut stones and hung with huge pear-shaped drops, are for pendent ornaments, for wearing either on the neck-chain, or as earrings, or else upon the hat. Among the drawings are two designs for a "rope of round pearls, great and orient"—forty-seven in number—given to the Queen, and several designs for the above-mentioned diamond and pearl ornament given her in 1605; two drawings for Georges of the Order of the Garter given to Prince Henry; and designs for a large balas ruby with pearl pendant mentioned in an inventory of the Prince's jewels.[185] The remaining drawings include four of jewelled aigrettes set with diamonds, rubies, emeralds, and sapphires (Plate XXX, 1). These remarkable contemporary illustrations of English jewellery reveal the change then beginning to take place in the character of personal ornaments. Yet, though precious stones are much in evidence, in almost every case their settings are coloured, while the design of each jewel is completed with charming scrollwork enriched with polychrome enamels.
The finest Jacobean jewel in existence is the famous miniature-case known as the Lyte Jewel, now in the Waddesdon Bequest in the British Museum. Miniature-cases of gold elaborately enamelled, with hinged fronts often set with jewels, were as much in vogue as in Elizabeth's time; and records show that many precious "picture cases" of the kind were made for James I as presents to personal friends or to ambassadors. The cover of the Lyte Jewel is of open-work, filled with the letter R, with diamonds on the outside and brilliant enamel within. The back is a white enamelled plate with a design in fine gold lines and ruby enamel, the edge being enamelled alternately ruby colour and sapphire-blue. Within is a portrait of James I ascribed to Isaac Oliver. The first owner of the jewel was Mr. Thomas Lyte. This gentleman drew up a long pedigree of King James I's ancestry and presented it to the King, who was so much pleased with it that he rewarded Mr. Lyte with "his picture in gold, set with diamonds, with gracious thanks." The jewel passed from the Lyte family some generations ago into the hands of the Duke of Hamilton. At the dispersal of the Hamilton Palace collection it was bought for the sum of £2,835 by Baron Ferdinand Rothschild, who bequeathed it with his other art treasures to the British Museum. A contemporary portrait of Thomas Lyte, dated 1611, in the possession of Sir Henry Maxwell Lyte shows him wearing it suspended from a brown ribbon round his neck. The jewel is the same, save that the drop at the bottom, now a single pearl, was originally trilobed. This exquisite jewel was probably the work of one of the court jewellers mentioned above. The design on the back, which corresponds in style with engravings of Daniel Mignot and the other earlier designers in the "silhouette" manner, exemplifies the influence exercised by the ornamentists on all the jewellery of the period (Pl. XLI).
Throughout the reign of Charles I ornaments in the same style as those portrayed in Lulls' drawings appear to have remained in use. All jewellery was largely influenced by the pattern-books issued from the goldsmith-engravers' shops of Germany, France and Flanders. Several jewellers themselves came over, as did the well-known Michel Le Blon, in the early part of the reign. In 1635 the famous goldsmith-enamellers Petitot and Bordier likewise visited England, and doubtless made their influence felt on the enamelled jewellery of the time. The period, on the whole, though it terminated disastrously for all the sumptuary arts, seems to have been a prolific one in the production of jewellery. The chief business was shared by the court jewellers—James Heriot (half-brother of George Heriot), Philip Jacobson, Thomas Simpson, John Acton, and William Terrey. Though he showered commissions on these jewellers, the King had commenced early in his reign the dispersal of the immense hoards of jewellery brought together by his predecessors; and by selling and pawning raised large sums of money, to make good the deficiencies caused by the rupture with Parliament. Subsequently, during the Civil War, to relieve his personal necessities, numbers of jewels were sold at home, and many more pawned and sent over to the dealers at Amsterdam, who broke them up for the intrinsic value of their gold and precious stones; while the remainder were put under the hammer by a commission appointed after the King's death to dispose of the works of art in the royal collection.