This is one of the “whole suite of vestments and copes of cloth of gold tissue wrought with our badges of red roses and portcullises, the which we of late caused to be made at Florence in Italy ... which our king, Henry VII., in his will bequeathed to God and St. Peter, and to the Abbot and Prior of our Monastery at Westminster,”[598] which were designed for him by Torrigiano.
From the portraits of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries we can judge of the prevailing taste in dress embroideries of that period, which consisted mostly of delicate patterns of gold or silver on the borders of dresses, and the linen collars and sleeves. Of this style I give a small sampler, from Lord Middleton’s collection. We have a good many specimens of the work of these centuries, both ecclesiastical and secular. They had still a Gothic stamp, which totally disappeared in the beginning of the sixteenth century in the new style of the Renaissance.
Fig. 27.
Sampler, from Lord Middleton’s collection.
Time, Henry VIII.
The next great change throughout northern Europe affecting all the conditions of life, most especially in England, was caused by the Reformation, which swept away both the art and the artist of the Gothic era. The monasteries which had fostered painting, illumination, and embroidery, and the arts which had been so passionately devoted to the Church, were doomed. George Gifford, writing to Cromwell of the suppression of a religious house at Woolstrope, in Lincolnshire, after praising that establishment says, “There is not one religious person there, but what can and doth use either embrotheryng, wryting bookes with a fayre hand, making garments, karvynge, &c.”[599]
In the general clearance the churches and shrines were swept, though never again garnished, and the survivals have to be painfully sought for, and are so few that a short catalogue will tell them all.
The greater part of the fine embroideries which escaped the “iconoclastic rage” of the Reformation, and the final sweep of the Puritans, are to be seen now in the houses and chapels of the old Roman Catholic families, who have either preserved or collected them; also in the museums of our cathedrals, and spread about the Continent. For instance, at Sens are the vestments of Thomas à Becket, and at Valencia, in Spain, there are yet in the chapter-house a chasuble and two dalmatics, brought from London by two merchants of Valencia, whose names are preserved—Andrew and Pedro de Medina. They purchased them at the sale of the Roman Catholic ornaments of Westminster Abbey in the time of Henry VIII. They are embroidered in gold, and represent scenes from the life of our Lord. The background of one is a representation of the Tower of London.
In 1520 was held the famous tournament of the Field of the Cloth of Gold.[600] Here came all England’s chivalry surrounding their splendid young king; followed by squires and men-at-arms, and carrying with them tents, banners, and hangings covered with devices and mottoes. Their own dresses, of rich materials and adorned with embroidery (as well as the housings of their horses), vied in ingenuity and splendour with those of the still more luxurious court and following of Francis I., the French king. The tradesmen and workmen and workwomen in England were driven crazy in their efforts to carry out the ideas and commands of their employers. It is recorded that several committed suicide in their despair. It was worse than the miseries caused by a Court Drawing-Room now. Ingenuity in devices was the order of the day. Francis and his “Partners of Challenge” illustrated one sentimental motto throughout the three days’ tourney. The first day they were apparelled in purple satin, “broched” with gold, and covered with black-ravens’ feathers, buckled into a circle. The first syllable of “corbyn” (a raven) is cor, a “hart” (heart). A feather in French is pennac. “And so it stode.” The feather in a circle was endless, and “betokened sothe fastnesse.” Then was the device “Hart fastened in pain endlesse.”
The next day the “Hardy Kings” met armed at all points. The French king and his followers were arrayed in purple satin, broched with gold and purple velvet, embroidered with little rolls of white satin, on which was written “Quando;” all the rest was powdered with the letter L—“Quando Elle” (when she). The third day the motto was laboriously brought to a conclusion. Francis appeared dressed in purple velvet embroidered with little white open books; “Liber” being a book, the motto on it was, “A me.” These books were connected with worked blue chains; thus we have the whole motto: “Hart, fastened in pain endlesse, when she delivereth me not of bondes.” Could painful ingenuity go further? On the English side we have similar devices. Brandon, Duke of Suffolk, the bridegroom of the Dowager Queen of France, Henry’s sister, was clothed on one side in cloth of frise (grey woollen), on which appeared embroidered in gold the motto,—