My post Coronation and Diamond Jubilee Goldwork described how technically difficult and time-consuming it is to embroider the incredible goldwork that can be seen on royal, religious, ceremonial and military robes.

Above are some of the heraldic and religious ceremonial robes (many at least a hundred years old) from Tuesday’s Service of Thanksgiving at St Paul’s Cathedral for Queen Elizabeth II’s Diamond Jubilee.  All robes are heavily embroidered with goldwork and must have been extremely heavy and uncomfortable to wear.

Today’s post concludes the story of my own goldwork embroidery which I undertook under the tutorage of the Royal School of Needlework as part of their Certificate in Technical Hand Embroidery.

Day 8 – chip work. The dents in all the yellow felt are where I’ve started or finished a thread. A new thread is started by doing several tiny stab stiches (starting on top of the work) in an area that is going to be covered up later with stiches. No knots and no starting or finishing on the back of the fabric! In fact the only time you turn the fabric over is when securing plunged gold thread

Day 8 – Not too much fluff on the work – although there’s a couple of areas where there’s beeswax in tiny smudges

 

 

 

 

Day 8 – my working area. The metal object that’s part way on the purple velvet cutting board is called a mellor. It helps you to stop touching the gold and also to manovre the thread into exactly the correct place

 

 

Day 8 – the spots on the purple cutting board are a few gold chips ready to be sewn down

 

 

 

Day 8 – pins marking out the exact place where the spangles are going to be sewn down

 

 

 

Day 8 – first set of spangles. Each are sewn down with a tiny gold chip of bright check placed in the middle

 

 

 

Day 8 – both sides with spangles & gold chips

 

 

 

 

Day 8 – so much tissue paper to protect my work!

 

 

 

 

Day 8 – more chipping needed! However, the race is on because the gold threads already embroidered will start to tarnish (particularly in the chipping area) but the new bright check thread to be turned into chips will be all bright and shiny. It all needs to tarnish at the same rate.

 

Day 8 – all goldwork will eventually tarnish – some areas faster then others depending on the alloy in each type of metal thread. This is accelerated the more the threads are touched as moisture, grease etc from hands are transfered onto the threads and will spead up the tarnishing process. All gold thread should be kept in glycerine bags and then kept in a dark box/cupboard. Plastic bags should not be used because of moisture in the bags will attack the thread.

Day 8 – looking good! Although according to the RSN by the end of day 8 my work should be finished and mounted ready for marking. However I had to do a lot of work at home and completed all the chipping areas during several lengthy sessions of sewing just the bright check beads. This was surprisingly very therapeutic and I did the embroidery whilst listening to the audiobook of Hilary Mantal’s Wolf Hall on my iPod!

Day 8 – RSN trestles used for resting the slate frame on. These trestles are hand made for the RSN and are nearly £400 per set!!

 

 

 

Homework – Crown all done in bright check chips. The two ‘leaves’ above both sets of ‘spangled’ leaves are now fully bright check chipped. This all took about 7 hours to do

 

 

 

Homework – Only two areas of yellow felt now left to be sewn with bright check chips

 

 

 

Full of Essex girl bling!

 

 

 

 

Nearly finished – all the bright-check chip work is finished

 

 

 

 

Only the gold cut-work to be done on over the yellow soft-string padding

 

 

 

Still in it’s embroidery frame. The work has to be cut from the frame and then properly mounted.

 

 

 

 

Bling!

 

 

 

The remaining area to be embroidered

 

 

 

 

Spangles and bright-check chips

 

 

 

 

More spangles and chips

 

 

 

 

Day 9 – Cutwork – This part was by far the hardest to do. The few stiches in this picture took me nearly 3 hours! The gold splits and cracks very easily. If that happens, the stitch has to come out and a new piece of gold has to be cut and sewn in.

 

 

Day 9 – Cutwork – The gold has to be cut to the exact length – 1mm too long and the gold will crack & split as it is sewn in. 1mm to short and you will be able to see a gap. Both not allowed and will be marked down. So it’s precise work. The angle has to be perfect to. I have the habit of flipping my angles (I’m dyslexic and dyspraxic) and I find it very difficult to keep the correct degrees

 

Day 9 – Embroidery finished.

 

 

 

 

Day 9 – Cutwork – another problem is that you very easily loose your bearings on where the needle is going to come out (as you can’t “feel” the needle from the top side). Quite a few times, my needle came out exactly in the middle of a piece of gold – which, of course, then splits it and wrecks the stitch. So out comes the stitch! For every stitch you see on my dialgonal cut work, at least 3 others had to be ripped out and resewn. These 2 strips of cutwork took me 6 solid hours to do!

 

Day 9 – Top section

 

 

 

 

Day 9 – Bottom section

 

 

 

 

Day 9 – The debris from doing my cutwork. Lots and lots of pieces of gold that I’d either a) sewn in and then had to rip out (too short, too long, cracked, split, uncoiled) or b) had cut but never got to sew them in because they were wrong (eg split when they went on the needle or cracked because I looked at them the wrong way!)

 

Part of the Certificate in Technical Hand Embroidery is to learn how to properly mount a piece of fine embroidery (without glue,cello-tape or staple gun!!).  This part of the course was just as hard as the embroidery and required brut force at many stages to force my embroidery to come together properly.

 

Day 10 – Mounting. My work is still in it’s embroidery frame. So here I’m using paper to meausure out how big the mount is going to be

 

 

Day 10 – Mounting. A running stitch is sewn all along the edge of the paper to give guidelines. This photo shows the running stitch on the right hand side of the work

 

 

 

Day 10 – Mounting. The running stitch is now marking out where the mount is going to be

 

 

 

Day 10 – Mounting. Measuring and cutting out the carrdboard mount. This is extremely thick conservation cardboard (either class 1 or Class A – can’t remember which)

 

 

Day 10 – Mounting. Underneath the cardboard is wadding. I can’t remember it’s name but it’s a type of wadding that I’ve never seen before – it looks a bit like a very soft baby’s wool blanket. Then a piece of calico is glued into place. Only a tiny bit of glue is used in strips just on the back of the cardboard. Of course it’s conservation glue!

 

Day 10 – Mounting. The top of my work is being pinned into place. But first it had to be very carefully unpicked from the slat-embroidery frame. The grain has to be even all the way around and no lumps or bumps anywhere. This was very time consuming and took over an hour just to get the fabric correctly placed with the grain exactly right and the pins all put in. The photo here shows only half the pins that the work ultimately had to have!

Day 10 – Mounting. Yikes. My work has had to be placed on a cushion of well-bundled up bubblewrap so that I can put it face down to work on it. The outside white fabric (with the black stitches) is the calico that my work was original stitched onto back on Day 1 and is the backing. There are hundreds of pins are all around the edge of the work attaching the work to the calicoed-board

 

Day 10 – Mounting. Excess fabric has been removed. This photo shows the start of the mitring of the corners – all of which are being pinned into place. The hands aren’t mine but my tutors (I needed help with this!)

 

 

Day 10 – Mounting. Look closely and you will see black herringbone stitches along the edge. The corner is about to be mitred using slip stitches.

 

 

Day 10 – Mounting. This particular corner was a nightmare as the stitches have to be pulled really taut and my thread snapped twice doing this which meant I had to unpick and start the corner again. As it was 5pm, I gave up had to start again the next day/ This has to be done all the way around and then a nice backing of a material called “sateen” slip-stitched onto the back.

Day 11 – Mounting. Using black double-threaded-waxed gutermanns thread didn’t work as it kept snapping on the corners. So instead I had to use white button-hole thread- much much stronger. The herringbone stitch shown on the back was covered up so it didn’t matter that it’s highly visible. The corners are slip-stitched and pull together so no thread is visible at all

 

 

Day 11 – Mounting. Corners and excess fabric being cut back

 

 

Day 11 – Mounting. Slip stiching the corner

 

 

 

 

Day 11 – Mounting. The white backing folded to size and then pinned to the back. I could have used black silk backing material but as it was my first marked piece, I was advised to use a white backing material

 

 

Day 11 – Mounting. Working from right to left, the area between the black pin and the red pin has been stitched into place with slip-stitches. Yeah – you can’t see my stitches!!!

 

 

Day 11 – Mounting. The backing has been slip stiched on

 

 

 

 

Day 11 – Mounting. Yeah – pins removed and the backing is all there! It’s taken so much effort to get the mounting and back done to perfection that I think I’ll frame it with glass on the back of the picture as well as on the front. That way I can flip the picture over onto the back so that people can admire my beautifully tiny stiches on the back!

Day 11 – Mounting. That’s it!! All done and finished. The final task was to remove all the pin holes around the edge of the work and remove any fluff etc on the work. My work was handed handed in and marked by 2 RSN-trained graduates and an external marker. (I got in the mid 70s%)

I finished this work sometime in 2010 but unfortunately have not been able to get back to the Hampton Court because of personal commitments. During 2011, in the days immediately after the Royal Wedding of Prince William and Kate Middleton, the Royal School of Needlework was in the media spot-light because they made the beautiful lace in Kate’s dress. The course director of the  Certificate in Technical Hand Embroidery (who, along with many other extremely talented tutors, had personally embroidered & made the lace for Kate’s wedding dress) contacted me and asked if the RSN could use my work in their display cases to show off the work of their students. I am very proud to say that my William Morris Flower is now in the display cases in the studios at the Royal School of Needlework in Hampton Court for visitors to look at.

My posts over the last couple of days have, I hope, shown the story of just one piece of goldwork. The next time you look at military, religious or royal robes embroidered with gold, think of those ladies (and men) of the Royal School of Needlework busy embroidering in their beautifully historic William and Mary apartments at Hampton Court. The RSN may not have been totally responsible for the craftsmanship in the ornate robes you saw in all the pageants that were part of this weekend’s Diamond Jubilee Celebrations.  However, most likely one or more hardworking and extremely skilled craftsman responsible for those spectacular robes was probably trained at this incredible school.

The Lord Chancellor’s Purse for the Queen’s Speech

The Lord Chancellors Purse.

I wish I could say I embroidered this! But I didn’t. But I did get to touch it (gently and carefully) when I was at the RSN. This is a beautiful piece of State goldwork that the RSN first embroidered in 1984. It was brought to the RSN in 2010 for repair work before that year’s State Opening of Parliament. The top left tassel was very worn and needed repairing. Some of the embroidered goldwork needed replacing. The whole piece was very dusty and needed a good spruce up. What this photo doesn’t convey is that it is very large (for a purse!) and is in 3D. It’s about 3 foot square. It is also very heavy and the back shows a lot of wear and tear because whoever held it, had to balance it because of its weight (there is a much-worn handle on the back). The Lion and the Unicorn are both gold-stump work figures – ie heavily padded figures (padded with carpet-felt) that were made separately and then sewn onto the purse. The figures down the edges are the heads of angels and have the most beautiful faces. Again these are padded figures created separately and then sewn on. The stumpwork figures are about 2-3 inches in depth. The coat of arms uses a fabric called “Cloth of Gold” which, as the name implies is fabric woven with gold and is about £200 a metre. It is used by the Lord Chancellor to hold the Queen’s speech during the State Opening of Parliament.

And I got to admire and touch it!!

© Essex Voices Past 2012-2013.

Have you ever wondered how the beautiful Coronation robes were embroidered with such magnificent goldwork? Or how Kate Middleton’s dress was embroidered so beautifully for her wedding to Prince William?  Or how was the amazing goldwork done on robes of the Herald’s of the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee Pageant? Embroidery on royal or military robes and garments are incredible works requiring great skill and craftsmanship.

The only people able to embroider to such a high level of excellence are, of course, those trained by the remarkable  Royal School of Needlework based in Hampton Court Palace.

Whilst I can never claim to being as skilled and as experienced as the embroiders (known as ‘apprentices’) who made the Queen’s Coronation Robes, I can claim first-hand knowledge of how difficult it is to do goldwork embroidery – and how rewarding it is.  In 2010-2011, before my dissertation took hold of all my time and attention, I was fortunate enough to attend my first (out of four) embroidery techniques that comprise the Royal School of Needlework‘s Certificate in Technical Hand Embroidery.  The technique I choose to be my first (and to date, only technique) was goldwork.

To celebrate the final day of the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee weekend, my post today is images of my time at the Royal School of Needlework.  I hope these photos convey how technically difficult it is to do goldwork embroidery.

 

Day 1 – Finding a source for my work. I love the work of William Morris, so chose this pattern

 

 

 

Day 1 – the tiny portion of the amazing William Morris pattern which will form the basis of my work

 

 

 

 

Day 1 – Framing up. Attaching calico to a “slate” frame (which isn’t made of slate!)

 

 

 

 

Day 1 – Still framing up – this took hours!

 

 

 

 

Day 1 – My stitches aren’t very neat but it doesn’t matter because when I’d finished the work, I cut these stitches to remove the work from the frame

 

 

Day 1 – My design – this has been “pricked” so I can “pounce” it with white powder made from cuttlefish. The tracing is covered all along the design with
tiny pin-pricks about 2mm apart.

 

 

Day 1 – My black silk has been sewn to the calico backing (this took a couple of hours to do). Then the pricked tracing is placed over the black silk and “pounced”. The pounce is made of finely ground cuttle-fish which is then smeared over the tracing so the pounce falls through the tiny holes and leaves an outline on the black silk

 

Day 1 – All ready for the outline to be painted on.

 

 

 

Day 1 – This was so tricky as I don’t have a steady hand. Using a very fine paint-brush, the outline of the design is painted onto the black silk. It’s a bit too thick in place and too fine in others. When the goldwork is embroidered onto the fabric, it has got to cover all the paint lines so no lines are showing.

 

 

Day 1 – All framed, painted and ready to start…

 

 

 

Day 1 – My first bit of padding – a lot of the goldwork has padding underneath the metal threads to raise it up from the surface. This strip has 4 pieces of felt sewn down one on top of the other.

 

 

Day 1 – Some of the yellow padding. Most of this work has padding all over it before the gold can be applied.

 

 

 

Day 2 – It took me all day to sew the felt padding.

 

 

 

Day 2 – The 2 far out leaves have 2 layers of felt padding. The middle (of 3) long down felt padding is 4 layers, either side of this, it’s 1 layer. The 2 leaves on top/next to the down felt is also 4 layers. The top triangles are 3 layers. The upside down “crown” at the top has 3 layers of tiny circles and the 1 layer of upside down crown.

 

Day 2 – Urgh. I can’t believe how much fluff is on my lovely black silk!

 

 

 

Day 3 – Soft string padding. This is about 15 strands of thick soft string, heavily waxed with bees wax and then twisted together and tightly sewn down. It was a pain to do!

 

 

 

 

Day 3 – The beginnings of the 2nd section of waxed soft string

 

 

 

Day 3 – By the end of this day, a lot of my beautiful paintwork had started to brush off. Under the 2nd section of soft string, it had disappeared totally so the yellow lines you can see are from the tacking lines I’ve had to sew in to get back the outline

 

Day 3 – Lots and lots of tissue paper surround my work so it doesn’t get dirty! I get marks deducted if it is dirty or has wax marks on it. My little pin keep I made myself – it’s so handy.

 

 

Day 4 – On this day, I got to couch down some Japanese gold thread

 

 

 

 

Day 4 – All those little “tails” of gold thread had to be taken through the black silk and secured to the back of the picture. Taking the threads through the background fabric is called “plunging”

 

 

Day 4 – 2 sides of the stem are now done

 

 

 

 

 

Day 4 – The camera doesn’t really show the couching stiches. They are done in a “brick” stitch pattern

 

 

 

Day 5 – Middle section all couched down. Loads of tails that all need plunging

 

 

 

 

 

Day 5

 

 

 

 

Day 5

 

 

 

Day 5 – middle wavy section is three different threads – rocco, Japanese and twist

 

 

 

Day 5 – Bottom of stem have been plunged. Gold threads have been taken through to the back of the fabric by using a lasso of strong button-hole-cotton. The gold thread is threaded through the lasso and then the lasso is pulled tight from the other side of the fabric and with any luck the gold thread will pop through to the other side.

 

 

Day 5

 

 

 

Day 5- The back of the work with lots and lots of gold threads

 

 

 

 

Day 5

 

 

 

 

Day 5 – Every thread has been plunged (this took about 4 hours to do them all)

 

 

 

 

Day 5 – The back of the fabric. Now all these threads had to be securely sewn down in little bundles and the ends snipped off.

 

 

Day 6 – back of the fabric – top section of threads have been sewn down. Bottom section awaiting to be done

 

 

 

Day 6 – the only way to sew these little bundles of gold thread down is by using a curved needle. Using a straight normal needle is nearly impossible as the fabric is so taught and the gold threads so thick

 

 

Day 6 – Last few bundles to be done

 

 

 

 

 

Day 6 – All done

 

 

 

Day 6 – Sewing down the bundles took about 4 hours. Great care has to be taken where each bundle is sewn down to – its got to be on areas that doesn’t have to be sewn over later on. If I got it wrong, I’d be pushing a needle through fabric and the thick bundles of gold thread (ouch!)

 

Day 6 – Back to the top of the fabric. I’ve now outlined the left side leaves in pearl purl (or is it purl pearl?) Each leave is indiviually done and I had to work out which line belonged to which leaf

 

 

Day 6 – Close up of the pearl purl. My camera shows all the tiny piece of beeswax and fluff from the felt. The felt “leaks” fluff all the time. The pearl purl is sewn down with heavily bees-waxed cottom to make it stronger. It leaves tiny traces of bees-wax behind on the fabric. The next day’s job was to remove all the fluff and bees-wax from my work.

 

Day 6 – I did the gold swirlie bit on the right of the picture last minutes on day 5. But then I realised I hadn’t done it properly because I tried to loop around in curves at the top of swirlie bit but it just looked awful. So I had to unpick this entire section.

 

Day 7 – the re-sewn embroidery so that the swirls follow round and round in a spiral. It still wasn’t perfect – too much space between each swirl – but had to do.

 

 

 

 

Day 7 – both sides are now done in swirlie loops using gold passing thread.

 

 

Day 7 – from this close up you can see the swirls are by no means perfect. After I took this photo, the tutor had a good prod and poke arouond and evened up my swirls. The long gold thread hanging off to the left of the picture is pearl purl – used to outline things. Hard work couching it down as you have to pull the waxed thread through the little tiny gaps (pearls). The stitches end up being about 1mm in length

 

Day 7 – all the pearl is done. And 2 arches of rocco gold thread added to the black part at the top

 

 

 

 

Day 7 – so the 2 sides aren’t symmetrical! But it’s a flower and not supposed to be symmetrical.

 

Day 7

Day 7

 

 

 

 

 

Day 7 – This thread is called bright check. It’s cut into tiny tiny little beads that are then sewn down over the felt

 

 

 

Day 7 – this was to be cut into tiny tiny beads and then sewn down over the remaining yellow felt

 

 

Day 7 – half way down the thread is a bead cut from the bright check. The bead is about 2mm in length. That whole tiny area has to be full of hundreds beads with no spaces of yellow left

 

 

Day 7 – by the end of each day, my eyes were so tired that I just couldn’t see my goldwork anymore! The tiny gold mark towards the right (by the tissue paper) is where the bright check has very slightly frayed as it’s being cut leaving behind a tiny trace of gold wire and it has bounced onto my work (it brushed off)

 

Day 7 – as the bright check is cut into beads, it shatters and jumps all over the place. This is the lid of a jam pot so that when the beads jump, it’ll stay within the lid and not disappear.   I should have put the lid on tissue paper, instead of straight onto my black silk – everything has to be protected so that no dirty marks are left behind.

Read part 2 of my time at the Royal School of Needlework
and my completed goldwork piece.

 

 
© Essex Voices Past 2012-2013.

My post on Elizabeth I’s visit to Great Dunmow discussed Elizabeth’s summer progress through the town on 25^th August 1561.  Today’s post is about the route she took and the houses she visited that summer.

Title page from the Bishops Bible (London, 1569),
shelfmark G.12188, © British Library Board

Mary Hill Cole ‘s book The portable queen : Elizabeth I and the politics of ceremony (Massachusetts, 1999) lists the hosts and their houses visited.  Looking at that list today, the venues now read as a who’s-who of 21^st Century wedding venues and independent/private schools!  I myself married at Layer Marney Towers (nr Colchester).  It’s interesting to note that many of those hosts were descendants of Richard Rich, 1^st Baron Rich, that arch-villain of Tudor history.

– London (Robert Dudley), 24 June 1561.
– Charterhouse, London  (Lord North), 10-14 July 1561
– Strand, London (William Cecil), 13 July 1561.
– Wanstead, Essex (Lord Rich), 14 July 1561.
– Havering, Essex, 14-19 July 1561.
– Pyrgo, Essex (Lord John Grey), 16 July 1561.
– Loughton Hall, Essex (Lord Darcy), 17 July 1561.
– Ingatestone Hall, Essex (Sir William Petre), 19-21 July 1561.
– New Hall, Essex (Earl of Sussex), 21-26 July 1561.
– Felix Hall (Henry Long), 26 July 1561.
– Colchester (Sir Thomas Lucas), 26-30 July 1561.
– Layer Marney (George Tuke),around 26-30 July
– St Osyth (Lord Darcy), 30 July to 2 August.
– Harwich, Essex,  2-5 August.
– Ipswich, Suffolk,  5-11 August.
– Shelley Hall, Suffolk (Philip Tilney), 11 August.
– Smallbridge, Suffolk (William Waldegrave), 11-14 August.
– Castle Hedingham (Earl of Oxford) 14-19 August.
– Gosfield Hall (Sir John Wentworth), 19-21 August.
– Leez Priory (Lord Rich), 21-25 August.
– Great Hallingbury (Lord Morley),  25-27 August 1561.
– Standon, Hert (Sir Ralph Sadler), 27-30 August 1561
– Hertford Castle, Herts, 30 August – 16 September.
– Hatfield, Hert (16 September?).
– Enfield, Middsex (16-22 September).

Below is a map of Elizabeth’s route.
 © Essex Record Office, Map Showing the Royal Progress of 1561 (2008)

The cost of the Queen’s progress
The cost to both the Queen and her hosts was extensive.  The cost to Sir William Petre of Ingatestone Hall was £136, the Earl of Oxford spent £273 and to Lord Rich at Leighs (Leez) Priory was £389.

At its heart, then, challenge of travel for the royal household was a financial one, because the Queen spent more on food, supplies, and accommodation when on progress than when she remained in the London area….. For the 1561 progress into Essex and Suffolk, Thomas Weldon, cofferer of the household, kept a tally of the Queen’s expenses at each of the places she stayed during the seventy-six day trip.  The court’s expenses varied from £83 to £146 per day, with a total cost of £8,540.

J. E. Archer, E. Goldring, and S. Knight (ed.),
The Progresses, Pageants and Entertainments of Queen Elizabeth I

Below are 20th century images of the homes of some of Elizabeth’s hosts.

 

Layer Marney

 

 

 

 

 

Layer Marney

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Leez Priory

 

 

 

 

 

 

Leez Priory

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Castle Hedingham

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

St Osyth Priory

 

 

 

Further Reading
J. E. Archer, E. Goldring, and S. Knight (ed.), The Progresses, Pageants and Entertainments of Queen Elizabeth I (Oxford, 2007).
Mary Hill Cole , The portable queen : Elizabeth I and the politics of ceremony (Massachusetts, 1999)
F.G. Emmison, Tudor Secretary: Sir William Petre at Court and Home (London, 1961)
John Nichols, The Progresses & Public Processions of Queen Elizabeth (3 volumes),  (London, 1788-1823).
University of Warwick – Centre for the Study of the Renaissance, The John Nichols Project, (2012)

Notes about Great Dunmow’s churchwarden accounts
Great Dunmow’s original churchwardens’ accounts (1526-1621) are kept in Essex Record Office (E.R.O.), Chelmsford, Essex, D/P 11/5/1.  All digital images of the accounts within this blog appear by courtesy of Essex Record Office and may not be reproduced. Examining these records from this Essex parish gives the modern reader a remarkable view  into the lives and times of some of Henry VIII’s subjects and provides an interpretation into the local history of Tudor Great Dunmow.

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This blog
If you want to read more from my blog, please do subscribe either by using the Subscribe via Email button top right of my blog, or the button at the very bottom.  If you’ve enjoyed reading this post, then please do Like it with the Facebook button and/or leave a comment below.

Thank you for reading this post.

You may also be interested in the following:
– Queen Elizabeth’s visit to Great Dunmow: Part 1
– Index to each folio in Great Dunmow’s churchwardens’ accounts
– Great Dunmow’s Churchwardens’ accounts: transcripts 1526-1621
– Tudor local history
– Elizabeth I

© Essex Voices Past 2012-2013.

Today is the much heralded and awaited day of Queen Elizabeth II’s Diamond Jubilee Pageant on the River Thames.  Ahead of the Royal Barge, Gloriana, and the boat carrying the Queen and her party, The Spirit of Chartwell, will be a belfry barge (the Ursula Catherine) carrying eight church bells specially cast for the Diamond Jubilee Pageant by the Whitechapel Bell Foundry in East London.  Bells in many of churches along the route of the River Thames’s Jubilee Pageant will be ringing to celebrate the Diamond Jubilee.  Many of these churches have been part of London’s rich heritage for hundreds of years.

Each bell on Elizabeth II’s Diamond Jubilee bell belfry barge is named after a senior member of the British Royal Family.

Bell, Name of bell (Donated by) – Musical Note
– Tenor, Elizabeth (Worshipful Company of Vintners) – G#;
– 7^th, Philip (Worshipful Company of Dyers) – A#;
– 6^th, Charles (Worshipful Company of Glass Sellers) – B#;
– 5^th, Anne (Church of St James Garlickhythe) – C#;
– 4^th, Andrew (The Bettinson family) – D#;
– 3^rd, Edward (Joanna Warrand) – E#;
– 2^nd, William (Stockwell family & Worshipful Company of Joiners and Ceilers) – F##; and
– Treble, Henry (Harry)  (Nicole Marie Kassimiotis & Worshipful Co. of Musicians) – G#.
(Information from The Royal Jubilee Bells.)

Watch the BBC’s programme Diamond Jubilee Thames Pageant Highlights to see the bells on the belfry barge.  There’s a good clear shot of the barge and the bells starting at 29:41.

Canaletto’s River Thames on Lord Mayor’s Day 1746, © The Lobkowicz Collections

Church bells ringing to celebrate a British monarch is not a modern-day event but has its roots deep in our history. The image below is from the early fourteenth century and shows Henry III (born 1207, died 1272) on his throne beside Westminster Abbey and the Abbey’s bells.

Henry III, by Westminster Abbey and its bells – below is a
genealogical table of  his descendants, (England, c1307-c1327),
shelfmark Royal 20 A II f.9, © British Library Board.

Church bells were not just used to celebrate coronations and jubilees. My post, Queen Elizabeth’s visit to Great Dunmow, detailed how the church bells of Great Dunmow rung out as Queen Elizabeth I took her royal progress through Essex and Suffolk in the summer 1561.  Of course, the primary purpose of church bells in late medieval England was to call a parish’s Catholic community to prayer and so were significant religious objects.   Surviving English churchwardens’ accounts from this period often detail the recasting and mending of their church’s bells, bell clappers and even the ropes.  Great Dunmow’s churchwardens’ accounts are no exception and the accounts have many entries relating to the mending of bells at St Mary the Virgin.  Along with mending their bells, the pre-Reformation parish of Great Dunmow also commissioned the casting a new Great Bell in the 1520s from an unnamed bell foundry in London.

The churchwarden accounts detail that between the years of 1527 and 1529, the parishioners of Great Dunmow collected £7 0s 7d for their new Great Bell to be installed in the parish church. This was a highly organised collection instigated by the parish’s pre-Reformation vicar, William Walton, and the local elite. This was the second in a series of seven collections organised by Walton to raise funds for church and religious artefacts.  The first was for the church steeple.  For the Great Bell collection, the 153 names of house-of-households, their location within Great Dunmow, and the amount each contributed were carefully and meticulously recorded for posterity within the churchwarden’s accounts.  Cross referencing the lists of names for each collection with the returns from the 1520s Lay Subsidy Rolls (a tax enforced by Henry VIII) proves that contributions for the new Great Bell were made by nearly every household within the parish – including the parish’s clergy and paupers. Paupers, who were exempt from Henry VIII’s Lay Subsidy tax, paid the unofficial church levy for the parish’s new bell. Many parishioners contributed the equivalent of a day’s pay (4d).  The casting of a new church bell was a significant event in the life of this Tudor parish, as can be gleaned from the events surrounding the collection.

After the entries for the parish collection, the churchwardens’ accounts record a great flurry of activity. The churchwardens and local elite went back and forth to the bell-foundry in London to inspect the casting of their new bell. This incurred some expense as the men claimed their expenses for food & lodgings for their numerous trips from the church’s accounts. Finally the bell was ready to be taken back to the parish church. Whilst the accounts’ purpose was only to list the expenditure and receipts received/made by the parish church, they manage to convey the sense of triumph the entire parish must have felt when the elite were finally able to go to London to ‘fett home the bells’.   They paid a staggering £10 to the bellfounder. A further £6 13s 4d was paid out by the parish church ‘for makynge a new flower [floor] in the stepell & a new belframe & new wheles & stoke all owre bells redy to go’. The accounts are silent as to whether or not there was a grand opening ceremony for the new bell – but I rather suspect that there was. The serious shortfall between the amount collected for the bell and the amount eventually paid out was not commented upon in the accounts!

‘Man ringing a church bell with another kneeling behind him; to their right, a priest is at an altar’ from Decretals of Gregory IX with glossa ordinaria (the ‘Smithfield Decretals‘), (France, Last quarter of the 13th century or 1st quarter of the 14th century),
shelfmark Royal 10 E IV f.257, © British Library Board.

The churchwardens’ accounts do not specify the name of the London bell foundry – just that the Great Bell was cast in London.  The Whitechapel Bell Foundry, the makers of the Diamond Jubilee Bells, was founded in 1570 during the reign of Queen Elizabeth I. However, in recent years a historian has established a link from the Whitechapel Bell Foundry to one Master Founder, Robert Chamberlain, who was active in the first quarter of the fifteenth century.  Thus, this Bell Foundry is thought to have been active as early  as the 1400s during the medieval period.  During the reign of Henry VIII, there can’t have been too many bell foundries in the London and it is likely that all the bell foundries would have been in the east outside the City walls.  The noise, smell and risk of fire would have kept the foundries outside populated area and downwind from the prevailing winds coming from the west.  There is enough circumstantial evidence to suggest that the pre-Reformation church bells of Great Dunmow were cast in the same bell foundry that cast the 2012 Diamond Jubilee Bells, The Whitechapel Bell Foundry.

London and Westminster in the reign of Queen Elizabeth, anno dom. 1563,
© British Library Board.

It was these same church-bells which rang out the joy of Queen Elizabeth’s summer progress through the parish over thirty years later on Monday 25th August 1561.   Griff Rhys Jones, in the BBC’s new series on the Britain’s Lost Routes, charted Elizabeth’s 1570s progresses from Windsor Castle to Bristol.  In his programme, he doesn’t comment on the church bells that must have rung out heralding the Queen’s progress.  This is probably more because of the scarce survival of primary source evidence, rather than the pealing of the bells didn’t happen.  Great Dunmow is lucky to have any surviving evidence – and this was only because the churchwardens meticulously recorded the expense of 8d paid out to the Good Wife Barker  for her ale (Great Dunmow’s churchwarden accounts – folio 45v.)

There are no surviving church records of the churches in village surrounding Great Dunmow. However, it can be assumed that each village’s church rang out to celebrate the Queen’s progress: Felsted, Little Dunmow, Stebbing, Barnston, Great Dunmow, Little Canfield, Great Canfield, Takeley, and the villages of Hertfordshire surrounding Great Hallingbury. The ringing of the church bells would have been heard by all Elizabeth’s subjects during her progress through the Essex and Hertfordshire countryside.

You may also be interested in the following posts
– Transcripts of Great Dunmow’s churchwardens’ account
– Diamond Jubilee
– Queen Elizabeth I’s Progresses through Elizabethan England

Notes about Great Dunmow’s churchwarden accounts
Text in square [brackets] are The Narrator’s transcriptions. Line numbers are merely to assist the reader find their place on the digital image.

The original churchwarden accounts (1526-1621) are in Essex Record Office (E.R.O.), Chelmsford, Essex, D/P 11/5/1.  All digital images within this blog appear by courtesy of Essex Record Office and may not be reproduced.

Examining these records from this Essex parish gives the modern reader a remarkable view  into the lives and times of some of Henry VIII’s subjects and provides an interpretation into the local history of Tudor Great Dunmow.

On the 2nd June 1953, our Queen, Elizabeth II, was crowned with great solemnity and ceremony in Westminster Abbey whilst seated in the ancient Coronation Chair (King Edward’s Chair). Today’s post celebrates and marks her reign by publishing images connected to the coronations of Elizabeth II’s Tudor predecessors.

 

 

Coronation Chair, with and without the Stone of Scone (The Stone of Destiny)

 

 

 

 

Henry VII (born 28 January 1457, died 21 April 1509)

Postcard of the Burial chapel of Henry VII and Elizabeth of York, Westminster Abbey. Henry was crowned in Westminster Abbey on 30 October 1485.

Henry VIII (born 28 June 1491, died 28 January 1547)

Coronation Oath of Henry VIII with his own annotations (crowned 24 June 1509), shelfmark Cotton Ms. Tiberius D viii, f.89, © British Library Board. (For more information on his changes, see the British Library’s explanation.  Was Henry anticipating his break with Rome?)

Edward VI (born 12 October 1537, died 6 July 1553)

Coronation procession of Edward VI along Cheapside, London. Edward’s coronation was on 20 February 1547.

Mary I (born 18 February 1516, died 17 November 1558)

Crowned 1 October 1553.

Elizabeth I (born 7 September 1533, died 24 March 1603)

 Coronation procession of Elizabeth. Her coronation took place on 15 January 1559.

Finally…
Not a coronation image but an image of the Queen at Epsom Races in 1974.  This weekend’s Jubilee Celebrations begin in Epsom as she watches the Derby.

Picture  © British Library Board.  This image is personal to me as I was born in Epsom and spent my first 12 years living in the town. The Queen visiting the races was very much a part of my childhood. Not least, because in those days the Derby was run mid-week, so we were always sent home from school early. I have many childhood memories of waiting by the Spread Eagle Pub in Epsom town centre and waving as the royal cars swept through the town.

This weekend Britain celebrates the Diamond Jubilee of our Queen, Elizabeth II. It therefore seems appropriate that my posts this weekend are about the visit of her Tudor namesake and ancestor, Queen Elizabeth I, who progressed through the town of Great Dunmow in the Summer of 1561.  This was mere 20 months after she became Queen on the 17th November 1558 – her East Anglian progress was of vital importance to convey her image of royalty to her subjects.

There is only one very brief reference relating to Queen Elizabeth I’s 1561 visit to Great Dunmow within the Tudor churchwardens’ accounts.

[Itm payd to the the good wyfe barker for ale for those yet dyd rynge when ye Quenes grace cam thorow ye parysshe 8d] Great Dunmow’s churchwarden accounts – folio 45v.

Previous records from the churchwarden’s accounts show that the going rate in the 1520s for a day’s labour for a man was about 4d to 6d. So the bell-ringers of the church of St Mary the Virgin, Great Dunmow, consumed the equivalent of nearly 2 days wages in ale! This must have been some celebration…

Unfortunately, no other record survives of Queen Elizabeth’s progress through the town – the church records have no other details.  Elizabeth’s half-sister, Mary, had granted Great Dunmow borough status in 1555.  Therefore, any expenses that the town incurred during Elizabeth’s visit would have been entered into the borough records – which have not survived.

However, by examining the primary and secondary sources on Elizabeth’s Summer Progress of 1561, it can be stated with considerable certainty that she progressed through the town sometime during the day of Monday 25^th August 1561.  Elizabeth had been a guest at the home of Lord Rich at nearby Leez Priory 21-25 August; and then stayed at Lord Moreley’s estate in the Hertfordshire village of Great Hallingbury on the night of the 25^th.  Therefore, she must have come through Great Dunmow sometime during the day of the 25^th.

Her route would have been along the Roman Stane Street (now known most romantically as the ‘Old A120’) from Leez Priory to Great Dunmow and then through the town’s High Street.  My map of Tudor Great Dunmow illustrates her likely route through the parish.  The postcards below show Great Dunmow in the early 20^th Century – the Edwardian High Street of Great Dunmow looks very much as it does now. (Tudor town hall on left of 1st two postcards and on right of next 2.)

Many of today’s shops in Great Dunmow originate from medieval and Tudor houses. Therefore, the town of Great Dunmow probably looked very similar 400 years previously in the Elizabethan era. The Town/Guild Hall was built during the 16th century so was probably there in 1561 when Elizabeth progressed through the town. The pale (white) double-roofed building 2nd from the left in the two postcards below is thought to have been a pre-Reformation Catholic priest house which served the town’s small pre-Reformation Chapel. This Chapel was probably closed and destroyed as part of Edward VI’s reforms but it’s priest-house remains and is now a clothes shop.

The town must have extensively and jubilantly celebrated their Queen’s progress.  Was there the  equivalent of today’s bunting and streamers be-decking the streets of Tudor Great Dunmow?  How did the ordinary towns-folk of Great Dunmow celebrate the exciting event of their monarch’s presence in their town?

‘Every spring and summer of her 44 years as queen, Elizabeth I insisted that her court go with her on ‘progress’, a series of royal visits to town and aristocratic homes in sourthern England.  Between 1558 and 1603 her visits to over 400 individual and civic hosts provided the only direct contact most people had with a monarch who made popularity a cornerstone of her reign.  These visits gave the queen a public stage on which to present herself as the people’s sovereign and to interact with her subjects in a calculated attempt to keep their support.’

Mary Hill Cole, The portable queen : Elizabeth I and the politics of ceremony (Massachusetts, 1999), p1.

Griff Rhys Jones, in the BBC’s new series on the Britain’s Lost Routes, has charted Elizabeth’s 1570s progresses from Windsor Castle to Bristol.  Rhys Jones re-enacted the queen’s progress with modern-day people and their cars.  He states that accompanying the queen were

– Court Officers
– Ladies in Waiting
– The Privy Chamber and the Privy Councillors
– Servants
– Other ranks

All told, according Rhys Jones, there were 350 people in hundreds of wagons, carts and on horseback.  The whole procession was about one mile in length and included all that a fully mobile queen required – from her kitchen to her court documents.  This procession travelled at approximately 3 miles per hour as it wound its way through the Elizabethan countryside.   The queen often rode ahead of this procession in the type of litter shown in the first picture above.  But before her went her ‘Habingers’ who rode ahead to prepare her subjects (and her hosts!) for her presence.

The distance from Leez Priory to Great Dunmow is approximately 6 miles – so it would have taken Elizabeth’s procession two hours just to get to the town.  After that was her  slow and steady progress through the town.  It must have been a day of great celebration for the townsfolk of Great Dunmow!  Do watch Griff Rhys Jones’ Britain’s Lost Routes about the west country progress of Elizabeth to understand how she might have progressed through Essex and Suffolk in 1561.

Images
– All postcards on this page are in the personal collection of The Narrator and may not be reproduced without permission.
–  Procession portrait of Elizabeth I of England (Robert Peake the Elder, 1551–1619).
– ‘A hermit sitting outside a tavern drinking ale; the alewife approaches him with a flagon’ from Decretals of Gregory IX with glossa ordinaria (the ‘Smithfield Decretals‘), (France, last quarter 13^th century or 1^st quarter 14^th century), shelfmark Royal 10 EIV f.114v, (c) British Library Board.
– John Nichols, The Progresses & Public Processions of Queen Elizabeth, (London, 1788-1823).

Notes about Great Dunmow’s churchwarden accounts
Great Dunmow’s original churchwardens’ accounts (1526-1621) are kept in Essex Record Office (E.R.O.), Chelmsford, Essex, D/P 11/5/1.  All digital images of the accounts within this blog appear by courtesy of Essex Record Office and may not be reproduced. Examining these records from this Essex parish gives the modern reader a remarkable view  into the lives and times of some of Henry VIII’s subjects and provides an interpretation into the local history of Tudor Great Dunmow.

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You may also be interested in the following:
– Queen Elizabeth’s visit to Great Dunmow: Part 2
– Great Dunmow’s Churchwardens’ accounts: transcripts 1526-1621
– Tudor local history
– Elizabeth I

© Essex Voices Past 2012-2013.