the hardwick wall hangings: an unusual collaboration in english sixteenth-century embroidery

Renaissance Studies Vol. 10 No. 2

The Hardwick wall hangings: an unusual collaboration in English sixteenth-centu y

embroidery MARGARET ELLIS

When Mary Queen of Scots fled from Scotland to England in 1568, Elizabeth I placed her in the charge of George Talbot, sixth Earl of Shrewsbury, who remained her custodian until 1584. In the early years of her captivity, Mary Queen of Scots and the earl's wife, Bess of Hardwick, worked together to conceive many embroideries. This collaboration culminated in two sets of wall hangings, which were made of a patchwork of rich materials taken from ecclesiastical garments, booty from the dissolution of the monasteries. The hangings depict personifications of Virtues, with mythological and historical characters as exemplars. This article considers the visual and literary sources of the iconographic programme of the Hardwick Hung@, and assesses to what extent the hangings were characteristic of embroidery commissions in sixteenth-century England, and to what extent they were the result of the exceptional circumstances of a deposed monarch held in captivity in remote Derbyshire.

At the start of her eighteen-year captivity, the devoutly Catholic Mary Queen of Scots was twenty-seven years old, and Bess of Hardwick, who was fifteen years older, was a Protestant, and a loyal supporter of Elizabeth I, head of the English Church. Superficially their collaboration in a large-scale embroidery commission appears an unlikely partnership in patronage in view of the difference in their ages, and the fact that they came from opposite sides of the religious divide in post-Reformation Christian Europe.

Bess is known primarily as an important patroness of architecture, first in partnership with her second husband, Sir William Cavendish, and then many years later as a widow. In 1549 Sir William and Bess bought land in Derbyshire from Francis Agard which included the old manor at Chatsworth,' and during 1551 a plan for the rebuilding of the house was supplied by Roger Word, a mason? The rebuilding and furnishing con- tinued erratically until 1570, and information from surviving accounts suggests that work was suspended periodically, probably when funds or skilled workmen were not available.' Bess deputized for her husband when his

' D. N. Durant, Bess of Hardwick: Portrait of an Elizabethan Dynast (London, 1977), 18-19. ' Ibid. 26. Ibid. 26-7.

@ The Society fw Renuksance Studies, Oxford University Press

The Hardwick wall hangings 281

duties at court kept him away from Chatsworth, and she assumed increas- ing responsibility for the accounts, eventually taking them over completely when Sir William, who was twenty years her senior, became ill: As a widow aged over sixty and using the experience she had gained with Sir William, Bess commissioned the building of three major houses, of which Hardwick Hall was the largest and the most remarkable. It was an exceptional achieve- ment for a woman in Elizabethan England to be a patron of architecture on such a scale, and Bess must have commissioned many artefacts for her houses, including the two sets of Virtues wall hangings.

The only direct documentary reference to the hangings is found in the 1601 Hardwick Hall inventory, made towards the end of her life. They are the only tapestries or wall hangings in the inventory that are itemized in detail, rather than described under a collective heading, suggesting that they had a special significance for Bess. The inventory records that one set hung in the Withdrawing Chamber, adjacent to the High Great Chamber, and the other set in the Best Bed Chamber. These were the state rooms that would have been used by distinguished visitors and Elizabeth I had she stayed at Hardwick Hall. One of the hangings bears the date 1573. The fact that twenty years later in the 1590s, both sets of hangings occupied these positions of particular importance, seems to confirm their special value for Bess.'

In a letter dated 13 March 1569, the Earl of Shrewsbury gave a report of his royal prisoner to Sir William Cecil, Elizabeth I's Lord Treasurer. The earl wrote that 'This Queen continueth daily to resort unto my wife's chamber where with the Lady Lewiston and Mrs Seton she useth to sit working with the needle in which she much delighteth . . .'6 This quotation from the earl's letter establishes that Bess and Mary had a shared enthusiasm for the traditional aristocratic pastime of embroidery, and that they regularly worked together in the company of two ladies-in-waiting.

The sixteenth century was an important and prolific period for English embroidery. There were professional workshops predominantly in London, but information about the Embroiderers' Company is sparse because the records starting in 1551 were lost in the Fire of London in 1666. In aristocratic households, the provision and care of embroidered household linen and furnishings were traditionally the responsibility of the mistress of the house, assisted by members of the household. Some insight into the organization of embroidery in Bess and Mary's households can be gained from financial accounts, inventories and letters.

As Queen of Scotland, and during her captivity in England, Mary employed professional embroiderers, and the following references in documents and letters confirm this. An embroiderer named Pierre Oudrey is listed on her staff in Scotland from 1560 to 1567, and he may be the same Pierre Oudrey who painted her portrait at Sheffield in 1578. A second professional

' Ibid. 19-20. ' L Boynton, The Hardwick Hall Inuentorics of 1601 (London, 1971), 25-7.

G. Wingfeld Digby, Elizabethan Embroldny (London, 1963), 55.

Margaret Ell&

embroiderer, Ninian Miller, was also employed in Scotland as well as three upholsterers or tapissiers.’ The next reference to an embroiderer comes in 1568 while Mary was imprisoned in Lochleven Castle before her flight to England and on this occasion she petitioned the Scottish lords for ‘an im- broiderer to draw forthe such work as she would be occupied about’.8 Fur- ther references to an embroiderer occur during her captivity in England. Lord Walsingham, writing to the Earl of Shrewsbury in 1578, ordered that Mary should not see the embroiderer’s wife, and several years later in 1585 she was in dispute with the embroiderer and his wife and wished to dismiss them. Presumably she was allowed to do so because in 1586 her embroiderer is recorded as Charles Plouvart, an unmarried man.g

Evidence confirming that Bess also employed an embroiderer is found in an exchange of acrimonious letters between the Earl of Shrewsbury and Bess in 1586, by which date their marriage had seriously deteriorated. In these letters there are references to wages paid to four named men - ‘Thomas Lane, Ambrose, William Barlow, and Henry’ - who are described by the earl as employed in the production of rich hangings made of copes of tissue and cloth of gold. Bess’s reply refers to an embroiderer, and she states that only one was employed at any one time. She also writes of her grooms, women and boys who had worked on her hangings.” They had probably worked as assistants to the professional embroiderer, who undertook the more skilled work of drawing out the designs and cutting the fabrics, but it is likely that an upholsterer or tapissier would have been responsible for mounting and hanging the finished embroideries.”

In his 1569 letter to Sir William Cecil, the Earl of Shrewsbury had described the two women’s enjoyment in embroidering together each day. It is of particular significance for the iconography of the Hardwick Hangings that he also wrote of Mary’s delight in devising embroideries.’* Tantalizingly he gave no further details of her interest in designing and planning embroideries, but by studying Bess and Mary’s surviving embroideries some information about their iconographic sources can be discovered.

Many small panels associated with Bess and Mary have survived and some bear their cyphers. A considerable number of these small panels were mounted as hangings in the seventeenth century and are now at Oxburgh Hall, Norfolk, and others are in the rich collection of needlework at Hard- wick Hall. The sources of some of these designs have been identified in popular printed herbals, gardening manuals and emblem books, which were used by a wide range of craftsmen in the sixteenth century as source material for decorative motifs. Faerno’s Centrum fabulae, Mattioli’s Herbal, Gesner’s

’ Ibid. 55; M. Swain, The Needlework of M a q Queen of Scots (Carlton, Bedford, 1986), 36. ’ Wingfield Digby, Elizabethan Embroidery, 55.

Ibtd. 55. I ” Ibid. 61-2. ’ I Swain, Needlework, 23-4. ’‘ Wingfield Digby, Elizabethan Embroidery, 55.


Historia animlium and Paradin’s Devises heroiqws have been identified as iconographic sources used by Bess and Mary.’’ Whilst some panels are straightforward copies of the illustrations, other designs are more complex, and are believed to be the bearers of cryptic symbolic messages that Mary used to express her opinions and frustrations at her impri~onment.’~ These small embroidered panels are characteristic of embroideries made by many aristocratic women in the sixteenth century for recreational as well as for practical purposes. Embroideries worked by noble ladies would have been of a suitable size to be held in the hand, while embroideries requiring a large frame would have been made by the professional embroiderers and members of the household.

The two series of Virtues hangings are the largest of the works associated with Bess and Mary, each equivalent in size to a set of tapestries, and it would have required a team of workers to make them, as described in Bess and the earl’s exchange of letters in 1586. The first series of embroideries con- sists of five hangings showing virtues and heroines: Zenobia with Magna- nimity and Prudence, Artemisia with Constancy and Piety, Cleopatra with Fortitude and Justice, Lucretia with Chastity and Liberality, and Penelope with Patience and Perseverance (fig. 1). The figures in the side arches are personifications of virtues, and between each pair of virtues in the central arch is the representative, a historical or mythological heroine, who possesses the adjacent virtues. The second series of three hangings is of virtues and their contraries, and depicts the full-length figures of the virtues Faith, Hope and Temperance contrasted with the subservient half-length figures of Mahomet, Judas and Sardanopolis respectively (fig. 2).

The size, richness and iccnographic complexity of the hangings raises the question as to why Bess embarked on this ambitious project. Two main factors probably contributed to her motivation. The first was the need to furnish the recently completed Chatsworth House, the rebuilding project started by Bess in partnership with Sir William Cavendish, and completed twenty years later, by which time she was married to the Earl of Shrewsbury, her fourth husband. When Bess was occupied with the furnishing of the house, she had requested permission from Elizabeth I, on at least three occasions between 1569 and 1571, to take Mary Queen of Scots to Chatsworth,” and the project to make the wall hangings may have developed from these visits. The second reason for making the Virtues hangings was that Bess, who was always ambitious to promote the interests of the Cavendish dynasty, must have hoped for a visit from Elizabeth I. The rebuilt Chatsworth House was sufficiently large to offer the lavish accommodation and hospitality expected on

Is S. M. Levey, The Hardwick Embrozderzes: Late Sixteenth Century Needlework Associated wtth Bas of Hardwick, The National Trust (London, 1988), 6-7 Pietro Andrea Mattioli, Herbal ([Venice], 1568 and 1572); Conrad Gesner, lcones A n i d r u m , 2nd edn (Zurich, 1560); Gabriel Faerno, Centrum Fabulae (Borne], 1573); Swain, N e e k k , 6 5 Claude Paradin, Devises Heroiqw (Lyon, 1557). ” Swain, Needlewwk, 75, 78. ’’ Wingfield Digby, Elizabethan Embroulq, 58, 122.

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the queen’s progresses, and the furnishing of the house was probably planned with this in mind. In fact the queen never visited Derbyshire, though she came as far north as Kenilworth on her progress in 1575.16 The political implications of Elizabeth I staying at Chatsworth while Mary Queen of Scots remained a prisoner in the earl’s custody, may have prevented a visit to Chatsworth on a royal progress.

The Earl of Shrewsbury’s letter to Bess in 1586, disputing the ownership of wall hangings worked by members of the household, described them as made of copes of tissue and cloth of gold. Each of the Virtues hangings is made of a rich variety of fabrics just like those used in church vestments and furnishings. However, it cannot be said with certainty that the hangings described in the earl’s letter are the Hardwick Virtues hangings. As a com- missioner for the dissolution of the monasteries, Sir William Cavendish had opportunities to acquire ecclesiastical vestments.” He is known to have bought copes in 1557 from a religious house in Lilleshall in Shropshire, which was being dissolved, and Bess had also inherited ecclesiastical vestments from her third husband, the Earl of St Loe.’’ Before the Reformation, wealthy people gave cast-off clothing made of rich materials to their churches in order that they could be refashioned into ecclesiastical vestments. The process was reversed after the dissolution of the monasteries in the 1530s, and there was widespread use of church vestments reconstructed into articles for domestic furnishing. This is described by Peter Heylin in the seventeenth century, in his account of the Reformation: ‘many private men’s parlours were hung with altar cloths, their tables and beds covered with copes.. . it was a sorry house and not worth the naming which had not somewhat of this furniture in it, although it were only a fair large cushion made of a cope or altar cloth’.Ig

An inventory of the Royal Scottish Wardrobe has an entry in 1562 record- ing that Mary Queen of Scots had ten items of ecclesiastical vestments. The entry reads: ‘No. 32 item ten pece of caippes, chasubles and tunicles all of claith of gold and thre of them fifgurit with red and the rest with quhite and yallow, the three quhite is auld’. There is an annotation at the side of the entry, stating that in March 1567 a cope, a chasuble and four tunics of fairest silk were delivered to the queen, which she used to make a bed cover for her husband, Lord Bothwell. The annotation states: ‘in March 1567 I delivirit thre of the farest quhilk the Q. gave to the Lord Bothwill. And Mair took for hir self ain cape a chasuble four tunicles to mak a bed for the king’.*’ These quotations suggest that people at all levels of society con- verted the fabric of ecclesiastical vestments to other uses, and that in using

’‘ J. Nichols, Progresses and Public Processions of Elizabeth I (London, 1823), 1 426-523. ” M. Girouard, Hardwick Hall, The National Trust (London, 1989), 4. ’’ Ibdd. 24; Levey, The Hardwick Embroideries, 20. ’’ J. Phillips, The Refomt ion of Images: Destruction of Art in England, 1535-1660 (California and

’” Wingfield Digby, Elizabethan Embrouhy, 56. London, 1973), 68-9.


them for the Virtues hangings, Bess and Mary were conforming to a fashionable and widespread practice.

In his letter of 13 March 1569 the Earl of Shrewsbury had also described Mary Queen of Scots' enthusiasm for devising designs for embroidery, but he gave no details how she and Bess worked together to select the iconography. There are no clues as to whether the professional embroiderer was involved in their discussions, or how their ideas were conveyed to the members of the household who worked on the hangings.

The five heroines chosen for the Virtues and Heroines hangings were all the subject of biographical accounts in Boccaccio's, De c h i s mulieribus, and popular in sixteenth-century literature, painting and the decorative arts. The virtues exemplified by each heroine are those described in the biographies. Three of the heroines chosen were female rulers, Artemisia, Cleopatra and Zenobia, and they were probably selected in deference and loyalty to Elizabeth I. Lucretia and Penelope, the other two heroines chosen, were ad- mired as virtuous aristocratic wives, and they were regarded as appropriate examplars by Bess and Mary. Indeed Penelope, the patient and faithful wife, must have been a favourite examplar for Bess because she features in two other surviving works of art at Hardwick Hall: first in a painting of The Return of Ulysses to Penelope (1570) by an unknown artist, and second in the series of Ulysses tapestries, which hang in the High Great Chamber, a location giving the theme of the virtuous Penelope particular prominence.

In the Middle Ages, virtues had generally, though not exclusively, been portrayed as forward-facing, iconic female figures, often accompanied by human exemplars. They frequently occur in a religious context as in the cycles of the virtues and vices on cathedral entrance facades," for example at Notre-Dame, Paris, and also at Rheims and Chartres." By contrast, the em- phasis is reversed in the Virtues and Heroines hangings, and the two-thirds life-size heroines (the human representatives) are the frontal hieratic figures in the central position. The two secondary, and smaller figures in the side arches are the virtues possessed by the heroine. The fact that the human representatives are central suggests that the practical values of the virtues were more important for Bess than abstract concepts, in turn a reflection of sixteenth-century humanist values.

By choosing a form which gives prominence to the human examplar and places the virtues in a subsidiary role, Bess and Mary were probably once again conforming to an established practice because this form was used

'' Much English medieval sculpture was destroyed or mutilated, because of deliberate destruction under Acts of Parliament following the dissolution of the monasteries, and later during the civil war in the seventeenth century. England does not have the great theological cycles that are seen in France, and which often include virtues and vices iconography, see A. Gardner, Engli5h Medieval Sculpture (Cambridge, 1935), rev. edn (New York, 1973). 1, 3.

Notre-Dame, Paris, on the central porch of the entrance fagade, Rheirns on the porch of the north entrance, Chartres on the central piers of the south porch.

Y2

286 Margaret Ellis

elsewhere, for example in a fresco by Perugino for the Collegio del Cambio, a secular public building in Perugia. Here the virtues Prudence and Justice are seated in the upper section of a lunette, and below are six standing human representatives, who are given greater significance both numerically and spatially. In England, a well-known image of Elizabeth I on the title-page of the Bishops’ Bible also give prominence to the human figure by placing it at the centre of the composition, and shows the enthroned queen attended by the virtues Justice, Mercy, Prudence and Fortitude.*’

The figures in the Virtues and Heroines hangings are set within a symmetrical architectural edifice which uses classical vocabulary, and which bears a strong resemblance to a triumphal arch. Triumphal arches were well known in the sixteenth century not only from the architectural heritage of classical antiquity, but also from the temporary structures erected throughout Europe for many state entries. Such an arch was erected by English merchants in Antwerp for the entry of Prince Philip of Spain in 1546.24 It was characteristic of these structures, often built of wood and canvas, that they were painted with fictive architectural details, and similarly the fine gold lines between the arches of the embroidered hangings are meant to delineate rusticated blocks of stone.

In his treatise on architecture, Serlio had recommended that specific categories of saints should be associated with each of the classical orders.25 The ionic order was chosen for the gentler male saints, and also for the matronly female ones. In the Virtues and Heroines hangings the ionic order is used, and is associated with virtuous heroines, who were either rulers or faithful wives. This apt choice of an architectural order suggests that Bess and Mary read architectural treatises printed in the second half of the sixteenth century. Many printed handbooks from Italy, France, Germany and the Low Countries were available in England from the 1560s and were used by patrons and craftsmen as sources for ideas for building and decorative motifs. As a result the works of Andrea Pall’adio, Sebastiano Serlio and Jacques Androuet du Cerceau became influentialz6 - for example, chimneypieces at the new Hardwick Hall commissioned by Bess in the last decade of the sixteenth century are believed to derive from the designs of Serlio and Vredeman de VriesZ7 Following the precedent of sixteenth- century architects, artists and craftsmen, Bess and Mary had used classical vocabulary in an inventive and eclectic manner to create a design framework for the figures in their embroideries.

A series of forty small panels at Hardwick Hall suggests that Bess and Mary probably had some earlier experience of using classical architectural

” The Bishops’ Bible was produced in 1568 to counteract the Puritan tendencies of the Geneva Bible (1560). see A. G. Dickens, The English Refonation, 2nd edn (London, 1989). 344. ’‘ J. Summerson, Architecture in Britain, 1530-1830 (London, 1983), 46-7, plate 22. *” A. Blunt, Artistic Theory in ltaly, 1450-1600 (Oxford, 1968). 130 n. 4. ‘I’ A. T. Friedman, House and Household in Elixabethan Enghnd (Chicago and London, 1989), 76-7. ” Girouard, Hardwick Hall, 20; idem, Robert Smythson and the Elizabethan Gmntry House (New Haven,

Conn. and London, 1983), 146-7, plates 83 and 84.


vocabulary for embroideries made of ecclesiastical vestments. A panel depicting Pacientia (fig. 3) is typical of the series, which all show personifications of abstract concepts standing in an arch, most of them with attributes and inscriptions. With their classical iconography and architectural settings, these small panels, made of a patchwork of rich fabrics, show a distinct similarity to the Virtues and Heroines hangings. However, much of the workmanship is less accomplished, an indication perhaps that they were made earlier than the hangings. A possible source for the design of these small panels is Raphael's border motif for the Sistine Chapel tapestries, the latter being widely known through engravings." The Raphael border had also been used for The History of Abraham tapestries (fig. 4) which Henry VIII had ac- quired for the Great Hall at Hampton Court. Bess had attended the court regularly and probably knew the tapestries.*' The motif also derives from earlier ecclesiastical traditions, which depicted saints or biblical figures standing in gothic arches, and possibly seen on the church vestments that were dismantled to make the hangings.

Symbolically a triumphal arch was an appropriate setting for virtues and heroines, implying the triumph of virtue over vice. The theme of vanquishing evil is echoed in the dagger motif used in the podium of the Virtues and Heroines hangings. The handles of the daggers are composed of scrolls topped by tryglyphs, and there is a striking resemblance between this motif and the daggers at the bottom of a diagram showing a conjuring circle in Reginald Scot's T h Discowrie of Witchcraft (fig. 5).Jo The diagram gives the instruction for a magician to imprison a spirit in a crystal." The similarity of the two motifs and their position at the lower border of both the page and the hang ing hint at a common source. The daggers may imply a threat to destroy or drive away evil, and may be connected with the superstition that a dagger should be hung above a sleeping child to keep the child from harm."

In addition to the use of a dagger motif deriving from occult literature, there are references to dominical letters in Cavendish papers in 1547 and 1557, which establish Sir William and Bess's interest in astrology. Sir William recorded in a memorandum that he had married Elizabeth Hardwick in Leicestershire at Bradgate House on 20 August in the first year of the reign of Edward VI 'at 2 of the Clock after midnight, the domynical letter B'. Bess recorded that the dominical letter was C on 25 October 1557, the day that Sir William died." Knowledge of astrology and interest in magic and

PII J. Shearman, Raphaelk Gartoas in the Collection ofHer Majesty The &en and the Tapestries for the Sirtine chapel (London, 1977), 138-9 R. Jones and N. Penny, Raphael (New Haven, Conn. and London,

The History of Abraham Tapestries still hang at Hampton Court. The Raphael border motif was used for other tapestries, for example, Willem de Pannemaker, The Bridal Chamber of Herse, c. 1550, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.

1983). 81-4. p9

I am indebted to Professor G. T. Noszlopy for this information. " Reginald Scot, The DiscotLerie of Witchcraj (London, 1548), 414. '' A. Plowden, Elizabethan England (London, 1982), 196. '* Durant, Bess of Hardwick, 1, 30.

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witchcraft were widespread throughout Europe in the sixteenth century:’ and an Act against conjurations, enchantments and witchcraft was passed in England in 1563.’5 An attempt had been made to poison Bess when she was married to her third husband, the Earl of St Loe, and Francis Cox, a magician who practised astrology, was arrested for complicity in the plot, convicted of conjuration and stood in the pillory on 15 June 1561.36 Catherine de’ Medici, the mother of Mary Queen of Scots’ first husband, Francois 11, was deeply interested in astrology and the occult, an interest Mary can hardly have avoided as she lived at the French court for thirteen years.37 Both Bess and Mary must have been acquainted with occult and astrological literature, thus either could have suggested the dagger motif for the iconography of the Virtues and Heroines hangings.

The tradition and expertise to depict large-scale figures in embroidery like those of the Virtws and Heroines hangings derive from figures in stained glass windows, and religious and secular wall paintings, but particularly from earlier English embroidery. Known as Opls Anglicanum, this embroidery became famous throughout Europe in the Middle Ages, and it reached a peak of quality and popularity in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. It was sought after by rulers and church 1eade1-s.’~ An indication of the high esteem in which it was held is given by the fact that a Vatican inventory of 1295 lists more items of Opls Anglicanum than of any other kind of embroidery, and also that London merchants regarded providing finance for these works as a sound investment.”

The figures in the Virtues and Heroines hangings are identified in a traditional manner by attributes and inscriptions, though some of the inscriptions have disappeared due to deterioration with age, a condition which has affected all the hangings. With the exception of the virtues Constancy and Piety in the Artemisiu hanging, the figures have up to three identifying attributes or features. For example, in the Penelope hanging (fig. 1) Penelope is characterized by her traditional attributes, an amulet and a roll of weav- ing. Perseverance’s attribute, a bird with rays of light, is probably a phoenix, which - though usually a Christian symbol associated with Christ’s Resur- rection by the early Christians, and with the crucifixion in the Middle Ages - was also an attribute of Chastity. In the context of the Penelope legend, it was an appropriate attribute, and in addition the phoenix was the personal

W. Kenton, Astrology: The Celestial Mirror (London, 1974). 22; K. Thomas, Religion and the Decline of Magic (London, 1971), 358, 366-7, 437-8. ’’ B. Rosen, Witchcraft (London, 1969), 54; Thomas, Religion and the Decline of M@, 258. v, Rosen, Witchcraft, 61-3; Durant, Bess of Hardwick, 38-9. ” M. Gauquelin, Astrology and Science, trans. from the French by James Hughes (London, 1970),

115; M. Nostradamus, The Prophecies and Enigmas of Nostradarnu, ed. and trans. Liberte E. Le Vert (Glen Rock, N.J., 1979), 8.

’” D. King, Opus Anglicanum, Victoria and Albert Museum and Arts Council Exhibition (London, 1963). 5; Guide to English Embroidery, Victoria and Albert Museum (London, 1970), 7, 9. ’’ King, Opw Anglicanum, 5; Guide to English Embroidq, 7.


emblem of Mary of Guise, the mother of Mary Queen of The other virtue, Patience, is portrayed with the traditional attribute, a lamb, and in the customary pose with folded arms.

The virtues Piety and Constancy in the Artemisia hanging are depicted in a more elaborate manner. Piety (fig. 6) is characterized by praying hands, and is surrounded with three Christian attributes: the Latin cross, the sword of faith, and the pelican, a symbol of Christ's sacrifice on the cross. Flames of fire are the fourth attribute, and are an allusion to the constancy of Mucius Scaevola, the hero of a Roman legend. In the Renaissance he represented Patience and Constancy, and was regarded as a prefiguration of the crucifixion, which provides the link with the virtue of Piety.41 All the virtues in the Virtues and Heroims hangings are represented by personifications except Con- stancy, who is depicted as Pero, a human representative. The story of Cimon and Pero, told by Valerius Maximus in De factis dictisque memorabile'bus libri IX , 42 was an allegory of Roman Charity or filial piety. Cimon, an old man, awaited execution in prison and was denied food, but his daughter, Pero, nourished him from her brea~t. '~ In the hanging, Cimon's head in profile, modelled on an antique coin or medal, is shown looking through prison bars. A small child stands at Pero's side, an attribute derived from a rendering of Charity popular in the sixteenth century, when she was depicted with children, often with one at her breast.% The symbolism is reinforced by the final attribute, a stork, which in the classical and medieval periods was believed to feed its parents when they were no longer able to feed themselves - a fitting symbol of constancy.45 The Cimon and Per0 myth is depicted as a small narrative scene, and it contrasts with the more iconic portrayals of the virtues in the other hangings.

The more complex renderings of Piety and Constancy may imply that as work on the hangings progressed, Bess and Mary developed more ambitious ideas and looked at other sources for the iconography. For instance, the wood- cut of Grammutica, from Johannes Romberch's memory treatise Congestorium urtriiose memorie (fig. 7)* has several attributes and inscriptions placed about the figure. It shows a broadly similar form to Piety, suggesting it may have been the type of image that provided the model. Medieval treatises on artificial memory make many references to virtues and vices, and memory training was regarded as an activity that would enhance the intellect and moral character." Artificial memory was a mnemonic technique which used the natural process of the association of ideas to assist memory. One of the

'' Wingtield Digby, Elizabethan Embroidny, 55. " J. Hall, Dictirmary of Subjects and Symbols in Art (London, 1974), 216-17.

Ibid. xxiv. " Ibid. 267.

Ibid. 64. '' Ibid. 292.

Johannes Romberch, Gmgestmium Artt@ose Memo& (Venice, 1533). " M. J. Canuthers, The Book of Memory: A Study of Menwry in Medieval Culture (Cambridge, 1990).

4I

46

9, 12-1s.

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basic techniques consisted of memorizing a series of places or loci - and images with striking features - which were then associated in a specific order with the material to be committed to memory.*’ In antiquity artificial memory had been used as an aid to rhetoric, but in the Middle Ages it became associated with ethics, and many writers, including Albertus Magnus and Thomas Aquinas, discussed the classical idea that memory, intellect and foresight were the three parts of the virtue Pr~dence.~’ It seems that Mary Queen of Scots knew of memory treatises because Antoine Foclin had dedicated a treatise to her in 1555, when she lived at the French In view of the associations between artificial memory and virtues and vices, it would be natural for Bess and Mary to turn to the illustrations in a memory treatise when looking for images on which to base the figures of the virtues.

A quotation from a letter written by Nicholas White, describing a visit to the Scottish queen, suggests she was familiar with artistic ideas in Renaissance Italy, and confirms that she was equipped to devise elaborate iconography. On 26 February 1569 White wrote: ‘Upon this occasion she entered upon a pretty disputable comparison between carving, painting, and work with the needle, affirming painting in her own opinion for the most commend- able q~a1ity.l~’

Bess of Hardwick’s knowledge of artistic traditions or interest in ideas emanating from other parts of Europe are a matter for conjecture. It is known that she came from an impoverished lower gentry background, and that her stepfather, Ralph Leche, had a period in the Fleet prison for debt. It is likely that as a young woman she lived in London as the lady-in-waiting to a wealthier member of her family, who attended at court, and this may have given her the opportunity to acquire some ed~cation.~‘ Bess appears to have been an intelligent, very ambitious, tough and worldly-wise provincial woman, who married into the aristocracy and with each of her four marriages improved her status and her wealth. Perhaps she was less well educated when she first arrived at court than her more aristocratic contemporaries, but she must have understood the benefits that education could bring, because she ensured that her sons, William and Henry Cavendish, were educated at Eton College.53 Later William studied at Cambridge before he was admitted to Gray’s Inn, while Henry made a tour of Europe and studied at Padua.” She also provided her granddaughter Arabella, who had a claim to succeed Elizabeth I, with an education befitting a future queen.55 An

Ibid. 71-9. *n

’’ Ibid. 64-71. W. S . Howell, Logic and Rhetosic in Engkzd 1500-1700 (Princeton, N.J., 1956), 1 6 6 LA rhetorique

’” Wingfield Digby, Elizabethan Embrozd&ty, 54-5, n. 3; the quotation from Nicholas White’s letter

’’ Durant, Bess ofHardwick, 1-12.

francoise dXntoine Foclin 02 Chuny en Vennandois (Paris, 1555).

comes from J. D. Leader, Mary Queen of Scots in Captivity (Sheffield, 1880), 42-5.

Ibid. 37. Ibid. 52, 79.

’’ R. M. Warnicke, W o r n of the English Renaissance and Refonnation (Westport, Conn., 1983), 130.


indication of Bess’s lack of formal education may be the fact that the 1601 Hardwick Hall inventory records only six books, which were Calvin on Job, Solomon’s Proverbs, a book of meditations and another called The Resolution. The inventory records that the other two books were covered with black velvet, but gives no titles.” By contrast, Mary Queen of Scots, who grew up and lived at the sophisticated French court for thirteen years, had many books, which were moved between the Earl of Shrewsbury’s houses in Derbyshire. During her years in the earl’s charge she was moved forty-six times, and there is a quotation complaining of the ‘expense caused by the transport of her books and other weighty trumpery, on which she placed much imp~rtance’.~’ Clearly the cultured, cosmopolitan Scottish queen was better educated and more widely read than Bess, and it must have been Mary who contributed most to the aspects of the design and iconography of the hangings that are informed by Italian Renaissance artistic ideas.

In the Virtues and Contraries, the second series of wall hangings, Bess and Mary used other well-known imagery and iconographic traditions. The struggle in a man’s soul between good and evil was sometimes portrayed as a psychomuchiu or battle scene between virtue and vice. Another tradition showed a victorious virtue, usually represented as a female figure, trampl- ing a defeated vice underfoot, and a weapon was frequently thrust into the cowering In sixteenth-century iconography, the juxtaposition of opposites was widely used, and virtues and vices, which were pairings of opposite moral concepts, were often made more immediate and comprehen- sible to the contemporary viewer by the use of human exemplars. There are six surviving volumes giving minute instructions for the depiction of mythological, allegorical and symbolic types and anti-types: Christ and Satan, Luther and the pope, Archbishop Cranmer and Bishop Gardiner, Edward VI and the The convention of juxtaposing a virtue and its contrary, as seen in the Virtues and Contraries hangings, would have been a familiar motif for the sixteenth-century beholder.

The Faith and Mahomet hanging (fig. 2) shows the dominant standing figure of Faith with Mahomet prostrate at her feet, and with his face turned away from Faith. Faith is identified by the inscription ‘Fides’ on her sleeve, which is repeated in English on the book she holds, and she is also recognized by two traditional attributes, a chalice and a cross. Faith probably represents Elizabeth I as Supreme Governor of the Church of England, signified as the established Church by the monumental size of the cross, which stands at her right hand. The book with its English inscription, ‘Faith’, may symbolize the

* Boynton, The Hardwick Hall Inventories, 32. ’’ Durant, Bess of Hardwick, 73. uI A. Katzenellenbogen, A1I.goncs of the Virtws and Vues in Medieval Art (London, 1939). Introduc-

E. Croft Murray, Decorative Painting in Engkmd, 1537-1837 (London, 1962), I, 29 n. 1; British tion and 1-3.

Museum Sloane MSS 1041, 1062-3, 1082, 1096, 1169.

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292 Margaret Ellis

vernacular version of the Bible. The source for this depiction of Faith is probably the figure of Elizabeth I in the 1569 painting entitled Elizabeth I and the Three Goddesses (fig. Q60 Bearing in mind the difficulties of accurately cutting and handling the rich fabrics, the similarities between the postures, the costumes and the outstretched arms are sufficiently close to support the view that this portrait of Elizabeth I was the model for the figure of Faith.

It was an accepted practice to use contemporary portraits as models for other works of art. The design of a surviving valance - which derives from the period before Mary fled to England - may have employed this tradition. It shows The Story of Philomela, and appears to have used portraits of Mary and her second husband, the Earl of Darnley, by Renold Elstrack, a Flemish engraver, as models for King Tereus and Procne.61

Images showing figures prostrate before a throne were associated with the suppression of heresy, as depicted for example in the fresco of The Apotheosis of Saint Thomcls Aquim in the chapterhouse of Santa Maria Novella, Florence, by Andrea di Bonaiuto. The three heretics, Arius, Averroes and Sabellicus, lie in disarray, crushed beneath the saint’s thrqne.62 This motif was used in the reign of Henry VIII to emphasize the monarch’s role as head of the English Church as seen, for example, in an illustration from Foxe’s Actes and Monuments of Martyrs which used the motif to show Pope Clement VII defeated and trampled beneath the feet of the enthroned Henry VIII.63 An unknown artist used the same imagery to depict the pope fallen at the feet of Edward VI, with the purpose of expressing the supremacy of the Protestant Church in England, and showing the pope as a heretic.64

In the Faith and Mahomet hanging, Mahomet is shown subservient at the feet of Faith, rather than pierced with a weapon or trampled underfoot, and he cradles his head in his hand, an image that recalls the pose of Melancholia in Durer’s widely known engraving. Images of Turks and other followers of the Islamic faith were seen in costume manuals, and the variety and in- dividuality of the coronets, head-dresses, costumes and poses of the figures in the Virtues and Heroines hangings reinforce the possibility that manuals of this type may have been used as sources by Bess and Mary. They may also have known Pieter Coecke van Aelst’s scenes of Turkish life.65 Coecke had travelled to Constantinople in 1533 and made several series of drawings of the life and customs of the Turks. They became more widely known as a

Hans Ewonh, Queen Elizabeth and thc Three Goddesses, 1569, The Royal Collection, Her Majesty the Queen.

Wingfield Digby, Elizabethan Embrordery, 136. Portraits were used as models for images of the French royal family, including Catherine de’ Medici, in the Valois tapestries. Lucas de Heere was probably the artist who designed the tapestries, see F. A. Yates, The Volois Tapestries (London, 1959), 6.

J. Gardner, ‘Andrea di Bonaiuto and the Chapterhouse frescoes in Santa Maria Novella’, Art Hist, 2, no. 2 (1979). 121. This motif derives from ancient representations of the Emperor presiding at a council of the Church.

Fa

Alkgoty of the Reformation from J. Foxe, Acta and Monummts of Martyrs (London, 1563). Edward VI and the Pope, artist unknown, c. 1548-9, London, National Portrait Gallery. The Renaissance in the North, Metropolitan Museum of Art (New York, 1987), 64. 65


set of woodcuts when they were printed posthumously by his wife in 1553,66 and they could have provided visual information for some of the details in the Faith and Mahomet hanging, particularly the small commentary scene in the background.

The iconography of the Faith and Mahomet hanging symbolizes the English Church as a scourge of heresy, and Mahomet may be intended to represent heresy within the Protestant Church in England, in addition to his more ob- vious role as the prophet of the heretic religion of Islam. The commentary scene confirms this because it shows a turbanned Islamic figure standing within a gothic edifice, an architectural style associated with the Christian Church. In view of the fact that the iconography of this hanging was p r o bably based on an image of Elizabeth I, and its symbolism suggests the supremacy of the English Church, it is likely to have been intended by Bess of Hardwick as a declaration of her loyalty and support for the queen, as Defender of the Faith. By associating herself with this iconography Mary Queen of Scots may have wished to gain favour with Elizabeth 1. Also she may have hoped to improve the circumstances of her imprisonment and to hasten a resolution of her situation as a captive queen. To this end she had sent presents to Elizabeth I in 1572 of satins, taffetas, linens and hats, and she made other gifts which included a skirt in crimson silk, and in 1575, three embroidered nightdresses6’

The collaboration between Bess of Hardwick and the deposed Queen of Scotland is the more remarkable because the onerous responsibility of acting as custodian to Mary Queen of Scots caused financial difficulties for the Earl of Shrewsbury, related to the cost of her captivity. It also brought constant aggravation, a consequence of the many plots to secure her escape or her release, which in turn bred an atmosphere of suspicion. The rising of the northern Catholic noblemen, the excommunication of Elizabeth I by Pope Pius V, Mary’s proposed marriage to the Duke of Norfolk and his subsequent execution, and the Saint Bartholomew’s Day Massacre of Protestants in Pans, were all political and religious situations that arose in the early years of Mary’s captivity, and were contributory factors to the cooling of the relationship between the earl, Bess and the Catholic Scottish queen.

An event that may have hastened the change from the initial good rela tionship to the later bitter rift was the marriage in 1574 of Bess’s daughter, Elizabeth Cavendish, to Charles Stuart who was the brother of Lord Darnley, Mary Queen of Scots’ second husband. This marriage was encouraged by Bess without the knowledge of either the Earl of Shrewsbury or Mary, or more importantly, without the permission of Elizabeth I. The birth of Arabella Stuart, the offspring of this union, had implications for the English succession, as well as establishing ties between the Cavendish family and the crown. It seems that after this episode, relations between the earl, Bess

Ibid., intro. J. Snyder, 13. Wingfield Digby, Elizabethan Embroidery, 57.

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and Mary were never as cordial again, and that for a period Bess was out of favour with Elizabeth

Bess’s aspirations to enhance the status and wealth of her family had been advanced by her own fourth marriage to the Earl of Shrewsbury, and also by the marriages of two of her children with two of the earl’s by an earlier marriage. A small incident relating to the Hardwick Hangings perhaps reveals the priority Bess placed on dynastic considerations. In July 1592 Bess bought seventeen tapestries from the estate of Sir Christopher Hatton, depicting The Storj of Gideon. Bess paid f321 for them, and negotiated a reduction of 55. This was to cover the cost of removing the Hatton arms, which were re- placed by pieces of painted canvas6’ The heraldic crests of the Hardwick, Cavendish and Talbot families were placed above the virtues on the Virtues and Heroines hangings, and it is significant that Bess did not take similar action to remove the arms of the Earl of Shrewsbury from these hangings after their marriage broke up acrimoniously. Bess’s dynastic concerns seem to have out- weighed the bitterness of the personal relationship, and the earl’s arms still remain in place.

Bess of Hardwick and Mary Queen of Scots drew on well-known imagery and iconographic traditions for the designs of both series of Hardwick Hangings, and they combined a variety of sources to create the complex iconography. It was a commission that was realized in the exceptional circumstances of a deposed queen held in captivity for many years. Mary Queen of Scots used embroidery to fill her time, and to alleviate her boredom and her frustration at the many restrictions that were placed upon her.

Bess of Hardwick could not have devised the complex iconography of the two series of wall hangings without the greater knowledge and experience of Mary Queen of Scots, but Bess must have been a willing and appreciative recipient of information, ideas and advice. The Hardwick Hangings were the result of a fruitful collaboration which evolved during the early years of Mary’s captivity, probably between 1569 and 1574. This partnership may not have developed its full potential because of the political events and personal factors that had intervened to cause the breakdown in the relationships between Mary, Bess and the Earl of Shrewsbury. Mary must have extended Bess’s knowledge and taste, and the iconography Bess used in later commissions may have been more ambitious as a result of Mary’s influence, such as may be seen in the plasterwork frieze in the High Great Chamber at Hard- wick Hall. The title-page from Gerald’s Herbal and two engravings based on designs by Martin de Vos have been identified as models for major figures in this large commission, which depicts the court of Diana and hunting scenes in a forest setting.” Towards the end of her life in her late seventies, Bess

Durant, Bess of Hardwick, 81-91. Ibid. 172-3.

En m

’’ D. Bostick, ‘Plaster puzzle decoded’, Country Lije, 184 (26 July 1990), 76-9; M. Jourdain, English Decorative Platterwork of the Renaissance (London, 1926), 25.


of Hardwick still used complex, eclectic iconography, a taste enocuraged by her collaboration with Mary Queen of Scots.

University of Central England

Acknowledgements

The publishers and the author gratefully acknowledge permission to use the following illustrations:

The History of Abraham: The Separation of Abraham and Lot, The Royal Collection, Her Majesty The Queen. . Hans Eworth, Elixabeth Z and the Three Goddesses, The Royal Collection, Her Majesty The Queen.

Penelope with Patience and Perseverme, The Virtues and Heroines hangings; Pacientia; Piety (detail) from Artmisia with ConstatZLy and Piety, The Virtues and Heroines hangings, Hardwick Hall, The National Trust.

Faith and Mahomet, The Virtues and Contraries hangings, Hardwick Hall, Count9 Life Picture Library.

Reginald Scot, 7’he Disc& of Witchma$ (London, 1584), 414, from Wayne Shumaker, Occult Sciences in the Renaissance: A Study in Intellectual Patterns. Copyright 0 1972 The Regents of the University of California.

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Fig. 2 Faith rmd M h t , Tlrc Vir2w-s and ContrmiS hangings, Hardwick Hall, Counhy Life Picture Library

Fig. 3 Pacintia, Hardwick Hall, The National Trust

298 Margaret Ellis

Fig. 4 Hampton Court, The Royal Collection, Her Majesty the Queen

The Histq ofAbraJwm tapestries: The Separation OfAbraham &Lot (detail showing border motif),

The Hardwick wall hangangs 299

300 Margaret Ellis

Fig. 7 Gramatica, from Johannes Romberch, Congestmiurn artzfinosc memmie (Venice, 1533)

Fig. 8 Majesty the Queen

Hans Eworth, Elizabeth I and the Three Goddesses, Hampton Court, The Royal Collection, Her

the hardwick wall hangings: an unusual collaboration in english sixteenth-century embroidery

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