FW: [SCA-WEST:8289] Re: [SCA-CAID:9614] Elizabeth's Seal Bag (was: Fwd from Calontir list)

[Louise Sugar <dragonfyr@tycho.com>]

Poster: Louise Sugar <dragonfyr@tycho.com>

Thought this might interest quite a few of you all

Dragonfyr

----------
From: 	Ravnos[SMTP:sanctuary@koan.com]
Sent: 	Friday, February 07, 1997 8:38 PM
To: 	Multiple recipients of list
Subject: 	[SCA-WEST:8289] Re: [SCA-CAID:9614] Elizabeth's Seal Bag (was: Fwd from Calontir list)

Gileshill@aol.com wrote:
> >>
> Subj:   Re: Treasure from 1560's found in Trunk. (fwd)
> Date:   97-02-07 20:14:49 EST
> From:   Gileshill
> To:     outlands@mail.unm.edu
> 
> I'm probably committing some hideously illegal copyright violation, but
> here's the text of the article from the Times.  The picture is not bad, and
> there's the head and hands of Sothby's textile expert to give some idea of
> scale.  It looks to be about 20"x20", dark red velvet, with gold bullion
> embroidery.
> 
> Giles
> 
>  (http://www.the-times.co.uk/news/pages/tim/97/01/31/frontpage.html?1591504)
> 
> Elizabeth I Seal purse found in trunk
> BY DALYA ALBERGE
> ARTS CORRESPONDENT
> THE magnificent 1590s velvet purse in which the Great Seal of Queen
> Elizabeth I was held has been discovered in the cluttered storeroom of a
> mews house.
> Sumptuously embroidered in gold and silver threads and sequins, it features
> the initials ER on either side of a Tudor rose and images of a lion and Welsh
> dragon supporting the royal coat of arms. The Great Seal, which was made
> of silver with the ER initials, was a weighty symbol of the monarch's legal
> power, and historians were yesterday excited by the find.
> Despite the clues, however, the elderly woman in whose family it had been
> for decades and who died last November, had no idea of its importance or
> value. For as long as any of the family can remember, it has been tucked
> away in a storeroom trunk.
> Iona Forge of Sotheby's stumbled across it when she was doing a routine
> valuation of the estate for probate purposes. Suspecting that it was
> something special, she contacted their textiles specialist, Kerry Taylor, who
> said yesterday: "As soon as I saw it, I thought, 'that's it, that's Elizabeth
> I's
> Seal purse'. I knew exactly. I was so very excited."
> Through extensive detective work, Miss Taylor discovered that it had
> belonged to a Henry Jones, who was part of the entourage of Sir Thomas
> Egerton, the last Lord Keeper of the Seal in Elizabeth's reign.
> Although Jones came from a wealthy family, with a large estate at Plas
> Llangoed in Anglesey, it seems that his position was a lowly one: in a 1599
> letter penned by Sir Thomas to the Earl of Essex he is described as "my
> servant Jones". But little is known about him. Miss Taylor feels he may have
> received it as a token of esteem or for his help in arranging a clandestine
> marriage at his London house in St Martin-in-the-Fields. That theory is
> based on documentary evidence at the University of Wales in Bangor: its
> archives include a letter from the Archbishop of Canterbury absolving Jones
> for arranging that marriage between a Thomas Conyngsbye and a Frances
> Lawton, who may have been one of the Queen's ladies-in-waiting. The
> priest was the private chaplain to Sir Thomas Egerton.
> "We don't know why it was a clandestine marriage," Miss Taylor said. "It
> may be because Lawton was an heiress and the family disapproved of
> Conyngsbye. Or it might be that Lawton, as a lady-in-waiting of the Queen
> was close to her and the unmarried Elizabeth didn't like her
> ladies-in-waiting
> getting married. She was jealous. Or, perhaps, it was just that the Queen
> fancied Conyngsbye herself. If that's the case, Egerton's involvement, in so
> much as his chaplain performed the ceremony, was dangerous."
> While there was a single Seal for the monarch, which was broken up when
> she died in 1603, purses were replaced when a new Keeper or Chancellor
> of the Seal was appointed. How this example came to the present owner is
> unclear. Clues to its provenance were found on a catalogue label pasted on
> the back of the frame in which it is held: it mentions that it originally
> came
> from Plas Llangoed. It remained with the Joneses at least until around 1890,
> when the contents of their estate were dispersed at auction. So far, Miss
> Taylor has been unable to locate descendants and the family of its most
> recent owner have no idea how they got it. It is expected to fetch around
> £30,000 at Sotheby's on March 13. Rosemary Weinstein, curator of the
> Tudor and Stuart collections at the Museum of London, said: "I think it's
> wonderfully exciting that it had been in a private collection as long as it
> had.
> It just shows you what can come out of the woodwork."



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