When James VI travelled to Denmark to meet his bride Anna of Denmark, he sent the royal master of work William Schaw to Edinburgh in March 1590 to make preparations for his return. Accounts of payments made from the queen’s dowry record that Schaw returned with a Danish or German turner or wright. One entry calls him Frederick the turnour.1

Henry Walker upholster … John Searing the duch preacher … ffrederick Searing Locksmith … Ed. Asburne yeoman of the leash … George Herriot Jeweller … National Library of Scotland MS 2066 f.48.

Records of Anna of Denmark’s household in England are more helpful, describing him as a smith or locksmith and naming him Frederick Searing. A memo of allowances for mourning cloth at the funeral of Prince Henry (held by the Folger Shakespeare Library) names him ‘ffrederick Smyth’. He attended Anna’s funeral in 1619. A roll of Anna’s household was translated into French for the ambassador, and therein he is ‘Frederick Seringue serrurier’.

Probably his role was to service the locks of the queen’s private lodging and her boxes and coffers. He may have been a brother or relation of Anna’s Lutheran preacher Hans or Johan Sering. The Thuringian preacher was a graduate of the University of Rostock. The register of the privy seal of Scotland includes an unusually vivid narration of his interview with James VI in 1590.2

… the grit paine and travellis taken be Maister Johnne Sering german of the cuntre of Thuring[ia] for the instruction of oure soverane lady his hienes darrest spous in the trew religioun … his Majestie being for the tyme in the realme of Denmark faithfullie promittit in the word of a prince sufficientlie to provyde the said Mr Johnne of ane yeirlie stipend … National Records of Scotland.

  1. Miles Kerr-Peterson & Michael Pearce, “King James VI’s English Subsidy and Danish Dowry Accounts, 1588-1596”, Miscellany of the Scottish History Society, XVI (Woodbridge, 2020), 14, 39-40, 69. ↩︎
  2. National Records of Scotland, Register of the Privy Seal, PS1/66 f. 38r, 23 January 1593/4. ↩︎

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