Around six letters sent to Agnes Leslie, Lady Lochleven survive, four in the National Library of Scotland and two in the National Records of Scotland. Two letters are about cheese: cheese bought in Stirling by her agent Alexander Bruce, and cheese gifted to Marion Douglas, wife of the keeper of Edinburgh Castle, George Douglas of…
Advice for a patient with gonorrhoea sent by Thomas Davidson, an apothecary in Edinburgh, 24 March 1568. This letter was probably sent to William Douglas, Laird of Lochleven. The patient was too far from Edinburgh to send a urine sample. Davidson died in 1574 and his registered will includes a full inventory of his apothecary…
A Dundee merchant’s letter offering dress fabrics, June 1573 Peter Clayhills wrote to Agnes Leslie, Lady Lochleven, sending her order of fabrics. He offered her summer dress fabrics, and velvet from the stock that had ‘come home’, and cloth he expected to arrive at midsummer. One fabric was 'very light for gowning in summer'. This…
Among the papers of Mary of Guise there is a record of cloth of gold bought in 1548 for three gowns for Mary Queen of Scots (1542-1587). Her agent Henri Cleutin, sieur d’Oysel, was instructed to buy the fabric from merchants who supplied the French court. Cleutin, known as a diplomat, as a soldier during the…
Visual sources for costume and clothing in sixteenth-century Scotland are very rare, but there are archival sources. Personal clothing appears, albeit infrequently, in wills. The wills of Edinburgh merchants and stall holders regularly include their entire stock books of textiles running a gamut from local woollens to figured Italian velvets imported via the markets of…
This post is about the furnishings of tower houses, and the documentary record. The first thing to note is that Scottish furnishings from the sixteenth- and seventeenth centuries are very rare. This may be contrasted with the apparent survival of quantities of English chunky Jacobethan furniture, and it occurs to me that a rather smaller…
In March 2019 I looked at the history of Dumbarton Castle from 1500 to 1700 for Historic Environment Scotland, highlighting events and people. It was interesting to read of one of the keepers in 1620, Sir John Stewart of Methven who built a castle on his estate Ireland at Mongavlin, while neglecting his duties at…
Introduction In Scotland, Anna of Denmark had her own household separate from the kings’. These people lived with her and worked with her. An ambassador called it ‘her small family.’ The council of Denmark and her mother Sophie of Mecklenberg had organised a small household on her departure. After her coronation in May 1590, Anna…
This post is about the early wall paintings at Kinneil House, West Lothian, Scotland, based on a talk given to the Friends of Kinneil; partly about how the paintings were restored, and came to look as they do today, and partly about what they may have meant in the sixteenth century. The paintings are a…
James VI of Scotland, like other renaissance monarchs, kept unusual or exotic pets. We know a lot about his lion from the complaint made by its keeper, Wilhelm Froelich, who had brought the animal from Denmark. Not all of these animals were diplomatic gifts with an obvious heraldic tie-in. A skipper from Leith, John Downy…
Objects and the archive 