# New Year's Day gift (royal courts)

At the Tudor and Stuart royal courts in Britain it was traditional to give gifts on New Year's Day, on 1 January. Records of these gift exchanges survive, and provide information about courtiers and their relative status. A similar custom at the French court was known as the étrenne. Historians often analyse these gift economies following the ideas of the anthropologist Marcel Mauss and Bronisław Malinowski's description of the Kula ring.

## Gifts and status

Margaret of Anjou and Elizabeth of York gave and received jewels and plate as New Year's Day gifts. The value of the plate given was calibrated to match the rank, status, and standing of the courtier. While gold plate might not always have been more valued than silver, gem-set jewellery seems to have been a token of special royal favour.
In 1504, James IV of Scotland gave Margaret Dennet, an English servant of his queen consort Margaret Tudor, a gold chain with a figure of Saint Andrew worth £20 Scots. James IV gave Margaret Tudor two sapphire rings, and in 1507 a "serpent's tongue", a fossil shark's tooth supposed to be a talisman against poisoning. In 1507, James IV gave Elizabeth Berlay, another English attendant of Margaret, gold rosary beads with a cross costing £62 Scots. James V gave gifts at the New Year Mass in 1539, and a length of black ribbon was bought to make loops for lockets or pendants known as "tablets". He paid a goldsmith John Mosman £410 Scots for making chains, rings, tablets, bracelets, targets (brooches or hat badges), and other gold work brought to him at Stirling Castle to be New Year's gifts for his courtiers in January 1541. Other gifts of gold "Paris work" were provided by Thomas Rynd including "chaffrons" for French hoods, bracelets, rosary beads, buttons and a ring.
In 1520, the Duke of Buckingham commissioned a gold pomander with the heraldic badges of Henry VIII and Catherine of Aragon for her New Year's Day gift, to be filled with scented compound and worn on her girdle. The lady-in-waiting Isabel Leigh gave Henry VIII a shirt she had embroidered and received a silver cup in return. Henry VIII gave Anne Boleyn a large quantity of silver plate on 1 January 1533, many pieces were newly refurbished and stamped by Cornelis Hayes with her arms as Marquess of Pembroke, and some had been confiscated from Sir Henry Guildford.
Henry VIII sometimes received his gifts in person, in 1538 leaning against a cupboard while Brian Tuke made notes of the presents and donors. The silver and gilt plate which Henry gave to his courtiers in return for their gifts was made or supplied by goldsmiths including Cornelis Hayes and Robert Amadas. Claiming these items of gift plate could involve administrative fees and a visit to the Jewel House, a process described in 1605 by the Earl of Huntingdon.
When Margaret Douglas was in favour in 1539 at the court of Henry VIII, she was given a gilt cup made by the goldsmith Morgan Wolf as a New Year's Day gift. In 1543, Margaret Douglas gave Princess Mary a satin gown of carnation silk in Venice fashion.
Mary Finch gave Mary I of England a red satin purse containing twelve gold half sovereign coins as a New Years Day gift for 1557. Sybil Penn, who had been Edward VI's nurse, gave Mary I six handkerchiefs edged with gold and silk lace. The artist Levina Teerlinc gave a small painting of the Trinity, and the Serjeant Painter Nicolas Lizard gave a picture of the Maundy. A surviving miniature painting of the Maundy at court is attributed to Teerlinc, and it has been suggested that her painting was intended as a New Year's Day gift to Elizabeth I.

## Elizabethan gifts

In January 1552, Elizabeth bought 74 ounces of gilt plate for gifts from Thomas Crococke. Rewards of money were given to servants who brought gifts to her from Master Aglionby, Lady Cheke, Lady Oxford, the Marquess of Winchester, the Chancellor of the Augmentations, and the Lord Privy Seal. Master Wheeler brought a gift from Edward VI and received £4 in reward.
Mary Radcliffe, a maid of honour, was said to have been presented to Elizabeth I in January 1561 by her father as if she were a New Year's Day gift. The plate distributed by Elizabeth was made by Robert Brandon, Affabel Partridge, Hugh Kayle, Richard Martin and others.
The gift rolls from the reign of Elizabeth include various costume accessories such as scarves, petticoats, mantles, girdles, caps, and handkerchiefs, frequently embroidered and enriched with silks, gold thread and jewels. Clement Adams, father of Robert Adams surveyor of the Queen's works, gave a pattern for the embroidery of a pair of sleeves. In January 1600, Dorothy Speckard, a silkwoman at the English court, gave a head veil of striped network, flourished with carnation silk and embroidered with metallic "oes", and Elizabeth Brydges, a maid of honour, presented a doublet of network lawn, cut and tufted up with white knit-work, flourished with silver.
In 1576, Bess of Hardwick and the Earl of Shrewsbury gave Elizabeth I a gown. Bess's half-sister, Elizabeth Wingfield (who was Mother of the Maids at court), wrote to the Shrewsburys describing the Queen's positive reaction:
   her majesty never liked any thing you gave her so well, the colour and strange trimming of the garments with the rich and great cost bestowed upon that hath caused her to give out such good speeches of my Lord and your Ladyship as I never heard of better
Food was also a suitable gift, in 1562 Lady Yorke gave Elizabeth three sugar loaves and a barrel of sucket. A bible, bound in crimson velvet embroidered with pearls, given to Elizabeth in 1584 by the printer Christopher Barker is now held by the Bodleian Library. Writing and poetry were presented as New Year's Day gifts. Evidence of the importance of gift giving can be found in the letters of Rowland Whyte, who reported the success of presents when charting the current royal favour enjoyed by courtiers including the Earl of Essex and Lady Leicester.
Elizabeth also gave gifts to ambassadors, and the gift roll for January 1585 includes silver plate weighing 545 ounces given to Lewis Bellenden and 135 ounces to the Master of Gray, who had been involved in the negotiations around the Association of Mary, Queen of Scots, and James VI.
Beyond the royal court, evidence survives of New Year's day gift giving in aristocratic households. In 1576, Gilbert Talbot, who was staying at Goodrich Castle, sent his father, the Earl of Shrewsbury, locally made gifts of a Monmouth cap, Ross boots, and perry. Mary, Queen of Scots, imprisoned at Sheffield in 1580, asked her ally James Beaton, Archbishop of Glasgow, to send her items of gold jewellery from Paris for her to give as tokens and New Year's Day gifts. She had not been able to acquire as many gifts as she would have liked to give in previous years.

## James VI and I in Scotland

The Edinburgh goldsmith and financier Thomas Foulis supplied jewels to James VI to serve as New Year's Day gifts in 1595 and 1596. The 1595 gifts were a ruby and pearl carcan (a collar or necklace), a pearl chain, a gold tablet set with precious stones, an emerald ring, a ring with eleven diamonds, and seven other rings, costing in total £1,335 Scots. Some recipient's names in 1596 were listed, a gold salamander studded with diamonds was given to the Master of Work, William Schaw. Anne of Denmark had a diamond set gold locket or tablet with a diamond and ruby necklace. Sir Thomas Erskine had a locket set with rubies and diamonds, the Duke of Lennox had a hat badge in the shape of a diamond set gold crown, and a courtier known as the "Little Dutchman" (possibly William Belo) received a diamond ring. A precept signed by King James for similar jewels supplied by Foulis to serve as gifts in January 1597 also survives. Foulis had previously supplied James with jewels for gifts while working with his former master, the goldsmith Michael Gilbert.
The goldsmith George Heriot supplied a jewel costing £1,333 Scots to King James for Anne of Denmark's 1602 New Year's Day gift. The Scottish treasurer's accounts mention that a horse was hired to take a New Year's Day gift to Prince Henry at Stirling and to Princess Elizabeth at Linlithgow Palace.

## Stuart court in England

After the Union of the Crowns in 1603, jewels were prominently featured in the January masque entertainments at court, starting with the 1604 The Masque of Indian and China Knights at Hampton Court. In the performance, William Herbert, 3rd Earl of Pembroke, gave an expensive jewel to the king, but in reality James had the jewel on approval from the financier Peter Vanlore. The silver plate given by James in 1604 was supplied by John Williams.
An account book for 1604 written by Princess Elizabeth (or her companion Anne Livingstone) records the purchases of gifts for the Harington household at Coombe Abbey, including "four ear rings at fifteen pennies the piece" that were "given at new year's day to my lady Harington's women", and rings bought for the dancing master and writing master, with gifts for "Lady Harington's officemen", including the pantry man and the buttery man.
In 1606, the court physician John Craig gave King James a marchpane and four boxes of dry confections, Doctor John Hammond gave a pot of green ginger, their colleague Henry Atkins gave King James a pot of orange flowers, and Martin Schöner presented a box of confections. As had been the custom of Elizabeth's court, the musicians, including Nicholas Lanier the Elder and Rowland Rubbish, gave pairs of perfumed gloves.
Arbella Stuart's letters give an insight into anxiety around gift giving. Elizabeth I had given her a disappointing gift in 1601, thought to be worth much less than the present she gave the queen. Arbella recommended that Mary Talbot, Countess of Shrewsbury take advice from Margaret Hartsyde, one of the Scottish chamberers serving Anne of Denmark. She thought Hartsyde could discreetly inquire what the queen wanted, to know her "mind without knowing who asked it", without spoiling any surprise. Anne "regarded not the value, but the device", apparently the thought mattered more. Arbella heard that Anne would prefer ear rings rather than costly gowns or petticoats. Mary, Countess of Shrewsbury, gave Bess of Hardwick a cushion based on the embroidered patterns of her daughter the Countess of Arundel's bed hangings.
Despite Anne of Denmark's reputed preference for jewels, an inventory of Anne of Denmark's clothes lists elaborately embroidered petticoats or skirts, gifts in January 1609 and 1610 from King James, her chamberlain Lord Lisle, and her servant Mary Gargrave. The Countess of Nottingham gave a petticoat embroidered with fruit bats.
In January 1610, Thomas Howard, 1st Earl of Suffolk gave Anne a petticoat embroidered with arches, pyramids, and wild beasts. In 1619, he and his wife, the Countess of Suffolk, with their associate Sir John Bingley were charged with corruption, for taking bribes to expedite exchequer payments. They claimed that they had innocently received New Year's Day gifts, but the trial lawyer Francis Bacon declared "new years gifts did not last all the year".
On 31 December 1616, Lady Anne Clifford sent a sweet bag for perfume to Anne of Denmark and a standish inkwell to "Mrs Hanno". For New Year's Day 1619, Clifford sent a cushion of cloth of silver, embroidered with the royal arms of Denmark, and decorated with "slips of tent stitch". A slip was a rectangle of linen with embroidered motifs. The cushion may have been intended to complement a silver bed with the Danish arms owned by the Queen.
On 1 January 1623, King James gave the Duchess of Richmond a "collar with letters" and a chain of gold with diamonds and pearls to the Countess of Buckingham.