1559 1559 At WHITEHALL PALACE Jan 1,Sun New Year gifts. The exchange of gifts at New Year was a general custom, replaced in later centuries by exchanging gifts at Christmas. Although the new year officially began on March 25, gifts were exchanged on January 1. New Year Gift Rolls list gifts to and from the Queen, in order of the giver or recipient’s rank, from a Duchess, or the Lord Chancellor, down to some of the kitchen staff. The Rolls survive only for 24 years of the reign. Archbishops and Bishops gave a purse of money, as did many lords, ladies, and knights. Others gave jewellery, items of wearing apparel, books, pictures, food, wine, musical instruments, or more exotic gifts. A servant came to the palace with the gift to the Queen and received a monetary ‘reward’. The gifts were displayed on long tables for the Queen to see. The royal official who took custody of a gift was listed on the Roll. During the next few days the Queen’s gift was delivered to those who had made gifts to her, who in turn rewarded the bringer. The Queen invariably gave gilt plate, usually in the form of a cup or bowl; the weight in ounces was noted. A small selection only of the gifts to her is given here, and includes the books, maps, and pictures (as most likely to have survived), and animals, and a few of the other gifts. The Rolls are published in The Elizabethan New Year’s Gift Exchanges 1559-1603, edited by Jane A. Lawson (Oxford, 2013). Among the 221 gifts to the Queen in 1559: (1st) by [Frances], Duchess of Suffolk: ‘One fair cushion all over richly embroidered and set with pearl and one book covered with purple velvet garnished and clasped with silver and gilt of Ecclesiastes’; by Sir Thomas Parry: ‘Two musk cats with liams [leashes] and collars of silk and gold...Delivered to the Keeper at Hampton Court’; by Edward Atkinson, Yeoman Purveyor of Wine: ‘Twenty and four English books of sundry writers upon the Scripture’; by John Ayleworth: ‘Two tables [pictures] the one of King Henry the Eight, the other of King Edward the Sixth’; by William Bayard: ‘A table painted of a king with certain scriptures belonging to the same’; by Jean Belmain, ‘late schoolmaster to King Edward, a book finely printed De la Vie de la Morte covered with crimson satin all over embroidered with gold’; by John Caverley: ‘Thirteen Song-books covered with leather’; by John Cawood, printer: ‘Josephus, in Greek’; by Bartholomew Compaigne: ‘One piece of cloth of silver stained with the half picture of King Henry the Eight’; by George Comy, musician: ‘Two round globes of Asia and Europa’; by Thomas Gemini: ‘Two pictures of the Queen’s Majesty’; by Richard Jugge, printer: ‘One map, Ptolemy’s tables in Italian’; by Thomas Kent: ‘A Song-book’; by Robert Kingston and George Rotheridge (a Portuguese): ‘One fair lion of the age of two years’ [lions were kept in the menagerie at the Tower]; by Nicholas Lizard: ‘A table painted of the history of Assuerus’; by Thomas Phaer: ‘A book written of Aeneid, in English verses’; by Levina Teerlinc: ‘The Queen’s picture finely painted upon a card’; by Edward Whitchurch: ‘Three books, one of the Common Prayer covered with crimson velvet, another of the Homilies covered with leather, the third of a letter covered with leather’; by Reginald Wolfe, printer: ‘One Bible covered with crimson velvet’; by John Young: ‘A book of certain Devices for the Advancement of the state of a Realm, covered with black velvet edged with silver passamain’.NYG 1 1559 Courtiers exchanged New Year gifts among themselves, and made gifts to some of the Royal Household officials. Lord Robert Dudley’s New Year rewards included: ‘Given to the Guard for New Year’s gift, 25s4d; in reward for [bringing] the Queen’s New Year’s gift, one gilt cup, 38s’.L Dudley gave the Queen ‘a fair chain set with pearl’. He received ‘one gilt bowl given to the Queen by Sir Henry Jerningham the same day’.NYG Henry 2nd Earl of Rutland gave the Queen £10 ‘in a purse of red silk and silver knit in half sovereigns’; the Countess of Rutland gave £10 ‘in gold’. In return the Earl received a gilt cup, the Countess a gilt cruse. Their payments included: Jan 1: ‘To the Queen’s Majesty by my Lord and my Lady for the New Year’s gift, £20; and for exchange thereof in gold, 3s4d’; to the Queen’s trumpeters, 15s; to the musicians, 10s’.RT(4) New Year: Jasper Heywood dedicated to the Queen: ‘The Sixth Tragedy of the most grave and prudent author Lucius Anneus Seneca, entitled Troas, with divers and sundry additions to the same. Newly set forth in English by Jasper Heywood, Student in Oxford’. ‘To the most high and virtuous princess, Elizabeth, by the grace of God Queen of England, France, and Ireland, Defender of the Faith, her Highness most humble and obedient subject Jasper Heywood student in the University of Oxford wisheth health, wealth, honour, and felicity’... ‘If the learning with which GOD hath endued your Majesty had not been to me a comfortable persuasion of your gracious favour toward the simple gift and duty of a scholar, I would not have incurred so dangerous note of presumption, in attempting a subject to his princess, a simple scholar to so excellently learned, a rash young man to so noble a Queen, by none other sign to signify allegiance and duty toward your Highness save by writing’... ‘But now, to see (most gracious Lady) that thing come to pass which to the honour of him and for the wealth of us God hath ordained, a Princess to reign over us, such one to whom great freedom is for us to serve, what joy may serve to triumph at that blissful day, or what should we spare with pen to preach abroad that inward gladness of heart that floweth from the breasts of us your most loving subjects? beseeching God that it may please him to grant your Grace long and prosperous governance of the imperial crown of England’. ‘Then well understanding how greatly your Highness is delighted in the sweet sap of fine and pure writers, I have here presumed to offer unto you such a simple New Year’s gift as neither presenteth gold nor pearl, but duty and good will of a scholar, a piece of Seneca translated into English which I rather enterprise to give to your Highness, as well for that I thought it should not be unpleasant for your Grace to see some part of so excellent an author in your own tongue (the reading of whom in Latin I understand delights greatly your Majesty), as also for that none may be a better judge of my doings herein, than who best understandeth my author: and the authority of your Grace’s favour towards this my little work may be to me a sure defence and shield against the sting of reprehending tongues’. ‘Which I most humbly beseeching your Highness end with prayer to God to send us long the fruition of so excellent and gracious a Lady’. 86p.(London, 1559). Jasper Heywood (1535-1598) was a son of John Heywood, playwright. Jan 2,Mon, Westminster: Privy Council order: ‘Sir Ralph Grey, knight, having charge of 100 men in the North, because he came away without licence of the Lord Warden, as himself confessed, was committed to the Porter’s Lodge’. Jan 3: Sir Ralph Grey ‘was this day, upon his humble submission and promise of amendment, set at liberty’.APC 2 1559 Jan 3,Tues, Westminster, Queen to Sir Thomas Cawarden, Master of the Revels: ‘Whereas you have in your custody and charge certain apparel as officer for our masques and revels, this shall be to will and command you immediately upon the sight hereof that you deliver or cause to be delivered to John Gresham and John Elliot, citizens of our City of London, such and so much of the said apparel as they shall require for the setting forth of those pageants which be appointed to stand for the show of our City at the time we are to pass through the same towards our Coronation’. Cawarden delivered to Gresham and Elliot, mercers, on January 13 numerous garments, some of yellow and blue cloth of gold, to be redelivered January 16. [G.Warkentin, ed. The Queen’s Majesty’s Passage (Toronto, 2004), 121-3]. Jan 4: Earl and Countess of Rutland paid: ‘To one of the Queen’s servants for bringing of the Queen’s New Year’s gift to my Lady, 26s8d’. ‘To 20 of my Lord’s yeomen and grooms, to buy them new hose against the Coronation, each 5s, £5’.RT(4) Jan 6,Fri knighting: Lord Mayor of London, Thomas Leigh, mercer. As was customary, the Lord Mayor and Aldermen came to Whitehall by barge, the Recorder of London (Ralph or Ranulph Cholmley) made a speech presenting the Mayor to the Queen, Lord Keeper Bacon replied, and the Lord Mayor was knighted. [SPF.i.45]. Also Jan 6: play, anti-Catholic ‘farce’: priests, in russet; vergers. also: masque, Papists; with pairs of Cardinals, in crimson; bishops, in purple; monks or abbots, in black; summoners, in yellow. With pairs of friars in black, russet, yellow, white. Il Schifanoya to the Castellan of Mantua, Jan 23: ‘As I suppose your Lordship will have heard of the farce performed in the presence of her Majesty on the day of the Epiphany, and I not having sufficient intellect to interpret it, nor yet the mummery performed after supper on the same day, of crows in the habits of Cardinals, of asses habited as Bishops, and of wolves representing Abbots, I will consign it to silence, as also the new commencement of ritual made in her Majesty’s Chapel with the English Litanies, which omit Saint Mary, all the saints, the Pope and the Dead’.