Frocks and Rocks

 The wonderful exhibition at the Queen's Gallery in London showing portraits from the Royal Collection highlighted courtly fashion in Tudor and Stuart times. They were eras when privileged men as well as women wore sumptuous clothes that often cost more than lesser mortals could hope to earn in a lifetime. Royalty and the nobility decked themselves out with lavish fabrics, frequently exquisitely embroidered as well as fabulous jewels.

 

Detail from a portrait of Elizabeth I as a young girl.

Detail from a portrait of Edward VI
 

 

 

But woe betide anyone who dressed above their station. Sumptuary laws, introduced as far back as Ancient Roman times to discourage extravagance but more importantly to preserve the distinctions of rank were still enforced in Elizabethan days. Cloth of gold or silver was strictly for the Queen and the highest nobility, as was the fur of sables. The Statutes set out in exhaustive detail what was acceptable for the different strata of society and penalties for infringing the rules were severe.

 

 Sovereigns like Anne of Denmark, (above) consort to James I used their fortunes to give their passion for jewellery full rein. A detail of a portrait of Margaret of Austria, wife of Philip III of Spain shows the joyel rico, a priceless tablet cut diamond from which hangs the famous La Peregrina pearl. Its history spans 500 years and it passed from the African slave who found it in the Gulf of Panama to many European kings and queens. In the twentieth century, it became the property of Elizabeth Taylor, given to her by Richard Burton on Valentine's Day during their first marriage. Taylor recalled in her autobiography that the pearl nearly caused one of their legendary fights. 

 



 

'At one point I reached down to touch La Peregrina and it wasn't there! I glanced over at Richard and thank God he wasn't looking at me, and I went into the bedroom and threw myself on the bed, buried my head into the pillow and screamed. Very slowly and very carefully, I retraced all my steps in the bedroom. I took my slippers off, took my socks off, and got down on my hands and knees, looking everywhere for the pearl. Nothing. I thought, "It's got to be in the living room in front of Richard. What am I going to do. He'll kill me! Because he loved the piece.'^5] 

After few minutes of mental anguish, Taylor looked at their puppies. One of them was apparently chewing on a bone, but nobody gave bones to the puppies. Taylor continues: 'I just casually opened the puppy's mouth and inside his mouth was the most perfect pearl in the world. It was—thank God—not scratched.'