Image:Embroidered bookbinding Elizabeth I.jpg

Embroidered bookbinding, The Miroir or Glasse of the Synneful Soul, manuscript by the Princess Elizabeth (later Elizabeth I of England) at age 11, 1544, and presented to her stepmother Catherine or Katherine Parr. "...Translated 'out of frenche ryme into english prose, joyning the sentences together as well as the capacitie of my symple witte and small lerning coulde extende themselves.' ...dedicated: 'From Assherige, the last daye of the yeare of our Lord God 1544 ... To our most noble and vertuous Quene Katherin, Elizabeth her humble daughter wisheth perpetuall felicitie and everlasting joye.'

"The book is now one of the great treasures of the Bodleian Library; it is bound in canvas, measures about 7 by 5 inches, and was embroidered in all probability by the hands of the Princess herself...

"The design is the same upon both sides. The ground is all worked over in a large kind of tapestry-stitch in thick pale blue silk, very evenly and well done, so well that it has been considered more than once to be a piece of woven material. On this is a cleverly designed interlacing scroll-work of gold and silver braid, in the centre of which are the joined initials K. P.

"In each corner is a heartsease worked in thick coloured silks, purple and yellow, interwoven with fine gold threads, and a small green leaflet between each of the petals. The back is very much worn, but it probably had small flowers embroidered upon it."

English Embroidered Bookbindings by Cyril James Humphries Davenport, F. S. A,. edited by Alfred Pollard, London, 1899 (English Embroidered Bookbindings, available freely at w:en:Project Gutenberg)

Image published 1899. Original embroidery 1544.

Elizabeth I of England

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