From the National Archives
Document of the Month - January 2003
New Year gift from a princess
An unusual treasure in The National Archives of Scotland
is a prayer book with a cover embroidered by the Princess
Elizabeth Tudor (1533-1603), years before she became Queen
Elizabeth I of England.
Elizabeth created this cover when she was 12 years old,
as a New Year's gift for her stepmother Katherine Parr
(1512-1548).
She also made a similar book for her father Henry VIII,
which is now in the British Museum. Katherine was her
fourth stepmother whom Henry had married in 1543, four
years before his death.
Katherine became a companion and nurse to the dying King
and is credited with bringing him closer to his children
Mary, Edward and Elizabeth. After Henry's death Katherine
married as her fourth husband Thomas Seymour a brother of
Jane Seymour.
Jane had been
Henry VIII's third wife and her son Edward VI was king
at the time of Katherine's marriage to Thomas.
Katherine died in childbirth soon afterward. After the
deaths of her half brother King Edward and half sister
Queen Mary, Elizabeth reigned in England (although
not, of course, Scotland) for 45 years.
James VI, King of Scotland, who became the first monarch
of the two nations, succeeded her.
The book cover is worked in blue silk with a red and
silver cipher in the centre; the cipher's various elements
combine to make up every letter in the name Katherine.
There are raised heart's-ease flowers at each corner.
The text inside is:
How We Ought to Know God, a translation by
Elizabeth herself of Calvin's original French treatise.
The Edinburgh antiquarian Walter Ross acquired the
volume in the 18
th century. He gifted it to Robert Dundas of
Arniston, Solicitor General of Scotland. The volume came to
the national archives through his son William Pitt Dundas,
who was Deputy Clerk Register from 1841 to 1880.
Documents of the Month in 2002
May
Treaty of Perpetual Peace
June
Register of Sasines
July
Architectural sketch of seaside shelter
August
The shirt with a message in Hindustani
September
Letter to Charles II in 1664
October
18th century map of Africa
November
Murder in Appin 1752
December
Plight of the
orphaned bairn
News Archive