Robert Jousie (or Joussie or Jowsie or Jossie; died 1626) was a Scottish textile merchant, financier, and courtier. He was involved in the collection and administration of the English subsidy of James VI. Jousie supplied fabrics used at the baptism of Prince Henry (1594), and for the clothes of Prince Henry and Princess Elizabeth.Michael Pearce, "Anna of Denmark: Fashioning a Danish Court in Scotland", The Court Historian, 24:2 (2019) p. 141.
Life
Jousie was a cloth merchant based in Edinburgh with a house on the High Street or Royal Mile. His father James Jousie was also a textile merchant who supplied fabrics to tailors, and was paid £26-4s-7d Scots by the royal treasurer in December 1578. James Jousie died on 28 December 1578.Accounts of the Treasurer, vol. 13 (Edinburgh: HMSO, 1978), p. 387: National Records of Scotland, will of James Jowsie, CC8/8/7, pp. 230–235.
Robert Jousie became an exclusive supplier of fabrics to James VI of Scotland and Anne of Denmark.Michael Pearce, "Maskerye Claythis for James VI and Anna of Denmark", Medieval English Theatre, 43 (Cambridge: D. S. Brewer, 2022), pp. 108–109. His accounts for fabrics supplied to the king and queen survive in the National Archives of Scotland, and have been quoted by historians including Hugo Arnot, who noted that James VI bought ostrich feathers and beaver hats.Hugo Arnot, The History of Edinburgh, from the Earliest Accounts (Edinburgh, 1816), pp. 73-4. The record includes masque costumes for James VI and Anne of Denmark, who danced in masques at weddings in the first years of the 1590s. The masque clothes included lightweight taffeta and metallic tinsel or "tock" fabrics.Michael Pearce, "Maskerye Claythis for James VI and Anna of Denmark", Medieval English Theatre, 43 (Cambridge: D. S. Brewer, 2022), pp. 108-123. Fabrics in Jousie's account include; Spanish taffeta, Naples, Genoa and Lucca silks satins and velvets, and Florence ribbon.Jemma Field, "Dressing the Stuart Court", Kate Anderson, Art & Court of James VI & I (Edinburgh: National Galleries of Scotland, 2025), pp. 43–44.
Royal marriage and English money Jousie lent money to the Scottish ambassador William Stewart, Commendator of Pittenweem, who was sent to Denmark in 1588, 1589, and 1590 to negotiate a marriage for King James to a Danish princess. Jousie also supplied silks and velvets to Stewart, and his debt totalled 3,600 merks. Stewart helped negotiate the marriage of James VI and Anne of Denmark.David Masson, Register of the Privy Council of Scotland: 1599-1604, vol. 6 (Edinburgh, 1884), pp. 499-500.
Partnered with the goldsmith and financier Thomas Foulis, James VI sent Jousie to London in July 1589 to buy clothes and ornaments in preparation for his marriage and the celebrations and Anne's coronation. James gave the two merchants a pledge of two cut rubies and three cabochon rubies set in gold "chattons" or buttons from the crown jewels in place of cash for these purchases.Calendar State Papers Scotland, vol. 10 (Edinburgh, 1936), no. 154: David Masson, Register of the Privy Council of Scotland, 1585–1592, vol. 4 (Edinburgh, 1881), p. 421
In 1590 Sir William Keith of Delny, out-going Keeper of the Royal Wardrobe, paid Jousie 10,000 Scottish merks for silk fabrics already supplied to the king. Jousie was owed a further £19,000 for "apparel and other necessaries" supplied to the king at the time of marriage.Maria Hayward, Stuart Style (Yale, 2020), p. 163: National Records of Scotland NRS E35/13. Chancellor Maitland paid him £4,000 Scots from the subsidy money which Elizabeth I gave to James VI. Jousie also supplied velvet and passementerie to Edinburgh burgh council for the Entry and Coronation of Anne of Denmark.Miles Kerr-Peterson and Michael Pearce, "King James VI's English Subsidy and Danish Dowry Accounts", Miscellany of the Scottish History Society, XVI (Woodbridge: Boydell, 2020), pp. 4 fn. 13, 73.
Jousie and Foulis sometimes went to London to collect the English subsidy. Chancellor Maitland paid Jousie £4,000 Scots from the subsidy in August 1590.Miles Kerr-Peterson & Michael Pearce, "King James VI's English Subsidy and Danish Dowry Accounts, 1588-1596", Miscellany of the Scottish History Society, XVI (Woodbridge: Boydell, 2020), pp. 56, 70: Julian Goodare, "James VI's English Subsidy", Julian Goodare & Michael Lynch, The Reign of James VI (East Linton, 2000), p. 112. In December 1591, Jousie was detained or delayed for a time in Berwick-upon-Tweed, and James wrote to Elizabeth of his "endless detaining" and an errand "turned from one honorable annuity to a voluntary uncertainty with long begging".John Bruce, Letters of Queen Elizabeth and King James VI, of Scotland (London, 1849), pp. 68-69: George Akrigg, Letters of King James VI & I (University of California, 1984), p. 152.
Some subsidy payments collected in London from James Hudson were recorded in a memorandum of royal finance formerly at Hopetoun House and now held by the British Library. These were £9,000 Scots in 1591 and £5,791-10s in 1592.Julian Goodare, "James VI's English Subsidy", in Julian Goodare & Michael Lynch, ed, The Reign of James VI (East Linton, 2000), pp. 118–119: British Library Add. MS 33531, and a 19th-century copy National Records of Scotland RH2/2/16. In April 1593 an English ambassador Lord Burgh in Scotland and the resident diplomat Robert Bowes borrowed £300 sterling from Robert Jousie, Thomas Foulis, and John Porterfield in order to reward potential supporters of English policy.Annie I. Cameron, Calendar State Papers Scotland: 1593-1595, vol. 11 (Edinburgh, 1936), pp. 75-6.
Textiles for the royal wardrobes In the 1590s, Robert Jousie supplied fabrics to the tailors Alexander Miller and Peter Sanderson who worked for the keepers of the royal wardrobes Sir George Home and Søren Johnson. Jousie kept detailed account of the fabrics supplied to the royal wardrobes, which are held by the National Records of Scotland and are mostly unpublished.Maria Hayward, Stuart Style (Yale, 2020), pp. 53-4: Michael Pearce, "Maskerye Claythis for James VI and Anna of Denmark", Medieval English Theatre, 43 (Cambridge: Brewer, 2022), pp. 108-123.
The fabric contract was in part financed by money sent as a gift or subsidy to James VI by Queen Elizabeth.Jemma Field, "Dressing a Queen: The Wardrobe of Anna of Denmark at the Scottish Court of King James VI, 1590–1603", The Court Historian, 24:2 (2019), p. 154. Lady Thirlestane's account for August 1590 includes a payment of £4000 Scots to Joussie. A surviving account of the subsidy money kept by Foulis includes a payment in July 1594 of £18,280 Scots to the wardrobe account kept by Jousie.Miles Kerr-Peterson & Michael Pearce, "King James VI's English Subsidy and Danish Dowry Accounts, 1588–1596", Miscellany of the Scottish History Society, XVI (Woodbridge: Boydell, 2020), pp. 70, 78. In February 1596, Jousie noted that he had spent £71,513 on clothes for Anne of Denmark over the previous six years.Jemma Field, "Dressing the Stuart Court", Kate Anderson, Art & Court of James VI & I (Edinburgh: National Galleries of Scotland, 2025), p. 44.
In May 1594, when Jousie was in London, his obligation of 3,000 merks to the Master of Work, William Schaw was paid by William Napier of Wrychtishouses and John Gourlay.Winifred Coutts, The Business of the College of Justice in 1600 (Stair Society, 2003), p. 96, citing National Records of Scotland, Register of Deeds ROD1, 44ii, f.413., and CS7/185/399v. Jousie provided textiles for the Masque at the baptism of Prince Henry in 1594. As well as money from the English subsidy, the magnificent display at Stirling was financed by using Anna of Denmark's dowry, which had been invested in various towns.Register of the Privy Council, vol. 5 (Edinburgh, 1882), pp. 116, 131-2, 151-2, 153-4, for some details of expenditure see National Records of Scotland NRS E35/13; Jousie received £1000 from Aberdeen.John Stuart, Extracts Council Register of Aberdeen: 1570-1625, vol. 2 (Aberdeen, 1848), pp. 94-99.
Some of the textiles used at the baptism were provided by an English merchant, Baptist Hicks,Michael Lynch, 'Court Ceremony and Ritual', Julian Goodare & Michael Lynch, Reign of James VI (Tuckwell, 2000), pp. 90–91. but the chance survival of Jousie's own tailor's account book shows that fabric and accessories were also bought in Edinburgh. The tailor Patrick Nimmo supplied green silk buttons and points to Jousie for one of the king's outfits in June 1597. The corresponding entry for the cost of Nimmo's green buttons appears in the king's wardrobe account for July 1597. Nimmo dressed Jousie in a black bombazine doublet and jupe, with black silk breeches fitted with pockets.Maria Hayward, Stuart Style (Yale, 2020), p. 54: Margaret H. B. Sanderson, Mary Stewart's People (Edinburgh: James Thin, 1987), pp. 80, 87: National Records of Scotland, E35/13.
Sir Robert Melville resigned as Treasurer of Scotland in March 1595. He owed Jousie £20,000 which the king undertook to repay. His daughter-in-law, Margaret Ker, owed Jousie a personal debt of £233.William Fraser, The Melvilles: Charters, vol. 3 (Edinburgh, 1890), pp. 138, 143: The £20,000 is noted in Jousie's account NRS E35/13. In September 1597 Jousie went to London to collect the annuity and carried letters from John Lindsay of Balcarres to William and Robert Cecil.John Duncan Mackie, Calendar of State Papers Scotland, 13:1 (Edinburgh, 1969), pp. 84-6, 92. He was delayed in England waiting for the subsidy. James VI wrote to Elizabeth I about his "endless detaining", saying that Jousie's "errand, it is turned from an honourable annuity to a voluntary uncertainty almost after long begging".HMC Salisbury Hatfield, vol. 7 (London, 1899), p. 522: George Akrigg, Letters of King James VI & I (University of California, 1984), p. 152. Jousie obtained the money, and recorded that he paid £20 sterling as a fee to the "telleris and utheris officaris of the excheker hous att my ressait of his majesties annuitye as use is".Miles Kerr-Peterson & Michael Pearce, "James VI's English Subsidy and Danish Dowry Accounts, 1588-1596", Miscellany of the Scottish History Society, XVI (Edinburgh: SHS, 2020), p. 83 citing National Records of Scotland E35/13.
Bankrupt Foulis was bankrupted in 1598. He gave a statement of his debts to Parliament, which included £145,700 and interest on that sum to £33,000 Scots. The roll submitted to Parliament listed the names of the creditors of Foulis and Jousie, who had loaned them money with which they financed the court. It includes the Edinburgh Company of Tailors, based on the Cowgate, who had lent £1,200, the merchant and poet John Burell, and Bartholomew Kello, the husband of the calligrapher Esther Inglis. Kello's loan of £4,000 was one of the larger contributions, and the merchant Jacob Baron had invested £14,822 Scots.Acts of the Parliaments of Scotland, vol. 4 (Edinburgh, 1816), pp. 166-168.
In May 1598 James Hudson wrote that Foulis had pawned a gold lion set with a ruby worth £400 with the London goldsmith Robert Brook of Lombard Street, which Hudson suggested belonged to James VI. Robert Jousie was unable to pay Brook's interest or other sums due by Hudson, or the money they jointly owed to Hudson. Hudson considered having Jousie arrested for debt in London.John Duncan Mackie, Calendar State Papers Scotland vol. 13 part 1 (Edinburgh, 1969), pp. 211-2.