The jewels of Mary, Queen of Scots (1542–1587) are mainly known through the evidence of inventories held by the National Records of Scotland.John Duncan Mackie, 'Queen Mary's Jewels', Scottish Historical Review, 18:70 (January 1921), pp. 83–98. She was bought jewels during her childhood in France, adding to those she inherited. She gave gifts of jewels to her friends and to reward diplomats. When she abdicated and went to England many of the jewels she left behind in Scotland were sold or pledged for loans, first by her enemies and later by her allies. Mary continued to buy new jewels, some from France, and use them to reward her supporters. In Scotland her remaining jewels were worn by her son James VI and his favourites.
French fashion and the Scottish queen Mary, Queen of Scots inherited personal jewels belonging to her father, James V. She was taken to France in 1548. In February 1553, the Cardinal of Lorraine wrote to Mary's mother Mary of Guise discussing the purchase of a jewel with an emerald for Mary. He said she already had plenty of similar jewels. The Cardinal also had custody of some family jewels belonging to Mary of Guise.Jane Stoddart, The girlhood of Mary Queen of Scots from her landing in France to her departure (London, 1908), pp. 394–395: Alexandre Labanoff, Lettres de Marie Stuart, 1 (London: Dolman, 1844), pp. 12–14.
For a time, the Earl of Arran was ruler of Scotland as regent. In 1556, after Mary of Guise had become regent, Arran returned a large consignment of royal jewels to the young queen in France.Rosalind K. Marshall, The Jewellery of James V, King of Scots, Jewellery Studies, 7 (1996), p. 84: A. Labanoff, Lettres de Marie Stuart, vol. 1 (London, 1844), p. 6 (there misdated): Jane Stoddart, The girlhood of Mary Queen of Scots from her landing in France to her departure (London, 1908), pp. 394-6Retha M. Warnicke, Mary Queen of Scots (Routledge, 2006), p. 65. Mary mentioned in an undated letter to her mother that a member of the entourage of James Hamilton, 3rd Earl of Arran (then serving in the Scottish Guards in France) had told her that his father intended to send her some jewels, "quelques bagues".Jane T. Stoddart, The girlhood of Mary Queen of Scots (London, 1908), pp. 395, 450–451, 454 Among these jewels was a pendant or hat badge made in Edinburgh by John Mosman from Scottish gold, featuring a mermaid set with diamonds and holding a mirror and a ruby comb.Sally Rush, 'Looking at Marie de Guise', Études Epistémè, 37 (2020) Joseph Robertson, Inventaires de la Royne Descosse (Edinburgh, 1863), p. 5: HMC 11th Report, Part VI: Duke of Hamilton (London, 1887), pp. 41–2 There was also an enseigne or hatbadge featuring Cupid holding a ruby, with a heart-shaped ruby.Jane Kingsley-Smith, Cupid in Early Modern Literature and Culture (Cambridge, 2010), pp. 96–98.
Mary had jewels repaired and refashioned by Parisian jewellers including Robert Mangot, who made paternoster beads or components, and Mathurin Lussault, who also provided gloves, pins, combs and brushes.Thierry Crépin-Leblond, Marie Stuart: le destin français d'une reine d'Écosse (Paris, 2008), pp. 56, 70: Alphonse de Ruble, La première jeunesse de Marie Stuart (Paris, 1891), 37-40, 297: See also National Records of Scotland E35/4. Lussault himself was a patron of the sculptor Ponce Jacquiot, who designed a fireplace for the goldsmith.Contract Lussault Jacquiot, Archives Nationales: MC/ET/CXXII/1395 Her clothes were embroidered with jewels, a white satin skirt front and sleeves featured 120 diamonds and rubies, and coifs for her hair had gold buttons or rubies, sewn by her tailor Nicolas du Moncel in 1551.Alphonse Ruble, La première jeunesse de Marie Stuart (Paris, 1891), pp. 287-8, 297. In 1551, while she was in France, Mary of Guise considered buying necklaces from a Paris merchant called Ronnet (possibly for her daughter), and he supplied a valuation made by a Parisian jeweller and lapidary Allart Plombier or Plommyer, who sold jewels to the French royal family.Marguerite Wood, Balcarres Papers, 2 (Edinburgh: SHS, 1925), pp. 94–95: Léon, Marquis de Laborde, Les comptes des bâtiments du roi, 2, p. 382.
In 1554 the queen's governess Françoise d'Estainville, Dame de Paroy, wrote to Mary of Guise asking permission to buy two diamonds to lengthen one of Mary's "touret" headbands (to wear on her French hood), incorporating rubies and pearls the queen already owned, set in gold entredeux or chatons. She also wanted to buy a gown of cloth-of-gold for the queen to wear at the wedding of Nicolas, Count of Vaudémont (1524–1577), and Princess Joanna of Savoy-Nemours (1532–1568) at Fontainebleau. This new costume was intended to emulate the fashion adopted by the French princesses Elisabeth and Claude.Marguerite Wood, Balcarres Papers, vol. 1 (Edinburgh, 1925), pp. 252-6.
The French court patronised an artist Jean Court dit Vigier who worked in enamels on metal, and he decorated and signed a cup or tazza with scenes of the Triumph of Diana and the Feast of the Gods, with the coat of arms of Scotland on the foot. The arms are surmounted by the Dauphin's crown and the piece has been called the queen's "betrothal cup", as it was conjectured it had been made for the occasion. The tazza is now in the collection of the Cabinet des Médailles in Paris.John Starkie & Alfred Higgins, Catalogue of a collection of European Enamels (London: Burlington Club, 1897), pp. 43-44 no. 157."Coupe de Marie Stuart" (REG.Y.6675), Médailles et Antiques de la Bibliothèque nationale de France
It is not clear if the painter Jean de Court who received a pension from Mary and was listed as a 'valet' and painter in her household expenses was the same artist as the enameller.Andrew Laing, 'The Household of Mary Queen of Scots in 1573', Scottish Historical Review, 2:8 (July 1905), pp. 345–355 at pp. 348, 353: Alexandre Teulet, Relations Politiques, vol. 2 (Paris, 1862), p. 273. The painter Jean de Court has been suggested as the artist who made Mary's portrait in 1562 as a gift for Elizabeth I.Elizabeth Goldring, Nicholas Hilliard (Yale, 2019), p. 74, 289 fn. 61. He appears as "Jehan de Court, paintre" in Mary's 1567 household roll but there seems to be no other archival evidence that he actually resided in Scotland.Alexandre Teulet, Papiers d'État Relatifs à l'Histoire del'Écosse, 2 (Paris: Plon, Bannatyne Club, 1851), p. 127.
Jewels for wedding in Paris Mary's mother, Mary of Guise, asked her to buy a chiming watch for her, from a maker who worked for Henry II.Labanoff, Letters de Marie Stuart, vol. 1, p. 45. Mary was betrothed to the French prince Francis, and was given jewels to wear which were regarded as the property of the French crown. Her jewelled appearance at their wedding in 1558 included a necklace with a pendant of "incalculable value", described as "a son col pendoit une bague d'une valeur inestimable.William Bentham, Ceremony at the marriage of Mary, Queen of Scots (London, 1818), p. 6. Mary wrote that Henry II of France, Catherine, and her uncles had each given her a brodure de piarrerie, a border (perhaps for a French hood) set with precious stones.David Hay Fleming, Mary Queen of Scots (London, 1897), p. 492.
On the day of her wedding, suspended at her forehead from her crown, was the famous ruby called the "Egg of Naples".Herbert Van Scoy, Bernerd C. Weber, Julio Alvarotto, 'The Marriage of Mary Queen of Scots and the Dauphin', The Scottish Historical Review, 31:111, Part 1 (April 1952), pp. 43, 46. Mary's mother-in-law, Catherine de' Medici, gave her the necklace and pendant which she had commissioned from goldsmiths in Lyon and Paris.Germain Bapst, Histoire des joyaux de la couronne de France (Paris, 1889), p. 55 fn. 2 By the time of Mary's marriage, Mathurin Lussault was known as Mary's goldsmith. Other goldsmiths who worked for the wedding ensemble were; Jean Joly, Jean Doublet (the Dauphin's goldsmith), and Nicolas Vara, a gilder and engraver. Denis Gilbert trawled the shops of Paris for rings and stones, and a lapidary called Badouet supplied 58 emerald buttons. Two merchants from Lyon, Pierre Vast and Michel Fauré, supplied a faceted diamond set in a shield for the necklace that Catherine de' Medici gave Mary on her wedding day. The diamond cost 380 livres. Claude Héry supplied a cabochon diamond, costing 292 livres.Hector de la Ferrière, Lettres de Catherine de Médicis: 1533–1563, 1 (Paris, 1880), p. xlii. The pendant may have been the jewel later known as the Great H of Scotland.Agnes Strickland, Lives of the Queens of Scotland, 3 (Edinburgh, 1852), p. 81John Guy, Mary Queen of Scots: My Heart is My Own (Fourth Estate, 2009), pp. 86–7.
On 6 July 1559, Mary, as Reine dauphine, ordered counterfeit precious stones for masque costumes from a painter Éloi Lemannyer, for the weddings of Elisabeth of Valois and Margaret of Valois. Lemmanyer, an usher of the Dauphin's chamber, provided 1,262 imitation rubies, diamonds, and emeralds.Catherine Grodecki, Documents du Mintier Central des Notaires de Paris: Histoire de l'Art au XVIe Siécle, 2 (Paris, 1986), pp. 31, 188 no. 796. Henry II of France was injured at a tournament and died on 10 July.Frederic Baumgartner, Henry II, King of France 1547–1559 (Duke University Press, 1988), pp. 252–253. Mary asked the Duchess of Valentinois to make an inventory of the French king's cabinet and all his jewels.Jane T. Stoddart, The girlhood of Mary Queen of Scots (London, 1908), p. 195Joseph Stevenson, Calendar State Papers Foreign Elizabeth, 1 (London: Longman, 1863), p. 379 no. 985: A full view of the public transactions in the reign of Queen Elizabeth, 1 (London, 1740), p. 159David Hay Fleming, Mary Queen of Scots (London, 1897), p. 30.
Mary gave the English diplomat Nicholas Throckmorton a silver gilt cup.Throckmorton, Arthur (c.1557-1626), The History of Parliament: the House of Commons 1558-1603, ed. P.W. Hasler, 1981 In the 1570s, Mary sent her godchild, a daughter of the French ambassador Michel de Castelnau, a jewel which had been a present in her childhood from Henry II as a pledge of her affection to the girl and her family.Agnes Strickland, Letters of Mary, Queen of Scots, vol. 3 (London, 1843), pp. 142-3.
Gems and cuts