To the Tudor and Jacobean period of heavy oak furniture succeeded the custom of supplying the place of oak-panelled testers and headboards with rich hangings either of tapestry, cut Genoa, or Venice velvets and other costly materials, with ostrich feathers or other ornaments on the angles. The royal beds at Hampton court admirably illustrate this stately fashion, as in the accompanying woodcut. More modern changes it is unnecessary to trace. [Illustration] [Illustration] Couches for reclining or sitting upon were, in the middle ages, rather benches with cushions on them. The king conversing with a lady in her chamber is from a manuscript of about 1390 (the "Romance of Meliadus") in the British museum. In the seventeenth century we find the same ornaments that were used in chair backs extended to large frames so as to form them into couches, and the same plaited cane panels. In the last century, sofas were sometimes made in the form of several chair backs, with arms at each end, the backs being pierced work or framing made of bars in fancy shapes. This work was in mahogany or satin wood, or was painted after the fashion of vernis-martin work. In all cases such pieces were made to accord with suites of chairs, tables, &c. Cradles have been made in many shapes. The most approved in antiquity was that of a boat, [Greek: skaphos], or a shield; in either case they could be rocked. In the fourteenth century the men of Ghent destroyed the house of the earl of Flanders, according to Froissart, and all his furniture including the cradle in which he was nursed, which was of silver. The cradle of Henry the fifth is still preserved. It is in the form of a chest, much like the cradle in the Kensington museum, n^{o.} 1769; and swings on posts, one at each end, standing on cross-bars to keep them steady: but there is no higher portion, as in the example in the museum, to support a tester. A hundred years later the shape seems to have become heavier. [Illustration] _Chairs._ In the ancient Egyptian paintings at Thebes, and elsewhere, chairs are minutely represented like the throne or arm chair of the Greeks, each containing one person. Occasionally they used stools and low seats raised a little above the ground. Some sat cross-legged on the ground, though this is more rare, or kneeling on one knee. The men and women generally were apart, but in the same room, while conversing they sat, and did not recline. Wilkinson gives a full description of the old Egyptian chairs and stools.