Armorial bindings; Bookplates, English; Heraldry -- Great Britain
It is curious to note the strong tendency of single devices or
badges to merge into threes. It occurs first in the case of the
single crown, which presently gets tripled, then the single
harp does the same, and the three castles, the arms of Dublin,
very likely began as one.
James I. made one more important change; he substituted one
of the Scottish unicorn supporters for the red dragon of
Cadwallader, used as a dexter supporter by Henry VIII., Edward
VI., Mary, and Elizabeth. The ancient Scottish supporters were
two unicorns arg., armed, maned, and unguled, gorged with a
princely coronet and chained or. The origin of the unicorn
supporters is lost, but the creature is generally considered
to be an emblem of purity and of freedom; the horn, moreover,
was credited with medical powers as a remedy against poisons.
The idea of an animal bearing a single horn arose probably from
the horn of the narwhal, which has diagonal striations upon
it resembling those generally shown on the horn of a unicorn,
and certainly does not look like the tooth of a fish. On the
other hand cups made of rhinoceros horn are credited with the
same magical powers as that of the unicorn. The chain attached
to a princely coronet on the neck of the unicorn is not easy
to explain; it is said that it alludes to an early king of
Scotland, who, as a young man, accidentally killed his father,
and bore the chain ever afterwards on his supporters as a sign
of grief.
The lion and the unicorn have remained ever since the time of
James I. as the supporters of the English Royal coat-of-arms,
without any change whatever.
In Scotland James VI. had John Gibson for his bookbinder. He
was appointed under the Privy Seal, and was "Our Soverane
Lordis Buikbinder," but there is no binding left that can with
certainty be attributed to him. On James's advent to England
John and Roger Norton and Robert and Christopher Barker were
made Royal binders and printers, and in 1604 John and Abraham
Bateman were made "Bookbinders to the King."
The many fine armorial bindings which were used by James I.
were probably made by one or other of these binders, but for
the present no signed binding has been found, so the authorship
of any one of them is only conjectural.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account