The feather and tuft fans in use from the twelfth to the sixteenth centuries and later were formed of the plumes of the peacock, the ostrich, and the paroquet, dyed various colours: the number of the feathers varied from three to twenty or more, and were arranged so as to imbricate the plumes in the gradation of their natural growth. These were set in handles of carved ivory and the more precious metals, generally silver, and were often richly jewelled, and suspended from the girdle by a slender chain. Of their cost we have a hint in Marston’s satires: ‘How can she keepe a lazie serving-man And buy a hoode and silver-handled fan With fortie pound?’ Silver was probably the material of the handle of Mistress Bridget’s fan in the theft of which Falstaff and his Ancient were implicated. FALSTAFF. And when Mistress Bridget Lost the handle of her fan, I took’t upon Mine honour thou hadst it not. PISTOL. Didst thou not share? hadst thou not fifteen pence? References to the silver-handled fan occur commonly in old plays: ‘She hath a fan with a short silver handle, About the length of a barber’s syringe.’ _The Floire_, 1610. ‘All your plate, Vasco, is the silver handle of Your old prisoner’s fan.’ _Love and Honour_, Sir W. Davenant, 1649. ‘Another he Her silver handled fan would gladly be.’ In Marston, _Scourge of Villainie_, lib. III. sat. 8. The above references are to fans of the ordinary sort; the cost of the more precious fans of history was considerable. Brantôme (_c._ 1590) refers to the fan of Queen Eleanor with its mirror all ornamented with precious stones of great value, and also to the new-year’s gift of Queen Margaret to Queen Louise of Lorraine—a jewelled fan of mother of pearl of such beauty and richness that it was valued at more than fifteen hundred crowns,[81] a sum equal to a thousand pounds of our present money. The employment of the fan as fire-screen is indicated by the new-year’s gift to Queen Mary of England in 1556, when she received ‘seven fannes to kepe the heate of the fyer, of strawe, the one of white silke.’ Queen Elizabeth’s partiality for fans is historic, and it is upon record that she regarded a fan as a suitable gift for a queen. Leicester’s new-year’s gift in 1574 is recorded: ‘A fan of white feathers set in a handle of gold, garnished on one side with two very fair emeralds, and fully garnished with diamonds and rubies; the other side garnished with rubies and diamonds, and on each side a white bear [his cognisance] and two pearls hanging, a lion ramping with a white muzzled bear at his foot.’ Among the new-year’s gifts, 1588-9:—