Gloves were not generally worn by women till after the Reformation; but during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries their use gradually extended to the middle classes. Queen Elizabeth's glove may be seen at the Bodleian Library, Oxford, and is believed to have been worn at the visit of the Virgin Queen to the University in 1566. It is fringed with gold, and is nearly half a yard in length; it is made of white leather worked with gold thread, and the cuff is lined with drab silk. Mary Queen of Scots' glove in the Saffron Walden Museum is of light buff leather, wrought with silver wire and silk of different colours. It is lined with crimson satin, edged with gold lace enriched with sequins, and the opening is connected with bands of satin finished with lace insertion. This glove was presented on the morning of her execution to a member of the Dayrell family, who was in attendance at Fotheringay Castle. In happier days Queen Mary gave an exquisitely embroidered pair of gloves, with a design in which angels' heads and flowers appear--her own work--to her husband, Lord Darnley; and the gloves generally of the Tudor period were more ornate than those which adorn beauty's hands on the eve of the nineteenth century, and were, in most cases, wrought with the needle. Though the history of gloves savours of romance, there is every reason to believe that they have sometimes been used with sinister motives, as a large trade was done at one time in poisoned gloves, delicately perfumed, to conceal their deadly purpose. [Illustration: GLOVE OF JAMES I.] Some gloves which were the property of James I. are of brown leather lined with white, and the seams are sewn with silk and gold thread. The embroidery is in gold and silver thread on crimson satin, with a lining of red silk. They are finished with gold fringe, and have three loops at the side. A glove of chaste design, worn by Charles I. on the scaffold is made of cream-coloured kid, the gauntlet embroidered with silver and edged with silver fringe. Queen Anne, on the other hand, wore highly-decorated gloves of Suede kid, with raised silken flowers on the gauntlet, and three loops of rose-coloured ribbon, to allow them to be slipped over the hands. They are further enriched with gold lace and embroidery. A yellow Suede Court glove of George IV. gives the impression that the first gentleman of Europe had a fist of tremendous proportions. Her Majesty Queen Victoria generally wears black kid gloves, except for Court functions, when white glacé kid gloves are invariably used. Her Royal Highness the Princess of Wales has a delicately-formed hand with tapering fingers, and her size is six and a-half. Her Royal Highness adapts her gloves to the occasion and toilette, and is always _bien ganté_.