Walter Fyshe (died 1585) was a London tailor who worked for Elizabeth I until 1582. [1] He also made some of her farthingales. [2] Fyshe made the queen's ceremonial clothes and coronation robes, altering robes made for the coronation of Mary I of England. [3]
Fyshe in mentioned in the royal accounts for 1557. He was a member of the Merchant Taylor's Company.Fyshe was sometimes asked to adjudicate disputed tailor's bills. He inspected the accounts of a tailor called Molde who had made clothes for Anne, the wife of Henry Mewtas (a son of Peter Meutas), in 1566. The case note mentions that Fyshe lived in Budge Row. [4]
In 1565, Fyshe made gowns for six maids of honour to weat at the wedding of Anne Russell to the Earl of Warwick. The gowns of yellow satin guarded with green velvet dressed with silver lace were made for Mary Howard, Anne Windsor, Katherine Brydges, Katherine Knyvett, Mary Radcliffe, and Dorothy Broke. [5]
Some garments made for Elizabeth involved the use of patterns called "toiles" which were sent to France for completion. [6] Some clothes were partly made in France and finished by Fyshe. Elizabeth was interested in the fashions of other European courts, and in 1567 the ambassador Henry Norris was asked to recruit a tailor in Paris who could make apparel in the Italian and French manner. Although Norris's wife Margery Williams, who Elizabeth nicknamed "Crow", agreed to help find a craftsman, no candidates were found. [7] The costume historian Janet Arnold suggests that the gown worn by Elizabeth in the 'Phoenix' portrait painted by Nicholas Hilliard may represent a pattern sent from France, possibly by Lady Norris, made up by Fyshe. [8] [9]
After 1567, Elizabeth's farthingales were made a specialist, John Bate. [10] Fyshe made a cloak and safeguard riding overskirt for Bess of Hardwick to give to the queen, for New Year's Day 1577. [11]
In 1574 Fyshe was made a yeoman of the Revels. [12] Work for the Revels included costumes for musicians and actors dressed as Amazons for a masque at Richmond Palace in January 1579. [13] Amazons and knights arrived at the Palace, danced with the audience, and fought. [14] Fyshe bought coal to air the stored Revels costumes. He frequently signed the Revels accounts as "Walter Fysshe". [15]
Elizabethan courtiers agonised about giving the correct New Year's Day gifts to the queen to win favour. In 1575, Lady Sussex advised Elizabeth Wingfield that an embroidered cloak of peach or blue watchet colour and a safeguard skirt would be a good choice, especially if "Waltare Fyeses to have the dowynge of it". The clothes were made and Elizabeth Wingfield wrote to Bess of Hardwick to tell her that Elizabeth I liked the "strange trimming of the garments". [16]
Fyshe retired in 1582 and died in 1585. There are many records of his work at the English court. His will mentions a gift of a gold mourning ring to an embroiderer Davy Smith. [17] Fyshe married Elizabeth Worthington in 1547. She outlived him. Their son, Cornelius Fyshe was admitted to Gray's Inn in August 1592. [18]
Walter Fyshe and his workshop made clothes for Elizabeth's maidens of honour, ladies of the privy chamber and bedchamber, and chamberers. He made gowns of yellow satin with green velvet edging and silver lace for six maids of honour to attend the wedding of Anne Russell, daughter of the Earl of Bedford, to Ambrose, Earl of Warwick, on 11 November 1565. The maids were "Mistress Mary Howarde, Anne Windesoure, Katherine Bridges, Katherin Knevit, Mary Ratlyf and Dorothy Broke". [19]
Eleven gowns of crimson velvet, blue taffeta, and murrey satin, trimmed with sky blue "watchet" and white lace, were gifts from Elizabeth in 1572 to "Lady Susan Bowser, Mary Ratclyff, Eleaner Bridges, Elizabeth Garrett, Katheryn Howarde, Ysabell Holcrofte, Fraunces Howarde, Elizabeth Knolles, Anne Weste, Elizabeth Stafforde, and Mary Shelton". [20]
Some women received clothes when they married. In 1567, Dorothy Bradbelt, a gentlewoman of the chamber, was given a Flanders gown of black velvet with satin made by Fyshe when she married John Abington, a clerk of the royal kitchen. [21]
George Brediman had responsibility for the Wardrobe of Robes. Several royal warrants directed to Brediman survive, referring both to the wardrobe at Whitehall or at Westminster. At this time, the same store was meant. [22] Brediman issued textiles for revels, to Katherine Astley for the queen's use, and to Walter Fyshe. [23]
A farthingale is one of several structures used under Western European women's clothing - especially in the 16th and 17th centuries - to support the skirts in the desired shape and to enlarge the lower half of the body. The fashion originated in Spain in the fifteenth century. Farthingales served important social and cultural functions for women in Renaissance Europe as they expressed, primarily when worn by court women, high social position and wealth.
A doublet is a man's snug-fitting jacket that is shaped and fitted to a man's body. The garment was worn in Spain, and spread to the rest of Western Europe, from the late Middle Ages up to the 17th century. Until the end of the 15th century, the doublet was usually worn under another layer of clothing such as a gown, mantle, or houppelande when in public. In the 16th century it was covered by the jerkin. Women started wearing doublets in the 16th century, and these garments later evolved as the corset and stay. The doublet was thigh length, hip length or waist length and worn over the shirt or drawers.
Fashion in the period 1550–1600 in European clothing was characterized by increased opulence. Contrasting fabrics, slashes, embroidery, applied trims, and other forms of surface ornamentation remained prominent. The wide silhouette, conical for women with breadth at the hips and broadly square for men with width at the shoulders had reached its peak in the 1530s, and by mid-century a tall, narrow line with a V-lined waist was back in fashion. Sleeves and women's skirts then began to widen again, with emphasis at the shoulder that would continue into the next century. The characteristic garment of the period was the ruff, which began as a modest ruffle attached to the neckband of a shirt or smock and grew into a separate garment of fine linen, trimmed with lace, cutwork or embroidery, and shaped into crisp, precise folds with starch and heated irons.
The French hood is a type of woman's headgear that was popular in Western Europe in the 16th century.
Mary Scudamore was a courtier to Elizabeth I.
A partlet was a 16th-century fashion accessory. The partlet was a sleeveless garment worn over the neck and shoulders, either worn over a dress or worn to fill in a low neckline.
Mary Radcliffe or Ratcliffe (1550-1617) was a courtier of Queen Elizabeth I of England.
Peter Sanderson was an Edinburgh tailor who worked for Anne of Denmark wife of James VI of Scotland.
Aura Soltana, also known as Ipolitan the Tartarian or Ipolita or Ippolyta, was a Tartar woman at the court of Elizabeth I after arriving from Russia to England, apparently as a slave.
The wardrobe of Mary, Queen of Scots, was described in several contemporary documents, and many records of her costume have been published.
Fremyn Alezard was a French shoemaker based in Edinburgh who worked for Mary, Queen of Scots and subsequently her political rivals.
William Cookesbury or Coksbery, or Cookisbury was a London capper, haberdasher, and supplier of feathers.
Peter Jonson or Johnson and Garret Jonson were London-based shoemakers who worked for Elizabeth I and James VI and I. The records of shoes they made for monarchs and courtiers gives an idea of changing fashions.
Oes or owes were metallic O-shaped rings or eyelets sewn on to clothes and furnishing textiles for decorative effect. Made of gold, silver, or copper, they were used on clothing and furnishing fabrics and were smaller than modern sequins. They were made either from rings of wire or punched out of a sheet of metal.
A silkwoman was a woman in medieval, Tudor, and Stuart England who traded in silks and other fine fabrics. London silkwomen held some trading rights independently from their husbands and were exempted from some of the usual customs and laws of coverture. The trade and craft of the silkwoman was encouraged by a statute of Henry VI of England as a countermeasure to imports of silk thread, and a suitable occupation for "young gentlewomen and other apprentices".
The coronation of Mary I as Queen of England and Ireland took place at Westminster Abbey, London, on Sunday 1 October 1553. This was the first coronation of a queen regnant in England, a female ruler in her own right. The ceremony was therefore transformed. Ritual and costume were interlinked. Contemporary records insist the proceedings were performed "according to the precedents", but mostly these were provisions made previously for queens consort.
A chamberer was a female attendant of an English queen regnant, queen consort, or princess. There were similar positions in aristocratic households.
George Brediman or Bredyman was an English courtier serving Mary I of England and Elizabeth I. Brediman was a groom of the privy chamber and keeper of the privy purse. His wife, Edith Brediman, was a chamberer at court.
A safeguard or saveguard was a riding garment or overskirt worn by women in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Some safeguards were intended to protect skirts or kirtles worn beneath. Mary Frith, dramatised as the character Moll Cutpurse in The Roaring Girl, wore a black safeguard over breeches.
Dorothy Bradbelt was an English courtier, a woman of the bedchamber to Elizabeth I.