id of Kent left to her son her
"new bed curtains of red velvet, embroidered with ostrich feathers
of silver, and heads of leopards of gold," while in 1380 the Earl
of March bequeathed his "large bed of black satin embroidered with
white lions and gold roses, and the escutcheons of the arms of
Mortimer and Ulster." This outfit must have resembled a Parisian
"first class" funeral! The widow of Henry II. slept in a sort of
mourning couch of black velvet, which must have made her feel as if
she too were laid out for her own burial!

A child's bedquilt was found mentioned in an inventory of furniture
at the Priory of Durham, in 1446, which was embroidered in the
four corners with the Evangelistic symbols. In the "Squier of Lowe
Degree," a fifteenth century romance, there is allusion to a bed,
of which the head sheet is described "with diamonds set and rubies
bright." The king of England, in 1388, refers, in a letter, to "a bed
of gold cloth." Wall hangings in bedrooms were also most elaborate,
and the effect of a chamber adorned with gold and needlework must
have been fairly regal. An embroiderer named Delobel made a set
of furnishings for the bedroom of Louis XIV. the work upon which
occupied three years. The subject was the Triumph of Venus.

In South Kensington Museum there is a fourteenth century linen cloth
of German workmanship, upon which occurs the legend of the unicorn,
running for protection to a maiden. An old Bestiary describes how
the unicorn, or as it is there called, the "monocerus," "is an
animal which has one horn on its head: it is caught by means of
a virgin." The unicorn and virgin, with a hunter in pursuit, is
quite a favourite bit of symbolism in the middle ages.

Another interesting piece of German embroidery in South Kensington
is a table cloth, worked on heavy canvas, in heraldic style: long
decorative inscriptions embellish the corners. A liberal translation
of these verses is given by Dr. Rock, some of the sentences being
quaint and interesting to quote. Evidently the embroideress indulged
in autobiography in the following: "And she, to honour the esquire
her husband, wished to adorn and increase his house furniture, and
there has worked, with her own hand, this and still many other
pretty cloths, to her memory." And in another corner, "Now follows
here my own birthday. When one wrote 1565 my mother's heart was
gladdened by my first cry. In the year 1585 I gave birth my self
to a daughter. Her