In this episode, Isabella discusses needlework created by imprisoned women, focusing specifically on the embroidery of Mary Queen of Scots, Agnes Richter, and Lorina Bulwer.
As always, images and resources discussed in this episode are available on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook at @sewwhatpodcast.
In this episode, Isabella discusses needlework created by imprisoned women, focusing specifically on the embroidery of Mary Queen of Scots, Agnes Richter, and Lorina Bulwer.
As always, images and resources discussed in this episode are available on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook at @sewwhatpodcast.
Whatsup stitches!!! Episode 15 already! Can you believe it? Time flies but also time feels like not real anymore because of Corona, right? Anyway, hi!! With this episode I’m back to focusing on themes that bring a wide variety of needleworked objects together. The theme is stitching while imprisoned, which is very grim. Possibly fun? We’ll see. And that theme, stitching while imprisoned, will get me through two episodes. That’s right – today’s episode is part one of two: stitching while imprisoned edition. Today I’m focusing on three objects that span more than 350 years. Two of these objects were made in England and one in Germany – I didn’t choose those areas on purpose, they just happen to be the countries of origin of some very fiery pieces of needlework made under various forms of incarceration. Today’s episode will be focused on the pre-20th century pieces and next week’s will be about the 20th century and 21st-century ones. Before I get into my ramble and study of these objects, I of course gotta say all the images and sources are available on @sewwhatpodcast on Twitter and Instagram. You know it, you love it, and hopefully you follow that Twitter and Instagram. And also we’re on Facebook now! At sewwhatpodcast, feel free to follow it there. Anyway, here we go.
My whole thing when looking at and thinking about these objects is that there’s something very deep seated about the need to sew. These women used anything available to them to commemorate their suffering through stitch. I’m tempted to say that these objects show that the relationship between women and stitching is primal, but I think it’s actually not that because that implies some sort of inherent gendered thing behind stitching which definitely isn’t the case. Women have been and are still associated with stitchery because they’ve been made to stitch for hundreds and even thousands of years and I will get into that later. But all that’s to say that we see time and again that needlework is a unique and very powerful way for women to express their innermost thoughts and to chart and commemorate their suffering. We saw that in Elizabeth Parker’s sampler, which I discussed in my second episode “Text and Protest”, and we see that again here.
There’s a lot to say and think about the use of stitching while imprisoned and how that’s typically something done by women. I can’t think of a single instance of someone who identifies as male being imprisoned and stitching, historically. If I’m wrong, let me know. There are quite a few surviving samplers and other needleworked objects by boys and men, so it’s not like men were just never taught to stitch – a lot of them were. Interestingly, one example of men stitching is basically the opposite of women stitching while imprisoned – these men stitched to recover from trauma instead of stitching during it, as the women did. The dudes I’m referring to are the WWI soldiers recovering from physical and mental injury who were taught embroidery as a form of rehabilitation. Their rehab embroidery is like the opposite of the three objects I’m going to talk about today in terms of purpose, but obviously very similar in terms of production.
These objects I’m about to get into exhibit women using that skill that Western society told them they had to learn and turning it on its head and turning this supposedly gentle craft into tools through which to memorialise suffering and being locked behind prison bars and into straightjackets. It’s really fascinating that women and girls were often taught to stitch in places and time periods when they were controlled and limited in their political, economic, and sometimes even social power, but that when truly all that control was taken from them and they were imprisoned, they returned to that stitching. They took an aspect of patriarchal control and then used it to express their discontent when placed in environments of even more extreme patriarchal control. Does that make sense? I hope it does. That may just a sort of ramble. Anyway! It’s something I think about a lot, how historic stitching combined control and instruction with creativity in different ways depending on time period, place, and personal circumstance.
Okay yes that’s enough of my kinda theoretical ramble about this stuff. Let’s get into the actual objects. The first is a group of needleworked objects – it’s the embroideries of Mary Queen of Scots!! If I could make a triumphant like trumpet noise with my mouth, I would. Because like literally embroidery?? Stitched by royalty?? Almost 500 years ago?? Yes, it’s true, it is a rare treat! But first, some historical context. In 1568, a decade after Queen Elizabeth I became queen, her cousin Mary was in a pickle. Mary, the Catholic queen of Scotland, was deposed and forced to flee across the border into England because of a powerful Protestant coalition that rose up against her. Mary thought Queen Elizabeth would offer her help and protection because they were family, right? No, that is very wrong. Mary was really super duper not welcome in Protestant England as a high profile Catholic. But it was more than religion. Mary also had a claim to the English throne, so she represented a very real political threat to Elizabeth, who had no children and therefore no heirs. That threat was made even more real by the fact that a lot of Catholics thought she was illegitimate, which, you know, big yikes all around! Elizabeth saw Mary coming and was like ABSOLUTELY NOT so she ordered Mary to be held in detention. Mary remained in custody for the rest of her life, which was 18 and a half more years.
While Mary was imprisoned, she stitched. A lot. She embroidered almost the entire time she was held in the custody of George Talbot, Sixth Earl of Shrewsbury and a wealthy Protestant. That was from 1569 to 1584ish. She was carted around to Talbot’s various country estates. She had a pretty good life as a prisoner – she wasn’t kept in a cell and she had a huge domestic staff, well decorated rooms, and a personal chef. But I can imagine those luxuries would still be a far cry from her life as a queen, so she understandably angsted out using needlework. Sometimes, Talbot’s second wife, Elizabeth, better known as Bess of Hardwick, came to visit and, while there, worked on Mary’s embroideries with her. Mary was also sometimes aided in her stitching by members of her household, including professional embroiderers who were hired.
I realise this is a lot of historical context and not a lot of looking at the objects, but I promise we’ll get there. Just a lil bit more history. We love context! Okay, so after Mary’s beheading in 1587 her embroideries were given to Ann Dacre (Dacre? DACRE. I don’t know). Anyway, however you pronounce it, she was the Countess of Arundel. The panels were stitched onto green velvet, probably in the 17th century, and some were later reconfigured. These velvet, embroidered hybrids are now called the Marian Hanging, Shrewsbury Hanging, Cavendish Hanging, and Oxburgh Valance. There was another hanging that was broken up into its original embroideries. Almost all of the pieces are in the Victoria and Albert Museum, with three in the Royal Collection.
Okay, finally, yes, time to talk about the embroideries themselves. I’m gonna call the embroideries medallions. They range from being octagonal to rectangular to being kind of a scalloped quatrefoil shape thing that maybe looks like a cross? There are over 100 of them, which we love to see. And they cover a whole variety of topics and themes, from British animals and domestic landscapes like honey bees, falcons, and dogs to exotic animals like an elephant, tiger, and a dolphin. There are also fantastical creatures like a dragon and unicorn and plants including a dandelion and palm tree. I am inspired by that range. Anyway, most of them were copied from the woodcut illustrations in emblem books of the time. Emblem books contained allegorical illustrations with explanatory texts. And like those books, Mary’s embroideries have stitched descriptions, too. They say things in a delightfully 16th-century spelling and pronunciation like “a rhinocerote,” “a byrd of America,” and “delphin.” Some of the medallions feature Mary and Bess of Hardwick’s monograms, which is very cute because it’s like friendship!! But also ownership of their own work!! Love to get credit for one’s work.
For you stitch fans, let’s get into the specific stitches. The medallions were made using counted-thread embroidery, which is a technique in which the number of stitches is decided before the embroidery is even begun. Only cross stitch and tent stitch were used, which were quick and simple in comparison to a lot of the other stitches used at that time. The medallions were made of polychrome silk threads and gold, silver, and silver-gilt metallic threads on a coarsely woven linen ground. The pieces were maybe first used as cushion covers or were made into smaller hangings for Bess’s various homes. But Mary also liked to send embroideries to friends and supporters, so maybe they were used for that purpose? Honestly, who knows. All I know is that they are very heckin’ cool.
Okay but what is the significance of Mary Queen of Scots spending her imprisonment stitching? Weeeeell. As we’ll see, embroidery was a way for Mary to express her innermost thoughts, which is a theme you’ll hear throughout this episode. For the other examples I’ll discuss, those thoughts were not really secretive, they were very explicitly expressed. But for Mary, as a deposed queen locked away by her cousin, she obviously couldn’t outwardly express her feelings and fight to regain her throne, so she used needlework motifs to speak for her.
Mary’s stitched medallions include a marigold, which is actually derived from “Mary’s gold”, turning toward the sun, which indicates courage in the midst of struggle. And in another medallion, a yellow rose is attacked by a group of caterpillars, labelled as “THE CANKER.” Presumably Mary is the rose and the caterpillars are Elizabeth and all those who oppose Mary’s claim to the throne. But wait, there are more! There’s also a panel that shows a grapevine and a hand holding a pruning knife. It refers to Mary’s claim to the throne. Mary is the hand with the knife, cutting away the fruitless branch of the Tudor family tree, since Elizabeth had no children, bearing no fruit. In case that’s not obvious enough, there’s a motto stitch atop the scene which reads “Virescit Vulnere Virtus”, which means virtue flourished by wounding. Another medallion she made shows a phoenix rising from the ashes, which of course implies that she, her power, and Catholic power will rise again. How fiery! Literally! As we can see, Mary was still framing herself as a political leader through stitch.
Community textile artist and author Clare Hunter talks a lot about Mary’s embroideries in her EXCELLENT book Threads of Life: A History of the World Through the Eye of a Needle and she has a really good paragraph that I wanna share with you all. Hunter writes, “Under the constant surveillance of her gaolers, with her letters censored, embroidery became a way for Mary to preserve her sense of self and continue to exercise her power. Unlike the careful text she crafted in her correspondence, which, she was only too aware, was read by others, or the letters she smuggled out that were in danger of being intercepted by Elizabeth’s spymasters, embroidery gave her freedom of expression. Under the guise of innocent motifs, her embroidery became a covert form of communication” (30). Yes!! It’s true!! Mary’s medallions are essentially the opposite of the other two pieces I’ll be discussing in this episode – she used embroidery to express herself but it had to be in a coded, secretive way.
Even when facing death, Mary used needlework and textiles to express herself covertly. At her execution, she wore a petticoat and sleeves of blood red. Red was the Catholic colour of martyrdom. Even in the last moments of her life, Mary used textiles for political (and, in this case, religious) purposes. For Mary and for other imprisoned women, stitching isn’t just stitching. Stitching can say things the spoken or written word can’t, and, sometimes, it’s able to traverse centuries and speak for the person who did the stitching.
Approximately 300 years after Mary and across the English Channel, a German woman named Agnes Richter stitched words upon her jacket. It was 1895 and Agnes was in the Hubertusberg Psychiatric Institution and the jacket she was embroidering on was her straitjacket. Agnes was born in 1844 and in her 50s she was a seamstress, which we know because she filed a police report about being robbed. In 1893, she was admitted to the Hubertusberg Psychiatric Institution at the behest of her father and brothers after having, according to records, several delusional episodes. She was diagnosed as paranoid and kept in the institution for the remaining 26 years of her life. We know about Agnes Richter essentially only because of her tiny jacket, which really makes clear that needlework is often the only reminder of an entire existence. In this case, needlework reminds us not only of a life as rich and complex as our own, but it also shows us how needlework can be used as a means to emote and express ourselves, even if we don’t really understand exactly what is being expressed.
I say this because most of what Agnes embroidered on her jacket is impossible to read. Agnes embroidered Deutsche Schrift, which is a script that has largely fallen out of use. The text is stitched in multiple colours, including red, yellow, blue, orange, and white. It overlaps on itself and is obscured or faded in some areas because the jacket was obviously worn A LOT. Little portions of the text have been deciphered, though, and have been translated into English. Some of the embroidery reads “I am not big” and “I wish to read” and “I plunge headlong into disaster.” Agnes also stitched her patient number, 583m, over and over again. Agnes not only embroidered onto the garment, she made it herself. The jacket has sweat stains and darts in the back and it’s clear that every step of the way she stitched her soul into that brown wool and coarse linen the jacket is made of.
Clearly, Agnes used her jacket as a diary. Her needle was the pen and her garment the page. She turned a form of literal constriction, this straitjacket, into a vessel of expression. And she took stitching, what is often viewed as a limiting, oppressing task, into a space of literal limitation and oppression and turned it into freedom, or perhaps more accurately necessary invention. As a seamstress, stitching is what Agnes knew. Did embroidering the Deutsche Schrift words onto the jacket bring her joy? Or comfort? Or a way to express her churning thoughts? It’s obviously not for me to say, but what’s clear is that for Agnes, needlework was a way to voice her frustration and devastation and confusion that she had lost any agency she had had before being sent to the Hubertusberg Psychiatric Institution. I’ve said it before on this podcast and I’ll say it again – needlework is like a diary and a needle is like a pen and what I’m saying is give as much credit to women’s stitching as you do to their writing!! I’m not saying you specifically don’t, it’s just a note to the world at large. Women have often spoken through stitching!! Listen to them!!!
Right around the same time, back on English soil, another women was stitching while imprisoned. Her name was Lorina Bulwer. She was born in 1838 in Beccles, Suffolk. Sometime before 1861 her family moved to Great Yarmouth, where she spent the rest of her life. She ran a guest house with her mom until her mother’s death in 1893. Shortly after, Lorina’s brother placed her in the Great Yarmouth Workhouse, paying to leave her there. She was 55. You all should see my face right now. It’s just a big sad face. What a cruel brother and what a deeply unfun way to spend the rest of your life. The workhouse had about 500 inmates including 60 who were classified as lunatics. Lorina was part of that group, all of whom had various forms of mental illness. They were made to unpick oakum, tarred fiber used to seal gaps, for more than 10 hours a day. She died in 1912 and was buried close to the workhouse. Ugh!!! Deeply bad times.
Let’s talk Lorina’s needlework. She embroidered long strings of text that are full of protest and outrage. It’s cotton embroidered with various colours of wool threads. There are instances of figures made of cloth and embroidery thread, but it’s mostly text. That text is all capitalised and lacks punctuation – it’s essentially one long tirade. And when I say long, I mean really long. One of these pieces, which are kind of like letters written to no one in particular, is 12 feet long and another is 14. Wowee.
Lorina talks about a lot of stuff in her needlework. She mentions people that have been verified to be real people she knew, but then she also talks about being related to the Royal family, which was not true. She also writes about being sexually abused, so trigger warning here. She writes “I miss Lorina Bulwer was examined by Dr Pinching of Walthamstow Essex and found to be a properly shaped female”. This Dr Pinching was actually implicated in the sexual abuse of patients, so yep!!! Deeply, deeply bad times!!!
Lorina’s stitching is full of anger, which is obviously really emphasised by the all caps, no punctuation situation. She writes of her place in the workhouse, “I HAVE WASTED TEN YEARS IN THS DAMNATION HELL TRAMP DEN OF OLD WOMEN OLD BAGS” which, like, oof. Clare Hunter, who we heard from earlier, also has a really good quote in her book about Lorina and her needlework. Hunter writes, “The boldness of her colours and the scale of her letters, the extreme form of her needlework – in stark contrast to the delicate stitchery of her day – was a desperate attempt to gain attention, a plea for help writ large. This was no random choice but like Agnes’s purposeful. Lorina made her sewing aggressively eye-catching to convey her palpable anguish and anger at her abandonment” (41). God, isn’t that so poignant? With her embroidered jacket, Agnes Richter exhibits her anger, frustration, and sadness by wearing her own words. Lorina Bulwer exhibits those same feelings not by wearing her work on her body, but by making her stitches scream through bright colours and uniformly gigantic letters.
What obviously sucks about the imprisonment of Mary Queen of Scots, Agnes Richter, and Lorina Bulwer beyond the fact that they were literally confined to places where they did not have control and definitely DID NOT want to be is that they all spent the rest of their lives imprisoned. They never got to experience freedom again. Which makes the already poignant needlework even more poignant. Stitching allowed them to express their innermost feelings, their frustration and anguish, but it didn’t save them. In the face of institutions of control much more powerful than them, nothing could. But thanks to their needlework, these women and their terrible circumstances are at least remembered. They speak their anger and sadness and confusion to us through thread.
Before I conclude, I wanted to tell you the locations of all of these objects at the end of the episode because they are truly all over the place. Much of Mary Queen of Scots’s needlework is at the Victoria and Albert Museum. Within that group, the Oxburgh Hangings are on permanent loan to Oxburgh Hall. The Royal Collection Trust has three needleworked medallions, too. Agnes Richter’s jacket is in the Prinzhorn Collection at the University Hospital of Heidelberg. Lorina Bulwer’s pieces are at the Thackray Medical Museum in Leeds and Norwich Castle Museum. I think at least one might be elsewhere? I’ve honestly had a bit of trouble tracking down all of her pieces because they have kinda gone all over the place from Christie’s to Antiques Roadshow to various museums.
Next week I will, as I mentioned earlier, carry on the theme of women stitching while imprisoned. I’ll be discussing the several Suffragette jail embroideries that survive as well as an object that’s pretty new to me and that I’ll simply call Myrllen’s Coat. Get excited! And get happy about the fact that even though living through a global pandemic sometimes means that it feels like we’re imprisoned in and limited to our homes, most of us have the freedom to stitch what we choose or study the stitching we choose. And that is also to say that clearly, needlework and mental health are closely intertwined. That’s probably one of many reasons so many people have taken up stitching during COVID. So if stitching is easing whatever you’re feeling during these weird times, rad. And if stitching is just making you more frustrated and less chill and therefore just isn’t for you? Also rad. No matter what happens, needlework and the study of it will always be here. Hopefully that brings you some comfort. I know it does for me.
Okay that’s it from me! Isabella over and out! As always, thanks so much for listening. Your support truly makes me feel so warm and fuzzy inside. And please, if you haven’t already, like and rate and subscribe and tell your friends about “Sew What?” Yay so fun.
Now go out and stitch some stories and if you want to stitch some Deutsche Schrift on a jacket just know I’ll be impressed. Bye!