Hampton Court ... Illustrated with forty-three drawings by Herbert ...

TAPESTRIES 157
the days of Wolsey. The glass is also of various dates;
a little of the old here and there has escaped the
ravages of Puritanism, though all the chapel windows
and all those in the hall have perished. Some new
glass was put in ini847, of which perhaps the less said
the better, save that the shields in the windows in the
great hall trace the descent of each of Henry VIII.'s
wives from Edward I.
II
Of the decorative memorials of the Tudor age that
now remain, the tapestries are the most important and
the most conspicuous. Embroideries, the work of the
hands of queensand fair ladies, have passed away: they
have been mentioned in another connection.1 One
further word, however, may be allowed here. Embroidered
curtains were made, with a curious and
pleasing reverence, to veil pictures which might seem
incongruous with a scene of revelry.2 Beside the embroideries
hung rich arras and tapestries. Skelton's
bitter satire on Wolsey speaks of —
" Hangingabout their wailes
Clothes of goldeandpalles,
Arras ofryche arraye,
Fresh as flouresin Maye."
1Page 58.
2 " Itis interesting to find in an old catalogue of Hampton Court
howpictures of sacred subjects were thus decently veiled in the pro-