Shakespeare, James I and Britain's Golden Age of men's jewellery
In 16th- and 17th-century Britain, nothing communicated a man's power, wealth and love more eloquently than bejewelled hatbands, scent bottles, swords, belts, daggers and garters.
Had you been invited to join James I and Anne of Denmark for the first royal performance of The Merchant of Venice in the Banqueting Hall of the Palace of Whitehall on the night of February 10, 1605, I am sure that on arrival you would have been struck by the smell (pitch from the torches, crushed strewing herbs and heavy perfumes) and the noise (gossiping courtiers, musicians tuning up their hautboys and viols).
However, what really would have caught your attention would have been the jewellery. The period between the mid 16th century (after Henry VIII dissolved the monasteries and confiscated their treasures) and the mid 17th century (when Charles I, the last of our kings to wear an earring, was executed) was a golden age for jewellery.
One visitor described its commercial epicentre, Cheapside, as the ‘most remarkable thing in London’, going on to say that its craftsmen offered more magnificent jewels than ‘in all the shops in Milan, Rome, Venice and Florence’.
Demand was so great that some of the most talented jewellers in Europe moved to England. Indeed, Henry VIII made Peter van der Wale, from Antwerp, the ‘King’s Jeweller’, and later Elizabeth I made John Spilman, a German, the ‘Queen’s Jueller’ — and the Jewel House in the Tower of London became the repository for unimaginable wealth.
Not that our nation’s passion for jewels was confined to royalty and the aristocracy. There were jewellers in every important town and city. Journeymen served the more rural areas and itinerant chapmen sold inexpensive pieces at the innumerable fairs.
The growing popularity of jewellery can partly be explained by the fact that the 16th century was a time of increased prosperity for the country and its rulers. Henry VIII and his court used jewels to reflect their status, but by the time of the first Stuart king, jewellery had become much more than an expression of power. It was given and received in exchange for (or in anticipation of) favours. It was used to declare love, mark significant events and commemorate the dead. It could signify a membership or act as a memento mori. Even the well educated believed that certain gems had the ability to protect, heal and attract good fortune. Above all else, jewellery was how those with a position in society expressed themselves.
So, it was not by chance that Shakespeare incorporated gems and jewels into many of his plots: The Merchant of Venice, of course, but also Cymbeline, All’s Well That Ends Well, Macbeth, Othello and Hamlet. Nor is it a coincidence that they are mentioned in almost every play or sonnet he ever wrote. He knew his audience — an audience in which the men wore as much, if not more, jewellery than the women.
To attend The Merchant of Venice, the King would almost certainly have sported one of his famous Hat Jewels, either the Mirror of Great Britain, which incorporated the 55.23-carat Sancy diamond (now in the Louvre) or the Three Brothers, three giant spinels (now lost).
He, and his male courtiers, would have been wearing gold and gemstone chains, pendants, bracelets, rings and brooches. Not to mention bejewelled accessories: hatbands, scent bottles, swords, sword belts, daggers, garters and watches. More than this, there would have been any number of diamonds and other coloured gemstones — rubies from Burma, spinels from Afghanistan, sapphires from Sri Lanka, emeralds from Colombia, garnets from Bohemia, turquoise from the Sinai Peninsula, opals from Hungary, pearls from the Persian Gulf — sewn into their clothes.
For Tudor and Jacobean men, according to historian Natasha Awais-Dean: ‘The entire body from head to toe acted as a site for the placing of jewels.’ Indeed, the Duke of Buckingham was described by a contemporary as being ‘manacled, fettered and imprisoned with pearls’. Earrings for men, if not universal, were not uncommon, as William Harrison, a clergyman, wrote: ‘Some lusty courtiers and gentlemen of courage do wear either rings of gold, stones or pearl in the ears.’ The Chandos portrait, believed to be the only painting of Shakespeare from life, shows him with a simple gold hoop in his left ear.
The Banqueting Hall, by the way, was not large enough to accommodate the court. Only a few weeks earlier, one attendee had written that there was such a crush: ‘It were infinite to tell you what losses there were of chains, jewels, purses and such like loose wear.’ A taste of what was to come.
The Reformation, Cromwell and the French Revolution each had the effect of reducing the amount of jewellery that Western men wore so that by 1800, according to J. C. Flügel, they had ‘abandoned their claim to be considered beautiful’. Happily, this sad state of affairs is now being corrected and, once again, male jewellery is back in fashion. Shakespeare would have approved.
This feature originally appeared in the July 15, 2026, issue of Country Life. Click here for more information on how to subscribe
