James Inglis (tailor)

James Inglis was a Scottish tailor who served James VI of Scotland.[1]

James VI, after Arnold Bronckorst
Inglis supplied clothes for four pages and a "Moir" in October 1590, Treasurer's Accounts, National Records of Scotland.[2]

He was a son of Annabell Hodge.

Mary, Queen of Scots appointed him tailor to her son on 24 January 1567.[3] In July 1567 the Privy Council ordered him to make coronation robes for James from fine crimson velvet, blue velvet, red taffeta, and fur.[4]

His work took him between Edinburgh and Stirling Castle, where the infant king was kept by the Earl of Mar and Annabell Murray. The ruler of Scotland, Regent Moray bought him a horse in February 1569 for £30, provided by Jerome Bowie, the keeper of the king's wine cellar.[5]

Inglis became involved in the Marian Civil War. On 22 April 1571 two Marian supporters, Arthur Hamilton of Merrynton and Alexander Baillie of Lamington, captured him near St Cuthbert's Church in Edinburgh.[6] He was returning from Stirling Castle, where he had been fitting the king's clothes. Inglis was released two days later after the Deacon of Crafts had spoken with William Kirkcaldy of Grange, Captain of Edinburgh Castle.[7]

William Betoun was appointed as embroiderer to the King on 25 July 1573.[8] Inglis supervised a workshop of craftsmen who were rarely mentioned in the royal accounts, but in May 1578 the young King ordered that Inglis' "servandis" should be given "drinksilver", a kind of tip, for their efforts.[9]

In May 1590, James Inglis worked on costumes for a Highland dance and a sword dance performed at the entry and coronation of Anne of Denmark.[10] In October 1590, James Inglis collaborated with another tailor, Alexander Miller, to make a costume for an African servant at court, who is known only as the "Moir",[11][12] including an orange velvet "jupe" and breeches and a doublet of shot-silk Spanish taffeta festooned with white satin passementerie.[13]

James Inglis continued as the king's tailor into the 17th century, serving in total for 32 years.[14] He was petitioning for payment of his annual fee in June 1611. The money had been paid by George Home, 1st Earl of Dunbar as master of the Royal Wardrobe.[15]

  1. ^ Amy L. Juhala, 'Edinburgh and the Court of James VI', Julian Goodare & Alasdair A. MacDonald, Sixteenth-Century Scotland (Brill, 2008), p. 360.
  2. ^ This transaction was printed, in Papers relative to the marriage of King James the Sixth of Scotland, with the Princess Anna of Denmark (Edinburgh, 1828), p.21
  3. ^ Gordon Donaldson, Register of the Privy Seal: 1567-1574, vol. 6 (Edinburgh, 1963), p. 389 no. 2049: vol. 5, p. 253 no. 3180.
  4. ^ Charles Thorpe McInnes & Athol Murray, Accounts of the Treasurer of Scotland, vol. 12 (Edinburgh, 1970), p. 67: Maria Hayward, Stuart Style (Yale, 2020), p. 44.
  5. ^ Charles Thorpe McInnes & Athol Murray, Accounts of the Treasurer of Scotland, vol. 12 (Edinburgh, 1970), p. 67.
  6. ^ John Graham Dalyell, Journal of the Transactions in Scotland, by Richard Bannatyne (Edinburgh, 1806), p. 113.
  7. ^ Memorials of Transactions in Scotland (Edinburgh, 1836) p. 111-2.
  8. ^ Gordon Donaldson, Register of the Privy Seal: 1567-1574, vol. 6 (Edinburgh, 1963), p. 387 no. 2042.
  9. ^ Charles Thorpe McInnes & Athol Murray, Accounts of the Treasurer of Scotland, vol. 13 (Edinburgh, 1978), p. 203.
  10. ^ Marguerite Wood, Extracts from the Records of the Burgh of Edinburgh: 1589-1603 (Edinburgh, 1927), pp. 330-31
  11. ^ See, 'Mor(e), Moir', Dictionary of the Older Scottish Tongue
  12. ^ Nandini Das, João Vicente Melo, Haig Z. Smith, Lauren Working, Blackamoor/Moor, Keywords of Identity, Race, and Human Mobility in Early Modern England (Amsterdam, 2021), pp. 40-50
  13. ^ Jemma Field, Anna of Denmark: The Material and Visual Culture of the Stuart Courts (Manchester, 2020), pp. 169-71: Michael Pearce, 'Anna of Denmark: Fashioning a Danish Court in Scotland', The Court Historian, 24:2 (2019), pp. 143-4: James Thomson Gibson-Craig, Papers Relative to the Marriage of King James the Sixth of Scotland (Edinburgh, 1836), p. 21
  14. ^ R. A. Houston, Punishing the dead?: Suicide, Lordship, and Community in Britain, 1500-1830 (Oxford, 2010), pp. 56-7.
  15. ^ Register of the Privy Council, 1603-1613, vol. 9 (Edinburgh, 1889), pp. 703-4.