Glove

This highly embellished pair of gauntlet gloves have been said to have been given by King Charles I to Bishop William Juxon on the scaffold on 30 January 1649.

The gloves are made of soft white kid or lamb skin. The gauntlets are backed with canvas and lined with deep pink sik which is turned out to beind the lower edge. The edge and side slit of each glove are trimmed with fringe of silver thread. Embroidery in the form of stylised plants, leaves and flowers is worked with laid and couched silver thread, purl and chain, which is partically padded. The ground is scattered with small spangles secured with pieces of purl.

Gloves were popular presents in the 16th and 17th centuries, and this pair could well have been given by the King to one of his friends or followers. However, it is neither certain that they were given on the scaffold nor that they were handed to William Juxon. The bishop did indeed attend the King on the day, but there is a second pair of gloves with the same story held at Lambeth Palace Library.

London Museum's pair was given as long-term loan in 1927 by Margaret Ker-Seymer, nee Margaret Fanny Clara Collis in 1865. Her second husband was Evelyn Clay Ker-Seymer, an army officer, According to a note in the object file, the gloves had been handed down 'in the family of Seymer of Handford, who married the only daughter of Bishop Juxon'. However, it seems Juxon died unmarried.