Elizabeth Stuart’s letter to Henry Rich: A Sign of Intimacy, The Hague (1636) (UH0024)

Letterlocking: Elizabeth Stuart’s Holograph Letter to Henry Rich, first Earl of Holland: A Sign of Intimacy, The Hague (1636)

Modelled after Elizabeth Stuart’s letter to Henry Rich (7 December 1636), Koninklijke Bibliotheek, The Hague, 79 E 220, fols. 24–25. Shown with permission.

Model found in the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Libraries (MIT), Unlocking History Research Group archive, MC 0760.

Most of Elizabeth Stuart’s letters are holograph, or in her own hand. Secretarial letters were the most likely to be intercepted and opened in the expectation of politically useful content within. From the moment of her husband's death in 1632 she used black wax and black embroidery floss to seal them, part of the creation of a cult of widowhood, to signal a never-ending state of mourning. The floss resembles hair, and it's not unthinkable that some of her more intimate letters were indeed sealed with hair, as Elizabeth sent locks of hair to her followers as a sign of favor. The letter was folded and secured shut to function as its own envelope.

Produced by MIT Video Production. Directed by Jana Dambrogio, Dr Nadine Akkerman, Joe McMasters. Elizabeth Stewart, sometime Queen of Bohemia portrayed by Dambrogio. Funded by the Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research (NWO), VENI-project “Female Spies," and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Libraries.

Citation information: Authors: Jana Dambrogio, Nadine Akkerman and the Unlocking History Research Group. Title: "Elizabeth Stuart’s Holograph Letter to Henry Rich, First Earl of Holland: A Sign of Intimacy, The Hague (1636)," Letterlocking Instructional Videos. Unlocking History number 0024/Letterlocking Unique Video number: 024. Date filmed: September 2014. Duration: 5:42. Date posted: December 2014. Video URL: [Insert URL]. Date accessed: [Date].

Copyright 2014–present. Jana Dambrogio, Nadine Akkerman, the Unlocking History Research Group, and Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). All rights reserved. The following copyrighted material is made available under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International (CC BY-NC 4.0) License https://creativecommons.org/licenses/.... Contact the MIT Technology Licensing Office for any other licensing inquiries.

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Interested in spies and their secrets? See also Nadine Akkerman, Invisible Agents: Women and Espionage in Seventeenth-Century Britain (Oxford: University of Oxford Press, 2018).

Youtube URL: http://bit.ly/EStuartPleated or    • Elizabeth Stuart’s letter to Henry Ri...