Much is known of the wardrobe of Anne of Denmark (1574–1619), queen consort of James VI and I, from her portraits, surviving financial records, and a detailed inventory now held by Cambridge University Library.Jemma Field, The Wardrobe Goods of Anna of Denmark, Queen Consort of Scotland and England, Costume, 51:1 (March 2017), pp. 3–17 and online supplement. Her style included skirts supported by large farthingales decorated with elaborate embroidery, and the jewellery worn on her costume and hair.Anna Reynolds, In Fine Style: The Art of Tudor and Stuart Fashion (London: Royal Collection Trust, 2013), p. 42. Anne's appearance was an essential component of magnificence at the Stuart court and was frequently described in the letters of foreign diplomats.Susan Doran, From Tudor to Stuart: The Regime Change from Elizabeth I to James I (Oxford University Press, 2024), p. 196.
Scotland Anne of Denmark came to Scotland as the bride of King James VI in 1590, bringing a large trousseau of newly made clothes, with other supplies and personnel, "all so costly, it is strange to hear".Jemma Field, Anna of Denmark (Manchester, 2020), p. 125: Ethel Carleton Williams, Anne of Denmark (London: Longman, 1970), p. 14: William K. Boyd and Henry W. Meikle, Calendar State Papers Scotland, 10 (Edinburgh, 1936), p. 124 no. 160. She brought a Danish wardrobe master Søren Johnson,Michael Pearce, 'Anna of Denmark: Fashioning a Danish Court in Scotland', The Court Historian, 24:2 (2019), p. 141. a tailor Paul Rey, and a furrier Henry Koss.Jemma Field, "Dressing a Queen: The Wardrobe of Anna of Denmark at the Scottish Court of King James VI, 1590–1603", The Court Historian, 24:2 (2019), pp. 155–156. : Maureen Meikle, "Holde her at the Oeconomicke rule of the house: Anna of Denmark and Scottish Court of Finances, 1589-1630", Elizabeth Ewan and Maureen M. Meikle, Women in Scotland c.1100-c.1750 (Tuckwell: East Linton, 1999), p. 106. Four Scottish tailors, Peter Sanderson, William or Walter Simpson, Adam Dewar, and Peter Rannald joined her service.Jemma Field, "Dressing a Queen: The Wardrobe of Anna of Denmark at the Scottish Court of King James VI, 1590–1603", The Court Historian, 24:2 (2019), p. 156.
Anne of Denmark was crowned at St Giles on 17 May 1590, dressed in robes of purple velvet and silk taffeta.Maureen Meikle, 'Anna of Denmark's Coronation and Entry', Julian Goodare & Alasdair A. MacDonald, Sixteenth-Century Scotland (Brill, 2008), p. 283: James Thomson Gibson-Craig, Papers Relative to the Marriage of James VI (Edinburgh, 1828), Appendix pp. 13–14: David Stevenson, Scotland's Last Royal Wedding (John Donald, 1997), pp. 142–3: National Records of Scotland E21/67 ff.199–201; E21/105 (duplicate account) pp. 408–409. Anne's personal seamstress or "Mistress Sewster" was Grissell Hamilton.George Hamilton, A History of the House of Hamilton (Edinburgh, 1933), p. 778. Some of her clothes in Scotland were made by a courtier, Elizabeth Gibb, wife of the diplomat Peter Young. She made linen items and hats and head coverings and veils for the queen, mufflers and scarfs (some known as "taffetas"), and black satin veils for riding wear.Jemma Field, "Dressing a Queen: The Wardrobe of Anna of Denmark at the Scottish Court of King James VI, 1590–1603", The Court Historian, 24:2 (2019), pp. 160-3: Michael Pearce, "Anna of Denmark: Fashioning a Danish Court in Scotland", The Court Historian, 24:2 (2019), p. 146. This was paralleled in the English court, where some of Queen Elizabeth's hoods and cauls were made by her gentlewomen Dorothy Abington, Bridget Chaworth, and Margaret Radcliffe.Janet Arnold, Queen Elizabeth's Wardrobe Unlock'd (Maney, 1988), p. 202: Janet Arnold, Lost from Her Majesties Back (Costume Society, 1980), p. 71 nos. 314, 321. Anne's head dresses included "sneuds", hairnets constructed of silk ribbons by her tailors, while jewelled "attires" were supplied by George Heriot. In the 1590s, Anne sometimes wore her hair in a wide-set coiffure, rather than piled high in the beehive style seen in later portraits.Jemma Field, "Dressing a Queen: The Wardrobe of Anna of Denmark at the Scottish Court of King James VI, 1590–1603", The Court Historian, 24:2 (2019), pp. 158–159."Snuid", Dictionaries of the Scots Language
Fabrics were purchased for her wardrobe by a merchant Robert Jousie and his business partner Thomas Foulis, using some of the money James VI received as a subsidy from Elizabeth I and the custom duty of the Scottish gold mines.Michael Pearce, "Anna of Denmark: Fashioning a Danish Court in Scotland", The Court Historian, 24:2 (2019), p. 141: Miles Kerr-Peterson & Michael Pearce, "James VI's English Subsidy and Danish Dowry Accounts", Scottish History Society Miscellany XVI (Woodbridge, 2020), pp. 5 fn. 16, 84: Amy L. Juhala, 'An Advantageous Alliance: Edinburgh and the Court of James VI', Julian Goodare & Alasdair A. MacDonald, Sixteenth-Century Scotland (Brill, 2008), p. 341. Their two surviving accounts for the wardrobe (National Records of Scotland E35/13 and E35/14) detail fabrics bought for garments in journal form in the 1590s.Jemma Field, Anna of Denmark (Manchester, 2020), p. 131: Maria Hayward, Stuart Style: Monarchy, Dress and the Scottish Male Elite (Yale, 2020), pp. 53–54: Miles Kerr-Peterson & Michael Pearce, "James VI's English Subsidy and Danish Dowry Accounts", Miscellany of the Scottish History Society, XVI (Woodbridge, 2020), p. 78 & fn. 67. These accounts also mention silk thread bought for the Queen to "weave", further detail of this textile craft was not recorded.Jemma Field, Anna of Denmark: The Material Culture of the Stuart Courts (Manchester, 2020), p. 211 fn. 14.
The Danish tailor Paul Rey made her a cloak and a safeguard for riding,Jemma Field, "Dressing the Stuart Court", Kate Anderson, Art & Court of James VI & I (Edinburgh: National Galleries of Scotland, 2025), p. 46. and in October 1590, a Danish-style gown, "ane goun of the Dence fassoune".Jemma Field, "Dressing a Queen: The Wardrobe of Anna of Denmark at the Scottish Court of King James VI, 1590–1603", The Court Historian, 24:2 (2019), p. 158–156. The accounts mention a gown of "fine cloth of silver grounded with brown silk to be her majesty a gown for the time of baptism", worn in August 1594 at Stirling Castle when her formal role included receiving diplomatic gifts at the baptism of her son Henry.Steven Veerapen, The Wisest Fool: The Lavish Life of James VI and I (Edinburgh: Birlinn, 2023), p. 188: Thomas Thomson, Memoirs of his own life by Sir James Melville of Halhill (Edinburgh, 1827), pp. 412–3: National Records of Scotland E35/13 (modernised here). A present of a gold chain representing with precious stones the roses of York and Lancaster was said to be suitable for the foreface of the French-style gowns she now wore.Michael Pearce, "Anna of Denmark: Fashioning a Danish Court in Scotland", The Court Historian, 24:2 (2019), p. 141: Thomas Rymer, Foedera, 16 (London, 1715), p. 264 now British Library Cotton Caligula D/II f.176r., "a gown made the French fashi[ion she] now doth use". She may have worn a ruff bought in London at the baptism.Miles Kerr-Peterson & Michael Pearce, "James VI's English Subsidy and Danish Dowry Accounts", Miscellany of the Scottish History Society, XVI (Woodbridge, 2020), p. 79.
Clothes were also made for members of Anne's household, like Margaret Vinstarr, Anne Murray, Jean Stewart, the Lutheran minister Johannes Sering, and William Belo, usually with less embroidery and passementerie decoration. In December 1590, the tailor Nycoll Spence made matching gowns of red velvet with blue satin for the sleeves and bodices for two Danish gentlewomen, "Sophier and Kathelene" (Sophia Kaas and Kathrine Skinkell). In March 1591, Paul Rey made them gowns of fine black Naples taffeta. The servant women of her chamber and her laudresses were dressed in rush brown London cloth in winter and "rush brown stemming" in summer.Michael Pearce, "Anna of Denmark: Fashioning a Danish Court in Scotland", Court Historian, 24:2 (2019), pp. 138–151. : National Records of Scotland E35/13. Russet clothes were also noted as a marker of class in England.Ann Rosalind Jones and Peter Stallybrass, Renaissance Clothing and the Materials of Memory (Cambridge, 2000), pp. 228–232.
On 13 June 1592, Anne ordered coordinating orange and green summer clothes for herself, Vinstarr, Marie Stewart (a "tender bairn"),Michael Pearce, 'Maskerye Claythis for James VI and Anna of Denmark', Medieval English Theatre, 43 (Cambridge: D. S. Brewer, 2022), p. 121 citing National Library of Scotland Advocates MS 34.2.17. and for Belo (who was probably a page). She and King James gave clothes as gifts to her servants and gentlewomen for their weddings, including Marie Stewart who married the much older Earl of Mar in December 1592.Jemma Field, "Female dress", Erin Griffey, Early Modern Court Culture (Routledge, 2022), pp. 400, 402 (the 1592 orders for orange and green clothes are found in NRS E35/13 and E35/14).Claire M. Elder, "Stewart [Stuart], Marie, countess of Mar", Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, 8 August 2024. Costume given by Anne to Jean Stewart, Lady Bargany (died 1605) may appear in her will, which details her gowns with "doublets, skirts, and vaskins", her cloaks, and her jewellery. She owned an expensive veil set with pearls, a "pearl schadow", valued at £66 Scots.James Paterson, History of the County of Ayr, 1 (Ayr: John Dick, 1857), pp. 381–382. George Heriot supplied the queen with masks or veils called countenances and shadows.Jemma Field, "Dressing a Queen: The Wardrobe of Anna of Denmark at the Scottish Court of King James VI, 1590–1603", The Court Historian, 24:2 (2019), p. 161.
Some of the costs of clothes for Anne of Denmark and her household were met by the treasurer of Scotland. The treasurer's accounts for October 1590 include a payment for costumes made by James Inglis and Alexander Miller for four pages and an African servant recorded as the "Moir".Michael Pearce, "Anna of Denmark: Fashioning a Danish Court in Scotland", Court Historian, 24:2 (2019), pp. 143–144, payments to Inglis are in the treasurer's account, payments to Miller are in NRS E35/13: Imtiaz Habib, Black Lives in the English Archives, 1500–1677, Imprints of the Invisible (Ashgate, 2008), pp. 230, 317 record no. 181. His costume was a "jupe" of orange velvet, breeches, and a doublet of shot-silk Spanish taffeta festooned with white satin passementerie. His hat was of yellow Spanish taffeta lined with orange.Clara Steeholm & Hardy Steeholm, James I of England: The Wisest Fool in Christendom (New York, 1938), p. 142: James Thomson Gibson-Craig, Papers relative to the marriage of King James the Sixth of Scotland, with the Princess Anna of Denmark (Edinburgh, 1828), p. 21