In
all the courts of Europe during the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries
the pearl was, if not the chief, one of the most prominent jewels.
Mary, Queen of Scots, possessed a rosary of pearls which excited the
envy of Catherine de M6dicis and Elizabeth of England, both of whom
sought diligently to acquire them when the Scotch Queen became mired by
misfortune.
The
virgin queen of England when she went in state to chapel, wore pendent
pearls in her ears after the fashion of Rome, and borders of large
pearls fastened on her dress. When in her time Sir Thomas Gresham of
London, a wealthy subject, wished to show the Spanish Ambassador, who
had boasted of the magnificence of his Sovereign's court, how prodigal
her liege subjects could be in her honor, nothing occurred to him more
striking than to grind to powder a large pearl and mix it with the wine
he drank to her health. This act of the English merchant shows that the
pearl was then regarded by the great as the acme of costliness and
beauty.
From the reign of Francis I. of France to that 48
