England’s Monument of Mercies

In Her Miraculous Preservations from Manifold Plots, Conspiracies, Contrivances and attempts of forraigne and home-bred trecherous Enemies against the Parliament, Kingdome, and purity of Religion. Single page broadsheet published in London September 1646 railing against several real and supposed Royalist plots against Parliament.

There are several of the usual suspects in portrait ovals, but what caught my eye was Lady Aubigny in the middle of the engraving. Lady Aubigny (or d’Aubigny) was Katherine Stuart and the mother of the Stuart brothers painted by Van Dyck. We met her earlier in connection with Waller’s Plot, delivering a message from Oxford to the conspirators. Here she wears what looks like a long sleeved coat fastened with ties and a fur wrap over the shoulders. She also seems to have a smallish head-covering and her hair is left loose, suggesting that she is a lady of quality who has no need to cover it completely.

A Pious and Seasonable Perswasive

To the Sonnes of Zion, Soveraignely usefull for Composing their Unbrotherly Devisions. By “a Lover of the Truth and all those that live godly in Christ Jesus, printed in London by Henry Overton, March 1647. The tract is a call for unity in all the sects that formed the opposition to the King, and the illustration has some fine details. Note the square toed high boots and the ribbon decoration on the lower edges of their unconfined breeches. The Disenting Brother on the left has a fashionable off the shoulder cloak, whilst his godly counterpart on the left wears the kind of cloak worn by professionals, lawyers, clerics with a wide hanging collar that displays the lining when worn on the sholuders.