Now that is an interesting question and something that we had not given any thought to before watching this VIDEO which looks at the Royal School of Needlework.
We know that many English queens, queen consorts and princesses were enthusiastic embroiderers and that Kings and Queens wore elaborately embroidered and embellished garments. But have you ever heard of a King that embroidered?
In June 1539 the French Ambassadors Marillac to Montmerency wrote:-
“The King, who in some former years has been solitary and pensive, now gives himself up to amusement. He evidently delights now in painting and embroidery”
We know that Henry commissioned many great tapestries and his palaces were lavishly furnished but it is hard to imagine the King sat stitching away with a hoop and needle in those large hands.
Of course the French hated the English king at that time and may well have been trying to portray him as effeminate…. just a thought. Ambassador’s reports about the personal qualities of enemy nobility were notoriously unreliable!
That is a very good point Dianne, good thinking.
He would not have used a hoop. He’d have had a frame, hoops entered Europe close to 175-200 years later. In Henry’s time embroidery guild members were more often male, so his pursuit would not have been all that odd. Plus it’s not unlikely that if he did painting and drawing, he might have drafted designs that others would actually stitch. He had all manner of other courtly artistic pursuits, like poetry and composing songs. Cognitive dissonance surrounding a king and a now female pastime is a product of modern perception of sex roles, and should not be projected into the past.