Royal English Bookbindings

CHAPTER IV

GEORGE I.—GEORGE II.—GEORGE III.—GEORGE IV.—WILLIAM IV.

On the succession to the English crown passing to the Hanoverian line, another important change was made in the royal coat of England. George I. substituted for the fourth quarter, which had been hitherto a repetition of the first, the arms of his family, Brunswick, impaling Luneburg, and in the base point the coat of Saxony, over all an escutcheon, charged with the crown of Charlemagne, as a badge of the office of High Treasurer of the Holy Roman Empire. George II. bore the same coat as did George III. up to 1801, when, on the legislative union of Great Britain and Ireland, the coat was officially altered to first and fourth England; second, Scotland; third, Ireland, with over all an escutcheon, bearing the arms of the royal dominions in Germany, ensigned with the electoral bonnet, which was again changed to the Hanoverian royal crown when Hanover was elevated to the rank of a kingdom in 1816. This last coat was used by George IV. and William IV., and, without the Hanoverian escutcheon, it is the present royal coat of England.

The bindings of George I. and George II. are generally much alike. There are good specimens of each at Windsor. They are generally in red morocco, with either coats-of-arms in the centre or monograms. At Windsor there is one bound in vellum, it is a manuscript Report on States of Traytors, 1717, and bears the full royal coat in the centre, enclosed in rectangular mitred borders, with delicate gold stamped work at the sides. In the British Museum is a finely stamped Account of Conference concerning the Succession to the Crown, 1719, very delicately and tastefully ornamented, having the coat-of-arms in the centre, with crowned initials at the corners, and delicate gold work of floral sprays and curves borrowed from Le Gascon, a great French binder.

Fig. 23.—Account of what passed in a Conference
concerning the Succession to the Crown, MS. George I.

Fig. 24.—Le Nouveau Testament. Amsterdam, 1718. George II.

There are several of George II. bindings at Windsor, made for him when he was Prince of Wales. These generally bear the Prince of Wales’ feathers as a chief motive, and they often have broad borders, much of the ornamentation of which contains stamps of crowns, sceptres, and birds, which are attributed to Eliot and Chapman. There are other inlaid bindings made for George II. which often have doublures. Some of these are figured in Mr. Holmes’s Bookbindings at Windsor. Bindings of a similar kind that were made for Frederick Prince of Wales, and for his wife, the Princess Augusta, are also preserved at Windsor. These have always heraldic centres, and generally the broad Eliot and Chapman outer borders.

Fig. 25.—Chandler. A Vindication of the Defence
of Christianity. London, 1728. George II.

Fig. 26.—Common Prayer. Cambridge, 1760.
Queen Charlotte.

For George III., both when Prince of Wales and King, books were bound with coloured inlays by Andreas Lande. There are specimens of his work both in the British Museum and at Windsor, they are not in particularly good taste. During the reign of George III. a remarkable English bookbinder worked in London. This was Roger Payne; and, although he himself does not seem to have bound any royal books, he strongly influenced many who did, more particularly Kalthoeber, who bound many of the books in the King’s Library at the British Museum. Although these bindings are by no means so good as their originals, they are a very great advance upon their immediate predecessors; and a delicately worked and effective instance covers a copy of the Gutenburg Bible now at the British Museum.

Another English binder of note, James Edwards of Halifax, also flourished in the reign of George III. This binder has not, I think, received sufficient appreciation, as he discovered an entirely new way of treating vellum by which it was rendered transparent. He painted designs on the under side of the vellum and bound his books with it, the result being that, if the vellum is clean on the outside, the protected painting underneath it is as fresh as when it was first done. A fine example of this curious work is on a copy of a Prayer Book, printed at Cambridge, 1760, which belonged to Charlotte of Mecklenburg, queen of George III. (Fig. 26). Her arms, in proper heraldic colours, are in the centre of the upper cover, enclosed by a blue and gold border of Etruscan design. At the lower edge is a miniature of a ruin in monotone, and at each side of the coat and above it are ornamental scrolls, with conventional flowers, birds, animals, and figures. On the lower cover is a central oval, with an allegorical figure in monotone, enclosed in a similar border to that on the upper cover, at each side of which are flowering trees in urns, birds, etc., and in each panel of the back is also a decorative design. Altogether this is the prettiest royal binding done at this period. It has the crowned initials “C. R.” painted in silver inside the upper cover, and on the front edge, in an oval, is a painting of the Resurrection under the gold. Between this and the edges, painted for James II., there were no books adorned in this way for royal owners.

Fig. 27.—Portfolio containing the Royal Letter
concerning the King’s Library. George IV.

The bindings done for George IV., at Windsor, are generally bound in red morocco, with heraldic centres and broad borders, sometimes inlaid with coloured leathers. The borders are sometimes like those used by Eliot and Chapman, and sometimes conventional patterns. A good example in the British Museum is on the cover of the letter written to Lord Liverpool by the king in 1823, concerning the gift of his father’s library to the nation. A copy of the Book of Common Prayer, which belonged to William IV., and is now at Windsor, is bound in blue morocco. It bears in the centre the star of the Order of the Garter, within a crowned Garter, dependent from which is an anchor, and at the sides “G. R. III.” There are anchors in the corners, and a decorative outer border. The generality of the books belonging to him have the usual heraldic centres, within borders designed in more or less good taste. The king presented to the British Museum, and signed with his own name, an Inventory of the Crown Plate, 1832. It is bound by William Clark, and bears in the centre the full royal coat-of-arms, and has a handsome rectangular border of triple gold lines, broken at each side by bold arabesque ornaments.

Clyx.com