John Spilman

 ( 1626 Deaths ) 

A sparke of friendship, and warm good will ; with a poem concerning the commodity of sundry sciences ; especially concerning paper, and a mill, lately set up near Dartfort by a high German, called Mr. Spilman, jeweller to the queen majesty.Timperley, C. H. (1839), A Dictionary of Printers and Printing

The works became a major source of local employment, with some 600 workers.

Spilman had licence to buy linen rags for paper making in January 1589.William Murdin, Collection of State Papers (London, 1759), p. 789. He secured a patent dated 7 February 1589 giving him a monopoly in buying materials for making white paper and preventing anyone from setting up in competition without his permission. This monopoly was extended by a further 14 years in July 1597 and effectively prevented other mills from making highly prized white paper (most rival concerns were engaged in producing inferior quality brown paper).

Spilman is also reputed to have been responsible for introducing lime (linden; Tilia) trees into the UK.Kent Online; http://www.kentonline.co.uk/aroundkent/details_general.asp?village=15970

In 1593 Richard Butler, captain of one of Walter Raleigh ships, said Spilman dealt in jewels at court, was about 38 and had a long chestnut beard and a scar on his forehead. He thought he was Flemish.Martin Hume, Calendar State Papers Simancas, vol. 4 (London, 1892), p. 602

In 1598 he sold a jewel called the "Rainbow" to the Earl of Northumberland for £21, HMC 6th Report: Northumberland (London, 1877), p. 227. and in September 1600 a jewel which Northumberland gave to the queen with a petticoat provided by Audrey Walsingham, together worth £200. HMC 6th Report: Northumberland (London, 1879), pp. 227-228. In October 1600 Spilman, Leonard Bushe and Hugh Kayle appraised and sold a quantity of old jewels from the Tower of London on the orders of Queen Elizabeth. These included pearls that had been embroidered on the Queen's gowns. HMC Salisbury Hatfield: 1600, vol. 10, p. 356.

They made jewels for the coronations, refashioned the Armill, ampulla, and sceptre, and mounted a large number of precious and imitation stones in collets so they could be sewn on the king's Baldachin in the Abbey.Sophie Pitman, "Imitation in early modern artisan fashion", Paula Hohti, Refashioning the Renaissance: Everday day dress in Europe, 1500–1650 (Manchester, 2025), p. 91. The 133 stones for the cloth included; opals, amethysts, pseudo-amethysts, yellow stones, pseudo-topazes, pseudo-sapphires, pseudo-emeralds, pseudo-diamonds, pseudo-rubies, and other "made stones". Anne of Denmark was crowned with a "circlet" of gold set with diamonds, rubies, sapphires, emeralds, and pearls. Some of the gems incorporated in the circlet were obtained by dismantling Elizabeth's jewels. They made insignia of the Order of the Garter and Georges, some to be sent to the Duke of Württemberg. On the instructions of Mary Radcliffe they had mended some old pieces from the collection of Queen Elizabeth, including; a branch of tree with a half moon; a gold feather jewel set with rubies, emeralds, and pearls; a ring enamelled like crayfish with a large diamond. The Earl of Nottingham and other lords inspected their invoice and recommended it should be reduced by £74-13s-1d. HMC Laing Manuscripts at the University of Edinburgh, vol. 1 (London, 1914), pp. 93-7.Mary Anne Everett Green, CSP. Domestic, 1603-1610, p. 14.Anna Groundwater, 'Tracing royal Stewart jewels in the archives', Decoding the Jewels: Renaissance Jewellery in Scotland (Sidestone Press: NMS, 2024), pp. 169–71.

They also made a jewel for the king's hat in the shape of the letter "I". This included two great rubies and a great and a lesser diamond.Francis Palgrave, Antient Kalendars of the Exchequer, vol. 2 (London, 1836), p. 305. One of the diamonds was taken from an old jewel belonging to Anna of Denmark. The remainder of the queen's jewel was broken up by Nicasius Russell in 1609 to make gold plate. HMC Laing Manuscripts at the University of Edinburgh, vol. 1 (London, 1914), p. 96: Diana Scarisbrick, 'Anne of Denmark's Jewellery Inventory', Archaeologia, 109 (1991), p. 222. The "I" or "J" jewel was delivered to Charles I of England in November 1625.Henry Paton, HMC Report on Various Manuscripts, vol. 5 (Hereford, 1909), p. 123

On 12 January 1604 Spilman and Herrick were asked to assess and make an inventory of jewels that had belonged to Queen Elizabeth. James had already given many pieces to the queen, Princess Elizabeth, and Arbella Stuart and others. The remaining jewels had been transferred from the keeping of Mary Radcliffe, former gentlewoman to Queen Elizabeth, to the Countess of Suffolk.Mary Anne Everett Green, Calendar State Papers James I: 1603-1610 (London, 1857), p. 66 citing TNA SP14/6/9. Other pieces of Elizabeth's jewellery were delivered by Thomas Knyvet. He had kept them at Westminster Palace on the instructions of Queen Elizabeth, and James and his courtiers sent some to Spilman and Herrick for valuation, with an ivory coffer, and a "great rich glass set with diamonds rubies emeralds and pearls, made in the form of a woman upon a pillar or case holding a clock with diverse motions" worth £2,739 brought from the Tower of London.Thomas Rymer, Foedera, vol. 16 (London, 1715), pp. 564-5.

On 4 January 1605 Spilman requested payment for a chain of pearls and six diamond rings delivered to George Home, now Lord Berwick, as keeper of the royal wardrobe, a tablet or locket of gold set with diamonds given by the Lord Chancellor to Anna of Denmark to send to Denmark worth £700, a jewel like a fleur de lys for a French woman, three dozen buttons each set with five diamonds for Anna of Denmark, with three dozen set with four diamonds and a ruby, and three dozen large buttons of "Spanish work" each with four rubies and a diamond. HMC 3rd Report: Rev. Hopkinson (London, 1872), p. 264.

In the same month, Spilman and two other goldsmiths loaned jewels for the costumes The Masque of Blackness. The borrowed jewels were valued at £10,000, and Anne of Denmark's chamberlain, Robert Sidney, became liable for £40 for two lost diamonds.Barbara Ravelhofer, The Early Stuart Masque: Dance, Costume, and Music (Oxford, 2006), 130: Diana Scarisbrick, Jewellery in Britain, 1066-1837 (Norwich: Michael Russell, 1994), p. 73.

John Spilman was knighted by James I in 1605, probably in relation to his work as court goldsmith and jeweller rather than his paper-making exploits. At the same time, he was also granted the Manor of Bexley, which he subsequently sold to William Camden."Parishes: Bexley", The History and Topographical Survey of the County of Kent: Volume 2 (1797), pp. 162-183. [3]. Accessed 14 March 2008. In 1605 he supplied a number of "gold tablets", cases for miniature portraits of the King and Queen, set with rubies and diamonds. HMC Salisbury Hatfield, vol. 17 (London, 1938), p. 608. In May 1605 he supplied a tablet locket with two pictures to the Earl of Hertford for his embassy. HMC Manuscripts of the Marquis of Bath: Seymour Papers, vol. 4 (London, 1968), p. 202.

In July 1606 Spilman and William Herrick supplied pearls for the King's embroiderer William Broderick at the time of the visit of Christian IV of Denmark, the brother of Anna of Denmark. The pearls were intended for the king's saddle and the furniture of his horse, and the panes of the kings hose or stockings.John Nichols, The Progresses, Processions, and Magnificent Festivities of King James the First, vol. 2 (London, 1828), p. 61. Spilman was tasked with setting and re-setting the "Portugal diamond" for the queen, placing it in a gold bodkin in 1607.Diana Scarisbrick, 'Anne of Denmark's Jewellery Inventory', Archaeologia, 109 (1991), p. 223.

In December 1607 Spilman, Herrick, and the goldsmith John Williams were asked to polish and amend some pieces that Queen Elizabeth had mortgaged, and King James gave Anna of Denmark a cup made of unicorn horn, a gold ewer, a salt with a branch from which Shark tooth and sapphires were suspended, and a crystal chess board with crystal and topaz chessmen.Frederick Devon, Issues of the Exchequer during the Reign of James I (London, 1836), pp. 305-6. He supplied jewels and pearls worth £2,880 to King James for New Year's Day gifts to the queen, Princess Elizabeth and the Duke of York in January 1610. Calendar State Papers Domestic: James I, 52, no. 18. Prince Henry bought a diamond ring for £400.Peter Cunningham, Extracts from the Revels Accounts (London, 1842), p. x.

John Spilman made record drawings of the cut and settings of eleven diamonds which Anne of Denmark pawned in March 1615.Diana Scarisbrick, Jewellery in Britain, 1066-1837 (Norwich: Michael Russell, 1994), pp. 89–90: Calendar State Papers Domestic, James I: 1611-1618, p. 61: TNA SP14/80 f.88. He obtained a loan of £3000 for the queen from six London merchants. The sum was repaid in 1621.Robert Ashton, The Crown and the money market, 1603–1640 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1960), p. 66.

In 1618 a German aristocrat, Benjamin Bouwinghausen von Walmerode (1571-1635), mentioned in a letter that he knew several courtiers in London including Thomas Murray and David Murray of Gorthy, and listed Spilman amongst the "lesser known" of his acquaintances. HMC 75 Downshire, vol. 6 (London, 1995), p. 388 no. 847. In 1619 Spilman, with the other royal jewellers Abraham Harderet, George Heriot, and William Herrick, joined the funeral procession of Anna of Denmark in 1619.Jemma Field, Anna of Denmark: Material and Visual Culture of the Stuart Courts (Manchester, 2020), p. 206.

Spilman, who lived in the parish of St Martin's-in-the-Fields also lent money on jewels. HMC 8th Report Appendix: Duke of Manchester (London, 1881), p. 29 nos. 150, 153. In or before 1621 he hosted Andrew Sinclair as ambassador from Denmark. HMC 7th Report: Graham (London, 1879), p. 255.

In 1624 Lionel Cranfield, the Lord Treasurer, appointed Philip Jacobson as a goldsmith to the king, noting that George Heriot was dead and Spilman and William Herrick rarely did any work. HMC 7th Report (De La Warr) (London, 1874), p. 215.