Dorothy Forster, the heroine of my new timeslip novel, The Secrets of the Rose, was born in 1686 and lived in the magnificent Bamburgh Castle in Northumberland. One of the most inspiring things about writing about Dorothy is that there are two portraits of her at Bamburgh Castle and also a gown and pair of shoes belonging to her, so that we can see what she looked like and what she wore.
When I saw Dorothy’s clothes in the “Faire Chamber” at the castle, my first reaction was how small she must have been! The gown is made of pink and gold satin, and the matching gold and blue shoes were called “Straights” because they were made on a straight last so that the left and right were identical. The gown was intended for formal occasions and had ribbons attached to buttons on the back of the waist, enabling Dorothy to lift her skirts out of the way of dirty floors, which was a very practical idea!
In the first portrait of Dorothy, she is wearing an even more formal blue satin gown that is decorated with pearls and rubies, and she wears a matching pearl necklace and gold bracelet. The gown has a low round neckline, three quarter sleeves and a natural waistline. This style came to prominence after the Restoration of King Charles II in 1660so it was quite old-fashioned. The ringlet-style in which Dorothy’s hair is arranged was also very popular in the mid-1600s when ladies of Charles II’s court would have their hair curled in this way.
The final portrait of Dorothy is much more symbolic and shows her dressed as a shepherdess with a crook, posing with a very clean sheep! The sheep here probably symbolises innocence, patience, gentleness and humility, as does Dorothy’s gown of blue. This is a pastoral picture, reflecting ideas of nature, which was very popular in this period. In both the formal and the symbolic portraits, Dorothy is wearing a silk cloak, one of gold and the other a pale pink. No real shepherdess would have got very far in that outfit but as a member of the nobility, Dorothy could dress up and play at being a servant just like Queen Marie Antoinette did!