Goldsmith To The Crown
From early in the 1590s, Heriot had been selling items to Anne of Denmark, the Queen Consort, and on 17 July 1597, he was officially appointed the goldsmith to the Queen. The role of a goldsmith in the early modern period extended beyond simply the making and trading of jewellery and precious metals; in effect, he had now become her banker. Over the following years, he would lend her significant amounts of money, often secured on jewellery he himself had sold her. Anne's love of jewellery was "legendary", and by the late 1590s both she and the king were taking out significant loans to support their spending. This ensured Heriot's position would remain lucrative; it had been estimated that between 1593 and 1603 he may have done as much as £50,000 of business with the Queen.
Heriot's financial involvement with the court grew stronger over the years; he was appointed jeweller to King James VI in 1601, and was later involved in a governmental plan to replace the circulating currency of Scotland. By 1603, he held the right to farm the customs.
In 1603, the Union of the Crowns saw James VI inherit the English throne. The king promptly moved his court to London, and Heriot - along with much of the court - followed suit. His loyalty was rewarded, and in November he was appointed a jeweller to the king, on a salary of £150. This sinecure was a small amount in comparison to his private business, which by 1609 saw him with loans to Queen Anne of £18,000, from which he drew a sizable interest.
His wife Christian having died, he returned to Edinburgh in 1609 in order to marry Alison Primrose, the daughter of James Primrose of Carington, the clerk to the Scottish Privy Council. The marriage was short-lived, as Alison died in 1612, and childless.
Heriot had a town house in the Strand and a country estate at Roehampton, and considerable property in Edinburgh.
Read more about this topic: George Heriot
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