Dower Chests
If there is one piece of furniture above another that is surrounded with a halo of romance, surely it is the dower chest! We can picture the incoming of the coffer in all the newness of hand polish, fresh from the hands of the village carpenter or the retainer who had wrought the gnarled old oak grown on the estate for a favourite daughter of his lord—that chest which was to be packed full of fragrant linen, between which was laid sweet lavender, and richly embroidered garments for the bride, who, with her personal belongings stowed away therein, was to pass from the parental home to her newly wedded and unknown life. There are ancient chests full of historic memories, such as those in which the wealth of monarchs has been stored, like that in Knaresborough Castle, which, according to legend and some reference in old deeds, came over with William the Conqueror. In the Castle Museum there is another chest made for Queen Philippa in 1333—a veritable dower chest.
Some of the older chests have had loops for poles by which they could be carried about; but such were more correctly treasure chests. The dower chests usually remained in the home of the bride, and in time became her receptacle for bedding and other household stores, the little tray or corner box for jewels and trinkets being disused and eventually done away with altogether. The evolution of the chest until it became a cabinet or a chest of drawers is a story for the lover of old furniture to tell, but the dower chest in its earlier forms is a curio rich in legend and folklore. It may interest American readers to record that many of the oldest specimens in the States were first used as packing cases of unusual strength, gifts from the old folks at home, when colonists in Jacobean days crossed the Atlantic. Curiously enough, American craftsmen copied them and maintained the purity of the old English style long after the makers of English dower chests had been influenced by Dutch and French design and inlay.