Page 351 - The Secret Museum

IN 1987, MRS BATA, FOUNDER of the Bata Shoe Museum, received a phone call from

Sotheby’s in London. She tells me, ‘They had a very rare pair of slap-soled shoes
from the mid-1500s, supposedly owned by Queen Elizabeth I. They asked whether I
would be interested to view them. Of course I was, and on my next trip to London I
made a special appointment to examine these shoes.’

She was shown a large nineteenth-century glass case ‘with a pair of magnificent
slap-soled high-heeled ladies’ shoes inside. They had an engraved bronze sign
stating that they had belonged to Queen Elizabeth I.’

Slap-soled shoes were a high-heeled fashion of the seventeenth century. When the
heel was first introduced into western dress at the end of the sixteenth century men,

who were the first to wear the new style, often slipped their heeled footwear into a
pair of flat-soled mules so that their heels wouldn’t sink into the mud. When the
mules and heels were worn together they made a ‘slap slap slap’ sound when the
wearer walked. When women fancied a pair of these shoes too, a fashion began for a
style where the heels of their shoes were affixed to the soles of the mules so that they
could pad around noiselessly. Even though the shoes no longer slapped as they
walked, the name stuck.

Mrs Bata and her museum specialists decided to buy the shoes and investigate the

story behind them. They found out that the shoes were more than likely made in Italy,
for indoor wear only, as a gift for Frances Walsingham (or a member of her family).
Walsingham (1569–1631), was a lady in waiting to Queen Elizabeth I. Her father
was Sir Francis Walsingham, Elizabeth I’s most trusted advisor. He was head of her
spy network, and was responsible for foiling a number of assassination attempts on
the queen, orchestrated by angry Catholics. Mrs Bata told me she thinks Frances
Walshingham would have worn the slippers to a wedding or other special occasion.

The shoes are made from cream-coloured kid leather, elaborately decorated with

gold and silver braid, sequins and pink ribbon trims and once had big ribbon rosettes
on the instep. They are a really extravagant pair of slap-soles and among the last to
be made in the style. Since buying them, the museum has collected more and more,
but these are the most richly decorated.

Frances Walsingham had three husbands. The first was Sir Philip Sidney, a
soldier, courtier and poet whom she married in 1583 but who died three years later.
In 1590, she married Robert Devereux, 2nd Earl of Essex. Queen Elizabeth was very
fond of Robert and so was not pleased about the match. Robert was executed in

1601. Frances’s third husband was Richard de Burgh, Earl of Clanricarde and St
Albans. They had two children. The shoes remained in the family of Robert Devereux
until they were handed to Sotheby’s to auction and Mrs Bata decided to buy them.

Although they are a part of her museum’s collection, Mrs Bata keeps them under
lock and key, not in her museum in Canada, but in England, because they are a part of
England’s cultural heritage so they can’t leave the country for long. When she first
bought the shoes, she sent them to Hampton Court for conservation, and since then