Mystery of Bayeux Tapestry theft re-told by actors

Did a Victorian woman from Devon steal a piece of the Bayeux Tapestry?

History re-enactors in Tavistock have been probing the 19th Century case of Eliza Bray, who was once accused of snipping off a piece of the famous embroidery.

Bray was more recently exonerated by Michael Lewis, a curator at the British Museum, who thinks it was probably her first husband Charles Stothard who took the cutting as a souvenir 200 years ago.

He said Stothard was an artist sent to Bayeux to make a watercolour painting of the 11th century masterpiece. But when he took a piece of it home his wife got the blame.

Interest in the Bayeux Tapestry has been reawakened after it arrived in the UK in July for the first time in 900 years under police guard for a stay at the British Museum.

Beverley and Jeff Moody came across the bizarre link to Tavistock in Eliza Bray's story while researching the ghost walks they hold in the town. They re-enacted the case at Heritage Open Days held at the town's museum.

The dramatisation tells the story of how Bray apparently took the blame for the theft by her husband Stothard.

Stothard had been set the task of recording the famous embroidery which depicts the triumph of William the Conqueror at the battle of Hastings in 1066.

Around the time he was in Bayeux making his painting, a small piece of fabric from the textile's border went missing.

Beverly Moody who plays Eliza, said no one seemed to know why she took the blame: "It was said that she got bored and decided, 'oh I will snip a bit off'."

Jeff Moody takes the role of Eliza's second husband, the Reverend Edward Bray, in their performance.

He tells how the the fragment of embroidery became a problem when the piece was repatriated to the French in the 19th Century by the South Kensington Museum (now the V&A) where it had been kept.

He said: "Poor Eliza was blamed for it and, by that time, her first husband was dead. So he couldn't testify either way."

The pair hope their performances in costume will help people connect with local history and the importance of the tapestry.

Lewis, lead curator at the British Museum's Bayeux Tapestry exhibition, said the tapestry was in quite a bad state when Stothard was doing his drawings.

"I think a lot of people perhaps didn't think it was particularly harmful to take a little sample," he explained.

Lewis added: "It's a bit odd that she (Eliza) was blamed for it."

The tapestry was heavily restored in the 19th Century and it may have been Stothard's detailed drawings that helped inform that work.

Lewis said the story begged the question of whether there were any other fragments of the tapestry cut off by other people.

He said the Germans studied the tapestry during the Second World War and took very small samples which were later given back to the Bayeux authorities.

"So it is possible I guess, that there are relatives of English antiquarians who might suddenly find in their collection, that there's a bit of the Bayeux Tapestry."

But so far, none have turned up.

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