Jacob Kroger

Jacob Kroger (died 1594), was a German goldsmith who worked for Anne of Denmark in Scotland and stole her jewels. Kroger was a citizen of the Principality of Lüneburg, ruled by Anne of Denmark's brother-in-law, Henry Julius, Duke of Brunswick-Lüneburg. He completed his apprenticeship as a goldsmith at Lüneburg in 1575 instructed by the master goldsmiths Tönnies Dierssen or Dirksen and Steffen Ulrichs or Olrikes. Dierssen, whose hallmark was an antelope, made objects such as highly decorative spoons, and cups. Kroger's Lüneburg contemporaries Luleff Meier and Dirich Utermarke made a mirror frame decorated with theme of Nebuchadnezzar from the Book of Daniel. Jacob Kroger came to Scotland with Anne of Denmark and her husband James VI of Scotland in 1590. He was a member of her household and was accommodated with her at Holyroodhouse or Dunfermline Palace, where he would eat his meals at the head of a table with other Danish servants, including her tailors, the keeper of her furs, her cellar man and carpenter. These were lower status servants, who dined in a separate room from the queen at "the second table for the Danes in her Grace's Master Household's Hall." John Carey, an English official at Berwick upon Tweed met Kroger, and wrote, "This Dane was the queen's jeweller and made most of her jewels himself and had the keeping of most of them." Jewel thieves In April 1594 Kroger and a French servant, Guillaume Martyn, a footman who worked in the king's stables (and had taken care of the king's camel), decided to steal some of the queen's jewels and return to their home countries via England, because they had not been paid. After petitioning the king and queen for money with no results they were "very weary of their service". They left at Edinburgh at night and crossed the Tweed near Kelso. They were seen on the road between Belford and Alnwick by Captain Carvell, a soldier at Bewcastle, and came to Tweedmouth. According to John Carey, instead of making further progress, they remained near Newcastle upon Tyne for a few days. Carey could easily have taken them, but no word of their crime was heard from Edinburgh for three days. On 3 May John Colville wrote to the poet Henry Lok in London with news of the theft for Sir Robert Cecil.