Sampler made by Jane Bostocke in 1598
Patricia Wardle's "Guide to English Embroidery" on plate 38.
And in the King & Levey "Victoria & Albert Museum's Textile Collection" on plate 47

Accompanying text goes to the second picture:"It seems very strange that no earlier English samplers should have survived than that of Jane Bostocke, worked in 1598.  This piece is now kept in the Victoria and Albert Museum, in London, which houses one of the most important sampler collections of Europe.  Jane's sampler is not a picture enclosed in a border, but a strip of unbleached linen measuring 43 by 38 cm.  It is inscribed, 'Jane Bostocke 1598' and further down, 'Alice Lee was borne the 23rd of November being Tuesday in the afternoone 1596'.  At the top of the sampler is a dog carrying its lead, a deer, a chained bear, a little heraldic terrier and some floral motifs.  All these figures are placed quite haphazardly on the cloth, and are followed by an alphabet, an inscription, a profusion of sample borders and patterns running higgledy-piggledy one after the other. The workmanship is exquisite, with red, brown, blue and white silks as well as with some metal thread, seed pearls and black beads.  The sampler displays a complex variety of stitches: back, satin, chain, ladder, buttonhole and detached button hole, coral, two-sided Italian cross, couching, speckling and French knots.  We can safely assume that Jane made it for the then two-year-old Alice Lee as a present and as a record of stitches for her daughter to use later as she learned to sew. Discovered in 1960, the sampler has the distinction of being the earliest surviving English sampler to carry a date and the name of the embroideress."

The date as well makes it I believe one of the earliest English pieces with beads. They weren't in use really till 1670'ish, when they finally built a bead facotry in England. After this era beads began to appear all over british work. But not really until this point. - Grizel