Chapter I: Needlework (9)

The drawn-work, "opus tract'," seems to have been but a drawing of thread worked over silk. We have smocks thus wrought and decorated "cum lez ruffs et wrestbands."[827]

In addition to the already enumerated laces of Queen Elizabeth are the bride laces of Coventry blue,[828] worn and given to the guests at weddings, mentioned in the _Masques_ of Ben Jonson:[829]--

"CLOD.--And I have lost, beside my purse, my best bride-lace I had at
Joan Turnips' wedding.

"FRANCES.--Ay, and I have lost my thimble and a skein of Coventry blue I
had to work Gregory Litchfield a handkerchief."

When the Queen visited Kenilworth in 1577, a Bridall took place for the pastime of her Majesty. "First," writes the Chancellor, "came all the lusty lads and bold bachelors of the parish, every wight with his blue bridesman's bride lace upon a braunch of green broom." What these bride laces exactly were we cannot now tell. They continued in fashion till the Puritans put down all festivals, ruined the {303}commerce of Coventry, and the fabric of blue thread ceased for ever. It was probably a showy kind of coarse trimming, like that implied by Mopsa in the _Winter's Tale_, when she says--

"You promised me a tawdry lace:"[830]

articles which, judging from the song of Autolycus--

"Will you buy any tape,
Or lace for your cape?"

were already hawked about among the pedlars' wares throughout the country: one of the "many laces" mentioned by Shakespeare.[831]

Dismissing, then, her stitches, her laces, and the 3,000 gowns she left in her wardrobe behind her--for, as Shakespeare says, "Fashion wears out more apparel than the man"[832]--we must confine ourselves to those articles immediately under our notice, cut-work, bone lace, and purle.

Cut-work--"opus scissum," as it is termed by the Keeper of the Great Wardrobe--was used by Queen Elizabeth to the greatest extent. She wore it on her ruffs, "with lilies of the like, set with small seed pearl"; on her doublets, "flourished with squares of silver owes"; on her forepart of lawn, "flourished with silver and spangles";[833] on her {304}cushion-cloths,[834] her veils, her tooth-cloths,[835] her smocks and her nightcaps.[836] All nourished, spangled, and edged in a manner so stupendous as to defy description. It was dizened out in one of these last-named articles[837] that young Gilbert Talbot, son of Lord Shrewsbury, caught a sight of the Queen while walking in the tilt-yard. Queen Elizabeth at the window in her nightcap! What a goodly sight! That evening she gave Talbot a good flap on the forehead, and told her chamberlain how the youth had seen her "unready and in her night stuff," and how ashamed she was thereof.

Cut-work first appears in the New Year's Offerings of 1577-8, where, among the most distinguished of the givers, we find the name of Sir Philip Sidney, who on one occasion offers to his royal mistress a suit of ruffs of cut-work, on another a smock--strange presents according to our modern ideas. We read, however, that the offering of the youthful hero gave no offence, but was most graciously received. Singular enough, there is no entry of cut-work in the Great Wardrobe Accounts before that of 1584-5, where there is a charge for mending, washing and starching a bodice and cuffs of good white lawn, worked in divers places with broad spaces of Italian cut-work, 20 shillings,[838] and another for the same operation to a veil of white cut-work trimmed with needlework lace.[839] Cut-work was probably still a rarity; and really, on reading the quantity offered to Elizabeth on each recurring new year, there was scarcely any necessity for her to purchase it herself. By the year 1586-7 the Queen's stock had apparently diminished. Now, for the first time, she invests the sum of sixty shillings in six yards of good ruff lawn, well worked, with cut-work, and edged with good white lace.[840] {305}From this date the Great Wardrobe Accounts swarm with entries such as a "sut' de lez ruffes de lawne," with spaces of "opere sciss',"[841] "un' caule de lawne alb' sciss' cum le edge," of similar work;[842] a "toga cum traine de opere sciss';"[843] all minutely detailed in the most excruciating gibberish. Sometimes the cut-work is of Italian[844] fabric, sometimes of Flanders;[845] the ruffs edged with bone lace,[846] needle lace,[847] or purle.[848]

The needle lace is described as "curiously worked," "operat' cum acu curiose fact'," at 32s. the yard.[849] The dearest is specified as Italian.[850] We give a specimen (Coloured Plate XV.) of English workmanship, said to be of this period, which is very elaborate.[851]

The thread used for lace is termed "filo soror," or nun's thread, such as was fabricated in the convents of Flanders and Italy.[852] If, however, Lydgate, in his ballad of "London Lackpenny," is an authority, that of Paris was most prized:--

"Another he taked me by his hand,
Here is Paris thredde, the finest in the land."

Queen Elizabeth was not patriotic; she got and wore her {306}bone lace from whom she could, and from all countries. If she did not patronize English manufacture, on the other hand, she did not encourage foreign artizans; for when, in 1572, the Flemish refugees desired an asylum in England, they were forcibly expelled from her shores. In the census of 1571, giving the names of all the strangers in the City of London,[853] including the two makers of Billament lace already cited, we have but four foreigners of the lace craft: one described as "Mary Jurdaine, widow, of the French nation, and maker of purled lace"; the other, the before-mentioned "Callys de Hove, of Burgundy."[854]

Various Acts[855] were issued during the reign of Elizabeth in order to suppress the inordinate use of apparel. That of May, 1562,[856] though corrected by Cecil himself, less summary than that framed against the "white-work" of the apprentice boys, was of little or no avail.

In 1568 a complaint was made to the Queen against the frauds practised by the "16 appointed waiters," in reference to the importation of haberdashery, etc., by which it appears that her Majesty was a loser of "5 or 600 l. by yere at least" in the customs on "parsement, cap rebone bone lace, cheyne lace," etc.,[857] but with what effect we know not. The annual import of these articles is therein stated at £10,000, an enormous increase since the year 1559, when, among the "necessary and unnecessary wares" brought into the port of London,[858] together with "babies" (dolls), "glasses to looke in," "glasses to drinke in," pottes, gingerbread, cabbages, and other matters, we find enumerated, "Laces of all sortes, £775 6s. 8d.," just one-half less than the more necessary, though less refined item of "eles fresh and salt."[859]

In 1573 Elizabeth again endeavoured to suppress "the silk glittering with silver and gold lace," but in vain.

{307}The Queen was a great lover of foreign novelties. All will call to mind how she overhauled the French finery of poor Mary Stuart[860] on its way to her prison, purloining and selecting for her own use any new-fashioned article she craved. We even find Cecil, on the sly, penning a letter to Sir Henry Norris, her Majesty's envoy to the court of France, "that the Queen's Majesty would fain have a tailor that has skill to make her apparel both after the French and Italian manner, and she thinketh you might use some means to obtain such one as suiteth the Queen without mentioning any manner of request in the Queen's Majesty's name." His lady wife is to get one privately, without the knowledge coming to the Queen Mother's ears, "as she does not want to be beholden to her."

It is not to be wondered at, then, that the New Year's Gifts and Great Wardrobe Accounts[861] teem with entries of "doublets of peche satten all over covered with cut-work and lyned with a lace of Venyse gold,[862] kyrtells of white satten embroidered with purles of gold-like clouds, and layed round about with a bone lace of Venys gold."[863] This gold lace appears upon her petticoats everywhere varied by bone lace of Venys silver.[864]

That the Queen drew much fine thread point from the same locality her portraits testify, especially that preserved in the royal gallery of Gripsholm, in Sweden, once the property of her ill-fated admirer, Eric XIV. She wears a ruff, cuffs, tucker, and apron of geometric lace, of exquisite fineness, stained of a pale citron colour, similar to the liquid invented by Mrs. Turner, of Overbury memory, or, maybe, adopted from the saffron-tinted smocks of the Irish, the wearing of which she herself had prohibited. We find among her entries laces of Jean[865] and Spanish lace; she did not even disdain bone lace of copper, and copper and silver {308}at 18d. the ounce.[866] Some of her furnishers are English. One Wylliam Bowll supplies the Queen with "lace of crowne purle."[867] Of her sylkwoman, Alice Mountague, she has bone lace wrought with silver and spangles, sold by the owner at nine shillings.[868]

The Queen's smocks are entered as wrought with black work and edged with bone lace of gold of various kinds. We have ourselves seen a smock said to have been transmitted as an heirloom in one family from generation to generation.[869] It is of linen cloth embroidered in red silk, with her favourite pattern of oak-leaves and butterflies (Fig. 122). Many entries of these articles, besides that of Sir Philip Sidney's, appear among the New Year's Gifts.[870]

QUEEN ELIZABETH'S SMOCK.]

It was then the custom for the sponsors to give {309}"christening shirts," with little bands and cuffs edged with laces of gold and various kinds--a relic of the ancient custom of presenting white clothes to the neophytes when converted to Christianity. The "bearing cloth,"[871] as the mantle used to cover the child when carried to baptism was called,[872] was also richly trimmed with lace and cut-work, and the Tree of Knowledge, the Holy Dove (Fig. 123), or the Flowerpot of the Annunciation (Fig. 124), was worked in "hollie-work" on the crown of the infant's cap or "biggin."

CHRISTENING CAPS, NEEDLE-MADE BRUSSELS.--Eighteenth century.

Aprons, too, of lace appeared in this reign. The Queen, as we have mentioned, wears one in her portrait at Gripsholm.[873]

"Those aprons white, of finest thread,
So choicelie tied, so dearly bought;
So finely fringed, so nicely spread;
So quaintly cut, so richly wrought,"

writes the author of _Pleasant Quippes for Upstart Gentlewomen_, {310}in 1596. The fashion continued to the end of the eighteenth century.

Laced handkerchiefs now came into fashion. "Maydes and gentlewomen," writes Stowe, "gave to their favourites, as tokens of their love, little handkerchiefs of about three or four inches square, wrought round about," with a button at each corner.[874] The best were edged with a small gold lace. Gentlemen wore them in their hats as favours of their mistresses. Some cost sixpence, some twelvepence, and the richest sixteenpence.

Of the difference between purles and true lace it is difficult now to decide. The former word is of frequent occurrence among the New Year's Gifts, where we have "sleeves covered all over with purle,"[875] and, in one case, the sleeves are offered unmade, with "a piece of purle upon a paper to edge them."[876] It was yet an article of great value and worthy almost of entail, for, in 1573, Elizabeth Sedgwicke, of Wathrape, widow, bequeaths to her daughter Lassells, of Walbron, "an edge of perlle for a remembrance, desirying her to give it to one of her daughters."[877]

We now turn, before quitting the sixteenth century, to that most portentous of all fabrications--Queen Elizabeth's ruff.

In the time of the Plantagenets Flemish tastes prevailed. With the Tudors, Katherine of Aragon, on her marriage with Prince Arthur, introduced the Spanish fashions, and the inventories from Henry VIII. downwards are filled with Spanish work, Spanish stitch, and so forth. Queen Elizabeth leant to the French and Italian modes, and during the Stuarts they were universally adopted.

The ruff was first introduced into England about the reign of Philip and Mary. These sovereigns are both represented on the Great Seal of England with small ruffs about {311}their necks, and with diminutive ones of the same form encircling the wrists.[878] This Spanish ruff was not ornamented with lace. On the succession of Queen Elizabeth the ruff had increased to a large size, as we see portrayed on her Great Seal.

The art of starching, though known to the manufacturers of Flanders, did not reach England until 1564, when the Queen first set up a coach. Her coachman, named Gwyllam Boenen, was a Dutchman; his wife understood the art of starching, a secret she seems exclusively to have possessed, and of which the Queen availed herself until the arrival, some time after, of Madame Dinghen van der Plasse, who, with her husband, came from Flanders "for their better safeties,"[879] and set up as a clear-starcher in London.

"The most curious wives," says Stowe, "now made themselves ruffs of cambric, and sent them to Madame Dinghen to be starched, who charged high prices. After a time they made themselves ruffs of lawn, and thereupon arose a general scoff, or by-word, that shortly they would make their ruffs of spiders' webs." Mrs. Dinghen at last took their daughters as her pupils. Her usual terms were from four to five pounds for teaching them to starch, and one pound for the art of seething starch.[880] The nobility patronised her, but the commonalty looked on her as the evil one, and called her famous liquid "devil's broth."

To keep the ruff erect, bewired[881] and starched though it be, was a troublesome affair--its falling a cause of agony to the wearer.

"Not so close, thy breath will draw my ruff,"

exclaims the fop. The tools used in starching and fluting {312}ruffs were called setting-sticks, struts and poking-sticks: the two first were made of wood or bone, the poking-stick of iron, and heated in the fire. By this heated tool the fold acquired that accurate and seemly order which constituted the beauty of this very preposterous attire. It was about the year 1576, according to Stowe, the making of poking-sticks began. They figure in the expenses of Elizabeth, who, in 1592, pays to her blacksmith, one Thomas Larkin, "pro 2 de lez setting-stickes at 2s. 6d." the sum of 5s.[882]

We have frequent allusion to the article in the plays of the day:--[883]

"Your ruff must stand in print, and for that purpose, get poking-sticks
with fair long handles, lest they scorch your hands."[884]

Again, in _Laugh and Lie Down_--[885]

"There she sat with her poking-stick, stiffening a fall."

When the use of starch and poking-sticks had rendered the arrangement of a ruff easy, the size began rapidly to increase. "Both men and women wore them intolerably large, being a quarter of a yard deep, and twelve lengths in a ruff."[886] In London this fashion was termed the French ruff; in France, on the other hand, it was called "the English monster."[887] Queen Elizabeth wore hers higher and stiffer than anyone in Europe, save the Queen of Navarre, for she had a "yellow throat," and was desirous to conceal it.[888] Woe betide any fair lady of the court who dared let her white skin appear uncovered in the presence of majesty. Her ruffs were made of the finest cut-work, enriched with gold, silver, and even precious stones. Though she consumed endless yards of cut-work, purle, needlework lace, bone lace of gold, of silver, enriched with pearls, and bugles, {313}and spangles in the fabrication of the "three-piled ruff,"[889] she by no means extended such liberty to her subjects, for she selected grave citizens and placed them at every gate of the city to cut the ruffs if they exceeded the prescribed depth. These "pillars of pride" form a numerous item among the New Year's Gifts. Each lady seems to have racked her brain to invent some novelty as yet unheard of to gratify the Queen's vanity. On the new year 1559-60, the Countess of Worcester offers a ruff of lawn cut-work set with twenty small knots like mullets, garnished with small sparks of rubies and pearls.[890]

The cut-work ruff is decorated or enriched with ornament of every description. Nothing could be too gorgeous or too extravagant.[891] Great was the wrath of old Philip Stubbes[892] at these monstrosities, which, standing out a quarter of a yard or more, "if Æolus with his blasts or Neptune with his stormes chaunce to hit upon the crazie bark or their bruised ruffes, then they goe flip flap in the winde like ragges that flew abroade, lying upon their shoulders like the dishclout of a slut. But wot ye what? the devill, as he, in the fulnesse of his malice, first invented these great ruffes," etc., with a great deal more, which, as it comes rather under the head of costume than lace, we omit, as foreign to our subject.

Lace has always been made of human hair, and of this we have frequent mention in the expenses of Queen Elizabeth. We believe the invention to be far older than her reign, for there is frequent allusion to it in the early romaunces. In the _Chevalier aux ij Epées_ (MS. Bib. Nat.), a lady requires of King Ris that he should present her with a mantle fringed with the beards of nine conquered kings, and hemmed with that of King Arthur, who was yet to conquer. The mantle is to have "de sa barbe le tassel." {314}The entries of Elizabeth, however, are of a less heroic nature; and though we are well aware it was the custom of old ladies to weave into lace their silver-grey locks, and much as the fashion of hair bracelets and chains prevails, in Queen Elizabeth's case, setting aside all sentiment, we cannot help fancying the "laquei fact' de crine brayded cum lez risinge puffs,"[893] as well as the "devices fact' de crine similiter les scallop shells,"[894] to have been nothing more than "stuffings"--false additions, to swell the majesty of the royal "pirrywygge."

That point tresse, as this hair-lace is called, was known in her day, we have evidence in the Chartley inventory of Mary Stuart, in which is mentioned, "Un petit quarré fait à point tresse ouvré par la vieille Comtesse de Lennox elle estant à la Tour"; a tribute of affection the old countess would scarcely have offered to her daughter-in-law had she regarded her as implicated in the murder of her son. The writer saw at Chantilly an aged lace-maker employed in making a lace ground of hair on the pillow, used, she was informed, by wig-makers to give the parting of the hair; but the fabric must be identical with the point tresse sent by the mother of Darnley to the Queen of Scots. Point tresse, when made out of the hair of aged people, is occasionally to be met with on the Continent, where, from its rarity, it fetches a high price. Some districts gained a reputation for their work, according to Turner:--"And Bedford's matrons wove their snowy locks." It may be detected by the glittering of the hair when held up to catch the sunbeams, or by frizzing when exposed to the test of fire, instead of blazing.

With this mention of point tresse we conclude the reign of Queen Elizabeth.

{315}CHAPTER XXIV.

JAMES I. TO THE RESTORATION.

----

JAMES I.

"Now up aloft I mount unto the Ruffe,
Which into foolish mortals pride doth puffe;
Yet Ruffe's antiquity is here but small:
Within these eighty years not one at all.
For the 8th Henry, as I understand,
Was the first king that ever wore a Band,
And but a falling band plaine with a hem,
All other people knew no use of them."
Taylor, "Water-Poet." 1640.

The ruff single, double, three piled, and Dædalian,[895] to the delight of the satirists, retained its sway during the early days of King James I. It was the "commode" of the eighteenth--the crinoline of the nineteenth century. Every play teems with allusions to this monstrosity. One compares it to

"A pinched lanthorn
Which schoolboys made in winter;"[896]

while a second[897] talks of a

"Starched ruff, like a new pigeon-house."

The lover, in the play of the _Antiquary_,[898] complains to his mistress in pathetic terms--

"Do you not remember how you fooled me, and set me to pin pleats in your
ruff two hours together?"

{316}Stubbes stood not alone in his anathemas. The dignitaries of the Church of England waxed wroth, and violent were their pulpit invectives.

"Fashion," emphatically preached John King,[899] Bishop of London, "has brought in deep ruffs[900] and shallow ruffs, thick ruffs and thin ruffs, double ruffs and no ruffs. When the Judge of quick and dead shall appear, he will not know those who have so defaced the fashion he hath created." The Bishop of Exeter, too, Joseph Hall, a good man, but no prophet, little wotting how lace-making would furnish bread and comfort to the women of his own diocese for centuries to come, in a sermon preached at the Spitel, after a long vituperation against its profaneness, concludes with these words: "But if none of our persuasions can prevail, hear this, ye garish popinjays of our time, if ye will not be ashamed to clothe yourselves after this shameless fashion, Heaven shall clothe you with shame and confusion. Hear this, ye plaister-faced Jezabels, if ye will not leave your daubs and your washes, Heaven will one day wash them off with fire and brimstone." Whether these denunciations had the effect of lessening the ruffs we know not; probably it only rendered them more exaggerated.

Of these offending adjuncts to the toilet of both sexes we have fine illustrations in the paintings of the day, as well as in the monuments of our cathedrals and churches.[901] They were composed of the finest geometric lace, such as we see portrayed in the works of Vinciolo and others. The artists of the day took particular pleasure in depicting them with the most exquisite minuteness.

These ruffs must have proved expensive for the wearer, though in James I.'s time, as Ben Jonson has it, men thought little of "turning four or five hundred acres of their best land into two or three trunks of apparel."[902] According to the Wardrobe Accounts,[903] "twenty-five yards of fyne bone lace" was required to edge a ruff, without counting the ground, composed either of lace squares or cut-work. Queen Anne, his consort, pays £5 for her wrought ruff, for "shewing" which eighteen yards of fine lace are purchased at 5s. 8d.[904]

PLATE LXXIX.

Photo by Walker and Cockerell.]

_To face page 316._

{317}The ruffs of the City ladye were kept downe by the old sumptuary law of Elizabeth.

"See, now, that you have not your 'city ruff' on, Mistress Sue," says Mistress Simple in the _City Match_.[905]

The Overbury murder (1613), and hanging of Mrs. Turner at Tyburn in 1615, are usually said, on the authority of Howel,[906] to have put an end to the fashion of yellow ruffs, but the following extracts show they were worn for some years later.

As late as 1620 the yellow starch, supposed to give a rich hue to the lace and cut-work of which ruffs were "built," gave scandal to the clergy. The Dean of Westminster ordered no lady or gentleman wearing yellow ruffs to be admitted into any pew in his church; but finding this "ill taken," and the King "moved in it," he ate his own words, and declared it to be all a mistake.[907] This fashion, again, gave great offence even in France. Since the English[908] {318}alliance, writes the _Courtisane à la Mode_, 1625,[909] "cette mode Anglaise sera cause qu'il pourra advenir une cherté sur le safran qui fera que les Bretons et les Poitevins seront contraints de manger leur beurre blanc et non pas jaune, comme ils sont accoutumés."

The Bishops, who first denounced the ruff, themselves held to the fashion long after it had been set aside by all other professions. Folks were not patriotic in their tastes, as in more modern days; they loved to go "as far as Paris to fetch over a fashion and come back again."[910]

The lace of Flanders, with the costly points and cut-works of Italy,[911] now became the rage, and continued so for nigh two centuries. Ben Jonson speaks of the "ruffs and cuffs of Flanders,"[912] while Lord Bacon, indignant at the female caprice of the day, writes to Sir George Villiers:--"Our English dames are much given to the wearing of costly laces, and if they may be brought from Italy, or France, or Flanders, they are in much esteem; whereas, if like laces were made by the English, so much thread would make a yard of lace, being put into that manufacture, would be five times, or perhaps ten or twenty times the value."[913] But Bacon had far better have looked at home, for he had himself, when Chancellor, granted an exclusive patent to Sir Giles Mompesson, the original of Sir Giles Overreach, for the monopoly of the sale and manufacture of gold and silver thread, the abuses of which caused in part his fall.[914]

James had half ruined the commerce of England by the granting of monopolies, which, says Sir John Culpepper, are "as numerous as the frogs of Egypt. They have got possession of our dwellings, they sip in our cups, they dip in our {319}dish. They sit by our fire. We find them in the dye-vat, wash-bowl, and powdering-tub, etc.; they have marked and sealed us from head to foot."[915] The bone-lace trade suffered alike with other handicrafts.[916] In 1606 James had already given a license to the Earl of Suffolk[917] for the import of gold and silver lace. In 1621, alarmed by the general complaints throughout the kingdom,[918] a proposition was made "for the erection of an Office of Pomp, to promote home manufactures," and to repress pride by levying taxes on all articles of luxury.[919] What became of the Pomp Office we cannot pretend to say: the following year we are somewhat taken aback by a petition[920] from two Dutchmen, of Dort, showing "that the manufacture of gold and silver thread, purle, etc., in England" was "a great waste of bullion," the said Dutchmen being, we may infer, of opinion that it was more to their advantage to import such articles themselves. After a lapse of three years the petition is granted.[921] In the midst of all this granting and rescinding of monopolies, we hear in the month of April, 1623, how the decay of the bone-lace trade at Great Marlow caused great poverty.[922]

Though the laces of Flanders and Italy were much patronised by the court and high nobility, Queen Anne of Denmark appears to have given some protection to the fabrics of the country. Poor Queen Anne! When, on the news of Elizabeth's death, James hurried off to England, a correspondence took place between the King and the English Privy Council regarding the Queen's outfit, James considering, {320}and wisely--for the Scotch court was always out of elbows--that his wife's wardrobe was totally unfit to be produced in London. To remedy the deficiency, the Council forwarded to the Queen, by the hands of her newly-named ladies, a quantity of Elizabeth's old gowns and ruffs, wherewith to make a creditable appearance on her arrival in England. Elizabeth had died at the age of seventy, wizened, decayed, and yellow--Anne, young and comely, had but just attained her twenty-sixth year. The rage of the high-spirited dame knew no bounds; she stormed with indignation--wear the clothes she must, for there were no others--so in revenge she refused to appoint any of the ladies, save Lady Bedford, though nominated by the King, to serve about her person in England. On her arrival she bought a considerable quantity of linen, and as with the exception of one article,[923] purchased from a "French mann," her "nidell purle worke," her "white worke," her "small nidell worke," her "pece of lawin to bee a ruffe," with "eighteen yards of fine lace to shewe (sew) the ruffe," the "Great Bone" lace, and "Little Bone" lace were purchased at Winchester and Basing, towns bordering on the lace-making counties, leading us to infer them to have been of English manufacture.[924]

The bill of laced linen purchased at the "Queen's lying down" on the birth of the Princess Sophia, in 1606, amounts to the sum of £614 5s. 8d.[925] In this we have no mention of any foreign-made laces. The child lived but three days. Her little monument, of cradle-form, with lace-trimmed coverlets and sheets (Fig. 125), stands close to the recumbent effigy of her sister Mary[926] (Fig. 126), with ruff, collar, and cap of geometric lace, in the north aisle of Henry VII.'s Chapel.[927]

PLATE LXXX.

Photo by Walker and Cockerell.]

_To face page 320._

{321}

MONUMENT OF THE PRINCESS SOPHIA. + 1606. FOURTH DAUGHTER OF JAMES I. (Westminster Abbey.)]

After a time--epoch of the Spanish marriage[928]--the ruff {322}gave way to the "falling band," so familiar to us in the portraits of Rubens and Vandyke.

"There is such a deal of pinning these ruffs, when a fine clean fall is worth them all," says the Malcontent. "If you should chance to take a nap in the afternoon, your falling band requires no poking-stick to recover it."[929] Cut-work still continued in high favour; it was worn on every article of linen, from the richly-wrought collar to the nightcap. The Medicean ruff or gorget of the Countess of Pembroke ("Sidney's sister, Pembroke's mother"), with its elaborate border of swans (Fig. 127), is a good illustration of the fashion of her time.

MONUMENT OF THE PRINCESS MARY. + 1607. THIRD DAUGHTER OF JAMES I. (Westminster Abbey.)]

Among the early entries of Prince Charles, we have four nightcaps of cut-work, £7,[930] for making two of which for his {323}Highness, garnished with gold and silver lace, Patrick Burke receives £15;[931] but these modest entries are quite put to shame by those of his royal father, who, for ten yards of needlework lace "pro le edginge" of his "galiriculis vulgo nightcaps," pays £16 13s. 4d.[932] Well might the Water-Poet exclaim--

"A nightcap is a garment of high state."[933]

MARY, COUNTESS OF PEMBROKE. + 1621. (From her portrait in Walpole's _Royal and Noble Authors_.)]

When Queen Anne died, in 1619, we have an elaborate {324}account of her funeral,[934] and of the sum paid to Dorothy Speckart for dressing a hearse effigy with a large veil, wired and edged with peak lace and lawn, curiously cut in flowers, etc. Laced linen, however, was already discarded in mourning attire, for we find in the charges for the king's mourning ruffs, an edging at 14d. the piece is alone recorded.[935]

Towards the end of James I.'s reign a singular custom came into fashion, brought in by the Puritan ladies, that of representing religious subjects, both in lace, cut-work, and embroidery, a fashion hitherto confined to church vestments. We find constant allusions to it in the dramatists of the day. Thus, in the _City Match_,[936] we read--

"She works religious petticoats, for flowers
She'll make church histories. Her needle doth
So sanctify my cushionets, besides
My smock sleeves have such holy embroideries,
And are so learned, that I fear in time
All my apparel will be quoted by
Some pious instructor."

Again, in the _Custom of the Country_--[937]

"Sure you should not be
Without a neat historical shirt."

{325}We find in a Scotch inventory[938] of the seventeenth century: "Of Holland scheittes ii pair, quhairof i pair schewit (sewed) with hollie work."[939]

The entries of this reign, beyond the "hollie work," picked[940] and seaming[941] lace, contain little of any novelty; all articles of the toilet were characterised by a most reckless extravagance.

"There is not a gentleman now in the fashion," says Peacham,[942] "whose band of Italian cut-work now standeth him not in the least three or four pounds. Yes, a semster in Holborn told me that there are of threescore pounds." We read how two-thirds of a woman's dower was often expended in the purchase of cut-work and Flanders lace.

In the warrant of the Great Wardrobe for the marriage expenses of the ill-fated Princess Elizabeth, on which occasion it is recorded of poor Arabella Stuart, the "Lady Arabella, though still in the Tower, has shewn her joy by buying four new gowns, one of which cost £1,500,"[943] in addition to "gold cheine laze, silver spangled, silver looped, myllen bone lace, drawneworke poynte, black silk Naples lace," etc., all in the most astonishing quantity, we have the astounding entry of 1,692 ounces of silver bone lace.[944] No wonder, in {326}after days, the Princess caused so much anxiety to the Palatine's Privy Purse, Colonel Schomberg, who in vain implores her to have her linen and lace bought beforehand, and paid at every fair.[945] "You brought," he writes, "£3,000 worth of linen from England, and have bought £1,000 worth here," and yet "you are ill provided."[946]

CHARLES I.

"Embroider'd stockings, cut-work smocks and shirts."
--Ben Jonson.

Ruffs may literally be said to have gone out with James I. His son Charles is represented on the coins of the two first years of his reign in a stiff starched ruff;[947] in the fourth and fifth we see the ruff unstarched, falling down on his shoulders,[948] and afterwards, the falling band (Fig. 128) was generally adopted, and worn by all classes save the judges, who stuck to the ruff as a mark of dignity and decorum, till superseded by the peruke.[949]

PLATE LXXXI.

Photo by Walker and Cockerell.]

_To face page 326._

{327}

FALLING COLLAR OF THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY.--(After Abraham Bosse.)]

Even loyal Oxford, conscientious to a hair's-breadth--always behind the rest of the world--when Whitelock, in 1635, addresses the Quarter Sessions arrayed in the new fashion, owned "one may speak as good sense in a falling band as in a ruff." The change did not, however, diminish the extravagance of the age. The bills for the King's lace and linen, which in the year 1625 amounted to £1,000, in course of time rose to £1,500.[950] Falling bands of Flanders bone lace and cut-work appear constantly in the accounts.[951] As the foreign materials are carefully specified (it was one of these articles, then a novelty, that Queen Anne of Denmark "bought of the French Mann"), we may infer much of the bobbin or bone lace to have been of home produce. As Ben Jonson says, "Rich apparel has strong virtues." It is, he adds, "the birdlime of fools." There was, indeed, no article of toilet at this period which was not encircled with lace--towels, sheets, shirts, caps, cushions, boots (Fig. 129), cuffs (Fig. 130)--and, as too often occurs in the case of excessive luxury, when the bills came in money was wanting to {328}discharge them, Julian Elliott, the royal lace merchant, seldom receiving more than half her account, and in 1630--nothing.[952] There were, as Shakespeare says,

"Bonds entered into
For gay apparel against the triumph day."[953]

The quantity of needlework purl consumed on the king's hunting collars, "colares pro venatione," scarcely appears credible. One entry alone makes 994 yards for 12 collars and 24 pairs of cuffs.[954] Again, 600 yards of fine bone lace is charged for trimming the ruffs of the King's night-clothes.[955]

From an Engraving of Abraham Bosse.]

From an Engraving of Abraham Bosse.]

The art of lace-making was now carried to great perfection in England; so much so, that the lease of twenty-one years, granted in 1627 to Dame Barbara Villiers, of the duties on gold and silver thread, became a terrible loss to the holder, who, in 1629, petitions for a discharge of £437 10s. arrears due to the Crown. The prayer is favourably received by the officers of the Customs, to whom it was referred, who answer they "conceive those duties will decay, for the invention of making Venice gold and silver lace within the kingdom is come to that perfection, that it will be made here more cheap than it can be brought from beyond seas."[956] The fancy for foreign articles still prevailed. "Among the goods brought in by Tristram Stephens," writes Sir John Hippisley, from Dover Castle, "are the bravest French bandes that ever I did see for ladies--they be fit for the Queen."[957]

ENGLISH NEEDLE-MADE LACE.

_To face page 328._]

{329}Gold lace was exported in considerable quantities to India in the days of James I.;[958] and now, in 1631, we find the "riband roses," edged with lace, notified among the articles allowed to be exported. These lace rosette-trimmed shoes were in vogue in the time of James I., and when first brought to that monarch he refused to adopt the fashion, asking, "If they wanted to make a ruffe-footed dove of him." They were afterwards worn in all the extravagance of the French court. (See France to Louis XIV.). Mr. Brooks, in his speech in the House of Commons against costly apparel (18 James I.), says, "Nowadays, the roses worn by Members of the House on their shoes are more than their father's apparel." Peacham speaks of "shoe ties, that goe under the name of roses, from thirty shillings to three, four, and five pounds the pair. Yea, a gallant of the time, not long since, paid thirty pounds for a pair.[959] Well might Taylor say they

"Wear a farm in shoe-strings edged with gold,
And spangled garters worth a copyhold."

It was not till the year 1635 that an effort was made for {330}the protection of our home fabrics, "at the request and for the benefit of the makers of those goods in and near London, and other parts of the realm, now brought to great want and necessity, occasioned by the excessive importation of these foreign wares." Foreign "Purles, Cutworks, or Bone-laces, or any commodities laced or edged therewith," are strictly prohibited. Orders are also given that all purles, cut-works, and bone laces English made are to be taken to a house near the sign of the "Red Hart" in Fore Street, without Cripplegate, and there sealed by Thomas Smith or his deputy.[960]

An Act the same year prohibits the use of "gold or silver purles" except manufactured in foreign parts, and especially forbids the melting down any coin of the realm.

The manufacture of bone lace in England had now much improved, and was held in high estimation in France. We hear of Henrietta Maria sending ribbons, lace, and other fashions from England, in 1636, as a present to her sister-in-law, Anne of Austria;[961] while, in a letter dated February 7th, 1636, the Countess of Leicester writes to her husband, then in France, who had requested her to procure him some fine bone lace of English make:--"The present for the Queen of France I will be careful to provide, but it cannot be handsome for that proportion of money which you do mention; for these bone laces, if they be good, are dear, and I will send the best, for the honor of my nation and my own credit."

Referring to the same demand, the Countess again writes to her lord, May 18th, 1637, Leicester House:--"All my present for the Queen of France is provided, which I have done with great care and some trouble; the expenses I cannot yet directly tell you, but I think it will be about £120, for the bone laces are extremely dear. I intend to {331}send it by Monsieur Ruvigny, for most of the things are of new fashion, and if I should keep them they would be less acceptable, for what is new now will quickly grow common, such things being sent over almost every week."

We can have no better evidence of the improvement in the English lace manufacture than these two letters.

An Act of 1638 for reforming abuses in the manufacture of lace, by which competent persons are appointed, whether natives or strangers, "who shall be of the Church of England," can scarcely have been advantageous to the community.

Lace, since the Reformation, had disappeared from the garments of the Church. In the search warrants made after Jesuits and priests of the Roman faith, it now occasionally peeps out. In an inventory of goods seized at the house of some Jesuit priests at Clerkenwell, in 1627, we find--"One faire Alb of cambric, with needle worke purles about the skirts, necke, and bandes."

Smuggling, too, had appeared upon the scene. In 1621 information is laid, how Nicholas Peeter, master of the "Greyhound, of Apsom," had landed at Dover sundry packets of cut-workes and bone laces without paying the Customs.[962]

But the

"Rebatoes, ribbands, cuffs, ruffs, falls,
Scarfes, feathers, fans, maskes, muffs, laces, cauls,"[963]

of King Charles's court were soon to disperse at the now outbreaking Revolution. The Herrn Maior Frau (Lady Mayoress), the noble English lady depicted by Hollar,[964] must now lay aside her whisk, edged with broad lace of needle point, and no longer hie to St. Martin's for lace:[965] she must content herself with a plain attire.

"Sempsters with ruffs and cuffs, and quoifs and caules
And falls,"[966]

must be dismissed. Smocks of three pounds a-piece,[967] {332}wrought smocks,[968] are no longer worn by all--much less those "seam'd thro' with cutwork,"[969] or "lace to her smocks, broad seaming laces,"[970] which, groans one of the Puritan writers, "is horrible to think of."

The ruff and cuffs of Flanders, gold lace cut-work and silver lace of curle,[971] needle point, and fine gartering with blown roses,[972] are now suppressed under Puritan rule.

The "fop" whom Henry Fitz-Geoffrey describes as having

"An attractive lace
And whalebone bodies for the better grace,"

must now think twice before he wears it.[973]

The officer, whom the poor soldier apostrophises as shining--

"One blaze of plate about you, which puts out
Our eyes when we march 'gainst the sunne, and armes you
Compleatly with your own gold lace, which is
Laid on so thick, that your own trimmings doe
Render you engine proof, without more arms"--[974]

must no longer boast of

"This shirt five times victorious I have fought under,
And cut through squadrons of your curious Cut-work,
As I will do through mine."[975]

In the Roundhead army he will scarce deign to comb his cropped locks. All is now dingy, of a sad colour, soberly in character with the tone of the times.

PLATE LXXXII.

Photo by Walker and Cockerell.]

_To face page 332._

{333}THE COMMONWEALTH.

The rule of the Puritans was a sad time for lace-makers, as regards the middle and lower classes: every village festival, all amusement was put down, bride laces and Mayings--all were vanity.

With respect to the upper classes, the Puritan ladies, as well as the men of birth, had no fancy for exchanging the rich dress of the Stuart Court for that of the Roundheads. Sir Thomas Fairfax, father of the General, is described as wearing a buff coat, richly ornamented with silver lace, his trunk hose trimmed with costly Flanders lace, his breastplate partly concealed by a falling collar of the same material. The foreign Ambassadors of the Parliament disdained the Puritan fashions. Lady Fanshaw describes her husband as wearing at the Court of Madrid, on some State occasion, "his linen very fine, laced with very rich Flanders lace."[976]

Indeed, it was not till the arrival of the Spanish envoy, the first accredited to the Protectorate of Cromwell, that Harrison begged Colonel Hutchinson and Lord Warwick to set an example to other nations at the audience, and not appear in gold and silver lace. Colonel Hutchinson, though he saw no harm in a rich dress, yet not to appear offensive, came next day in a plain black suit, as did the other gentlemen, when, to the astonishment of all, Harrison appeared in a scarlet coat so laden with "clinquaint" and lace as to hide the material of which it was made, showing, remarks Mrs. Hutchinson, "his godly speeches were only made that he might appear braver above the rest in the eyes of the strangers."

Nor did the mother of Cromwell lay aside these adornments. She wore a handkerchief, of which the broad point-lace alone could be seen, and her green velvet cardinal was edged with broad gold lace.[977] Cromwell himself, when once in power, became more particular in his dress; and if he lived as a Puritan, his body after death was more gorgeously attired than that of any deceased sovereign, with purple velvet, ermine, and the richest Flanders lace.[978] His effigy, {334}carved by one Symonds, was clad in a fine shirt of Holland, richly laced; he wore bands and cuffs of the same materials, and his clothes were covered with gold lace.[979]

The more we read the more we feel convinced that the dislike manifested by the Puritan leaders to lace and other luxuries was but a political necessity, in order to follow the spirit of the age.

As an illustration of this opinion we may cite that in the account of the disbursements of the Committee of Safety, 1660, a political _jeu d'esprit_ which preceded the Restoration, we find entered for Lady Lambert--

"Item, for seven new whisks lac'd with Flanders lace of the last Edition, each whisk is valued at fifty pound, £350."

Followed up by--

"Six new Flanders lac'd smocks, £300."

The whisk, as the gorget was now termed, was as great an object of extravagance to the women as was the falling band to the men. It continued in fashion during the reign of Charles II., and is often mentioned as lost or stolen among the advertisements in the public journals of the day. In the _Mercurius Publicus_, May 8th, 1662, we find: "A cambric whisk with Flanders lace, about a quarter of a yard broad, and a lace turning up about an inch broad, with a stock in the neck, and a strap hanging down before, was lost between the new Palace and Whitehall. Reward, 30_s_." Again, in _The Newes_, June 20th, 1664: "Lost, a Tiffany whisk, with a great lace down, and a little one up, large Flowers, and open Work, with a Roul for the head and Peak."

{335}CHAPTER XXV.

CHARLES II. TO THE HOUSE OF HANOVER.

----

CHARLES II.

"The dangling knee-fringe, and the bib-cravat."
--Dryden. _Prologue._ 1674.

The taste for luxury only required the restoration of the Stuarts to burst out in full vigour.

The following year Charles II. issued a proclamation[980] enforcing the Act of his father prohibiting the entry of foreign bone lace; but, far from acting as he preached, he purchases Flanders lace at eighteen shillings the yard, for the trimming of his fine lawn "collobium sindonis,"[981] a sort of surplice worn during the ceremony of the anointment at the coronation.

The hand-spinners of gold wire, thread lace, and spangles of the City of London, no longer puritanically inclined, now speak out boldly. "Having heard a report the Parliament intend to pass an Act against the wearing of their manufacture, they hope it intends the reform, not the destruction of their craft, for by it many thousands would be ruined. Let every person," say they, "be prohibited from wearing gold, silver, and thread lace--that will encourage the gentry to do so."[982]

In 1662 is passed an Act prohibiting the importation of foreign bone lace, cut-works, etc., setting forth, "Whereas many poor children have attained great dexterity in the {336}making thereof, the persons so employed have served most parts of the kingdom with bone lace, and for the carrying out of the same trade have caused much thread to be brought into the country, whereby the customs have been greatly advanced, until of late large quantities of bone lace, cut-work, etc., were brought into the kingdom and sold contrary to the former Statutes and the proclamation of November last; all such bone lace is to be forfeited, and a penalty of £100 paid by the offender."[983]

This same Act only occasioned the more smuggling of lace from Flanders, for the point made in England had never attained the beauty of Brussels, and indeed, wherever fine lace is mentioned at this period it is always of foreign fabric. That Charles himself was of this opinion there can be no doubt, for in the very same year he grants to one John Eaton a license to import such quantities of lace "made beyond the seas, as may be for the wear of the Queen, our dear Mother the Queen, our dear brother James, Duke of York," and the rest of the royal family. The permission is softened down by the words, "And to the end the same may be patterns for the manufacture of these commodities here, notwithstanding the late Statute forbidding their importation."[984] Charles had evidently received his lessons in the school of Mazarin. As the galleries of the cardinal were filled with sculptures, paintings, and majolica--rich produce of Italian art, as patterns for France, "per mostra di farne in Francia"--so the king's "pilea nocturna," pillow-beres, cravats, were trimmed with the points of Venice[985] and Flanders, at the rate of £600 per annum, for the sake of improving the lace manufacture of England.

The introduction of the flowing wig, with its long curls covering the shoulders, gave a final blow to the falling band; {337}the ends floating and tied in front could alone be visible. In time they diminished in size, and the remains are still seen in the laced bands of the lawyer, when in full dress, and the homely bordered cambric slips used by the clergy. The laced cravat now introduced continued in fashion until about the year 1735.[986]

It was at its height when Pepys writes in his diary: "Lord's Day, Oct. 19, 1662. Put on my new lace band, and so neat it is that I am resolved my great expense shall be lace bands, and it will set off anything else the more." The band was edged with the broadest lace. In the _Newes_, January 7th, 1663, we find: "Lost, a laced band, the lace a quarter of a yard deep, and the band marked in the stock with a B."

Mrs. Pepys--more thrifty soul--"wears her green petticoat of Florence satin, with white and black gimp lace of her own putting on (making), which is very pretty."

The custom, already common in France, of ladies making their own lace, excites the ire of the writer of _Britannia Languens_, in his "Discourse upon Trade."[987] "The manufacture of linen,"[988] he says, "was once the huswifery of English ladies, gentlewomen, and other women;" now "the huswifery women of England employ themselves in making an ill sort of lace, which serves no national or natural necessity."

The days of Puritan simplicity were at an end.

"Instead of homespun coifs were seen
Good pinners edged with Colberteen."[989]

The laced cravat succeeded the falling collar. Lace handkerchiefs[990] were the fashion, and

"Gloves laced and trimmed as fine as Nell's."[991]

{338}Laced aprons, which even found their way to the homes of the Anglican clergy, and appear advertised as "Stolen from the vicarage house at Amersham in Oxfordshire: An apron of needlework lace, the middle being Network, another Apron laced with cut and slash lace."[992]

The newspapers crowd with losses of lace, and rarer--finds.[993]

They give us, however, no clue to the home manufacture. "A pasteboard box full of laced linen, and a little portmanteau with some white and grey Bone lace,"[994] would seem to signify a lace much made two hundred years ago, of which we have ourselves seen specimens from Dalecarlia, a sort of guipure, upon which the pattern is formed by the introduction of an unbleached thread, which comes out in full relief--a fancy more curious than pretty.

The petticoats of the ladies of King Charles's court have received due honour at the hands of Pepys, whose prying eyes seem to have been everywhere. On May 21 of the same year he so complacently admired himself in his new lace band, he writes down: "My wife and I to my Lord's lodging; where she and I staid walking in White Hall Gardens. And in the Privy Garden saw the finest smocks and linnen petticoats of my Lady Castlemaine's, laced with rich lace at the bottom, that ever I saw; and it did me good to look at them."

Speaking of the ladies' attire of this age, Evelyn says:--

"Another quilted white and red,
With a broad Flanders lace below;
Four pairs of bas de soye shot through {339}
With silver; diamond buckles too,
For garters, and as rich for shoe.
Twice twelve day smocks of Holland fine,
With cambric sleeves rich Point to joyn
(For she despises Colbertine);
Twelve more for night, all Flanders lac'd,
Or else she'll think herself disgrac'd.
The same her night gown must adorn,
With two Point waistcoats for the morn;
Of pocket mouchoirs, nose to drain,
A dozen laced, a dozen plain;
Three night gowns of rich Indian stuff;
Four cushion-cloths are scarce enough
Of Point and Flanders,"[995] etc.

It is difficult now to ascertain what description of lace was that styled Colbertine.[996] It is constantly alluded to by the writers of the period. Randle Holme (1688) styles it, "A kind of open lace with a square grounding."[997] Evelyn himself, in his _Fop's Dictionary_ (1690), gives, "Colbertine, a lace resembling net-work of the fabric of Monsieur Colbert, superintendent of the French King's manufactures;" and the _Ladies' Dictionary_, 1694, repeats his definition. This is more incomprehensible still, point d'Alençon being the lace that can be specially styled of "the fabric" of Colbert, and Colbertine appears to have been a coarse production.[998] Swift talks of knowing

"The difference between
Rich Flanders lace and Colberteen."[999]

Congreve makes Lady Westport say--[1000]

"Go hang out an old Frisonier gorget with a yard of yellow Colberteen."