Gt. W. A. Jac. I. 6 to 7.
Taylor. 1640:—
"The beau would feign sickness
To show his nightcap fine,
And his wrought pillow overspread with lawn."—Davies. Epigrams.
"Acc. of Sir Lyonell Cranfield (now Earl of Middlesex), late Master of the Great Wardrobe, touching the funeral of Queen Anne, who died 2nd March, 1618 (i.e. 1619 N. S.). P. R. O.
About this time a complaint is made by the London tradesmen, of the influx of refugee artizans, "who keepe theire misteries to themselves, which hath made them bould of late to device engines for workinge lace, &c., and such wherein one man doth more among them than seven Englishmen can doe, soe as theire cheape sale of those commodities beggareth all our English artificers of that trade and enricheth them," which becomes "scarce tolleruble," they conclude. Cecil, in consequence, orders a census to be made in 1621. Among the traders appears "one satten lace maker."
Colchester is bitterly irate against the Dutch strangers, and complains of one "Jonas Snav, a Bay and Say maker, whose wife selleth blacke, browne, and white thredde, and all sorts of bone lace and vatuegardes, which they receive out of Holland. One Isaac Bowman, an Alyen born, a chirurgeon and merchant, selleth hoppes, bone lace, and such like, to the great grievance of the free burgesses."
A nest of refugee lace-makers, "who came out of France by reason of the late 'trobles' yet continuing," were congregated at Dover (1621-2). A list of about five-and-twenty "widows, being makers of Bone lace," is given, and then Mary Tanyer and Margarett Le Moyne, "maydens and makers of bone lace," wind up the catalogue of the Dover "Alyens."
The Maidstone authorities complain that the thread-makers' trade is much decayed by the importation of thread from Flanders.—List of Foreign Protestants resident in England. 1618-88. Printed by the Camden Society.
Jasper Mayne.
Beaumont and Fletcher.
"Valuables of Glenurquhy, 1640." Innes' Sketches of Early Scotch History.
Collars of Hollie worke appear in the Inventories of Mary Stuart.
"Thomas Hodges, for making ruffe and cuffes for his Highness of cuttworke edged with a fayre peake purle, £7."—2nd Account of Sir J. Villiers. Prince Charles. 1617-18. P. R. O.
"40 yards broad peaked lace to edge 6 cupboard cloths, at 4s. a yard, £8."—Ibid.
"Seaming" lace and spacing lace appear to have been generally used at this period to unite the breadths of linen, instead of a seam sewed. We find them employed for cupboard cloths, cushion cloths, sheets, shirts, etc., throughout the accounts of King James and Prince Charles.
"At Stratford-upon-Avon is preserved, in the room where Shakspeare's wife, Anne Hathaway, was born, an oaken linen chest, containing a pillow-case and a very large sheet made of homespun linen. Down the middle of the sheet is an ornamental open or cut-work insertion, about an inch and a half deep, and the pillow-case is similarly ornamented. They are marked E. H., and have always been used by the Hathaway family on special occasions, such as births, deaths, and marriages. This is still a common custom in Warwickshire; and many families can proudly show embroidered bed linen, which has been used on state occasions, and carefully preserved in old carved chests for three centuries and more."—A Shakspeare Memorial. 1864.
The Truth of the Times. W. Peacham. 1638.
State Papers Dom. Jas. I. Vol. lxxii. No. 28.
Warrant on the Great Wardrobe. 1612-13. Princess Elizabeth's marriage.
Frankfort fair, at which most of the German princes made their purchases.
German Correspondence. 1614-15.—P. R. O.
We find among the accounts of Col. Schomberg and others:—
"To a merchant of Strasbourg, for laces which she had sent from Italy, 288 rix-dollars." And, in addition to numerous entries of silver and other laces:—
"Pour dentelle et linge karé pour Madame, 115 florins."
"Donné Madame de Caus pour des mouchoirs à point couppée pour Madame, £4."
"Une petite dentelle à point couppé, £3," etc.
Point coupé handkerchiefs seem to have been greatly in fashion. Ben Jonson, "Bartholomew Fair," 1614, mentions them:—
"A cut-work handkerchief she gave me."
See Snelling's Coins. Pl. ix. 8, 9, 10.
Ibid. Pl. ix. 5, 6, 11.
Evelyn, describing a medal of King Charles I., struck in 1633, says he wears "a falling band, which new mode succeeded the cumbersome ruff; but neither did the bishops or the judges give it up so soon, the Lord Keeper Finch being, I think, the very first."
In 1633, the bills having risen to £1,500 a year, a project is made for reducing the charge for the King's fine linen and bone lace, "for his body," again to £1,000 per annum, for which sum it "may be very well done."—State Papers, Chas. I. Vol. ccxxxiv. No. 83.
"Paid to Smith Wilkinson, for 420 yards of good Flanders bone lace for 12 day ruffes and 6 night ruffes 'cum cuffes eisdem,' £87 15s.
"For 6 falling bands made of good broad Flanders lace and Cuttworks with cuffs of the same, £52 16s."—Gt. W. A. Car. I. 6 = 1631.
See G. W. A., Mich., 1629, to April, 1630.
Twelfth-Night.
G. W. A. Car. I. The Annunciation 9 to Mich. 11.
Ibid. 8 and 9.
State Papers Dom. Charles I. Vol. cxlix. No. 31.
In a letter to Mr. Edward Nicholas, Sec. of the Admiralty, March 7th, 1627 (afterwards Sec. of State to Chas. II.).—St. P. D. Chas. I. Vol. cxxiii. 62.
Among the State Papers (Vol. cxxvi. 70), is a letter from Susan Nicholas to her "loveing Brother," 1628. About lace for his band, she writes: "I have sent you your bootehose and could have sent your lase for your band, but that I did see these lasees which to my thought did do a greddeale better then that wh you did bespeake, and the best of them will cost no more then that which is half a crowne a yard, and so the uppermost will cost you, and the other will cost 18 pence; I did thinke you would rather staye something long for it then to pay so deare for that wh would make no better show; if you like either of these, you shall have it sone desptch, for I am promise to have it made in a fortnight. I have received the monie from my cousson Hunton. Heare is no news to wright of. Thus with my best love remembred unto you, I rest your very loving sister,
"Susanne Nicholas.
"I have sent ye the lase ye foyrst bespoke, to compare them together, to see which ye like best."
In 1620 an English company exported a large quantity of gold and silver lace to India for the King of Golconda.
W. Peacham, Truth of the Times. 1638.
Hamlet says there are
"Two Provençal roses on my regal shoes."
"When roses in the gardens grow,
And not in ribbons on a shoe;
Now ribbon-roses take such place,
That garden roses want their grace."
—"Friar Bacon's Prophesie." 1604.
"I like," says Evelyn, "the boucle better than the formal rose."—Tyrannus, or the Mode.
This proclamation is dated from "our Honour of Hampton Court, 30th April, 1635."—Rymer's Fœdera. T. 19, p. 690.
When Anne of Austria was suspected of secret correspondence with Spain and England, Richelieu sent the Chancellor to question the Abbess of the Val-de-Grâce with respect to the casket which had been secretly brought into the monastery. The Abbess (Vie de la Mère d'Arbouse) declared that this same casket came from the Queen of England, and that it only contained lace, ribbons, and other trimmings of English fashion, sent by Henrietta Maria as a present to the Queen.—Galerie de l'Ancienne Cour. 1791.
State Papers Dom. Vol. cxxiii. No. 65.
"Rhodon and Iris, a Pastoral." 1631.
"Ornatus Muliebris Anglicanus." 1645.
"You must to the Pawn (Exchange) to buy lawn, to St. Martin for lace."—Westward Ho. 1607.
"A copper lace called St. Martin's lace."—Strype.
Taylor, "Whip of Pride." 1640.
In Eastward Ho, 1605, proud Gertrude says: "Smocks of three pound a smock, are to be born with all."
"Bartholomew Fair." 1614.
"She shewed me gowns and head tires,
Embroidered waistcoats, smocks seam'd thro' with cut-works."
—Beaumont and Fletcher, "Four Plays in One." 1647.
"Who would ha' thought a woman so well harness'd,
Or rather well caparison'd, indeed,
That wears such petticoats, and lace to her smocks,
Broad seaming laces."
—Ben Jonson, The Devil is an Ass. 1616.
A suite of russet "laced all over with silver curle lace."—"Expenses of Robt. Sidney, Earl of Leicester. Temp. Chas. I."
"This comes of wearing
Scarlet, gold lace and cut-works; your fine gartering
With your blown roses."
—The Devil is an Ass.
Notes from Black Fryers.
Jasper Mayne. "Amorous War." 1659.
"The Little French Lawyer."
Memoirs.
The Cromwell Family.
Sir Philip Warwick. 1640.
At the Restoration, it was removed from the Abbey and hung out of the window at Whitehall, and then broken up and destroyed.
1661, Nov. 20. State Papers. Dom. Charles II. Vol. xliv. P. R. O.
"To William Briers, for making the Colobium Sindonis of fine lawn laced with fine Flanders lace, 33s. 4d.
"To Valentine Stucky, for 14 yards and a half of very fine Flanders lace for the same, at 18s. per yard, £12 6s. 6d."—"Acc. of the E. of Sandwich, Master of the G. W. for the Coronation of King Charles II. 23 April, 1661." P. R. O.
In the G. W. A. for 29 and 30 occurs a curious entry by the Master of the Great Wardrobe:—"I doe hereby charge myself with 5,000 Livres by me received in the realm of France for gold and silver fringes by me there sold, belong to a rich embroidered Bed of his said Majesty, which at one shilling and sevenpence ꝑ lib. English. Being the value of the Exchange at that time, amounts to £395 16s. 8d.
"(Signed) R. Montague.
"May 28, 1678."
14 Car. II. c. 13. Statutes at large. The Acts of Charles II. date from the death of his father; so the year of the Restoration, 1660, is counted as the thirteenth of his reign.
1662. State Papers Dom. Charles II. Vol. lv., No. 25. P. R. O.
He pays £194 to his Laceman (Tenentori) for 3 Cravats "de poynt de Venez," and 24s. per yard for 57 yards of narrow point "teniæ poynt augustæ," to trim his falling ruffles, "manicis cadentibus," etc.—G. W. A. Car. II. 24 and 25.
Later (1676-7) we find charged for "un par manicarum, le poynt, £14."
When it was replaced by a black ribbon and a bow.
London, 1680.
Authors, however, disagree like the rest of the world. In a tract called The Ancient Trades Decayed Repaired Again, by Sir Roger L'Estrange (1678), we read: "Nay, if the materials used in a trade be not of the growth of England, yet, if the trade be to employ the poor, we should have it bought without money, and brought to us from beyond the seas where it is made as 'Bone lace.'"
Swift. Baucis and Philemon.
Intelligencer, 1665, June 5. "Lost, six handkerchers wrapt up in a brown paper, two laced, one point-laced set on tiffany; the two laced ones had been worn, the other four new."
London Gazette. 1672, Dec. 5-9. "Lost, a lawn pocket handkercher with a broad hem, laced round with a fine Point lace about four fingers broad, marked with an R in red silk."
Evelyn. It was the custom, at a Maiden Assize, to present the judge with a pair of "laced gloves." Lord Campbell in 1856, at the Lincoln Lent Assizes, received from the sheriff a pair of white gloves richly trimmed with Brussels lace and embroidered, the city arms embossed in frosted silver on the back.
London Gazette. 1677, Jan. 28-31. Again, Oct. 4-8, in the same year. "Stolen or lost out of the Petworth waggon, a deal box directed to the Lady Young of Burton in Sussex; there was in it a fine Point Apron, a suit of thin laced Night clothes," etc.
London Gazette. 1675, June 14-17. "A right Point lace with a long musling neck laced at the ends with a narrow Point about three fingers broad, and a pair of Point cuffs of the same, worn foul and never washt, was lost on Monday last."
Ibid. 1677, Oct. 22-25. "Found in a ditch, Four laced forehead cloths. One laced Pinner, one laced Quoif, one pair of laced ruffels.... Two point aprons and other laced linen."
Intelligencer. 1664, Oct. 3. "Lost, A needle work point without a border, with a great part of the loups cut out, and a quarter of it new loupt with the needle. £5 reward."
London Gazette. 1677, Oct. 8-11.
Tyrannus, or the Mode. 1661.
It is written Colberteen, Colbertain, Golbertain, Colbertine.
Colberteen, a lace resembling network, being of the manufacture of M. Colbert, a French statesman.
A writer in Notes and Queries says: "I recollect this lace worn as a ruffle fifty years ago. The ground was square and coarse, it had a fine edge, with a round mesh, on which the pattern was woven. It was an inferior lace and in every-day wear."
Cadenus and Vanessa. See also Young, p. 111.
Way of the World.
Six Weeks in France. 1691.
Gt. W. A. Car. II. 35-36 = 1683-4.
Gazette, July 20, 1682. Lost, a portmanteau full of women's clothes, among which are enumerated "two pairs of Point d'Espagne ruffles, a laced night rail and waistcoat, a pair of Point de Venise ruffles, a black laced scarf," etc.—Malcolm's Anecdotes of London.
The lace of James II.'s cravats and ruffles are of point de Venise.
Sex prælant cravatts de lacinia Venetiarum, are charged £141, and 9 yards lace, for six more cravats, £45.
£36 10s. for the cravat of Venice lace to wear on the day of his Coronation," etc.—G. W. A. Jac. II. 1685-6.
A writer in the Gentleman's Magazine, (October, 1745), mentions: "In the parlour of the monastery of English Benedictines at Paris, I was shown the mask of the king's face, taken off immediately after he was dead, together with the fine laced nightcap he died in." The cap at Dunkirk is trimmed with Flemish lace (old Mechlin). It must have passed from Paris to the convent of English Benedictines at Dunkirk, who left that city in 1793. There is no record how it became deposited in the Museum.—Communicated by M. de Forçade, Conservator of the Museu la Dunkirk.
9 & 10 Will. III. = 1697-8.
11 & 12 Will. III. = 1698-9.
Smith's Wealth of Nations.
See Louis XIV.
See Louis XIV.
Spectator, No. 129. 1711.
"Lost, from behind a Hackney coach, Lombard Street, a grounded lace night rail."—London Gazette. Aug. 8, 1695.
"Lost, two loopt lace Pinners and a pair of double laced ruffles, bundled up together."—Ibid. Jan. 6-10, 1697.
"Taken out of two boxes in Mr. Drouth's waggon ... six cards of piece lace looped and purled, scolopt heads to most of them ... a fine Flanders lace head and ruffles, groundwork set on a wier," etc.—Ibid. April 11-14, 1698.
"Furbelows are not confined to scarfs, but, they must have furbelow'd gowns, and furbelow'd petticoats, and furbelow'd aprons; and, as I have heard, furbelow'd smocks too."—Pleasant Art of Money-catching. 1730.
B. M. Add. MSS. No. 5751.
"Bought of John Bishop & Jer. Peirie, att ye Golden Ball, in Ludgate Hill, 26 April, 1693:
"3 yards ½ of Rich silver rufl'd scollop lace falbala, with a Rich broad silver Tire Orris at the head, at 7s. 3d. a yard, £25 0s. 6d.
"8 yards of broad scollopped thread lace, at 25s.
"3 yards Rich Paigning (?) Lace, 48s. 8d., £8 14s."
"9 ½ Fine purle to set on the pinner, at 3s."
"5 ¾ of fine broad cattgutt border, at 20s."
"1 yard 7⁄16 Raised Point to put on the top of a pair of sleeves, at 30s."
"8 yards of Broad Needlework Lace, at 30s."
"3 yards of lace to Mazzarine ye pinners, at 25s."
Probably the same as the French "campanner."
The Milliner, in Shadwell's Bury Fair. 1720.
G. W. A. Will. III. 1688 to 1702. P. R. O.
Ibid. vii. & viii.
"I hope your Lordship is pleased with your Steinkerk."—Sir John Vanbrugh. The Relapse.
In Colley Cibber's Careless Husband, Lady Easy takes the Steinkirk off her neck and lays it on Sir Charles's head when he is asleep.
In Love's Last Shift, by the same author (1695), the hero speaks of being "Strangled in my own Steinkerk."
In Love for Love, by Congreve, Sir Novelty enumerates the Steinkirk, the large button, with other fashions, as created by him.
"I have heard the Steinkirk arrived but two months ago."—Spectator, No. 129.
The "modish spark" wears "a huge Steinkirk, twisted, to the waist."—1694. Prologue to First Part of Don Quixote.
Frank Osbaldeston, in Rob Roy, is deprived by the Highlanders of his cravat, "a Steinkirke richly laced."
At Ham House was the portrait of a Countess of Dysart, temp. Anne, in three-cornered cocked hat, long coat, flapped waistcoat, and Mechlin Steinkirk.
In the Account Book of Isabella, Duchess of Grafton, daughter of Lord Arlington, Evelyn's "sweet child"—her portrait hangs in Queen Mary's Room, Hampton Court—we have: "1709. To a Stinkirk, £1 12s. 3d."
They appear to have been made of other stuffs than lace, for in the same account, 1708, we have entered: "To a green Steenkirk, £1 1s. 6d."
The Volunteers, or the Stock Jobbers.
"The Tombs in Westminster Abbey," sung by the Brothers Popplewell. Broadside, 1775.—B. M. Roxburgh Coll.
King Charles II.'s lace is the same as that of Queen Mary. The Duchess of Buckingham (the "mad" Duchess, daughter of James II.) has also very fine raised lace.
Venice, Bib. St. Mark. Contarini Miscellany. Communicated by Mr. Rawdon Brown.
Weekly Journal. March, 1717.
The Modern Warrior. 1756.
Acc. of Ralph, Earl of Montague, Master of the G. W., touching the Funeral of William III. and Coronation of Queen Anne. P. R. O.
Statutes at large.—Anne 5 & 6.
This edict greatly injured the lace trade of France. In the Atlas Maritime et Commercial of 1727, it states: "I might mention several other articles of French manufacture which, for want of a market in England where their chief consumption was, are so much decayed and in a manner quite sunk. I mean as to exportation, the English having now set up the same among themselves, such as bone lace."
History of Trade. London, 1702.
"Pro 14 virgis lautæ Fimbr' Bruxell' laciniæ et 12 virgis dict' laciniæ pro Reginæ persona, £151."—G. W. A. 1710-11.
Letters of the Countess of Hartford to the Countess of Pomfret. 1740.
Memoirs of Lady R. Russell.
"My high commode, my damask gown,
My laced shoes of Spanish leather."
—D'Urfey. The Young Maid's Portion.
No. 98. 1711.
After fifteen years' discontinuance it shot up again. Swift, on meeting the Duchess of Grafton, dining at Sir Thomas Hanmer's, thus attired, declared she "looked like a mad woman."
Statutes at large.
In 1712 Mrs. Beale had stolen from her "a green silk knit waistcoat with gold and silver flowers all over it, and about 14 yards of gold and silver thick lace on it"; while another lady was robbed of a scarlet cloth coat so overlaid with the same lace, it might have been of any other colour.—Malcolm's Anecdotes of the Manners and Customs of London in the Eighteenth Century.
Post Boy. Nov. 15, 1709. Articles Lost.
A Discourse on Trade, by John Cary, merchant of Bristol. 1717.
Again: "What injury was done by the Act 9-10 Will. III. for the more effectual preventing of importation of foreign bone lace, doth sufficiently appear by the preamble to that made 10-12 of the same reign for repealing it three months after the prohibition of our woollen manufactures in Flanders (which was occasioned by it) should be taken off; but I don't understand it be yet done, and it may prove an inevitable loss to the nation."
Lover. No. 10. 1714.
The ornamental ribbons worn about the dress: "His dress has bows, and fine fallals."—Evelyn. Sometimes the term appears applied to the Fontanges or Commode. We read (1691) of "her three-storied Fladdal."
Tunbridge Wells. 1727.
In The Recruiting Officer (1781), Lucy the maid says: "Indeed, Madam the last bribe I had from the Captain was only a small piece of Flanders lace for a cap." Melinda answers: "Ay, Flanders lace is a constant present from officers.... They every year bring over a cargo of lace, to cheat the king of his duty and his subjects of their honesty." Again, Silvio, in the bill of costs he sends in to the widow Zelinda, at the termination of his unsuccessful suit, makes a charge for "a piece of Flanders lace" to Mrs. Abigail, her woman.—Addison, in Guardian, No. 17. 1713.
"In the next reign, George III. and Queen Charlotte often condescended to become sponsors to the children of the aristocracy. To one child their presence was fatal. In 1778 they 'stood' to the infant daughter of the last Duke and Duchess of Chandos. Cornwallis, Archbishop of Canterbury, officiated. The baby, overwhelmed by whole mountains of lace, lay in a dead faint. Her mother was so tender on the point of etiquette, that she would not let the little incident trouble a ceremony at which a king and queen were about to endow her child with the names of Georgiana Charlotte. As Cornwallis gave back the infant to her nurse, he remarked that it was the quietest baby he had ever held. Poor victim of ceremony! It was not quite dead, but dying; in a few unconscious hours it calmly slept away."—"A Gossip on Royal Christenings." Cornhill Magazine. April, 1864.
"Furniture of a Woman's Mind."
"Dean Swift to a Young Lady."
Cowley.
1731. Simile for the Ladies, alluding to the laces worn at the last Birthday and not paid for.
"In Evening fair you may behold
The Clouds are fringed with borrowed gold,
And this is many a lady's case
Who flaunts about in borrowed lace."
Jenyns. "The Modern Fine Lady."
Crown. Sir Courtly Nice, or It Cannot Be, a Comedy. 1731.
"1748. Ruffles of twelve pounds a yard."—Apology for Mrs. T. C. Philips. 1748.
Lace, however, might be had at a more reasonable rate:—
"'I have a fine lac'd suit of pinners,' says Mrs. Thomas, 'that was my great-grandmother's! that has been worn but twice these forty years, and my mother told me cost almost four pounds when it was new, and reaches down hither.'"—"Miss Lucy in Town." Fielding.
Dictionary of Commerce. 1766.
He was a martinet about his own dress, for his biographer relates during the last illness of Queen Caroline (1737), though the King was "visibly affected," remembering he had to meet the foreign ministers next day, he gave particular directions to his pages "to see that new ruffles were sewn on his old shirt sleeves, whereby he might wear a decent air in the eyes of the representatives of foreign majesty."
"By a list of linen furnished to the Princesses Louisa and Mary, we find their night-dresses were trimmed with lace at 10s. per yard, and while their Royal Highnesses were in bibs, they had six suits of broad lace for aprons at from £50 to £60 each suit."—Corr. of the Countess of Suffolk, Lady of the Bedchamber to Queen Caroline.
Observe also the lace-trimmed aprons, ruffles, tuckers, etc., in the pretty picture of the family of Frederick, Prince of Wales, at Hampton Court Palace.