The laws regarding the introduction of lace during this reign continued much the same until 1749, when the royal assent was given to an Act preventing the importation or wear of gold, silver, and thread lace manufactured in foreign parts.

In the meeting of Nov. 10, 1752, at the "Crown, behind the Royal Exchange," the Hon. Edward Vernon, grand president, in the chair, it was agreed that the following premiums should be awarded: "For the best pair of men's needlework ruffles, to be produced to the committee in the first week of May next, five guineas; to the second, three guineas; to the third, two guineas. And for the best pair of English bone lace for ladies' lappets, to be produced to the committee in August next, fifteen guineas; to the second, ten guineas; to the third, five guineas."—Gentleman's Magazine.

"Cardinal," a loose cloak after the fashion of a cardinal's "trollopée," a loose flowing gown open in the front, worn as a morning dress.—Fairholt. "Slammerkin," a sort of loose dress. This ugly word, in course of time, was used as an adjective, to signify untidy. Fortunately it is now obsolete.

"Don't read history to me, for that I know to be false," said Sir R. Walpole to his son Horace, when he offered to read to him in his last illness.

Lady M. W. Montagu. "Letter to Lord Harvey on the King's Birthday."

Goldsmith. Life of Richard Nash, of Bath. London, 1762.

1764.

Gentleman's Magazine.

1767. "An officer of the customs seized nearly £400 worth of Flanders lace, artfully concealed in the hollow of a ship's buoy, on board a French trader, lying off Iron Gate."—Annual Register.

1772. "27,000 ells of French (Blois?) lace were seized in the port of Leigh alone."—Gentleman's Magazine.

The turbulent Bishop of Rochester, who was arraigned for his Jacobite intrigues, and died in exile at Paris. 1731.

If imported in smaller quantities than twelve yards, the duty imposed was £2 per yard.

He had retired to the country to be out of the way.

August, 1776.

The wardrobe of George IV. was estimated at the same sum.

Cowper.

1757.

"Monsieur à la Mode." 1753.

"Receipt for Modern Dress." 1753.

Recollections of Madame d'Arblay.

Beaumont and Fletcher. The Knight of Malta.

In coffins with glass tops. Some of them date from 1700.

In the vault of the Schleswig-Holstein family at Sonderburg.

In the church of Revel lies the Duc de Croÿ, a general of Charles XII., arrayed in full costume, with a rich flowing tie of fine guipure; not that he was ever interred—his body had been seized by his creditors for debt, and there it still remains.

The author of Letters from a Lady in Russia (1775), describing the funeral of a daughter of Prince Menzikoff, states she was dressed in a nightgown of silver tissue, on her head a fine laced mob, and a coronet; round her forehead a ribbon embroidered with her name and age, etc.

Alluding to this custom of interring ladies of rank in full dress, Madame de Sévigné writes to her daughter:—"Mon Dieu, ma chère enfant, que vos femmes sont sottes, vivantes et mortes! Vous me faites horreur de cette fontange; quelle profanation! cela sent le paganisme, ho! cela me dégoûteroit bien de mourir en Provence; il faudroit que du moins je fusse assuré qu'on ne m'iroit pas chercher une coëffeuse en même temps qu'un plombier. Ah! vraiment! fi! ne parlez plus de cela."—Lettre 627. Paris, 13 Déc, 1688.

Laborde. Itin. de l'Espagne. Again, the Duc de Luynes says: "The Curé of St. Sulpice related to me the fashion in which the Duke of Alva, who died in Paris in 1739, was by his own will interred. A shirt of the finest Holland, trimmed with new point lace, the finest to be had for money; a new coat of Vardez cloth, embroidered in silver; a new wig; his cane on the right, his sword on the left of his coffin."—Mémoires.

That grave-clothes were lace-trimmed we infer from the following strange announcement in the London Gazette for August 12th to 15th, 1678: "Whereas decent and fashionable lace shifts and Dressings for the dead, made of woollen, have been presented to his Majesty by Amy Potter, widow (the first that put the making of such things in practice), and his Majesty well liking the same, hath upon her humble Petition, been graciously pleased to give her leave to insert this advertisement, that it may be known she now wholly applies herself in making both lace and plain of all sorts, at reasonable prices, and lives in Crane Court in the Old Change, near St. Paul's Church Yard." Again, in November of the same year, we find another advertisement:—"His Majesty, to increase the woollen manufacture and to encourage obedience to the late act for burying in woollen, has granted to Amy Potter the sole privilege of making all sorts of woollen laces for the decent burial of the dead or otherwise, for fourteen years, being the first inventor thereof."

Betterton's History of the English Stage. Her kindness to the poet Savage is well known.

This seems to have been a spécialité of Gibbons; for we find among the treasures of Strawberry Hill: "A beautiful cravat, in imitation of lace, carved by Gibbons, very masterly."—Hist. and Antiquities of Twickenham. London, 1797.

Mrs. Piozzi's Memoirs.

A lady, who had very fine old lace, bequeathed her "wardrobe and lace" to some young friends, who, going after her death to take possession of their legacy, were surprised to find nothing but new lace. On inquiring of the old faithful Scotch servant what had become of the old needle points, she said: "Deed it's aw there, 'cept a wheen auld Dudds, black and ragged, I flinged on the fire."

Another collection of old lace met with an equally melancholy fate. The maid, not liking to give it over to the legatees in its coffee-coloured hue, sewed it carefully together, and put it in a strong soap lye on the fire, to simmer all night. When she took it out in the morning, it was reduced to a jelly! Medea's caldron had not been more effectual!

Cowper. "The Winter Evening."

Bishop Berkeley, in A Word to the Wise, writes of the English labourers in the South of England on a summer's evening "sitting along the streets of the town or village, each at his own door, with a cushion before him, making bone lace, and earning more in an evening's pastime than an Irish family would in a whole day."

"Wells, bone lace and knitting stockings."—Anderson.

"Launceston, where are two schools for forty-eight children of both sexes. The girls are taught to read, sew, and make bone lace, and they are to have their earnings for encouragement."—Magna Britannia. 1720.

Welsh lace was made at Swansea, Pont-Ardawe, Llanwrtyd, Dufynock, and Brecon, but never of any beauty, some not unlike a coarse Valenciennes. "It was much made and worn," said an aged Wesleyan lady, "by our 'connexion,' and as a child I had all my frocks and pinafores trimmed with it. It was made in the cottages; each lace-maker had her own pattern, and carried it out for sale in the country."

At what period, and by whom the lace manufactory of Ripon was founded, we have been unable to ascertain. It was probably a relic of conventual days, which, after having followed the fashion of each time, has now gradually died out. In 1842 broad Trolly laces of French design and fair workmanship were fabricated in the old cathedral city; where, in the poorer localities near the Bond and Blossomgate, young women might be seen working their intricate patterns, with pillows, bobbins, and pins. In 1862 one old woman alone, says our informant, sustains the memory of the craft, her produce a lace of a small lozenge-shaped pattern (Fig. 132), that earliest of all designs, and a narrow edging known in local parlance by the name of "fourpenny spot."

Till its annexation to the Crown, the Isle of Man was the great smuggling depôt for French laces. The traders then removed en masse to the Channel Isles, there to carry on their traffic. An idiot called "Peg the Ply" in Castletown (in 1842) was seen working at her pillow on a summer's evening, the last lace-maker of the island. Isle of Man lace was a simple Valenciennes edging.

Isle of Wight lace was honoured by the patronage of Queen Victoria. The Princess Royal, reports the Illustrated News of May, 1856, at the drawing-room, on her first presentation, wore a dress of Newport lace, her train trimmed with the same.

The weariness of incarceration, when at Carisbrook, did not bring on Charles I. any distaste for rich apparel. Among the charges of 1648, Sept. and Nov., we find a sum of nigh £800 for suits and cloaks of black brocade tabby, black unshorn velvet, and black satin, all lined with plush and trimmed with rich bone lace.

Some bobbin lace was made in the island, but what is known as "Isle of Wight" resembles "Nottingham" lace. It is made in frames on machine net, the pattern outlined with a run thread and filled in with needle-point stitches. Queen Victoria had several lace tippets made of Isle of Wight lace for the Royal children, and always chose the Mechlin style of rose pattern. Now (1901) there are only two or three old women workers left.

Lace-making was never the staple manufacture of the Channel Islands; stockings and garments of knitted wool afforded a livelihood to the natives. We have early mention of these articles in the inventories of James V. of Scotland and of Mary Stuart. Also in those of Henry VIII. and Queen Elizabeth, in which last we find (Gt. Ward. Acc., 28 & 29) the charge of 20s. for a pair of "Caligarum nexat' de factura Garneseie," the upper part and "lez clocks" worked in silk. At the beginning of the nineteenth century, when the island was inundated with French refugees, lace-making was introduced with much success into the Poor-House of St. Heliers. It formed the favourite occupation of the ladies of the island, some of whom (1863) retain the patterns and pillows of their mothers, just as they left them. Of late years many of the old raised Venetian points have been admirably imitated in "Jersey crochet work."

The Puritans again, on their part, transferred the fabric to the other side of the Atlantic, where, says a writer of the eighteenth century, "very much fine lace was made in Long Island by the Protestant settlers."

See Chap. XXII.

The richly-laced corporax cloths and church linen are sent to be washed by the "Lady Ancress," an ecclesiastical washerwoman, who is paid by the churchwardens of St. Margaret's, Westminster, the sum of 8d.; this Lady Ancress, or Anchoress, being some worn-out nun, who, since the dissolution of the religious houses, eked out an existence by the art she had once practised within the convent.

In 1753 prizes were awarded for 14 pairs of curious needlework point ruffles.

One society confers a prize of ten guineas upon a "gentlewoman for an improvement in manufacture by finishing a piece of lace in a very elegant manner with knitting-needles."

The lace of the three counties is practically equal—that is, it is all made in a similar fashion, and the same patterns are met with in each county. The "point" or "net" ground is met with in all, and worked level with the pattern in the same way with bobbins.

Who fled from the Alva persecutions, and settled, first at Cranfield in Bedfordshire, then at Buckingham, Stoney Stratford, and Newport-Pagnel, whence the manufacture extended gradually over Oxford, Northampton, and Cambridge. Many Flemish names are still to be found in the villages of Bedfordshire.

Queen Katherine died 1536.

She retired to Ampthill early in 1531 while her appeal to Rome was pending, and remained there till the summer of 1533.

Lace of the heavy Venetian point was already used for ecclesiastical purposes, though scarcely in general use. The earliest known pattern-books date from fifteen years previous to the death of Katherine (1536).

Dr. Nicolas Harpsfield. Douay, 1622. (In Latin.)

Again we read that at Kimbolton "she plied her needle, drank her potions, and told her beads."—Duke of Manchester. Kimbolton Papers.

A lady from Ampthill writes (1863): "The feast of St. Katherine is no longer kept. In the palmy days of the trade both old and young used to subscribe a sum of money and enjoy a good cup of Bohea and cake, which they called 'Cattern' cake. After tea they danced and made merry, and finished the evening with a supper of boiled stuffed rabbits smothered with onion sauce." The custom of sending about Cattern cakes was also observed at Kettering, in Northamptonshire.

Tour through the whole Island of Great Britain, by a Gentleman. 3 vols. 1724-27. Several subsequent editions of Defoe were published, with additions, by Richardson the novelist in 1732, 1742, 1762, 1769, and 1778. The last is "brought down to the present time by a gentleman of eminence in the literary world."

Magna Britannia et Hibernia, or a New Survey of Great Britain, collected and composed by an impartial hand, by the Rev. Thos. Owen. Lond. 1720-31.

State Papers Dom. Jac. I. Vol. 142. P. R. O.

Savary and Peuchet.

Worthies. Vol. i., p. 134.

Magna Britannia, Daniel and Samuel Lysons. 1806-22.

Describing the "lace and edgings" of the tradesman's wife, she has "from Stoney Stratford the first, and Great Marlow the last."—The Complete English Tradesman, Dan. Defoe. 1726.

Edition 1762.

In Sheahan's History of Bucks, published in 1862, the following places are mentioned as being engaged in the industry:—"Bierton (black and white lace), Cuddington, Haddenham, Great Hampden, Wendover, Gawcott (black), Beachampton, Marsh Gibbon, Preston Bisset, Claydon, Grendon, Dorton, Grandborough, Oving (black and white), Waddesdon, Newport-Pagnell, Bletchley, Hopton, Great Horwood, Bon Buckhill, Fenny Stratford, Hanslope (where 500 women and children are employed—about one-third of the population), Levendon, Great Sandford, Loughton, Melton Keynes, Moulsoe, Newton Blossomville, Olney, Sherrington, and the adjoining villages, Stoke Hammond, Wavendon, Great and Little Kimble, Wooleston, Aston Abbots, Swanbourne, Winslow, Rodnage."

The Voyage to Great Britain of Don Manuel Gonzales, late Merchant of the City of Lisbon.—"Some say Defoe wrote this book himself; it is evidently from the pen of an Englishman."—Lowndes' Bibliographers' Manual. Bohn's Edition.

Annual Register.

See Britannia Depicta, by John Owen, Gent. Lond. 1764, and others.

In 1785 there appears in the Gentleman's Magazine* "An essay on the cause and prevention of deformity among the lace-makers of Bucks and North Hants," suggesting improved ventilation and various other remedies long since adopted by the lace-working population in all countries.

* In 1761 appeared a previous paper, "to prevent the effects of stooping and vitiated air," etc.

Dict. of Commerce.

In Flanders also these glasses were made and used. The "mediæval 'ourinals' are alike the retorts of the alchemist and the water-globes of the poor Flemish flax-thread spinners and lace makers." Old English Glasses. A. Hartshorne.

The larger pins had heads put to them with seeds of galium locally called Hariffe or goose-grass; the seeds when fingered became hard and polished.

Bobbins are usually made of bone, wood or ivory. English bobbins are of bone or wood, and especially in the counties of Bedford, Bucks, and Huntingdon, the set on a lace pillow formed a homely record of their owner's life. The names of her family, dates and records, births and marriages and mottoes, were carved, burnt, or stained on the bobbin, while events of general interest were often commemorated by the addition of a new bobbin. The spangles, jingles (or gingles) fastened to the end of the bobbin have a certain interest; a waistcoat button and a few coral beads brought from overseas, a family relic in the shape of an old copper seal, or an ancient and battered coin—such things as these were often attached to the ring of brass wire passed through a hole in the bobbin. The inscriptions on the bobbins are sometimes burned and afterwards stained, and sometimes "pegged" or traced in tiny leaden studs, and consist of such mottoes as "Love me Truley" (sic), "Buy the Ring," "Osborne for Ever," "Queen Caroline," "Let no false Lover win my heart," "To me, my dear, you may come near," "Lovely Betty," "Dear Mother," and so forth.—R. E. Head. "Some notes on Lace-Bobbins." The Reliquary, July, 1900.

Too much stress cannot be laid on the importance of using fine linen thread. Many well-meant efforts are entirely ruined by the coarse woolly cotton thread used for what ought to be a fine make of lace. That good thread can be got in Great Britain is evident from the fact that the Brussels dealers employ English thread, and sell it to Venice for the exquisite work of Burano. Needless to say, no Englishman has attempted to make a bid for the direct custom of the 8,000 lace-workers there employed.

Catalogue of lace (Victoria and Albert Museum).

The Conversion and Experience of Mary Hurll', or Hurdle, of Marlborough, a maker of bone lace in this town, by the Rev. —— Hughes, of that town.

Waylen's History of Marlborough.

"At Bland, on the Stour, between Salisbury and Dorchester, they made the finest lace in England, valued at £30 per yard."—Universal Dict. of Trade and Commerce. 1774.

"Much bone lace was made here, and the finest point in England, equal, if not superior, to that of Flanders, and valued at £30 per yard till the beginning of this century."—Hutchins' Hist. of the County of Dorset. 2nd Edition, 1796.

What this celebrated point was we cannot ascertain. Two samplars sent to us as Blandford point were of geometric pattern resembling the samplar, Fig. 5.

In 1752.

Roberts' Hist. of Lyme Regis.

Burd, Genest, Raymunds, Brock, Couch, Gerard, Murck, Stocker, Maynard, Trump, Groot, etc.

"We may rather infer that laces of silk and coarse thread were already fabricated in Devonshire, as elsewhere; and that the Flemings, on their arrival, having introduced the fine thread, then spun almost exclusively in their own country, from that period the trade of bone-lace-making flourished in the southern as well as in the midland counties of England" (Mrs. Palliser, 1869).

Ker's Synopsis, written about the year 1561. Two copies of this MS. exist, one in the library of Lord Haldon at Haldon House (Co. Devon), the other in the British Museum. This MS. was never printed, but served as an authority for Westcote and others.

"She was a daughter of John Flay, Vicar of Buckrell, near Honiton, who by will in 1614 bequeaths certain lands to Jerom Minify (sic), son of Jerom Minify, of Burwash, Sussex, who married his only daughter."—Prince's Worthies of Devon. 1701.

Up to a recent date the Honiton lace-makers were mostly of Flemish origin. Mrs. Stocker, ob. 1769; Mr. J. Stocker, + 1788, and four daughters; Mrs. Mary Stocker, + 179-; Mr. Gerard, + 1799, and daughter; Mrs. Lydia Maynard (of Anti-Gallican celebrity), + 1786; Mrs. Ann Brock, + 1815; Mrs. Elizabeth Humphrey, + 1790, whose family had been in the lace manufacture 150 years and more. The above list has been furnished to the author by Mrs. Frank Aberdein, whose grandfather was for many years in the trade. Mrs. Treadwin, of Exeter, found an old lace-worker using a lace "Turn" for winding sticks, having the date 1678 rudely carved on the foot, showing how the trade was continued in the same family from generation to generation.

View of Devon. T. Westcote.

Her bequest is called "Minifie's Gift."

Here follows the numbers of the people in a few places who get their living by making lace. Among those quoted in Devonshire as interesting to compare with the present day are:—

"Coumbraligh 65, Sidmont 302, Axmouth 73, Sidbury 321, Buckerall 90, Farway 70, Utpotery 118, Branscombe Beare and Seaton 326, Honyton 1341, Axminster 60, Otery St. Mary, 814."

Church Book of the Baptist Chapel of Lyme Regis.

Colyton and Ottery St. Mary were among the first. Wherever the say or serge decayed, the lace trade planted itself.

In the church of Colyton, under a fine canopied tomb, repose back to back in most unsociable fashion the recumbent figures of Sir John and Lady Pole. "Dame Elizabeth, daughter of Roger How, merchant of London, ob. 1623," wears a splendid cape of three rows of bone lace descending to the waist. Her cap is trimmed with the same material. As this lace may be of Devonshire fabric, we give a wood-cut of the pattern (Fig. 150).

Sundry Flemish names may still be seen above the shop-windows of Colyton similar to those of Honiton—Stocker, Murch, Spiller, Rochett, Boatch, Kettel, Woram, and others.

Don Manuel Gonzales mentions "bone lace" among the commodities of Devon.

The lace manufacture now extends along the coast from the small watering-place of Seaton, by Beer, Branscombe, Salcombe, Sidmouth, and Ollerton, to Exmouth, including the Vale of Honiton and the towns above mentioned.

1753.

Complete System of Geography. Emanuel Bowen, 1747.

This extract is repeated verbatim in England's Gazetteer, by Philip Luckombe. London, 1790.

Died 1398.

The best réseau was made by hand with the needle, and was much more expensive.

Mrs. Aberdein, of Honiton, informed Mrs. Palliser that her father often paid ninety-five guineas per lb. for the thread from Antwerp (1869).

The manner of payment was somewhat Phœnician, reminding one of Queen Dido and her bargain. The lace ground was spread out on the counter, and the worker herself desired to cover it with shillings; and as many coins as found place on her work she carried away as the fruit of her labour. The author once calculated the cost, after this fashion, of a small lace veil on real ground, said to be one of the first ever fabricated. It was 12 inches wide and 30 inches long, and, making allowance for the shrinking caused by washing, the value amounted to £20, which proved to be exactly the sum originally paid for the veil. The ground of this veil, though perfect in its workmanship, is of a much wider mesh than was made in the last days of the fabric. It was the property of Mrs. Chick.

"The last specimen of 'real' ground made in Devon was the marriage veil of Mrs. Marwood Tucker. It was with the greatest difficulty workers could be procured to make it. The price paid for the ground alone was 30 guineas" (1869).

With the desire of combining the two interests, her Majesty ordered it to be made on the Brussels (machine-made) ground.

Amaranth, Daphne, Eglantine, Lilac, Auricula, Ivy, Dahlia, Eglantine.

The workers of Beer, Axmouth, and Branscombe, have always been considered the best in the trade.

Exposition Universelle de 1867. Rapport du Jury International, "Dentelles," par Felix Aubry.

For the encouragement of Agriculture, Arts, Manufactures, and Commerce. The prizes were offered for the best Sprigs, Nosegays, Borders for shawls, veils, or collars, Lappets, collars and cuffs, Pocket-handkerchiefs, etc., "of good workmanship and design, worked either in Flowers, Fruits, Leaves, or Insects, strictly designed from nature." Three prizes were awarded for each description of article. The Society also offered prizes for small application sprigged veils, and for the best specimens of braidwork, in imitation of Spanish point.

Honiton Lace, by Mrs. Treadwin. London, 1874. Honiton Lace-making, by Devonia, London, 1874.

Lappets and scarfs were made of trolly lace from an early date. Mrs. Delarey, in one of her letters, dated 1756, speaks of a "trolly head." Trolly lace, before its downfall, has been sold at the extravagant price of five guineas a yard.

"Fifty years since Devonshire workers still make a 'Greek' lace, as they termed it, similar to the 'dentelles torchons' so common through the Continent. The author has seen specimens of this fabric in a lace-maker's old pattern-book, once the property of her mother" (Mrs. Palliser, 1869).

Though no longer employed at lace-making, the boys in the schools at Exmouth are instructed in crochet work (1869).

Of Otterton.

In Woodbury will be found a small colony of lace-makers who are employed in making imitation Maltese or Greek lace, a fabric introduced into Devon by order of her late Majesty the Queen Dowager on her return from Malta. The workers copy these coarse geometric laces with great facility and precision. Among the various cheap articles to which the Devonshire workers have of late directed their labours is the tape or braid lace, and the shops of the country are now inundated with their productions in the form of collars and cuffs (1869.)

The Honiton pillows are rather smaller than those for Buckinghamshire lace, and do not have the multiplicity of starched coverings—only three "pill cloths," one over the top, and another on each side of the lace in progress; two pieces of horn called "sliders" go between to take the weight of the bobbins from dragging the stitches in progress; a small square pin-cushion is on one side, and stuck into the pillow is the "needle-pin"—a large sewing needle in a wooden handle, and for picking up loops through which the bobbins are placed. The pillow has to be frequently turned round in the course of the work, so that no stand is used, and it is rested against a table or doorway; and formerly, in the golden days, in fine weather there would be rows of workers sitting outside their cottages resting their "pills" against the back of the chair in front.

The bobbins used in Honiton lace-making are delicately-fashioned slender things of smooth, close-grained wood, their length averaging about three and a half inches. They have no "gingles," and none of the carving and relief inlayings of the Buckinghamshire and Bedfordshire bobbins; but some of them are curiously stained with a brown pigment in an irregular pattern resembling the mottlings of clouded bamboo or those of tortoise-shell.

"The author has visited many lace-schools in Devon, and though it might be desired that some philanthropist would introduce the infant school system of allowing the pupils to march and stretch their limbs at the expiration of every hour, the children, notwithstanding, looked ruddy as the apples in their native orchards; and though the lace-worker may be less robust in appearance than the farm-servant or the Cheshire milkmaid, her life is more healthy far than the female operative in our northern manufactories" (1875).