CHAPTER XXII
.
ENGLAND TO QUEEN ELIZABETH.
"We weare most fantastical fashions than any nation under the sun doth, the French only excepted."--_Coryat's Crudities._ 1611.
It would be a difficult matter for antiquaries to decide at what precise time lace, as we now define the word, first appears as an article of commerce in the annals of our country.
As early as the reign of Edward III.,[753] the excessive luxury of veils, worn even by servant girls, excited the indignation of the Government, who, in an Act, dated 1363, forbade them to be worn of silk, or of any other material, "mes soulement de fil fait deinz le Roialme," for which veils no one was to pay more than the sum of tenpence. Of what stuff these thread veils were composed we have no record; probably they were a sort of network, similar to the caul of Queen Philippa, as we see represented on her tomb.[754] That a sort of crochet decoration used for edging was already made, we may infer from the monumental effigies of the day.[755] The purse of the carpenter is described, too, in Chaucer, as "purled with latoun," a kind of metal or wire lace, similar to that found at Herculaneum, and made in some parts of Europe to a recent period.
M. Aubry refers to a commercial treaty of 1390, between England and the city of Bruges, as the earliest mention of lace. This said treaty we cannot find in Rymer, Dumont, {286}or anywhere else. We have, as before alluded to, constant edicts concerning the gold wires and threads of "Cipre, Venys, Luk, and Jeane," of embroideries and suchlike, but no distinct allusion to "lace."[756]
According to Anderson, the first intimation of such an occupation being known in England is the complaint, made in 1454, by the women of the mystery of thread-working in London, in consequence of the importation of six foreign women, by which the manufacture of needlework[757] of thread and silk, not as yet understood, was introduced. These six women, probably Flemings, had brought over to England the cut-work or darning of the time, a work then unknown in this country.
All authors, up to the present period, refer to the well-known Act of Edward IV.,[758] 1463, in which the entry of "laces, corses, ribans, fringes, de soie and de file, laces de file soie enfile," etc., are prohibited, as the first mention of "lace" in the public records.
The English edition of the Foedera, as well as the statutes at large, freely translate these words as laces of thread, silk twined, laces of gold, etc.; and the various writers on commerce and manufactures have accepted the definition as "lace," without troubling themselves to examine the question.[759] Some even go so far as to refer to a MS. in the Harleian Library,[760] giving "directions for making many sorts of laces,[761] which were in fashion in the times of King Henry VI. {287}and Edward IV.," as a proof that lace was already well known, and formed the occupation of the "handcraftry"--as those who gained their livelihood by manual occupation were then termed--of the country. Now, the author has carefully examined this already quoted MS., in the principal letter of which is a damaged figure of a woman sitting and "making of lace," which is made by means of "bowys."[762] As regards the given directions, we defy anyone, save the most inveterate lover of crochet-work, to understand one word of its contents, beyond that it relates to some sort of twisted thread-work, and perhaps we might, in utter confusion of mind, have accepted the definition as given, had not another MS. of similar tenor, bearing date 1651, been also preserved in the British Museum.[763]
This second MS. gives specimens of the laces, such as they were, stitched side by side with the directions, which at once establishes the fact that the laces of silk and gold, laces of thread, were nothing more than braids or cords--the laces used with tags, commonly called "poynts" (the "ferrets" of Anne of Austria)--for fastening the dresses, as well as for ornament, previous to the introduction of pins.
In the Wardrobe Accounts of the time we have frequent notice of these "laces" and corses. "Laces de quir" (cuir) also appear in the Statutes,[764] which can only mean what we now term bootlaces, or something similar.
{288}In the "Total of stuffs bought" for Edward IV.,[765] we have entries: "Laces made of ryban of sylk; two dozen laces, and a double lace of ryban"--"corses of sylk with laces and tassels of sylk," etc. Again, to Alice Claver, his sylkwoman, he pays for "two dozen laces and a double lace of sylk." These double laces of ribbon and silk were but plaited, a simple ornament still used by the peasant women in some countries of Europe. There must, however, be a beginning to everything, and these tag laces--some made round, others in zigzag, like the modern braids of ladies' work, others flat--in due course of time enriched with an edging, and a few stitches disposed according to rule, produced a rude lace; and these patterns, clumsy at first, were, after a season, improved upon.
From the time of Edward IV. downwards, statute on apparel followed upon statute, renewed for a number of years, bearing always the same expression, and nothing more definite.[766]
The Venetian galleys at an early period bore to England the gold work of "Luk," Florence, "Jeane" and Venice. In our early Parliamentary records are many statutes on the subject. It is not, however, till the reign of Henry VII. that, according to Anderson, "Gold and thread lace came from Florence, Venice, and Genoa, and became an article of commerce. An Act was then passed to prevent the buyers of such commodities from selling for a pound weight a packet which does not contain twelve ounces, and the inside of the said gold, silver, and thread lace was to be of equal greatness of thread and goodness of colour as the outside thereof."[767]
The Italians were in the habit of giving short lengths, gold thread of bad quality, and were guilty of sundry other misdemeanours which greatly excited the wrath of the nation. The balance was not in England's favour. It was the cheating Venetians who first brought over their gold lace into England.
PLATE LXXV.
[Illustration: CAP. (FLEMISH OR GERMAN.)--The insertion is cut-work and needle-point. The lace is bobbin-made, and bears a resemblance to Plate XXVI., South Italian. Late seventeenth century. Length of lace about 12 in.
Photo by A. Dryden from private collection.]
_To face page 288._
{289}A warrant to the Keeper of the Great Wardrobe, in the eighteenth year of King Henry's reign,[768] contains an order for "a mauntel lace of blewe silk and Venys gold, to be delivered for the use of our right dere and well-beloved Cosyn the King of Romayne"--Maximilian, who was made Knight of the Garter.[769]
If lace was really worn in the days of Henry VII., it was probably either of gold or silk, as one of the last Acts of that monarch's reign, by which all foreign lace is prohibited, and "those who have it in their possession may keep it and wear it till Pentecost,"[770] was issued rather for the protection of the silk-women of the country than for the advantage of the ever-complaining "workers of the mysteries of thread-work."
On the 3rd of October, 1502, his Queen Elizabeth of York pays to one Master Bonner, at Langley, for laces, rybands, etc., 40s.; and again, in the same year, 38s. 7d. to Dame Margrette Cotton, for "hosyn, laces, sope, and other necessaries for the Lords Henry Courtenay, Edward, and the Lady Margrette, their sister." A considerable sum is also paid to Fryer Hercules for gold of Venys, gold of Danmarke, and making a lace for the King's mantell of the Garter.[771]
It is towards the early part of Henry VIII.'s reign that the "Actes of Apparell"[772] first mention the novel luxury of shirts and partlets, "garded and pynched,"[773] in addition to clothes decorated in a similar manner, all of which are {290}forbidden to be worn by anyone under the degree of a knight.[774] In the year 1517 there had been a serious insurrection of the London apprentices against the numerous foreign tradesmen who already infested the land, which, followed up by the never-ending complaints of the workers of the mysteries of needlework, induced the king to ordain the wearing of such "myxte joyned garded or browdered"[775] articles of lynnen cloth be only allowed when the same be wrought within "this realm of England, Wales, Berwick, Calais, or the Marches."[776]
The earliest record we find of laced linen is in the Inventory of Sir Thomas L'Estrange, of Hunstanton, County of Norfolk, 1519, where it is entered, "3 elles of Holland cloth, for a shirte for hym, 6 shillings," with "a yard of lace for hym, 8d."
In a MS. called "The Boke of Curtasye"--a sort of treatise on etiquette, in which all grades of society are taught their duties--the chamberlain is commanded to provide for his master's uprising, a "clene shirte," bordered with lace and curiously adorned with needlework.
The correspondence, too, of Honor. Lady Lisle, seized by Henry VIII.[777] as treasonous and dangerous to the State, embraces a hot correspondence with one Soeur Antoinette de Sevenges, a nun milliner of Dunkirk, on the important subject of nightcaps,[778] one half dozen of which, she complains, are far too wide behind, and not of the lozenge (cut) work pattern she had selected. The nightcaps were in consequence to be changed.
Anne Basset, daughter of the said Lady Lisle, educated in a French convent, writes earnestly begging for an "edge {291}of perle[779] for her coif and a tablete (tablier) to ware." Her sister Mary, too, gratefully expresses her thanks to her mother, in the same year,[780] for the "laced gloves you sent me by bearer." Calais was still an English possession, and her products, like those of the Scotch Border fortresses, were held as such.[781]
Lace still appears but sparingly on the scene. Among the Privy Purse expenses of the king in 1530,[782] we find five shillings and eightpence paid to Richard Cecyll,[783] Groom of the Robes, for eight pieces of "yelowe lace, bought for the King's Grace." We have, too, in the Harleian Inventory,[784] a coif laid over with passamyne of gold and silver.
These "Acts of Apparell," as regards foreign imports, are, however, somewhat set aside towards the year 1546, when Henry grants a licence in favour of two Florentine merchants to export for three years' time, together with other matters, "all manner of fryngys and passements wrought with gold or silver, or otherwise, and all other new gentillesses of what facyon or value soever they may be, for the pleasure of our dearest wyeff the Queen, our nobles, gentlemen, and others."[785] The king, however, reserves to himself the first view of their merchandise, with the privilege of selecting anything he may please for his own private use, before their wares were hawked about the country. The said "dearest wyeff," from the date of the Act, must have been Katherine Parr; her predecessor, Katherine Howard, had for some four years slept headless in the vaults of the White Tower chapel. Of these "gentillesses" the king now began to avail himself. He selects "trunk sleeves of redd cloth of gold with cut-work;" knitted gloves of silk, and "handkerchers" edged with gold and silver; his towels are {292}of diaper, "with Stafford knots," or "knots and roses;" he has "coverpanes of fyne diaper of Adam and Eve garnished about with a narrow passamayne of Venice gold and silver; handkerchers of Holland, frynged with Venice gold, redd and white silk," others of "Flanders worke," and his shaving cloths trimmed in like fashion.[786] The merchandise of the two Florentines had found vast favour in the royal eyes. Though these articles were imported for "our dere wyeff's sake," beyond a "perle edging" to the coif of the Duchess of Suffolk, and a similar adornment to the tucker of Jane Seymour,[787] lace seems to have been little employed for female decoration during the reign of King Henry VIII.
[Illustration: Fig. 120.
FISHER, BISHOP OF ROCHESTER. + 1535. (M. de Versailles.)]
That it was used for the adornment of the ministers of the Church we have ample evidence. M. Aubry states having seen in London lace belonging to Cardinal Wolsey. On this matter we have no information; but we know the surplices were ornamented round the neck, shoulders, and sleeves with "white work" and cut-work[788] at this period. The specimens we give (Figs. 120, 121) are from a portrait formerly in the Library of the Sorbonne, now transferred to Versailles, of Fisher, Bishop of Rochester, Cardinal Fisher as he is styled--his cardinal's hat arriving at Dover at the very moment the head that was to wear it had fallen at Tower Hill.
PLATE LXXVI.
[Illustration: ENGLISH. CUTWORK AND NEEDLE-POINT.--Cross said to have belonged to Cardinal Wolsey.]
PLATE LXXVII.
[Illustration: ENGLISH. DEVONSHIRE "TROLLY."--First part of nineteenth century.
Photos by A. Dryden from private collection.]
_To face page 292._
{293}About this time, too, lace gradually dawns upon us in the church inventories. Among the churchwardens' accounts of St. Mary-at-Hill, date 1554, we find entered a charge of 3s. for making "the Bishopp's (boy bishop) myter with stuff and lace."[789] 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 old nun who, since the dissolution of the religious houses, eked out an existence by the art she had once practised within the walls of her convent.
At the burial of King Edward VI., Sir Edward Waldgrave enters on his account a charge of fifty yards of gold passement lace for garnishing the pillars of the church.
[Illustration: Fig. 121.
FISHER, BISHOP OF ROCHESTER.--(M. de Versailles.)]
The sumptuary laws of Henry VIII. were again renewed by Queen Mary:[790] in them ruffles made or wrought out of England, commonly called cut-work, are forbidden to anyone under the degree of a baron; while to women of a station beneath that of a knight's wife, all wreath lace or passement lace of gold and silver with sleeves, partlet or linen trimmed {294}with purles of gold and silver, or white-works, alias cut-works, etc., made beyond the sea, is strictly prohibited. These articles were, it seems, of Flemish origin, for among the New Year's Gifts presented to Queen Mary, 1556, we find enumerated as given by Lady Jane Seymour, "a fair smock of white work,[791] Flanders making." Lace, too, is now in more general use, for on the same auspicious occasion, Mrs. Penne, King Edward's nurse, gave "six handkerchers edged with passamayne of golde and silke."[792] Two years previous to these New Year's Gifts, Sir Thomas Wyatt is described as wearing, at his execution, "on his head a faire hat of velvet, with broad bone-work lace about it."[793]
Lace now seems to be called indifferently purle, passamayne or bone-work, the two first-mentioned terms occurring most frequently. The origin of this last appellation is generally stated to have been derived from the custom of using sheep's trotters previous to the invention of wooden bobbins. Fuller so explains it, and the various dictionaries have followed his theory. The Devonshire lace-makers, on the other hand, deriving their knowledge from tradition, declare that when lace-making was first introduced into their county, pins,[794] so indispensable to their art, being then sold at a price far beyond their means, the lace-makers, mostly the wives of fishermen living along the coast, adopted the {295}bones of fish, which, pared and cut into regular lengths, fully answered as a substitute. This explanation would seem more probable than that of employing sheep's trotters for bobbins, which, as from 300 to 400 are often used at one time on a pillow, must have been both heavy and cumbersome. Even at the present day pins made from chicken bones continue to be employed in Spain; and bone pins are still used in Portugal.[795]
Shakespeare, in _Twelfth-Night_, speaks of
"The spinsters and the knitters in the sun, And the free maids that weave their threads with bone."
"Bone" lace[796] constantly appears in the wardrobe accounts, while bobbin lace[797] is of less frequent occurrence.
Among the New Year's Gifts presented to Queen Elizabeth, we have from the Lady Paget "a petticoat of cloth of gold stayned black and white, with a bone lace of gold and spangles, like the wayves of the sea"; a most astounding article, with other entries no less remarkable but too numerous to cite.
{296}In the marriage accounts of Prince Charles[798] we have charged 150 yards of bone lace[799] for six extraordinary ruffs and twelve pairs of cuffs, against the projected Spanish marriage. The lace was at 9s. a yard. Sum total, £67 10s.[800] Bone lace is mentioned in the catalogue of King Charles I.'s pictures, drawn up by Vanderdort,[801] where James I. is described "without a hat, in a bone lace falling band."[802]
Setting aside wardrobe accounts and inventories, the term constantly appears both in the literature and the plays of the seventeenth century.
"Buy some quoifs, handkerchiefs, or very good bone lace, mistress?"
cries the pert sempstress when she enters with her basket of wares, in Green's _Tu Quoque_,[803] showing it to have been at that time the usual designation.
"You taught her to make shirts and bone lace,"
says someone in the _City Madam_.[804]
Again, describing a thrifty wife, Loveless, in _The Scornful Lady_,[805] exclaims--
"She cuts cambric to a thread, weaves bone lace, and quilts balls admirably."
The same term is used in the _Tatler_[806] and _Spectator_,[807] {297}and in the list of prizes given, in 1752, by the Society of Anti-Gallicans, we find, "Six pieces of bone lace for men's ruffles." It continued to be applied in the Acts of Parliament and notices relative to lace, nearly to the end of the eighteenth century.[808] After a time, the sheep's trotters or bones having been universally replaced by bobbins of turned box-wood, the term fell into disuse, though it is still retained in Belgium and Germany.
From the reign of Queen Mary onwards, frequent mention is made of parchment lace (see pp. 297-298), a term most generally associated with gold and silver, otherwise we should consider it as merely referring to needle-made lace, which is worked on a parchment pattern.
But to return to Queen Mary Tudor. We have among the "late Queen Mary's clothes" an entry of "compas"[809] lace; probably an early name for lace of geometric pattern. Open-work edging of gold and passamaine lace also occur; and on her gala robes lace of "Venys gold," as well as "vales of black network," a fabric to which her sister, Queen Elizabeth, was most partial;
## partlets,[810] dressings, shadowes, and pynners "de opere rete," appearing
constantly in her accounts.[811]
It was at this period, during the reign of Henry VIII. and Mary, a peculiar and universally prevalent fashion, varying in degrees of eccentricity and extravagance, to slash the garment so as to show glimpses of some contrasting underdress. Dresses thus slashed, or puffed, banded, "pinched," stiff with heavy gold and metal braid or embroidery, required but little additional adornment of lace.[812] The falling collar, which was worn in the early part of the sixteenth century, before the Elizabethan ruff (introduced from France about 1560), was, however, frequently edged with lace of geometric pattern.
Early in the sixteenth century the dresses of the ladies {298}fitted closely to the figure, with long skirts open in front to display the underdress; and were made low and cut square about the neck. Sometimes, however, the dresses were worn high with short waists and a small falling collar. Somewhat later, when the dresses were made open at the girdle, a
## partlet--a kind of habit-shirt--was worn beneath them, and carried to the
throat.[813]
Entries of lace in the wardrobe accounts are, however, few and inconsiderable until the reign of Queen Elizabeth.
PLATE LXXVIII.
[Illustration: MARIE DE LORRAINE, 1515-1560. DAUGHTER OF DUC DE GUISE, MARRIED JAMES V. OF SCOTLAND, 1538. This picture was probably painted before she left France, by an unknown French artist. National Portrait Gallery.
Photo by Walker and Cockerell.]
_To face page 298._
{299}