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.

[Illustration: MARY SIDNEY, COUNTESS OF PEMBROKE, IN 1614. 1555?--1621.--Probably by Marc Gheeraedts. National Portrait Gallery.

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.

[Illustration: HENRY WRIOTHESLEY, THIRD EARL OF SOUTHAMPTON, 1573-1624.--Probably painted in Holland about 1620, by Michiel Van Miereveldt. National Portrait Gallery.

Photo by Walker and Cockerell.]

_To face page 320._

{321}[Illustration: Fig. 125.

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.

[Illustration: Fig. 126.

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]

[Illustration: Fig. 127.

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.

[Illustration: ELIZABETH, PRINCESS PALATINE, GRANDDAUGHTER OF JAMES I., 1618-1680.--Probably about 1638. By Gerard Honthorst. National Portrait Gallery.

Photo by Walker and Cockerell.]

_To face page 326._

{327}[Illustration: Fig. 128.

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]

[Illustration: Fig. 129.

From an Engraving of Abraham Bosse.]

[Illustration: Fig. 130.

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]

[Illustration: Fig. 131.

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.

[Illustration: JAMES HARRINGTON, Author of "Oceana," 1611-1677. Between 1630-1640. By Gerard Honthorst. National Portrait Gallery.

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}