CHAPTER XXV
.
CHARLES II. TO THE HOUSE OF HANOVER.
----
CHARLES II.
"The dangling knee-fringe, and the bib-cravat." --Dryden. _Prologue._ 1674.
The taste for luxury only required the restoration of the Stuarts to burst out in full vigour.
The following year Charles II. issued a proclamation[980] enforcing the Act of his father prohibiting the entry of foreign bone lace; but, far from
## acting as he preached, he purchases Flanders lace at eighteen shillings the
yard, for the trimming of his fine lawn "collobium sindonis,"[981] a sort of surplice worn during the ceremony of the anointment at the coronation.
The hand-spinners of gold wire, thread lace, and spangles of the City of London, no longer puritanically inclined, now speak out boldly. "Having heard a report the Parliament intend to pass an Act against the wearing of their manufacture, they hope it intends the reform, not the destruction of their craft, for by it many thousands would be ruined. Let every person," say they, "be prohibited from wearing gold, silver, and thread lace--that will encourage the gentry to do so."[982]
In 1662 is passed an Act prohibiting the importation of foreign bone lace, cut-works, etc., setting forth, "Whereas many poor children have attained great dexterity in the {336}making thereof, the persons so employed have served most parts of the kingdom with bone lace, and for the carrying out of the same trade have caused much thread to be brought into the country, whereby the customs have been greatly advanced, until of late large quantities of bone lace, cut-work, etc., were brought into the kingdom and sold contrary to the former Statutes and the proclamation of November last; all such bone lace is to be forfeited, and a penalty of £100 paid by the offender."[983]
This same Act only occasioned the more smuggling of lace from Flanders, for the point made in England had never attained the beauty of Brussels, and indeed, wherever fine lace is mentioned at this period it is always of foreign fabric. That Charles himself was of this opinion there can be no doubt, for in the very same year he grants to one John Eaton a license to import such quantities of lace "made beyond the seas, as may be for the wear of the Queen, our dear Mother the Queen, our dear brother James, Duke of York," and the rest of the royal family. The permission is softened down by the words, "And to the end the same may be patterns for the manufacture of these commodities here, notwithstanding the late Statute forbidding their importation."[984] Charles had evidently received his lessons in the school of Mazarin. As the galleries of the cardinal were filled with sculptures, paintings, and majolica--rich produce of Italian art, as patterns for France, "per mostra di farne in Francia"--so the king's "pilea nocturna," pillow-beres, cravats, were trimmed with the points of Venice[985] and Flanders, at the rate of £600 per annum, for the sake of improving the lace manufacture of England.
The introduction of the flowing wig, with its long curls covering the shoulders, gave a final blow to the falling band; {337}the ends floating and tied in front could alone be visible. In time they diminished in size, and the remains are still seen in the laced bands of the lawyer, when in full dress, and the homely bordered cambric slips used by the clergy. The laced cravat now introduced continued in fashion until about the year 1735.[986]
It was at its height when Pepys writes in his diary: "Lord's Day, Oct. 19, 1662. Put on my new lace band, and so neat it is that I am resolved my great expense shall be lace bands, and it will set off anything else the more." The band was edged with the broadest lace. In the _Newes_, January 7th, 1663, we find: "Lost, a laced band, the lace a quarter of a yard deep, and the band marked in the stock with a B."
Mrs. Pepys--more thrifty soul--"wears her green petticoat of Florence satin, with white and black gimp lace of her own putting on (making), which is very pretty."
The custom, already common in France, of ladies making their own lace, excites the ire of the writer of _Britannia Languens_, in his "Discourse upon Trade."[987] "The manufacture of linen,"[988] he says, "was once the huswifery of English ladies, gentlewomen, and other women;" now "the huswifery women of England employ themselves in making an ill sort of lace, which serves no national or natural necessity."
The days of Puritan simplicity were at an end.
"Instead of homespun coifs were seen Good pinners edged with Colberteen."[989]
The laced cravat succeeded the falling collar. Lace handkerchiefs[990] were the fashion, and
"Gloves laced and trimmed as fine as Nell's."[991]
{338}Laced aprons, which even found their way to the homes of the Anglican clergy, and appear advertised as "Stolen from the vicarage house at Amersham in Oxfordshire: An apron of needlework lace, the middle being Network, another Apron laced with cut and slash lace."[992]
The newspapers crowd with losses of lace, and rarer--finds.[993]
They give us, however, no clue to the home manufacture. "A pasteboard box full of laced linen, and a little portmanteau with some white and grey Bone lace,"[994] would seem to signify a lace much made two hundred years ago, of which we have ourselves seen specimens from Dalecarlia, a sort of guipure, upon which the pattern is formed by the introduction of an unbleached thread, which comes out in full relief--a fancy more curious than pretty.
The petticoats of the ladies of King Charles's court have received due honour at the hands of Pepys, whose prying eyes seem to have been everywhere. On May 21 of the same year he so complacently admired himself in his new lace band, he writes down: "My wife and I to my Lord's lodging; where she and I staid walking in White Hall Gardens. And in the Privy Garden saw the finest smocks and linnen petticoats of my Lady Castlemaine's, laced with rich lace at the bottom, that ever I saw; and it did me good to look at them."
Speaking of the ladies' attire of this age, Evelyn says:--
"Another quilted white and red, With a broad Flanders lace below; Four pairs of bas de soye shot through {339} With silver; diamond buckles too, For garters, and as rich for shoe. Twice twelve day smocks of Holland fine, With cambric sleeves rich Point to joyn (For she despises Colbertine); Twelve more for night, all Flanders lac'd, Or else she'll think herself disgrac'd. The same her night gown must adorn, With two Point waistcoats for the morn; Of pocket mouchoirs, nose to drain, A dozen laced, a dozen plain; Three night gowns of rich Indian stuff; Four cushion-cloths are scarce enough Of Point and Flanders,"[995] etc.
It is difficult now to ascertain what description of lace was that styled Colbertine.[996] It is constantly alluded to by the writers of the period. Randle Holme (1688) styles it, "A kind of open lace with a square grounding."[997] Evelyn himself, in his _Fop's Dictionary_ (1690), gives, "Colbertine, a lace resembling net-work of the fabric of Monsieur Colbert, superintendent of the French King's manufactures;" and the _Ladies' Dictionary_, 1694, repeats his definition. This is more incomprehensible still, point d'Alençon being the lace that can be specially styled of "the fabric" of Colbert, and Colbertine appears to have been a coarse production.[998] Swift talks of knowing
"The difference between Rich Flanders lace and Colberteen."[999]
Congreve makes Lady Westport say--[1000]
"Go hang out an old Frisonier gorget with a yard of yellow Colberteen."
And a traveller, in 1691,[1001] speaking of Paris, writes:--"You shall see here the finer sort of people flaunting it in tawdry gauze or Colbertine, a parcel of coarse staring ribbons; but ten of their holyday habits shall not amount to what a citizen's wife of London wears on her head every day."
{340}JAMES II.
The reign of James II., short and troubled, brought but little change in the fashion of the day; more prominence, however, was given to the lace cravats, which were worn loosely round the throat, and with their ends hanging down over the upper part of the vest.
Charles II., in the last year of his reign, spends £20 12s. for a new cravat to be worn "on the birthday of his dear brother,"[1002] and James expends £29 upon one of Venice point to appear in on that of his queen. Frequent entries of lace for the attendants of the Chapel Royal form items in the Royal Wardrobe Accounts.
Ruffles, night-rails, and cravats of point d'Espagne and de Venise now figure in Gazettes,[1003] but "Flanders lace is still in high estimation," writes somebody, in 1668, "and even fans are made of it."
Then James II. fled, and years after we find him dying at St. Germains in--a laced nightcap. "This cap was called a 'toquet,' and put on when the king was in extremis, as a compliment to Louis XIV." "It was the court etiquette for all the Royals," writes Madame, in her _Memoirs_, "to die with a nightcap on." The toquet of King James may still be seen by the curious, adorning a wax model of the king's head, preserved as a relic in the Museum of Dunkirk.[1004]
Out of mingled gratitude, we suppose, for the hospitality she had received at the French court, and the protection of the angels, which, she writes, "I experienced once when I {341}set fire to my lace night cornet, which was burned to the very head without singeing a single hair"--good Queen Mary of Modena, who shone so brightly in her days of adversity, died, _selon les règles_, coeffed in like fashion.
With this notice we finish the St. Germains reign of King James the Second.
WILLIAM III.
"Long wigs, Steinkirk cravats." --Congreve. _Love for Love._
In William III.'s reign, the full shirt-sleeves, with their lace ruffles, were shown at the wrists, and the loose neckcloths had long pendent ends terminating in lace, if they were not entirely made of that material. The hat, too, was edged with gold lace, and for summer wear the gloves were edged with lace.
Women's sleeves, at first short, wide and lace-edged, showing the delicate sleeves of the under garment, soon became tight, and were prolonged to the wrists, where they terminated in deep and wide upturned cuffs, whence drooped a profusion of lace lappets and ruffles.
The hair, combed up, and with an inclination backwards from the forehead, was surmounted by a strata of ribbon and lace, sometimes intermingled with feathers, and a kerchief or scarf of some very light material was permitted to hang down to the waist, or below it.
In 1698 the English Parliament passed another Act "for rendering the laws more effectual for preventing the importation of foreign Bone lace, Loom lace, Needlework Point, and Cutwork,"[1005] with a penalty of 20s. per yard, and forfeiture. This Act caused such excitement among the convents and béguinages of Flanders that the Government, at that time under the dominion of Spain, prohibited, by way of retaliation, the importation of English wool. In consequence of the general distress occasioned by this edict {342}among the woolstaplers of England, the Act prohibiting the importation of foreign lace into England was repealed,[1006] so far as related to the Spanish Low Countries. England was the loser by this Custom-House war.[1007]
Dress, after the Revolution, partook of the stately sobriety of the House of Nassau, but lace was extensively worn. Queen Mary favoured that wonderful erection, already spoken of in our chapter on France,[1008] the tower or fontange, more generally called, certainly not from its convenience, the "commode," with its piled tiers of lace and ribbon, and the long hanging pinners, celebrated by Prior in his "Tale of the Widow and her Cat":--
"He scratch'd the maid, he stole the cream, He tore her best lac'd pinner."
Their Flanders lace heads, with the engageantes[1009] or ruffles, and the dress covered with lace frills and flounces--"every part of the garment in curl"--caused a lady, says the _Spectator_, to resemble "a Friesland hen."[1010]
Never yet were such sums expended on lace as in the days of William and Mary. The lace bill of the Queen, signed by Lady Derby, Mistress of the Robes, for the year 1694, amounts to the enormous sum of £1,918.[1011] Among the most extravagant entries we find:--
£. s. d. 21 yards of lace for 12 pillow beres, at 52s. 54 12 0 16 yards of lace for 2 toylights (toilets), at £12 192 0 0 24 yards for 6 handkerchiefs, at £4 10s. 108 0 0 30 yards for 6 night shifts, at 62s. 93 0 0 6 yards for 2 combing cloths, at £14 84 0 0 3½ yards for a combing cloth at £17 53 2 6 {343} 3-1/8 do. at £14 42 0 0 An apron of lace 17 0 0
None of the lace furnished by Mr. Bampton, thread lace provider and milliner to the court, for the Queen's engageantes and ruffles, however, seems to have exceeded £5 10_s_. the yard. There is little new in this account. The lace is entered as scalloped,[1012] ruffled, loopt: lace purle[1013] still lingers on; catgut, too, appears for the first time,[1014] as well as raised point[1015] and needlework.[1016] The Queen's pinners are mentioned as Mazzarined;[1017] some fashion named in honour of the once fair Hortense, who ended her exiled life in England.
"What do you lack, ladies fair, Mazzarine hoods, Fontanges, girdles?"[1018]
King William himself, early imbued with the Dutch taste for lace, exceeded, we may say, his wife in the extravagance of his lace bills; for though the lace account for 1690 is noted only at £1,603, it increases annually until the year 1695-6, when the entries amount to the astonishing sum of £2,459 19s.[1019] Among the items charged will be found:--
£. s. d.
To six point cravats 158 0 0 To eight do. for hunting 85 0 0 54 yds. for 6 barbing cloths 270 0 0 63 yds. for 6 combing cloths 283 10 0 117 yards of "scissæ teniæ" (cut-work) for trimming 12 pockethandfs 485 14 3 78 yds. for 24 cravats, at £8 10s. 663 0 0
{344}In this right royal account of expenditure we find mention of "cockscombe laciniæ," of which the King consumes 344 yards.[1020] What this may be we cannot say, as it is described as "green and white"; otherwise we might have supposed it some kind of Venice point, the little pearl-edged raised patterns of which are designated by Randle Holme as "cockscombs." More coquet than a woman, we find an exchange effected with Henry Furness, "Mercatori," of various laces, purchased for his handkerchiefs and razor cloths, which, laid by during the two years of "lugubris" for his beloved consort, the Queen--during which period he had used razor cloths with broad hems and no lace--had become "obsolete"--quite out of fashion. To effect this exchange the King pays the sum of £178 12s. 6d., the lace purchased for the six new razor cloths amounting to £270. In the same page we find him, now out of mourning, expending £499 10s. for lace to trim his twenty-four new nightshirts, "indusiis nocturnis."
With such royal patronage, no wonder the lace trade prospered, and that, within ten years of William's death, Defoe should quote the point lace of Blandford as selling at £30 the yard.
PLATE LXXXIII.
[Illustration: JAMES, THE OLD PRETENDER, 1688-1766, WITH HIS SISTER PRINCESS LOUISA, 1692-1712. In 1695. By Nicolas de Largillière. National Portrait Gallery.
Photo by Walker and Cockerell.]
_To face page 344._
{345}We have already told how the fashion of the laced Steinkirk found as much favour in England[1021] as in France. Many people still possess, among their family relics, long oval-shaped brooches of topaz or Bristol stones, and wonder what they were used for. These old-fashioned articles of jewellery were worn to fasten (when not passed through the button-hole) the lace Steinkirk, so prevalent not only among the nobility, but worn by all classes. If the dialogue between Sir Nicholas Dainty and Major-General Blunt, as given in Shadwell's play, be correct, the volunteers of King William's day were not behind the military in elegance:--
"SIR NICHOLAS.--I must make great haste, I shall ne'er get my Points and Laces done up time enough.
"MAJ. GEN. B.--What say'st, young fellow? Points and Laces for camps?
"SIR NICH.--Yes, Points and Laces; why, I carry two laundresses on purpose.... Would you have a gentleman go undress'd in a camp? Do you think I would see a camp if there was no dressing? Why, I have two campaign suits, one trimmed with Flanders lace, and the other with rich Point.
"MAJ. GEN. B.--Campaign suits with lace and Point!"[1022]
In Westminster Abbey, where, as somewhat disrespectfully, say the Brothers Popplewell,[1023] the images of William and Mary
"Stand upright in a press, with their bodies made of wax, A globe and a wand in either hand and their robes upon their backs"--
the lace tucker and double sleeves of Queen Mary are of the finest raised Venice point, resembling Fig. 29; King William likewise wears a rich lace cravat and ruffles.[1024]
In a memorandum (carta d'informazione) given to the Venetian ambassadors about to proceed to England, 1696, they are to be provided with very handsome collars of the finest Venetian point, which, it is added, is also the best present to make.[1025]
Before concluding the subject of the lace-bearing heroes, we may as well state here that the English soldiers rivalled the cavaliers of France in the richness of their points till the extinction of hair-powder (the wearing of which in the army consumes, says some indignant writer, flour enough to feed 600,000 persons per annum), when the lace cravat was replaced by the stiff and cumbersome stock. Speaking of {346}these military dandies, writes the _World_: "Nor can I behold the lace and the waste of finery in their clothing but in the same light as the silver plates and ornaments on a coffin; indeed, I am apt to impute their going to battle so trimmed and adorned to the same reason a once fine lady painted her cheeks just before she expired, that she might not look frightful when she was dead."
"To war the troops advance, Adorned and trim like females for the dance. Down sinks Lothario, sent by one dire blow, A well-dress'd hero to the shades below."
As the justice's daughter says to her mamma, in Sheridan's _St. Patrick's Day_:--
"Dear; to think how the sweet fellows sleep on the ground, and fight in silk stockings and lace ruffles."
Lace had now become an article worthy the attention of the light-fingered gentry. The jewels worn by our great-grandmothers of the eighteenth century, though mounted in the most exquisite taste, were for the most part false--Bristol or Alençon "diamonds," paste, or "Strass." Lace, on the other hand, was a sure commodity and easily disposed of. At the robbery of Lady Anderson's house in Red Lion Square during a fire, in 1700, the family of George Heneage, Esq., on a visit, are recorded to have lost--"A head with fine loopt lace, of very great value; a Flanders lace hood; a pair of double ruffles and tuckers; two laced aprons, one point, the other Flanders lace; and a large black lace scarf embroidered in gold."
Again, at an opera row some years later, the number of caps, ruffles, and heads enumerated as stolen by the pickpockets is quite fabulous. So expert had they become, that when first the ladies took to wearing powdered wigs, they dexterously cut open the leather backs of the hack coaches and carried off wig, head and all, before the rifled occupant had the slightest idea of their attack.[1026] To remedy the evil, the police request all ladies for the future to sit with their backs to the horses.[1027]
{347}QUEEN ANNE.
"PARLEY.--Oh, Sir, there's the prettiest fashion lately come over! so airy, so French, and all that! The Pinners are double ruffled with twelve plaits of a side, and open all from the face; the hair is frizzled up all round head, and stands as stiff as a bodkin. Then the Favourites hang loose upon the temple with a languishing lock in the middle. Then the Caule is extremely wide, and over all is a Cornet rais'd very high and all the Lappets behind."--Farquhar. _Sir Harry Wildair._
Queen Anne, though less extravagant than her sister, was scarcely more patriotic. The point purchased for her coronation,[1028] though it cost but £64 13s. 9d., was of Flanders growth. The bill is made out to the royal laceman of King William's day, now Sir Henry Furnesse, knight and merchant.
The Queen, too, in her gratitude, conferred a pension of £100 upon one Mrs. Abrahat, the royal clear-starcher; "because," writes the Duchess of Marlborough, "she had washed the Queen's heads for twenty pounds a year when she was princess."
In 1706 Anne again repeals the Acts which prohibit Flanders lace, with the clear understanding that nothing be construed into allowing the importation of lace made in "the dominions of the French King";[1029] an edict in itself sufficient to bring the points of France into the highest fashion.[1030]
"France," writes an essayist, "is the wardrobe of the world;" nay, "the English have so great an esteem for the workmanship of the French refugees, that hardly a thing vends without a Gallic name."[1031]
To the refugees from Alençon and elsewhere, expelled by the cruel edict of Louis XIV., we owe the visible improvement of our laces in the eighteenth century.
Up to the present time we have had mention only of {348}"Flanders lace" in general. In the reign of Queen Anne the points of "Macklin" and Brussels are first noted down in the Royal Wardrobe Accounts. In 1710 her Majesty pays for 26 yards of fine edged Brussels lace £151.[1032] "Mais, l'appétit vient en mangeant." The bill of Margareta Jolly, for the year 1712, for the furnishing of Mechlin and Brussels lace alone, amounts to the somewhat extravagant sum of £1,418 14_s_. Taking the average price of the "Lace chanter on Ludgate Hill," articles of daily use were costly enough. "One Brussels head is valued at £40; a grounded Brussels head, £30; one looped Brussels, £30." These objects, high as the price may seem, lasted a woman's life. People in the last century did not care for variety, they contented themselves with a few good articles; hence among the objects given in 1719, as necessary to a lady of fashion, we merely find:--
£ s. d.
A French point or Flanders head and ruffles 80 0 0 A ditto handkerchief 10 0 0 A black French laced hood 5 5 0
When the Princess Mary, daughter of George II., married, she had but four fine laced Brussels heads, two loopt and two grounded, two extremely fine point ones, with ruffles and lappets, six French caps and ruffles.[1033]
Two point lace cravats were considered as a full supply for any gentleman. Even young extravagant Lord Bedford, who, at eighteen years of age, found he could not spend less than £6,000 a year at Rome, when on the grand tour, only charges his mother, Rachel Lady Russell, with that number.[1034]
The high commode,[1035] with its lace rising tier upon tier, which made the wits about town declare the ladies "carried Bow steeple upon their heads," of a sudden collapsed in Queen Anne's reign. It had shot up to a most extravagant height, "insomuch that the female part of our species were {349}much taller than the men. We appeared," says the _Spectator_,[1036] "as grasshoppers before them."[1037]
In 1711 Anne forbade the entry of gold and silver lace,[1038] of which the consumption had become most preposterous,[1039] under pain of forfeiture and the fine of £100. Ladies wore even cherry-coloured stays trimmed with the forbidden fabric.[1040] The point of Spain had the preference over thread lace for state garments, heads and ruffles excepted; and as late as 1763, when the Dowager Lady Effingham was robbed of her coronation robes, among the wonderful finery detailed there is no mention of thread lace.
The commerce of Flanders, notwithstanding the French taste, seemed now on a comfortable footing. "The Flander-kins," writes the _British Merchant_ in 1713, "are gone off from wool, which we have got, to lace and linen.... We have learned better, I hope, by our unsuccessful attempt to prohibit the Flanders laces, which made the Flemings retaliate upon us, and lessened our exportation of woollen manufactures by several £100,000 per annum."[1041]
Men looked upon lace as a necessary article to their wives' equipment. Addison declares that when the China mania first came in, women exchanged their Flanders point for punch-bowls and mandarins, thus picking their husbands' pockets, who is often purchasing a huge china vase when he fancies that he is buying a fine head for his wife.[1042] Indeed, they could scarcely grumble, as a good wig cost from forty to fifty guineas--to say nothing of their own lace ties and {350}ruffles. Only an old antiquary like Sir Thomas Clayton could note down in his accounts:--"Lace and fal-lalls,[1043] and a large looking-glass to see her old ugly face in--frivolous expenses to please my proud lady."
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