Volltext Seite (XML)
CHARLES I. 295 luid requested lier 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, 18th May 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 1207., for the bone laces are extremely dear. I intend to send it by Monsieur Ruvigny, for most of the things are of new fashion, and 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. o An act of 1638 for reforming abuses in the manufacture of lace, by which competent persons are appointed, whether natives or strangers, “ who should be of the Church of England,” can scarcely have been advantageous to the community. Lace, since the Reformation, had disappeared from the garment 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 skirt, necke, and bandes.” Smuggling, too, had appeared upon the scene. In 162 i, information is laid how Nicholas Peeter, master of the “Grey hound, of Apsom,” had landed at Dover sundry packets of “ cut- workes ” and bone laces without paying the customs. 69 But the “ Eebatoos, ribbands, cuffs, ruffs, falls, Scarfes, feathers, fans, maskes, muffs, laces, cauls,” 79 of Iving Charles’s court were soon to disperse at the now outbreak ing revolution. The Herrn Mai or Frau (Lady Mayoress), the secretly brought into the monastery. The Abbess (“ Vie de la Mere d’Arbouse ”) declared that this same casket came from the Queen of England, and that it oidy contained lace, ribbons, and other trim mings of English fashion, sent by Hen- lietta Maria as a present to the Queen. “ Galerie de l’Ancienne Cour,” 1791. 69 “ State Papers, Dom.” vol. cxxiii. No. 05. 70 “ Rhodon and Iris, a Pastoral,” 1631.