HISTORIE OF CLOATHING.
[THE following are the only essential parts of this chapter, which is
very short.—J. B.]
KING Edward the Third first settled the staples of wooll in Flanders.
See Hollinshead, Stowe, Speed, and the Statute Book, de hoc.
Staple, “estape”, i e. a market place; so the wooll staple at
Westminster, which is now a great market for flesh and fish.
When King Henry the Seventh lived in Flanders with his aunt the
Dutchess of Burgundie, he considered that all or most of the wooll that
was manufactured there into cloath was brought out of England; and
observing what great profit did arise by it, when he came to the crown
he sent into Flanders for cloathing manufacturers, whom he placed in
the west, and particularly at Send in Wiltshire, where they built
severall good houses yet remaining: I know not any village so remote
from London that can shew the like. The cloathing trade did flourish
here till about 1580, when they removed to Troubridge, by reason of (I
thinke) a plague; but I conjecture the main reason was that the water
here was not proper for the fulling and washing of their cloath; for
this water, being impregnated with iron, did give the white cloath a
yellowish tincture. Mem. In the country hereabout are severall families
that still retaine Walloun names, as Goupy, &c.
The best white cloaths in England are made at Salisbury, where the
water, running through chalke, becomes very nitrous, and therefore
abstersive. These fine cloathes are died black or scarlet, at London or
in Holland.
Malmesbury, a very neat town, hath a great name for cloathing.
The Art of Cloathing and Dyeing is already donn by Sir William Petty,
and is printed in the History of the Royall Society, writt by Dr.
Spratt, since Bishop of Rochester.