[985] He pays £194 to his Laceman (Tenentori) for 3 Cravats "de poynt de
Venez," and 24s. per yard for 57 yards of narrow point "teniæ poynt
augustæ," to trim his falling ruffles, "manicis cadentibus,"
etc.--G. W. A. Car. II. 24 and 25.
Later (1676-7) we find charged for "un par manicarum, le poynt,
£14."
[986] When it was replaced by a black ribbon and a bow.
[987] London, 1680.
[988] Authors, however, disagree like the rest of the world. In a tract
called _The Ancient Trades Decayed Repaired Again_, by Sir Roger
L'Estrange (1678), we read: "Nay, if the materials used in a trade
be not of the growth of England, yet, if the trade be to employ the
poor, we should have it bought without money, and brought to us from
beyond the seas where it is made as 'Bone lace.'"
[989] Swift. _Baucis and Philemon._
[990] _Intelligencer_, 1665, June 5. "Lost, six handkerchers wrapt up in a
brown paper, two laced, one point-laced set on tiffany; the two
laced ones had been worn, the other four new."
_London Gazette._ 1672, Dec. 5-9. "Lost, a lawn pocket handkercher
with a broad hem, laced round with a fine Point lace about four
fingers broad, marked with an R in red silk."
[991] Evelyn. It was the custom, at a Maiden Assize, to present the judge
with a pair of "laced gloves." Lord Campbell in 1856, at the Lincoln
Lent Assizes, received from the sheriff a pair of white gloves
richly trimmed with Brussels lace and embroidered, the city arms
embossed in frosted silver on the back.
[992] _London Gazette._ 1677, Jan. 28-31. Again, Oct. 4-8, in the same
year. "Stolen or lost out of the Petworth waggon, a deal box
directed to the Lady Young of Burton in Sussex; there was in it a
fine Point Apron, a suit of thin laced Night clothes," etc.
[993] _London Gazette._ 1675, June 14-17. "A right Point lace with a long
musling neck laced at the ends with a narrow Point about three
fingers broad, and a pair of Point cuffs of the same, worn foul and
never washt, was lost on Monday last."
_Ibid._ 1677, Oct. 22-25. "Found in a ditch, Four laced forehead
cloths. One laced Pinner, one laced Quoif, one pair of laced
ruffels.... Two point aprons and other laced linen."
_Intelligencer._ 1664, Oct. 3. "Lost, A needle work point without a
border, with a great part of the loups cut out, and a quarter of it
new loupt with the needle. £5 reward."
[994] _London Gazette._ 1677, Oct. 8-11.
[995] _Tyrannus, or the Mode._ 1661.
[996] It is written Colberteen, Colbertain, Golbertain, Colbertine.
[997] Colberteen, a lace resembling network, being of the manufacture of
M. Colbert, a French statesman.
[998] A writer in _Notes and Queries_ says: "I recollect this lace worn as
a ruffle fifty years ago. The ground was square and coarse, it had a
fine edge, with a round mesh, on which the pattern was woven. It was
an inferior lace and in every-day wear."
[999] _Cadenus and Vanessa._ See also Young, p. 111.
[1000] _Way of the World._
[1001] _Six Weeks in France._ 1691.
[1002] Gt. W. A. Car. II. 35-36 = 1683-4.
[1003] _Gazette_, July 20, 1682. Lost, a portmanteau full of women's
clothes, among which are enumerated "two pairs of Point d'Espagne
ruffles, a laced night rail and waistcoat, a pair of Point de Venise
ruffles, a black laced scarf," etc.--_Malcolm's Anecdotes of
London._
The lace of James II.'s cravats and ruffles are of point de Venise.
Sex prælant cravatts de lacinia Venetiarum, are charged £141, and 9
yards lace, for six more cravats, £45.
£36 10s. for the cravat of Venice lace to wear on the day of his
Coronation," etc.--G. W. A. Jac. II. 1685-6.
[1004] A writer in the _Gentleman's Magazine_, (October, 1745), mentions:
"In the parlour of the monastery of English Benedictines at Paris, I
was shown the mask of the king's face, taken off immediately after
he was dead, together with the fine laced nightcap he died in." The
cap at Dunkirk is trimmed with Flemish lace (old Mechlin). It must
have passed from Paris to the convent of English Benedictines at
Dunkirk, who left that city in 1793. There is no record how it
became deposited in the Museum.--Communicated by M. de Forçade,
Conservator of the Museu la Dunkirk.
[1005] 9 & 10 Will. III. = 1697-8.
[1006] 11 & 12 Will. III. = 1698-9.
[1007] Smith's _Wealth of Nations_.
[1008] See LOUIS XIV.
[1009] See LOUIS XIV.
[1010] _Spectator_, No. 129. 1711.
"Lost, from behind a Hackney coach, Lombard Street, a grounded lace
night rail."--_London Gazette._ Aug. 8, 1695.
"Lost, two loopt lace Pinners and a pair of double laced ruffles,
bundled up together."--_Ibid._ Jan. 6-10, 1697.
"Taken out of two boxes in Mr. Drouth's waggon ... six cards of
piece lace looped and purled, scolopt heads to most of them ... a
fine Flanders lace head and ruffles, groundwork set on a wier,"
etc.--_Ibid._ April 11-14, 1698.
"Furbelows are not confined to scarfs, but, they must have
furbelow'd gowns, and furbelow'd petticoats, and furbelow'd aprons;
and, as I have heard, furbelow'd smocks too."--_Pleasant Art of
Money-catching._ 1730.
[1011] B. M. Add. MSS. No. 5751.
[1012] "Bought of John Bishop & Jer. Peirie, att y^e Golden Ball, in
Ludgate Hill, 26 April, 1693:
"3 yards ½ of Rich silver rufl'd scollop lace falbala, with a Rich
broad silver Tire Orris at the head, at 7s. 3d. a yard, £25 0s. 6d.
"8 yards of broad scollopped thread lace, at 25s.
"3 yards Rich Paigning (?) Lace, 48s. 8d., £8 14s."
[1013] "9 ½ Fine purle to set on the pinner, at 3s."
[1014] "5 ¾ of fine broad cattgutt border, at 20_s_."
[1015] "1 yard 7/16 Raised Point to put on the top of a pair of sleeves, at
30s."
[1016] "8 yards of Broad Needlework Lace, at 30s."
[1017] "3 yards of lace to Mazzarine y^e pinners, at 25s."
Probably the same as the French "campanner."
[1018] The Milliner, in Shadwell's _Bury Fair_. 1720.
[1019] G. W. A. Will. III. 1688 to 1702. P. R. O.
[1020] _Ibid._ vii. & viii.
[1021] "I hope your Lordship is pleased with your Steinkerk."--Sir John
Vanbrugh. _The Relapse._
In Colley Cibber's _Careless Husband_, Lady Easy takes the Steinkirk
off her neck and lays it on Sir Charles's head when he is asleep.
In _Love's Last Shift_, by the same author (1695), the hero speaks
of being "Strangled in my own Steinkerk."
In _Love for Love_, by Congreve, Sir Novelty enumerates the
Steinkirk, the large button, with other fashions, as created by him.
"I have heard the Steinkirk arrived but two months
ago."--_Spectator_, No. 129.
The "modish spark" wears "a huge Steinkirk, twisted, to the
waist."--1694. _Prologue to First Part of Don Quixote._
Frank Osbaldeston, in _Rob Roy_, is deprived by the Highlanders of
his cravat, "a Steinkirke richly laced."
At Ham House was the portrait of a Countess of Dysart, temp. Anne,
in three-cornered cocked hat, long coat, flapped waistcoat, and
Mechlin Steinkirk.
In the Account Book of Isabella, Duchess of Grafton, daughter of
Lord Arlington, Evelyn's "sweet child"--her portrait hangs in Queen
Mary's Room, Hampton Court--we have: "1709. To a Stinkirk, £1 12s.
3d."
They appear to have been made of other stuffs than lace, for in the
same account, 1708, we have entered: "To a green Steenkirk, £1 1s.
6d."
[1022] _The Volunteers, or the Stock Jobbers._
[1023] "The Tombs in Westminster Abbey," sung by the Brothers Popplewell.
Broadside, 1775.--B. M. Roxburgh Coll.
[1024] King Charles II.'s lace is the same as that of Queen Mary. The
Duchess of Buckingham (the "mad" Duchess, daughter of James II.) has
also very fine raised lace.
[1025] Venice, Bib. St. Mark. Contarini Miscellany. Communicated by Mr.
Rawdon Brown.
[1026] _Weekly Journal._ March, 1717.
[1027] _The Modern Warrior._ 1756.
[1028] Acc. of Ralph, Earl of Montague, Master of the G. W., touching the
Funeral of William III. and Coronation of Queen Anne. P. R. O.
[1029] Statutes at large.--Anne 5 & 6.
[1030] This edict greatly injured the lace trade of France. In the _Atlas
Maritime et Commercial_ of 1727, it states: "I might mention several
other articles of French manufacture which, for want of a market in
England where their chief consumption was, are so much decayed and
in a manner quite sunk. I mean as to exportation, the English having
now set up the same among themselves, such as bone lace."
[1031] _History of Trade._ London, 1702.
[1032] "Pro 14 virgis lautæ Fimbr' Bruxell' laciniæ et 12 virgis dict'
laciniæ pro Reginæ persona, £151."--G. W. A. 1710-11.
[1033] _Letters of the Countess of Hartford to the Countess of Pomfret._
1740.
[1034] _Memoirs of Lady R. Russell._
"My high commode, my damask gown,
My laced shoes of Spanish leather."
--D'Urfey. _The Young Maid's Portion._
[1036] No. 98. 1711.
[1037] After fifteen years' discontinuance it shot up again. Swift, on
meeting the Duchess of Grafton, dining at Sir Thomas Hanmer's, thus
attired, declared she "looked like a mad woman."
[1038] Statutes at large.
[1039] In 1712 Mrs. Beale had stolen from her "a green silk knit waistcoat
with gold and silver flowers all over it, and about 14 yards of gold
and silver thick lace on it"; while another lady was robbed of a
scarlet cloth coat so overlaid with the same lace, it might have
been of any other colour.--_Malcolm's Anecdotes of the Manners and
Customs of London in the Eighteenth Century._
[1040] _Post Boy._ Nov. 15, 1709. Articles Lost.
[1041] _A Discourse on Trade_, by John Cary, merchant of Bristol. 1717.
Again: "What injury was done by the Act 9-10 Will. III. for the more
effectual preventing of importation of foreign bone lace, doth
sufficiently appear by the preamble to that made 10-12 of the same
reign for repealing it three months after the prohibition of our
woollen manufactures in Flanders (which was occasioned by it) should
be taken off; but I don't understand it be yet done, and it may
prove an inevitable loss to the nation."
[1042] _Lover._ No. 10. 1714.
[1043] The ornamental ribbons worn about the dress: "His dress has bows,
and fine fallals."--Evelyn. Sometimes the term appears applied to
the Fontanges or Commode. We read (1691) of "her three-storied
Fladdal."
[1044] _Tunbridge Wells._ 1727.
[1045] In _The Recruiting Officer_ (1781), Lucy the maid says: "Indeed,
Madam the last bribe I had from the Captain was only a small piece
of Flanders lace for a cap." Melinda answers: "Ay, Flanders lace is
a constant present from officers.... They every year bring over a
cargo of lace, to cheat the king of his duty and his subjects of
their honesty." Again, Silvio, in the bill of costs he sends in to
the widow Zelinda, at the termination of his unsuccessful suit,
makes a charge for "a piece of Flanders lace" to Mrs. Abigail, her
woman.--Addison, in _Guardian_, No. 17. 1713.
[1046] "In the next reign, George III. and Queen Charlotte often
condescended to become sponsors to the children of the aristocracy.
To one child their presence was fatal. In 1778 they 'stood' to the
infant daughter of the last Duke and Duchess of Chandos. Cornwallis,
Archbishop of Canterbury, officiated. The baby, overwhelmed by whole
mountains of lace, lay in a dead faint. Her mother was so tender on
the point of etiquette, that she would not let the little incident
trouble a ceremony at which a king and queen were about to endow her
child with the names of Georgiana Charlotte. As Cornwallis gave back
the infant to her nurse, he remarked that it was the quietest baby
he had ever held. Poor victim of ceremony! It was not quite dead,
but dying; in a few unconscious hours it calmly slept away."--"A
Gossip on Royal Christenings." _Cornhill Magazine._ April, 1864.
[1047] "Furniture of a Woman's Mind."
[1048] "Dean Swift to a Young Lady."
[1049] Cowley.
[1050] 1731. _Simile for the Ladies, alluding to the laces worn at the last
Birthday and not paid for._
"In Evening fair you may behold
The Clouds are fringed with borrowed gold,
And this is many a lady's case
Who flaunts about in borrowed lace."
[1051] Jenyns. "The Modern Fine Lady."
[1052] Crown. _Sir Courtly Nice, or It Cannot Be_, a Comedy. 1731.
[1053] "1748. Ruffles of twelve pounds a yard."--_Apology for Mrs. T. C.
Philips._ 1748.
Lace, however, might be had at a more reasonable rate:--
"'I have a fine lac'd suit of pinners,' says Mrs. Thomas, 'that was
my great-grandmother's! that has been worn but twice these forty
years, and my mother told me cost almost four pounds when it was
new, and reaches down hither.'"--"Miss Lucy in Town." Fielding.
[1054] _Dictionary of Commerce._ 1766.
[1055] He was a martinet about his own dress, for his biographer relates
during the last illness of Queen Caroline (1737), though the King
was "visibly affected," remembering he had to meet the foreign
ministers next day, he gave particular directions to his pages "to
see that new ruffles were sewn on his old shirt sleeves, whereby he
might wear a decent air in the eyes of the representatives of
foreign majesty."
[1056] "By a list of linen furnished to the Princesses Louisa and Mary, we
find their night-dresses were trimmed with lace at 10s. per yard,
and while their Royal Highnesses were in bibs, they had six suits of
broad lace for aprons at from £50 to £60 each suit."--_Corr. of the
Countess of Suffolk, Lady of the Bedchamber to Queen Caroline._
Observe also the lace-trimmed aprons, ruffles, tuckers, etc., in the
pretty picture of the family of Frederick, Prince of Wales, at
Hampton Court Palace.
[1057] The laws regarding the introduction of lace during this reign
continued much the same until 1749, when the royal assent was given
to an Act preventing the importation or wear of gold, silver, and
thread lace manufactured in foreign parts.
[1058] In the meeting of Nov. 10, 1752, at the "Crown, behind the Royal
Exchange," the Hon. Edward Vernon, grand president, in the chair, it
was agreed that the following premiums should be awarded: "For the
best pair of men's needlework ruffles, to be produced to the
committee in the first week of May next, five guineas; to the
second, three guineas; to the third, two guineas. And for the best
pair of English bone lace for ladies' lappets, to be produced to the
committee in August next, fifteen guineas; to the second, ten
guineas; to the third, five guineas."--_Gentleman's Magazine._
[1059] "Cardinal," a loose cloak after the fashion of a cardinal's
"_trollopée_," a loose flowing gown open in the front, worn as a
morning dress.--Fairholt. "Slammerkin," a sort of loose dress. This
ugly word, in course of time, was used as an adjective, to signify
untidy. Fortunately it is now obsolete.
[1060] "Don't read history to me, for that I know to be false," said Sir R.
Walpole to his son Horace, when he offered to read to him in his
last illness.
[1061] Lady M. W. Montagu. "Letter to Lord Harvey on the King's Birthday."
"The working apron, too, from France,
With all its trim appurtenance."
--"Mundus Muliebris."
[1063] Goldsmith. _Life of Richard Nash, of Bath._ London, 1762.
[1064] 1764.
[1065] _Gentleman's Magazine._
[1066] 1767. "An officer of the customs seized nearly £400 worth of
Flanders lace, artfully concealed in the hollow of a ship's buoy, on
board a French trader, lying off Iron Gate."--_Annual Register._
1772. "27,000 ells of French (Blois?) lace were seized in the port
of Leigh alone."--_Gentleman's Magazine._
[1067] The turbulent Bishop of Rochester, who was arraigned for his
Jacobite intrigues, and died in exile at Paris. 1731.
[1068] If imported in smaller quantities than twelve yards, the duty
imposed was £2 per yard.
"Let the ruffle grace his hand,
Ruffle, pride of Gallic land."
--"The Beau." 1755.
"And dip your wristbands
(For cuffs you've none) as comely in the sauce
As any courtier."
--Beaumont and Fletcher.
[1071] He had retired to the country to be out of the way.
[1072] August, 1776.
[1073] The wardrobe of George IV. was estimated at the same sum.
[1074] Cowper.
[1075] 1757.
[1076] "Monsieur à la Mode." 1753.
"Let of ruffles many a row
Guard your elbows white as snow."
--"The Belle." 1755.
"Gone to a lady of distinction with a Brussels head and
ruffles."--_The Fool of Quality._ 1766.
[1078] "Receipt for Modern Dress." 1753.
[1079] _Recollections of Madame d'Arblay._
[1080] Beaumont and Fletcher. _The Knight of Malta._
[1081] In coffins with glass tops. Some of them date from 1700.
[1082] In the vault of the Schleswig-Holstein family at Sonderburg.
[1083] In the church of Revel lies the Duc de Croÿ, a general of Charles
XII., arrayed in full costume, with a rich flowing tie of fine
guipure; not that he was ever interred--his body had been seized by
his creditors for debt, and there it still remains.
The author of _Letters from a Lady in Russia_ (1775), describing the
funeral of a daughter of Prince Menzikoff, states she was dressed in
a nightgown of silver tissue, on her head a fine laced mob, and a
coronet; round her forehead a ribbon embroidered with her name and
age, etc.
[1084] Alluding to this custom of interring ladies of rank in full dress,
Madame de Sévigné writes to her daughter:--"Mon Dieu, ma chère
enfant, que vos femmes sont sottes, vivantes et mortes! Vous me
faites horreur de cette fontange; quelle profanation! cela sent le
paganisme, ho! cela me dégoûteroit bien de mourir en Provence; il
faudroit que du moins je fusse assuré qu'on ne m'iroit pas chercher
une coëffeuse en même temps qu'un plombier. Ah! vraiment! fi! ne
parlez plus de cela."--Lettre 627. Paris, 13 Déc, 1688.
[1085] Laborde. _Itin. de l'Espagne._ Again, the Duc de Luynes says: "The
Curé of St. Sulpice related to me the fashion in which the Duke of
Alva, who died in Paris in 1739, was by his own will interred. A
shirt of the finest Holland, trimmed with new point lace, the finest
to be had for money; a new coat of Vardez cloth, embroidered in
silver; a new wig; his cane on the right, his sword on the left of
his coffin."--_Mémoires._
[1086] That grave-clothes were lace-trimmed we infer from the following
strange announcement in the _London Gazette_ for August 12th to
15th, 1678: "Whereas decent and fashionable lace shifts and
Dressings for the dead, made of woollen, have been presented to his
Majesty by Amy Potter, widow (the first that put the making of such
things in practice), and his Majesty well liking the same, hath upon
her humble Petition, been graciously pleased to give her leave to
insert this advertisement, that it may be known she now wholly
applies herself in making both lace and plain of all sorts, at
reasonable prices, and lives in Crane Court in the Old Change, near
St. Paul's Church Yard." Again, in November of the same year, we
find another advertisement:--"His Majesty, to increase the woollen
manufacture and to encourage obedience to the late act for burying
in woollen, has granted to Amy Potter the sole privilege of making
all sorts of woollen laces for the decent burial of the dead or
otherwise, for fourteen years, being the first inventor thereof."
[1087] Betterton's _History of the English Stage_. Her kindness to the
poet Savage is well known.
[1088] This seems to have been a spécialité of Gibbons; for we find among
the treasures of Strawberry Hill: "A beautiful cravat, in imitation
of lace, carved by Gibbons, very masterly."--_Hist. and Antiquities
of Twickenham._ London, 1797.
[1089] Mrs. Piozzi's _Memoirs_.
[1090] A lady, who had very fine old lace, bequeathed her "wardrobe and
lace" to some young friends, who, going after her death to take
possession of their legacy, were surprised to find nothing but new
lace. On inquiring of the old faithful Scotch servant what had
become of the old needle points, she said: "Deed it's aw there,
'cept a wheen auld Dudds, black and ragged, I flinged on the fire."
Another collection of old lace met with an equally melancholy fate.
The maid, not liking to give it over to the legatees in its
coffee-coloured hue, sewed it carefully together, and put it in a
strong soap lye on the fire, to simmer all night. When she took it
out in the morning, it was reduced to a jelly! Medea's caldron had
not been more effectual!
[1091] Cowper. "The Winter Evening."
[1092] Bishop Berkeley, in _A Word to the Wise_, writes of the English
labourers in the South of England on a summer's evening "sitting
along the streets of the town or village, each at his own door, with
a cushion before him, making bone lace, and earning more in an
evening's pastime than an Irish family would in a whole day."
[1093] "Wells, bone lace and knitting stockings."--Anderson.
[1094] "Launceston, where are two schools for forty-eight children of both
sexes. The girls are taught to read, sew, and make bone lace, and
they are to have their earnings for encouragement."--_Magna
Britannia._ 1720.
Welsh lace was made at Swansea, Pont-Ardawe, Llanwrtyd, Dufynock,
and Brecon, but never of any beauty, some not unlike a coarse
Valenciennes. "It was much made and worn," said an aged Wesleyan
lady, "by our 'connexion,' and as a child I had all my frocks and
pinafores trimmed with it. It was made in the cottages; each
lace-maker had her own pattern, and carried it out for sale in the
country."
[1095] At what period, and by whom the lace manufactory of Ripon was
founded, we have been unable to ascertain. It was probably a relic
of conventual days, which, after having followed the fashion of each
time, has now gradually died out. In 1842 broad Trolly laces of
French design and fair workmanship were fabricated in the old
cathedral city; where, in the poorer localities near the Bond and
Blossomgate, young women might be seen working their intricate
patterns, with pillows, bobbins, and pins. In 1862 one old woman
alone, says our informant, sustains the memory of the craft, her
produce a lace of a small lozenge-shaped pattern (Fig. 132), that
earliest of all designs, and a narrow edging known in local parlance
by the name of "fourpenny spot."
[1096] Till its annexation to the Crown, the Isle of Man was the great
smuggling depôt for French laces. The traders then removed en masse
to the Channel Isles, there to carry on their traffic. An idiot
called "Peg the Ply" in Castletown (in 1842) was seen working at her
pillow on a summer's evening, the last lace-maker of the island.
Isle of Man lace was a simple Valenciennes edging.
[1097] Isle of Wight lace was honoured by the patronage of Queen Victoria.
The Princess Royal, reports the _Illustrated News_ of May, 1856, at
the drawing-room, on her first presentation, wore a dress of Newport
lace, her train trimmed with the same.
The weariness of incarceration, when at Carisbrook, did not bring on
Charles I. any distaste for rich apparel. Among the charges of 1648,
Sept. and Nov., we find a sum of nigh £800 for suits and cloaks of
black brocade tabby, black unshorn velvet, and black satin, all
lined with plush and trimmed with rich bone lace.
Some bobbin lace was made in the island, but what is known as "Isle
of Wight" resembles "Nottingham" lace. It is made in frames on
machine net, the pattern outlined with a run thread and filled in
with needle-point stitches. Queen Victoria had several lace tippets
made of Isle of Wight lace for the Royal children, and always chose
the Mechlin style of rose pattern. Now (1901) there are only two or
three old women workers left.
[1098] Lace-making was never the staple manufacture of the Channel Islands;
stockings and garments of knitted wool afforded a livelihood to the
natives. We have early mention of these articles in the inventories
of James V. of Scotland and of Mary Stuart. Also in those of Henry
VIII. and Queen Elizabeth, in which last we find (Gt. Ward. Acc., 28
& 29) the charge of 20s. for a pair of "Caligarum nexat' de factura
Garneseie," the upper part and "lez clocks" worked in silk. At the
beginning of the nineteenth century, when the island was inundated
with French refugees, lace-making was introduced with much success
into the Poor-House of St. Heliers. It formed the favourite
occupation of the ladies of the island, some of whom (1863) retain
the patterns and pillows of their mothers, just as they left them.
Of late years many of the old raised Venetian points have been
admirably imitated in "Jersey crochet work."