In the time of George II. lace was even more worn, but English lace began to rival Brussels, not in quality, but as a substitute.
George III. and his wife, Queen Charlotte, were economists of the first order, and personal decoration was rigidly tabooed; hence the almost total extinction of lace as an article of apparel, while in George IV.'s time dress had evolved itself into shimmery silks and lawns, lace being merely a trimming, and the enormous head-dress decorated more frequently with a band of ribbon.
An exquisite portrait of Louis Philippe's Queen, Marie Amelia, by the early Victorian painter Winterhalter (whose paintings are again by the revival of fashion coming into favour) shows this fine old grande dame in black velvet dress covered with three graduated flounces of Brussels lace, cap and lappets and "tucker" of the same lace, lace fan, and, sad to relate, a scarf of English machine-made net, worked with English run embroidery!
Although good Queen Adelaide had a pretty fancy for lace, she wore little of it, and it was left to Queen Victoria to revive the glory of wearing Brussels to any extent; and she, alas! was sufficiently patriotic to encourage home-made products by wearing almost exclusively Honiton, which I personally am not good Englishwoman enough to admire except at its latest stage (just the past few years), when lace-making, as almost every other art work in this country, is emerging from what, from an artistic point of view, has been one long Slough of Despond.
COMTESSE D'ARTOIS, WIFE OF ONE OF LOUIS XIV.'S GRANDSONS, WEARING FINE BRUSSELS LACE.