To copy Henri IV in his success was dominant in the mind of James I. To the able Sir Francis Crane he gave the place of director of the works, and made with him a contract similar to that made with François de la Planche and Marc Comans in Paris by their king.
If to James I is owed the initial establishment, to Crane is owed all else at that time. It was in 1619 that the works were founded and Sir Francis took charge. He was a gentleman born, was much seen at Court, had ambitions of his own, too, and was cultivated in many ways of mind and taste. Besides all this, he had a head for business and an enthusiasm rampant, which could meet any discouragement—and needed this faculty later, too.
The king then gave him the management of the venture, started him with the royal favour, which was as good as a fortune, with a building for the looms, with imported workers who knew the tricks of the trade, and with a pretty sum of money to boot.
Prudence was born with the enterprise; so the men from the Low Countries were advised to become naturalised to make them more likely to stay, and to bring other workers over, Walloons, malcontents, religious fugitives, or whatever, so long as the hands were skilful. Down in Kent, they say those cottages were built for weavers,—those lovable nests of big timbers, curved gables and small leaded panes which we are so keen to restore and live in these days.
To swell the number of workers, and to have an eye for the future, there must be apprentices. The king looked about among the city’s “hospitals” and saw many goodly boys living at crown expense, with no specified occupation during their adolescence. These he put as apprentices, for a term of seven years, to work under the fifty Flemish leaders. They were happy if they fell under the care of Philip de Maecht, he of Flanders, who had wandered down to Paris and served under De la Planche and Comans, and now had been enticed to the new Mortlake. He has left his visible mark on tapestries of his production—his monogram, P.D.M. (Plate facing page [70].)
A designer for the factory, one who lived there, was an inseparable part of it. And thus it came that Francis Clein (or Cleyn) was permanently established. He came from Denmark, but had taken an enlightening journey to Italy, and had a fine equipment for the work, which he carried on until 1658. His name is on several tapestries now existing.
Even kings tire of their fulfilled wishes. James wanted royal tapestry works, yet, when they were an established fact, he wearied of the drafts on his purse for their support. It was the old story of unfulfilled obligations, of a royal purse plucked at by too many vital interests to spend freely on art.
And Sir Francis Crane bore the brunt of the troubles. Contracts with the king counted but lightly in face of his enthusiasm. He continued the work, paid his men the best he could, and let the king’s debt to him stand unsued.
In a few years—a very few, as it was then but 1623—he was obliged to petition the king. His private fortune was gone by the board, the workmen were clamouring for wages past due, and the factory trembled.
Then it was the Prince of Wales showed the value of his interest in the tapestries that were demonstrating the artistic enterprise of England. The Italian taste was the ultimate note in England as well as elsewhere—the Italy of the Renaissance; and from Italy the prince had ordered paintings and drawings. What was more to the purpose at this hour of leanness, he ordered paid by the crown a bill of seven hundred pounds, which covered their expense. The king, unwillingly,—for needs pressed on all sides—paid also Sir Francis Crane in part for moneys he had expended, but left him struggling against the hard conditions of a ruined private purse and a thin royal one.