The quaint glass panel seen in Fig. 4 is an interesting relic of the attention paid to glass-working at this period. The portrait is that of Old Rowley (Charles II.) himself, and the piece was in all probability made at Greenwich, possibly in commemoration of his visit
FIG. 5.
FIG. 6.—THE CENTRE SHOWING THE COIN BLOWN IN THE STEM OF THE TANKARD SHOWN ON THE LEFT-HAND SIDE.
there. It was taken from a house in Purfleet and is now in the National Collection.
The revocation of the Edict of Nantes in 1685 gave a vast impetus to glass-working as to other crafts. This measure, and the terrible persecutions which followed it, cost France a number, variously estimated at from 250,000 to 600,000, of her best citizens. Great numbers of these immigrants settled in England, and founded in their new home the industries which had become famous in the country of their birth. Among them came glass-workers from Paris, Lorraine, and other parts of France, who were deservedly famous for their skill in their craft. Coming as they did at a time when the discovery of the brilliant so-called flint glass gave to English glassware a distinction possessed by no other, it is small wonder that the next half-century saw such developments in the art of glass manufacture in England that English glass became superior to all other kinds, even to the famous glass of Bohemia, which seemed dull and lustreless beside it.
For these reasons the close of the seventeenth century is an epoch in the history of English glass, and the period which followed it saw the art of glass manufacture in England attain its zenith.