Lover. No. 10. 1714.
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."
Tunbridge Wells. 1727.
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.
"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.