The richly-laced corporax cloths and church linen are sent to be washed by the "Lady Ancress," an ecclesiastical washerwoman, who is paid by the churchwardens of St. Margaret's, Westminster, the sum of 8d.; this Lady Ancress, or Anchoress, being some worn-out nun, who, since the dissolution of the religious houses, eked out an existence by the art she had once practised within the convent.
In 1753 prizes were awarded for 14 pairs of curious needlework point ruffles.
One society confers a prize of ten guineas upon a "gentlewoman for an improvement in manufacture by finishing a piece of lace in a very elegant manner with knitting-needles."
The lace of the three counties is practically equal—that is, it is all made in a similar fashion, and the same patterns are met with in each county. The "point" or "net" ground is met with in all, and worked level with the pattern in the same way with bobbins.
Who fled from the Alva persecutions, and settled, first at Cranfield in Bedfordshire, then at Buckingham, Stoney Stratford, and Newport-Pagnel, whence the manufacture extended gradually over Oxford, Northampton, and Cambridge. Many Flemish names are still to be found in the villages of Bedfordshire.