The hair, combed up, and with an inclination backwards from the forehead, was surmounted by a strata of ribbon and lace, sometimes intermingled with feathers, and a kerchief or scarf of some very light material was permitted to hang down to the waist, or below it.
In 1698 the English Parliament passed another Act "for rendering the laws more effectual for preventing the importation of foreign Bone lace, Loom lace, Needlework Point, and Cutwork,"[[1005]] with a penalty of 20s. per yard, and forfeiture. This Act caused such excitement among the convents and béguinages of Flanders that the Government, at that time under the dominion of Spain, prohibited, by way of retaliation, the importation of English wool. In consequence of the general distress occasioned by this edict among the woolstaplers of England, the Act prohibiting the importation of foreign lace into England was repealed,[[1006]] so far as related to the Spanish Low Countries. England was the loser by this Custom-House war.[[1007]]
Dress, after the Revolution, partook of the stately sobriety of the House of Nassau, but lace was extensively worn. Queen Mary favoured that wonderful erection, already spoken of in our chapter on France,[[1008]] the tower or fontange, more generally called, certainly not from its convenience, the "commode," with its piled tiers of lace and ribbon, and the long hanging pinners, celebrated by Prior in his "Tale of the Widow and her Cat":—
"He scratch'd the maid, he stole the cream,
He tore her best lac'd pinner."
Their Flanders lace heads, with the engageantes[[1009]] or ruffles, and the dress covered with lace frills and flounces—"every part of the garment in curl"—caused a lady, says the Spectator, to resemble "a Friesland hen."[[1010]]
Never yet were such sums expended on lace as in the days of William and Mary. The lace bill of the Queen, signed by Lady Derby, Mistress of the Robes, for the year 1694, amounts to the enormous sum of £1,918.[[1011]] Among the most extravagant entries we find:—
| £. | s. | d. | |
| 21 yards of lace for 12 pillow beres, at 52s. | 54 | 12 | 0 |
| 16 yards of lace for 2 toylights (toilets), at £12 | 192 | 0 | 0 |
| 24 yards for 6 handkerchiefs, at £4 10s. | 108 | 0 | 0 |
| 30 yards for 6 night shifts, at 62s. | 93 | 0 | 0 |
| 6 yards for 2 combing cloths, at £14 | 84 | 0 | 0 |
| 3½ yards for a combing cloth at £17 | 53 | 2 | 6 |
| 3⅛ do. at £14 | 42 | 0 | 0 |
| An apron of lace | 17 | 0 | 0 |
None of the lace furnished by Mr. Bampton, thread lace provider and milliner to the court, for the Queen's engageantes and ruffles, however, seems to have exceeded £5 10s. the yard. There is little new in this account. The lace is entered as scalloped,[[1012]] ruffled, loopt: lace purle[[1013]] still lingers on; catgut, too, appears for the first time,[[1014]] as well as raised point[[1015]] and needlework.[[1016]] The Queen's pinners are mentioned as Mazzarined;[[1017]] some fashion named in honour of the once fair Hortense, who ended her exiled life in England.
"What do you lack, ladies fair, Mazzarine hoods, Fontanges, girdles?"[[1018]]