Queen Anne, though less extravagant than her sister, was scarcely more patriotic. The point purchased for her coronation,[[1028]] though it cost but £64 13s. 9d., was of Flanders growth. The bill is made out to the royal laceman of King William's day, now Sir Henry Furnesse, knight and merchant.
The Queen, too, in her gratitude, conferred a pension of £100 upon one Mrs. Abrahat, the royal clear-starcher; "because," writes the Duchess of Marlborough, "she had washed the Queen's heads for twenty pounds a year when she was princess."
In 1706 Anne again repeals the Acts which prohibit Flanders lace, with the clear understanding that nothing be construed into allowing the importation of lace made in "the dominions of the French King";[[1029]] an edict in itself sufficient to bring the points of France into the highest fashion.[[1030]]
"France," writes an essayist, "is the wardrobe of the world;" nay, "the English have so great an esteem for the workmanship of the French refugees, that hardly a thing vends without a Gallic name."[[1031]]
To the refugees from Alençon and elsewhere, expelled by the cruel edict of Louis XIV., we owe the visible improvement of our laces in the eighteenth century.
Up to the present time we have had mention only of "Flanders lace" in general. In the reign of Queen Anne the points of "Macklin" and Brussels are first noted down in the Royal Wardrobe Accounts. In 1710 her Majesty pays for 26 yards of fine edged Brussels lace £151.[[1032]] "Mais, l'appétit vient en mangeant." The bill of Margareta Jolly, for the year 1712, for the furnishing of Mechlin and Brussels lace alone, amounts to the somewhat extravagant sum of £1,418 14s. Taking the average price of the "Lace chanter on Ludgate Hill," articles of daily use were costly enough. "One Brussels head is valued at £40; a grounded Brussels head, £30; one looped Brussels, £30." These objects, high as the price may seem, lasted a woman's life. People in the last century did not care for variety, they contented themselves with a few good articles; hence among the objects given in 1719, as necessary to a lady of fashion, we merely find:—
| £ | s. | d. | |
| A French point or Flanders head and ruffles | 80 | 0 | 0 |
| A ditto handkerchief | 10 | 0 | 0 |
| A black French laced hood | 5 | 5 | 0 |
When the Princess Mary, daughter of George II., married, she had but four fine laced Brussels heads, two loopt and two grounded, two extremely fine point ones, with ruffles and lappets, six French caps and ruffles.[[1033]]
Two point lace cravats were considered as a full supply for any gentleman. Even young extravagant Lord Bedford, who, at eighteen years of age, found he could not spend less than £6,000 a year at Rome, when on the grand tour, only charges his mother, Rachel Lady Russell, with that number.[[1034]]
The high commode,[[1035]] with its lace rising tier upon tier, which made the wits about town declare the ladies "carried Bow steeple upon their heads," of a sudden collapsed in Queen Anne's reign. It had shot up to a most extravagant height, "insomuch that the female part of our species were much taller than the men. We appeared," says the Spectator,[[1036]] "as grasshoppers before them."[[1037]]