The accounts of the Keepers of the Great Wardrobe, which we shall have occasion so frequently to cite, are now deposited in the Public Record Office, to which place they were transferred from the Audit Office in 1859. They extend from the 1 Elizabeth = 1558 to Oct. 10, 1781, and comprise 160 volumes, written in Latin until 1730-31, when the account appears in English, and is continued so to the end. 1748-49 is the last account in which the items are given.
Eliz. 30 & 31. Billament lace occurs both in the "shoppes" and inventories of the day. Among the list of foreigners settled in the City of London in 1571 (State Papers, Dom., Eliz. Vol 84. P.R.O.), are: William Crutall, "useth the craft of making byllament lace"; Rich. Thomas, Dutch, "a worker of Billament lace."
In 1573 a country gentleman, by his will deposited in the Prerogative Court of Canterbury (Brayley and Britton's Graphic Illustrations), bequeaths: "To my son Tyble my short gown faced with wolf skin and laid with Billements lace."
In John Johnston's shop we have: "3 doz. of velvet Billemunt lace, 12s." In that of John Farbeck, 9 yards of the same. (Surtees' Wills and Inv.) Widow Chapman of Newcastle's inventory, 1533, contains: "One old cassock of broad cloth, with billements lace, 10s." (Ibid.)
95 dozen rich silver double diamond and cross laces occur also in the Extraordinary Expenses for Prince Charles's Journey to Spain. 1623.—P. R. O.
1571. "In ye Great Shop, 8 peces of 'waborne' lace, 16d."—Mr. John Wilkinson's Goods, of Newcastle, Merchant.
1580. "100 Gross and a half of 'waborne' lace."—Inv. of Cuthbert Ellyson.