Jenkin, speaking of his sweetheart, says: "She gave me a shirt collar, wrought over with no counterfeit stuff."
George: "What! was it gold?"
Jenkin: "Nay, 'twas better than gold."
George: "What was it?"
Jenkin: "Right Coventry blue."—Pinner of Wakefield. 1599.
"It was a simple napkin wrought with Coventry blue."—Laugh and Lie Downe, or the Worlde's Folly. 1605.
"Though he perfume the table with rose cake or appropriate bone-lace and Coventry blue," writes Stephens in his Satirical Essays. 1615.
In the inventory of Mary Stuart, taken at Fotheringay, after her death, we have: "Furniture for a bedd of black velvet, garnished with Bleue lace. In the care of Rallay, alias Beauregard."
This blue lace is still to be found on baptismal garments which have been preserved in old families on the Continent and in England.