Beckford writes that, in 1787, the Marchioness of Cogalhudo, wife of the eldest son of the semi-regal race of Medina Cœli, was appointed Mistress of the Robes to Our Lady of La Solidad, in Madrid, and that the office was much coveted.
It is supposed that the peasantry of Bedfordshire, in England, first learned lace-making through the charity of Queen Catherine. While at Ampthill, it is recorded that, when not at her devotions, she, with her ladies, “wrought a needle-work costly and artificially, which she intended for the honor of God to bestow on some of the churches.”
The country people had the greatest love and respect for the disgraced queen; and, till lately, the lace-makers held “Cattern’s Day,” the 25th of November, as the holiday of their craft, “in memory of good Queen Catherine, who, when trade was dull, burnt all her laces, and ordered new to be made. The ladies of the court followed her example, and the fabric once more revived.” Lace was and is considered a suitable present from a king to a pontiff. These earlier gifts were, it is true, sometimes of gold and silver lace wrought with precious stones, but they were scarcely more costly than the later white-thread points. In the Exhibition of 1859 was shown a dress valued at 200,000 francs, the most costly work ever executed at Alençon. This Napoleon III. purchased for the empress, who, it is said, presented it to his Holiness the Pope as a trimming for his rochet. Also, so early as the XIIIth century, the English cut-work was so fine that, according to Matthew Paris, Pope Innocent IV. sent official letters to some of the Cistercian abbots of England to procure a certain quantity of those vestments for his own use. His Holiness had seen and admired the orfrays of the English clergy.
The finest specimens extant of this old English work (opus Anglicanum) are the cope and maniple of S. Cuthbert, taken from his coffin many years ago in the cathedral of Durham, and now preserved in the chapter library of that city. One who has seen them declares them beautiful beyond description.
This work seems to have been at first used only for ecclesiastical purposes, and the making of it to have been a secret preserved in the monasteries.
Nor have the clergy been merely the wearers of lace. We hear of monks being praised for their skill in “imbrothering”; and S. Dunstan himself did not disdain to design patterns for church lace. Pattern-books for these needle-laces were made by monks as well as laymen, and plates in them represent men seated at the embroidering frame. Some of these old pattern books of the XVIth century are preserved in the library of S. Geneviève at Paris, inherited from the monastery of that name. These books are prized and sought for as some of the earliest specimens of block-printing. But few remain, and doubtless their high price prevented them from being made in great numbers. Their place was taken by samplers, into which were copied the patterns desired. From these old lace-samplers come the later alphabetical samplers, which many now living will remember to have made in their youth.
Large quantities of rich old lace were lost in the last century, when the French Revolution brought in gauzes and blondes, and fashion tossed aside as worthless these exquisite products of the needle. In Italy, where the custom was to preserve old family lace, less was destroyed; but in England it was handed over to servants or farm people, or stowed away in attics, and afterwards burned. Some ladies gave point-laces which now they could not afford to buy, to their children to dress their dolls with. Sometimes it was thrown away as old rags.
In the church, however, fashion had no power, and old lace has been usually preserved. Some collections are exceedingly valuable. Notable among these is that of the Rohan family, who gave princes-archbishops to Strasbourg. Baroness de Oberkirck, in Memoirs of the Court of Louis XVI., writes: “We met the cardinal coming out of his chapel dressed in a soutane of scarlet moire and rochet of inestimable value. When, on great occasions, he officiates at Versailles, he wears an alb of old lace of needlepoint of such beauty that his assistants were almost afraid to touch it. His arms and device are worked in a medallion above the large flowers.” This alb is estimated at 100,000 livres.
It is impossible to exaggerate the extent to which lace was used prior to the French Revolution, or the immense extravagance of the sums spent on it. Everybody wore it, even servants emulating their masters and mistresses. It trimmed everything, from the towering Fontanges, which rose like a steeple from ladies’ heads, to the boot-tops and shoe-rosettes of men. Men wore lace ruffles not only at the wrist, but at the knee, lace ruffs, cravats, collars, and garters; and bed furniture was made of lace, or trimmed with it, costly as it was. A pair of ruffles would amount to 4,000 livres, a lady’s cap to 1,200 livres. We read that Mme. du Barry gave 487 francs for lace enough to trim a pillow-case, and 77 livres for a pair of ruffles. Lace fans were made in 1668, and lace-trimmed bouquet-holders are not a new fancy. When the Doge of Venice made his annual visit to the convent Delle Vergini, the lady abbess used to meet him in the parlor, surrounded by her novices, and present him a nosegay in a gold handle trimmed with the richest lace that could be found in Venice.
Voltaire says that the mysterious Iron Mask was passionately fond of fine linen and rich lace.