It was in the reign of James I. that the manufacture was set up at Mortlake, in Surrey. Aubrey, in his “History of Surrey, i. p. 82,” however, dates the institution in the subsequent reign; but Lloyd[421] is not only positive for the former date, but affirms it was “of the motion of King James himself,” who gave £2000 towards the undertaking; and we have further proofs extant that he spent largely, and encouraged it in every way. He gave to Sir Francis Crane, who erected the house at Mortlake, “the making of three Baronets” towards his project for manufacture of tapestry.[422]
Another curious item which we quote, shows that the funds for the enterprise were not easily forthcoming. It is a warrant “to Sir Francis Crane: £2000 to be employed in buying £1000 per ann. of pensions or other gifts made of the king, and not yet payable, for ease of His Majesty’s charge of £1000 a year towards the maintenance of Sir Francis Crane’s tapestry manufacture.”[423]
Apparently this little arrangement did not succeed, for there is an acknowledgment by Charles I., in the first year of his reign,[424] that he is in debt to Sir F. Crane: “For three suits of gold tapestry we stand indebted to Sir Francis Crane £6000. Also Sir F. Crane is allowed £1000 annually for the better maintenance of said works for ten years to come.” The king also granted the estate of Stoke Bruere, near Stamford, in Northamptonshire, as part payment of £16,400 due to him on the tapestry works at Mortlake.[425] The great value of these tapestries is shown by the prices named in the Domestic Papers of the State Paper Office, and in private inventories; they were woven in silk, wool, and gold, which last item accounts both for their price and for their disappearance.
William, Archbishop of York and Lord Keeper, gave £2500 for four pieces of Arras representing the four Seasons.[426] Their value, however, fell during the civil wars, for the tapestries of the five Senses from the Palace of Oatlands, which were from the Mortlake looms, were sold in 1649 for £270. The beautiful tapestries at Houghton were woven at Mortlake: these are all silk, and contain whole length portraits of James I. and Charles I., and their Queens, with heads of the royal children in the borders. A similar hanging is at Knowle, wrought in silk, containing portraits of Vandyke and Sir Francis Crane.[427]
Francis Cleyne was a decorator and painter employed in the works at Mortlake by Charles I., who, while he was still Prince of Wales, brought him over to England from Rostock, in Mecklenburg (his native place), while the Prince was in Spain wooing the Infanta. Cleyne was great in grotesques, and also undertook in historical designs.[428]
Three of the Raphael cartoons were sent to be copied at Mortlake.[429] The purchase of these cartoons by the king, showed how high was the standard to which he tried to raise the art in England. The “Triumph of Cæsar,” by Mantegna, was obtained for the same purpose in 1653; and certain Dutch prisoners were forwarded to the manufactory to be employed on the work.[430] It was entrusted to the care of Sir Gilbert Pickering, who was either an artist or the superintendent of the works.
After the death of Sir Francis, his brother, Sir Richard Crane, sold the premises to Charles I. During the civil wars, the property was seized upon and confiscated as having belonged to the Crown. It occupied the site of what is now Queen’s Head Court. The old house opposite was built by the king for the residence of Cleyne the artist. Gibson, the dwarf, and portrait painter, who had been page to a lady at Mortlake, was one of his pupils.[431]
The value of the king’s collection of tapestries was well understood during the Protectorate. The tapestry house remained in the occupation of John Holliburie, the “master-workman.” After the Restoration, Charles II. appointed Verrio as designer, intending to revive the manufactory. This was not, however, carried out; but the work still lingered on, and must have been in some repute, for Evelyn names some of these hangings as a fit present among those offered by a gallant to his mistress.[432]
Arras is said to have been woven at Stamford, but we have no data of its establishment or its suppression. Burleigh House contains much of it; and there is a suite of hangings at Belton House, near Grantham, of which there are duplicates at Wroxton House, in Oxfordshire, all having the same traditional origin at Stamford. Possibly Sir Francis and Sir Richard Crane may have received orders at their house at Stoke Bruere, which lay near enough to Stamford to account for the magnates of the town and neighbourhood obtaining furnishings of their tapestries, and, perhaps, vying with each other in decorating their apartments with them.[433]
In Northumberland House there was a fine suite of tapestry, woven in Lambeth, 1758.[434] This is the only sample of that loom of which we ever find any mention. There were also works at Fulham, where furniture tapestry in the style of Beauvais was made. This manufactory was closed in 1755.[435] It may be hoped that the revival of tapestry weaving at Windsor in our own day may be a success, but without the royal and noble encouragement it receives, it would probably very soon fall into disuse.