By the Rev. E. II. Clutterbuck. 77 



Butj peihapSj I may just gather up a thread or two, and ask your 

 attention : — 1st, to the depression in trade ; 2nd, the shortness of 

 money ; 8rd, the " licence," " grant," " suit," or " custom," on 

 cloth, that the Queen had possessed ; and last, though certainly 

 not least, to the importance of " blacks " at a funeral. 



We have heard a good many letters witten to Sir Dudley Carleton, 

 and once I quoted as a specimen the salutations sent to his vivacious 

 lady by her husband's correspondent. Sir Dudley, like a loyal 

 ambassador, went of course duly into " blacks," and he sent the bill 

 for them to the Privy Council. They were very pleased to receive 

 it, but — they had no money to pay it. They had not met for some 

 time, because they had no funds to go on with; but a certain Sir 

 Thomas Lake having been fined a large sum, had, by the 9th of 

 June, paid off £5000 of it, and so the council had a meeting, though 

 they were not a little vexed at finding that the King had appro- 

 priated £1000 to the re-building of the Banquetting House at 

 Whitehall, lately destroyed by fire. Lady Carleton, also, was 

 displeased that the " blacks " were not paid for. 



Now Canon Jones' paper shews you so admirably that at this 

 time, and indeed from very early date, certainly before Edward III., 

 the cloth trade had been the staple trade of England. When 

 things, therefore, were as bad as I have shewn, it was more felt in 

 the cloth trade than in any other. 



The Privy Council began to find themselves inundated with 

 complaints and memorials, and the cloth trade, perhaps, gave them 

 more trouble than all the rest. So that on the 9th February, 1621, 

 they issued a circular letter to the justices of the peace in the 

 clothing counties — that is, the counties in which the manufacture 

 of cloth was carried on. These were Wiltshire, Gloucestershire, 

 Somersetshire, Worcestershire, Norfolk, Dorsetshire, Oxfordshire, 

 Kent, Suffolk, Berkshire, and Yorkshire. The justices were in- 

 structed to call the clothiers — that is, the master cloth makers, 

 before them, and require them to keep their work people in employ- 

 ment, and promising to make a " vent " for the cloth they had then 

 on their hands unsold, by purchasing it from them. 



This order in council was almost coincident with an order 



