586 



KNITTING. 



name of the inventor being wholly unknown. 

 Savary, in the " Dictionaire de Commerce," gives 

 the merit to the Scottish nation, because the French 

 stocking-knitters, when they became so numerous 

 as to form a guild, made choice of St Fiacre for a 

 patron, this saint having been the son of Eu- 

 Kenius, who is said to have been king of Scot- 

 land in the beginning of the seventh century ; be- 

 sides this, there is a tradition that the first knit 

 stockings were carried to France from that coun- 

 try. The first letter of foundation for this guild, 

 named the " Communaute des maitrcs bonnetiers an 

 tricot," is dated August 1527. This account of 

 the invention is however contradicted by our own 

 annals. Howel, in his " History of the World," 

 printed in 1690, relates that Henry VIII., who 

 reigned from 1509 to 1547, wore cloth hose, till he 

 received a pair of knit silk stockings from Spain. 

 This author says, " Silk is now grown nigh as 

 common as wool, and become the clothing of those 

 in the kitchen as well as the court ; we wear it 

 not only on our backs, but of late years on our 

 legs and feet, and tread on that which formerly 

 was of the same value with gold itself. Yet that 

 magnificent and expensive prince, Henry VIII., 

 wore ordinarily cloth hose, except there came from 

 Spain, by great chance, a pair of silk stockings. 

 King Edward, his son, was presented with a pair 

 of long Spanish silk stockings by Thomas Gresham, 

 his merchant, and the present was taken much no- 

 tice of. Queen Elizabeth, in the third year of her 

 reign, was presented by Mrs Montague, her silk- 

 woman, with a pair of black knit silk stockings, 

 and thenceforth she never wore cloth any more." 

 In the year 1530, John Palsgrave, French master 

 to the princess Mary, published a grammar, in 

 which the different meanings of the verb to knit 

 are exemplified, and among them " I knit bonnets 

 or hosen," is rendered " Je lasse ;" Example. 

 " She that sytteth knyttinge from morrow to eve 

 can scantiy win her bread." " Celle qui ne fait 

 que lasser depuis matin jusqu'au soyre, a grans 

 peyne peut elle gagner son payn." We give this 

 sentence, because it seems to prove that knitting 

 was a business at this time, although one which 

 was badly remunerated ; and the master's care to 

 instruct his pupil in this meaning of the word, 

 shows that knitting was an amusement or employ- 

 ment with which even royalty was acquainted. In 

 a household book kept during the life of Sir 

 Thomas L'Estrange of Hunstanton in Norfolk, by 

 his lady, Ann, daughter of lord Vaux, are entries, 

 in the year 1533, for " knytt hose," at so low a 

 price that we cannot suppose them to have been 

 foreign articles, but made by those persons to whom 

 Palsgrave's example refers. Neither can we ima- 

 gine these hose were of silk, two pair of them, 

 at the price of one shilling together, being for the 

 children. And in the reign of Edward VI., among 

 the regulations relating to trade and manufactures, 

 issued in 1552, mention is made of " knitte hose, 

 knitte petticotes, knitte gloves, knitte slieves, or 

 any other thing used to be made of woolle." The 

 art of knitting must have been practised to some 

 extent to render this act necessary, and we cannot 

 reconcile it with other anecdotes upon the subject : 

 as for instance, we are told, that, in the year 1564, 

 William Rider, an apprentice of Mr Thomas Bur- 

 dett, having accidentally seen in the shop of an 

 Italian merchant, a pair of knit worsted stock- 

 ings, procured from Mantua, and having borrowed 

 them, made a pair exactly like them, and these 



were the first stockings knit in England of woollen 

 yarn. Either this anecdote or the act of Edward 

 VI. must be incorrect, and we think the balance of 

 credibility is in favour of the latter. About 1577, 

 knitting was so commonly practised in the villages 

 of England, that in Hollinshed's Chronicle, the 

 bark of the alder is mentioned as being much used 

 by the country wives in colouring their " knitt 

 hosen" black. The greatest ornaments in dress 

 about the same time, were knit silk stockings and 

 Spanish leather shoes. About 1579, queen Eliza- 

 beth being at Norwich, there were exhibited before 

 her upon a stage, eight female children spinning 

 worsted yarn, and as many knitling worsted yarn 

 ho?e. We ought to notice, that the court poet of 

 Henry VII. mentions in derision the " blanket 

 hose " of the female who is the subject of his 

 verse ; thereby intimating that even at that period 

 better kinds of stockings were in use. To coun- 

 terbalance this, we have the expression cloth 

 hose as worn by queen Elizabeth, %vho inherited 

 among others of her father's many foibles (to speak 

 gently) his love of dress. 



In Germany the first mention of stocking-knit- 

 ters occurs in the middle of the sixteenth century, 

 and at Berlin about the year 1590. Silk stockings 

 were first worn in France by Henry II., at the 

 marriage of his sister with the duke of Savoy in 

 1559. In the reign of Henry III., who ascended 

 the throne in 1575, the consort of Geoffry Camus 

 de Butcarre, who held a high office in the state, 

 would not wear silk stockings, given to her by a 

 nurse who lived at court as a Christmas present, 

 because she considered them to be too gay. This 

 was forty-eight years after the establishment of the 

 guild in that country. 



The first stocking-loom used in England was in- 

 vented by William Lee, and the date of this in- 

 vention is fixed in Deering's history of Nottingham, 

 in the year 1589. This ingenious person was a 

 native of Woodborough, a village about seven miles 

 distant from Nottingham. He was heir to a con- 

 siderable freehold estate, and a graduate of St 

 John's college, Cambridge. Being attached to a 

 young country girl, whose occupation was knitting, 

 he bethought him of endeavouring to find out a 

 machine which should facilitate her work, and les- 

 sen her labour. The result of his efforts was the 

 stocking-loom ; and having instructed his brother 

 James in the use of it, and engaged apprentices and 

 assistants, he carried on business for several years 

 at Calverton, a village about five miles distant from 

 Nottingham. Obtaining neither support nor re- 

 muneration from queen Elizabeth, to whom he 

 showed his work, Lee accepted an invitation from 

 Henry IV. of France, who, having heard of this 

 invention, promised a handsome reward to the 

 author of it. Lee, therefore, carried nine journey- 

 men and several looms to Rouen, in Normandy, 

 where he worked with great approbation ; but the 

 assassination of the king, and the internal commo- 

 tions which succeeded, injured the undertaking, 

 and he fell into great distress, and died soon after 

 at Paris. Two of his people remained in France ; 

 the others soon returned to England, and joined a 

 former apprentice of Lee's, named Aston, at Tho- 

 roton, by whom some improvements in the loom 

 were made, and the foundation of the stocking 

 manufactory laid in this country. The number of 

 masters increased so much, that they applied to 

 Cromwell to sanction the formation of a guild : 

 this was however refused, and letters patent were 



