VI KNOTS, PARTERRES, GRASS-WORK 131 



coloured earths and chalks, with camomile for 

 green. By this means you may represent 

 armorial bearings or anything else, and a very 

 poor affair it would probably have been. The 

 other knot sounds much more attractive. You 

 set out a plain knot, the larger the better. The 

 different ''thrids" of the knot, as Markham 

 calls them, are to be planted with flowers of 

 one colour. Thus in one you will place 

 carnation gillyflowers, in another great white 

 gillyflowers, in another blood red, or hya- 

 cinths, or " dulippos." The knot will then 

 appear as if " made of divers coloured ribans." 

 The maze which appears in these descriptions 

 of knots was evidently only a figure for a 

 bed and not a labyrinth, such as the maze at 

 Hatfield or Hampton Court. Meager gives 

 some designs for knots and uses the term, but 

 he does not describe them, and his designs 

 are inferior to those of the beginning of the 

 seventeenth century. Knots seem to have 

 dropped out of use in the reign of Charles II. 

 The word occurs in London and Wise's trans- 

 lation of The Retired Gard'ner^ and in James's 

 translation ; but the writers only deal with 

 parterres. 



The parterre was introduced from France. 

 The old parterre corresponded to the English 

 knot, except that it was much more elaborate. 

 As early as 1600 Claude Mollet laid out par- 

 terres of embroidery for Henry IV. at the 



K 



