INDUSTRIES 



sion Sir Thomas Lake is urged to procure a 

 commandment to Sir Edward Coke to give 

 warrant to the solicitor to draw such a patent 

 ' as shall be fit for his Majesty to grant to 

 finish this good commonwealth's work which 

 his Majesty hath so prudently seen into and 

 by his own excellent decision commanded us 

 to provide for amends thereof.' ' 



Such high-handed methods ultimately pre- 

 vailed. On II February 1 613-4 Zouch 

 and his company surrendered their first 

 patent, and on 4 March following received 

 another far more comprehensive and exclu- 

 sive in its provisions. Of the original 

 patentees Mefflyn had since died. He was suc- 

 ceeded by Robert Kellaway as his assign. In 

 the preamble it is asserted that the expenses the 

 company had incurred in carrying out the 

 experiments had not been less than ;C5,ooo, 

 the greater part of which had been expended 

 about the new invention as a direct conse- 

 quence of the king's approbation of the 

 undertaking. There is a touch of human 

 nature not altogether usual in such ofBcial 

 documents in the note of astonishment at the 

 complete success which had already attended 

 the new invention. ' We could not hereto- 

 fore,' the king is made to say, ' be induced to 

 believe that it would ever have been brought 

 to pass as we are assured thereof by plain and 

 manifest demonstration, several furnaces of 

 theirs being now at work.' The former patents 

 to Bowes and the rest are revoked. Zouch and 

 his associates are to have for twenty-one years 

 the exclusive privilege of melting and making 

 all manner of drinking glasses, broad glasses, 

 and all other glass and glasses and glassworks 

 whatsoever. No one else is to make glass 

 with fuel other than timber or wood. Yet no 

 one henceforth is to use any manner of fuel 

 made of timber or wood in the manufacture 

 of glass. Measures are laid down to secure 

 the exaction of penalties for infringements of 

 this monopoly. During the term for which 

 it was to run the importation of foreign glass 

 was strictly forbidden. The wit of the 

 draughtsman could hardly have fashioned a 

 monopoly more absolute in its terms. The 

 annual rent to be paid by the patentees to 

 the Crown was j^ 1,000.* 



This second patent to Zouch had not been 

 in existence for a year when in its turn it 

 was surrendered and a third of like purport, 

 but to be enjoyed by a larger number of 

 patentees, was granted on 19 January 

 1614-5, I" addition to the former members 

 of the company there were now Philip, Earl 



* S. P. Dom. Jas. I. Ixxv. g. 

 2 Pat. II Jas. I. pt. 16, No. 4. 



of Montgomery, Sir Thomas Howard, and 

 Sir Robert Mansell, who took precedence of 

 Zouch, and Sir Thomas Tracy and Thomas 

 Haies, who immediately followed him in the 

 order in which the names are recited. The 

 preamble of this last patent credits Percivall 

 with the project of the new invention, and 

 states that it had been at his great charge that 

 the perfection, at which the king's astonish- 

 ment is again expressed, had been attained.* Of 

 this inventor we may quote Mr. A. Harts- 

 horne, who says, ' it is almost certain that the 

 improvements brought about by Percivall 

 were crowned by the closing of the pots 

 between March 161 1 and February 161 4 ; 

 nearer than this we cannot get, and this 

 marks an epoch in the history of glassmaking 

 resulting eventually in the manuracture in 

 England of the most brilliant crystal glass 

 ever produced in the world and the revolu- 

 tionizing of the practice of the art.' * 



On 23 May 161 5 the provisions of this 

 last patent were safeguarded by the issue of 

 the famous proclamation which totally pro- 

 hibited the use of wood and timber and any 

 fuel made of them in any glasshouse in the 

 kingdom, and also the importation of any 

 foreign glass.^ A few days later the 

 patentees were granted all glasses forfeited 

 during the ensuing twenty-one years in 

 accordance with the terms of this proclama- 

 tion." 



About two years after the grant of the 

 third patent the rights of all the other grantees 

 were purchased by Mansell, who thus ac- 

 quired the exclusive property of the mono- 

 poly.' In Mansell's own statement made in 

 1624 of the different works he had started 

 there is no mention of any in Surrey, and no 

 evidence is forthcoming to prove that he ever 

 set up any in that county,^ although it may 

 be noticed that as late as 1 6 1 5 Norden in a 

 survey in the Duchy of Cornwall Office men- 

 tions a glasshouse at Lambeth.* This was 

 no doubt the one erected by Zouch and 

 Thelwall, and was possibly continued for a 

 time by the same two makers under their last 

 patent. But in the absence of further evi- 

 dence of the interest to Surrey of the patent 

 of 1 61 5, we are not here concerned with 

 its later history or with the many difficulties 

 in which Mansell found himself involved. 



3 Pat. 12 Jas. I. pt. 3, No. 9. 

 * Old English Glasses, 184. 

 » S. P. Dom. Jas. I. clxxxvii. 42. 

 8 Ibid. Grant Bk. 165. 



' A. Nesbitt, Glass, 128 ; A. Hartshorne, Old 

 English Glasses, 186. 



8 S. P. Dom. Jas. I. clxii. 63. 



» Lysons, Environs of London, ed. 2, i. 227. 



301 



