d unsued.

In a few years--a very few, as it was then but 1623--he was obliged to
petition the king. His private fortune was gone by the board, the
workmen were clamouring for wages past due, and the factory trembled.

Then it was the Prince of Wales showed the value of his interest in
the tapestries that were demonstrating the artistic enterprise of
England. The Italian taste was the ultimate note in England as well as
elsewhere--the Italy of the Renaissance; and from Italy the prince had
ordered paintings and drawings. What was more to the purpose at this
hour of leanness, he ordered paid by the crown a bill of seven hundred
pounds, which covered their expense. The king, unwillingly,--for needs
pressed on all sides--paid also Sir Francis Crane in part for moneys
he had expended, but left him struggling against the hard conditions
of a ruined private purse and a thin royal one.

At this juncture, 1625, James I died, and his son reigned in his
stead. The Prince of Wales was now become that beribboned,
picturesque, French-spirited monarch, whose figure on Whitehall
eternally protests his tragic death.

As Charles I, he had the power to foster the elegant industry which
now grew and flowered to a degree that brought satisfaction then, and
which yields a harvest of delight in our own times. Sir Francis Crane
was at last to get the reward of enthusiasm and fidelity. Too much
reward, said the envious, who tried in all ways, fair and foul, to
drive him from what was now a lucrative and conspicuous post. The
money he had advanced the factory came back to him, and more also.
Ever a well-known figure at court, he now even aspired to closer
relations with royalty, and built a magnificent country home, which
was large enough to accommodate a visiting court. He even persuaded
the king to visit the Mortlake factory, that the royal presence might
enhance the value of art in the occult way known only to the subjects
of kings.

Debts from the crown were not always paid in clinking coin, but often
in grants of land, and by these grants Sir Francis Crane became rich.
But the prosperity of Crane was not worth our recording were it not
that it evidenced the prosperity of Mortlake. From the death of James
I in 1625 for a period of ten years, the factory flowered and fruited.
Its productions were of the very finest that have ever been produced
in any country.

The reasons for this superiority were evident. First of all, Mortlake
was