People were too poor to buy good tapestries, and loose-woven,
cheaper ones were heavily imported--to the amount of $500,000
yearly--from France and the Low Countries. Anti-Catholic feeling
displayed hatred toward the able Catholic weavers, who were forced out
of the country by proclamation.

The sad end of this story is that in 1702 a petition was placed before
the king asking permission to discontinue the Mortlake works. It was
granted in 1703, and thus ended the English royal venture in England.

CHAPTER XVIII

IDENTIFICATIONS

Identifying tapestries is like playing a game, like the solving of a
piquant problem, like pursuing the elusive snark. I know of no keener
pleasure than that of standing before a tapestry for the first time
and giving its name and history from one's own knowledge, and not from
a museum catalogue or a friend's recital. The latter sources of
information may be faulty, but your own you can trust, for by
delightful association with tapestries and their literature you have
become expert. The catalogue is to be read, the friend is to be heard,
in all humility, because these supply points that one may not know;
but, who shall not say that an intensely human gratification is
experienced when the owner of a tapestry with the Brussels mark tells
you that it is a Gobelins, or one with the _History of Alexander_
tells you it is the only set of that series ever woven, and you know
better.

The first thing that strikes the eye and the intelligence is the
drawing, the general school to which it belongs. There is matter for
placing the piece in its right class. It might be said to place it in
its right century or quarter century, but that tapestries were so
often repeated in later times, the cartoon having no copyright and
therefore open to all countries in all centuries. Next, then, to fix
it better, comes a study of the border, for therein lies many a
secret of identity, and borders were of the epoch in which the weaving
was done, even though the cartoon for the centre came from an earlier
time.

Last, as a finishing touch, come the marks in the galloon. This is put
last because so often they are absent, and so often unknown, the sign
of some ancient weaver lost in the mists of years, although a
well-known mark so instantly identifies, that study of other details
is secondary.

But under these three generalising heads comes all the knowledge of
the savant, for the truth about tapestries is