typical example of the class of embroidered
works of the period. Later the covers showed less intricate work, and
finally developed into mere velvet covers embroidered with silver or
gold.

[Illustration: STUART EMBROIDERED CAP. (_S.K.M. Collection._)]

BLACK WORK.

A curious phase of Old English embroidery is the well-known "Black
Work," which is said to have been introduced by Catherine of Aragon into
England, and was also known as "Spanish work." The work itself was a
marvel of neatness, precision, and elegant design, but the result cannot
be said to have been commensurate with the labour of its production.
Most frequently the design was of scroll-work, worked with a fine black
silk back-stitching or chain-stitch. Round and round the stitches go,
following each other closely. Bunches of grapes are frequently worked
solidly, and even the popular peascod is worked in outline stitch, and
often the petit point period lace stitches are copied, and roses and
birds worked separately and after stitched to the design. There are many
examples of this famous "Spanish" work in the South Kensington
Museum. Quilts, hangings, coats, caps, jackets, smocks are all to be
seen, some with a couched thread of gold and silver following the lines
of the scrolls. This is said to be the Spanish stitch referred to in the
old list of stitches, and very likely may be so, as the style and manner
are certainly not English; and we know that Catherine of Aragon brought
wonders of Spanish stitchery with her, and she herself was devoted to
the use of the needle. The story of how when called before Cardinal
Wolsey and Campeggio, to answer to King Henry's accusations, she had a
skein of embroidery silk round her neck is well known.

The black silk outline stitchery or linen lasted well through the late
seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Very little of it is seen outside
the museums, as, not being strikingly beautiful or attractive, it has
been destroyed.

Another phase of the same stitchery was working cotton and linen
garments, hangings, and quilts in a kind of quilted pattern with yellow
silk.

Anything more unlike the quilting of fifty years ago cannot be imagined.
The finest materials were used, the padding being placed bit by bit in
its place--not in the wholesale fashion of later years, when a sheet or
two of wadding was placed between the sheets of cotton or linen, and a
coarse back-stitching outlined in great scrawling patterns held