rtlake, "the making of three Baronets" towards his
project for manufacture of tapestry.[422]

Another curious item which we quote, shows that the funds for the
enterprise were not easily forthcoming. It is a warrant "to Sir
Francis Crane: L2000 to be employed in buying L1000 per ann. of
pensions or other gifts made of the king, and not yet payable, for
ease of His Majesty's charge of L1000 a year towards the maintenance
of Sir Francis Crane's tapestry manufacture."[423]

Apparently this little arrangement did not succeed, for there is an
acknowledgment by Charles I., in the first year of his reign,[424]
that he is in debt to Sir F. Crane: "For three suits of gold tapestry
we stand indebted to Sir Francis Crane L6000. Also Sir F. Crane is
allowed L1000 annually for the better maintenance of said works for
ten years to come." The king also granted the estate of Stoke Bruere,
near Stamford, in Northamptonshire, as part payment of L16,400 due to
him on the tapestry works at Mortlake.[425] The great value of these
tapestries is shown by the prices named in the Domestic Papers of the
State Paper Office, and in private inventories; they were woven in
silk, wool, and gold, which last item accounts both for their price
and for their disappearance.

William, Archbishop of York and Lord Keeper, gave L2500 for four
pieces of Arras representing the four Seasons.[426] Their value,
however, fell during the civil wars, for the tapestries of the five
Senses from the Palace of Oatlands, which were from the Mortlake
looms, were sold in 1649 for L270. The beautiful tapestries at
Houghton were woven at Mortlake: these are all silk, and contain whole
length portraits of James I. and Charles I., and their Queens, with
heads of the royal children in the borders. A similar hanging is at
Knowle, wrought in silk, containing portraits of Vandyke and Sir
Francis Crane.[427]

Francis Cleyne was a decorator and painter employed in the works at
Mortlake by Charles I., who, while he was still Prince of Wales,
brought him over to England from Rostock, in Mecklenburg (his native
place), while the Prince was in Spain wooing the Infanta. Cleyne was
great in grotesques, and also undertook in historical designs.[428]

Three of the Raphael cartoons were sent to be copied at Mortlake.[429]
The purchase of these cartoons by the king, showed how high was the
standard to which he tried to raise the art in England. The "Triumph
of Caesar," by Mantegna, was o