btained for the same purpose in 1653; and
certain Dutch prisoners were forwarded to the manufactory to be
employed on the work.[430] It was entrusted to the care of Sir Gilbert
Pickering, who was either an artist or the superintendent of the
works.

After the death of Sir Francis, his brother, Sir Richard Crane, sold
the premises to Charles I. During the civil wars, the property was
seized upon and confiscated as having belonged to the Crown. It
occupied the site of what is now Queen's Head Court. The old house
opposite was built by the king for the residence of Cleyne the artist.
Gibson, the dwarf, and portrait painter, who had been page to a lady
at Mortlake, was one of his pupils.[431]

The value of the king's collection of tapestries was well understood
during the Protectorate. The tapestry house remained in the occupation
of John Holliburie, the "master-workman." After the Restoration,
Charles II. appointed Verrio as designer, intending to revive the
manufactory. This was not, however, carried out; but the work still
lingered on, and must have been in some repute, for Evelyn names some
of these hangings as a fit present among those offered by a gallant to
his mistress.[432]

Arras is said to have been woven at Stamford, but we have no data of
its establishment or its suppression. Burleigh House contains much of
it; and there is a suite of hangings at Belton House, near Grantham,
of which there are duplicates at Wroxton House, in Oxfordshire, all
having the same traditional origin at Stamford. Possibly Sir Francis
and Sir Richard Crane may have received orders at their house at
Stoke Bruere, which lay near enough to Stamford to account for the
magnates of the town and neighbourhood obtaining furnishings of their
tapestries, and, perhaps, vying with each other in decorating their
apartments with them.[433]

In Northumberland House there was a fine suite of tapestry, woven in
Lambeth, 1758.[434] This is the only sample of that loom of which we
ever find any mention. There were also works at Fulham, where
furniture tapestry in the style of Beauvais was made. This manufactory
was closed in 1755.[435] It may be hoped that the revival of tapestry
weaving at Windsor in our own day may be a success, but without the
royal and noble encouragement it receives, it would probably very soon
fall into disuse.

Unless it is supported by the State, such an exceptionally expensive
machinery cannot possibly be kept at work. It